Buffy 4.16: "Who Are You"
Written by Joss Whedon
Directed by Joss Whedon
In which Faith tries to slip her way into Buffy’s world, but as she begins to experience Buffy’s life, she begins losing sight of her own personality, while Buffy struggles with the Watchers…
Status Report
The previous episode focused primarily on the fact that Faith had come out of her coma with a fractured sense of self and a set of unjustified grievances the size of Montana. It ended with Faith literally taking everything from Buffy and forcing Buffy to walk in her shoes for the rest of her life. As revenge fantasies go, Faith manages to live out one of the more satisfying ones. The theme of the season, however, is self-identity, and how one learns to define one’s purpose, so Faith doesn’t have it as easy as she might like.
At this point of the season, things finally begin to gel in terms of the season arc. Buffy’s personal issues and the fracturing of the gang into personal growth experiences has left the door wide open for someone to come along and organize the demonic world. One gets the sense that the Mayor’s defeat at the end of the third season left most demons searching for their own direction and purpose, and the Initiative’s work sent them into even more of a panic. Adam steps in and finds his place in the world as the one to gather the troops and make a move to dominate; instead of being the perfect demon-killing machine, Adam becomes the perfect weapon to eliminate humans.
Given how much time was spent in the previous episode on determining Adam’s next move, it’s interesting to note how Faith disrupts that effort in a major way. Certainly Faith has no intention of risking herself to stop some killing machine that she hopes to never encounter. Her thought process never went beyond getting on a plane and pretending at having a new life. But even before that happens, the nurturing aspect of Buffy’s world begins to have a disturbing effect on her. The unconditional love of a mother is not something Faith is used to experiencing.
The bit with the mirror is a lot of fun, and it gives Sarah a chance to demonstrate her ability to mimic Eliza’s particular depiction of Faith. The constant, mocking repetition of “because it’s wrong” provides a baseline for Faith’s mental stability. Faith sees Buffy and her moral compass as hopelessly naïve and self-limiting in the beginning, when she has some hope of remaining unscathed by the trauma of her own decisions.
This being a Joss episode, everything promised regarding Willow and Tara in “Hush” comes to fruition. Unlike some of the other aspects of the season, their relationship has grown on a fairly logical pace. The effort to make Tara look unconventionally attractive continues, however, and in some scenes, the effect is actually closer to disturbing. Willow would definitely go for a goth Wicca; she wouldn’t go for someone who looks like a stoner. Sure, Tara may be trying to look a certain way to place the rest of the world at arms’ length, but it makes one wonder about Willow’s taste.
For all that, Joss is remarkably honest about the circumstances of the relationship between Willow and Tara. A lot of fans eventually took issue with the way that the relationship ended and its supposed connotation for “the nature of lesbians”. What is often overlooked is the fact that Willow might have easily gone into a relationship with a male Wiccan, with the same end result. The entire relationship begins out of a shared passion for magic, and from the beginning, Willow is attracted to the allure of sharing and expanding her abilities. The seeds for Willow’s descent are already well established. In turn, Tara’s personality is established in such a way that she is effectively centering her universe around Willow.
One could draw parallels of dominance/submission within that relationship, but that would ignore the fact that Tara is a person who has been taught to demean herself, regardless of the relationship. In a way, her reaction to Willow is the kind of reaction she would have had to anyone who treats her as valuable. The point is that these are character flaws that are entirely independent of the fact that this is a lesbian relationship, and the eventual consequences derive solely from those previously established character flaws.
Something very interesting happens when Faith vamps up Buffy. One immediately realizes that a lot of the inherent sexiness of Buffy’s character disappeared after the third season. Part of that is certainly character-driven; Buffy had more than enough reason to reject the side of her that resembled Faith and everything Faith loved about being a Slayer. But part of it is the fact that Sarah became a bit too skinny over time, to the point that they couldn’t even find a stunt woman who could match her body frame. Not to be crude, but Buffy used to have cleavage, and those leather pants used to fit a lot better. (Why wouldn’t Faith choose a push-up bra, when in her usual body, she’s displaying the bosom without hesitation?) Sarah still looks damn good in this episode, and she knows how to be seductive and dangerous, but it exposes how much that side of her character has been missing.
