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Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered S2 E16 (Buffy and the Art of Story)

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This week on Buffy and the Art of Story: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (Season 2 Episode 16 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

This podcast episode covers (1) using humor to convey theme; (2) conflict that causes character growth (for Cordelia); (3) foreshadowing significant plot developments without giving anything away; and (4) intertwining many plotlines seamlessly.

As always, the discussion is spoiler-free, except at the end (with plenty of warning).

Last Week: Phases

Next Up: Passion

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About Lisa M. Lilly

In addition to hosting the podcast Buffy and the Art of Story, Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the bestselling four-book Awakening supernatural thriller series and the Q.C. Davis mysteries, as well as numerous short stories. She also writes non-fiction, including books on writing craft, under L.M. Lilly. She is the founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com.

Episode Transcript for Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Hello and welcome to Buffy and the Art of Story Season Two. If you love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and you love creating stories – or just taking them apart to see how they work – you’re in the right place.

I am Lisa M Lilly, author of the Awakening supernatural thriller series and the Q.C. Davis mysteries and founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com

Today were talking about Season Two Episode Sixteen Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered.

What’s Included

In particular, we’ll cover:

how this episode, which seems to be a very light one-off episode in fact, foreshadows so much of the rest of the season and the series as a whole;
significant themes about love versus obsession and about being who you are;
a central conflict that causes strong character growth for a side character (Cordelia); and
the masterful way that numerous plot lines are woven together seamlessly.

As always, there will be no Spoilers except at the end to talk about foreshadowing, but I’ll give you plenty of warning.

Okay, let’s dive into the Hellmouth.

Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered was written by Marti Noxon and directed by James A. Contner.

Opening Conflict In Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

We start as we should with conflict. Xander and Buffy are in the graveyard. He shows her a silver heart necklace and asks if she thinks Cordelia will like it. Buffy doesn’t quite understand what he sees in Cordelia and gives him a bit of a hard time about it. He says the only other person who interests him is unavailable and gives her a look.

Buffy more or less ignores that and tries to reassure him that yes, Cordelia will like the necklace. And we get the first of some great Xander quotes in this episode.

Xander: This is new territory for me. I mean, my Valentines are usually met with heartfelt restraining orders.

He also says that he wishes dating were more like slaying, with everything clear, no fuss, no muss. A vampire emerges from the grave, goes after Xander. Buffy has to fight it off, and she slays it. Afterwards she tells Xander that slaying is a little more perilous than dating.

He says she’s obviously not dating Cordelia. And we go to the credits.

Internal v. External Conflict

This is an interesting opening conflict because we get internal conflict for Xander. I think more internal than external because while Buffy gives him a bit of a hard time about what he could possibly see in Cordelia, ultimately, she is very supportive and trying to reassure him. He, though, is expressing mixed feelings. While he wants Cordelia to like the necklace he is still making it clear that he’s interested in Buffy. And for the most part saying she would be his first choice. At least that’s how I read it.

Using ambiguous feelings could create weak conflict. But here it’s very strong in the sense that this ambiguity will drive the episode. In fact, it’s probably key to what goes wrong with the spell.

Cordelia’s Friends Turn On Her

Later on, after the credits, we see Cordelia struggling with her own conflict. That also will play into our main plot.

At 2 minutes 42 seconds in, Cordelia is walking up the steps to school. She’s calling after four girls, including her friend Harmony to wait for her. They finally turn around.

Cordelia says to Harmony, “Why didn’t you call me back last night?” and says they need to coordinate outfits for the dance. Cordelia then looks at another girl and says, “I’m wearing red and black, so you need to switch.”

The girl, though, responds by asking if red and black is what Xander wants her to wear. And Cordelia says, “What does he have to do with it?”

Harmony says, “Well, a girl wants to look good for her geek.” And then goes on to ask when Cordelia and Xander are going to start wearing cute little matching outfits because she’s going to vomit. She leads the other girls away.

Cordelia is alone, looking hurt.

Episode Theme: Who Is A Leader

This is the beginning of one of the underlying themes of this episode about popularity, who is a leader, and who is a follower.

Harmony is the one of the friends of Cordelia who has spoken the most. The only one who has a name or whose name I remember. But she has definitely been subservient to Cordelia, trying to get Cordelia’s approval. Now she is turning on Cordelia and becoming this leader herself. Or so it seems.

Bad Breakup?

At 3 minutes 29 seconds in, in class, the teacher tells the students they need to turn in their papers or get an F.

After the bell rings Amy asks Willow if she and Buffy are going to the Valentine’s dance. Willow looks really excited. Buffy tells her it’s okay she say it. And Willow says, “My boyfriend’s in the band!”

Amy smiles and says that’s cool and asks Buffy if she’s going. Buffy says something about Valentine’s Day is just a gimmick to sell chocolate.

Amy: Bad breakup?

Buffy: Believe me when I say Uh-huh.

Quick Exposition Through Conflict

As we see so often in Buffy, we got so much exposition through conflict in these three quick scenes here. There isn’t a huge amount of conflict, but there is some because Willow was so happy, and Buffy clearly feels bad about her breakup. And we get a little bit of humor, all of which gets across that something terrible happened to Buffy romantically. And that Willow has a new boyfriend she’s really excited about.

We also in the previous scene learned very quickly that Xander is not in Cordelia is social circle and that her friends looked down on her for it.

And in the Xander scene we learned quite a bit about his feelings about Cordelia and Buffy. And about his fears of rejection.

All these things as regular viewers we know. If we tuned in for the first time we might not understand everything about these characters. But we would have a pretty good idea what’s going on. Who they are, what the relationships are between them. And this is all in less than 4 minutes.

The Story Spark

We’re leading to our Story Spark or Inciting Incident that sets our main plot in motion.

At the end of the class each student is handling their paper one by one to the teacher. Amy, though, is empty-handed. But she gives the teacher this look, and the teacher thanks her and mimes taking a paper.

Xander sees this. It happens at 4 minutes 25 seconds in. That is often where we see the Story Spark – at 10% into an episode, novel, or a movie. These episodes are 42 to 44 minutes long so this is right at that 10%.

It will become clear until a little bit later why this is the Story Spark, but it does set our plot in motion. Because if Xander hadn’t seen Amy using her witchcraft, he couldn’t have gone to her about a love spell no matter how angry he felt at Cordelia.

Later in the hallway Xander tells Buffy and Willow what he saw. They all agree that Amy is the last person who should use witchcraft given what happened with her mother. So again, very quick exposition through a little bit of conflict in the sense that they are all concerned.

Tension With Jenny Calendar

Giles comes up and wants to talk to Buffy. At that moment Jenny emerges from her classroom.

She says, “Rupert,” but he says, “Miss Calendar.” As he did before they knew each other well and dated. She says she wants to talk to him if he has a minute. Buffy is looking down at the floor through this whole exchange. And Giles says he doesn’t have time right now, he needs to talk to Buffy about something. Buffy says, ”Let’s go.”

Jenny walks off and both Willow and Xander look sad for her.

In the library, Buffy asks if Giles is okay. He says he’ll be fine, though he doesn’t really look it, and that he’s more concerned about her.

Giles Warns About Angelus And Valentine’s Day

In unusually vague terms, Giles warns Buffy about what Angel might do to her because it’s Valentine’s Day. He says Angel is prone to what he probably thinks of as brutal displays of affection. And Giles suggest Buffy stay off the streets. He’ll patrol instead and he says better safe than sorry.

After long pause, Buffy says it’s a little late for both.

Notice how we have a number of conflicts and plot lines here. We have Xander’s feelings for Cordelia and fears of rejection. Also Cordelia’s conflict with wanting to remain popular and included in her friend group versus being with Xander. We had Amy using witchcraft despite that it had disastrous consequences for her mother.

And we have Angel posing an escalating threat to Buffy because it’s Valentine’s Day. And as sort of a side note to that, Buffy’s feelings about this awful breakup being heightened and emphasized because of Valentine’s Day.

All of these weave together so well throughout the episode and now we’re going to get one more. It’s not quite a subplot for the episode.

The Triangle

But it is a subplot for this half of the season. This dynamic and conflict between Spike and Angel and Drusilla. This triangle.

The scene switches to the factory. We close up on a jewelry box that opens to show a beautiful necklace inside. So, as often is the case, we see the sort of a dark relationships mirroring Buffy’s relationships and friendships.

Because Xander is giving this heart necklace to Cordelia, fearing rejection.

And here, Spike gives this beautiful necklace to Drusilla. She loves it, which makes Spike happy. But just as he saying nothing but the best for her, Angel drops a bloody heart on the table in front of her. He tells Drusilla he found it inside a quaint little shop girl. And he takes the necklace and puts it around Drusilla’s neck. Spike, who is still in the wheelchair, starts to say he’ll get it.

But Angel says, “Done.” And that Spike has to admit it’s much easier when Angel takes care of Drusilla.

Angel then ponders how best to send Buffy a message on Valentine’s Day. Spike suggest ripping her lungs out. Angel says it lacks poetry and Spike says it doesn’t have to. Drusilla intervenes and says, “Don’t worry, Spike. Angel always knows what speaks to a girl’s heart.:

Of course that does not make Spike feel any better.

Roses And A One-Quarter Twist

At the Bronze, Willow is happily watching Oz playing in the band. Xander is fiddling with the box with the necklace for Cordelia. She walks in looking stunning in a red dress.

She goes over to say hello to Harmony and the other girls and they just turn away from her.

At Buffy’s house, Buffy is watching videos with her mom and eating snacks. There’s a knock on the door. Buffy goes to the front door, but no one’s there. When she returns, Joyce is gone.

But she is in the kitchen. She found a long black box with a black ribbon at the back door. Inside are a dozen red roses and a card that says, “Soon.”

We’re moving toward the One-Quarter Twist.

That is the first major plot turn that spins the story in a new direction. It generally comes from outside the protagonist. And the protagonist from that point to the Midpoint reacts to that twist.

This story is primarily one about Xander and Cordelia. But the roses serve as a sort of One-Quarter Twist in the Angel and Buffy Valentine’s subplot, as this pushes Buffy to get more specific information from Giles.

Breakup At The Bronze

At the Bronze, Cordelia is sitting alone looking sad. Xander joins her. She says he looks good. He awkwardly says he let Buffy dress him and then amends it to that Buffy helped him pick out clothes. And Cordelia says that makes it harder.

Xander doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but he goes into a sort of speech that lets us know that maybe, despite all his comments about Cordelia, he is starting to feel something more. And he says kissing once or twice could all be just hormones, but maybe there’s something more. Maybe something in him see something special in her and vice versa.

And he gives her this necklace. This shows Xander’s vulnerability. He is reaching out, trying to take what they had both been treating as just attraction to each other into something greater.

And in typical Joss Whedon fashion, just as Xander is taking this leap and showing this vulnerability, he is crushed.

Because Cordelia thanks him for the necklace and says it’s beautiful, seeming very genuine. Giving Xander what he wanted. And then says, “I want to break up.” And she says she’s sorry, but they just don’t fit. Who are they kidding?

Xander: You know what’s a good day to break up with someone? Any day but Valentine’s Day.

The One-Quarter Twist In Betwitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Now that is the One-Quarter Twist in our main plot. It’s 12 minutes 47 seconds in. So it is slightly past the one-quarter mark in the episode. But I do see it as this whole interaction with Cordelia.

Everything from here to the Midpoint will be put in motion by this.

At school the next day a random guy laughs at Xander for the way he was dumped. Harmony and her friends also laugh in his face.

Xander sees Amy and pulls her aside. He says the Hellmouth is finally going to work for him. And he threatens to expose her using magic to fool the teacher unless she helps him. (It’s not clear exactly how Xander’s going to do that (expose Amy) since I don’t think the adults in Sunnydale are ready to admit that magic exists. But I suppose he could somehow show the teacher that Amy didn’t really turn in the paper and she would fail the class).

He tells Amy he wants her to do a love spell. And we cut to commercial.

Love Spells Need Pure Intent

When we come back Amy tells Xander love spells are the hardest ones. It’s a huge thing to make someone love you for all eternity. And Xander says wait, wait, wait, he doesn’t want Cordelia to love him so that he could be with her. He wants her to fall in love with him so he can reject her and she can feel the pain he’s feeling.

Amy says, “I don’t know intent for a love spell has to be pure.” Xander says it is pure – pure desire for revenge. She finally agrees and tells him she’ll need something that belongs to Cordelia.

So this is what I meant by Xander’s ambiguity playing into and driving the plot here. Because we’re told intent has to be pure. Xander, not only does he want revenge, but I think this is fueled by that feeling of he wasn’t even certain there was more there with Cordelia. And somehow that that makes it worse for him because he put himself out on this limb for someone he wasn’t even sure was the right person for him. He was starting to have these feelings for her and she nonetheless rejected him.

That’s my take on it. It could also be that he really does have these deep feelings. But definitely not a pure intent.

In the library, Buffy gives Giles the card from Angel and says, “Soon what, Giles? You never held out on me until the big bad thing in the dark became my ex honey.”

And Giles says she’s right, he will tell her what he learned in his research about Angelus.

Symbolism And Hearts

We switch to the hallway. Xander asks Cordelia for the necklace back. She says she thought it was a gift, but he insists. Now we see Cordelia’s true feelings and vulnerability. She pretends the necklace is in her locker. But she is actually wearing it under her shirt. So she goes to her locker, opens the door to shield herself, and takes it off. She buttons up her shirt again, gives it to him, and says at least now she doesn’t need to pretend to like it.

This is part of what makes us like Cordelia better. And we have been building this, that she does have genuine feelings for Xander. This also sets up her having a change of heart at the end of the episode.

I don’t think it’s any mistake that the necklace is a heart necklace. It’s not just an allusion to Valentine’s Day, but it’s an allusion to Cordelia’s change of heart. And perhaps the heart that Angel dropped on the table for Drusilla is symbolic of her heart changing. Being more drawn to Angel than Spike.

The Spell

About 17.5 minutes in, in a dark classroom with lit candles all around, Amy calls on the goddess Diana and casts a love spell.

The next day Xander walks through the halls, kind of swaggering and heads straight for Cordelia. She’s sitting with Harmony and her friends. But she’s annoyed with him and asks if he’s going stalker boy on her.

In the library, Giles is going through the terrible things. Angel has done to torment women that he loved. Buffy tells Giles he can skip the part about Angel nailing a puppy to the tree since she doesn’t have a puppy.

Xander walks in complaining about how awful his life is. Giles is back in the stacks, researching. Buffy tells Xander she heard about him and Cordelia and it’s Cordelia’s loss. Then she tells him she’d really like it if the two of them could just get together that night and hang out. Maybe comfort each other.

Xander makes a joke about whether that comfort might include a lap dance which he finds really comforting. And Buffy says if he plays his cards right and moves closer to him.

Xander says something like, “Okay, you, know you’re talking to me, right? Xander.”

and Buffy says she was surprised how glad she felt when she heard about him and Cordelia breaking up.

Foreshadowing Payoff

So this is why we got that moment in Phases where we have that little bit of tension between Buffy and Xander. It foreshadows or builds up that Xander might think that Buffy being interested in him might be genuine. Because she then says, “It’s funny how you can see someone every day but not really see them, you know?”

And they’re about to kiss and Amy comes in and interrupts.

Out in the hallway, she tells Xander she doesn’t think the spell worked right. But she is pretty new at this so they can try again. He glances through the window in the door to the library. Buffy is sending him sultry looks.

He tries to put Amy off. But then she says will they don’t have to cast spells, they could just hang out.

Xander Realizes Something At The Midpoint

And Amy says, “You know, it’s funny how you can see a person every day and not – ”

Xander says, “Not really see them.”

Amy says, “Exactly,” looking so thrilled that Xander knew what she was thinking. Another girl comes up and wants to study with Xander. He says he has to go.

We are now getting to the Midpoint of the episode.

And here we normally see a major reversal for the protagonist or a major commitment. Xander is the protagonist here (and I’ll talk about that a little bit more later). But first we have this major reversal. And I feel like this is a particularly interesting one. Because while it is part of the main plot, it is primarily a reversal about relationships. Which really fits because it’s a Valentine’s Day episode.

Coming Soon: Coherence

Thank you all for listening. If you enjoy the show and would like it to continue, please post a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts or tell a friend about the show also. Thank you in particular to patrons who help make the show go forward. You can join them for just a dollar a month and get access to bonus content including a breakdown of Jessica Jones.

I will also be recording over the next month a breakdown of a film where Nicholas Brendan, the actor who plays Xander, is one of an ensemble cast. It’s called Coherence and I’m really interested to look at it because according to what I read about it, it was done without a script.

The actors were given information before each scene and then it was mostly improv. So I’m really curious to see how the plot structure I normally look for and use in my own writing, whether we will still see that framework there.

Coherence is a sort of quiet horror story. It takes place when a comet is coming close to the earth and what that causes to happen to this group of people. These friends meeting for dinner party.

There is a link in the show notes for Patreon. You can also search for my Patreon page, but I made it particularly challenging because I somehow through an extra L in my name when I set it up. So you would have to look for a patreon.com/LisaMLlilly but spelled as L I S a M as in Marie double L I double L Y. I guess I really really like those Ls.

Midpoint Reversal As Xander Tries To Hide

Xander has gone home to get away from this chaos he created. And there he hurts the last person in the world he wants to hurt. Because when he sits down on his bed, Willow pops out from under the covers.

This is about 21.5 minutes in, so right about that Midpoint. And she comes on to him and he tries to hold her off. He says what about Oz. She says she doesn’t care. She just wants Xander.

Xander tells her he cast a spell and it backfired. Willow ignores that and continues to come closer to him. She says she wants Xander to be her first and they both know that it’s right. Xander says this has to stop. He runs.

At school, Harmony and the other girls shun Cordelia once again. And she says okay what did she do now, wear red and purple together? Harmony says Xander is wounded because of Cordelia and only a sick pup would let Xander get away. No matter what her friends said.

Xander is now at school again because he’s going to seek help from Giles. All the girls stare at him and follow him.

Xander Confesses

He tells Giles he made a mess and cast a love spell. As he is trying to explain Jenny comes in and says she and Giles really need to talk. But she, too, becomes distracted by Xander, telling him what a nice shirt he’s wearing, touching his shoulder, asking if he’s been working out. Even as she is trying to convince Giles to give her another chance. Xander nods toward Jenny and looks desperately at Giles.

Giles: I cannot believe that you were fool enough to do something like this.

Xander: Oh no, I’m twice the fool it takes to do something like this.

Giles tells him people under love spells are deadly. They lose all reason. And he tells Xander not to leave the library, he’ll find Amy and try to get her to reverse the spell.

Xander pushes the card catalog in front of the double doors, but unfortunately the doors swing outward. So Buffy just opens one and strolls right in around the card catalog.

Buffy Comes On To Xander

She is wearing a very short black raincoat, apparently with nothing on underneath it. She starts to take it off. Xander begs her not to. He’s saying if he thought this was real to her it would be different. But she has no clue what it really would mean to him. She’s under spell and they can’t do this.

Buffy gets angry and says has he been toying with her? Is it just a game?

Amy comes in and yells at Buffy to get away from Xander, he belongs to her. Buffy then accuses him of two timing her. It escalates and Buffy punches Amy. Amy then does a spell, calling on the goddess Hecate and says, “Before me let the unclean thing crawl.”

Buffy seems to disappear. Her raincoat drops in a heap on the ground. Very small heap, it’s a small coat.

The Buffy Rat

This seems like our Three-Quarter Turn. Like the One-Quarter Twist, the turn at the three-quarter point spins the story in yet another direction, but it grows out of the Midpoint. So it isn’t coming from outside the protagonist. This could seem like a major plot turn because something terrible has happened to Buffy.

But, as we’ll see, while it adds a wrinkle in what’s going on, it doesn’t really turn our main story.

It is, though a great hook and we cut to commercial.

When we return a rat crawls out from under the raincoat. So Buffy has not has not disappeared or been killed. She’s been turned into a rat.

Giles and Jenny return. Xander tells Amy to undo the spell. Something Jenny echoes, and then adds that when she’s done, she should leave because Xander belongs with her (Jenny). Amy starts another spell against Jenny, but Xander stops her.

Giles tells Jenny and Amy to sit down and be quiet and says, “We have to catch the Buffy rat.”

Which is about thirty minutes in.

Everyone’s Angry

Xander is down on the floor looking for the rat and Oz comes in and punches him. Which hurts his hand. He says he was on the phone with Willow all night listening to Willow cry about Xander. Oz isn’t sure what’s going on but he was left “with a very strong urge to hit you” (he says to Xander). And then helps him up.

Buffy as a rat runs out the door. Giles tells Xander to go home and lock himself away. He’ll try to break the spell with Amy and Jenny. And he asks Oz to go look for Buffy.

Giles is both angry about the spell at all, but mainly that Xander has put Buffy in such danger. He tells Xander to get out of his sight.

Xander looks so despondent. Looking down, he leaves.

We’re now 31.5 minutes in and in the hallway girls are surrounding Cordelia, beating her up.

Xander sees it and he breaks in to carry her out of the school.

It’s Not Love

Giles, talking to Jenny and Amy, says that Cordelia’s necklace must have protected her from the spell. Jenny and Amy argue about which one of them has a real love for Xander. Giles yells at them, and Amy says he has no idea what she’s going through.

And then we get this quote from Giles.

Giles: I know it’s not love. It’s obsession. Selfish, banal obsession. Now Xander’s put himself in very great danger. If you cared at all about him, you’d help me save him rather than wittering on about your feelings.

While Giles is talking Jenny disappears out the door.

The Three-Quarter Turn In Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

We now get to our Three-Quarter Turn. It’s about 32.5 minutes in, so right about three quarters through the episode.

Cordelia and Xander run outside the school. Xander thinks that they’ve lost the group that was pursuing them. Then they both freeze as they see a group of girls and women waiting for Xander, including Willow with an ax. And Xander tells her she doesn’t really want to hurt him.

Willow says he doesn’t know how hard this is for her. She loves him so much, and she’d rather see him dead than with that bitch.

This is the turn that comes from both Xander’s actions casting the love spell and from that reversal at the Midpoint where he hurt Willow so badly. And now the shift is these women and girls, they want to kill Xander and also Cordelia. We already saw them being violent toward Cordelia. Harmony and the other girls come outside from the school. Xander and Cordelia get away while the two groups of women and girls fight each other.

The nice thing about this turn is it doesn’t just shift the story, but it escalates the stakes. Because now we are talking about mortal danger.

Differences From Teacher’s Pet

I can’t help contrasting this episode with Teacher’s Pet. That was the one with the praying mantis from Season One. Where we didn’t spend a lot of time in Xander’s point of view, but I really struggled to figure out whether Xander or Buffy was the protagonist.

Here, it’s much more clear.

A protagonist should have a goal and be actively pursuing that goal throughout the episode, be the main viewpoint character, and have the most at stake.

Why Xander Is The Protagonist – The Goal

In this episode, Xander is the only one actively pursuing a goal throughout the episode. His first goal is to advance his relationship with Cordelia. Then we build on that and turn it a bit because it’s to get revenge.

And then it is to protect himself and Cordelia, which grew out of those first goals.

Buffy, in contrast, is in reaction mode through the entire episode. Reacting to Angel’s roses, to what Giles tells her, and then to the love spell – first by coming on to Xander and now she is a rat.

Cordelia initially is reacting to her friends’ disapproval, and then to the fallout of the love spell. So we will see that as a character, Cordelia experiences the most growth thought she is not the protagonist.

Why Xander Is The Protagonist – Point Of View And The Stakes

Xander also is our main point of view character. We see him the most often. He has the most screen time. And we mainly see through his eyes, though we do see quite a bit through Cordelia’s eyes as well.

Finally, Xander has the most at stake. Yes, both he and Cordelia are in danger of being killed. But Xander also has extreme emotional stakes.

We see how devastated he is when Giles expresses such disappointment, such anger, that he can’t even look at Xander. While we haven’t got a huge amount about Xander’s home life, we know that it is not good. And we see in this moment how much Giles means to him. How crushed he is by Giles disappointment.

Xander also has endangered his friendship with Willow. They’ve known each other forever and now he has devastated her. And he jeopardized Buffy. Also, he has lost Cordelia. or thinks he has. Things are just awful. Everything is at stake for Xander. So he is clearly the protagonist here, unlike in Teacher’s Pet.

Chasing And Running

The scene switches to the school basement where the Buffy rat is going down the stairs. A few minutes later Oz follows with a flashlight. We see the rat encounter a cat.

