harsens-rob's

Review: BTVS' "I Only Have Eyes For You"

2013-05-12T04:36:01Z

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 2, Ep 19

"I Only Have Eyes For You"

Written by: Marti Noxon
Dir: James Whitmore, Jr

Blurb: Sunnydale High School is haunted by the ghosts of a former student and teacher who reenact their tragic romance through the bodies of the school's current inhabitants.

Scene 01: We start in the Bronze, listening to our guest artist sing. A slow pan reveals young-type peoples swaying to the music. Our pan moves up to the mezzanine, where we find Buffy gazing down on everyone having fun.

She's approached by Ben, a student she apparently had math class with. Ben is there to let us know about the coming Sadie Hawkins dance coming up in which the boys get asked out by the girls. He's hoping that Buffy would like to ask him, and since she hasn't yet he has decided to take the initiative by mentioning this to her.

Buffy is still on post-Angel/Angelus blues, though, and so turns him down. She's not planning on seeing anyone again, ever. Our guest goes on singing, while Buffy decides to just leave.

Scene 02: On her way out, she runs into Willow. They engage in a convo about how Buffy has been all slay lately, or just staying home. Buffy tries to point out that she came there tonight, so she is not all-work/no-play. But Will saw her up on the balcony looking mopey and doing the rejection thing with Ben.

Willow tries to get her into 'date mode' again, but our Slayer reminds Willow of how her last fling ended with her vampire boyfriend losing his soul and killing her friends. Willow sympathizes with the whole disaster, but is concerned that Buffy is giving up on love, when it can be so nice (i.e. she's glowy over being with Oz and wants her friends to be glowy too).

Commentary: Wow, those scenes at The Bronze were long. Did the guest have it in her contract that we had to hear her whole song?

Scene 03: Willow's mentioning how nice love can be leads us across town to the school hallway, where love isn't seeming all that nice at all.

Random couple are apparently arguing, because Boy yells at Girl to stop walking away from him. Our couple appear to be in the midst of an emotional breakup. He's not ready to end things, she's not prepared to stay. Boy demands she say the words that she doesn't love him, and she does -- though it seems like she may not mean that.

Boy refuses to hear this, too. He draws a gun on her. He tells her that love is forever.

Cut to Theme/Credits (which strikes me as being in a weird place)

Scene 04: As our Boy continues to threaten Girl, Buffy arrives to check in with Giles. She sees what is going down, just as Girl turns away and starts to march away from Psycho-Boy.

Commentary: And, this would seem like a better place to insert the credits -- right after Buffy comes around the corner and yells, "HEY!"

Boy ignores the charging Buffy to yell at Girl, "Don't walk away from me, Bitch!"

His yelling now draws a nearby janitor, as well.

Scene 05: Buffy disarms Boy with a bit of ass-kickery. Janitor rushes to Girl to see that she's alright.

Once disarmed, both Boy and Girl are left confused. Both insist that they weren't even fighting several minutes before. Buffy wants to know from Boy why he brought a gun to school if not to threaten Girl, but he insists he doesn't even know how get got it.

Meanwhile, Janitor looks for the gun and reports that it isn't anywhere to be seen.

Scene 06: We skip forward to the following morning. Buffy has been called into Snyder's office to talk about the evening before. He's decided that she incites chaos whereever she goes, to her protestations. Snyder complains that the gun she claims the Boy had is still missing and he and Girl are left confused as to what exactly happened.

He's sure that somehow this is all Buffy's fault... and she probably coerced the witnesses to boot.

He's interrupted by his secretary buzzing in. Apparently, a student who is in the habit of such things, has protested the snack machine by chaining himself to it. He orders Buffy to keep her ass seated until he returns (where he'll undoubtedly try to blame her for influencing the "vegan freak" as well).

Scene 07: As Buffy waits, a Sunnydale yearbook mysteriously slides out of the bookshelf and falls to the floor. It's from 1955.

Buffy gives a "huh", but replaces it without much thought.

Scene 08: Meanwhile, in Jenny's class, Willow is continuing to sub for her and is giving homework assignments. Rupert comes along to hear the last bit where she self-pleasingly draws mild laughter at her joke before dismissing them.

Giles offers that he wanted to make sure she didn't require any help, but can see that she has things well in hand. Willow gives credit to Ms. Calendar as she left behind very good lesson planning. There's a bit of wistful uncomfortableness.

Commentary: What is weird is Willow specifically mentioning that they were on Ms. Calendar's computer: The very computer that was smashed and on fire as she was being killed. Apparently the Hellmouth also makes computer disks really tough to destroy -- obviously to torture the students.

Willow also mentions the other files that Jenny had on her computer about magic, that she finds highly interesting. Finally, she finds a rose quartz necklace of Jenny's and offers it to Giles, as it reputedly has healing properties. He takes it, and we get a reprise of Jenny's theme from when Buffy and he were standing at Calendar's gravesite. He leaves. We ache for him.

Scene 09: Elsewhere, Buffy has escaped from Snyder only to be bored into drowsiness in history.

As the teacher is going over the New Deal, Buffy drifts into a vision. Buffy's vision involves a female teacher and a high school boy. All of the kids around her are dressed ... well... not as she.

She's seeing the 1950's of Sunnydale High, you see. In this vision, James hands in an assignment to Ms. Newman and as they chat there seems to be some sort of inappropriate feelings between the two. This is confirmed a moment later, as Grace and he touch fingers intimately. They're interrupted by someone opening the classroom door, which also ends Buffy's vision.

When she returns to herself, her history teacher is continuing the lesson. But as he's lecturing, on the green board, he's writing James' refrain:

"Don't walk away from me, Bitch," which as we'll recall was the words used by Boy to Girl when they were both off in their own argument, which neither can explain.

Scene 10: Later, Buffy is telling Xander about the weird which he mocks as being their basic school motto. He points out though that a daydream and the teacher having a case of chalkboard Tourette doesn't really prove hellmouth activity. He quickly changes his mind however, when he opens his locker door only to be assaulted by an arm grabbing his shirt and trying to yank him into it.

Buffy's able to pull him away and shut the locker, but the hallway is crowded and everyone is staring at him. Buffy and Xan try to both play it off, somehow, and to investigate further. Buffy opens the locker again for him, ready for a fight... but nothing is there.

Commentary: Okay, so my biggest problem with this one is the Ghostly Manifestations. They feel completely random as to what James can do, or why he chooses the attacks that he does. In this case, I can sort of see why Xander was targeted, if not the weird (and cheap) arm in the locker. James is obviously reaching out to Buffy for whatever reason [she'll theorize later, but I'm not sure I buy it completely], but what he hopes to accomplish through her is unclear.

But, I can see him launching this random attack on Xander for trying to talk Buffy out of investigating, and ergo (presumably) helping James out of his torment. I can even sort of see that the arm could be manifested combining ectoplasma and Hellmouth booster. But as James gets more angry, his powers seem to be entirely random from scene to scene and again I have to wonder why he's only now being so clear and aggressive. I suppose it is possible from his limbo, that he knows Buffy is a supernatural being and can help him, so maybe he's super in-your-face about it for that reason. But, this is never addressed except by Buffy's own theory, which we'll get to at the appropriate time.

Scene 11: Our twosome rush to the library where, naturally, Giles is putzing -- because other students only ever enter the library on a lark usually when it is jokingly inconvenient. Willow also is there, looking at stuff. Just stuff. Probably related to her sudden interest in Jenny's magic knowledge.

Xan and Buffy report on the latest weird in the school and they come to the conclusion pretty quickly that they're dealing with a poltergeist-laden angry ghost.

Buffy's face probably says it all:

Willow says it's cool, but she wonders what it wants. Giles explains hauntings - that the ghost has unresolved crises which it cannot do anything to resolve, and this makes him/her grow ever more angry and confused. He suggests finding out who the spirit used to be and resolving whatever is holding him/her here.

And, by Giles' tone, you can already hear that he's forming an opinion about who is haunting the school.

Scene 12: Later that night, George the Janitor - who witnessed Boy and Girl and the gun situation, is mopping up the hallway as teacher Mrs. Frank is leaving for the night. They exchange pleasantries. But as Mrs. Frank goes to leave, George calls out to her as he drops the mop suddenly. A faraway look comes into Mrs. Frank's eyes... oh, oh.

George tells Mrs. Frank that she can't make him go away. Mrs. Frank tells George there is no way they can be together, as no one will understand. George doesn't want to let go of Mrs. Frank's love, but she tells him it has to be over and tries to rush off. George follows.

George and Mrs. Frank begin repeating the section of the argument that we heard from Boy and Girl. And that gun? The one that Boy had which vanished mysteriously when Buffy knocked it out of Boy's hand? Well, it suddenly materializes in George's hand. He brandishes it at Mrs. Frank.

Commentary: And, at this point it should be quite clear that Boy and Girl weren't actually involved in a bitter breakup, just as both claimed. We can tell that this argument is being repeated in the evening by random guy/girl following a pattern set down by James and Grace decades before.

Scene 13: In his library office, Giles overhears George's voice growing louder as he yells at Mrs. Frank over her attempts to try to tell him that she isn't in love with him, as he refuses to accept this could be true.

Notably, Giles is researching something... while he's clinging to the rose quartz on a cord that used to be Jenny's *sigh, oh Giles*.

He hears a woman's voice whispering, "I need you", as he leaves his office to investigate the angry argument in progress. He immediately takes this as Jenny calling out to him from beyond the grave. He wanders out into the hallway, and closes on George and Mrs. Frank in their thrall.

He's just in time to see them through a window, where George has backed Mrs. Frank against the balcony wall. He shoots her in the chest and sends her tumbling.

George goes running off in a panic, where he passes by the hallway that Giles is crouched in. Rupert flies out from the corner and tackles George, which causes the gun to fly from his hand. As it slides across the floor, it de-materializes. George is left utterly mystified, and then horrified as Giles tells him what he's just done.

Commentary: I rarely feel really bad for the random victims, but poor George! Not to mention Mrs. Frank dying as somebody else. What is interesting though, is the fact that we're not only dealing with James' haunting, as we've easily concluded. But, Ms. Newman is also haunting the school, as they're both trying to resolve her murder but apparently aren't able to interact directly with one another. It leads to deep-thoughts about what is going on beneath our notice with their ghosts and they're being forced to continually try to come to a conclusion for both of them, but not being able to communicate with one another. Huh.

But, I also wanted to really just give a kudos to actor, John Hawkes, who is very arresting. It's weird, but I've seen very few things that he's acted in but whenever I have, it's always him that my attention is focused on simply due to a screen presence and magnetism... possibly due to his expressive eyes.

Scene 14: In a nearly random jump, we join Angel and Drusilla. They're moving into new digs now that Giles managed to burn them out of the factory. The new place is exactly what Dru wanted -- which will surely only lead to more sparks between Angelus and Spike.

Speaking of which -- Spike rolls in, and immediately snarks that the abandoned mansion has lots of windows and a nice large garden exposed to the sunlight which should come in handy when they all want to immolate. Angelus tells him that if he doesn't like it, he can always: "Hit the stairs, and go. Take a stand, man."

Spike complains that the old place was fine, until Angelus brought Rupert's wrath down on them. Angelus continues to taunt Spike.

Scene 15: In the library the following day, Giles updates the gang. Poor George remembers killing Mrs. Frank, but he has no idea why. Also, the police searched high and low for the murder weapon, but the gun wasn't found anywhere.

Rupert tells the gang that the haunting is caused by Jenny -- even though the pattern has nothing to do with the way that she died, nor did Jenny seems like the type of person to play sock-puppet with people and force them to shoot other random victims in a random act of jealousy and heartbreak. The gang is... obviously... a bit "WTH??" by his theory.

The Scooby Gang try to point out all of the evidence that the pattern being played out simply isn't consistent with how Jenny was murdered, but Rupert is almost desperate to believe that Ms. Calendar is there with them. He tells them that the details aren't significant, it's the violence that is the important detail.

Commentary: I really like this scene, both because you get clearly that Giles is still struggling with Jenny's brutal loss but also because ASH gives Giles this undertone of anger when Willow is challenging him on the details of the haunting. Even though he tells them all that they should always speak their opinion and never be cowed by authority, he then (with that hint of anger) tells them that in this case he is clearly right and they are clearly wrong.

On the one hand, you want to shake him because his Watcher training should be pointing out the obvious fallacy that Jenny would be involved in this haunting. On the other hand, you can really feel for him and understand why his heart is overruling any logic.

Scene 16: Leaving the library, we join Willow, Xander and Buffy in the computer room. The gang sympathize with Giles, but they look into an alternative to Jenny as ghost theory. Willow quickly finds the old tale of James and Grace, in which James murdered his teacher on the night of the Sadie Hawkins dance and then shot himself in the head in the music room.

Buffy quickly realizes that this incident took place in 1955, as she remembers the yearbook dropping to the floor in Snyder's office.

Scene 17: Retrieving the yearbook, Buffy explains what had happened. She points out James and Grace as the two that she also saw in her history class vision.

With the real haunting resolved (at least partly -- no one realizes that Grace also is in the building), we break for lunch.

Scene 18: In the cafeteria, Cordelia joins Buffy, Xander and Willow. She's complaining about the Sadie dance because the girls have to ask the guys out and then they have to pay for the date, and everything, which upsets her natural order. She informs the gang she has to nip this sort of thing in the bud, or things will get really scary.

Which they randomly do -- by everyone's lunch being transformed into snakes -- randomly.

There is mass panic in the lunchroom, and Cordelia ends up with a snakebite to the face.

Commentary: This is really where I'm having trouble with the ghost story. It is just way too obvious and over the top, even for Sunnydale, to try to believe that no one is going to question any "natural explanation". But more than that, if James is so powerful that he can transmutate an entire room into a pit of snakes, then why isn't there more going wrong? And what do snakes have to do with his murder/suicide breakdown?

I can understand his anger being directed at Cordelia -- she specifically mentions stopping the Sadie Hawkins dance, and James understandably needs this dance in his twisted way of trying to find a way to stop himself from killing the woman he loves and resolving his anger and despair, even though of course, he can't. I get the motives. I don't understand the randomness of this attack as carried out.

It's even more outlandish than the attack on Xander, which I could accept as being a manifestation of James' decayed arm in the locker. This though? It just doesn't make any sense as to how/why James could/would lash out in this way -- Hellmouth or no Hellmouth. And it just continues to get more and more offtrack. If James is locked in a pattern of reliving the night he murdered Grace and committing suicide, then he shouldn't be able to act outside of those boundaries, right?

And, he certainly shouldn't be able to transmute objects into living creatures! Especially since, unlike the more logical gun, the snakes don't dissipate.

It just strikes me as being completely inconsistent with the story as far as James re-enacting his greatest regret and looking for a way to resolve his despair and guilt over what he'd done and giving his ghost way too much power for someone who is a victim of his own tragic past actions.

Scene 19: A bit later, Cordy is in an ambulance complaining about her face being scarred and swollen from the snakebite. But more importantly and interesting, Snyder is meeting with the police commissioner as they try to come up with a cover story for what has happened. Snyder complains about things getting out of hand, which suggests that not only Snyder, but the entire police brass know that Sunnydale isn't normal.

In fact, Snyder straight out tells the Commissioner that Sunnydale is sitting on a Hellmouth and people are going to figure that out, no matter how much they try to cover it. The Commissioner tells Snyder that if he can't handle the job, he should take it up with... The Mayor.

Snyder's expression says a lot -- The Mayor is clearly someone you don't want to go talk to (and leads us, awesomely, to S3's big bad).

Scene 20: That night, in Buffy's room at home, the gang have convened (tellingly, they're meeting without Rupert). Willow decides that they have to take the final solution to deal with James' ghost. Xan thinks she's talking about nuking the school (hi shout out to how S3 will be resolved!) but Wills clarifies that she meant just an exorcism.

Cordy isn't wild about that plan, having seen what happened to the priest(s) in The Exorcist.

But Buffy co-signs Willow's plan, and they dive into the specifics.

Scene 21: With a plan to bind the ghost in place and stop it from causing any more harm, The Gang return to the school to carry out the ritual.

They separate to differing places to form a triangle with one point centered on the balcony where both Grace and Mrs. Franks died, while the fourth person forms a point in the center of the triangle.

Willow gives everyone a charm she made with sulfur to provide protection (which also gets a shoutout in S3) and Cordy unwisely says this should be a piece of cake.

James responds by slamming all of the school doors shut around them.

Scene 22: Back at the mansion, Spike and Angelus continue to play their sniping games with one another. Drusilla has a sudden vision of a "gate" opening at the high school. Dru tells Angelus that Buffy is dancing with death and is waiting for him to join her.

Spike complains that Angelus won't do anything, anyway, as he's too much into playing his games rather than simply killing her. Angelus disagrees, saying that he thinks that the Slayer situation has run its course.

Running his hands along Dru's thighs and waste, he tells Spike that with him being "special needs boy" he feels that he should stay close to home now that they could use another pair of hands. Dru continually coos at Angelus' attention, sending Spike into a cool rage, which you can tell he's having trouble restraining.

Scene 23: Back at the school, Willow is passing by the library, when Giles scares the bejeezus out of her. He wants to know what she's doing there, but she deflects to his presence. Giles is attempting to contact Jenny, and warns Willow that she doesn't want to be hanging around the school as there may be supernatural effects, if he's successful. She doesn't bother to share what her and the gang are up to.

Commentary: In retrospect, I find the Scooby interactions with Giles to be interesting in that it is an early indication that they're all finding their own independence. And though that is a good thing, we'll see that it also causes severe trouble for the Scoobies as they seperate from Giles in S4, and then actively turn on him with Buffy starting at the end of S5, Willow lashing out at him at the end of S6, Buffy again clashing with him during S7 and Giles basically being largely on the outs with the gang in S8, going so far as to have removed Buffy from his will and leaving his assets to Faith at the end of S8.

Who knew?

Scene 24: Meanwhile, Cordelia goes into a bathroom with her candle. As she's waiting for the appointed hour (midnight, 'natch) she checks out her snakebite in the mirror.

Scene 25: Buffy is heading toward the balcony, where she expects the major trouble to happen. As she's walking down the hallway though, she hears music from the music room. A flyer is pasted over the window of the door advertising the dance circa 1955. In the room, she sees Grace and James slow dancing together.

Commentary: And yes, the song is "I Only Have Eyes For You", and yes -- it is entirely inappropriate due to research fail. More to the point, it's the version of the song that is a problem. Y'see the song itself could certainly have been played for the 1955 sequence as it had been around since the '30s. But, the version that the crew decided to use was the popular 1959 recording by The Flamingos.

So, somehow, Grace and James were able to use the Hellmouth effect (presumably before they were dead) to listen to a song that wouldn't exist for another four years. Maybe one or the other of them were witches. Maybe that's why James' powers are so out-sized for being a ghost.

Or maybe the idiots should have paid a bit closer attention and just put the Sadie Hawkins dance in 1960, instead.

Scene 26: Xander, playing center point, returns to the cafeteria, where the snakes have returned.

Scene 27: Willow goes to one of the stairwell landings.

Scene 28: Back with Buffy, she watches our couple dancing until James notices her. His face goes post-dead rotted before the entire scene returns to real-time and the room is empty.

Scene 29: In the bathroom, Cordelia stares at herself and grabs her compact. This seems like a bad idea -- I don't think you should be trying to use concealer on open wounds!

James intervenes though, as he starts his campaign to stop the interference in his quest by showing Cordy her own face being disfigured.

Scene 30: Meanwhile, Willow puts her candle down as she readies herself for her part in the ritual. But James goes after her next, by creating a vortex in the floor. His arm reaches up out of it and tries to drag Willow down into the empty space beyond.

Fortunately for Willow, Rupert hears her screaming for help and is able to pull her from James' grasp. They tumble down the stairs.

Scene 31: Meanwhile with Buffy, she's arrived at the balcony. After she places her candle down, she has a vision of the sequence with Grace being shot and James placing the gun to his head in the music room. James' ghost then appears and grabs her, shouting in her face to get out, before vanishing.

Scene 32: In the bathroom, Cordelia finds her face returned to normal.

Scene 33: In the hallway, Willow tells Giles that Jenny couldn't be that mean and Giles deflates as he finally accepts that it isn't Ms. Calendar in the school.

As the bell tolls for midnight, everyone lights their candles and begins the chant to bind James into a helpless state (which isn't really what I'd think of as an exorcism, but whatever).

This fails to work, and only makes James lash out all the harder. With his (ridiculously powerful) abilities, he creates/summons thousands of wasps to chase the gang from the school and leave it completely inaccessible to anyone not wearing a anti-bee suit.

Scene 34: Back at Buffy's house, the gang -- this time including Giles -- discuss what they're going to do next. Buffy intuits that James wants forgiveness to resolve his conflict and that's what he's been trying to get by reliving/re-enacting the night of the Sadie dance, when he murdered Ms. Newman.

Giles realizes that he can't get forgiveness because the cycle can never be resolved by the participants. "Ms. Newman" always dies by gunshot (and presumably, both Boy and George would have followed through on shooting themselves in the music room, if they hadn't kept getting intercepted first).

Buffy says she's glad, because he doesn't deserve to be forgiven for what he's done. Giles pulls some profundity by expressing that forgiveness isn't given because someone deserves it, it's offered as an act of compassion to someone who needs it. Buffy is not hearing that and storms off in a huff after a speech that is clearly referring to the disaster of Angel and Her. Cordy spotlights it after she's out of the room.

Commentary: I like this scene, especially Giles' line about the nature of forgiveness not being about being deserved, but being offered as a gesture of mercy. But, I'm not completely onboard with Buffy's overidentification with the Grace/James situation. It feels muddled to me.

Is she comparing herself to James and refusing to forgive herself for Angel's turning? Because their situations aren't comparable. She had sex with Angel out of ignorance and he turned evil. She didn't get obsessed with her relationship with him and then staked him when he tried to leave. So that doesn't work.

Is she comparing Angel to James? Angel is a victim here. He's not even there, anymore, so nothing that Angelus has done can be compared to James making the choice to shoot Grace and kill himself in his heartbreak/obsession. That doesn't really work.

Is she comparing Angelus' obsession with her to James' obsession to Grace? Again, this doesn't exactly line up. Angelus and Buffy were never lovers -- strictly, speaking and Angel is no long involved. Also, Angelus' obsession with Buffy isn't about "love" really -- it's more about being obsessed with destroying that which Angel loved because of his loathing for his souled counterpart.

The contours may be similar: A mismatched love connection gone wrong leading to chaos and death for the participants, but even then -- not exactly. The circumstances are wildly different. This compare/contrast bit, while leading to some great acting by Sarah and David, it really doesn't match up when you think on it.

In a similar vein, Giles' speaking of forgiveness and its importance doesn't really translate to Buffy the way the episode wants us to accept, either. Buffy, from what I can gather, is meant to find forgiveness - but for whom?

Herself? Yes, she should forgive herself for what happened with Angel -- it wasn't her fault, she was only the catalyst for something of which she had no knowledge. But this isn't the same as finding forgiveness for James. Buffy didn't kill Angel because he wanted to break up with her; this was something outside of them which was done to them. Buffy is as much a victim of circumstance as Angel is.

Angel? Again, this doesn't work at all. Angel is a victim, James isn't. Angel didn't make a choice, James did. Angel didn't kill Buffy and commit suicide. He was for intent & purpose, murdered.

Angelus? This REALLY doesn't work. Angelus is an evil demon, not a person who made an impulsive and destructive choice in the heat of the moment. Also, everything that Angelus has done hasn't been about a love affair gone bad, it's an act of vengeance for Angel's life taking Angelus' rightful place.

I can see the connections that they're trying to form, but when you examine the situation between Buffy's not being forgiving and needing to be it doesn't really have anything to do with James needing forgiveness and not getting it.

Hmmm. Actually, I could see an entirely different story about Buffy learning to extend forgiveness not because someone deserves it, but because someone needs it if this were more about Jenny Calendar, rather than the forced parallel between James/Grace and Angel/Buffy. If Buffy were still bitter and resentful at Jenny for causing the destruction of Angel and then had to learn to forgive her for her not being upfront about who she was and what she was doing and let go of the bitterness toward her, that could have been a valuable lesson-plot with plenty of dramatic angst between Buffy and the Scooby Gang and especially between Buffy and Giles.

But that issue was pretty much put to bed in Passion. Plus, it would need to have been developed that even Jenny's murder didn't resolve the blame at her on Buffy's part, which really would have been a better use of time than Killed By Death and Go Fish.

Scene 35: Buffy storms into the kitchen (there is no indication of where Joyce is -- presumably out of town for a gallery buy). She feels something in her coat pocket unexpectedly and pulls out a folded piece of paper. This turns out to be one of those flyers for the 1955 Sadie Hawkins dance.

Buffy gets a trance-y look on her face and we hear James' voice whisper to her that he needs her. She leaves.

Scene 36: In the meantime, Willow asks Giles about what they try next. He doesn't know, as the ghost is too angry and powerful for a simple resolution.

Scene 37: Meanwhile, meanwhile Buffy is continuing her walk back toward the school. The hornet storm parts a curtain for her to enter. We see the doors open for her and then the hornets resume their protective barrier after she's inside.

Scene 38: Back in the Summers' kitchen, Willow finds the flyer and no Buffy. She intuits that the Slayer returned to the school.

Scene 39: Back in front of the school, the gang have gathered. They find they still can't get in because of the ginormous cloud of CGI-hornets. Cordy accuses her of trying to play the big loner hero, but Giles surmises that she's fallen under James' call. He's left confused though, because the school is deserted at this time of night, meaning there isn't anyone to play his role so he can re-enact shooting Ms. Newman as he tries to change the ending.

Scene 40: Inside, Buffy is wandering the hallway in a possessed daze. We can tell because the hallway is seesawing. Buffy comes to a halt, just as Angelus mockingly appears to tell her that a fun fact about wasps is that they don't care for the flesh of the undead.

Commentary: However, what that has to do with not getting stung while he's walking through them, as their already in an agitated guard-state isn't mentioned. I'll just go ahead and believe it is Grace's doing for reasons about to be made plain.

Angelus goes on to tell Buffy about how special this night is going to be (as he's all in the mood to finally kill her, apparently). Buffy in the meantime is looking devastated, but she doesn't sound very Buffy-like as she tells him that he's the only one she can talk to. He responds that she's sounding pathetic.

Buffy spits out that Angelus can't make her disappear, just because he's says it's over. He responds that actually, yes, he can do that, as he stalks up to her.

What Angelus doesn't realize, and we do, is that Buffy's dialog matches the Janitor's before he shot Mrs. Franks. The dialog is coming from James' side of the last conversation with Grace, not from her side of it.

Angelus goes to tell Buffy something else about how he's going to slaughter her, blah-blah. But before he can bore us, he's suddenly repeating Grace's line to James about wanting him to have a normal life.

Now, Buffy/Angelus are speaking to one another as James and Grace. To make that clear, we're shown a flashback of part of their conversation in the hallway.

Commentary: This part bugs me, just a little bit. It feels like the director thought we may be too dumb to figure out what is happening after the repeated scenes we've seen of this conversation. I wish he'd left our swapped POV out of it and let us follow along on our own. Thankfully, we return to Buffy following James' actions and Angelus playing Grace.

Inbetween flashes from James/Grace to Buffy/Angelus, James pulls the gun and we see it now in Buffy's hand. We finally see the entirety of the last moments, including certain portions that we missed during the other two re-enactments.

Grace/Angelus rushes to the balcony with James/Buffy following and brandishing the gun. Grace tries to reason with James, but he explodes that she's talking down to him like he's a stupid kid. During his exclamations, he's waving the gun around and it went off. Buffy fires in imitation of James, shooting Angelus to the chest. Angelus whispers James' name before Grace takes her header over the balcony as Buffy/James looks on is despairing shock.

In front of the school, the gang hear the single gunshot, but they're still unable to approach.

Commentary: I just want to kudos here to Sarah and David again for their acting in this scene. David B. is especially affecting as the doomed Grace Newman trying to convince James/Buffy that they can't be together any longer.

Scene 41: Grace is lying where she fell, as we see James stumble back toward the hallway. We then see that Angelus is lying where Grace had.

We follow Buffy as she makes her way back to the music room, where James will end his life.

Commentary: And I know that I should be lost in the moment of this scene -- but that gun looks about 1/3 the size of SMG's entire body!

Scene 42: Below, we see Angelus open his eyes....

Scene 43: In the music room, Buffy starts the phonograph of "I Only Have Eyes For You". In the mirror in the room, she sees herself as James. As she raises the gun to finish out this act, a hand comes from offscreen to take ahold of it. This of course is Angelus returned.

Except not, because it is Grace wanting to speak to James and stop him from following through this time. Grace through Angelus tells James through Buffy that she didn't stop loving him, not even with her last breath. She tells him that it was an accident that the gun went off. As they kiss, a light vortex appears above Angelus and Buffy's heads signaling that the ghosts have been released to go wherever they're supposed to be headed. Presumably, James won't be going to Hell since he's been forgiven by his victim.

Commentary: Excellent acting by David and SMG, again, throughout this sequence.

Scene 44: Of course with Grace and James departing, that leaves us with Angelus kissing on Buffy. It takes them several seconds to come back to the here and now, with Buffy whispering Angel's name. Angelus doesn't respond well. With a growl, he shoves Buffy away and takes off.

Scene 45: Later, the gang have gotten back in the school. Rupert is waiting in the library as Xan, Willow and Cordy return to let him know that no snakes or wasps have been left behind in the school.

Meanwhile Buffy is sitting in Giles' office where he asks after her. She looks numb. Buffy is left bothered that James picked her, opinioning that it is because they're both so sad.

Commentary: I'm not buying that this is why Buffy would be chosen. I have a hard time believing that she's the only person who has ever been sad on Sadie Hawkins Dance day. I have to believe that he did sense her supernatural aspect and that is why he'd waste energy making sure she took that flyer with her so that he could reach out to her mind from the high school.

Giles offers that they can both rest in peace now. But, Buffy is still trying to understand why Grace could forgive him.

Scene 46: Back at the mansion, Angelus scrubs at himself with icky water from the dirty fountain. Spike smirks that he may want to stop scrubbing before he's skinless. But Angelus is in a state over being bodyjacked and having to experience Grace's love for James. He tells Dru that they need to go out before dawn and get in an extra vile kill to wash the sense of it out of his body. Drusilla is always up for a hunt.

Drusilla asks if Spike wants to come, but Angelus puts the kibosh on that, stating they don't have a lot of time. He apologizes to Spike for disinviting him in a mocking manner. Spike stews as he watches them go.

But Spike isn't one to take Angelus' constant mocking without a little pay back. And after Dru and Angelus are on their way, we see Spike dramatically get up from his wheelchair that he's been confined to since What's My Line, Part II ... and his glare promises lots of pain to come for Angelus....

The Good: David Boreanaz and Sarah Michelle Gellar do a marvelous job as Grace and James, respectively.

In addition, Meredith Salenger and Miriam Flynn both do well as Grace. John Hawkes was also impressive as James-possessed George the Janitor.

The scenes of Buffy playing James and Angelus playing Grace and acting out James' last moments were really good, drama wise.

ASH does some really nice work as the clearly still grieving Giles.

The Angelus/Spike clash remains fun, and that episode kicker is neat.

The Bad: I'm gonna put the food-to-snakes manifestation here, simply because it's so over-the-top and outrageous that I can't see how the usual explanations would work, even with the Hellmouth mind-effects present.

Other Thoughts: The pacing on this one was a bit slow, especially the very beginning in The Bronze and then as the gang slowly piece together and battle the Sunnydale ghost. I did like the wrap up, though.

And speaking of over-the-top ghost powers, Willow's nearly being sucked into the floor to who-knows-where seemed a bit excessive for this episode as well.

The Score: Overall, I like this episode even though it seems to run a bit long. Some really good acting certainly helps to keep us engaged and there are some wonderful dramatic sequences, but the episode overall always feels a bit draggy to me.

3.5 out of 5 stars

--end--

Next Review: Movie: "Carnival of Souls" (1962)

Review: Angel and Faith #4

2013-05-08T22:15:53Z

Angel & Faith
Issue 4

"Live Through This, Part 4"

Script: Christos Gage, Art: Rebekah Isaacs, Colors: Dan Jackson, Letters: Richard Starkings & Jimmy Betancourt (from Comicraft)
Cover B: Rebekah Isaacs & Dan Jackson

Blurb: Twilight is over. Magic is gone. Giles is dead, and Angel killed him-- that is, the possessed-by-mystical-forces Angel. Now his need for redemption is greater than ever, after Buffy and everyone else have turned their backs on him-- all except for one rebel Slayer with a cause, Faith Lehane. Together, in the flat she inherited from Giles, Faith and Angel are living through the aftermath of Twilight, and keeping the London streets safe from the ever-present forces of evil...

My Blurb: First, cover love. But I also want to put in a special disclaimer that one of the page-captures is drawn-and-inked-blood heavy, for those with an especial sensitivity to grue in any form.

Page 01: We open at the Fraser Gang auction where the price up for bids was some Mohra blood. Nash and Pearl have just blasted there way in through a wall with sight set on the vials of blood that Angel is also wanting as part of his plans to regenerate and then resurrect Rupert Giles.

Faith is battling off Fraser's gang and the more assertive auction-guests, all of whom would also like to grab ahold of a vial of the blood. For this reason, she can't immediately assist Angel, who is finding himself under the special scrutiny of Pearl.

Pearl is still a bit bitter about her Twilight Angel Boss almost destroying Earth with her and her brother still on it:

"Not nearly as powerful as when you gave us orders, eh, old man? How like you. You can even take the fun out of killing you."

Commentary: If Pearl continues with this sort of bored snark, I may become a fan of her. Her brother is still a problem of bore, for me, though. And, they're still using flashy-magic like there is no shortage of it these days.

Page 02: Faith has been able to break away from her former slay-partner and slashes Pearl with her sword. The wound to her side only makes her yell at Faith for being rude.

Nash steps in for his sister by yanking Faith away by her hair. He tells her that she's trash and ruining his sister's moment.

With Faith's attention redirected, he powers up his magic eyebeams and complains how after killing so many of the Slayers, it's become a bore.

Page 03: Faith's response is to punch him in the jaw, just as he's releasing his magic blast meant for her face. It travels cross-room, and into the back of Pearl's head, which stuns her.

This allows Angel to get the upper hand enough to vamp-out. He reminds Pearl that she always had wanted him to be more ruthless (while he was Twi-Angel) before sinking his fangs into her shoulder.

Page 04: This really pisses Nash off and he ignores the free Faith to blast Angel for putting his mouth on his sister (I don't know -- is there a sexual tension hovering between Nash and Pearl, despite being siblings? I can't make up my mind if they're just really close, or if they're really close).

With Angel blasted away, Pearl is recovered enough from her momentary ecstasy-rush from his bite to kick him with a heavy boot to his face. She follows up with a magic-generated blade through the side of his torso.

Page 05: With Pearl back in charge of her fight against their former boss, Nash returns to Faith. He does the usual bad guy gloat about being above everyone else, blah-blah and backhands her away with a magical assist.

But Faith was thinking ahead. She managed to slip one of the vial of Mohra blood she'd collected for Angel's plan into Nash's jacket pocket unnoticed. Well, unnoticed until now, where she "helpfully" points out to all of the auction-customer demons that he has it.

Commentary: I like this whole sequence for the artwork and dialog. I think that the creative team on this book is really clicking with one another and I hope that we're going to see them stay as a unit for a good, long while. I also really appreciate the attention to detail, here. Notice that Faith's shoulder was raked with claws in panel 1 of page 1.

Now look at Faith on panel 1, page 2; panel 2, page 2; panel 2, page 3; panel 3, page 4 (although out of scale, alas) and panel 3, page 5.

Faith's wound is consistently there, even when she's not even the center of attention. That's really paying attention to what you're doing, artwise.

Page 06: With the gang of demons deciding to take down Nash to give them all a chance at grabbing the vial and running with it (well, most -- as Faith says, the smart ones like Fraser himself are getting out of there before the magic-blaster twins slaughter the whole room), Faith calls for their own retreat. But Angel says there is a smell from the basement that they need to check into first, despite the risk of Nash and Pearl catching back up with them.

Page 07: As they're heading down, Faith is wracked with indecision about Angel and his goals. She decides that she has to make a choice finally about what she's going to do about Angel once and for all.

And she decides to smash him with the Mohra blood vial and turn him human!

With the decision made, she raises the vial to smash down over his head... but his exclamation of disappointment interrupts. Whatever Faith sees pulls her up short in shock.

Commentary: I know, I know. I'm sounding like a broken record with the praise -- but I LOVE the way Faith's ambiguity is being played in her thoughts, dialog and facial expressions. This may be my favorite version of the Faith character in the comics.

Page 08: When we see into the room beyond the door Angel just broke into, we see a laboratory setup. There are dozens of... things... great indistinct, slightly humanoid blob-creatures in various cells or strapped to tables.

Page 09: One of these, to Faith's blurting "What are they?" manages to grunt out the name Reggie Banks. These 'things' are human beings. They're the missing people who went to buy Mohra blood and then disappeared.

Faith stares at the vial in her hand, in horror presumably over the fact that she was at the edge of infecting Angel with it.

Page 10: Angel clarifies that the end of the Seed caused some sort of change to the Mohra blood. Instead of returning someone to instant health, it did that and then kept going. The healing has actually become a cancer that causes the cells of whoever has taken it to keep generating it.

Faith drops the vial to the floor with a smash.

The mutated beg Angel to help them die, as so far everything that has been tried to cure them has failed - including their own attempts at suicide or mutual murder.

They just keep healing the wounds and continuing to devolve further and further into ever more pain-filled masses of tumor.

Angel tells them he'll take care of them, but recruits their help with something first.

Commentary: I like this, too. I like that we're getting more side effects from Buffy's rash (but necessary, imo) destruction of the Seed while at the same time it nicely strips the easy and convenient way to get Giles back from Angel. Tying the two together also gives us yet another connection between Angel and Buffy's titles, which after all is the high-point of them both having their licenses with the same publisher.

Page 11: Upstairs, Nash is complaining about how bored he is slaughtering the weak demons. Pearl is enjoying herself.

Angel has led the freed prisoners upstairs, and the mutated humans are now enjoying taking out some of their rage against Nash and Pearl.

Page 12: The mutated also warns everyone about what the Mohra blood really does. Conveniently (just slightly too much so), one of the demons recognizes Reggie and also saw him take the blood personally, so he can testify that what Banks is claiming is so. This causes an end to the fight for whatever is left of the vials.

Commentary: It's also just a bit discombobulating to have a roomful of demons speaking in Brit-accent.

In the meantime, Nash and Pearl release a twin-wave of energy to blast back their attackers.

Page 13: Pearl and Nash pull a retreat, since getting anymore of the surviving blood vials is useless. But, they promise (of course) that they'll see Angel again.

With the battle wrapped up, the next task is to put the mutated out of their misery. Angel starts mass-beheading.

Page 14: Angel mentions that separating the head from the body usually works for regenerators, and it does in this case. He and Faith steel themselves to give a merciful end to all of the others, including Reggie Banks.

Page 15: In the aftermath, Angel notices Faith's upset and tells her that they wanted this. But the mutated deaths isn't what she's upset about.

He tells her that they can't hold onto guilt about what they almost did, and Faith immediately assumes that Angel realizes that she almost betrayed his quest by making him human with the blood. But, actually, he's talking about what they almost did to Giles' body by using the blood on him.

To Faith's continued consternation, Angel promises her that he'll find another way to save Rupert - meaning of course, she's left with the same decision she had thought she'd made: Help or Hinder Angel... even if it means having to put him down to stop him from maybe bringing another monster forth.

And this monster would have the face of probably the most respected person of anyone she knows.

Page 16: Meanwhile, Nash and Pearl return to Whistler's flat with the vial of blood that Faith slipped into Nash's pocket. He tells Whistler about its new, lethal effects.

But rather than being disappointed by this turn of events, Pearl excitedly tells Whistler it's even better for what they have in mind... huh!

Page 17: The next day, Faith meets up with Nadira. The Slayer is still struggling with her anger, but she takes a lot of pleasure and comfort in the news that Faith shares: Nash and Pearl are in England, and ergo hunt-able for Nadira to seek revenge for the slaughter of her Slayer-troop.

Nadira takes this with gratefulness and shocks Faith by doing the big sister hug. But then the moment is a bit ruined by Nadira promising to take Angel down after the twins and maybe finally give herself some peace of mind.

Page 18: A bit later, Faith heads out from her park meeting with Nadira. She runs into Alasdair, who she isn't happy to see keeping tabs on her whereabouts.

He's come to tell her about hearing about the fiasco with the Mohra blood and to reiterate his objections to Angel attempting to resurrect Giles. She's not really receptive, mostly because she's still feeling guilt over almost turning Angel into a mutated.

He continues to impress on her that Angel must be convinced that this errand of his is ill-conceived and will only lead to a bad place.

Commentary: It's not that I don't like Alasdair -- he's okay as a character, but I keep finding myself wishing this role were played by Laura Weathermill instead. Her short history with Angel Investigations and personal involvement with Angel would really have worked well to highten the tensions between wanting to support Angel, but wanting to stop him from making a tragic mistake and I could see a lot of juicy dialog coming between her and Faith arguing over it.

Page 19: When Faith returns to her flat, she finds Angel deep in the monk diaries looking for alternates to restore Giles' body to a usable condition. Faith confronts her own feelings by coming out into the open with Angel about what she really thinks of this deal.

Her choice: She's willing to follow along with Angel because she misses Giles, too. But there are limits to what she'll allow Angel to do in order to try this.

She warns him that if he crosses the line, in her opinion, then she'll act in whatever way she has to in order to shut him down.

Page 20: Angel admits that he knows exactly what Faith has been thinking this whole time. He tells her that this is why he needs her help, to protect him from his own obsessive tendencies. He tells her that as Twi-Angel, he didn't have someone he could trust enough for advice about when he was going too far and who also had the ability to stop him if he couldn't stop himself. He offers to let Faith off the hook though, because of the enormous responsibility for him that he's placing on her shoulders.

She wryly tells him she has his back, but she wants him to not force her to put a stake in it.

Commentary: Such great interaction. I wish we'd see more of this sort of connections going on for Buffy -- especially between her and Xan, or her and Dawn.

Page 21: Faith breaks up the moment to go prepare some leftovers for dinner. She offers Angel a mug o' blood. He declines, but opines that a spot of tea would be delightful.

Faith, at first, laughs that he sounded so much like Giles - but she gets uncomfortable when Angel wasn't doing it on purpose and didn't even notice his switch into Giles-cadence.

Page 22: She chooses not to confront that sudden weirdness just now, but goes off to make him a cup of Earl Grey with some obvious trepidation. Meanwhile, Angel stands with his latest diary and reading glasses looking a bit too much like Rupert in his stance....

The Good: Faith's dialog remains a high point for me. And now? Pearl is getting in some good zingers, too! I approve.

I really loved Faith's decision to stop Angel short by turning him into human with the Mohra blood (can't happen for the sake of the title, of course, but I really liked the way they brought Faith to the edge of doing it).

The Mohra blood's new effects were nicely depicted and I really like how it takes a quick solution to regenerating Giles' corpse off of the table for Angel.

The Bad: Not a thing.

Other Thoughts: Well, Nash and Pearl are really skirting cliche bad-guy types and they're a bit dull. Pearl is coming around by at least having a few good lines, but if these two aren't going to be strictly dayplayers, they need some more personality other than complaining about being bored and using way too much magic for their current circumstance.

Nadira is also really failing to capture my interest, despite her angst and desire for revenge. I'm not quite sure why I can't embrace her struggles.

I'm unsure how to take the ending with Angel showing Giles-personality traits, so I'm gonna leave that sit like Faith is doing for now.

The Score: This was a really strong first arc, definitely strengthened by the writing for the relationship between Angel and Faith.

3.75 out of 5

--end--

Next up: BTVS, Season 2's "I Only Have Eyes for You"

Simple Update

2013-05-07T02:19:18Z

Again, sorry for the delay in postings to all of my legion of fans who devote themselves to my every utterance (you are legion, right -- of course you are, moving on).

We're in our work schedule where we flip-flop weeks - meaning I worked 12.50 hours shifts for three days, was off for one, and am back for another 3 shifts. I'm a bit poopered out. I've tried to review the Angel/Faith #4 to get it out here but ended up just transcribing what I saw on the page without commenting at all. And, even with that half-assed effort I had trouble focusing and my typos were even more atrocious than usual.

Simply unacceptable. So I tabled it until Wed, when I can get in a long sleep and then start from scratch. It should be posted late, late
Wed. night or early, early Thur. morning.

I've also been doing some thinking on the next review, and I think I'm going to jump straight into the next BTVS: S2 episode. I was debating taking a Buffy-break to do something else first, but I feel up for it. That'll be posted by the weekend.

Reviewed: Angel and Faith, Issue 3

2013-04-28T16:43:08Z

Angel and Faith
Issue 3

"Live Through This, Part 3"

Script: Christos Gage, Art: Rebekah Isaacs, Colors: Dan Jackson, Letters: Richard Starkings & Jimmy Betancourt (from Comicraft)
Cover B: Rebekah Isaacs with Dan Jackson

Blurb: Twilight is over. Magic is gone. Giles is dead, and Angel killed him -- that is, the possessed-by-mystical-forces Angel. Now his need for redemption is greater than ever, after Buffy and everyone else have turned their backs on him -- all except one rebel Slayer with a cause, Faith Lehane. Together, in the flat she inherited from Giles, Faith and Angel are living through the aftermath of Twilight, and keeping the London streets safe from the ever-present forces of evil...

Page 01: We open on Angel's quest to retrieve a sample of Mohra blood to be used to regenerate Giles' corpse. For this goal, he and Faith have invaded a demon-hood's bar, where by the way - one of those damned popular vampires is freely feeding on some idiot woman over cocktails.

Angel warns that he and Faith will tear up the place to find the blood and bar-hood happily tells him that'd be great for business.

Page 02: Demon-hood tells 'em that the floor show would bring in the crowd.

Faith tosses a demon trying to get in the way of her reaching Demon-hood over the bar where he smashes the glassware. He offers that the floor show would have a point of diminishing returns, re-thinking Angel's lure of busting the place up.

He also warns Faith that selling bits of magic in his demon bar isn't illegal yet, but her smashing the place up is. He'll have her arrested. She slyly points out that killing demons is a legal grey area, yet and he looks to be at least half.

Page 03: He transforms into a bat-winged form and makes a sexual innuendo about his girth below the belt. She offers to reduce its size for him with her sword.

Before things can escalate into a life or death battle, Angel calls her off. The Mohra blood isn't there, or he'd have scented it by now.

Demon-hood offers that he can't blame Angel for trying to find the blood -- it'd be an instant fortune maker for whoever had the Mohra under wraps. In the meantime, he does offer Angel a job as a bloodsucker-for-pay, which our vampire studiously ignores while our Slayer throws glares.

Commentary: I've really liked Gage's writing over the last few issues and here I got a kick out of Faith and Demon-hood's posturing banter at one another.

Page 04: Having retreated, Faith is a bit miffed at being stake-blocked. Angel explains that he's setting up Demon-hood. He knows now that the Mohra subject was brought up, his patrons will be throwing money at him to collect some for them, and Demon-hood is far too greedy to let such an opportunity pass by. He'll find out where Fraser is for them.

Faith is still annoyed that Angel isn't giving her a heads up on his plans of action, but he shares that he'd do so if his plans weren't coming together off-the-cuff at the last minute.

She asks him if he's tempted to just keep the Mohra blood himself, so he can regenerate to human again.

Page 05: Angel and Faith discuss his need to do things a human never could. To Faith's suggestion that without Hellmouth-related apocalypses anymore, maybe he's entitled to a little human life - which was to be his reward anyway at some point in the future.

Angel alludes to the Shanshu Prophecy being off the table (he gave it up in S5 of AtS in order to get an in with The Circle of the Black Thorn) and besides, he says, he already knows that a reward isn't what he has coming, a stake through the heart is. But until that happens, he has too much work to do.

Page 06: As Angel and Faith are tearing up demon hangouts, using the same ploy as with Demon-hood to get the word out and use the underworld connections to help locate where The Fraser Gang are holding up, Faith is considering forcing the Mohra blood on Angel.

It'd be the easiest way to get Angel out of the life, and stop him from trying this destructive obsession with "saving" Rupert.

Commentary: I'm really, really happy with the way that Christos Gage is handling Faith's character. This ongoing conflict within her in regards to Rupert's fate and allowing Angel to try it, or to stop him, is very interesting to me.

Page 07: Angel's next step is to track down and speak to some people who've already had dealings with Fraser and received samples of the Mohra blood for their loved ones who needed it.

Page 08: Much later, our duo compare notes. It seems that only a few people who were to receive the Mohra blood can be accounted for. There are more who went to collect the blood they paid for and vanished into thin air. Faith offers that there is a scam going on... give the real thing out to a few clients to spread the word, then bilk the rest for their money -- which would make sense, as surely there isn't enough Mohra available to serve the sort of demand that it is creating.

Angel offers that they're at a dead end, because the Watchers Files isn't offering a lot in the case of the Mohra and what it does have is seemingly contradictory as far as he can understand. He tells her that they need someone more specialized... like Giles....

But, he does have someone else they can reach out too. Another ex-Watcher who is in the Files and lives in the London area.

Commentary: Let me just say here that I was really hoping that Laura Weathermill was going to be ported-over from IDW's Angel series, because Lord knows I do love building connections within the various titles across that pesky copyright crap.

And just as a curious aside, since I am so interested in building connections -- in the whole discussion of Rupert Giles' regeneration, all I can keep thinking is that Giles should have been cremated to keep this sort of thing from happening, and you'd think it would be standard procedure for Watchers to have in their wills [See "Supernatural"].

Page 09: They drop in on Alasdair Coames, who fought in something called "The Ley Line War" of 1978.

Alasdair offers that if they've come seeking an archmage, they're to be disappointed. His magic was cut off the same as most witches and wizards when the Seed was shattered and the dimensional portals slammed shut.

Now, he's (in his own words) just a doddering old fool with a house full of rubbish and dreary stories of days gone by. And fairies and a dragon living with him! Hey that counts for something, amIright??

Commentary: Clearly though, he needs to talk to all of these various hangers-on about doing some housework to earn their keep.

Page 10: Angel and Coames consult on how to locate the Mohra demon and Alasdair mentions that Mohra's will need a lot of salt to eat.

Page 11: As Angel and Faith are leaving Coames' place, and Angel is - of course - angsting (this time over human mystics suddenly becoming powerless, Coames is in the same boat as Willow, but far less whining about it), Faith receives a call from the London Slayer team. Daphne is on the other end of the line and Faith ditches Angel to deal with a problem that she describes as "female problems".

According to the last panel, these problems appear to be Nadira smashing some soccer fans' noses in with bar stools.

Page 12: When Faith arrives, Daphne shares that Nadira came in looking for a fight and picked one over nothing. They're not able to get to her to stop the madness without having to bust up some of the guys who also aren't in the mood to stop brawling. Faith just grins that she'll handle it.

She does this by calling out in her loudest voice to the guys in the room - and it appears that she's going to lift her top and put on a flash for 'em, but actually she was just reaching below panel level to lift up some mugs of beer. She tells them all that there is drinks on the house and everyone immediately ditches the fight with Nadira for the free booze. This allows Daphne and Red-Head to manhandle Nadira out.

Faith confronts Nadira about the stunt.

Page 13: At first Nadira is just pissed at the world, but she finally calms down enough to realize what damage she could have done to the normals in the bar.

Faith blows it off as just itching for a fight and not finding any vampires breaking the "no kill" rules.

Page 14: Nadira is worried about her attitudes, feelings and choices lately and broaches the subject of just walking away from Slayer-activities before she does something dumb she can't take back. Faith's been in this position, of course, where she didn't even try to come back and tells her that it's her choice and she has to do what she feels is right for her.

This isn't exactly the answer the Slayers were looking for, as they're all looking for some sort of orders to come down from on high about what they should do and it's obvious that Nadira isn't the only one struggling now that Buffy isn't the head of an army and handing down instructions.

But Faith has to cut this discussion short, because she notices that Alasdair has been following her, and she's not pleased.

Page 15: At first, Faith thinks he's up to something underhanded. Alasdair's actual reason for following her though was so that he'd be able to speak to her outside of Angel's hearing.

He, being an ex-Watcher and experienced warlock, has put the pieces together from several rumors and Angel's questions about the Mohra that Angel intends to attempt a resurrection of Rupert Giles. Faith tries to blow him off, but he's a Watcher at heart... and they're stubborn. He tells her in no uncertain terms that attempting such magic while the world is basically defenseless is a really bad plan and Angel should give it up immediately.

He can see Faith's doubts about Angel's plan and councils her to press Angel to stop before he goes too far.

Faith cracks a bit under all of the pressure of trying to be responsible for the doubting Slayers, and now for wrestling with deciding whether to stand with Angel after everything he's done for her or to follow Alasdair's advice and put the kibosh on things.

Commentary: I'm so happy with the way that Faith is being portrayed in this title and I really love her being our 'audience surrogate' ... or at least mine, because I'm having the same ambiguous feelings about this whole thing as she. In-universe, this just seems like a phenomenally poor and dangerous plan to assuage Angel's conscience about Twilight.

Outside 'in-universe', I'm more concerned about the revolving door of death that comics generally have that cheapens it.

Page 16: Later, Faith has rejoined Angel and they're infiltrating an auction being carried out by Fraser for the Mohra blood. She's worried about being spotted, but Angel tells her to just stay clear of Fraser and he'll never know they're actually there until they've got the Mohra in custody.

As they wait, Faith starts spreading seeds of mistrust that Fraser's auction is playing level with everyone and isn't running a scam.

Page 17: Fraser starts the opening bids, but thanks to Faith, one of the auction goers shouts out that he's heard all night that this is a ruse. He demands some type of proof that the vials of Mohra blood up for auction are the genuine article.

Fraser politely accepts this challenge and roles out the Mohra demon, itself. It is bound to a magic rock with mystic energy strands and has been tapped with needles filling plasma-bags. Fraser offers that this should calm any doubts.

Faith and Angel share glances at one another.

Page 18: Angel and Faith leap into action with the goal of freeing the Mohra, which they're able to do. Of course, that still leaves getting out of the room with him.

Page 19: And leaving becomes a bit impossible when the Mohra chooses suicide via self-destroying the gem in his head over tempting recapture.

This, obvs, is not exactly what Angel was planning. Of course, there are still those vials of Mohra blood that were up for auction. Now, all they have to do is grab 'em and then fight their way through an entire room for of potential bidders who have the same thought and Fraser's gang who are clearly wondering how everything went so wrong so fast.

Commentary: I love the facial expressions of the artwork, especially for Angel and Faith but really for everyone. Rebekah Isaacs clearly has an interest and talent for expression through her subjects eyes and it is always easy to see what the characters' moods are without any text. It's really good.

Page 20: With the mob rush to the Mohra blood vial table, Faith grabs up two vials of the stuff while the rest is seemingly lost to being smashed all the floor. That's what happens when everyone is shoving each other against it, I guess.

Angel, seeing his plans in only a little less disarray than Fraser, opines to Faith that things couldn't have possibly gone worse.

Page 21: Yah. Dumb Angel Testing Fate, Who Always Wants To Prove You Wrong.

As a wall explodes inward, Faith, Angel, Fraser, his gang and the auction attenders are suddenly faced with a pair of newly interested in what was for auction - and they have the same plan as Angel and Faith; Skip the auction and go straight for the theft.

It's those violent psychopaths with the vast reserves of magical strength - Nash and Pearl. And they are ever so happy to see their former patron, Twi-Angel reduced to Vampire-Angel. It makes him look much easier to kill.

Angel pleads to let them him explain why he ultimately betrayed them:

Page 22: Vamp!Face Angel: You're psychotic bastards. And you need to be put down.

Commentary: Yes, I did find that awesome and ergo the quotage.

As Angel begins his fight with his former minions, Faith is working on thinning out Fraser's demon gang members. But, unknown to Angel, she's also made her decision in seeing more evidence in her face of Angel's talent for creating monsters.

Faith VO: For two hundred and fifty years, he's been creating monsters... Drusilla, Spike... worse. Then having to deal with them. That stops now. I'm gonna help him get rid of these monsters. Then I'll get rid of one myself. Him.

Commentary: That's a nice ending, eh?

The Good: Faith, on every page -- well, okay, the writing for Faith.

The artwork (no impact on scoring) is awesome -- especially when it comes to facial expressions and the way people glance at one another.

I'm really enjoying Faith's struggles to "play the adult", when she's so used to having someone else restraining her impulsive behavior instead.

The Bad: Nothin' bad in this one.

Other Thoughts: I really liked Angel returning to his series' roots by turning to investigation to track down information.

It was also pretty cute to include the Fairie Folk from BTVS #5 among the mystical beings calling Alasdair's place home these days.

I also liked the fractures we're seeing among the Slayers in London over their role in the new world. It gives us much more information about why so many of the Slayers are pissed at Buffy over the sudden change in the status quo she made than Buffy's own title has ever tried to articulate. Maybe Andrew should take a peek at Christos' implications here and incorporate them into Simone's rants against Buffy to clarify it more over there.

The only bit of weakness of this one is the dramatic entrance of Nash and Pearl -- in which they are still somehow able to waste mystical energy without any seeming consequence whatsoever. I'm having trouble understanding their motives if the 'no-magic' isn't affecting them at all. If anything, doesn't that give them a leg up and make them de facto big-bads, where before they were stuck in Twilight's shadow? Their dialog suggests maybe they were true Twilight believers, and if so, I think I need that to be made a bit more plain as to their thirst for vengeance over just enjoying their elevated status.

Technically, I guess I'm also iffy on Giles not being cremated - along with all Watchers - as a matter of policy just because they all know what can happen to the dead with magical manipulations. You'd think being turned into a undead victim would be a concern, but I can also see where some either wouldn't worry about it, or would want the possible 'out' after the end, or would simply have personal or religious objections to the practice so I can let it slide.

The Score: I'm really liking this first story arc of the title. This issue is really good because of the flashes of Vampire Detective harkening back to Angel's L.A. stint and the dialog. I've been very happy with the Angel/Faith team up.

3.75 out of 5 stars

--end--

Next Review: Angel & Faith, Issue 4

Best Of / Worst Of Character Moments - Supernatural

2013-04-28T16:18:00Z

Best of / Worst of Character Moments:

Supernatural "Skin"

Our Brothers Are Great:

Dean W: I'm gonna give it up to Dean's observations skills in this one (he also took out the Shifter, but he had a gun so it wasn't that impressive). He spotted every obvious clue that Our Sam somehow kept missing.

Sam W: Sam is really good at spotting quick images on video recordings. He sees the Shifter on tape, disguised as Zach, with reflective eyes that was on screen only very briefly.

Our Brothers Kinda Suck:
(And this one is a bit challenging; Our Boys are pretty mediocre hunters in this one, so there are a lot of options.)

Adorable Dean: So, Dean's lack of grace with Sam's former life is really pretty jerky. He seems intent on isolating Sam and ignoring that his brother never wanted to do this full time and that there is going to come a day when Our Sam wants to get back to life outside of hunting monsters.

Our Sammy: Apparently, spotting the eye-shine on videotape of the Shifter tapped out Our Sammy's entire attention span. He consistently misses clues right by his face until older brother Dean points them out.

Open Request to Dark Horse

2013-04-24T15:59:55Z

I'm working on the Angel & Faith review now and to find my place in the story arc I glance through the previous review before starting. So, I'm going through Angel & Faith #2 review and I come to my mention of Faith and Giles.

So -- open request:

Dark Horse,

Where, oh where is our flashback Faith & Rupert Giles limited series??

We did not get to see nearly enough of them during Season 8 and it is a nearly unforgivable oversight on your part. Please rectify this.

harsens-rob

Reviewed: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 9, Issue 4

2013-04-23T17:16:52Z

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
S9, I4

"Freefall, Part Four"

Script: Andrew Chambliss, Pencils: Georges Jeanty, Inks: Dexter Vines, Colors: Michelle Madsen, Letters: Richard Starkings, Jimmy Betancourt
Cover: Steve Morris

Blurb: With the destruction of the seed, the fight against Twilight was brought to an end, and magic's connection to our earth was severed. No more Slayers will be chosen. No more Slayer army. No more gang: Buffy's a waitress in San Francisco; Dawn and Xander are attempting normal domesticity; Willow is struggling with the loss of her powers. It's a new(ish) world, but there are still demons and vampires to slay -- even as their popularity with the masses continues to grow -- and Buffy is on point to do what she has always done...

She is the Slayer.

Page 01: We open in a flashback revolving around Severin. It is three months before Buffy and he standing in the warehouse in San Fran.

There is an old vampire starting to feed on Sev - but he grabs the vampires head and yanks him off. He screams at the vampire for the location of someone.

Page 02: Severin, aka The Siphon, is looking for Alessandra - the vampire that turned his girlfriend Clare into a zompire. He drains the vampire enough to force his human features back into place and promises him that he won't ever fang again if he doesn't spill the information.

A girl in heavy shadow tells him to stop looking at the vampires for answers as to what went wrong with his girlfriend, and start looking at questioning a Slayer.

Meanwhile, the vampire is getting that empty, dead body look.

Sev grins at the girl, whoever she is.

Page 03: We move to the here and now in panel, but our voiceover is in flashback land yet.

Here, Sev rushes Buffy and starts to drain her Slayer-energy before she's thrown or pushes herself loose (the action panels here are a bit unclear).

In the meantime, we get flashback-voiceover (obvs from the girl -- and we'll find out who this is later) telling past-Severin that she wants him to use his powers to drain Buffy of her power and her freedom and especially her "nauseating idea that she's doing good".

Severin is currently working on this. Buffy asks him when he became a big bad, but Severin doesn't believe himself to be the bad guy here.

Page 04: Severin goes on to tell Buffy that if she hadn't destroyed the Seed, he wouldn't have to drain the "vamp freaks" ... and it isn't hard to figure he's speaking of Clare. He tells her that she doesn't deserve her Slayer power, so he's going to take it away from her.

Buffy wonders if he can really do that, and I don't think I like the look on her face -- as if it's passing through her mind that she could be free of future Slayer responsibilities starting right now.

Commentary: I do like the interaction between Sev and Buffy, though. And I like the coloring job over Georges. Jeanty, Vines and Madsen are working very solidly as a team on this book.

Page 05: Meanwhile, Sev's voiceover follows us to the precinct house where Dowling is getting in a tip from patrol. Severin tells Buffy that when she's left cowering in the pile of dead bodies, the police will blame everything on her.

The tip is that they received an anonymous call telling them that Buffy was spotted at the wharf. The "anonymous caller" also reports that Buffy has just killed hundreds of vampires, which y'know is a no-no since they've become America's darlings -- for whatever the hell reason (probably mostly Harmony, who proved that vampire life can be boring and get your reality show cancelled; they must've come out seeming pretty much like everyone else).

Cheung orders all available units to head to the wharf.

Meanwhile, Koh and Spike are headed across San Francisco Bay in a tiny powerboat that has Spike wondering why they couldn't just take the Ferry back.

Page 06: Koh dismisses this with "we don't mix with humans". Spike complains about the sea spray, especially since he's trying to text a "beware of Sev" to Buffy. Koh asks him, in rude terms, why he'd be helping the Slayer anyway. Spike offers his undying loyalty to her.

Page 07: Koh continues trying to understand the undercurrents of Spike as he speaks about the Slayer. He can see Spike's wanting Buffy as a mate and comments that it would be forbidden in his culture for a human and a demon to be together. Spike doesn't want to talk about it, but does share that Buffy deserves some normal in her life after everything she's been through and he isn't that.

Commentary: I don't know. This feels really forced and unnecessary. Unless they're going to introduce that Koh is suddenly (And it would be Awfully Sudden) attracted to Buffy, this convo feels really pointless and aimed at the Spuffy-fans as to why Spike and Buffy aren't boffing. It feels really out of place between these two characters who barely know one another and with Koh barely knowing Buffy to boot.

In the distance, we can see patrol car flashing blue and red into the night around the warehouses at the wharf Spike and Koh are trying to get to.

Page 08: Pulling up to the wharf, Spike suddenly realizes (or thinks he does) why Buffy isn't texting back: The cops are surrounding the warehouse with Cheung putting in a dispatch for SWAT to join them. Dowling thinks she's going for overkill, but with their briefings on Slayer abilities, she isn't taking any chances on Buffy making an escape.

Robert decides to go into the warehouse and try to talk Buffy down before SWAT storms in.

Page 09: In the warehouse, Buffy tries to distract Dowling by pointing out they've got company. He's not concerned. After all, the police don't even know he exists and she's about to be too brain-smacked to talk much as soon as he drains her.

They hand-to-hand, and he's also gained physical strength from his energy siphoning. He mocks Buffy about how much stronger he'll be after she's been tapped out.

Page 10: Sev, as is bad-guy habit (whatever he thinks his role is), feels the need to monologue about the power he'll gain from her. Which is why she's able to surprise him off of her the good old fashion way -- with a stake.

Buffy: How do you like that Slayer mojo?

Commentary: Awwwwesommmme! :-)

Page 11: While shocking to him, the staking doesn't take since he's all super powered. But Buffy points out she's willing to bet he can't insta-heal without a charge up and she's going on the offensive now to keep that from happening.

This takes the form of a tackle, which seems very unwise since physical contact is a bad thing here. What are you thinking, Buffy?!

Page 12: Alas for the Slayer, things rarely work out so neatly. Her and Sev crash through the floor to a sublevel (On the wharf?! In a warehouse? Does this sound right? Do they have subbasements in this situation to maybe help load boats? Anyone know if this is sensible?).

And in that sublevel, Severin has left another army of zompires alone so that he'd have an emergency battery charge ready if it was needed.

Meantime, we skip over to Dawn and Xan's place. They're watching a breaking news interruption about Buffy's being surrounded by police. Dawn tries to call Willow, while Xander worries about the amount of bail money they'll need since she didn't take their advice and work it out with the police without the dramatic standoff. Not exactly shocking to either one of 'em.

Page 13: Also elsewhere-that-isn't-the-wharf, Tumble is watching as the television spills that Buffy is a Slayer.

Anaheed is in Buffy's room, surveying her weapons collection. Tumble seems more shocked that Ana.

Meanwhile, back at the wharf - Dowling has drawn his gun and is calling out to Buffy that he only wants to talk.

Page 14: But, as we saw, Buffy and Sev are beneath him at the moment. They're fighting the reserve zompires. Buffy points out that Sev isn't going to be able to drain her if she's dead. He concedes that and helps her out by zapping a vampire he's grabbed...

Page 15: ... and performing a group zap which takes Buffy by surprise, as the attackers are remote drained now that the Siphon has powered up on her and these groups of zompires. Buffy isn't taking the bump in his powers as good news. His gloating isn't helping.

Page 16: Meanwhile upstairs, Dowling is confronted by a snuck-in Koh and Spike. They tell him to stand down and let them handle it.

Commentary: Very much liking these pages.

Page 17: Below them, Severin has used some of that drained-power physical strength to shove Buffy into a pylon, sending a boom through the building. This causes Spike to rush into action, with Koh exclaiming, "The Siphon..."

While below, Sev has his hand on Buffy's forhead and is giving her another drain.

Spike and Koh drop down through the hole in the floor.

Page 18: Our boys rush Sev, but he's powered up enough on Buffy again to distance-bolt them. Koh goes unconscious and Spike isn't much better. Sev is able to grab Spike and start a double-drain of he and Buffy.

Page 19: Buffy tries telling Spike to not... but it is way too late for that. She's looking absolutely ghastly and Spike is looking near real-death.

Sev gloats. Which is suddenly interrupted not by a revived Koh, but by the lowly human with a gun. Dowling shoots Severin ~~four~~ three times to the torso! Yay!

Commentary: I'm loving this sequence. The action has been exciting, the artwork has been terrific and the effects of Sev's powers really is gross looking. The whole sequence was great (maybe a bit less of Sev's monologuing -- but then I suppose that is a comic book trope -- everyone gets to talk a lot no matter what physical action they're taking or how much they're powering up-down/getting beaten-thrown...).

Page 20: With Sev now sporting a few gunshots, he's a bit busy to be able to continue power draining.

Sometime later, everyone is sitting around the pier. Dowling informs Buffy that she's off their most wanted list as a suspect. She thanks him for showing up with guns a-blazing, but tells him that's probably the only time she'll ever thank somebody for gunplay.

We don't see what exactly happened to Severin after his gunshooting.

Page 21: Koh tells Spike that Buffy will want to see him, but he reminds him that he wants Buffy to be with the normal folk (Ah... okay. I'm gonna have to assume this is more about the UST he's still sporting for Buffy and their emotional knots than his stated reason for this to make sense to me).

As Dowling is telling Buffy that they'll have a lot of questions for her once she's rested, Willow shows up. Buffy asks why, and she tells her that Spike was group texting her fireworks and The Siphon. She thought Buffy may need a non-mystic shoulder to cry on if she ended up non-Slayer-y.

Buffy tells her she's still super-ed... unless that means Wills won't give her a ride home.

Commentary: And, I'm not buying Willow's smile or jokey attitude either. At this point, I'm pretty sure she'd like to see Buffy de-powered just so she can say "Now, you understand how I feel and why we need to reverse what you did... 'cause blah-blah-the-Seed-blah-blah-awful-you".

I know Willow is trying... but she's trying badly... consistently.

Page 22: Wills and Buffy are standing at the former's car and Willow tells Buffy that she was never mad because Buffy had power that she didn't. Buffy understands it was because Buffy took such drastic measures with the Seed without thinking through the possible fallout. She points out that being made a duracell seems like punishment enough.

Willow tells her that she's glad that Buffy wasn't drained. She doesn't want Buffy to know what it's like to lose the thing that makes her tick. Buffy promises to help Willow find a way to get her mojo back.

Commentary: Wow. It's like the writers knew my mind about Willow at this point and are trying to win me back over to her side. Not quite working... yet.

Meanwhile, Severin is lying in a hospital bed. Simone drops by to berate him for blowing it. He wants a taste of her energy to help him heal from his gunshots (we have a continuity error, I think -- see next commentary), but she won't share. She tells him since he failed, she'll need all of her energy to kill Buffy herself.

Commentary: So, first about Sev's gunshots. We heard Dowling's gun go off three times. And here, Severin says he was shot three times. But take a look on page 19, panel 4. Doesn't it look like he's taken 4 gunshots? One to upper chest, two to mid chest and one down above his hip?

We'll have to put the above-hip blood as rundown and soakthrough from his other wounds, I guess. But, uh... not really. Seems like art-fail to me.

And to Simone: I'm not buying why she'd go to Severin to trick Buffy in the first place. Why hasn't she even tried a high powered, marksman rifle shot at her yet? Simone is the gun-loving Slayer -- you'd think she'd be the one to go for more conventional means to take out Buffy several times before she would deign to get involved with evil magic-siphoning people.

Plus I want a storyline where Andrew builds a knock-off Iron Man suit and gets into fisticuffs with Simone. I want it bad.

The Good: I'm loving the cover and the internal artwork on this issue, especially page 19 (no impact on scoring, but it is a kudos).

I really like the Severin character.

I loved the entire fight sequence between Severin and our heroes, and it was nice that the normal cop was the one to stop Sev.

The Bad: Nuthin'.

Other Thoughts: That discussion between Koh and Spike about his relationship with Buffy felt really shoehorned in. And since we as readers know how Spike feels for Buffy and their tangled relationship, it felt entirely superfluous to boot. Why is this conversation here?

The Score: I really liked this issue. It was excitingly done and I like that the super-people didn't save the day for a change of pace. I also really liked that we're left with Sev still in play. And, it's cool that Simone was the mysterious girl in the alley pointing Sev's vengeance at Buffy. I really want to see the smackdown between Buffy (but with mucho Andrew support) and Simone Doffler.

3.75 out of 5

--end--

Next Review: Angel & Faith, (wait -- why is A & F being labeled as S9 when Angel's seasons are behind Buffy's because he's not been "on air" as long... that is just adding to the continuity nightmare... look, I'm still going with this being Angel Season 7 --- call it my personal continuity and you're all free to take it however you want it) Issue 3.

Reviewed: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9, Issue 3

2013-04-22T20:41:45Z

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
S9, I3

"Freefall, Part Three"

Script: Andrew Chambliss, Pencils: Georges Jeanty, Inks: Dexter Vines, Colors: Michelle Madsen, Letters: Richard Starkings & Jimmy Betancourt
Cover: Steve Morris

Blurb: With the destruction of the seed, the fight against Twilight was brought to an end, and magic's connection to our earth was severed. No more Slayers will be chosen. No more Slayer army. No more gang: Buffy's a waitress in San Francisco; Dawn and Xander are attempting normal domesticity; Willow is struggling with the loss of her powers. It's a new(ish) world, but there are still demons and vampires to slay -- even as their popularity with the masses continues to grow -- and Buffy is on point to do what she ahs always done...

She is the Slayer.

Page 01: We open in the alley with Buffy, strange guy with powers, and a lot of formerly vampire corpses (which don't dust). Buffy is taken aback, naturally. Strange Guy insists that he doesn't know how he's able to render the vampires inert and was hoping that, being the Slayer, she could help him find out.

Page 02: Strange Guy introduces himself as Severin once Buffy and he retreat to a nearby roof. The police are still looking for Buffy as a suspect in the bodies being left all over the city and she wants to avoid legal entanglements until she can understand what is going on. She tells 'Sev' that if he wants to help her, he can give her a hiding place for the night.

This seems fair since she's getting pinned for the bodies that he's creating.

Page 03: Meanwhile, Dowling and Cheung have gone to Buffy's apartment to speak to her. Roommate Anaheed claims not to have seen Buffy in several days and directs them to Dawn's place.

Dowling gives Anaheed a business card, which leaves her non-plussed at the sight of 'Homicide' on it.

Page 04: Meanwhile, Meanwhile - Spike is canvassing San Francisco for the identity of who is after Buffy. He has dropped in on a little imp. Using Vamp!Face and Scary!Voice he interrogates the Imp. Apparently, any new supernaturals coming into the city usually stop at this guy's place to find lodging appropriate to non-human looking beings.

The Imp tries to warn off Spike that he's going to get himself killed, but Spike reminds the guy that he'll be dead before that happens if he doesn't start pouring out some answers.

Commentary: I really liked this page. Spike is looking all vampirey, the imp is a babbling real estate salesman and the artwork is great. Spike does bring up a point though that I would like to see explored much more. He tells the Imp that when he kills him, he won't be going on to some "cushy hell dimension" due to the severing of connections with the Seed's demise.

So -- what exactly is happening to all of these beings' spirits when they die? And is the heavenly dimensions closed off as well? What is happening to people who've died since the Seed's destruction? Angel suggests that dead people still go where they're meant, but it doesn't seem likely he can know that, rather than simply stating it because he wants to believe it is true.