On another note, the Watcher hitmen finally catch up with Faith’s body, and Buffy is probably not happy to discover that the Watchers have a cleaner squad. For that matter, it’s a little surprising to think that the Watchers would have people ready and waiting to conduct extreme prejudice on Slayers who cross the line. Joss is clearly trying to give the Watchers a dangerous edge, but it doesn’t quite fit with the impressions of the organization thus far. It also makes one wonder why, if the Watchers were willing to eliminate Faith, they were more than happy to let Buffy run around as a rogue agent. (Then again, as previously mentioned, it works to their advantage, since Buffy gets to risk their neck while they get time to train the Potentials more thoroughly.)
Faith seems to enjoy toying with the Scoobies, but it bothers her somewhat to know that Willow hates her. This is the other side of the equation that Faith can’t seem to deal with. She’s not comfortable with the kind of world that Buffy has creating for herself, filled with genuine nurturing, and she doesn’t like dealing with the reality of how strongly people hate her for her actions. To live as Buffy, Faith has to start thinking and reacting like Buffy, and it brings up alternative emotional responses that she would normally be able to dismiss.
She quickly decides to use Adam as an excuse to go have some wicked fun at the Bronze, and she runs into Spike. At this point, Spike is still engaged in his hate/hate relationship with Buffy, but Joss turns that around in a hurry. This is where Sarah really makes Faith’s raw sexual energy shine through, even if she doesn’t have the assets for it. Faith’s little description of what she could do speaks volumes, and it certainly gave Spike (and most male fans!) something to think about. If Spike wasn’t secretly lusting after Buffy before, he certainly was after that!
But it also reveals something that Faith’s character has always hinted at: the raw and primal instincts of the Chosen. All that power and physical ability is clearly a rush, and tapping into the wellspring at the heart of the Chosen line is like a direct connection to the pure and predatory animal. Faith let the pain and suffering of a (likely) sexually abusive childhood translate into a desire to use those primal urges to control her relationships with men. She plays Spike like a fiddle.
At the same time, what does that say about Buffy? She has to feel a lot of the same desires, but her sense of morality keeps a lot of that in check. Indeed, she seems to hold back just a little too much at times. When she loses that sense of purpose and direction, and she wants to punish herself in the sixth season, how does she respond? By abusing herself and Spike in exactly the way that Faith depicts in this episode. It’s hard not to believe that this was intentional on Joss’ part, because while Buffy’s self-control is often better than the alternative, her self-denial can be dangerous when something drives her to give in.
Willow and Tara run into Faith at the Bronze, and for a moment, it feels like a scene designed to set Tara at odds with Buffy, forcing Willow to choose. Faith really rips into Tara, and she takes a lot of pleasure in undermining Tara’s confidence. But when it comes to stepping into the Slayer role again, this time as Buffy, Faith is faced with the simplicity of human compassion. It confuses the hell out of her, and so when Willow gives her the idea to visit Riley, it gives her another way to escape the uncomfortable feelings.
Buffy, meanwhile, gets a really good look at how far the Watchers are willing to go to get their way. One supposes that Buffy’s defection wasn’t a big deal, because they always felt like Faith (and her successor) was their true responsibility. But what does it say that there would be people working for the Watchers who consider themselves expendable? Fighting demons is one thing, but this is a squad designed for something else entirely. There are shades of the Talamasca from the Anne Rice novels, but since this side of the Watchers is largely absent in future seasons, it’s a concept that isn’t realized.
Tara shows a depth to her character when she very carefully tells Willow what she “felt” about the Faith-in-Buffy situation. It would have been easy for Tara to dismiss those feelings and assume that Buffy was simply a lot worse a person than Willow believed. Instead, Tara understood what kind of person Willow would gravitate towards, and saw the inconsistencies. It speaks volumes about how important Willow is to Tara.
Much like the scene with Spike, Sarah does a damn good job of seducing Riley, while keeping true to Faith’s character. Once again, a less emaciated Sarah would have been more interesting to watch, but they play it up beautifully. The shot of Sarah crawling across the bed is particularly memorable! But this is Faith, of course, and so she prefers to play power games, rather than explore what love entails. Riley, on the other hand, has no intention of letting that happen.
Joss takes both relationships to a similar place, but with vastly opposite results. The use of magic as a metaphor for Willow and Tara’s first sexual experience together is very well done. Allyson actually makes her ecstasy look genuine and triumphant, as opposed to the look of terror on Faith’s face when she realizes that she’s in completely new territory. Willow and Tara open up to one another without reservation; Faith does the same, but it only throws her into confusion. It’s a great example of classic Joss interplay.
Amidst Willow and Tara finding out who they are together, Riley figuring out that he loves Buffy, and Faith realizing that pretending to be Buffy means dropping her defenses far more than she expected, Adam also comes into his own. He becomes the inspirational leader of a gang of vampires, but that’s only the beginning. Adam intends far more, and as the season draws to a close, eliminating the opposition is his primary goal.
Forrest, like nearly every other appearance since “The I in Team”, doesn’t give Buffy an inch, and thanks to that, Faith snaps right back into her usual persona. It’s easy, since Forrest doesn’t even try to see any other point of view than his own, and he actually gets more and more annoying as the season progresses.
Meanwhile, Buffy gets the drop on the cleaners (something else that doesn’t give them much credibility), and as expected, it’s not long before she’s running to get help from Giles. This is easily the best scene with Eliza as Buffy; she gets Sarah’s mannerisms and speech patterns down perfectly. It’s a little disappointing to Buffy (and the audience) that Giles doesn’t look into her eyes and recognize her, but Buffy’s spiel regarding Giles and his sex life was priceless. (Ever notice how only Joss bothered to mention Olivia?)
Things come to a head when Adam’s latest minions take over a church, threatening to kill everyone, high on overcoming their fears. Faith hears about the incident in the airport, and instead of boarding her plane, she decides that she’s Buffy, and so she has to do the right thing. Her sense of identity is completely shattered. Now, when she says “because it’s wrong”, she actually means it. Instead of taking over Buffy’s life and stealing her world, she’s allowed Buffy’s world to take over her.
Thanks to some courageous silliness on Giles’ part, it doesn’t take long for Buffy and Faith to come to blows, once Adam’s minions are taken out. Seeing her own body again sends Faith right over the edge. Everything she hates about herself, now that she’s had a means of expressing what she might really have wanted in life, comes into focus, and it’s not pretty. The fight is remarkably short, but in retrospect, it makes sense that Faith would run away once back in her own body. Faith is defeated in every sense of the world, and whatever strands of sanity remained are long gone. As would soon be clear on “Angel”, that self-loathing would translate into a deathwish; she has, finally, hit rock bottom.
Of course, the damage was already done. Buffy had to fight to take back her life, but Faith made a mess of it in less than a day. Worst of all is the fact that Riley slept with Faith, unaware that it wasn’t Buffy. Giles’ lack of recognition hurt in one respect, but it’s Riley that she really would have expected to come through. Then again, she needs to give him some slack, given what he’s been through lately.
Unfortunately, the experience reinforces some of the personality changes that Buffy had undergone since the third season. Buffy is one step further down a path of self-awareness, but for all that, she’s afraid to let her sexuality to the surface in any way that would resemble Faith’s aggressiveness. She’s still sexual, of course (thinking of “Where the Wild Things Are”), but she also begins to lose some of the joy in life.
Buffy’s search for a sense of purpose and identity would not be resolved in the fourth season. Instead, the end of the fourth season would transform her journey, placing the focus on what it means to be a Slayer and one of the Chosen. But in order to make sense of how that journey changes Buffy, especially in terms of Dawn’s arrival, Buffy needs to get a grip on who she is now that she’s becoming an adult. Having everything in her life taken away without warning, only to get it back, helps to give her that sense of who she wants to be when all is said and done.
Memorable Quotes
TARA: “I am, you know.”
WILLOW: “What?”
TARA: “Yours.”
WILLOW: “What’s ‘wetworks’?”
XANDER: “Scuba-type stuff.”
ANYA: “I thought it was murder?”
XANDER: “Well, yeah…but there could be underwater murder…with snorkels…”
ANYA: “We were gonna light a bunch and candles and have sex near them.”
FAITH: “Well, we certainly don’t want to cut into those seven minutes…”
SPIKE: “You know why I really hate you, Summers?”
FAITH: “’Cause I’m a stuck-up tightass with no sense of fun?”
SPIKE: “Well… yeah…that covers a lot of it…”
FAITH: “’Cause I could do anything I want, and instead I choose to pout and whine and feel the burden of Slayerness? I mean, I could be rich. I could be famous. I could have anything. Anyone. Even you, Spike. I could ride you at a gallop until your legs buckled and your eyes rolled up. I’ve got muscles you’ve never even dreamed of. I could squeeze you until you pop like dry champagne and you’d beg me to hurt you just a little bit more. And you know why I don’t? Because it’s wrong.”
BUFFY: “Giles, you just have to…stop inching! You were inching!”
BUFFY: “Ask me anything.”
GILES: “Who’s president?”
BUFFY: “We’re checking for Buffy, not a concussion…”
BUFFY: “Oh! When I had psychic power, I heard my mom think that you were like a stevedore during sex. Wh…do you want me to continue?”
GILES: “Actually, I beg you to stop.”
BUFFY: “What’s a stevedore?”
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode provides a strong conclusion to the first half of the story, exploring several different aspects of self-identity in a well-executed script. Joss continues to improve his directorial style by delivering an exciting and funny episode with an equal helping of psychological trauma. Sarah and Eliza do near-perfect impressions of each other, which gives the “body switching” cliché more credibility.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 3/4
Final Rating: 9/10
Directed by Joss Whedon
In which Faith tries to slip her way into Buffy’s world, but as she begins to experience Buffy’s life, she begins losing sight of her own personality, while Buffy struggles with the Watchers…
Status Report
The previous episode focused primarily on the fact that Faith had come out of her coma with a fractured sense of self and a set of unjustified grievances the size of Montana. It ended with Faith literally taking everything from Buffy and forcing Buffy to walk in her shoes for the rest of her life. As revenge fantasies go, Faith manages to live out one of the more satisfying ones. The theme of the season, however, is self-identity, and how one learns to define one’s purpose, so Faith doesn’t have it as easy as she might like.
At this point of the season, things finally begin to gel in terms of the season arc. Buffy’s personal issues and the fracturing of the gang into personal growth experiences has left the door wide open for someone to come along and organize the demonic world. One gets the sense that the Mayor’s defeat at the end of the third season left most demons searching for their own direction and purpose, and the Initiative’s work sent them into even more of a panic. Adam steps in and finds his place in the world as the one to gather the troops and make a move to dominate; instead of being the perfect demon-killing machine, Adam becomes the perfect weapon to eliminate humans.
Given how much time was spent in the previous episode on determining Adam’s next move, it’s interesting to note how Faith disrupts that effort in a major way. Certainly Faith has no intention of risking herself to stop some killing machine that she hopes to never encounter. Her thought process never went beyond getting on a plane and pretending at having a new life. But even before that happens, the nurturing aspect of Buffy’s world begins to have a disturbing effect on her. The unconditional love of a mother is not something Faith is used to experiencing.
The bit with the mirror is a lot of fun, and it gives Sarah a chance to demonstrate her ability to mimic Eliza’s particular depiction of Faith. The constant, mocking repetition of “because it’s wrong” provides a baseline for Faith’s mental stability. Faith sees Buffy and her moral compass as hopelessly naïve and self-limiting in the beginning, when she has some hope of remaining unscathed by the trauma of her own decisions.
This being a Joss episode, everything promised regarding Willow and Tara in “Hush” comes to fruition. Unlike some of the other aspects of the season, their relationship has grown on a fairly logical pace. The effort to make Tara look unconventionally attractive continues, however, and in some scenes, the effect is actually closer to disturbing. Willow would definitely go for a goth Wicca; she wouldn’t go for someone who looks like a stoner. Sure, Tara may be trying to look a certain way to place the rest of the world at arms’ length, but it makes one wonder about Willow’s taste.
For all that, Joss is remarkably honest about the circumstances of the relationship between Willow and Tara. A lot of fans eventually took issue with the way that the relationship ended and its supposed connotation for “the nature of lesbians”. What is often overlooked is the fact that Willow might have easily gone into a relationship with a male Wiccan, with the same end result. The entire relationship begins out of a shared passion for magic, and from the beginning, Willow is attracted to the allure of sharing and expanding her abilities. The seeds for Willow’s descent are already well established. In turn, Tara’s personality is established in such a way that she is effectively centering her universe around Willow.
One could draw parallels of dominance/submission within that relationship, but that would ignore the fact that Tara is a person who has been taught to demean herself, regardless of the relationship. In a way, her reaction to Willow is the kind of reaction she would have had to anyone who treats her as valuable. The point is that these are character flaws that are entirely independent of the fact that this is a lesbian relationship, and the eventual consequences derive solely from those previously established character flaws.
Something very interesting happens when Faith vamps up Buffy. One immediately realizes that a lot of the inherent sexiness of Buffy’s character disappeared after the third season. Part of that is certainly character-driven; Buffy had more than enough reason to reject the side of her that resembled Faith and everything Faith loved about being a Slayer. But part of it is the fact that Sarah became a bit too skinny over time, to the point that they couldn’t even find a stunt woman who could match her body frame. Not to be crude, but Buffy used to have cleavage, and those leather pants used to fit a lot better. (Why wouldn’t Faith choose a push-up bra, when in her usual body, she’s displaying the bosom without hesitation?) Sarah still looks damn good in this episode, and she knows how to be seductive and dangerous, but it exposes how much that side of her character has been missing.
On another note, the Watcher hitmen finally catch up with Faith’s body, and Buffy is probably not happy to discover that the Watchers have a cleaner squad. For that matter, it’s a little surprising to think that the Watchers would have people ready and waiting to conduct extreme prejudice on Slayers who cross the line. Joss is clearly trying to give the Watchers a dangerous edge, but it doesn’t quite fit with the impressions of the organization thus far. It also makes one wonder why, if the Watchers were willing to eliminate Faith, they were more than happy to let Buffy run around as a rogue agent. (Then again, as previously mentioned, it works to their advantage, since Buffy gets to risk their neck while they get time to train the Potentials more thoroughly.)
Faith seems to enjoy toying with the Scoobies, but it bothers her somewhat to know that Willow hates her. This is the other side of the equation that Faith can’t seem to deal with. She’s not comfortable with the kind of world that Buffy has creating for herself, filled with genuine nurturing, and she doesn’t like dealing with the reality of how strongly people hate her for her actions. To live as Buffy, Faith has to start thinking and reacting like Buffy, and it brings up alternative emotional responses that she would normally be able to dismiss.
She quickly decides to use Adam as an excuse to go have some wicked fun at the Bronze, and she runs into Spike. At this point, Spike is still engaged in his hate/hate relationship with Buffy, but Joss turns that around in a hurry. This is where Sarah really makes Faith’s raw sexual energy shine through, even if she doesn’t have the assets for it. Faith’s little description of what she could do speaks volumes, and it certainly gave Spike (and most male fans!) something to think about. If Spike wasn’t secretly lusting after Buffy before, he certainly was after that!
But it also reveals something that Faith’s character has always hinted at: the raw and primal instincts of the Chosen. All that power and physical ability is clearly a rush, and tapping into the wellspring at the heart of the Chosen line is like a direct connection to the pure and predatory animal. Faith let the pain and suffering of a (likely) sexually abusive childhood translate into a desire to use those primal urges to control her relationships with men. She plays Spike like a fiddle.
At the same time, what does that say about Buffy? She has to feel a lot of the same desires, but her sense of morality keeps a lot of that in check. Indeed, she seems to hold back just a little too much at times. When she loses that sense of purpose and direction, and she wants to punish herself in the sixth season, how does she respond? By abusing herself and Spike in exactly the way that Faith depicts in this episode. It’s hard not to believe that this was intentional on Joss’ part, because while Buffy’s self-control is often better than the alternative, her self-denial can be dangerous when something drives her to give in.
Willow and Tara run into Faith at the Bronze, and for a moment, it feels like a scene designed to set Tara at odds with Buffy, forcing Willow to choose. Faith really rips into Tara, and she takes a lot of pleasure in undermining Tara’s confidence. But when it comes to stepping into the Slayer role again, this time as Buffy, Faith is faced with the simplicity of human compassion. It confuses the hell out of her, and so when Willow gives her the idea to visit Riley, it gives her another way to escape the uncomfortable feelings.
Buffy, meanwhile, gets a really good look at how far the Watchers are willing to go to get their way. One supposes that Buffy’s defection wasn’t a big deal, because they always felt like Faith (and her successor) was their true responsibility. But what does it say that there would be people working for the Watchers who consider themselves expendable? Fighting demons is one thing, but this is a squad designed for something else entirely. There are shades of the Talamasca from the Anne Rice novels, but since this side of the Watchers is largely absent in future seasons, it’s a concept that isn’t realized.
Tara shows a depth to her character when she very carefully tells Willow what she “felt” about the Faith-in-Buffy situation. It would have been easy for Tara to dismiss those feelings and assume that Buffy was simply a lot worse a person than Willow believed. Instead, Tara understood what kind of person Willow would gravitate towards, and saw the inconsistencies. It speaks volumes about how important Willow is to Tara.
Much like the scene with Spike, Sarah does a damn good job of seducing Riley, while keeping true to Faith’s character. Once again, a less emaciated Sarah would have been more interesting to watch, but they play it up beautifully. The shot of Sarah crawling across the bed is particularly memorable! But this is Faith, of course, and so she prefers to play power games, rather than explore what love entails. Riley, on the other hand, has no intention of letting that happen.
Joss takes both relationships to a similar place, but with vastly opposite results. The use of magic as a metaphor for Willow and Tara’s first sexual experience together is very well done. Allyson actually makes her ecstasy look genuine and triumphant, as opposed to the look of terror on Faith’s face when she realizes that she’s in completely new territory. Willow and Tara open up to one another without reservation; Faith does the same, but it only throws her into confusion. It’s a great example of classic Joss interplay.
Amidst Willow and Tara finding out who they are together, Riley figuring out that he loves Buffy, and Faith realizing that pretending to be Buffy means dropping her defenses far more than she expected, Adam also comes into his own. He becomes the inspirational leader of a gang of vampires, but that’s only the beginning. Adam intends far more, and as the season draws to a close, eliminating the opposition is his primary goal.
Forrest, like nearly every other appearance since “The I in Team”, doesn’t give Buffy an inch, and thanks to that, Faith snaps right back into her usual persona. It’s easy, since Forrest doesn’t even try to see any other point of view than his own, and he actually gets more and more annoying as the season progresses.
Meanwhile, Buffy gets the drop on the cleaners (something else that doesn’t give them much credibility), and as expected, it’s not long before she’s running to get help from Giles. This is easily the best scene with Eliza as Buffy; she gets Sarah’s mannerisms and speech patterns down perfectly. It’s a little disappointing to Buffy (and the audience) that Giles doesn’t look into her eyes and recognize her, but Buffy’s spiel regarding Giles and his sex life was priceless. (Ever notice how only Joss bothered to mention Olivia?)
Things come to a head when Adam’s latest minions take over a church, threatening to kill everyone, high on overcoming their fears. Faith hears about the incident in the airport, and instead of boarding her plane, she decides that she’s Buffy, and so she has to do the right thing. Her sense of identity is completely shattered. Now, when she says “because it’s wrong”, she actually means it. Instead of taking over Buffy’s life and stealing her world, she’s allowed Buffy’s world to take over her.
Thanks to some courageous silliness on Giles’ part, it doesn’t take long for Buffy and Faith to come to blows, once Adam’s minions are taken out. Seeing her own body again sends Faith right over the edge. Everything she hates about herself, now that she’s had a means of expressing what she might really have wanted in life, comes into focus, and it’s not pretty. The fight is remarkably short, but in retrospect, it makes sense that Faith would run away once back in her own body. Faith is defeated in every sense of the world, and whatever strands of sanity remained are long gone. As would soon be clear on “Angel”, that self-loathing would translate into a deathwish; she has, finally, hit rock bottom.
Of course, the damage was already done. Buffy had to fight to take back her life, but Faith made a mess of it in less than a day. Worst of all is the fact that Riley slept with Faith, unaware that it wasn’t Buffy. Giles’ lack of recognition hurt in one respect, but it’s Riley that she really would have expected to come through. Then again, she needs to give him some slack, given what he’s been through lately.
Unfortunately, the experience reinforces some of the personality changes that Buffy had undergone since the third season. Buffy is one step further down a path of self-awareness, but for all that, she’s afraid to let her sexuality to the surface in any way that would resemble Faith’s aggressiveness. She’s still sexual, of course (thinking of “Where the Wild Things Are”), but she also begins to lose some of the joy in life.
Buffy’s search for a sense of purpose and identity would not be resolved in the fourth season. Instead, the end of the fourth season would transform her journey, placing the focus on what it means to be a Slayer and one of the Chosen. But in order to make sense of how that journey changes Buffy, especially in terms of Dawn’s arrival, Buffy needs to get a grip on who she is now that she’s becoming an adult. Having everything in her life taken away without warning, only to get it back, helps to give her that sense of who she wants to be when all is said and done.
Memorable Quotes
TARA: “I am, you know.”
WILLOW: “What?”
TARA: “Yours.”
WILLOW: “What’s ‘wetworks’?”
XANDER: “Scuba-type stuff.”
ANYA: “I thought it was murder?”
XANDER: “Well, yeah…but there could be underwater murder…with snorkels…”
ANYA: “We were gonna light a bunch and candles and have sex near them.”
FAITH: “Well, we certainly don’t want to cut into those seven minutes…”
SPIKE: “You know why I really hate you, Summers?”
FAITH: “’Cause I’m a stuck-up tightass with no sense of fun?”
SPIKE: “Well… yeah…that covers a lot of it…”
FAITH: “’Cause I could do anything I want, and instead I choose to pout and whine and feel the burden of Slayerness? I mean, I could be rich. I could be famous. I could have anything. Anyone. Even you, Spike. I could ride you at a gallop until your legs buckled and your eyes rolled up. I’ve got muscles you’ve never even dreamed of. I could squeeze you until you pop like dry champagne and you’d beg me to hurt you just a little bit more. And you know why I don’t? Because it’s wrong.”
BUFFY: “Giles, you just have to…stop inching! You were inching!”
BUFFY: “Ask me anything.”
GILES: “Who’s president?”
BUFFY: “We’re checking for Buffy, not a concussion…”
BUFFY: “Oh! When I had psychic power, I heard my mom think that you were like a stevedore during sex. Wh…do you want me to continue?”
GILES: “Actually, I beg you to stop.”
BUFFY: “What’s a stevedore?”
Final Analysis
Overall, this episode provides a strong conclusion to the first half of the story, exploring several different aspects of self-identity in a well-executed script. Joss continues to improve his directorial style by delivering an exciting and funny episode with an equal helping of psychological trauma. Sarah and Eliza do near-perfect impressions of each other, which gives the “body switching” cliché more credibility.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 3/4
Final Rating: 9/10
posted by John Keegan | 17:21
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