We switch back to Cordelia and Xander running down the street. Cordelia asks what’s going on and who died and made you Elvis? They see Buffy’s house. Xander says he’ll explain later. But they should get inside.

At first, Joyce is very concerned about the situation. She tells Cordelia to go upstairs and get some bandages and says Xander should sit down and tell her all about it. He sits at the kitchen table. Joyce says she’ll get him something to drink. Does he prefer cold or hot?

And she starts rubbing his shoulders. Je drops his head on the table.

Cordelia Does Care

Cordelia returns and, again through some humor, We get an advancement of the plot. Plus more insight into Cordelia. She pulls Joyce off of Xander, pushes Joyce out the back door, slams the door and says, “And keep your Mom-aged mitts off my boyfriend. Former.”

Such a nice example of using humor to convey emotional vulnerability here. She then asks Xander if everyone has gone insane. And he says why is it so hard for her to believe other women find him attractive?

We get a great quote here.

Cordelia: The only way you could get girls to want you would be witchcraft.

Xander: That is such a – well, yeah, okay, good point.

More Danger

Joyce breaks the window in the back door to try to get back in. Cordelia and Xander run up to Buffy’s room. Again we get a nice mix of humor and escalating the plot. Xander says “we’re safer up here” and Angel bursts through the window and grabs Xander and yanks him out.

We have a quick scene switch to the Buffy rat in basement as she noses around a trap.

Then we are back with Xander. Angel throws him on the ground. He wants to know where Buffy is, but then he says this will work. He wanted to do something special for Buffy for Valentine’s Day. As he’s about to kill Xander, someone pulls Angel off and throws him aside. We think it’s Buffy, and Xander says, “Buffy?”

But no, it’s Drusilla in vamp face. She too is enamored of Xander and won’t let Angel harm him. She tells Angel that she finally found a real man. Angel says maybe he really did drive her crazy.

Juggling Many Storylines

Sometimes if we have that many different plots and subplots going in a story, it can be too much. It can end up being convoluted or jumbled. But here they mesh so nicely.

Cordelia’s inner conflict about wanting to be popular and her external conflict with her friends. This thwarts Xander, and leads to the very thing he fears, which is rejection. Xander then turns to Amy, who is engaging in witchcraft. Which is dangerous and it backfires. This backfire in turn forces Cordelia to confront her conflicting desires and the external conflict between her and her friends.

Also, Angel’s threat, which I see has a subplot that is mainly there to remind us of the danger he poses, also intertwines with this. Because we see it used for humor and a bit of comic relief in Xander’s story.

As so often with the writers on the show, I am just amazed at how they bring together moving parts and make it look so easy and so natural.

Xander, Dru, And Angel

Drusilla is focused on Xander and asks how he feels about eternal life. Xander says we couldn’t just start with coffee, a movie, maybe? He’s looking very frightened. We are 37.5 minutes in we are moving to our climax where our opposing forces will converge, and our conflicts will resolve in a dramatic way.

What I like about that scene with Xander and Drusilla and Angel is that when I first watched it, I’m pretty sure I felt real concern for Xander.

I wasn’t too worried about the Buffy rat. We’re clearly not going to kill Buffy off as a rat. But we have seen, we saw Jesse first episode turned into a vampire and dusted. Maybe the show is going to turn Xander into a vampire.

After all, Angel had this major turn. The whole season has been about You’re Not Who I Thought You Were. All of these twists. It still probably seemed unlikely to me that this would happen, but there was just enough uncertainty there to enjoy the humor and yet feel concerned.

The Angry Mob Helps Xander

Drusilla does start to bite him, but the angry mob has found Xander. They rush to him, knocking him over, but also shoving Drusilla aside.

Cordelia runs out. She pushes the girls away and drag Xander inside. The mob follows them.

Drusilla tries to, but an invisible barrier repels her. Angel, who is over behind a tree, says, “Sorry Dru. I guess you’re not invited.”

Joyce joins the mob. Many of them have weapons no. Cordelia and Xander run into the basement

We’re about 38 minutes in.

A Tale Of Two Basements In Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered

And we switch quickly to the basement of the school. Oz is saying “Here, Buffy, Here, Buffy.” Then we’re with Giles and Amy in a lab with the potion.

Then we are back in the Summers basement. Xander asks Cordelia for a nail and nails the door shut. And this is so nice. Because remember their first kiss was in this basement. After barricading the door against the bug man or the worm man.

Now Cordelia says, “If we die in here I’m going to kick your ass.”

Xander says none of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t broken up with him. But she’s so desperate for popularity. And she fires back and says he embraced the black arts just to get girls to like him.

He tells her that her hide’s so thick that not even magic can penetrate it.

A Big Change

This changes things because she stops yelling and she touches his arm and says you mean the spell is for me. She’s clearly touched by this. So now that we have this lovely moment, a giant knife slices through the door and they run down the stairs. They’re backed into a corner.

Above them in one of those small basement windows. More people break through the window.

Quick cuts back and for through the various scenes really helps get that feel of escalating tension and conflict as it all comes together.

It also is wrapping up all our different storylines because now we are back in the lab, with Giles and Amy.

The Spells End In Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Amy is saying a spell about Hecate, telling her to withdraw. There’s a small explosion.

Back in the school basement, Oz is closing in on the rat. It’s behind some stacked boxes. And we get flashing lights and Oz says, “Buffy.” Buffy’s head pops up over the boxes.

Willow, Joyce, and the other girls break through the door.

Remember, there were two spells Amy did. There was the spell about Hecate to turn Buffy into a rat. But that was after the love spell.

Giles’ Choice

Interesting that Giles had her reverse the Hecate a spell first and save Buffy. Of course he doesn’t know how much things have escalated. He didn’t see Willow with the ax or the mob. But he is the one who warned us.

I guess you can argue that getting your Slayer back would be the most important thing, even aside from the personal relationship.

So in that basement all the girls are closing in, weapons raised. Back in the laboratory Giles adds powder to the potion and says words about Diana.

We flash quickly to all the women and girls with the weapons. Xander and Cordelia cowering. Giles drops the necklace into the potion.

Lots of flashing lights in the lab and in the basement. All the women and girls suddenly stop and start to back away.

Falling Action

Now we’re in the Falling Action where we tie up the loose ends. The women and girls are all very confused. They don’t know what’s happening.

In the school basement Buffy crosses her arms over herself. We only see shoulders up because she is behind the boxes.

Buffy: “I seem to be having a slight case of nudity here.”

Oz: But you’re not a rat. Call it an upside.

Explaining Away

In the other basement, Joyce asks what happened. Cordelia says “Boy that was the best scavenger hunt ever.”

And we cut immediately to the school hallway the next day. Buffy says, “Scavenger hunt?”

She’s walking with Xander and she asks if that’s the best he could do.

Xander says her mom seemed to buy it. Buffy tells him Joyce was so wigged at hitting on one of her friends that she’s repressing.

Xander says Willow’s not talking to him. Buffy tells him that it was worse for Willow than anyone because Willow loved him before he did the spell. She thinks it’s going to be a while before Willow forgives him.

Character Growth For Cordelia

Cordelia is walking in the hall with Harmony. They’re chatting away, just like they used to, talking about the dance. Everything seems fine until they run into Xander. Harmony yells at him for getting in the way and says something mean, then turns back to Cordelia to pick up their conversation.

Cordelia: Do you know what you are, Harmony? You’re a sheep.

Harmony: I’m not a sheep.

But Cordelia says all Harmony ever does is what everyone else does, just so she can say she did it first.

Cordelia: Here. I am scrambling for your approval when I’m way cooler than you.

Cordelia goes on to say she’ll do whatever she wants to do so, wear whatever she wants. And then she says:

“And you know what? I’ll date whoever the hell I want to date, no matter how lame he is.”

And she walks away with Xander, arm in arm.

Which Characters Grow

Cordelia gasps and says what did she do. Xander tells her it’s okay just keep walking. And if it makes her feel better, whenever they’re around her friends they can fight a lot.

She says, “You promise?”

And Xander says they can pretty much count on it.

So this is what I mean abo Cordelia having the most character growth here.

Buffy has been part of this kind of humorous side plot and she’s learned little more about Angel, but there’s no real growth for her.

Xander probably learned not to cast love spells. I’m not sure that he has grown much personally.

True Transformation

But Cordelia has had this real transformation. I think she realized some things about popularity. About who is a leader and who is not and why.

But also about being who she is. And that her strength is being willing to say what she thinks and do what she wants. She is going to continue to do that even if her popular friends disapprove.

It also says something about the strength of her feelings for Xander, but I do think it is more about her internal growth.

Next Week On Buffy And The Art Of Story

Other than Spoilers, that is it for this episode, I hope you will stay around, though.

As I mentioned at the outset, this seems like such an almost light, one-off episode. It’s fun. Whenever I’m about to rewatch, I always kind of think, “Oh yeah, that’s the love spell episode.” And I almost don’t want to rewatch it because as I remember it think it doesn’t go anywhere.

It’s kind of fluffy, and we don’t have a lot about Buffy in it. Then I watch it and I remember how much happens there. How much we set up for what’s coming next.

So I hope you’ll stick around. If you don’t, I hope to see you next Monday. Thank you so much for listening.

Spoilers

And we are back for Spoilers and foreshadowing. So much here.

Buffy And Jenny

We have very subtle thawing of Buffy’s anger towards Jenny. Or maybe not her anger but her feelings about not being able to be around Jenny. Not being able to handle Giles and Jenny together. She stares at the floor when Jenny comes out. So clearly she can’t really even handle seeing Jenny.

Yet afterwards she asks Giles how he is. She is concerned for him.

Giles And Buffy

We also have more strengthening of the Buffy/Giles bond. Because we see how concerned he is when she is in danger. He is so angry at Xander. He already thinks Xander is foolish. But when Buffy becomes a rat that is when Giles says, “Get out of my sight.”

And as I mentioned, he reverses the spell about Hecate, or has Amy reverse it, first.

Amy Doing Spells

We also have this advancement of Amy’s storyline. Initially, she seemed very much like just part of that one-off episode [The Witch].

But now we have her doing spells. This foreshadows Gingerbread next season That’s when Joyce and the other parents will turn on their children, particularly the ones who are involved in the occult.

So this puts Amy in danger, along with Willow and Buffy. And it foreshadows that Amy is learning spells, but she hasn’t perfected it. So we won’t be so surprised when things go wrong, but terribly wrong for her in Gingerbread. Or I guess in the aftermath of Gingerbread, when no one can figure out how to undo her spell.

The Danger Of Magic

It also foreshadows the problem of using spells to advance your own personal interests. And that is such a key story arc for Willow. That plays out in such an interesting way in the series. Initially, Willow’s focus is doing witchcraft to help fight the forces of evil. That is why she learns it and pursues it. And we will see her take a first major step in this season.

But we will then gradually see her start to turn to magic more and more to avoid dealing with her feelings. And eventually to try to change other people with tragic consequences.

All of that is foreshadowed here when we see first Amy is using witchcraft to help her grades. No immediate consequence from that. But then we see as Xander does it for a love spell.

Amy is aware of this danger and warns him he is trying to do something to harm somebody or change somebody.

Now a love spell would be doing that regardless even if you had pure intent. Giles tells us how dangerous any love spell is. So that sets up Giles as the one who is saying, yes, if you use magic. It has to be done responsibly.

That will become a conflict between Willow and Giles.

Reminding Us Of The Rules Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s World

There were a couple quick – maybe not foreshadowings – but reminders. I think both foreshadowing and a reminder of when vampires can enter.

Because we see Drusilla is barred. The house literally seems to have an invisible wall against her. But Angel, who has been invited in, and is been inside many times, is able to reach through the window and grab Xander.

Danger Angel Poses

So we have that foreshadowing of the danger Angel poses, that he can still get in. We have the hint of danger to Joyce because she’s the one who goes to the back door and gets those roses.

And there is what Giles tells us about brutal displays of affection. We will see that play out in the next episode. We even have this side reference to nailing a puppy to a tree, and next episode we will see Willow’s goldfish be killed.

It foreshadows that Angel will do these things to emotionally devastate people. And go beyond just killing people. I don’t mean “just.” But really he takes it as an art form to torment people, including through gestures like the roses. Things that will make the person, the victim, fearful.

Xander Foreshadowing

We also have foreshadowing of Cordelia and Xander’s relationship never being quite solid. Though it will last for some time, there are these fissures, faultlines, there. And that sense of Cordelia really being more invested than Xander in the relationship.

Xander has mixed feelings about Cordelia. He does want to advance the relationship. Yet he is saying all these negative things about her. It foreshadows his relationship with Anya.

There, too, through much of the series Anya will seem more invested than Xander in the relationship. And he will likewise say these critical things about her.

This episode also foreshadows that Willow’s deep feelings for Xander have not completely gone away. It sets up some of the triangle issues in Season Three.

Looking Ahead To Passion

Finally, Giles quote about it’s not love, its obsession.

I don’t think I noticed this on any prior watch, but it is signaling the theme of Passion next week. That issue of what is passion, what does it mean. What is the difference between love and obsession.

So I love that the writers worked this in. That the Valentines episode, the love spell episode, brought us right into Passion.

So that is it for the Spoilers and foreshadowing. I do hope you’ll come back next week for Passion next Monday night.

In the meantime, if you would like to share your thoughts about the show or any questions about story structure you can email me lisa @ lisalilly.com or find me on Twitter @LisaMLilly #BuffyStory.

The post Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered S2 E16 (Buffy and the Art of Story) appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

Phases S2 E15 (Buffy and the Art of Story)

admin — Tue, 19 May 2020 18:30:35 +0000

This week on Buffy and the Art of Story: Phases (Season 2 Episode 15 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer):

This podcast episode covers (1) why Buffy is the protagonist despite this being a key episode for Oz and Willow; (2) using humor and character development to hide clues; and (3) who Buffy feels she is allowed to kill and why.

As always, the discussion is spoiler-free, except at the end (with plenty of warning).

Last Week: Innocence

Next Up: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

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Episode Transcript for Phases

I am Lisa M Lilly, author of the Awakening supernatural thriller series and the Q.C. Davis mysteries and founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com.

Today we’re talking about Season Two episode fifteen Phases.

What’s Included

In particular, I’ll cover:

why Buffy is still our protagonist despite that this is such a key episode for Willow and for Oz;
using humor and character development not just as an end in itself but to hide certain clues from the audience; and
more on the show’s underlying philosophy and theme regarding violence and who Buffy believes that she is allowed to kill as the Slayer.

As always, there will be no Spoilers except at the end to talk about foreshadowing, but I’ll give you plenty of warning.

Okay, let’s dive into the Hellmouth.

Phases was written by Rob DesHotel and Dean Batali and directed by Bruce Seth Green. A listener asked about Seth Green the actor was the same person as the director. It is not. In fact, the two are not related.

Starting With A Call Back

Before we get to our opening conflict…. Which remember is that conflict that sometimes relates to our main plot and sometimes doesn’t. It is meant to draw our audience member or reader in before we get to that Story Spark or Inciting Incident that sets off our main plot.

Sometimes the conflict relates to that Story Spark, and sometimes it does not.

Here, we’re going to have three opening conflicts and the Story Spark. All in that teaser part of the episode before the credits. (Also known as the cold open.)

What’s kind of amazing is even before we get to that, we have a short call back to The Witch. All of this in less than 5 minutes.

We start out and Oz is in the hallway. He’s looking at that cheerleader trophy. The one where in The Witch Amy’s mom became trapped. Now, none of our characters know that, although they do know that that statue or trophy is of Amy’s mom. We see Seth Green (Oz) standing in front of the trophy. He’s kind of moving from side to side.

Willow walks up, and he says something like, “This cheerleader trophy. It’s like its eyes follow you wherever you go. I like it.”

Opening Conflict In Phases

Now we go to our opening conflict. The first one is between Willow and Oz.

Willow asks did he like the movie last night. She is really asking did he have a good time with her. But he answers the literal question. And does a very short mini critique on movies. He says, “You know, movies today, they’re like popcorn. You forget them as soon as they’re done. But I really like the popcorn.”

She responds by saying, “Well, I had fun.” And doing a little bit of hinting around, trying to see how he feels. He is not really getting it. They’re just doing this kind of awkward back and forth until Buffy appears. Willow says something very awkward like, “Oh, there is my friend, and I will go to her.”

Larry

We now get a second hint of conflict here. Which is when Larry, a new character, knocks a girl’s books out of her arms. As she bends over to get them, he looks at her butt and makes a sleazy comment. He also looks after Buffy and Willow and says to Oz something like, “I’d love to get some of that Buffy/Willow action if you know what I mean.”

And we get a great quote from Oz.

Oz: That’s great, Larry. You’ve really mastered the single entendre.

Larry goes on to give Oz a hard time about dating a junior and asks how far he’s gotten.

We cut to Buffy and Willow on the same topic. Because Willow answers and says, “Nowhere!” So clearly Buffy has asked a similar question, but with a much different intent.

Note in that conflict with Larry and Oz, a lot happens. we establish Larry as this new character who harasses girls. We also doubled down on Oz’s humor. And we’ll see later, a comment Oz makes that seems like another example of showing Oz ‘s dry sense of humor and wit again actually is a clue to what’s happening.

Relationships

So now we’re at Buffy and Willow. Willow says something like she doesn’t want to be the only girl in school without real boyfriend. Buffy looks sad and Willow immediately picks up on it. She says she’s sorry, and asks how Buffy is doing. Buffy says it’s hard, but it would help with the three of them could get together and share the misery as they often do.

Willow makes a snippy comment about Xander and Cordelia. But she does agree that they should get together.

So we’ve done a really nice thing there in getting in some very quick back story about Angel and Buffy, about Willow and Oz, and about Willow finding out about Cordelia. If you hadn’t seen the prior episode, you wouldn’t necessarily understand all of what happened. But you would get the sense of where these characters are. And what these relationships are about.

Now we see Cordelia and Xander making out in her car at an area where often the students go to park.

Xander breaks away and says, “What does she see in him?” Cordelia says all he does is talk about Buffy, Buffy, Buffy or Willow, Willow, Willow. And she tells him to shut up. And they kiss.

This adds to both the conflict and more quick exposition. Because we get this tension between Cordelia and Xander where Xander always seems to be focusing on anything and anyone other than Cordelia.

The Story Spark

At 4 minutes 33 seconds in we get our Story Spark or Inciting Incident that sets off our main monster plot. Usually this comes about 10% into an episode. And it does that here. The episodes are generally 43, 44 minutes. We hear this growling, and we see this beast. Cordelia and Xander are at the moment unaware of it.

So this gives us the spark that sets off the werewolf story. It also gives us our classic horror set up.

After the credits, Xander says he thinks he heard something. Cordelia didn’t, and she’s mad at him, again thinking he is just being distracted. Then a claw comes through the cloth convertible roof. She throws the car in gear and drives away, throwing the beast off of the car in. Xander says, “Told you I heard something.”

The next day, Buffy looks at the shredded top of the convertible. Xander says it was a werewolf. Cordelia says it’s so awful and follows up with, “Daddy just had this car detailed.” Giles tells them that animal carcasses were mutilated last night though no people were injured yet. He guesses the werewolf will be back at the next full moon.

Willow points out that last night was the night before the full moon. I love that Willow knows something, or pays attention to something, that Giles missed. He’s very intrigued because this is one of the classics. All the others give him these looks.

Self-Defense Class

We switch to gym class. It is a session on self-defense. The teacher tells them to get in their assigned groups.

Xander is near Larry and notices that Larry has a scar. Larry says last week a huge dog jumped out of the bushes and bit him. He needed thirty-nine stitches. Oz says he’s been there. He holds up his index finger and says cousin Jordy just got his grown up teeth in, and he does not like to be tickled. Larry rolls his eyes.

This is that moment I was talking about. We have set this up as an episode where we get to know Oz better. And this seems like just the third example of showing Oz’s personality. But really we’ve just learned about the incident that turned Oz into a werewolf.

Larry goes over to Teresa, another student I don’t think that we’ve seen before. He says something gross to her. And says, “Oh, we’re in the same group. I may have to attack you.”

She says, “Oh, there a few people in our group.” Buffy is one of them. She comes over and gives Larry this great look

But Willow pulls Buffy aside reminds her she’s supposed to be a “meek little girlie girl like the rest of us.” Buffy’s attempt to be the meek little girlie girl doesn’t work, though. The teacher has the boys get behind the girls. She’s trying to show the girls how to flip an attacker behind them over their shoulder. Buffy pretends to try and be unable to. Larry says she’s turning him on, and she immediately flips him onto his back on the mat.

I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say, because I’ve mentioned before, Buffy – never great at undercover.

Giles Explains Werewolves

In the library, Giles is explaining more about werewolves using a globe and a model moon. He’s talking about how the moon brings out the darkest qualities and the werewolf is an extreme representation of inborn animalistic traits. Pure instincts, predatory. Buffy says, “Typical male.”

And Giles says, “Don’t jump to conclusions.” And then this is maybe one of my favorite Buffy quotes ever (probably have said that a bunch of times, but I do love this one.)

Buffy: I didn’t jump. I took a tiny step and there conclusions were.

Giles, though, points out that this could be a woman, not a man. He also tells them they will not be making any silver bullets. Because this is a being who is human most of the time and might not even know about being a werewolf. So they need to bring the werewolf back alive. Buffy agrees.

About 11 minutes in, Giles and Buffy are back in that parking area. They’ve split up and are looking around. When they meet again, Buffy starts to tell Giles gossip about who she saw making out with whom. He wants to go around and ask people if they’ve seen anything. And Buffy says, “Giles, no one’s seen anything.”

The One-Quarter Twist In Phases

We are now getting to our One-Quarter Twist. This is the first major plot turn. It generally comes from outside the protagonist and spins our story in a new direction. Usually we see it about a quarter way through the story. Though in television as opposed to movies or books, it often moves around a little bit more. I think because it is timed in network TV for commercial breaks. And here we get it right before the commercial at about 12 minutes.

So that is a bit past our one quarter.

Buffy walking through a more wooded area. She steps on something and gets caught in a rope net or trap that pulls her up. She’s hanging from a tree branch and trapped. We hear a man’s voice say, “Gotcha.” This guy with a gun appears, and we cut to a commercial.

So we have this hook almost literally with Buffy hanging there.

Now that this turn has happened, we’ll take a new direction. The story shifts From Buffy trying to figure out who the werewolf is and stopping it to Buffy racing this guy (who tells her his name is Cain) who wants to find the werewolf and kill it.

Predatory Behavior

Cain is another example in this episode of a character who is almost a caricature of the predatory male. I should say predatory male behavior. We saw that in Larry.

Initially, Giles alludes to it, although he is talking about the werewolf. But now we see Cain. He tells Giles he’s impressed seeing him with Buffy – h says it’s “good to get the fruit while it’s fresh.” So gross. Which Giles immediately points out. And Buffy says it’s not what Cain thinks, they’re hunting werewolves. Cain laughs at that and says, “Well, this guy looks like he’s auditioning to be a librarian” and she’s a girl. So what can they do?

He tells them he has a tooth from each kill. And he sells werewolf pelts. Buffy says doesn’t he care that a werewolf is a person twenty-eight days out of the month? And Cain says that’s why he only hunts then the other three.

Cain does give them some good information. He tells them werewolves are drawn to sexual heat. Buffy claims she has no idea where that might be. But of course, as soon as Cain is gone, she tells Giles she knows where to look

Angel Attacks, Willow And Cordelia Commiserate

First, though, we cut to Teresa walking home in the dark. She thinks she hears something. And we hear growling. She’s looking back over her shoulder as she runs. And she runs right into Angel. He plays the nice guy, reassures her there’s no one behind her. And says something like, “Oh don’t I know you? You go to school with Buffy.”

We can see that Teresa is very relieved that he knows Buffy. This makes him seem familiar and safe. He says he’ll walk her home.

We switch to the Bronze.

Cordelia and Willow are sitting together and talking as band plays. Cordelia is complaining about Xander. That always Buffy did this and Willow says that. And then he acts all confused when she calls him on it. Willow says she and Oz are in some kind of holding pattern, but without the holding. They both agree that the problem is that Oz and Xander are a couple of guys.

I really like this character development. Despite Willow’s snarky comment about Cordelia earlier, we see them becoming friends. And this to me is one of the strengths of the show. While it does use classic setups for conflict like love triangles, it almost never falls back on the clichés. So we don’t have Cordelia and Willow feuding with each other, arguing over the same guy. Instead, though Willow is upset about Xander and Cordelia, and Cordelia knows that, they are commiserating. They’re there for each other.

And it’s particularly interesting because in our pilot, Cordelia was so mean to Willow. She clearly viewed Willow as far beneath her socially. This also reflects that really none of our core characters are defined by only one relationship or one role in their lives.

The Werewolf At The Bronze

The werewolf drops in, or jumps in, right in front of Willow and Cordelia seemingly from nowhere. I guess from that kind of catwalk balcony area on the second level of the Bronze. Everyone screams and runs.

Giles and Buffy pull up in Giles’ car. Buffy goes inside. The Bronze now is pretty much deserted. She is looking around the stage for the wolf. She has a chain with her, and when she sees the wolf, she swings the chain until it wraps around the werewolf’s neck. But it gets away from her.

Cain comes in right after that and makes a comment about what happens when a woman does a man’s job. Which does not phase Buffy, irritating as it is. But then he says something that does really hit her. That if the wolf harms anyone it’s on her head. (Of course, he says “pretty little head.” And Buffy says she lives with that every day. And we see the weight on Buffy of every time she can’t stop a demon, monster, or Angel as a vampire, somebody can be killed.

Outside of the Bronze, the wolf is following a scent. He finds Teresa’s body. Angel is standing over it in vamp face. They growl at each other. Angel backs off.

This scene seems to me to be here solely to provide that classic vampire meets the werewolf moment. And to give us a little more time with Angel. I really enjoy it, despite that it doesn’t move the narrative along. Ideally, we want every scene to have some significant character development or move the story. This really does neither. But it’s fun, and it’s quick, and I think it works because the story overall has so much emotional impact.

Nearing The Midpoint Reversals In Phases

So now we’re coming up to our Midpoint. Usually we see a major commitment by the protagonist. She commits to her quest or she suffers a major reversal.

Here, we have something a little bit different and interesting. We have two reversals for Buffy. One that appears to be very direct reversal for . And one that is still a reversal for her but is somewhat indirect. Because it’s first impact (that we see) is on Oz and, by extension, on Willow.

Buffy And The Art Of Story In Print

If you are listening Season Two and you missed Season One – and you don’t want to go back and listen to all of it – you can check out the paperback edition of Buffy and the Art of Story Season One. It’s is now available on Amazon.

Also, if you know someone who really enjoys Buffy, and you think would like reading about every episode, please let them know about it.

And finally, if, like me, when you hear something – whether in a podcast or an audiobook – and you feel like you’re learning from it, often I want to go ahead and buy that in print. Because I want to be able to flip to it and reread parts. (I am big on highlighting. When I was in law school at one point I had like five different color highlighters I used. Later I switched to just underlining.)

And now I’m rambling as Willow will do later in the episode. My point being, if you would like to have Season One on paper I will put a link in the show notes. I do not have it yet available widely to order through bookstores. I’m working on that when that is ready. I will let you know that as well.

Amendment: You can now get Buffy and the Art of Story Season One: Writing Better Fiction By Watching Buffy through your local library or bookstore. (If you’re a Chicago resident, you may want to try Women and Children First.)

The Midpoint Of Phases

Back to our reversals. First, we are at 21 minutes 4 seconds in. So right about halfway, a little bit earlier than that, but very close to our Midpoint.

Buffy and Giles have been patrolling the parking area again. Buffy gets in the car. They hear a radio news report about Teresa that says she was killed. It’s linked to the recent animal attacks. And Buffy, we can see in her face and her body language how hard that hits her. She says either here or little bit later that she should have killed the wolf when she had the chance.

This seems like our Midpoint Reversal. And even if as an audience member you’re not conscious of looking for these plot points, most people know at the middle of an episode we have expect something big to happen. A big reveal, a big shift. And it seems like that’s it.

And then the show kind of surprises us with another one at 21 minutes 18 seconds in.

The wolf is lying in a field. Dawn is breaking, and the wolf changes into Oz. I was truly shocked the first time I saw this.

Oz opens his eyes, sits, looks around. He’s naked. And in his very understated way, he says, “Now that’s odd.”

What Happened Last Night?

Now that I’m re-watching so closely it occurred to me that this is the second night. On the first night did he just come back into bed as a werewolf and put the covers over himself, wake up as Oz, and not know anything happened?

I guess that’s the implication here. Because he is surprised. At any rate this reversal, as I mentioned, directly impacts Oz and it impacts Willow. But I do see it as well as a reversal for Buffy. Because now the werewolf isn’t only a human being, which already was a concern for her. It is a human being that her best friend has fallen for.

What Makes Buffy The Protagonist?

Which brings me to the question: why am I framing this from Buffy’s perspective? Why do I see her as the protagonist?

Our protagonist, ideally, should:

have a goal that she actively pursues
be the main point of view character and
have the most at stake.

Goals And Viewpoints

Here, out of Buffy, Oz, and Willow, only Buffy has a goal she actively pursues throughout the episode. Up until this point Oz hasn’t had any goal. Buffy has had the goal to find and stop the werewolf.

There is a Willow/Oz subplot. But I really see it as wrapped into this main plot. And while you could see Willow as the protagonist of that subplot, she is not actively pursuing a goal. Yes, she is unhappy that Oz is not, that the relationship is not moving forward. She doesn’t know where she stands with Oz. And this grew out of the last episode where he didn’t want to kiss her because he felt she was trying to get even with Xander. Now she is feeling like okay, he said he wanted to wait, and he said he’d give it time, but it’s too much time. Still, Willow isn’t actively pursuing that through much of the episode.

She does start to do that. So I guess I’ll take back what I said about not really being a subplot. I think it is a subplot. It’s just we’ve only got to the initial conflict stage of it. Or maybe Inciting Incident part of it. We haven’t yet gotten to where Willow is really actively doing anything.

So Buffy is the only one actively pursuing a goal for our main plot. She also is our main point of view character. We follow Buffy the most often. We do get a very small amount of Oz’s point of view. And we get more of Willow’s, and a tiny bit of Cordelia’s.

But Buffy is the one of all of them who has the most screen time and who we follow the most.

What’s At Stake

Finally, who has the most at stake is a little bit fuzzier.

Certainly, Oz has a lot at stake here. He could end up getting killed by Cain. Willow has a lot at stake. Both because emotionally because she has fallen for Oz and because the Oz can be a danger to her.

But what we saw with Buffy’s stress. Cain saying it’s on your head if anyone gets killed, and her feeling that maybe she should’ve killed the werewolf. That gives her the most at stake in the sense that she is charged with protecting everyone in Sunnydale. Not just herself, not just her boyfriend or her friend’s boyfriend.

This also threatens her philosophy and worldview as the Slayer, and I’ll talk a little bit more about that right before the Spoiler section.

The werewolf is a particular challenge. Because the werewolf is human for twenty-seven or twenty-eight days out of the month and only a werewolf for three days. It puts the werewolf in this very gray area that threatens Buffy’s mission. Or her view of her mission and herself as the Slayer.

Another Great Hook

So we have found this thing out about Oz, so of course, huge reveal, and we cut to a commercial.

One of those great hooks that Buffy uses to keep us coming back. Always a thing to think about when you’re ending your chapters.

After the commercial, we have Oz on the phone. He’s talking to his Aunt Maureen. And he says, “Is Jordy a werewolf?… And how long has that been going on?… No reason.”

Impact On Oz

Then we get the impact on him. He is walking through the halls. The sounds are a bit hollow. And actually the way that Buffy was when the bounty hunters were coming after her. So we see that in a way maybe it was only talking with his aunt that made this really sink in with Oz. Before that, he knew something was off because he woke up in a field naked but he didn’t know for sure that he was the werewolf.

He walks into the library in the midst of a conversation this is where Buffy says she can’t believe she let the wolf go, that Cain was right, and she should’ve killed it when she had the chance Oz asks if anyone got bitten or scratched and Buffy says Teresa’s dad, Oz looks stricken and Giles says there’s one more night.

And Oz says another night in his whole body sags forward. He puts his hands on the library table and his shoulders are hunched we have truly never seen Oz appear distraught before. So while this is a relatively small body language change it telegraphs so much because normally Oz is so unflappable.

Identifying The Werewolf

Xander says he can find the werewolf because of his experience with being the hyena. And he goes on this whole thing about how he knows that urge for freshly killed meat, and then now Buffy and Willow remind him that he said he didn’t remember any of that. So he kind of rushes past that and he’s looking Ronnie says, wait a second. The answer is right in front of us.

And is looking at Oz and Oz looks frightened and Xander says I’m Larry and says it’s clear. Given how Larry behaves and he is going to go talk to him.

It’s an interesting choice for the audience to know the truth here. That dramatic irony where we know something that our main characters do not. Here I think it’s it’s partly for the humor in the next scene. That we get that there is this misunderstanding going on, that Xander doesn’t.

But it is also for the intensity and the emotion we really feel Oz’s tension in a way that we could not. If we didn’t know what Oz knows because the other characters don’t really pick up other than Willow don’t really pick up, how upset Oz.

The Limits Of First-Person Point Of View

I’m kind of jealous that I can’t use dramatic irony in my current series because it is first-person and limited to my character. Quille’s point of view my previous series, the awakening series was thriller and it was multiple points of view so I could do that. Where the audience could learn something key from another character a more minor character and my main characters didn’t know it and that can be so great for ratcheting up the tension and how your audience feels.

But in first person, the audience can only know what the main character or what the main viewpoint character knows.

Willow Tries Again

Willow does notice that there is something going on with Oz because she asks if he is okay, and she attributes it to him knowing Teresa and says you know, I know you knew her, and he says is trying not to think about it. It’s a lot, and Willow says she’s can research and he could help her research and he says he’s busy. He’s gotta go.

Buffy overhears and look sad for Willow because they both take it as Oz not being as interested in Willow as she is in him. Or at least Oz just not picking up on things and not moving their relationship forward.

Larry And Xander

We then get this scene with Larry and Xander in the locker room. Xander says to Larry, “I know your secret. I know what you’re hiding.” Larry threatens Xander, but Xander says hurting him won’t make the issue go away. And Larry says what, he wants hush money?

But Xander reassures him he knows what Larry’s going through, and he just wants to help. That Larry should talk about it. And Larry says that’s fine for Xander but Larry has a reputation. “How are people going to look at me after they find out I’m gay?”

Xander now looks shocked. And Larry feels great now that he said the words. He says it again. And he’s grateful to Xander for helping him and says that knowing Xander went through what he did, went through the same thing, made it easier for him to admit it. Xander laughs very awkwardly, looks a little panicked, and says, “No, I’m not – ”

And Larry says, “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do that to you. Your secret is safe with me.”

This scene, looking at it twenty-some years later, it can be read a couple different ways. At the time, in a number of shows you would have this what some critics call the Gay Panic. Where the joke is hey, it’s okay to begin gay (think of Friends), not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the guy panics at the idea that anyone would think that he is gay.

The reason I feel like there is more to it than that, or it is not meant to be that, is Larry is saying he does not think people in Sunnydale High would be accepting. So he feels he needs to hide. It could be perhaps be a dangerous thing to admit. Sunnydale High isn’t the safest places to be.

Also, I don’t read Xander — and I could be wrong – saying being gay is scary thing or that’s it’s a bad thing. But some audience members might feel that we should just have left out this scene.

Teresa Delivers A Message

Back at the library as they are researching, Buffy suggests to Willow that maybe she needs to do something daring and make the first move with Oz. Separately, Xander tells Buffy that Larry’s not the werewolf. and she talks about how bad she feels about not being able to save Teresa.

As they talk, she realizes that the news reports did not say that Teresa was mauled, which would be consistent with the werewolf.

We cut to the funeral home. Teresa is lying in the coffin. Buffy moves a scarf on her neck And we see a vampire bite. First, Xander is saying, “Oh this is good. It’s not a werewolf.” And then he says something like, “Oh. There’s no good here” because it’s just something else Buffy couldn’t save Teresa from. Xander says she can’t blame herself for every death.

Teresa rises from coffin. She and Buffy fight. Buffy is about to stake her, and she says, “Angel sends his love.”

This catches Buffy off guard. And Teresa is able to overpower her. Proving Angel’s point that he made to Spike in Innocence – that the way to kill Buffy, you have to work from the inside. You have to love her. Get into her heart.

Teresa’s on top of Buffy, about to bite her and Xander stakes Teresa from behind.

Xander And Buffy

He helps Buffy up and hugs her and holds her. And says, “He’s not the same guy you knew, Buffy.”

She gives Xander this look that could be interpreted as romantic and walks away. And Xander says, “Oh no, my life’s not too complicated.”

That part of the scene has never quite worked for me. I really feel like this is here because maybe there were fans who still shipping Xander and Buffy. Or the network thought that this should be held out there, this maybe they’ll get together idea. To me, it doesn’t ring true. It’s one of the rare times there is a moment in Buffy, where what the characters do just doesn’t work for me.

Moving Toward The Three-Quarter Turn In Phases

We are now at 33 minutes in. We’re moving toward the Three-Quarter Turn in the plot. That’s the next major plot turn. That should grow out of that Midpoint Commitment or Reversal and spin the story in another new direction.

Before we get there, we see Cain. He’s in his truck and he’s making silver bullets. The full(ish) moon is rising. It’s the night after the full moon, but it still looks full.

Oz is at his place. He’s gotten out these rusty metal cuffs and chains from a box. Someone knocks on the door. It’s Willow. So we’re at 34 minutes in, and were getting that turn where Willow is putting herself directly in the path of the werewolf.

I see this as arising from that Reversal where Oz was turned into a werewolf. Or we learn that Oz is the werewolf. And it is a reversal for our protagonist because now it’s not just a human she has to find but someone she knows and cares about.

And we see this become the conflict here, that Willow is directly in danger.

Going back to that reversal again for a moment, the idea of Teresa being a reversal for Buffy, that she couldn’t save Teresa. Now we realize in a way that was not a reversal for this episode because Teresa wasn’t killed by the werewolf. So it doesn’t really serve as an episode reversal for Buffy. Other than it has that emotional impact when Buffy believes that’s what happened. Yet it is still a personal reversal for Buffy because Angel is the one who killed Teresa. Not just a generic vampire that Buffy never ran across but Angel. Buffy still feels she was responsible for his change, for his turn into Angelus.

So we get what I mentioned, a great Willow ramble.

On Not Letting A Character Talk

She’s angry. Oz is trying to say this isn’t a good time. But Willow goes says something like she had the whole thing worked out. She had it written down, but it didn’t make any sense when she was reading it back. So she just kind of free forms with the things Oz did that made her think he really liked her, including something I love. That he tucked her tag back into her shirt. But now he’s backing away. She goes on and says that Buffy says a girl has to make the first move.

And then she says, “And now that I’m saying this, I’m starting to think that the written version sounded pretty good but you know what I mean.”

This is a great example of a genuine misunderstanding and difficulty communicating. We’ve all seen those scenes on TV or in movies where someone comes in to tell something vital. That maybe could stop the other person from getting killed. And the other person won’t let the character talk.

Most of the time I see those and find them frustrating and artificial. Because in real life, if I had come in and tell you something like that and you were insisting on talking about something else, I would stop you. I’m a fairly soft-spoken person when I’m not arguing in court. And even I would just cut that person off. I’d probably put my hand on their chest and say Stop. Or put my hand up and say Stop, or I’d yell over that person. Whatever it took to get their attention.

And yet so often in TV and movies a character doesn’t do that. And even in books. They just let the other person keep them from speaking.

Conflict Arising From Characterization

Here, though I believe this. Because Willow is so angry and she’s going into all of this. And because we have established that Oz is still in shock. He is still processing this. So I feel like he just doesn’t have the words to tell her. I don’t think he’s ready to tell her. And she’s really angry that he’s home. So the situation has increased her anger. She says now you’re here doing nothing rather than being with me. And he says is going through some changes. She says she’s going through a lot, too. And Oz says, “Not like me.” And then she sees the chains and the handcuffs and kinda trails off, and she’s very confused.

The other thing that makes the scene work, where Oz isn’t cutting her off, is we’ve also already established that Oz is a man of few words. He doesn’t ramble. He doesn’t express emotions in a big way. So I think that goes to the idea that he doesn’t quite know how to jump in and stop this. Or he’s not quite ready to do it. But now he tells Willow get out.

The Change Puts Willow In Peril

Oz staggers behind the couch. We see him changing into the wof. Willow can’t see it until he rises up and he is the wolf.

The special-effects here, especially looking back twenty-some years, not great. Even at the time I feel like the wolf seemed a little maybe a little goofy. But I’m willing to go with it. Especially because Willow is in peril. And she sees him, screams, and runs.

She runs outside. She gets over this fence just before he catches up. Once she’s over he tries to follow. She hits him with a garbage can.

And we do a quick cut to Cain, who hears werewolf howling. So this just reminds us of this danger Willow’s in. Danger from Oz, and Oz is in danger from Cain.

Now we are at the library. Buffy comes in and tells Giles about Teresa.

Then Willow is running through the woods. She stumbles and falls. The wolf catches up with her. But then stops, sniffs the air, and follows a scent to I think it’s this piece or pile of raw meat.

Willow runs into the library and says it’s Oz, it’s Oz. We get a nice back and forth.

Giles: Are you certain?

Willow: Can’t you just trust me on this?

Then we move toward the Climax.

That whole sequence, watching it now when I know what’s going to happen, it does make me wonder about the layout of Sunnydale. Where exactly are these woods? Willow runs on the sidewalk and then she’s in the woods and then she’s in the library. I don’t know.

The Climax

So we are at the Climax, where we bring the main plot to a close and bring our opposing forces together. 37 minutes 47 seconds in Cain is aiming gun at the wolf as the wolf bends over the meat. So he left that as a way to lure the wolf.

I like this because Cain inadvertently saved Willow. And it is somewhat set up because we saw that earlier when Cain caught Buffy, he had been trying to catch the werewolf with a trap. So it fits. I feel like that makes it work where otherwise it would seem sort of too convenient that Cain does this right in time to save Willow.Bbut we have seen that he tries to trap werewolves before shooting them. And that he heard the howling. So he no doubt was also tracking the werewolf.

At the last second Buffy kicks Cain, kind of comes out of nowhere kicks Cain. And now she is fighting the werewolf, trying very hard not to get scratched.

Giles has a tranquilizer gun, but he can’t use it because they are spinning around and around. Willow ultimately ends up with the gun and shoots Oz.

He falls, and Willow says, “I shot Oz.”

Giles says, “You saved us.”

Willow’s Character Growth

So though Buffy is pivotal to all of it and to the resolution, as is Giles, Willow is the one who shoots.

I see this as key for Willow’s character. It shows that Willow is so strong in the sense that she is able to grab that gun and shoot Oz despite her feelings for him. She is not letting her emotions and her love for him blind her to the danger. And she’s making a choice to stop him. To be the one who stopped him.

Now, is it a deliberate choice? Most people are acting on instinct in these kinds of moments. But her instinct still is to protect herself. Protect her friends and others by stopping Oz.

The Falling Action

So we move to the Falling Action. That is the part of the story where we tie up the loose ends.

Cain says no wonder the town is overrun with monsters. No one’s man enough to kill them. Buffy has his rifle. And she says, “Don’t be too sure of that,” and she bends it into a loop, so it’s unusable. She hands it back to him and says something like, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Giles reassures Willow that while Oz will be a little sore tomorrow, he will be okay.

At school the next day Buffy and Xander are sitting at a table near the vending machines. Xander says it’ll be so weird. He doesn’t know how to look at him now that he knows so much about him. Buffy says he’s still a human being most of the time, and Xander says, “Who are we talking about?”

And we realize he was talking about Larry and knowing Larry’s secret.

The Danger Of Secrets

Another guy knocks a girl’s books out of her arms as we saw Larry do in the beginning. She bends over to pick them up. The guy starts make a comment. But Larry helps her retrieve her books and is really nice to her. So it seems to me that Larry’s story here encapsulates one of the themes of the show. Which is about being who you are and the danger of secrets.

We saw Larry with his secret. He was behaving in this terrible way. Either as a cover or because he couldn’t admit something about himself. He even says to Xander (when he thinks that Xander is telling him he’s gay) that, “Hey, maybe all those times I beat you up it was because I saw something in you that I didn’t want to accept in myself.”

So that is part of the message.

And with Oz, we see that in a different way in that Oz is this huge danger to Willow, to everyone, until he becomes aware of who he is and can take precautions to deal with it. So during the month when Oz is human, everything’s fine. And we’ll see in the next scene he’s going to have to lock himself up on those three nights.

Xander says to Buffy – at first as a joke and then for real – that he is worried Willow’s not safe with Oz. He starts to say, “If it were up to me –” And Buffy says, “Xander, it’s not up to you.”

Oz And Willow Move Forward

We cut to Oz and Willow. This is where we tie up what’s can happen with Oz. He says Giles told him he’ll be okay. He just has to lock himself up three nights a month.

And then Oz says, “Only he used more words than that. And a globe.”

Oz says he didn’t tell Willow because he didn’t know what to say. It’s not every day you find out your werewolf. He says maybe it’s best if he stays out of her way. But Willow says she’s kind of okay with him being in her way. They agree they will keep seeing each other. She walks away. Then she comes back and kisses him.

This is a three beat involving Willow making the first move.

Initially we got Buffy saying maybe you need to do something daring and make the first move. Then we got Willow trying to make the first move, and I guess she does make it. She shows up at Oz’s, but she can’t follow through because she finds out he’s werewolf. So that is the second time we have that Willow making the first move beat. And now we get Willow actually making that first move.

They’re both very happy.

Werewolf In Love

Oz, after she’s walked away, turns and kind of looks at the camera and says to himself, “A werewolf in love.” I don’t love this moment. It’s rare that Buffy breaks the fourth wall between the show and the audience. I’m not sure it ever does it other than this.

What’s interesting is I always forget that this is here. Every time I watch this episode, I’m surprised by it. I think in my head I edit that scene out. It ends for me when Willow kisses him and she walks away and they both look so happy.

There is no DVD commentary for this week.

But before we get to Spoilers. I wanted to share a couple things from one of the books I talked about before, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale edited by James B. South.

You’re Not Who I Thought You Were

The first is an essay I talked about before by Tracy Little. Little pointed out that Season Two, throughout it is woven this theme of You’re Not Who I Thought You Were. And we saw that already. We saw with Giles in A New Man, with Buffy realizing there is this hidden side to Giles. We just saw it with Angel turning to Angelus. With Ted, Joyce’s boyfriend. And with Buffy’s friend Ford in Lie To Me when this guy she had such a crush on comes to Sunnydale High. And it turns out he knows about her and wants to use her. Trade her life for his basically.

And we also found out last week about Jenny being from the clan that cursed Angel. So again, something hidden, something in a close romantic relationship. Often that is unknown, “you’re not who I thought you were.” Now we have this with Oz.

High School Is Hell

This also fits the show’s High School Is Hell metaphor because it’s that time in life when more and more young adults are realizing that about first their parents. So I think that’s why we see that. with Giles. That their parents are not necessarily who they thought they were or how they saw them. This can often be a source of great disappointment and even anger. Which we see Buffy go through in A New Man. I’m sorry, I could keep saying A New Man, which is a different episode down the road with Giles. So those of you who are saying that in your heads to me, yes. Not A New Man. The Dark Age.

Also, it is that age where often the first love, first sexual experience occurs. These intense emotions and hormones and attachments. And that very difficult lesson that many people learn at that stage can also happen later. But it can have so much impact there to find out that that person you have fallen for, that you feel so smitten with, is truly not who you thought. So we really see that metaphor again here with Oz. Although it plays out in a much less awful way than the Buffy/Angel experience of it.

Feminism And The Ethics Of Violence

The other essay that talks about Oz, Feminism And The Ethics Of Violence, Why Buffy Kicks Ass by Mimi Marinucci goes to the theme of this episode. And why I think that the stakes are so high for Buffy here. Because it explores who can Buffy kill. The essay makes the point that Buffy kills vampires and monsters, but not always. Only when they’re a threat. So it says that this “suggests Buffy does not use violence against vampires, demons, and monsters insofar as they are vampires, demons, and monsters. Instead, she uses violence against willing agents of evil.”

This is one of the earliest and most explicit examples of this.

We saw a little bit of it when Xander was possessed by the hyena. Here we see it in even more depth. Buffy doesn’t want to kill the werewolf even before she knows it’s Oz. Because the vast majority of the time, it is human and not a threat. And because there’s this intent and knowledge question. She didn’t kill Xander as a hyena, though he was a threat and a danger, because he hadn’t chosen to be a hyena. She didn’t think he was in control. And likewise here Giles makes the point that the werewolf might not even know that it is a werewolf. And, by inference, that it didn’t choose to be a werewolf.

This further develops Buffy as a hero. Though she briefly regrets not killing the wolf when she thinks it killed Teresa, I think even if Teresa had been killed by the werewolf, she ultimately still would’ve brought that tranquilizer gun.

Next Week

So that’s it for the main part of this episode, I do have some Spoilers to talk about. I hope you’ll stick around for those. If not thank you to all the patrons who support the show. And thank you for listening. I hope you’ll come back next Monday for Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered.

Spoilers

And we’re back for Spoiler.

Cordelia’s Feelings For Xander

The scene before the credits shows that Cordelia has stronger feelings than Xander. Or at least she is more focused on the two of them than Xander is. And I’m talking about that scene where they’re in the car and Xander keeps breaking away from her as they’re kissing. Saying things about Willow and Oz.

Cordelia’s complaints later to Willow in the Bronze emphasize that. Because now that Willow knows, Cordelia is fairly open about her feelings about Xander, though she is saying it in the context of expressing irritation with him how everything is about Buffy and Willow. And this heightens how much we feel for Cordelia in the next episode. There, though she breaks up with Xander, we realize that she really does care about him. And this episode builds up to that.

A Female Werewolf And A Possessive Xander

Very minor foreshadowing: Giles mentioning that the werewolf could be female. And in Season Four we will see a female werewolf that will be key to the whole Oz storyline.

Also, the tension with Xander saying in Oz isn’t good for Willow, and he is worried about Willow. And Buffy saying, “Xander, It’s not up to you.”

We will see this, Xander continuing to have these possessive feelings about Buffy and Willow and who they’re involved with. Particularly with Buffy.

Xander is very negative about her relationships. About Angel. The only guy he really likes is Riley, and I have to wonder if that’s because he senses that Riley is not there for the long term.

You can obviously also argue that Riley doesn’t pose any physical danger to Buffy. He’s not a vampire, he’s not a werewolf. He’s not a monster. But it is an interesting thing that that is the one guy that Xander likes to see Buffy with. And certainly this hints at the issues when Buffy and Spike become involved. How judgmental Xander is of Buffy.

Trust And Faith

And then there is the theme in the episode, the point from the essay about Buffy using violence only when she sees a vampire or demon as a threat. This will be a source of conflict between Buffy and Faith. Next season when Faith discovers Angel’s still alive, and Buffy has not told her that, Faith assumes that Angel is evil and tries to kill him.

That is the same episode where Gwendolyn Post, pretending to be a new Watcher, shows up and completely misleads Faith and manipulates her.

I see that episode has a huge turning point for Faith. Largely because of Gwendolyn Post betraying her. But also because she feels betrayed by Buffy not telling her about Angel.

And because I think at least in the beginning Faith has a more black-and-white view of everything. And in some ways that’s great. She has more joy in life than Buffy because she doesn’t see all the shades of gray and doesn’t struggle as much with the moral complexities of being the Slayer.

And this episode foreshadows that a bit. That there will be numerous issues where Buffy has to make these decisions about how much of a threat another being poses. Whether it is right for her to kill that being.

Spike And His Chip

And of course that will be a huge issue with Spike when he has that ship in his head in Season Four. It keeps him from harming humans, or at least killing humans, but doesn’t really change who he is. At least not for much of the series.

Many different times, different characters will think that Buffy should kill Spike and she will not do it.

Beast And Aggression

Finally, this episode is necessary for the episode we get later in Season Three when Angel comes back. Beauty And The Beasts. Which will further explore this relationship between the idea of male aggression and violence and the idea of a beast within. Or turning into a beast.

So there are some really interesting things in that episode I’m looking forward to talking about. But I’ll leave it to when we get there. Other than to say we will come back to these issues that this episode raises.

That is it for the Spoilers and for this episode.

If you have questions or comments about the show or the story structure elements I talked about. You can tweet me @LisaMLilly #BuffyStory. Or email me Lisa @ Lisalilly.com. Thank you again for listening. Next week we will talk about Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered, a fun episode where we find out what happens between Xander and Cordelia next. And we get to see a slightly racy side of Joyce.

About Lisa M. Lilly

In addition to hosting the podcast Buffy and the Art of Story, Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the bestselling four-book Awakening supernatural thriller series and the Q.C. Davis mysteries, as well as numerous short stories. She also writes non-fiction, including books on writing craft, under L.M. Lilly. She is the founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com.

The post Phases S2 E15 (Buffy and the Art of Story) appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

Innocence S2 E14 (Buffy and the Art of Story)

admin — Mon, 11 May 2020 22:30:40 +0000

This week on Buffy and the Art of Story: Innocence (Season 2 Episode 14 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), the conclusion of a two-part story:

This podcast episode covers (1) the most heart-breaking Midpoint Reversal in all of Buffy; (2) how setting affects a scene’s emotional impact; (3) making the audience love your characters; and (4) why sometimes it’s good to write yourself into a corner.

As always, the discussion is spoiler-free, except at the end (with plenty of warning).

Last Week: Surprise

Next Up: Phases

Work On Your Story

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You can find articles on writing craft, publishing, and time management at WritingAsASecondCareer.com.
Writing a novel? The One-Year Novelist: A Week-By-Week Guide To Writing Your Novel In One Year can help. Available in ebook or workbook form.

About Lisa M. Lilly

In addition to hosting the podcast Buffy and the Art of Story, Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the bestselling four-book Awakening supernatural thriller series and the Q.C. Davis mysteries, as well as numerous short stories. She also writes non-fiction, including books on writing craft, under L.M. Lilly. She is the founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com.

Episode Transcript for Innocence

Add INTRO

Today we’re talking about Season Two Episode Fourteen. Innocence is the second half of a two-part episode that began in Surprise, which I talked about last Monday.

What’s Included

For Innocence, we’ll talk about:

how where scene takes place affects the characters and the emotional resonance of the story;
making the audience love your characters;
why writing yourself into a corner sometimes can be a great thing; and
how this episode incorporates a heart-wrenching subplot in the midst of an epic main plot.

As always, there will be no Spoilers except at the end to talk about foreshadowing, but I’ll give you plenty of warning.

Okay, let’s dive into the Hellmouth innocence was written and directed by Joss Whedon.

There also is a scene-by-scene commentary on the DVD addition done by Whedon. And there is a very short interview with him as well.

Opening Conflict And A Hook

Because this is the second part of the two-part story, we have already covered the Opening Conflict, the Story Spark or Inciting Incident, and the One-Quarter Twist. We stopped at that Midpoint Commitment by Buffy, our protagonist, where she and Angel throw caution to the wind and make love after that harrowing experience with The Judge.

We also hinted at a major reversal for Buffy at the Midpoint. It’s where Angel is out in the alley, gasping Buffy’s name in terrible pain.

This episode, Innocence, does start with its own opening conflict. Because we don’t start right in the alley with Angel. We start in the factory with Drusilla and Spike.

Immediately we get some tension and conflict. Spike says, “I’m not happy, Pet.” He goes on to say that Angel and the Slayer are still alive. Plus they know where Spike and Drusilla are, and they know about The Judge. Spike thinks that they should vacate the factory.

Drusilla disagrees, saying, “Nonsense.” Angel and the Slayer won’t bother them at the factory or come back. She says, “My Angel is too smart.” So interesting when she is opposing Spike.

Spike also complains about The Judge, calling him Big Blue. And says all he’s doing is just sitting there not doing anything. Spike wants to know when can they go out and end some lives.

All of this dialogue gets in some quick exposition, catching the audience up on much of the plot from the last episode. It ends with a hook as Drusilla cries out and falls on the floor is if she is in pain. She says Angel’s name. But a second later she smiles.

Buffy’s Reversal – Angel Changes

We fade to Buffy. She is asleep in Angel’s bed. She opens her eyes, hears the rain falling, and sees she is alone. Thunder claps as she looks around and says, “Angel?”

Out in the alley, we are back where we ended the last episode. Angel has fallen on the pavement and says, “Buffy.”

A woman in a leather coat, who was smoking in a doorway, comes over to ask if he’s all right. He stands suddenly and says, “Y es the pain is gone now.” He turns and bites her, then lets her go and exhales smoke. He is in vamp face, and he says, “I feel just fine.:

That is 2 minutes 40 seconds in, and we go to credits.

This is that total reversal for Buffy. Angel has become evil. I also see it has a Story Spark or Inciting Incident. What gets our main plot rolling for this episode is Angel changing.

So we will see these major plot points within this episode, and we’ll see them playing out with the two-episode story arc.

And that is part of what keeps these two episodes moving so well.

The Day After

After the credits, Buffy comes into the back door at home. It’s a sunny day. Joyce comes out from another room and says, “So did you have fun last night?”

We see this momentary panic on Buffy’s face. She says, “Fun?” and Joyce says, “ At Willow’s.” Because last night Buffy, Xander, and Willow all called their parents and told them they were staying at one of the other’s houses. Buffy covers. She’s a little awkward but says yes, and Joyce asks her if something is wrong. Buffy says no. And Joyce says, “I don’t know you just look – “ and she shakes her head and leaves.

Ready To Rescue Buffy

At the library Xander enters and says he had no luck at the bus depot finding any parts of The Judge coming in. This catches us up on what our friends were doing at the end of the last episode. Jenny and Willow look somber. Giles tells Xander that Buffy and Angel never checked in the night before. This means The Judge is very likely operational.

Xander says they need to go and try to help Buffy and Angel, go to the factory. But Cordelia says, “And do what except be afraid and die?”

Xander tells her no one is asking her to go. But Giles says she may have a point. If Buffy and Angel couldn’t stand against The Judge, were hurt, the others don’t have much chance.

Willow agrees with Xander and thinks the others are being terrible. They both head toward the door, but Buffy walks in. Xander says, “We were just going to rescue you.” And Willow, with a sidelong look at the other, says, “Well, some of us were.”

Buffy tells them The Judge is assembled. She’s very upset to hear that Angel didn’t check in with the others. She tells them that she and Angel had to hide. They were stuck in the sewer tunnels, and that’s why they didn’t call.

Willow reassures her, saying she’s sure Angel will come by.

Giles asks about The Judge. Buffy says she kicked him. She barely touched him, but it burned. And Giles says eventually The Judge will be able to reduce humans to charcoal with a look.

Willow and Buffy talk. Willow is worried that Angel went after The Judge, and Buffy says no, maybe Angel just needed – and she breaks off and says she just wishes he’d contact her. She needs to talk to him. This is as they’re walking in the hall and as they head up the stairs. Jenny comes around the corner, clearly having been listening.

Missing Scene

In the commentary, Joss Whedon noted that there was another scene right here that got cut. In it, Buffy sat in class and remembered the sex with Angel from the night before. Joss said it was very surreal and arty and it got cut mainly for time. And because it really didn’t add to the narrative.

But he also commented that when he tries to actually be artistic, “I tend to confuse people,” and that it’s better when he just tells the story.

Literary v. Commercial

This reminded me of the distinction between literary fiction writing and commercial and genre fiction. It’s not really a bright line. I best heard it described as a sort of continuum. At the literary extreme it is all about the writing and the style of the writing and the beauty of it. The art of the writing itself. At the other end it is all about the plot and the story.

Not that many stories fall at one end or the other. But people do tend to like things that lean a certain way. Some people love the beauty of the writing. Some people just want the story and that is the main distinction between literary and commercial fiction (or I like to think of it, more plot-based fiction). And I found it interesting because I think Joss Whedon stories are so amazing. I love the elements of his writing the dialogue, the characterization, but all of those really go to the story more than the style. Because his dialogue is amazing, and yet it always serves the story. It is rarely there just to be good dialogue.

So I found it interesting that he said when he tried to do this very artistic scene that was all about how it was shot and doing something interesting artistically, he ended up cutting it. And feeling like it didn’t work because it didn’t move the story and it confused people.

Incorporating Villains

We switch to the factory. We’re about 7 minutes in. Drusilla is lying on her back on a table, dreamily naming all the stars though she’s inside. Spike asks if she has seen any more. What happens to Angel?

A sarcastic voice comes from behind Spike as Angel – now Angelus – walks in and answers Spike’s question. He says, “Well, he moved to New York and tried to fulfill his Broadway dream” and goes on with this story about what happens to Angel.

Joss said the idea of Spike and Drusilla as villains was to get the villains more incorporated into the real lives of the characters. Because in Season One, the Master was always a separate villain. We saw him completely separate from our usual cast of characters.

And here, Spike, Dru, and Angel, now are all going to be incorporated into our characters’ lives, as Spike and Dru already have been. He also loved the triangle idea of Spike, Dru, and Angel because it shows vampires as more complex than before.

The Judge Judges Angelus

In this scene, Spike doesn’t realize yet Angel has changed. Even though Angel makes fun of Spike rolling through the streets on his wheelchair and is so sarcastic in a way that we have never seen Angel be. Spike tells Angel to look over his shoulder. He points to The Judge. The Judge touches Angel, and nothing happens.

Spike says something like, “What are you doing? Just burn him.” And Angel says, “Gee, maybe he’s broken.”

The Judge says Angel is clean, there’s no humanity in him. And Joss said this was a way to show the audience that Angel really had gone bad. He was not faking it There wasn’t some ulterior plot of Angel to pretend to be bad. Which is also why they had Angel kills someone in that scene before the credits, the teaser. He did not want the audience to have any question.

So once The Judge has said this, we get a commercial break.

When we come back, Spike now is happy. He says to Angel, “No more of this I’ve-got-a-soul crap?” And he’s laughing and Dru is dancing, and Spike says it made him sick to see Angel as the Slayer’s lapdog.

Angel growls at Spike and lunges at him, but then he kisses him on the head. Spike says, “N ow it’s three against one, which is the kind of odds I like to play.” Angel, though, is not ready to end the world yet when they tell him of their plan with The Judge. He says give him a night. He needs to go after the Slayer first, and he guarantees she won’t be anything resembling a threat after he’s done with her.

Cordelia And Xander Subplot

Back at the library, Willow is on the phone with Buffy trying to reassure her that Angel must have a plan, that’s why he’s missing. And he’s not dead. The others are going through all of the books looking for answers about The Judge.

In the stacks, Cordelia is looking through a book. Xander asks if she’s found anything. She says no weapon forged, it takes an army to take him down – all the same things. Xander apologizes for snapping at her when she didn’t want to go after Buffy. And she says, “Well, I’m reeling from that new experience.” She also says he was all ready to rush out and die for his beloved Buffy, and he’d never die for her. He says he might die from her, does that get him any points? When she says no, he says, “Come on, can’t we just kiss and make up?”

She says she doesn’t want make up. She smiles, though, and says, “But I’m okay with the other part.”

They kiss.

In the commentary, Joss said one of his favorite things on the show is the changing relationships. And the idea of Cordelia falling for Xander was a perfect sort of romance because they are so wrong for each other. He really liked developing Cordelia, who was kind of just the mean girl in Season One, and now she is showing real vulnerability. He also said that there is nothing more painful in the world than when Alyson Hannigan does her big eyes, which happens in a second.

Cordelia and Xander are kissing and when they break apart, we see Willow standing there at the end of the row of books. Just looking stricken. Xander runs after her. Cordelia looks upset. I feel like she feels for Willow.

Willow runs out in the hall in. Xander follows her.

Willow And Xander Subplot

I love also that in the midst of this huge turmoil for Buffy and Angel, The Judge planning to end the world, we get this subplot with Willow and Xander. And I think it works so well without distracting or slowing the momentum of the main plot for a couple reasons.

One is that we love Willow so much and we feel so much for her in the circumstance. The other is, as we’ll see, it is always intertwined with the main plot. Here, Cordelia and Xander didn’t just randomly argue. He snapped at her over that they all thought Buffy and Angel might be dead or hurt and Xander wanted to go after Buffy. Despite that it probably would’ve been a foolish thing to do.

Then in the stacks they are researching to try to figure out what’s going on with The Judge. Willow is probably coming back there also to get more books and she sees them.

Out in the hall we have some fantastic dialogue.

Willow: I knew it. I knew it. Well, not knew it in the sense of having the slightest idea. But I knew there was something I didn’t know. You two were fighting way too much. It’s not natural.

Xander: I know it’s weird.

Willow: Weird? It’s against all laws of God and man. It’s Cordelia. Remember, the We Hate Cordelia Club, of which you are the Treasurer?

Xander says he was going to tell her, and she says, “What stopped you? Could it be shame?”

And Xander tells her she’s overreacting. Then we get the lines that lead to the most heartbreaking thing from Willow.

Xander: We were just kissing. It didn’t mean that much.

Willow (no longer yelling, her voice is soft and it breaks): No. Just that you’d rather be with someone you hate than be with me.

And she runs out. Xander looks after her, looking helpless. We get this beautiful plaintive music and it carries over into the next scene where Buffy is walking toward her house. She stops in front of it, then turns away and heads to Angel’s apartment.

Escalating Emotional Pain At Angel’s

This scene is another example of escalation. If you remember back when I talked about Nightmares, the scene with Buffy and her dad. Where every line just escalates this conflict and emotional pain when you didn’t think that it could get any worse. The writers just keep turning it up again and again.

Here, when Buffy enters Angel’s apartment, it seems like it’s deserted. She walks toward the bed and sees his shirt lying there. So she knows that he’s been back. It doesn’t look the way it did when she left. So she is already distraught, and he walks out behind her, shirtless.

She hears him and turns and runs and hugs him and says, “Angel, my God.”

He does hug her back, and he says he’s sorry. And he sort of sounds like himself. He says he didn’t mean to frighten her. At the same time, he is not quite himself. Because he acts like he’s surprised that she’s upset or that she was worried. This adds to Buffy’s unease. She should feel better because here Angel is. Yet he’s acting very odd. Like it’s no, no big deal, which she will say.

And she says, “You just disappeared.” He says, “What? I took off.” She meets casualness with more intensity and says, “But you didn’t say anything. You just left.”

Angel starts putting his shirt back on and says, “Like I really wanted to stick around after that.” Buffy says, “What?” We can see in her face she just can barely comprehend what he is saying. And he calls her kiddo and says she has a lot to learn about men, but he guesses she proved that last .

All of this is just as he is casually buttoning up his shirt.

Buffy looks devastated and says, “What are you saying?”

He tells her, “Let’s not make an issue of it. Let’s not talk about it at all.” And he puts his coat on.

Actions And Tone Underscore Angel’s Cruelty

All of his actions, his tone, and his words, which are so dismissive and casual – it’s like he’s putting on his clothes and he can’t even bother to stop what he’s doing and really look at her and focus on her. At the same time, it’s so very intimate. That act of getting dressed in front of her.

Buffy is trying to process this and she says, “Was it me? Was I not – good?”

I feel it just it just keeps getting more horrible because he chuckles and says oh, she was great, really. He says, “I thought you were a Pro.”

A tone we have never heard him use with her. And she says, “How can you say this to me?” He tells her lighten up, it was a good time. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.

When Buffy says it is a big deal, Angel again ratchets up the emotional pain and the awfulness. He says, “It’s what? Bells ringing, fireworks, a dulcet choir or pretty little birdies?” He giggles when he says this.

That is somehow even more unnerving, Angel giggling. And he says, “Come on, Buffy. It’s not like I’ve never been there before.” He moves his hand toward her face like he’s about to tap her nose or chuck her under the chin or something, like a little girl. She jerks away and says in this low voice that’s almost a whisper, “Don’t touch me.”

Buffy’s Grief

He kind of points his finger at her and says he should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to handle this. He heads for the door. And she says, “Angel.”

And he turns toward her with this awful grin and she says again, almost in a whisper, “I love you.” It sounds desperate. Like how can this be happening? Even though he’s just said he these terrible things she wants to bring him back to where they were last night.

Angel does worse than not responding. He says, “Love you too,” and he points his finger toward her as he says it, just making this joke of it and mocking her. He turns and opens the door opens it. Before leaving, he adds that final terrible thing. “I’ll call you.” And walks out.

We can tell from his profile – we can’t quite see his eyes rolling, tut the way his expression is we know that’s what he’s doing. And he shuts the door.

Buffy’s face — she swallows hard and starts to cry. This is so devastating. Because we know – it’s dramatic irony – that Angel has been turned. But Buffy doesn’t, and to her it is this man that she loved rejecting her. This lovemaking that mattered so much to her and that she thought was this deep connection with him doesn’t matter to him at all. We saw all that wedding imagery, the exchange of rings. And worse and not mattering, it’s a joke. He’s making fun of her.

This is about 15 minutes, 30 seconds in. This is almost a One-Quarter Twist for Buffy’s personal story in this episode. It comes from outside of her, outside the protagonist, and sends the story in a totally new direction where she has to deal with this emotional loss.

Setting Is Key

In the commentary, Joss said that initially they wrote and shot the scene with Buffy running into Angel at her house. And he said it it wasn’t working. That it was in the wrong place. You needed to see them in Angel’s bedroom. It needed to be intimate. You needed to see him with his shirt off.

Instead of the two characters in woolly coats standing outside. And he said it showed he had a lot to learn as writer and a director. When they shot it again, it worked amazingly as we see.

While when we’re writing a novel or short story we don’t have actors playing the parts, we do have the characters. So it’s a good lesson. If the scene is not working – your dialogue, your conflict – you’re not getting the emotion you want, it is worth looking at if that scene is in the right place. Have you used the setting to the greatest emotional impact?

And maybe that’s a better question. Not that there is one right place. (Although that particular scene, I think there was a right place and that was it.)

I don’t know that all scenes have that one perfect place. But to look and say is this the setting that is going to bring out the most emotion? The most of the characters feelings? That can make a huge, huge difference.

Time Allows You To Write Characters Different From You

Joss also said he felt like an ugly person writing the scene because he could make Angel say these terrible things. I think that goes to the question of how do you as a writer write things that maybe you don’t want to write. Or write a character who is mean, and you’re not mean?

Or, as an example, I had a friend who kept saying she had a genius character. And how could she write a genius when she wasn’t one. Or writing a character who is really witty and funny if you’re not the kind of person who just pops off one-liners. All of those things.

The advantage you have is you’re the writer, can you have time. So it can take you fifteen minutes to figure out that next horrible line, or that next very funny line, or something this amazing deduction the character makes. It might take you fifteen minutes to figure it out. It may take you an hour. But on the page, the character comes out with it immediately.

So it may take you longer to create a character who is not who you, or who is ramped up from what you would ever do or say. But on the page that thinking you did, that time that you took, doesn’t show. To the reader, this is just this character being who the character.

In terms of emotional resonance, Joss said he thought this scene with Buffy and Angel was the best scene that they had ever done on the show.

Solving Scene Problems – Jenny And Her Uncle

We then switch to Jenny and her uncle. And for different reasons, Joss says this is a scene that he loved because he had to solve so many problems with it.

So we have Jenny saying to her uncle that she couldn’t keep Angel from Buffy. And she argues that Angel could help them stop The Judge. That he might be the only chance. But the uncle tells her it’s too late. And he explains the curse. He says Angel was meant to suffer, not to live as human. So “one moment of true happiness, of contentment, one moment where the soul that we restored no longer plagues his thoughts, and that soul is taken from him.”

Jenny realizes that if that happened that means, Angelus is back. The uncle says yes, he hoped to stop it but he realizes now it was all arranged to be part of the plan. Jenny says that Buffy loves him. And the uncle says now she’ll have to kill him. Jenny says unless Angel kills Buffy first. That it’s insanity and people will die.

The uncle previously said that vengeance is a living thing. And now he says, “Yes. It is not justice we serve, it is vengeance.”

I love this quote. I saw this whole thing as part of the theme of the episode and a real comment on the idea of vengeance. How when we want revenge, how twisted it can become. And how vengeance and justice are not the same. I’ve always loved and admired that quote.

Writing Yourself Into A Corner – And Out Again

And it turns out that quote came from necessity.

Because Joss said he had some serious problems in terms of the Jenny storyline. He said Jenny had never really done anything. Which is true. Though she was sent there to supposedly watch Angel, she hadn’t really done anything. He said that was partly because they didn’t decide that Jenny would be part of this clan until later. So they didn’t have anything that she had done that made sense.

He also said the whole curse doesn’t make sense. It’s a terrible plan to have Angel’s soul be yanked away the moment he is truly happy.

So they had pretty much written themselves into a corner. Joss said luckily he had experience dealing with that kind of thing because he worked for a long time as a script doctor. And one thing you do is you get handed a script, and there are elements that the producers or directors love. But there are things that just aren’t working. It’s the script doctor’s job to make those work. To make elements that do not fit or things that are not built in somehow work.

He took a walk along the Santa Monica Pier and he was desperately trying to connect up all these things about the curse. Why would Angel lose his soul? It doesn’t make any sense. And he came up with that idea of vengeance as this living thing. This sort of arbitrary god.

I just love that because of those problems this wonderful commentary came out of it. This thing that really does hold it together.

And this also is a great example of what I talked about last Monday where when you do your world building sort of as you need it on the fly. Sometimes you get to this place where you don’t know what to do. But it almost I think forces a sort of creativity. It sometimes makes you come up with something really powerful.

Willow’s Back

At the school, Willow comes back. She’s walking very slowly. We see from her body language how bad she still feels.

Xander is out in the hall and he says he’s glad she came back. They can’t do it without her. And we get a great quote from Willow that really shows how mature she is and how emotionally aware. Because she’s able to say how she feels and yet be there to help. And to continue being friends with Xander.

Willow: Let’s get this straight. I don’t understand it. I don’t want to understand it. You have gross emotional problems and things are not okay between us. But what’s happening right now is more important than that.

Xander nods, and he says okay. Willow asks where they stand about The Judge.

So right here is a great example of how this Willow/Xander subplot is woven into the main plot. So the main plot doesn’t stop it in its tracks while we go to one side to deal with Willow and Xander. It is part of it.

Because Xander answers Willow and says they’re where they were when she left. No weapon forged. It took an army. And Willow says, “Yeah, where’s an army when you need one?”

And Xander gets an idea. But we don’t find out yet what it is because the lights go out.

Angelus Reveals Himself

They start to head for the library, but Angel calls their names. He’s standing near the exit in the dark so they don’t see his face.

Willow asks if he saw Buffy, and he says yeah. He sounds like himself. He says he is something to show them and tells Xander to go get the others. Willow walks slowly toward Angel, asking what it is. And he says, “It’s amazing.”

Something in his tone makes Xander turn around. Jenny comes out of the library with a cross and tells Willow to get away from Angel and walk to her. But it’s too late. Angel grabs Willow from behind. Jenny says he’s not Angel anymore. Angel says, “Wrong. I am Angel, at last.”

And he says he has a message for Buffy. From behind him Buffy says he should give it to her himself. He spins around, still gripping Willow by the throat, and says it’s not the kind of message he can say. It involves her finding the dead bodies of all her friends. Buffy tries to say that some part of him must remember who he is. He says, “Dream on, schoolgirl. Your boyfriend’s dead.”

As Angel’s talking to Buffy, Xander takes the cross from Jenny and creeps up behind Angel. Buffy is telling them to leave Willow alone and deal with her, and Xander thrust the cross at Angel, surprising him. Angel reflexively jerks away and throws Willow to the side. Then he grabs Buffy by the shoulders and says, “Things are about to get very interesting.” He kisses her, flings her against the wall, and stalks out.

This is nearly the episode Midpoint, and it seems like a major reversal for Buffy. But it gets worse. So I think that Midpoint is still coming. We are also coming up to the three-quarter plot turn for the entire story arc. But first, we cut to a commercial.

Thank You

First, I want to say thank you to patrons. I so appreciate your support. If you would like to join them, you can find a link in the show notes and you’ll get access to the breakdown of Jessica Jones, the pilot episode.

Also, if you would find it helpful to have a little more guidance with how to apply these plot points specifically, when writing a novel, you may want to check Out The One-Year Novelist, A Quick Guide To Plotting And Writing Your Novel In One Year. And I should say in one year or less. It’s very adaptable. If you have already done your plot, you can skip right to the writing part. If you have more time to write, you can accelerate the process. Or if your life is not predictable so that you can’t write the same amount every day or every week, you can adapt the schedule that way as well.

It is meant to be very flexible because I have written novels during both times in my life. Times when I had a 9-to-5 job and times and I had a job where there was never an hour that I could truly be sure that I would not be working.

Giles Leans Toward Panic

And we’re back in the library. Giles is leaning towards blind panic. It was enough with The Judge, he wasn’t prepared for Angel crossing over. Willow asks if Buffy’s okay. Buffy shakes her head and says she should’ve known. She says, “I saw him at the house and he was different.”

Interesting that she says “at the house.” So it seems like this scene must’ve been filmed before they realized it should be in Angel’s apartment.

Buffy goes on to say she should have known because of the things he said. Giles says, “What things” And Buffy says, “It’s private.

And the next moment, we get what I see as the Three-Quarter Turn of the double episode arc.

The Three-Quarter Turn In Surprise/Innocence

It’s about 22 minutes in. So it’s right about three quarters through this whole story.

Giles is pushing Buffy to tell them what Angel said and what happened. And he says if only they knew what set it off, Angel’s change. And Buffy says, “What you mean?” Giles says some event must have set it off “if anyone would know, Buffy, it should be you. Did anything happen last night?”

This that turn, that major reversal for Buffy. So it’s the episode Midpoint for her because she realizes that their lovemaking somehow caused this. She couldn’t be more devastated.

We would’ve thought nothing could get worse for Buffy. First, she thinks Angel is not who she thought and he’s rejecting her. And it’s terrible emotionally. Then she finds out, well, he really is not who she thought. And because he’s become Angelus, she has not only lost Angel, but there is Angelus, this evil being. And now it is so much worse because she feels personally responsible. That she is the one who did this.

As Giles pushes her, she says, “Giles, please, I can’t” and leaves. He calls after her, saying something like, “We can afford to be emotional at this time.”

Willow says, “Giles, shut up.” And we see that Willow has put together what happened.

Joss Whedon On Willow And On Planning Scenes

In the commentary, Joss said a couple things. One is that he loves Willow’s bond with Buffy. That it is kind of transcendent. And I agree.

He also commented on strategy. Saying that when they have scenes in the library, it’s almost always information is coming out, exposition, and there are a number of people there. He said he goes there and walks through it. Figures out exactly where everyone will be. I think that is a great idea.

I don’t have sets to go to. But sometimes when I am struggling with the scene, I’ve drawn on a piece of paper either the room or the neighborhood. I am not an artist by any means. I would not share those drawings. They are really bad line drawings. But I have done that to help me get that sense of who is there and what are they doing.

Likewise, I have gone to some of the places and just sat there and looked around. Or taken a video of them and figured out, okay, yes, this is the bench. This is how far it is from the Picasso sculpture. This is what my character would really see and observe and hear and so forth. So that can be really valuable.

Xander’s Plan

Cordelia says how terrible things are. She lists all the awful things, including not just The Judge being operational but Angel turning and the Slayer being a basket case. And she ends with, “I’d say we’ve hit bottom.” And then some great quotes. Xander says, “I have a plan.” And Cordelia says, “Oh no, here’s a lower place.”

Xander explains that he is figured out a way to deal with The Judge, and he needs Cordelia’s help.

Back to the factory warehouse. Angel is going on about the look on Buffy’s face being priceless. When Spike says, “So you didn’t kill her,” he says of course not. Another great quote:

Spike: I know you haven’t been in the game for a while, mate, but we do still kill people. It’s sort of our raison d’être you know.

Drusilla says no, Angel doesn’t want to kill Buffy. He wants to hurt her, “just like you hurt me.” She says it with a little laugh. And Angel says, “No one knows me like you do, Dru.”

Angel tells Spike he doesn’t get it. Spike tried to kill Buffy and look at him. Angel laughs at Spike in wheelchair and says that force won’t do it. “To kill this girl you have to love her.”

Buffy Learns Through Her Dream

Back at home, Buffy is in her bedroom. She’s looking at the cross on the necklace that Angel gave her, and the ring he gave her. She sobs and curls up on her bed. We drift into dream. Buffy and Angel in bed. We see the rings on their hands.

It is almost that artistic type of approach to a flashback of their lovemaking that Joss was talking about earlier. Although it is clear what’s happening. Angel whispers, “I love you,” and it’s very sweet. We see him touching her face. It emphasizes for me the horribleness of how Angel treats her the next day.

Then Buffy in the dream is at a grave. Angel is there in the sun. He looks at her and says, “You have to know what to see.” Buffy turns and sees Jenny all dressed in black, pulling a veil down over her face.

So this is an example of dream moving the story forward. It also fills in that scene that we missed with Buffy and Angel when they are finally making love. In a very television, PG sort of way. But we get that emotional moment that we missed and saw only the aftermath of. This also moves the story because we see Buffy making this connection between Jenny and what happened.

Buffy Confronts Jenny

The next scene, the music changes. It becomes very intense with a driving beat. Buffy walks into school, straight into Jenny’s classroom. Giles is there are talking to Jenny. Buffy ignores him, grabs Jenny by the throat, and pins her on the desk. She then immediately let’s go but says, “What do you know?” Giles sends the students away, saying he’ll deal with it.

And Buffy is saying, “Did you do it? Did you change him?” And, “Did you know this was going to happen?”

Giles yells at Buffy, says she can’t go around accusing everybody. But Jenny says, “I didn’t know exactly. I was told – “ And Giles is just shocked. Jenny tells him she’s sorry, but that Angel was supposed to pay for what he did to her people. She tells Buffy she didn’t know what would happen until after, she swears she would’ve told Buffy.

And Buffy says, “So what was me. I did it.” Jenny says, “I think so,” and she explains about the moment of true happiness.

Giles says, “I don’t understand. How do you know you were responsible – ” And Buffy just looks at him. He looks back and takes off his glasses and says, “Oh.”

Cursing Angel Again?

Buffy tells Jenny to curse him again. Jenny says she can’t. The magics are long lost. But if she can’t help, Buffy wants Jenny to take her to someone who can.

We cut to the uncle. He hears the door open behind him and says, “I knew she would bring you. I suppose you want answers.”

But it’s Angel. He says, “Not really.”

Joss said that he had this long scene planned where Angel tortured the uncle and kind of monologued. Then he cut it because he realized even before they shot it that as soon as Angel spoke it’s over. We all know what will happen.

Subplot: Oz Doesn’t Kiss Willow

We cut to rainy night outside a military base. Willow and Oz wait in his van. (In a previous scene, Xander said they needed transportation something, bigger than a car. And Willow said, “No problem, Oz has a van.”)

She and Oz wait while Cordelia and Xander sneak in through fence to the base. When they’re caught, Xander pretends he’s a soldier on leave bringing his girl in to impress her. He uses what he remembers from when he was a soldier on Halloween to fool the guard into thinking he really belongs there. They get into the armory to steal something, but we don’t know what.

While Oz and Willow are waiting there talking and Willow suddenly says, “Do you want to make out with me? Oz says, “What?” and she says forget it, she’s sorry.

But then she says, “Well, do you?” Oz tells her that sometimes in class he’s thinking – and he says I’m not thinking about class because that would never happen — but he thinks about kissing Willow. He says it’s like freeze-frame. And he makes it sound so amazing. She kind of looks at him expectantly and he says no, he’s not going to kiss her.

Willow doesn’t understand why. And we get a wonderful line from Oz.

Oz: Well, to the casual observer, it would appear that you’re trying to make your friend Xander jealous, or even the score or something. And that’s on the empty side. See in my fantasy, when I’m kissing you, you’re kissing me. It’s okay. I can wait.

Making The Audience Love Oz

Joss Whedon said that Oz was based on someone he knew who was very laid-back and cool and just wanted a character that was so cool that he sees how cool Willow is even when she was hidden in that big Eskimo outfit and Inca mummy girl, but the audience was not loving Oz. He said they were very vocal about it. They wanted Willow with Xander because Willow is so into Xander. And he wrote this scene that makes Willow love Oz. He said Willow really falls for Oz and that moment when explains why he isn’t going to kiss her and says he can wait and we see that in Willow’s face and because Willow falls for Oz the audience falls for Oz.

Three-Quarters Through Innocence

We now switch to the uncle’s. Buffy, Jenny, and Giles did in fact go there. Jenny runs to the body. On the wall in blood is written, “Was it good for you too?”

Giles tells Buffy Angel is doing it deliberately to make it harder for her. And she says he’s only making it easier, she knows what she has to do. Kill him.

This is about 34 minutes in, and so note that is really close to three quarters through this episode. Normally our Three-Quarter Turn grows out of the protagonist’s actions at the Midpoint and turns the story in yet another new direction. Or it can grow out of a reversal and turn the story again. And so here, this grows out of the reversal that Buffy suffered and all of her decisions. And it spins the story because now she knows she has to kill Angel.

We cut to commercial.

The Judge Is Read

When we get back, we’re in the factory. The Judge is saying that he’s ready. Angel, with more sarcasm, says to Spike, “Too bad you can’t come with. I’ll be thinking of you.” Spike gives him this look and say. “I won’t be in this chair forever.” And this is great, not just foreshadowing, but it’s already developing this triangle. This tension between Spike and Angel.

We see Xander putting a large rectangular box on a table in Giles’ office. He says, “Happy Birthday, Buffy” and hopes she likes the color. We still don’t see what’s inside. It looks a bit like the box The Judge’s arm came in at Buffy’s party, though it’s newer and it’s more of a regular shape. But it’s a nice echo back to that. Because that was Dru’s birthday present and now this is Buffy’s.

Jenny comes in and she wants to help. Buffy says, “Get out.” Jenny says something to Giles and he says, “She said get out,” and turns his back on her. It is so sad but I love Giles in this moment because he puts Buffy first.

They go to the factory and don’t find anyone there. Spike is hiding and listening to them. They talk about where might The Judge be, that he needs bodies and the Bronze is closed. So they figure out the most people will likely be at the mall. Which would have probably been true back then.

We switch to the mall. There are people in line at a concession stand. It’s sort of an open area almost like a food court.

Angel, Dru, The Judge, and other vamps enter. They’re up at the top of the stairs, on a somewhat higher level than that food court area. The Judge burns man. It’s almost like a lightning bolt comes out of his fingers crackling of electricity. And this man just a few feet away burns up.

The Climax Of Surprise And Innocence

We are now at the climax of our two-episode story arc. It’s 36 minutes 50 seconds in. Buffy enters with her friends. Giles is carrying the box on his shoulder.

We switch to The Judge, Angel on one side, Dru on the other. Angel is smiling. The Judge is shooting these bolts of electricity that are zigzagging through the crowd. Just as we close up on Angel smiling, an arrow hits The Judge’s chest. The people are okay, and The Judge says, “Who dares?”

We Pan to Buffy. She is standing on the counter holding a crossbow and says, “I think I got his attention.” The Judge tells her she’s a fool. “No weapon forged can stop me.”

And Buffy says that was then. She hands down her crossbow. Someone else hands her the rocket launcher. She puts it on her shoulder and says, “This is now.”

As it powers up, people in the crowd are running. Drusilla and Angel look at each other and dive off that upper-level to get out of the way. It’s all in slow motion. The Judge says, “What’s that do?”

Buffy fires. As it hits The Judge Angel and Dru hit the floor. Dru squeals and runs as pieces of The Judge rain down everywhere. Angel, looking exasperated, runs the other way.

I love all of this because it so fits Buffy, who is not constrained by the old rules. So she gets this rocket launcher that didn’t exist when The Judge was previously dismembered. and I love that it’s such an ensemble effort. Everybody together researched and Xander had this idea of Cordelia helping and going get it And Oz and Willow brought it back. Everybody took part in this.

It wasn’t just the one girl in all the world.

Falling Action In Surprise And Innocence

Now we are at Falling Action for this main part of the plot with The Judge. We have to tie up the loose ends from our story. Falling is a little bit literal here, because Angel and Drusilla do fall with the blast.

Buffy says this was her best present ever. But she says they can’t be sure he’s dead and tells the others to pick up the pieces and keep them separate. And Cordelia says, “Pieces. We get the pieces. Our job sucks.” But she goes off to do it.

Now we have to deal with Angel.

Part Of The Climax?

So in a way this is part of the Climax. Though we started that Falling Action of tying up loose ends, this is the Climax of the Buffy and Angel part of the story. Buffy sees him leaving. He glances back, sees her, and ducks into a side hallway. She follows him toward the back in where the movie theater is. There’s no one else around.

And Angel is again saying horrible things to her. He tells her the worst part was pretending to love her and says, “If I knew how easily you’d give it up, I wouldn’t have even bothered.” But she says it doesn’t work anymore. He’s not Angel. And he says she’d like to think that but it doesn’t matter. The important thing is she made him the man he is today. They start fighting.

We switch to our friends out in the food court. Oz is pointing to the ground and says arm.

It’s funny, and in the commentary, Joss said that juxtaposing these types of scenes is the most important thing.

Angel and Buffy, as they fight, he continues to say these kinds of intimate, awful things to her that could’ve fit with what she originally thought was happening. That Angel just did not love her and was mocking her. Although now she knows it’s Angelus, it still makes it so much more than just a physical fight.

She throws him into a glass case, kicks him against the wall. He’s sort of cowering. Buffy pulls out a stake and then looks at his face. And even though he has that horrible like mocking grin still on his face, she can’t do it. She starts lowering the stake and he says, “You can’t do it. You can’t kill me.”

She kicks him really hard in the crotch. He groans and falls to his knees. She walks away and says, “Give me time.”

This is the climax of the Buffy and Angel plot. And now we get the Falling Action from that.

More Falling Action

Giles drives Buffy home. He pulls up in front of her house and tells her it’s not over. Angel will come after her particularly. Buffy is staring straight ahead through the windshield. And she says, “You must be so disappointed in me. Giles looks at her and says no.

And she finally looks at him and he says he’s not. Buffy says it’s all her fault and he tells her he doesn’t believe it is. And says, “Do you want me to wag my finger at you and tell you you acted rashly? You did and I can.” But he he knows she loved Angel, and Angel proved more than once he loved her. She couldn’t have known what would happen. And then he says:

Giles: The coming months are going to be hard. I suspect on all of us. But if it’s guilt you’re looking form Buffy. I’m not your man. All you will get from me is my support and my respect.

And her face just crumples.

Buffy Got Older

The scene cuts. We see an old black and white movie where a couple is dancing. The woman is singing “goodnight, my love” and something about their moment together now is ending. (I looked this up. The movie is called stowaway. It’s from the 1930s.)

Joyce brings out cupcakes and asks what Buffy did for her birthday. And Buffy says, “I got older.”

Joyce looks a little concerned, but says, “You look the same to me.” She lights candle on one of the cupcakes and tells Buffy her to make a wish.

Buffy looks at the candle and says, “I’ll just let it burn.”

I thought the previous line, “I got older” was one of the most heartbreaking I’d ever heard. And then when she says “I’ll just let it burn” it’s so much sadder. Joyce strokes Buffy’s hair and Buffy leans into her mom.

The song finishes and that is the end of the episode.

The Meaning Of Innocence

Joss commented that part of the meaning of Innocence in the title is that Buffy is in a sense innocent. She hasn’t lost anything of herself even though she’s gone through this painful maturing process. And he said that’s why Joyce says she doesn’t look different. He wanted to show that Buffy is still the same good person that she was before.

Before we get to Spoilers, a few more things from the DVD commentary that deal with the issue of what are we saying about sex in Buffy. Which I talked about a bit starting in Ted. Here when Joss addresses that, he talks first about how he created the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer to deal with that blonde girl trope of her always being the victim. Also that it always seemed like the girl had sex and got punished for it by being killed.

Sex In Buffy The Vampire Slayer

But in the series, they had to make Buffy younger, so that she could be in high school longer. So they made her a sophomore, and he felt like they had to deal with sex. That first time having sex. This storyline is the horror version of “I slept with my boyfriend and now he doesn’t call me.” Plus, he is killing people.

And he said he really struggled with that because he didn’t want to kill the girl who has sex. And yet the show does in a way punish her. But he said the thing is, in horror, eventually you end up punishing characters for everything they do. The distinction he tried to make from the trope is that the consequence to Buffy here, the punishment is emotional, and she grows from it. She learned from it. And she doesn’t get ax- murdered because she had sex.

The Most Important Buffy Episode

He also said that this episode was the most important one that they did in Buffy on two different levels.

For the network it was key because they just moved Buffy to a new night and time. One that was a better night for any show. And the network was worried not enough audience would respond or come to the show to justify that. But Surprise and Innocence did.

And to the writers, he said it was most important because of the emotional resonance. And it showed how much the show had evolved. That it was a much harder-edged story than they had ever done.

Sam And Diane

He also commented on Angel changing – that was to avoid the Sam and Diane issue from the show Cheers. Where once the couple finally gets together, they become boring. So he said he came up with the idea of Angel turning evil almost the instant that they get together.

Finally, he talked about Surprise and Innocence being the mission statement of the show. It is at once mythic – it’s the Hero’s Journey, Buffy losing Angel and having to fight him. And it is the personal story. I slept with someone and he doesn’t call me anymore.

I hope you will stay around for Spoilers. If you aren’t sticking around thank you so much for listening. I hope you’ll come back next Monday for Phases, which focuses on Willow and Oz.

Spoilers

And we are back for Spoilers.

The End Of The World

I said last time in the Spoilers for Surprise that Spike doesn’t want in the world. He likes the world. And I mentioned that by the time we get to end of Season Two, that’s where he says he likes the world. He doesn’t want the world to end.

In this episode., it’s interesting because he does seem kind of gung ho about the end of the world. And irritated that Angel is delaying it. I read this as not necessarily that Spike wants to wipe out the whole world. But I think he would not mind wiping out quite a bit of humanity, including a lot of Sunnydale. Because in the beginning of this episode he is so despondent and he feels like Sunnydale is just curse for them.

So what I think that is the source of his saying “come on, let’s start the end of the world.”

The Moment Of True Happiness

Angel’s curse. So this idea of one moment of true happiness. Throughout Buffy, this will be interpreted as sex. Mostly specifically sex with Buffy.

In Season Three when Angel comes back, this is what worries everybody. That Buffy and Angel will have sex again and Angel will lose his soul again.

And in Angel the show for a long time the curse is interpreted by almost all the characters (I actually think all of them) as Angel having sex with anybody. But we do get an episode – I don’t want to say too much because I don’t know if all of you have seen all of Angel – but we do get an episode where that is finally clarified that it isn’t just sex. It is true happiness. Great love, true happiness. All of that together.

In Buffy, it is a fantastic development because this will forever stand in Buffy’s and Angel’s way. They will struggle to deal with this, that there is always this fear.

Buffy And Angel At The End

And I’m really going to jump ahead to Season Seven. When we’re nearing the finale, I have always been confused by Angel coming back. Not that he comes back. But that conversation they have where he seems to be saying, oh, maybe Buffy will eventually choose to be with him. I don’t get that idea because I think that was already settled. Even in Angel it’s referred to once or twice. Why they can’t be together.

So I find it very odd because there’s no solution for them that we have seen in either show. We’ll see when I get there. It could be that that it is justified in a way that I’m just not grasping as I’m remembering it.

Buffy’s Abandonment Fears

The emotional fall out of all of this episode for Buffy really resonates and informs her other relationships. In Nightmares, when I was talking about the Spoilers, I said that I didn’t find Buffy’s abandonment fears all that believable when we get to Season Four’s Fear Itself. And I mentioned how I really dislike the Parker Abrams story arc. Where Buffy falls for Parker and sleeps with him and then pines over him for what seems like forever. I never quite bought it.

Now that I am doing this podcast and looking so closely, I realize that maybe I was being too literal with that with Parker. Because that’s the next time she sleeps with anybody. He is such a jerk. And it plays out in a very mundane way. He’s sleeps with her, and then just doesn’t call her again. And I realize now that maybe the reason Buffy has so much trouble getting over him is that isn’t about Parker.

It’s about Angel. And in fact, Spike taunts her with that comparison between Parker and Angel in the episode where he gets the ring that makes him invincible.

The Audience And Oz

Finally, I found it really interesting that Joss talked about how the audience was not wanting Willow to be with Oz. And he wrote that scene where Willow really falls for Oz, and so the audience then loves him too. He must’ve thought he needed to do that because otherwise Phases, where we find out (and Oz finds out) that he is a werewolf wouldn’t have the emotional impact it does.

So on that note, thank you again for listening. I hope you will join me next Monday for Phases.

The post Innocence S2 E14 (Buffy and the Art of Story) appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

Prophecy Girl S1 E12

admin — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 22:30:00 +0000

This week on Buffy and the Art of Story: Prophecy Girl (Season 1, Episode 12 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

This pivotal story for Buffy begins in Xander’s point of view. We’ll explore that as well as (1) creating multiple characters the audience identifies with; (2) using actions to demonstrate characters’ feelings; (3) a very layered Story Spark/Inciting Incident; and (4) a strong midpoint and three-quarter plot turn.

As always, the discussion is spoiler-free, except at the end (with plenty of warning).

Sorry, no Season 1 DVD commentary for Prophecy Girl.

Next Up: Season 1 Overview

Last Week: Out of Mind Out of Sight S1 E11

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About

In addition to hosting the podcast Buffy and the Art of Story, Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the bestselling four-book Awakening supernatural thriller series and the Q.C. Davis mysteries, as well as numerous short stories. She also writes non-fiction, including books on writing craft, under L.M. Lilly. She is the founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com.

Episode Transcript for Prophecy Girl

Hello and welcome to Buffy and the art of story.

If you love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and you love creating stories, or just taking them apart to see how they work, you’re in the right place.

I am Lisa M Lilly author of the Awakening Supernatural Thriller Series and the Q.C. Davis mysteries and founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com. Today we’re talking about Season 1 Episode 12 Prophecy Girl. It is the finale for Season 1.

This is a huge story for Buffy.

Interestingly, it’s wrapped in Xander’s experience, so we’ll explore that as well as:

the different characters we identify with emotionally
how the writers and actors use action to express the characters’ feelings and emphasize them
a very layered Story Spark
and a strong Midpoint and three-quarter turn.

As always, there will be no spoilers except at the end to talk about foreshadowing. But I’ll give you plenty of warning.

Okay, let’s dive into the Hellmouth.

Opening Internal Conflict

Prophecy Girl was written and directed by Joss Whedon.

We began in the Bronze, a classic Buffy location. And we start with conflict — Xander’s conflict.

It is mainly internal. He is struggling over whether to, or how to, ask Buffy out. Specifically, for the Spring Fling, which is what they call the prom. He’s practicing his lines on Willow, as she looks on adoringly.

What I love about Willow in this scene is that she is such a good friend to Xander. Though her feelings are so clear on her face, and we know she has this crush on him, she really does her best to encourage him about what to say. But mostly to be a sounding board for him.

Xander wonders what Buffy is doing right now.

Opening External Conflict

And we cut to Buffy. She’s fighting a vampire outside in what looks like a field. There are people parking there, including Cordelia who hears noises. Buffy eventually defeats the vampire. When it’s over, she says, “Three in one night. Giles would be so proud.”

She sounds so weary, and we cut to Giles.

He’s in the library, and he’s translating Latin. And he says to himself as he’s parsing through the words, “The Master shall rise…this is it…and the Slayer… My God.”

Everything starts to shake. Giles’ teacup falls to the floor and shatters. We see the earthquake shaking the Bronze, toppling over bookcases in the library.

And the Master in his lair feels it and says, “Yes, yes,” and holds his hands up in a very dramatic way. Then the shaking stops and we get some humor. Because he says, “What you think? 5.1?”

What Is The Inciting Incident?

All of this is part of our Inciting Incident or Story Spark. I had to think about what the Spark was here because on the surface, our story is about this prophecy that Buffy will face the Master and she will die. Everyone is certain it is going to come true even as they tried to struggle against it.

But If the prophecy foretells the future, and is going to come true regardless, which it does, then there almost is no Story Spark. Because that story was already in motion. But we will see the Master later will say that Buffy set this in motion. So will get to that.

For that reason, I see the Spark as when Giles translates that part of the prophecy about the Anointed One, and Buffy will face the Master and die.

Is Giles Drinking Coffee?

Before we move on quick note about Giles’ teacup. I think he was drinking coffee and there it looked a lot like coffee. And we will find out throughout the series, hopefully this is too minor spoiler for anyone to care, that Giles is quite the tea drinker.

I can only think of one other time when he drinks coffee. So I think it’s coffee and it shows how he’s staying up all night and he’s struggling with this. And he is so distressed.

The Tension Escalates

After the credits, Buffy comes to the library to tell Giles about the vampire fighting and her close call. And he is so disheveled and distracted. He doesn’t really listen to her, which is so rare. She says, “Giles, care,” and jokes about breaking a nail.

In the next scene we are outside the school, and we get Xander’s conflict again.

He gets Buffy alone, and he asks her to the dance and says he wants to date her. She says she doesn’t know what to say. He says, well that’s a good start, or you’re not laughing, that’s a good start.

But she doesn’t feel the same way is he does, and he takes it very badly. He says something like: “I guess a guy’s gotta be undead to make time with you.”

Buffy tells him that’s harsh. He kind of apologizes but says, “Well I don’t handle rejection well, which is funny because I’ve had so much practice.”

Buffy looks very sad when he leaves. And remember, last week she was feeling very isolated in the school, and even from Willow and Xander. Giles wasn’t really listening to her this morning. And you get the feeling all she’s been doing outside of school is slaying vampires.

So she’s feeling very alone. And now Xander, one of her two friends, is angry at her.

A Side Character’s Point of View

Having Xander’s perspective so strong in this episode shows one of the strengths of the show. As I’ve mentioned before, we have different characters, different people that we all can identify with for different reasons. In Xander you get, I won’t say every man because I’m not saying every guy or every person is like Xander, but he is the one who has no special powers here.

Yes, Willow is an ordinary girl, but it is clear she’s supersmart. She’s really good at research.

Xander is really struggling kind of with everything. So he is that person who is easy to feel for. Yes, he reacts badly, we’d like to see him handle it better. But he’s very, very flawed and he is one entry point in this series.

Bringing Out The Characters’ Emotions

In this episode we get so much emotion from each of the characters. We have Willow and her feelings about Xander, and later her feelings about what’s happening in the world. We have Giles and his fears about losing Buffy.

We don’t get Angel’s emotions quite as much, but you get his anger over this prophecy and his devastation about losing Buffy. And of course we have Buffy herself, who was struggling both emotionally and with first the slaying and of course the prophecy.

This is the best type of story to me. Because it while it includes action, it is about the human story and the feelings of Buffy.

Anxious Giles

We are back in the library. Giles is on the phone any saying, “I need to see you. I understand, come after sundown.” We realize he’s talking to Angel. Which tells us – we don’t yet know what that prophecy says – it tells us how important it is.

I just don’t picture Angel even having a phone. The idea that Giles would call him when normally he just sort of turns up tells us how serious this is.

Plus, Giles’ appearance. Because Jenny comes in and she overhears him. And she comments on him wearing the same clothes as the day before.

She knows something is going on. People have been sending her reports of things like a cat giving birth to a litter of snakes, and some messages from a monk about the Anointed One.

This further rattles Giles because he and Buffy both believe that she killed the Anointed One. When we find out the full prophecy, we’ll understand why he is so spooked. Because the idea that the Anointed One was gone probably was giving him some small amount of hope that this prophecy would not come true.

Jenny Offers To Help

Jenny wants to help. And we get another nice moment — we saw so much of this in the pilot – where we get some quick exposition, but it is through genuine conflict. So it works on both levels.

Here we have Jenny offering to help. Giles says I don’t know if I can trust you. And she says something like, “I helped you cast that demon out of the Internet. I think that warrants some trust.”

So for those who haven’t caught an episode with Jenny in it, we get a very fast sense of who she is.

She’s gotten all these reports about things. We know it’s something about that she is involved with magic, and that she cast out a demon. So there is reason Giles should trust her, but we also know that he doesn’t.

Building to the First Major Plot Turn

We next see Cordelia with her new boyfriend. They’re being very cute and happy and she’s kind of unCordelia-like, she’s seems so relaxed.

And she asks Willow to help her at the Bronze to get ready for the dance, something with the sound system.

Willow says yes. But she’s distracted. She sees Xander in an empty classroom throwing a ball against the wall, very unhappy. He tells her what happened with Buffy. He is so upset.

And then he says, “Hey, I know, we will go to the dance together.”

I love Willow here. She is so strong. And she says, “No. Do you think I want to go to the dance and watch you wishing you were with her? You should know better.” And she’s very quiet about it and very firm. She takes care of herself and she points out what he is done in taking her for granted.

This works on two levels. It works if we think that Xander does recognize Willow’s feelings for him. It also works if he doesn’t. Because she has been being this great supportive friend, and he does take her for granted. It’s like an afterthought: okay, we’ll go together.

They have always done so many things together. Even if she didn’t have feelings for him, it’s just sort of “Oh, you can help make me feel better.” Going to the dance without him thinking about her at all.

The One Quarter Plot Turn

We are now just over 14 minutes in. So sometimes we would see the One Quarter Turn in the episode coming earlier. In a book or movie, it almost always happens right at the one-quarter point through the story. Some some books will put it about 1/3 of the way through.

In TV, it varies. I suspect because in network TV we have the commercial break issue. But regardless of where it is, what matters is that it turns the story in a new direction. And it is something outside the protagonist.

Here we have exactly that because Buffy overhears this conversation between Giles and Angel. If she hadn’t overheard, it’s possible Giles wouldn’t have told her of the prophecy. At the very least, it would likely have played out differently because he might’ve found some other way to tell her. As it is, she hears this conversation, which is another great example of getting information to the reader through conflict.

A Dramatic Reveal Though Conflict

And it makes the reveal of exactly what this prophecy says so dramatic. Giles is saying it’s clear what will happen. Angel is arguing with him. Giles says he’s read the text, The Codex.

And Angel says you’re reading it wrong.

This pushback from Angel — and his refusal to believe the prophecy — forces Giles to speak angrily and so strongly, in a way that perhaps he would not have done even to Angel. That he might not of wanted to say aloud this way to himself.

But he says, “I wish to God I were. But it’s very plain. Buffy will face the Master and she will die.” This telling of what the prophecy says, and that Buffy is going to die, is so much stronger than if Giles had said that while reading it to himself and maybe thrown down his glasses or knocked over his cup.

It’s also stronger than if we saw the actual text of the prophecy on the screen. Or that if he simply read it out of a book to Angel or to Buffy.

It is such a strong statement, and this adds to the effect on Buffy.

Buffy Reacts

She is reacting both to the prophecy that she’ll die, but also Giles’ certainty. He seems so strong and so certain.

Buffy gives this shaky laugh that pulls in so much emotion. So desolate, and so on the edge. Sarah Michelle Geller does an amazing performance here.

Her lines are another example of that escalation that was in Nightmares where each line is that much more heartbreaking than the last.

She says she knows the drill, when one Slayer dies the next one is called. And she asks will Giles train her will, or they send someone new. Does it say how the Master will kill her? “Do you think it will hurt?”

Showing Characters’ Emotions Through Actions

We also see through her actions how she feels. And this is key in any story.

If you are writing a novel, this is a good thing to either do in your first draft or go through on rewrite. I often look at when rewriting what action would the character take here? It’s particularly key in visual mediums like movies, television shows, and plays because we can’t be inside the character’s head, and we can’t feel the character’s sensations.

Here, Angel moves toward her to comfort her. And she yells at him, “Don’t touch me” and jerks away. She keeps the physical distance from him. And in a few moments she’ll say, “What do you know about it, you’re never gonna die.”

She says she’ll quit. Giles tries to say it might not be that easy and says something about the signs. She throws books at him and says, “Signs. Read me the signs. Tell me my fortune.”

This is the quote I mentioned in the pilot episode (in the spoilers) where we had an earlier scene between Buffy and Giles very much like this. And this is escalated to the nth degree because she’s going to die. She says, “I’m 16. I don’t want to die.” She also tells Giles he so useful with his books and he’s really a lot of help.

He looks so devastated and says he supposes he’s not.

When she says she doesn’t want to die, she throws the cross Angel gave her onto the floor. In our next scene we get more of what she’s feeling through action because she’s sitting on her bed looking through her photo album. Looking over her life as she’s contemplating dying.

Joyce Sensing Something Wrong

Her mom, Joyce, comes in. Joyce clearly knows Buffy is upset about something. Buffy won’t tell her what it is. She makes a comment, and Joyce in a great quote, says, “You’re probably just full from that bite of dinner you nearly had.”

Buffy tries to get Joyce to go away for the weekend, thinking that getting away from the Master will help. Joyce says she can’t get away, and isn’t the prom or spring fling this weekend and did nobody ask Buffy. And Buffy says, well somebody asked. Joyce says, “Not the right someone.”

What’s ironic is that is sort of true. That isn’t Buffy’s problem right now. But yes the wrong person asked — someone she doesn’t want to go with. And she has fallen for Angel who isn’t exactly the boyfriend who’s gonna take her to the Spring Fling

Joyce says, “See, sometimes I do know what you’re thinking.” She takes out a dress, acknowledging this might not be the right time for it, but she shows Buffy this beautiful dress that she bought for her. Even though they can’t really afford it. But she saw Buffy eyeing the stress in the store window.

Subtext in Dialogue

Buffy loves it. But she says she can’t go to the dance.

And then we get this line that I love from Joyce. I used to go to a Buffy discussion group at a bookstore in the Andersonville neighborhood in Chicago, Women And Children First. We had one meeting where we talked about Joyce and Buffy and the different scenes between them throughout the series. I thought this one really showed how Joyce connected with Buffy and did understand her.

Others thought it showed how disconnected and clueless Joyce was about Buffy’s life.

My feeling is that while Joyce is talking about a different situation – she thinks the issue is the dance – she gives Buffy exactly the advice that Buffy needs to hear. Maybe saying the advice drives the rest of Buffy’s decisions is a bit strong, but it definitely informs the choices that Buffy makes.

When Buffy says she can’t go to the dance, Joyce says, “Who says? Is it written somewhere? You should do what you want.”

This goes right to the prophecy. Yes, it’s written, and we’ll see Buffy echo that at the end when she’s talking to the Master.

The World Changes

For now, we switch to Cordelia and Willow in the school.They’re heading for the audiovisual lab because Cordelia’s boyfriend never showed up. I think he was supposed to be there for a sound check. She’s mad, or trying to be mad. She normally would be. But she likes them so much that she thinks it’s cute.

There’s a window in the door. They look through. At first it looks like there is a group of students watching cartoons. Willow and Cordelia go in, though, and realize these students have been slaughtered.

There’s blood everywhere. And there is a bloody handprint on the TV. We see it with cartoon dancing pigs behind it. Such a strong visual of what has happened.

At Buffy’s house again, she is trying on the dress and looking at herself in the mirror. Looking wistful. Joyce calls to her and says there’s something on the news about Willow.

The Midpoint of the Plot

We see Buffy in Willow’s bedroom. Buffy’s wearing the dress with her leather jacket over it. Probably the jacket Angel gave her.

Willow tells her what happened. Willow is so shocked and stunned. She says,
“I’ve seen a lot of things, but this was different.” And she says something like,”It wasn’t our world anymore. It was theirs. What are we going to do?”

This is 22 minutes, 39 seconds in, almost exactly at the Midpoint.

And Buffy says, “What we have to.” We know she has decided that she will face the Master even though she’ll almost certainly die.

Buffy’s Philosophy and the Show’s Theme

This to me encapsulates the theme of the show. There is no higher power telling Buffy to fight. She’s not acting out of some threat of punishment, eternal punishment, like you might find in many religions, or for a reward. She doesn’t know. She does what she does because she can, and because she doesn’t want to live in the world where it’s, where what Willow says: It’s not our world anymore. It’s theirs.

Buffy has the power to try to change that, to fight. And her philosophy, whether she says it or not, is that it’s better to fight and probably die than to live in that world and not try to change it.

She cannot live with that.

Right before she leaves, Willow says, “I like your dress.” Buffy looks down like she forgot she was wearing it. She tells Willow to take care. And the way she says it, we know that she does not think she will see Willow again.

Preparing to Face the Master

Back at the library, Giles and Jenny are talking about the Anointed One being a child, Giles quotes the prophecy where it says the Slayer will not know him and the Anointed One will lead Buffy to the Master. Buffy comes in, once again having overheard, and says, “Okay, I’m looking for a kid.”

She and Giles argue. Giles says, “I’ve been among my books too long. I am going to face the Master. You’re not.”

Buffy can’t talk him out of it so she punches him and knocks him out. She tells Jenny to think of something cool to tell him that she said when he wakes up. Jenny says, “You’ll die.” And Buffy says maybe she will, but maybe she’ll take the Master with her.

Outside it’s dark. The Anointed One comes up to Buffy, he says, “Help me.” Pretending to be this helpless little boy.

She says, “It’s okay, I know who you are.”

I have always wondered, is this part of what changes things? Because it says she will not know him, and she does know him. I also like that because if that’s true, that is something that Giles did to help her by telling her who the Anointed One is. And who she’s looking for.

Character-Based Conflict

Back in the library, Xander and Willow get really angry and upset at Giles that Buffy has left. Xander in particular says how could you let her do that? In a great quote of the episode, Giles says, “As the soon to be purple area of my jaw will attest, I did not let her do anything.”

Both Xander and Willow get mad at Jenny because she is trying to tell them yes, Buffy is important. But hey, there’s an apocalypse, that’s what we should focus on. Willow says, “Why does she get to be in the club?”

Xander Challenges Angel

Xander goes to see Angel and is asking for Angel’s help. Xander saying we’ll go face the Master and go help her. Angel tells him he’s way out of his league, that the Master will kill him. And Xander says, “I don’t like you, I pretty much think you’re a vampire” but “Buffy thinks you’re a real person. So prove her right.”

I love Nicholas Brendan’s delivery here because those lines in the whole argument with Angel could have come across as being all about Xander’s jealousy. But it doesn’t. He is truly concerned for Buffy.

And I get the feeling that his distrust of Angel – sure there’s a bias there, this is the person Buffy wants – but it also feels very genuine. I’m sure that was intentional, given what we see as we go through the episode, that Xander is written and he is directed as more complex. He’s not just sulky and angry because Buffy rejected him. Sure, he definitely feels that way. But he does put that aside, and he wants to save Buffy. And he will go to Angel even though he’s jealous of Angel and though he also in his gut does not trust Angel.

Entering the Cave

Buffy is in the Master’s candlelit layer. The scene looks very much like the one from her nightmare in the episode Nightmares. There isn’t a lot of physical fighting here.

There is some hunting – what Buffy calls cat and mouse.

The Master is able to draw her to him without even touching her through his own mystical power. As he is gripping her, he tells her it was noble of her to try. But prophecies are tricky, they don’t tell you everything. And she is the one who set him free. If she hadn’t come into the lair he couldn’t have left.

So this is why, going back to that Story Spark, I see it as Giles translating that prophecy. This suggests if he never translated it and never told Buffy, perhaps this whole story wouldn’t have happened.

Though we still had the Anointed One around. Probably there would’ve been some confrontation at some point, but probably not this specific story on this day.

The Three-Quarter Plot Turn and Death

We are also at the three-quarter turn in the story that comes from the protagonist’s actions, but also spins the story in a new direction.

Here, the Master kills Buffy. He bites her, he exults in the power of drinking her blood, and drops her face down into a pond or lake. And says, “By the way, I like your dress.”

He’s now free.

Xander and Angel, who have been heading for the lair and are underground, feel the shaking and know that the Master has become free. They run down they find Buffy. But she is dead. Angel is holding her in his arms, looking devastated. And we cut to commercial.

When we’re back, Xander is saying CPR, we need to try CPR. Angel can’t do it because he has no breath. So Xander revives Buffy.

The Hero’s Journey

These scenes echo parts of the story structure The Hero’s Journey. At some point I’ll have to go through it because probably this whole episode does. But the ones that struck me in particular, there’s a point where the hero goes to the inmost cave. And this can be literal here.

Buffy is in a cave.

Or if you think about one of the Star Wars movies, I want to say Return of the Jedi where, or maybe it’s Empire Strikes Back, where Luke literally goes into the cave. And he doesn’t know what’s in there.

It is the hero facing something that she has avoided to this point. Something the hero has been fearing and dreading. So we have that here.

And the next scene is typically a death. It can again be metaphorical or literal. Here, it is literal death and rebirth, so that the hero goes back into the world with the elixir or the Holy Grail or whatever it is.

We have that very literally here. And Buffy says, “I feel different.” She says she feels strong. And she is not any longer operating out of fear.

She heads for the school. She kicks a vampire on the way. She is no longer afraid of the Master.

More Obstacles for the Protagonist’s Friends

Jenny and Willow are caught out in the parking lot behind the school. They have been going out there to go to the Bronze. Because they and Giles thought the Hellmouth would open there. The Master’s supposed to get free and open the Hellmouth and take over the world.

There are hordes of vampires coming toward them. And they realize the Hellmouth must be in the school. Because all the vampires would be coming to the Hellmouth. But more important, they’re in great danger. And it’s just the two of them when Cordelia drives up in her car. They get in and say they need to get to the library.

Cordelia drives right through the double doors of the school, down the hall, and crashes at the library doors.

I love this because Cordelia is so strong and acted so quickly. Without asking any questions, she gets it. She may not know the details, but she knows what to do.

Buffy Returned from the Dead

The Master is on the roof above the library. There is a skylight. He is calling forth the Hellmouth.

Inside the library is chaos, vampires, parts of the Hellmouth breaking through – these like sneaky little arms that are grabbing at people. And then this three-headed slimy monster with teeth. I’m never sure if that is the actual Hellmouth or the Hellmouth is the opening. But anyway, it’s pretty awful. Lots of screaming, running, fighting. It does not look good.

Buffy leaves Xander and Angel outside the school as a line of defense. She goes up on the roof and comes up behind the Master.

Much as she did not hear him in the lair behind her, he does not register that she is there until she says something. He turns and says, you know, “You’re dead.”

And in a great quote she says, “I may be dead but I’m still pretty.” And if you listen to other Buffy podcasts you probably know this is where the title comes from for one of them: Still Pretty

Is It Written Somewhere?

And I love that the Master then says that it was written that she died. I feel like this is a little call back to Joyce saying is it written somewhere and telling Buffy to do what she wants.

And Buffy says, “What can I say? I flunked the written.” Which is another fun quote.

She pretends to let him draw her over. He grips her throat, so he thinks he’s winning.

Then she insults him and breaks away and does a flip over him.

This is a nice call back to the pilot, where we saw a fair amount of Buffy doing her somersaults and flips and acrobatics. In the DVD commentary, Joss Whedon mentioned that was pretty close to the end of that. We definitely see Buffy fighting throughout the season. But we don’t see her doing so many of these sort of gratuitous flips that don’t really accomplish anything.

The Climax of Prophecy Girl

So here we get this flip and somersault. I guess it does something because it gets her on the other side of the Master. She grabs him, or actually he grabs her again, but she is clearly in control. She’s looking down behind her through the skylight and sees this big shard of wood from either one of the tables or the bookshelves or something. And she flips the Master over.

He plunges down and lands directly on that shard of wood and he is dusted. His dusting is far more dramatic than other vampires. It is slower. We see what looks like dirt. Just pieces of dirt flying off of him as his body disintegrates and he leaves the skeleton.

Unlike other vampires there is this large skeleton there.

So that was our climax. All of this action, everything comes together and closes off our main plot.

Falling Action

We have brief Falling Action. Down in the library, Cordelia let’s Angel and Xander in. Xander says to Giles, “Buffy died and everything.”

Giles says, “I should’ve known that wouldn’t stop you.” And he gives her this look of admiration and love.

Xander says they need to party, they should go to the dance. And Cordelia says, “Yeah.” I love this too because we get this arc for Cordelia. Just last episode she was thanking them for saving her and then she immediately turned on them and said I’m not hanging out with those lepers when Mitch came up to her.

Now helped save the day and she is. And she let Xander and Angel into the library, which I think was kind of symbolic, and she’s excited about going to the dance with them. So it’s a really nice moment where I think Cordelia has become part of the group. Though we will certainly see that she will struggle with that.

The Three Beat

On the way out, Angel says to Buffy, “By the way, I like your dress.” And she says, “Yeah, yeah, it’s a big hit with everyone.”

This is what’s known as a three beat. When you come back to, here it is a line of dialogue. And it is said three times – I like your dress — by three different people in very different circumstances, and in very different ways. And each time it has a different meaning in the story.

So we have Willow saying it sincerely, and then we have the Master being kind of sarcastic. And now we have Angel saying it in the context Buffy would’ve liked in the beginning of the episode. When she was feeling sad and probably thinking about how Xander asked to the dance and was mad at her, and on some level thinking about how Angel was never going to take her to the dance. Here he is saying, you know, by the way, I like your dress.

And at this point it just doesn’t matter.

The End of Prophecy Girl

We end on a long shot of the Master’s skeleton in the library. So it’s leaving a little something eerie at the end after our hero has a great triumph and celebration.

Other than spoilers, that’s it for today’s episode. If you’d like to connect or send me your thoughts about Buffy or the podcast you can tweet me @LisaMLilly#BuffyStory. You can email me: Lisa at LisaLilly.com. You can also find my fiction, including mysteries and supernatural thrillers at LisaLilly.com or visit WritingAsASecondCareer.com for articles on writing, time management and publishing.

If you’re not sticking around for the spoilers, thank you so much for listening, and I hope to see you again next Monday.

Spoilers

And we are back for spoilers.

–

There are quite a few things in this episode that foreshadow Season 2 in particular, and some later things in the series. I really like that.

An Ending That Foreshadows

Because this could have been a series finale. I feel certain it was written that way. I don’t remember the timing of Buffy being renewed, but it seems very likely that with a 12-episode Season 1 they wrote it to be an end just in case. And I really appreciate that because it is hard to watch a show that you love, and it’s bad enough if it doesn’t get renewed, But if it doesn’t reach any conclusion it’s disappointing.

There was a very short-lived show called, I want to say Happy Town. And it raised so many intriguing things, and I still think about how it might’ve ended. They did kind of throw in a bit of a wrap up. It felt kind of tacked on. I know there was so much more that story, so it still bugs me.

Spoilers about Jenny Calendar

So we have Jenny. Giles not trusting Jenny. Willow and Xander saying what is she doing here?

I had not realized how many flags there were that Jenny maybe wasn’t trustworthy. And we see next season that she does have her own agenda. While she doesn’t purposely hurt Buffy, she does hurt Buffy very badly. And here we have this suspicion.

I’m uncertain about how genuine Jenny is being here. Because when she finds out Buffy is the Slayer, she says, oh, that’s the one thing that surprises her, that Buffy’s the Slayer, because she so little. And I wonder about that.

Because if Jenny was sent to watch Angel, wouldn’t her family have told her that Buffy is the Slayer? Or maybe they don’t know. I don’t know about that. That makes me wonder if the writers knew there’d be something about Jenny but perhaps not quite what yet.

Or maybe she is pretending. But I think the performance doesn’t suggest she’s really pretending. Perhaps she was told to play it either way.

Giles Might Fight

We get a quick foreshadowing for Giles when he says to Buffy, “I’ve been in the books too long.” Something like it’s been too long since I’ve been in the real world and fighting. So I guess this does give us a hint that perhaps Giles wasn’t always the book guy.

We definitely find that out next season, that he had quite a past and dabbled, more than dabbled, in the occult. And he is a really good fighter.

In this season, we have seen him be very about the books. We don’t see him fight. In fact, we get suggestions that he’s not a good fighter. So maybe this, too, the writers were still developing Giles. But this gives us a hint that there is more to him in terms of being able to do battle himself.

Foreshadowing Future Conflict

The Xander/Angel scene really struck me this time. Because when Xander says, “Yeah, I pretty much think you’re a vampire,” and next season that will be the issue.

That Angel turns evil, becomes Angelus again. And Xander was right. How much of Xander’s feelings come from jealousy and how much are a real grasp of the issues, and/or a gut level instinct, hard to say. But it turns out he was correct.

So we have him foreshadowing that that this is, of course we know it’s an issue: Slayer/ vampire. But we don’t know that there’s any reason really to fear Angel. He hasn’t fed on humans in, I think he told us, 100 years. So it’s a nice moment that Xander flags that.

Dracula and the Master

We also have the Master drawing Buffy to him. And we will see Dracula do the same thing in the beginning of Season Five. I had forgotten that the Master did this and that Dracula kind of echoes that. Which makes sense because Dracula likewise is a very old vampire.

Not as old as the Master, because we see the Master looks different because of his age. He’s from this earlier time when presumably also vampires were much more powerful. And we will find that out later as well. So the Master looks a little bit like the Turok-Han that we will see in Season Seven that Buffy at first is unable to defeat.

So we get these kind of calls forward to these other powerful vampires. Buffy in response, she pretends to be under the Master’s power, then insults him and breaks away. And she does, I think, a very similar thing with Dracula.

That also makes sense to me. It doesn’t feel repetitive because these are tools in Buffy’s toolbox. This is what she does. And it works well with the Master and she does it again with Dracula.

The Master’s Bones

Finally, that last shot of the Master’s skeleton – so telling because Season 2 Episode 1 we will deal with the Master’s bones. And this tells us the Master is different.

Buffy has defeated him, and yet there is this tiny question. Why is there still a skeleton there when other vampires turned to dust and they’re gone? That will be key from almost the very beginning of Season 2 Episode 1.

That is it for the spoilers.

Next Week

Monday I will do an overview of Season 1. I’ll talk about favorite character moments and plot turns and other story elements. So I hope that you will join me for that. And then we will be off to Season 2, which I’m so excited about.

Thank you so much for listening and I hope to see you next Monday.

The post Prophecy Girl S1 E12 appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

Out of Mind Out of Sight S1 E11

admin — Mon, 13 Jan 2020 10:30:07 +0000

This week on Buffy and the Art of Story: Out of Mind Out of Sight (Season 1, Episode 11 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Along with plot turns about an invisible girl, this episode covers (1) scene transitions (done so well!); (2) flashbacks (maybe not done so well) (3) theme; (4) strong dialogue; and (5) a midpoint that’s not so strong.

As always, the discussion is spoiler-free, except at the end (with plenty of warning).

Sorry, no Season 1 DVD commentary for Out of Mind Out of Sight.

Next Up: Prophecy Girl S1 E12

Last Week: Nightmares S1 E10

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About Lisa M. Lilly

Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the bestselling four-book Awakening supernatural thriller series and the Q.C. Davis mysteries. She also wrote the short-story collection The Tower Formerly Known as Sears and Two Other Tales of Urban Horror, the title story of which was made into the short film Willis Tower.

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She is also the founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com.

Episode Transcript for Out of Mind Out of Sight

Hello and welcome to Buffy and the Art of Story. If you love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and you love creating stories or just taking them apart to see how they work, you’re in the right place.

I am Lisa M. Lilly, author of The Awakening Supernatural Thriller Series and the QC Davis mysteries and the founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com.

This Week: Out of Mind Out of Sight

This Monday we’re talking about Season 1, Episode 11: Out of Mind Out of Sight. In particular, I’ll cover:

the excellent transitions from scene to scene;
the intriguing themes the episode explores;
the great dialogue lines;
but what I see as a weak Midpoint that undermines the story;
and flashbacks and whether or not they have a purpose here or are justified given that they slow down the present-day story

Out of Mind Out of Sight was written by Joss Whedon, Ashley Gable, and Thomas A Swyden and directed By Reza Badyl.

As always, there will be no spoilers until the very end so I can talk about foreshadowing. But I’ll give you plenty of warning.

Okay, let’s dive into the Hellmouth.

What To Include In Opening Conflict

As we should, we begin with our opening conflict. Cordelia and her friend Harmony are talking and walking in the halls of Sunnydale. And this might be the first time that we get Harmony’s name. I’m not positive on that, but it’s noticeable because it’s right at the beginning.

Cordelia is talking about getting her dress specially made for the spring dance because off the rack gives her hives. Though she hasn’t been elected May Queen yet, she is confident she will be.

Buffy, coming from the side, trips and falls right in front of Cordelia and Harmony. All her weapons fall out of her bag. She tries to explain, saying it’s for history class and Mr. Giles.

Cordelia and Harmony make fun of her and walk away.

Buffy’s Sadness

Buffy is still on the floor as she watches them leave. And this is one of many times when Sarah Michelle Gellar’s expression is so clear. Her eyes look so sad as she watches and listens to them make fun of her.

This conflict is not our main plot, but it does foreshadow it.

We always want in the beginning of a story to have some kind of conflict to hook the reader or audience member, and it can be completely unrelated to the plot. It can start the main plot. Or, as here, it can reflect it or give us a hint of it or reflect it.

In Class

Doubling down on the theme of our episode, we switch to the classroom where a teacher is talking about Shylock. I had to look this up because I did not read Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. I didn’t know that’s where it came from.

The teacher is asking about Shylock and the anger of the outcast in society. So this is a bit of an echo of that first scene where Buffy is the outcast. It sets up further our main plot about an outcast invisible girl.

Justice or Vengeance

Cordelia says Shylock is too self-involved and argues that he is not seeking justice. As I understand it, based on my reading, this is an ongoing debate among critics. Whether Shylock was seeking — do we call it revenge or do we call it justice.

Is he the hero is he the antagonist?

It is a compelling theme. But for whatever reason, in this episode, it doesn’t quite play out for me in a way that feels satisfying or that keeps my interest. I always remember the episode is one that I don’t love. And I thought perhaps as I went through it and analyzed it for the podcast that would change. But I’m sorry to say it didn’t really.

But I do try to dig into why that is. If you love this episode, please let me know what you loved about it and why.

They’re definitely things I think are amazing here, as always with Buffy as a whole, though it didn’t quite come together for me.

Cordelia and Her Teacher

After class the teachers tells Cordelia it’s always exciting to know someone did the reading. I’m sure when I first saw this I was annoyed because Cordelia seemed to be expressing a somewhat shallow take on it. Particularly because she compares it to when she ran over a girl “just a little.” And the girl tried to make it all about her and her hurt leg instead of about Cordelia’s trauma.

Looking into it further, I can see how that conversation echoes the theme.

Also because now that I teach, I understand the teacher’s comment more. I get that it’s more that someone at least took the time to really read something and comment on it. Sometimes it can be really difficult to get students to do that.

Cordelia asks for help with a paper. She and the teacher plan to meet the next day after class.

Halls and Locker Rooms

We then see Cordelia and Harmony again walking in the hall. Cordelia tells Harmony her dress is ready, and it’s so great Mitch is gonna die.

We cut to yet another dimly lit Sunnydale locker room. This time the boys’ locker room. So apparently they don’t have any bigger budget than the girls do for lightbulbs.

And we see Mitch, who has just been mentioned. Given Cordelia’s line, which links these two unrelated scenes, we think that he’ll probably die.

Story Spark in Out of Mind Out of Sight

So no surprise when strange things happen. We hear a girl laughing but we don’t see her. At 4 minutes 30 seconds in a baseball bat appears to rise by itself and start beating on Mitch.

This is the Inciting Incident or Story Spark that gets our main plot rolling.

Here it happened exactly where it should, at 10% into the episode. So even if our initial conflict had not foreshadowed our main plot and was something unrelated, around 10% we would expect to see is that spark or incident that puts our main plot in motion.

And we cut to credits.

Cordelia Wants Your Vote

When we return Cordelia is handing out candy with a C on it and asking for votes. She refuses to give Buffy one and says, “Oh I don’t think I need the loony fringe vote.”

Buffy is clearly hurt by this. It doesn’t really help when Xander and Willow come up and start laughing about something Cordelia did in grade school that was similar. They are laughing so hard they can’t get out what happened.

And they don’t really need to because they keep setting each other off by just saying a few words. Buffy, though, doesn’t get the in jokes and now feels left out even with her two friends.

Buffy as Outsider

Trying to offer some comfort, Xander says what kind of moron would want to be May Queen anyway? And Buffy says I was. Xander tries to backpedal a bit. Buffy comments on how nice it was when she was queen and it was fun. We get this wistfulness, and maybe not wistfulness but sadness, again from Buffy at how now she is in this very different position.

While she doesn’t say it, even with Xander and Willow she is still a bit of an outsider. Because she hasn’t gone to school with them their whole lives.

I also feel like I need to comment that this is 20 some years later. So quite a few times in this episode we get language that I don’t think we would hear now. Generally, people are using the term “moron” to refer to anyone. And some references to mental illness like the “loony” and the “lunatic fringe.” We will hear some others. I’m using them only as quotes. I’m not suggesting this is how we should talk.

An Injured Mitch

At 7 minutes, 8 seconds in we find out that Mitch is not dead after all. He is badly beaten up. As he’s being taken out on a stretcher he tells Buffy what happened and that the bat moved by itself.

We now get one of our quotes of the episode, one of my favorites. Snyder says — Principal Snyder — in case you weren’t tuned in the last couple episodes — Snyder says, “No dead students here. This week.”

He then tries to keep Buffy from going into the locker rooms and says she’s always sticking her nose into things. Willow and Xander distract him by talking about how Mitch’s father might sue.

A Possessed Bat?

In the still dim locker room, Buffy sees a message on the locker room doors: Look.

We cut to Xander and Willow talking about this in the cafeteria. Giles joins them. He says that, assuming the bat itself is not possessed, this could be telekinesis, an invisible creature, or an angry ghost.

Willow is tasked with looking for missing or dead students, records of them. Giles asks Xander for help. We get another great candidate for quote of the episode. Xander says, “What, there’s homework now? When did this happen?”

Our First Flashback

We switch to Cordelia. She’s talking about how depressed she is about Mitch. He’s all black and blue and will look bad in the photos.

We then get out first flashback. It is black and white. We see Cordelia and Harmony once again talking about Mitch. But, in addition to the black and white, we know it’s in the past because Cordelia’s talking about how Mitch just broke up with someone else, and he’s nosing around her.

We hear a girl off screen say, “Hi, guys.” Cordelia turns and says, “What do you want?”

Then, in present day, we have her turn to look at Buffy. Buffy has asked if she can talk to her, and she gives Buffy that exact same look.

The Downside of Using Flashbacks

Flashbacks, like dreams, can be tricky to use in fiction. The flashback happened in the past, so we are pulling the reader away from the main plot. Some writers really hate flashbacks, some readers really hate them.

I am not as opposed to them in principle.

Sometimes it is a sign that the writer’s lacking confidence. So rather than letting the readers figure it out and infer what’s happening based on the present, the writer is saying, “Hey, let me tell you about this thing that happened in the past.”

I feel like here is an example of one that, at least for me, doesn’t quite work. As the episode goes on, we can figure out that there was this girl who was ignored. Who was an outcast. And who is now trying to get back at Cordelia.

And I feel like the parallels to Buffy, which is partly what this flashback is for, have already been shown to us. We’ve already gotten that, though we don’t know that is going to be the driving force for the antagonist yet. I might have been more engaged with this episode if I needed to figure that out along with Buffy.

Seeing Through the Antagonist’s Eyes

I also think maybe the writers here were trying to add emotional weight so that we see through the antagonist’s eyes.

As Cordelia and Harmony are being mean to Buffy. Harmony is hit by an invisible force. She falls down the stairs and is hurt. This is about 11 minutes, 20 seconds in. We hear laughing. This is the same laughing we heard in the locker room with Mitch.

The One Quarter Twist in A Story

Of course, Buffy didn’t hear it. This incident is our One Quarter Turn in the plot. I call it that because it comes about one-quarter of the way through, though sometimes you’ll see it a bit earlier or a bit later.

Here it’s about right on target.

It is the first major plot point, and it generally comes from outside the protagonist. So here, it’s nothing really to do with Buffy. Maybe her being there contributed to our antagonist’s feelings. But for the most part the antagonist has a grudge against Cordelia and is first going after Mitch and now Harmony.

This turns the story because it’s the first time Buffy witnesses something. Here’s the laughter and now she is beginning to track our antagonist, though not knowing who or what she is.

On The Trail

But she is on the trail, she follows the laughter. And she ends up in the band room. She thinks she’s following a ghost, but then the ghost bumps into her. She tries to talk to, what she now thinks is probably an invisible girl, but gets no answer.

And we have a commercial break.

When we get back we see two guys in black suit standing around the school, nothing more than that right now with them. I don’t know that I noticed them the first time that I watched this episode or realized that they were significant.

Invisibility Powers

Buffy tells Giles what happened. And because whatever it is bumped into her, they all conclude it is an invisible girl or maybe an invisible girl ghost.

Xander says that’s so cool, the power of invisibility. And he would use it to protect the girls locker room which is another one of those things that I hope now would not be thrown in there to be funny. At the time I don’t think Willow and Buffy and Giles could’ve loved that, but it kind of gets glossed over, not commented on.

They talk about Cordelia being the common denominator of Mitch and Harmony.

Xander and Willow walk away. They’re talking about ordering dinner, and Buffy is with Giles and again looks a little sad as she watches her two friends with known each other forever walk away.

Buffy Watches Cordelia

She is going to try to watch over Cordelia. We see her that evening in the school hallways. And she is watching through window and closed door Cordelia and her friends getting ready for the dance. There is laughing and Cordelia’s dress is very pretty.

Outside Looking In

It’s a little bit of an obvious metaphor for Buffy feeling like she is on the outside looking in, but I don’t mind.

It seems fairly realistic and it represents much of what Buffy’s life is at Sunnydale. She is doing all these things to protect everybody. Yet, most of them are not her friends or don’t even know she’s doing it. Or like Cordelia perhaps think she’s weird.

This is also why I don’t necessarily think we needed that flashback to link Buffy with our antagonist to kind of hit us in the face with the idea that Cordelia is similarly mean to Buffy the way she was to the invisible girl.

Following the Flute

Buffy hears a flute playing and follows it again to the band room. And we cut to Giles in the library and he also hears the flute. This is another nice thing that I admire in this episode despite that it doesn’t quite work for me as a whole.

I love the way these unrelated scenes are linked together.

So here we have the flute and then we have Giles. At first I thought oh, he’s gonna go follow the flute. But instead Angel comes to see him in the library. Giles is startled because he’s looking into the pane of glass and seeing his own reflection, he doesn’t see anyone next to him.

But then he turns and Angel is there.

Angel and Giles

And Angel says don’t worry, I didn’t come here to eat. Giles figures out this must be Angel, whom he hasn’t met before but whom he has heard about from Buffy. Angel wants to help with defeating the Master who is our season antagonist.

We haven’t seen him in this episode, but this reminds us that he’s around.

It also reminds us about Angel. And we get another great quote, Giles sums up the central conflict in the season so far, the sort of romantic subplot. He says “A vampire in love with the Slayer. It’s rather poetic in the maudlin sort of way.”

The Prophecies

They talk about the Master. Giles says he wishes he had more volumes of Slayer prophecies. He’s read everything that he can find, but many are lost. Angel says no he knows about one of them, a particular Codex that was just misplaced, but he can get it.

Giles mentions the invisible girl and says it’s a wonderful power. Angel says he doesn’t know about that. Looking in the mirror and seeing nothing is overrated pleasure.

Another Flashback

We get another flashback in black-and-white. For the first time we actually see Marcy. the invisible girl. We don’t know her name yet. And she is looking in a mirror. So again we have that link, the reference to the mirror. Then Marcy is looking in the mirror, so it’s another connection between the scenes.

She is trying to take part in a conversation between Cordelia and Harmony. They are making fun of a speaker that just talked for what they say is two hours and was so boring.

Marcy throws in things about the man’s toupee. And they completely ignore her as if she is not there. Cordelia even repeats the comment about the toupee, and everybody laughs.

Themes in Out of Mind Out of Sight

These two scenes encapsulate additional themes running through this episode. One is this difference, and it’s often a gender difference, between this idea of the power of invisibility. You’ve probably heard about. You know the question: If you could choose to be invisible or fly which would it be?

Flying or Invisibility

I read an article suggesting that women more often choose the power to fly because they already feel invisible and it doesn’t feel like a great power. It feels like a negative. Because it is so much harder to be heard in the workplace or in mixed groups or in many different situations.

I feel like we see this reflected when Xander says, cool – invisibility, and we see Willow look really troubled.

And between Giles and Angel. We have this conversation where Giles says it’s a wonderful power. Angel – who in many ways is invisible, can’t see himself in a mirror, skulks around his outside society – is saying no, you know what it’s not great.

So it clearly isn’t only splitting along gender lines, but I found it interesting that we have this theme there. This idea of what it’s like to be invisible. That is doubled down where Marcy is talking and says something and then Cordelia says it and everybody laughs and again.

Not Being Heard

This reminds me of the cultural phenomenon that often happens, at least I’ve experienced it in business. I know many other women who have. When everyone’s talking, and the woman advances a theory or an idea or a solution. Everyone just keeps talking past it until a male colleague says the very same thing, and then everyone listens.

And here we see that happening with Marcy among a group of women. But it is the higher status woman Cordelia.

Cordelia Speaks

Cordelia says something and everyone listens. So there are these themes about power and visibility and being ignored. And I really like that and it’s part of why I really want to like this episode. Yet I’m not sure we ever come to any real conclusion about this or say anything about it.

This flashback doesn’t really move our plot forward. It gives us the back story about Marcy, which I feel like we could get through present day conversations. In fact, we will have one soon about Marcy’s yearbook when we get back to remain plot.

The Schoolyard

We are in the school’s courtyard. Cordelia is being applauded as the Queen. She has been elected, and she’s giving a speech. We’re about 20 minutes into the episode, so we are moving toward its Midpoint.

Buffy and Xander are off to the side. Willow has that list of dead or missing students. She also notices the two guys in black suits who are standing near the stage and asks if Cordelia has bodyguards now.

Buffy notices that the most recent missing student, Marcy Ross, played the flute. And she connects it to the flute that she heard and the band room.

So this is the first time we’ve gotten Marcy’s name.

Buffy goes to the band room sees a footprint on a chair and climbs up she pushes a ceiling tile out of place and gets up into an overhead crawlspace. She discovers that someone is living there and there are many things there including a flute and a teddy bear.

The camera angle tells us that Marcy is watching. It zooms in as Buffy looks at Marcy’s yearbook. Buffy reads it and says “Marcy Ross, so it is you.” And behind her and knife is hanging in the air halfway through the episode at 22 minutes, 42 seconds in.

What You Find At The Midpoint

So I guess it’s maybe a little more than halfway, because episodes are generally 42-43 minutes. But we have what I see as our Midpoint commitment.

I’ve talked about this before. You’re probably tired of hearing it if you listen to all the episodes.

For those who have not, at the Midpoint, we will see either a major reversal for our protagonist or a major commitment. Our protagonist commits to the quest, throws all in. Think if you’ve read or watched Gone With The Wind, Scarlett O’Hara starving in her neighbors garden, can’t find any food, and she says, “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.” And that is the literal Midpoint of the movie, this vow by Scarlett.

You can also have both a reversal and a commitment.

Buffy Takes A Yearbook

Here I looked for what is our moment. We don’t have a reversal for Buffy here. We do have her identifying Marcy for certain.

I feel like the most we have in the way of a commitment is when Buffy takes that yearbook. So she doesn’t just observe Marcy. She takes the yearbook and she climbs out.

She has put herself directly opposed to Marcy, but this isn’t a super-strong commitment. And I feel like it’s another reason why perhaps this episode just doesn’t grab me. Though I do like the yearbook and it is definitely key.

Not long at all later in the episode, we will see how the yearbook helps Buffy and her friends figure out what’s going on and why.

Attack on the Teacher

The next scene we have is the teacher who was so kind to Cordelia. She looks up, thinking Cordelia has come to see her after class, and instead the invisible Marcy laughs and puts a plastic bag over the teacher’s had to suffocate her.

Now Cordelia does walk-in. She gets the bag off of the teacher, who does survive. Marcy writes on the blackboard – all Cordelia and the teacher see is this chalk moving by itself, and it writes Listen.

And we cut to commercial.

When we’re back, Buffy is in the library showing Giles, Willow and Xander the yearbook.

Invisible Marcy

And every single person has written “have a nice summer” to Marcy. Giles thinks this seems like she has lots of friends. But everyone explains to him that this is the thing people say when they don’t know anything about the person, don’t remember them, and don’t care. “Have a nice summer.”

Xander says it’s the kiss of death. He and Willow both say they didn’t know Marcy. And Buffy points out that they wrote it, too, although Willow I think wrote “Have a great summer.”

They still think that maybe they never had classes with her, didn’t interact with her until she asked for the yearbook signatures. But Willow finds out they have four classes with her, and they realize that no one noticed her and she became invisible.

Flashbacks Not Needed?

So this scene right here is part of what I’m talking about, that I don’t think we needed those scenes showing us flashback. Showing us what happened with Marcy. Because this pretty much fill us in as our characters figure it out.

Giles says it’s quantum mechanics. We get another great quote when Buffy says, “I think I speak for everyone here when I say, ‘Huh?’”

