Im Way Behind On Posting About My Rewatch - Theres Plenty I Do Want To Say About S2, And Theres A Whole

I’m way behind on posting about my rewatch - there’s plenty I do want to say about S2, and there’s a whole essay about gender and Phases that I’m probably never going to write - but I’m into Season 3 and I really want to note how much early S3 establishes the issues that are going to drive Buffy’s long breakdown in seasons 6 and 7.

Firstly, Buffy's tendency to pull away from her friends, feeling she has to take care of everything for herself and protect them from her problems and her feelings rather than sharing them. It’s a consistent pattern, and we see it in her running away at the end of Season 2, and continually refusing to talk about what happened with Angel with both the Scoobies and Faith. When she eventually does try to talk to her assigned school counsellor about Angel, she explicitly says she can’t talk to anyone else about what’s happening (only to find him dead, which I’m sure didn’t help).

Of course, this isn’t just a flaw of Buffy’s - her friends have a pretty big role to play, especially Xander. His sanctimonious, judgemental whining about Buffy leaving, as well as anything to do with Angel, does a lot to push Buffy away. (Not to mention the first thing he does when he finds out Angel is back is try to manipulate Faith into murdering him.) It’s also hard not to suspect that Xander’s lie back in Becoming did a lot of damage - because of that, Buffy thinks even Willow hates Angel and wouldn’t understand her continued feelings for him. ‘Kick his ass’ made Buffy feel like literally no-one is on her side.

Regardless of the reason, here we see the beginning of the split that will make Buffy feel increasingly isolated and unable to trust or rely on anyone as the series continues into the depression years, especially Season 6. But we also see the start of a pattern that will become a central flaw in Season 7 - her inability to express empathy or care for anyone who she sees as a reflection of herself.

I’m actually not talking about Faith here - that’s related, but it’s also a whole can of lesbian worms I don’t want to get into right now. But aside from Faith, in the first few episodes of Season 3 there are two girls who mirror Buffy, specifically in her relationship with Angel. In Anne, we have Lily/Anne, who’s wants to spend the rest of her life with her older boyfriend, who has a criminal past and seems a little crappy but also genuinely loves her and is trying to be good to her, and who ends up being sent to hell. Then in Beauty and the Beasts, we see Abby, who started dating a guy who seemed nice at first, but who turned out to be an abusive monster. Both are very obvious parallels to Buffy in her relationship with Angel (in soul-having and soulless forms), and serve as ways for her reflect on that relationship.

But what I want to focus on is the fact that, while Buffy does try to help both girls, she’s also unusually harsh and unempathetic towards them. Her attitude is ‘This is how things are, and you need to set aside your emotions and just deal with it immediately and without emotional support’; it reflects how she treats herself, but it’s also a pattern in how she treats people whose challenges reflect hers. Which will come to a head in how she treats the Potential slayers in season 7, and the way she alienates everyone around her in part through her treatment of them (and therefore also her treatment of herself).

It’s just interesting to see these issues that will dominate the last couple of seasons come across so strongly in this early part of Season 3.

Most Divorced Buffy Couple Tournament

I forgot to post this here LOL

evil twiglimmer c'mon.... pre-ponyville twi and pre-reformed star (insane)

Not to be painfully insightful, Xander, but perhaps it is you who is having parental issues, and I that should be doing a little dance as I tell you that.

I just think him immediately latching onto Ted as a seemingly functional father figure isn't just about the tasty, tasty drugs.

just wait for part 2

okay, so she's definitely the Rani, right?

"She didn't even kill me! [...] She didn't even care enough to cut off my head, or set me on fire. Is that too much to ask? Y'know, some little sign that she cared?" - Spike about Drusilla, definitely not Faith about Buffy

Lovers Walk is about Faith.

One of the reasons I don't mind that Faith is physically missing for so much of S3 is that she is such a strong thematic presence that episodes where she doesn't even appear are still very much About her and what she represents in the narrative. Like Band Candy showing us the events of Bad Girls eight episodes in advance, The Wish showing us how easily Buffy could end up a more jaded, bitter, friendless slayer, Earshot being centred around characters whose jealousy and insecurities can turn suicidal as easily as homoicidal. But Lovers Walk might be my favourite of these.

If you read the events of Revelations as Faith feeling cheated on and dumped (which you should, because that's how the narrative describes it. It's not literally what happens but it is explicitly how Faith feels about it), then that makes Spike in Lovers Walk very clearly a proxy Faith. Like, we leave off Revelations with Faith alone in her motel, feeling sad and heartbroken and cut off from Buffy, and then we roll into Lovers Walk and Buffy's other dark shadow self turns up a heartbroken mess, having just been cheated on and dumped, and spends the whole episode being very sad and bitter about it, and I think it's a good reference point for what Faith is also feeling at that point.

Faith is already linked to the events of this episode through the "we're just good friends" axis that connects Buffy/Faith, Buffy/Angel and Willow/Xander that I've talked about before. She's also linked through the dog/love theme that is woven throughout S3 and pops up here with the "love's bitch" reference. And Spike's speech puts a bow on this, by being, to be honest, a better desriptor of Buffy/Faith than it is of Buffy/Angel. Everything that Spike says in this episode Faith could say herself, and most likely wants to say herself.

"You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends."