Buffy 4.9: "Something Blue"

Written by Tracey Forbes
Directed by Nick Marck

In which Willow decides to cast a “will spell” when Oz sends for his belongings, and things get out of control when the wrong wishes begin to come true…


Status Report

The theme for the fourth season was “self-discovery”. As slowly paced as the first third of the season was, it set the stage for the exploration of this concept well enough. Buffy finds her world utterly changed, and as she adjusts to the collegiate lifestyle, she finds that her old friends are also seeking their own paths. Typically, high school friends drift apart, no matter how close they might have been during those teenage years. In Buffy’s case, that social dynamic threatens to undermine her emotional support system.

As the season marches on, questions of self-identity haunt most of the main characters. Buffy continues to question everything about her world, something that would ultimately lead her to explore the origins of her Slayer legacy in subsequent seasons (or so it was intended). Willow would discover her true sexual orientation and the depth of her magic ability. Xander would discover his place within the group (and eventually his construction talent), now that celebration of failure is no longer an option. Giles would come to recognize that his time in Sunnydale is coming to an end, even if it takes a couple seasons for him to leave. Riley would discover the truth about his part in the Initiative. Even Spike would be forced to figure out who he is when his ability to kill humans is stripped away.

Considering how many character arcs are begun or intended for the season, one would expect that there would be very little time to waste. If anything, the fourth season is an effective case study for keeping one’s eye on the ball. Joss and Mutant Enemy were so worried about making “Angel” work in its first season that the fourth season of “Buffy” wandered all over the map. Nine episodes in, less than half are ultimately important to the season arc: “Fear, Itself”, “Wild at Heart”, and “The Initiative”. In at least two of those cases, the writers backed off of promising plot threads in favor of a more leisurely pace.

This episode is a good example of the inevitable result of such a schedule. “The Initiative” was followed by a “Buffy”/”Angel” crossover event that threw a wrench in the plot progression of each season. In the case of “Buffy”, the growing romantic interest between Buffy and Riley ran up against the brick wall of the Buffy/Angel dynamic. Just when the fans were warming up to Buffy’s probable new love, they were reminded of Angel and everything that might have been. The timing killed the momentum of that character arc, making the sudden return to that plot thread in this episode jarring at best.

At the same time, the writers consciously kept Willow’s emotional pain from overwhelming the rest of the story, since Buffy’s less reasonable emotional distress made the beginning of the season an exercise in dullness. As a result, it’s hard to suddenly accept that Willow is following in Buffy’s footsteps. Spike makes the point that the rest of the gang has been ignoring Willow’s obvious emotional crisis (perhaps the cause of her atypical behavior in the previous episode), but it still feels a bit too abrupt.

Buffy gets over Angel’s return rather abruptly as well, which had to make it even harder for the fans to accept. Sure, it makes sense from Buffy’s point of view; she barely saw Angel, as far as she knows, and that conversation didn’t exactly go well. The fans, on the other hand, were still bleeding from the wounds inflicted in the “Angel” episode “I Will Remember You”. Riley’s open and (relatively) honest demeanor helps to make the case, but it’s still a quick turnaround for the audience to accept.

Forcing Spike and Giles to live together is a clever way to force Buffy to interact more with her former Watcher, and it’s an easy source of comedy gold. There’s no question that Buffy enjoys torturing Spike with the reality of his situation. It’s also easy to tell that Spike is taking note of every indignity, especially every time he’s forced to miss an episode of “Passions”. (Speaking of which, doesn’t it make perfect sense for a bad poet to hang on the cheap melodrama of daytime soaps?)

Willow, her pain and suffering made fresh by the sudden absence of Oz’s stuff, begins acting like Buffy after the Parker Abrams debacle: blowing off important commitments and turning to the wonders of cheap alcohol. Drunk Willow isn’t nearly as interesting as one would hope, but she’s rather honest when it counts, especially with Xander. Granted, this also highlights the fact that Xander’s character arc is rather bland compared to everyone else, but apparently the writers don’t mind that.

Willow’s troubled mindset does lead to a little foreshadowing, however. When things get rough, what does Willow do? She turns to magic to make it all better, happily inflicting her will upon the universe and her loved ones in a vain attempt to make herself happy again. At this point, she doesn’t know her own power, so the results are amusing more than tragic. But it doesn’t take much to imagine what would happen if Willow had reason to really cut loose, and this is the first of many payoffs to the hints given in “Fear, Itself”.

When the spell doesn’t seem to work, it just makes the whole thing worse for Willow, so she’s definitely not in the mood for Giles’ attempt at helping her gain some perspective. She’s also too far gone to recognize that Buffy can’t drop everything and attend to her needs. Things finally come to a head when Willow loses all patience with Xander’s rational defense of Buffy’s priority list, and that’s when the funny truly begins.

Apparently there were a number of fans clamoring for a Buffy/Spike connection long before the characters were in the right (or wrong) psychological space to make it viable. This episode gives them exactly what they wanted in the worst possible way. Buffy and Spike are hilarious in their wedding planning bliss, even though they still seem to snipe at each other, every chance they get!

Surprisingly funny is the exchange between Buffy and Riley. Perhaps aware that Riley had better start showing some layers to compete with the memory of Angel, the writers give him a strong romantic streak and allow Marc Blucas to display his comic chops. Riley’s reaction to Buffy’s effusive wedding news is classic, and easily one of his finest character moments.

Thankfully, the writers also understand that the gag can only go on for so long before it gets tiresome. That limit is stretched rather far in the case of Buffy/Spike, but it still manages to remain amusing to the very end. In a nice twist, Xander figures out the source of the problem and Anya works out who has been giving Willow some additional help, but neither piece of information actually helps to resolve the situation. Willow is at the center of both the problem and the solution, as it should be.

Willow’s meeting with D’Hoffryn was quite funny and ultimately quite disturbing. It’s never quite mentioned explicitly over the course of the series, but D’Hoffryn seems to keep a very close eye on Anya and her companions after she is unexpectedly turned back into a human. It seems rather odd, in retrospect, that Anya could become human again so easily. Given D’Hoffryn’s attention towards Willow and Halfrek’s interaction with Dawn, it’s quite possible that there was more to the whole story. Perhaps D’Hoffryn used Anya as a way to discover new, fresh candidates for his little harem!

Willow fixes her own mess, but it doesn’t necessarily make sense. While Buffy and Spike would certainly stop climbing all over each other, there’s no reason why the demons would suddenly disappear. The demons were attracted to Xander as if he were a magnet. Logically, the demons were already in the area. As such, the demons shouldn’t have gone anywhere, and more than likely, they would have kept attacking.

The gang also lets Willow off the hook a little too easily, especially Giles. Of all people, Giles has been consistent with Willow in terms of his stance on her use of magic. Even if he assumes that D’Hoffryn was giving Willow far more power than she would usually have at her disposal, he should have been concerned about her reason for using the magic. He would know, all too well, how negative emotions can lead to abusing magics.

Whatever the case, it’s gratifying to see Riley accept the confusion that is Buffy and make his move. Between her little wedding “joke” and her constantly changing hairstyle, Buffy’s lucky that Riley was still willing to be in the same room with her. Then again, Riley’s relationship history could have been so bland or disastrous that Buffy seems like a relatively stable catch. Certainly her fashion sense in the fourth season wasn’t much of a draw; had he seen her in the second or third season, he’d probably have passed out!

This is not a bad episode, especially in terms of the Buffy/Riley romance and the funny, but it’s not nearly as effective as it could or should have been. The beginning of the season caught the writers stumbling out of the gates when they should have, on the strength of the third season, been ready to set the bar even higher. Instead of using Joss’ episode “Fear, Itself” as a course correction, the writers continued to founder. Some episodes managed to work, but with the middle of the season coming quickly, there was a serious need for a unifying concept.

Of course, one could argue that this was a necessary step in the long-term arc, resolving Willow’s initial issues with Oz’s departure while also giving Buffy and Riley some kind of existing relationship going into “Hush”. That’s all very true, but there could have been more to the story. As it stands, nearly halfway through the season, there’s very little sense of what the true enemy might be. While most seasons of “Buffy” don’t reveal the true threat until about 2/3 of the way into the season (around episode 12-14), there’s usually a preliminary threat introduced by the episode 3. That wasn’t the case in this season, and while that lack of a unifying threat plays into the theme of Buffy’s self-doubt, it doesn’t help a struggling season stay afloat.


Memorable Quotes

GILES: “We can’t let you go until we’re sure that you’re…impotent…”
SPIKE: “Hey!”
GILES: “Sorry, poor choice of words. Until we’re sure you’re…you’re…”
BUFFY: “Flaccid?”
SPIKE: “You are one step away, missy!”

SPIKE: “’Passions’ is on! Timmy’s down the bloody well, and if you make me miss it, I’ll-”
GILES: “You’ll do what? Lick me to death?”

BUFFY: “How about a daytime ceremony, in the park.”
SPIKE: “Fabulous. Enjoy your honeymoon with the big pile of dust.”
BUFFY: “Under the trees! Indirect sunlight only.”
SPIKE: “Warm breeze tosses the leaves aside, and again…you’re registering as Mr. and Mrs. Big-Pile-of-Dust.”

BUFFY: “Oh, stop!”
GILES: “Yes, please stop…”
BUFFY: “Giles, did you see my ring?”
GILES: “Thankfully, not very well…”

BUFFY: “I’m getting married! Can you believe it?”
RILEY: “I don’t think ‘no’ is a strong enough word…”

GILES: “Stop that right now! I can hear the smacking!”

ANYA: “Giles is blind?”
GILES: “Please stop whatever it is you’re doing. You smell like fruit roll-ups!”
SPIKE: “This is the crack team that foils my every plan? I am deeply shamed…”

SPIKE: “What are you looking at?”
BUFFY: “The man I love!”
XANDER: “Can I be blind, too?”

D’HOFFRYN: “That is your answer?”
WILLOW: “It is.”
D’HOFFRYN: “I’m sorry to hear that. Oh, well. Here is my talisman, you change your mind, give us a chant…”

BUFFY: “Oh, ugh!”
SPIKE: “Bloody hell!”
BUFFY: “Spike lips! Lips of Spike!”

RILEY: “So you decided to tell me you’re getting married.”
BUFFY: “Uh huh.”
RILEY: “So, you’re insane.”
BUFFY: “Uh huh!”
RILEY: “But you’re still single.”
BUFFY: “Yes.”
RILEY: “OK, then...”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode was quite funny with some subtle dark undertones, but ultimately, it continues the trend of episodes without much of a punch. Like many of the episodes in the first half of the fourth season, something seems to be missing. While there are some intentional aspects to that, the lack of a clear antagonist is part of the problem as well.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4

Final Rating: 6/10