I was really surprised how many quotes I wrote down from this episode. It’s another example of how one episode can still have so many amazing things in it, and it’s why generally I keep saying though it didn’t grab me, I still pretty much enjoyed watching it. When I rewatch Buffy, I always go ahead and and watch this one because there is a lot of great stuff in it. Including these quotes.

Giles elaborates on physics and quantum mechanics and how because people perceived Marcy as invisible, she became it with a little help from the Hellmouth.

We Flash Back

We then get another black-and-white flashback.

In this one, the teacher, the same teacher, is calling on people. Marcy keeps raising her hand. The teacher never calls on her. She looks at her hand, and you can see she’s feeling very afraid and shaky as the hand gradually disappears.

Sympathy for the Antagonist?

I want to have this great sympathy for her at this point. And yet it doesn’t really hit me emotionally that much. Maybe because we’ve already been told this, maybe because we don’t know anything about Marcy other than that everyone ignored her. I understand I don’t know how you do that, because who would tell us about her?

Although Buffy does see some things that belong to Marcy up in that space. Maybe we could’ve had her getting to know Marcy better or learning more about her as part of the story. But we don’t really get that.

I don’t like to try to take apart a story based on “oh, I think the author should’ve done some other thing.” I want to look at the story as it is. So I’m just throwing that out there as maybe that would’ve been something that might’ve been more engaging for me.

Obviously, it wasn’t the way the writers decided to go with it.

What Does Marcy Want

Xander is saying what does Marcy want. And Buffy shows a marked-up photo of Cordelia. She says, yes, it’s what they thought. It’s Cordelia.

At that moment Cordelia walks in the door of the library. So another nice transition because these really are, though our characters stay in the same place, these are two different scenes. this is a new scene.

Cordelia first insults Buffy and her friends, saying Buffy is weird and herfriends are losers. But she wants Buffy’s help, and she thought Buffy might be in a gang because of all those weapons and because she’s always around when strange things happen.

And remember at the end of our pilot, Cordelia was talking about the vampires who broke into the Bronze. She said it was some kind of gang, and Buffy knew them.

So we see this theme of Cordelia, this is how she is making sense of Buffy and what she sees as the weirdness of Buffy.

All About Cordelia

Cordelia says, “It’s all about me. Me, me, me.” And Xander says for once she’s right.

Buffy explains what is happening, what they think Marcy is doing. We hear Marcy ranting as Cordelia insults her picture in the yearbook. Then we’re back to Buffy, who says this might be about the May Queen.

Cordelia is determined to be crowned. She says otherwise Marcy wins. And we get another great quote, one of my favorite Cordelia quotes. She says, “She’s evil, okay, way eviler than me.”

They all kind of have to agree with her and Buffy says ,well, you know this will be good, Cordelia will be bait to draw Marcy out. And Cordelia says, am I really bait?

She and Buffy are now walking down the hall in the high school. Cordelia is going to get her dress on and get ready for the dance. They talk about loneliness.

Loneliness

Cordelia says she can be surrounded by people and be completely alone. And how people just want to be in the popular zone, and they’re so busy trying to agree with her, or agreeing with her, that they don’t even hear what she’s saying. Buffy asks, okay, then why do you try so hard to be popular?

We get another great quote. Cordelia says, “It beats being alone all by yourself.”

Next Cordelia and Buffy find a broom closet or janitor’s closet which Buffy thinks will be safer for Cordelia to change in. Cordelia goes in to change, and Buffy stands outside. That Buffy would stand outside rather than being in there with Cordelia, it seems a little shortsighted given that she knows that Marcy has been up in this space between the ceiling tiles and the ceiling.

On the other hand, I guess she might think it’s better to be outside and keep watch. Whatever the reason, we hear this flute music again. We see Xander, and Giles and Willow trying to follow it, and we cut between them and Buffy and Cordelia.

Buffy Tries to Bond with Cordelia

Buffy is talking to Cordelia through the door about how she felt when she was popular and how sometimes she did feel something was missing. Cordelia is reacting more with surprise and almost scorn. She can’t believe Buffy was ever popular, or at least that’s what she’s saying.

And Buffy has a great quote here, something like, “How about this heart-to-heart with a little less heart from you?”

But then there are noises and Cordelia’s muffled screams. Buffy has trouble getting in the doors unlocked. She breaks in and sees Cordelia’s feet going through the ceiling.

Popularity, Theme, and the Outcast

This conversation about popularity and aloneness seems to be yet another theme through the episode, or an elaboration on our theme, of the outcast. Where we’re saying okay, there’s the outcast, but people who are surrounded by people can also feel lonely.

An interesting thing to explore, yet I don’t know that we really explore it here. So while I love the quote and I love the conversation, I feel it just isn’t picked up on in the story itself.

If you have other thoughts on that, I would love to hear them. I just am not seeing it. And it’s not that everything our characters say, or every theme we touch on in a story, has to be played out in that story. That would lead to “The moral of the story is….” I’m not looking for that. But I feel like there are a number of intriguing concepts in this episode that are not really played out in the plot, and yet we spent all this time on these flashbacks.

Maybe that too is part of what is not quite working here.

The Three-Quarter Turn

We now have another change in direction, or we just saw another change in direction, with Marcy grabbing Cordelia. That was about 33 minutes, roughly 3/4 through the story. Usually we see a plot turn there.

It typically grows out of the protagonist’s action at the Midpoint or the reversal to the protagonist. So it shouldn’t be like the first major plot point that comes from outside the protagonist. This one should grow organically from that Midpoint, and yet still spin the story in another direction.

And we have that here with the combination of Marcy grabbing Cordelia, but also with Buffy.

Because she knocks Buffy out, injects her with something. She ties up both Buffy and Cordelia in the Bronze to these thrones for the spring dance.

Growing from the Midpoint

I feel like this does come from that Midpoint because that is when Buffy took the yearbook when she invaded Marcy’s space. That put her in Marcy’s sights in a way that she hadn’t been before.

Marcy will even tell us that she thought Buffy would understand. Because she had been seeing Buffy as a sort of sister outcast. Then Buffy started opposing her, so this does grow from the Midpoint.

And it takes the story in a new direction. Because now we’re not hunting Marcy, we’re in direct confrontation with her.

Buffy is directly trying to protect Cordelia and stop Marcy.

At the Bronze

As Buffy wakes up Cordelia is panicking. She can’t feel her face. It’s numb. The word Learn is written on the wall, and Marcy is taunting them. She says Cordelia will be the lesson and that she’s can given Cordelia what she’s always wanted. Everyone will look at her.

Marcy unveils a cart with a tray of scalpels and knives and surgical instruments.

In between the Marcy, Buffy, and Cordelia scenes we get Giles and Willow in Xander. They have followed the flute, thinking they’re following Marcy. But it’s a recording she made, and it lures them into a room where they become trapped. The gas has been turned on and they will pass out and ultimately die if no one saves them.

Buffy obviously can’t save them because she is tied up, literally, and they can’t help her, so we are cutting between them and they’re talking about how crazy Marcy is but they’re unable to do anything about it because the gases overcoming them and Buffy inching her fingers forward to get the scalpel.

As Cordelia is pleading with Marcy and arguing with her, Buffy gets the scalpel and saws at the ropes while Marcy yells at Cordelia. She gets free kicks of fights with the invisible Marcy.

Angel to the Rescue

In the meantime, Angel has come to the school to bring the Codex to Giles. He finds our three friends and drag them out of the room then goes back to turn off the gas because he doesn’t need to breathe. This whole, I guess I would have to call it a subplot with Xander, Willow, and Giles tracking the flute, feels a little flat to me. We obviously needed a reason why they aren’t there to help Buffy.

So it gets them out of the way and gives Angel something to do.

In the episode earlier in the season I talked about how he would just show up, look good and say cryptic things. So he does come and save the day.

Lack of Tension?

But it’s just there’s not that much to it. Even having him come to bring this Codex that is going to be important – I’ll talk about more in the spoilers about it –not that much is happening there. And again we are stepping away from our main plot.

Maybe it could’ve just been done more, quickly because it didn’t feel to me like it raised the tension very much to flip back and forth between the scene in the room with a gas leak and Marcy and Cordelia.

For one thing, there’s no way that I believe that these three can die. Yes, Joss Whedon has set out that important characters can die, but there’s no way I think he’s going to wipe out three of our four main characters, or I guess of five if we count Angel.

Buffy and Marcy

Buffy tells Marcy she used to feel sorry for her, but then she realized Marcy is a thundering loony. This is more language we probably wouldn’t use today. But also not just the language, even if we set that aside, it feels to me like not enough of an explanation for Marcy.

Yes, we have the mystical/science explanation of no one paid attention to her and she became invisible. That is heartbreaking. Yet we don’t, at least I don’t, really feel bad for her. Part of it is because the story dismisses her as, okay, and then she just went crazy.

Well, she’s isolated – even more so, she’s invisible. This would be terrible for anyone’s mental health. And yet it’s treated as, well, she’s just crazy. I had sympathy for you, but you’re crazy, so now I don’t.

That also doesn’t feel authentic to Buffy, to me. Because as I talked about last Monday, part of her power is her empathy for others. Her ability even to help give them voice like when she basically gave Billy the words to stand up to his coach.

Wishing For A More Complex Antagonist

I get it. She has to defeat Marcy. She’s not about to let her carve up Cordelia’s face. But I feel like it’s a real missed opportunity here to have a nuanced and complex antagonist.

Maybe some of this is just that we know the writers can do this. They do it so much and will do it so much throughout Buffy. It’s part of what I love about the show. But the realities of network TV is as I understand it, often things go very fast. You have a plot, a story line, and you’re set off to write it. There isn’t always the time to do everything you would like to do so.

Perhaps that simply what happened here, and we just don’t get as layered and as rich and antagonist in this one0off episode as we get with many of our antagonists. Particularly the season-long ones. Though even some of them that are just for an episode we sometimes see more.

Or as in The Puppet Show, we don’t really get much about the antagonist, but we get this very intriguing character in it.

The Climax of Out of Mind Out of Sight

So back to Buffy fighting. Cordelia is screaming and crying. And Buffy tells her to shut up. Buffy, pp to that point is kind of losing to Marcy, who is taunting her about how do you fight someone you can’t see?

But when Cordelia is silent, Buffy stands still and listens. And we have this nice moment with this noise like a breeze, and it’s blowing Buffy’s hair, and it’s sort of mystical around her. She holds very still and listens.

We hear something creaking, and she turns and punches Marcy.

Marcy becomes tangled up in the curtains for the stage. Now Buffy can see her and fight her.

This is all part of the climax. I should’ve introduced that like a whole.

As Buffy is struggling to break free to saw through that rope, that brings us into our climax. We get to this fight which the big confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist.

Men in Black

Then these two guys in black suits sweep in and say that they’re FBI. They’ll take it from here. Buffy says, “You can cure her?” And they say they can rehabilitate Marcy, she’ll be useful member of society. They refuse to answer when Buffy asks or states, “So this is happened to other kids.”

This climax also feels a bit unsatisfying to me.

Yes, Buffy does defeat Marcy, and she calls on something in addition to her physical strength to do it. So we even see a little bit of growth here in that stillness and listening is important.

Yet these two FBI guys coming in just does feel strange. Maybe because they’re from a different kind of story. Until now, we are dealing have been dealing mainly with the supernatural, even when we brought in the robot. It was as part of this demon who is now in our present-day world.

Here, we have this intrusion of a government agency and law enforcement into what is normally a supernatural story. And we didn’t get a lot of set up here. We did see these two guys around. So they’re not completely out of the blue, but it just feels a bit off to me and anticlimactic to just have them whisk Marcy away.

Falling Action

We then go to the falling action part of the story. This is where we tie up loose ends. Or in this case untie Cordelia.

We see Buffy and her friends together with Giles. They fill her in on the flute and the gas leak. But Giles stops them from telling her that Angel is the one who saved them.

I think this is in deference to Angel saying it’s too hard to be around Buffy. And Giles knowing it’s probably hard for Buffy as well. So he must think it’s better that he doesn’t mention Angel’s visit.

Maybe he doesn’t want to mention anything about the Codex until he looks into it, so he doesn’t want to say why Angel was there. But I’m just guessing.

Cordelia finds our group of four at the library and very sincerely thanks them.

She doesn’t just say thanks or thank you, she really talks about what they did for her and what it meant to her. Willow says, hey, we were just gonna go get some lunch, want to join us?

Before Cordelia can answer, Mitch comes up and says you’re not hanging out with these losers. Cordelia says are you kidding? She was just helping them with their fashion problems, and of course she’s not joining that leper colony.

Xander says where’s an invisible girl when you need one.

What Is An Epilogue?

So plot threads have been resolved, and we get what I see as an epilogue.

I’ve been thinking about epilogues. Because Shiromi Arserio, who is the producer/narrator of three of the books, the audiobook editions, in my Awakening series, asked me after listening to my comments about prologues what I thought about epilogues.

A number of books she’s been narrating lately have very long epilogues. First I had to look up the definition of epilogue. It’s one of those things that, of course I know what it is. I’ve seen it in books; I’ve even included them. Although I can’t remember if I ever actually labeled one “epilogue.” But when it comes to definition, I had to resort to the dictionary.

I think this is a pretty good one: Miriam Webster on line says an epilogue “is a concluding section that rounds out the design of a literary work.” Also, the final scene of a play that comments on or summarizes the main action.

Out of Mind Out of Sight Epilogue

So here we have invisible Marcy and the FBI bringing her into this classroom. I see this as an epilogue because it does somewhat comment on our main plot. And I guess you could say it rounds out the story in the sense that we knew the FBI took her away.

We didn’t know what was going to happen to her. I don’t know that we needed to know because our protagonist’s arc has resolved. Buffy did protect Cordelia. She did stop Marcy.

I guess I like that we at least see what happened to Marcy if we’re going to bring in these FBI guys that otherwise don’t seem to fit.

So they bring her into a classroom. We see a teacher. On all the students’ desks, their books are open in front of them. But they’re all invisible. Marcy sits down and opens her book to the chapter on assassination and infiltration. And we hear her say, “Cool.”

Theme and Message

I found this disturbing the first time I watched it. And I continue to find it disturbing. Which I’m sure is the point. These government guys had been watching and watching, and they didn’t intervene when Marcy was doing any of these things. In fact, Buffy called them on that when they came in, and they said, well, we came in as soon as we could.

Really? Because, yeah, they’d been standing around.

I guess you could say they were trying to figure out if this is what was going on.

Weaponizing Marcy

Now we find that they are wanting to weaponize Marcy and that there is no real attempt to help her mentally or emotionally but just to use her.

I also have a little trouble with it in terms of the episode as a whole. Because how does this fit with any of those themes that we raised?

Is the answer that the outcast becomes a weapon against society?

You can certainly make an argument for that. That being an outcast, that the way others treat someone, can both be wrong and have these terrible consequences.

But I don’t know if that’s what the episode was trying to say or not.

We have Buffy, who is something of an outcast but who nonetheless is putting her life on the line all the time to protect other people. We haven’t really explored what the difference between the two is. I am sort of on the fence with this epilogue, as I am with the entire episode.

That’s all until we get to the spoilers.

Buffy and the Art of Story is a production of Spiny Woman LLC, which I keep forgetting to say.

Next Week

I hope you will come back next Monday when we will talk about the Season Finale Episode 12 Prophecy Girl.

Spoilers in Out of Mind Out of Sight

Okay, we are back with spoilers.

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The Codex

The major one is this Codex that Angel says he will get, and Giles talking about the prophecies about the Slayers. This is done so quickly and almost feels like an aside in this episode. It feels like it’s just an excuse to get Angel into the episode. And to remind us about the Master.

But that Codex will have the prophecy that drives the entire finale – that Buffy will face the Master and she will die.

Part of me wants to say the scene didn’t need to be in this episode. It felt kind of shoehorned in. We could have just put it in Episode 12, Prophecy Girl.

Setting Up Giles’ Diligence

Then I thought about it, and I suspect the authors wanted to do this earlier so that we get to Prophecy Girl we feel like Giles has been studying the Codex.

Because in no way do we want to feel like Giles leaps to the conclusion that Buffy is going to die. So he needs to have time to really study this Codex. To cross-reference, to be in a place where he is very authoritative and very certain about this prophecy. So I think that’s probably why we get it in this episode.

And maybe the reason partly for the whole gas leak, in addition to getting Willow and Xander and Giles in a place with they can’t help Buffy, is to kind of obscure the importance of that Codex.

I still would’ve liked to have seen Angel come in for maybe another reason. But it’s intriguing as it is because we have set up now this idea that there are these prophecies about the Slayer.

Zen and Buffy

There is some foreshadowing for the entire series here when we see Buffy

holding still and listening. This is part of her training. We will see over the course of the series that she develops more and more of this sort of inner calm, this connection to everything. This kind of Zen -like approach.

She doesn’t focus on that all that much. Here and there we see it. Then in Season Five she really doubles down on it when she is dedicated to truly studying and learning about being a Slayer and wanting to give herself the best possible chance to survive. We will see her working with crystals, meditating, and doing handstand on one hand and concentrating.

This was a nice little bit of foreshadowing for that aspect of being a Slayer.

Season 4 Foreshadowing

We also have some pretty heavy Season Four foreshadowing. I said we aren’t used to seeing government agencies in Buffy. And I talked about the idea of weaponizing supernatural. Here, weaponizing our antagonist.

In season for we will see an entire arc where we have the Initiative. I think it’s a branch of the Army, it’s a branch of the military, that is all about studying demons and modifying their behavior. But a segment of the military wants to use them as weapons.

Now here we have a girl being used as a weapon in total disregard to her mental health.

The Initiative will be focusing on vampires and demons, not human. So in some ways I feel like they’re not quite as bad as the FBI is depicted here. But it does definitely give us a little hint of that. Now whether that was already planned that there was going to be the story arc, I don’t know.

But it is interesting to me that so early on we see a bit of this concept, that perhaps there are people in government who are aware of all this going on and who want to use it.

Prophecy Girl Next Monday

That is it for the spoilers. Thank you again for listening, and I hope you’ll join me next week on Monday evening for Prophecy Girl, the finale of Season One.

The post Out of Mind Out of Sight S1 E11 appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

How Buffy and Joss Whedon Helped Me Understand My Mother

admin — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 21:31:00 +0000

When I turned 21, I got my ears pierced. Most of my friends had pierced theirs in high school or even grade school. When I came home, my mother – who was 42 years older than me and grew up in a different time – frowned and said, “Only cheap women pierce their ears.”

For much of my life, I believed the difficulties my mother and I had relating to one another were due to the over forty-year age difference between us. Most of my friends had grandparents who were my parents’ ages. Now I feel like our disconnect was less that the world changed so much during the those forty-plus years, and more my difficulty seeing my mother as a anyone other than a mother, and my mother’s trouble seeing me as anyone other than her daughter.

Joss Whedon helped me with that, and I will always be grateful to him. First, his shows revolve around the family we choose being as important and as nurturing, if not more so, than the family to whom we belong by birth. Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander, all choose to bond and be there for one another literally to the death. Same for Angel’s friends and the crew of Serenity. Giles is more of a father to Buffy than her father was, at least during the time period that we see her.

I found this reassuring. Our culture still tends to equate family values with only one type of family – mom, dad, children. Joss’s shows told me I am not the only one who sometimes feels out of place within my given family, who might rather be with my friends than at the relatives’ Thanksgiving Day. (“That’s nice that you opened your own law firm, dear. Did you hear Susie married a millionaire? Maybe someday you’ll meet someone like him.”) So instead of trying get my parents to be different types of people, and vice versa, why not seek out the support and friendship I hoped for through other friends and mentors?

At the same time, Joss helped me appreciate the family I had. I was in my late twenties when Buffy came on the air, probably closer to the age of Joyce – Buffy’s mother – than to Buffy. Sometimes Joyce had no idea what was going on in Buffy’s life or heart. And sometimes Joyce said exactly the wrong thing to Buffy (for instance, that Buffy’s thing, whatever it was, got her kicked out of school, or that she wanted a normal daughter and what she got was a slayer). Yet, I felt certain Joyce loved Buffy with all her heart.

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Even Giles works against Buffy at times. In Season 7, he keeps Buffy busy training while another of Buffy’s supposed allies is trying to kill her one-time lover and strongest ally Spike. In another episode of the same season, Giles joins with Buffy’s other friends in undermining her role as leader and banishing her from her own home. Buffy makes her own mistakes through the show, including taking Giles for granted and pushing him to the edges of her life, and ignoring his (good) advice. Nonetheless, they love each other.

At the end of Season 2, Joyce tells Buffy if she walks out the door, not to come back. Buffy leaves because she needs to save the world. And Buffy takes Joyce at her word, boarding a bus out of town and not returning for many months. On her return, to justify running away, Buffy says that Joyce told her not to come back. And Joyce says, “Well, guess what, Mom’s not perfect. I handled it badly.”

That moment resonated with me. My mother and I had a falling out when I was in my twenties, mainly over my religious views, or lack thereof, that lasted years. I couldn’t understand how my mother’s religious views could be more important to her than me. Perhaps she felt the same about me.

A decade later and about twelve years before my mother died, I watched Joyce and Buffy and it hit me that my mother, like Joyce and like me, was a person, not just a mother. A women with her own fears, doubts, issues and flaws. Someone who might say or do something out of anger or fear or self-doubt and regret it later.

I explore these themes in my own writing. How parents and children react to one other when their convictions and their missions in life conflict. What happens when we just can’t accept what someone we love says or the path that person takes, no matter how much we want to support that person.

Joss Whedon didn’t give me the answers to how to handle these types of conflicts, or provide the perfect recipe for family relationships. But he did give me characters I admire who meant to act for the best and sometimes didn’t, who didn’t want to hurt one another and sometimes did, and who loved one another and were good people for all of that.

So, Joss, if I knew you, I would say thank you. Thank you for helping me feel that choosing my circle of family meant just as much as anyone else’s traditional family. And for helping see my mom, before her death, as a whole person, not solely my mother. And, finally, for helping me realize that just because someone who loves me is not perfect or cannot always meet me half way – and just because I disappoint someone by who I am or what I do – does not mean the love is any less.

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Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the occult thrillers The Awakening and The Unbelievers, Books 1 and 2 in the Awakening series. A short film of the title story of her collection The Tower Formerly Known as Sears and Two Other Tales of Urban Horror was recently produced under the title Willis Tower. If you’d like to be notified of new releases and read reviews on M.O.S.T. (Mystery, Occult, Suspense, Thriller), click here to join her emaillist.

The post How Buffy and Joss Whedon Helped Me Understand My Mother appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

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Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered S2 E16 (Buffy and the Art of Story)

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Innocence S2 E14 (Buffy and the Art of Story)

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Prophecy Girl S1 E12

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Episode Transcript for Prophecy Girl

Opening Internal Conflict

Opening External Conflict

What Is The Inciting Incident?

Is Giles Drinking Coffee?

The Tension Escalates

A Side Character’s Point of View

Bringing Out The Characters’ Emotions

Anxious Giles

Jenny Offers To Help

Building to the First Major Plot Turn

The One Quarter Plot Turn

A Dramatic Reveal Though Conflict

Buffy Reacts

Showing Characters’ Emotions Through Actions

Joyce Sensing Something Wrong

Subtext in Dialogue

The World Changes

The Midpoint of the Plot

Buffy’s Philosophy and the Show’s Theme

Preparing to Face the Master

Character-Based Conflict

Xander Challenges Angel

Entering the Cave

The Three-Quarter Plot Turn and Death

The Hero’s Journey

More Obstacles for the Protagonist’s Friends

Buffy Returned from the Dead

Is It Written Somewhere?

The Climax of Prophecy Girl

Falling Action

The Three Beat

The End of Prophecy Girl

Spoilers

An Ending That Foreshadows

Spoilers about Jenny Calendar

Giles Might Fight

Foreshadowing Future Conflict

Dracula and the Master

The Master’s Bones

Next Week

Out of Mind Out of Sight S1 E11

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This Week: Out of Mind Out of Sight

What To Include In Opening Conflict

Buffy’s Sadness

In Class

Justice or Vengeance

Cordelia and Her Teacher

Halls and Locker Rooms

Story Spark in Out of Mind Out of Sight

Cordelia Wants Your Vote

Buffy as Outsider

An Injured Mitch

A Possessed Bat?

Our First Flashback

The Downside of Using Flashbacks

Seeing Through the Antagonist’s Eyes

The One Quarter Twist in A Story

On The Trail