And, are the drained vampires of Severin not combusting because the human souls that are in limbo while the vampire is wearing their bodies still stuck where they are? Or were they freed maybe as soon as the Seed was shattered? In fact, evidence of the soul being in a limbo was really kinda guess work based on Liam being resummoned to enter the Orb of Thesullah and restored to Angelus -- but as of S6 of Buffy, it would appear that Willow successfully summoned her from Heaven. So, it is certainly possible that Liam had always been summoned from Heaven as well, when I thought he was being summoned from Limbo.

Huh. Damn this whole soul business in the Buffyverse -- it is all so confusing. But anyway, back to the story.

Page 05: The Imp is unable to provide a name to Spike. But, he can direct him to where he suggested he stay -- this is Alcatraz Island. And, the guy referred is someone we've met: The formerly imprisoned warrior with the glowing blades.

He's currently in his 'cell' on the island, complaining that Buffy is becoming harder to find.

Page 06: The following morning, Buffy wakes up at Sev's place. He lives in a spectacular penthouse as a trust-fund kid. Buffy questions as to why he'd be risking the posh life by playing exorcist to the creatures of the night. Severin admits that he didn't start out wanting to kill the vampires, but rather he was trying to become one.

Buffy takes this without drama. She's met too many kids wanting to jump on the With-Fangs bandwagon at this point.

Page 07: Severin shares his backstory with Buffy involving his girlfriend, Clare. She wanted to take the plunge and become an undead. She searched clubs, bars, etc. until she ran into - coincidentally - a high school friend of hers. She reconnected with Alessandra, who she planned to have sire her so that she in turn could sire Severin.

He was nervous about it and wasn't sure he wanted to go along, but Clare wanted to be with him forever.

Page 08: The proceeded with Clare's plan despite his own reservations. But, he found Clare so different when she 'woke up'...

Page 09: Clare woke up, not as one of the human-sort vampires in the clubs and bars. She was little more than an animal without any sign of recognition of him. She attacked him brutally despite his attempts to reach her emotionally.

Page 10: Severin reacted with panic, as you'd expect. But rather than just shouting no, and then dying, he activated his mutant powers and drained whatever was making Clare a vampire. He saw her revert to human. But as a human, she was dead, and so dead she became post-suckage.

Sev tells Buffy he still has no idea how he was able to do what he did.

Page 11: Sev has been on a crusade since that night to kill vampires that are still trying to turn people and to drain those turned feral. With Buffy asking when Clare was turned, she puts together that the mindless vamps started turning up right after the Seed was destroyed.

Great. Another thing for Buffy to feel guilty about.

Page 12: Across town, our detectives are talking to Dawn and Xander about her sister. Both claim they haven't seen Buffy in days, either.

Detective Cheung is suspicious because of the obviously made up sofa, but Xan informs her it is for him. Which the detectives can buy as Dawn and Xan start an argument in front of them over Dawn's upcoming birthday, which she claims he completely forgot, but which he claims he hasn't forgotten because it hasn't arrived yet, but which she claims he did forget because he hasn't even started to plan something in advance which he calls an entirely silly argument to be having.

Dowling hands over a business card and warns it'll be better for Buffy if she turns herself in rather than for them having to find her.

Page 13: Immediately after Dowling and Cheung leave, Dawn receives a Scooby Alert text. Willow, Spike and Andrew are also summoned.

Commentary: I like Spike's trying to stay hidden from the sunlight in a hat and heavy overcoat and still managing to smoke a bit. BUT - it still strikes me as utterly ridiculous that his face wouldn't be burning off in the sunlight. I really hated the bit in S5 where Spike treked across the desert with nothing but a ratty blanket over him and I hate it here. It's ridiculous.

I'm also disturbed that Andrew is working on a robot when he's texted. (I'm not pleased with where this robot is going, either, but that's not relevant for the moment.) The last thing we need is more fun with the sex-bots.

A bit later, at Sev's penthouse, the only ones to show up are Dawn and Xan. Andrew is apparently too busy and Willow, Buffy says, hadn't bothered to text her back.

Commentary: Which, I can't help but be relieved about. At least we don't need to hear Wills guilt-trip Buffy AGAIN about the Seed business.

Page 14: Minutes later, Willow picks up a call from Dawn... well, her phone. It's actually Buffy who tells Willow she used Dawnie's phone because she didn't think she'd pick up otherwise. Which is true, obviously, even though Willow tries the "I'm at work" excuse for not answering before.

Buffy tells Willow that she may have been right about things getting worse, which Willow seems way, way too pleased about. Buffy corrects that she still doesn't think she made the wrong choice about destroying the Seed, but she is now worried about the fallout. Willow decides she'll listen.

Commentary: *Willow*. Grrrrr.

Page 15: The new-ish gang discuss the new, more vicious and drool-y vampires. Willow puts it together pretty quickly that when vampires get created, a demon inhabits them from another dimension. With the Seed having cut Earth off from those dimensions, the new breed of vampires are more like zombie-monsters, than demons.

Xander, very self-pleased, hits on the moniker Zompires.

Sev, in the meantime, tells Buffy that he knows where a nest of new zompires are located. He could take them out with Buffy's help.

Page 16: As Buffy gets ready to roll out, Xander and Dawn continue to disappoint by pointedly not going with her. Not only that, but both state the actual reason they answered the call wasn't about Scooby Business. They just wanted to give her Dowling's card and advise her to call him and work things out before they get worse between her and the police.

Willow concurs.

Commentary: I'm still conflicted about Dawn and Xander not doing the Scooby biz anymore. I'm more forgiving of their turning their backs on monster fighting than I am with Willow, just because they're not being so obnoxious about it. But, at the same time, they seem to really be withdrawing too much from any sort of Buffy support, and that rankles me.

They don't have to monster hunt/fight anymore, if that is where their minds are at, but they could offer other assistance more readily and when Buffy shows up needing a place to crash for the night, is it really too much to ask that she get it? I don't think it is, and their complete hands-off attitude is bothersome. But on the other, other hand - at least they don't ignore her calls....

Page 17: Having said their piece, Dawn and Xander head back home. Severin tells Buffy that the police aren't going to 'just talk' to her, they'll be looking to lock her up. Meanwhile, Xan insists that with everyone liking the vampires, everything has become different. But, he tells her she should work with them on the zompire problem. Dawn asks her to be careful, so she doesn't end up in jail.

Speaking of jails, Spike has arrived at Alcatraz. He locates a cell in a portion of the prison where the tourists apparently don't go. He also locates evidence of our big, red guy -- but the demon himself isn't there.

Page 18: Oops! Yep, he is! He was clinging above and drops down on Spike with his energy blade ready. He grabs Spike around the throat from behind and tells him that he kills "blood rat" for breathing the same air as him.

Spike reacts though by flipping him over and out into the hallway. He tells him that he wants to know what this guy wants with Buffy. You'd think that laser blade wouldn't care enough to respond, but I guess he's feeling talkative. He tells Spike that Buffy killed the Seed.

Spike tells him that everyone needs to get over it. AMEN, SPIKE!

Page 19: Our Demon waves his blade away and tells Spike that he's misjudged the situation. He claims that he's trying to find Buffy to repay his debt to her.

His story is that his name is Eldre Koh and that he'd been wrongly imprisoned by magic. With Buffy's destroying the Seed, it allowed him to escape and he is honor bound to serve her for his freedom.

Spike goes into Vamp!Face/Scary!Voice again, telling him he's heard to many rumors about Koh wanting to off Buffy for him to buy his story. But, Koh claims that the rumors Spike has heard isn't about him at all. It's actually about The Siphon.

Commentary: You just knew that Sev was going to be a bad guy, didn't you? Of course, I'm not sure I completely buy Koh wanting to join up with Buffy either, except maybe to destroy The Siphon first before moving onto attacking her. But, we'll have to wait and see on that.

Page 20: Spike remains skeptical, but something in Koh's tone is winning him over. Koh tells him that The Siphon is able to drain mystical energy from any source... demon... vampire... even Slayers. He also informs Spike that beings much older than the entire vampire race fears the arrival of The Siphon and it has now come to pass.

Page 21: Meanwhile, Severin - aka The Siphon, is leading Buffy to a warehouse on the wharf.

Buffy is worrying about Sev being able to handle an entire nest of crazed zompires. He assures her that everytime he siphons a vampire's energy, he grows stronger.

Page 22: Buffy kicks the warehouse loading door open, but the ravening zompires don't appear to be a problem. They're all already dead and in-animated.

Buffy is shocked by this turn. Severin isn't.

His hands glow with suck-power as he turns on her. Obviously, he's decided that now is the time to suck Buffy dry.

Commentary: Which makes zero sense, of course. He could have done this already while she was lying asleep in his guest bed.

The Good: I liked the explanation for the new breed of zompires and the continuing, unexpected but sorta obvious in hindsight, impacts of the Seed's destruction.

With a little more personality being shown from Koh now, I'm getting interested in him as a character. And, I like the idea (assuming that is where we're being led) of Buffy getting a new team assembled around her as the Scoobies fade into their own lives.

The Bad: I am really annoyed by Buffy and Angel's vampires wandering around in sunlight freely with the most ridiculous explanations for how they're avoiding the sun. It really could not work for more than minutes at a time - not on bright, sunny California days.

Other Thoughts: I'm just starting to really wish Buffy would ignore Willow. The ex-witch's attitude is really grating on me (as I'm sure I've made more than plain).

I'm very happy with Spike having ditched the bugs and becoming a supporting character in this title. For a while there, I was kinda tired of him (through overuse -- I got to feeling the same way about Wolverine during my Marvel Comics days) and it feels good to enjoy his presence again.

I'm liking the zompires, but I think I'd like to see some exploration of the vampire's view on this development. Are there no vampires left that actually want to like their sired (a la -- can we have a Dru/Spike situation where the sire finds her intended lover to be a mindlessly violent zompire instead and how this new development impacts the vampire community)? It would be interesting to see arguments among the vampires over what is happening with their intended siring.

The Score: 3.25 out of 5

--end--

Next review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S9 I4

Reviewed (finally): Supernatural's "Skin"

2013-04-20T23:25:36Z

Supernatural
Season 1, Episode 6

"Skin"

Written by: John Shiban
DIR: Robert Duncan McNeill

Blurb: [I've decided not to post the blurb. The episode is set up as a mystery to begin with, and the blurb tells you everything.] I will be spoiling though.

Scene 01: We open (after a pre-episode flashback of the previous episodes highlights) in St. Louis, MO. Our first scene is a girl - bloody, gagged, tied down to a chair... oh, dear.

We then see a man's hand, it brandishes a knife in a way that promises bad times to come for our victim... oh, dear.

Scene 02: But there is hope! Outside, a tactical SWAT team moves in on a house. Our good guys proceed into the house, where there are signs of a struggle.

In the meantime, knife-guy reacts to hearing noises.

As our SWAT continue deeper into the house, we see our bad guy slip away behind them... our bad guy looks familiar? SWAT finds the girl, and she is still alive! Yay!

Our girl is obviously traumatized, but as they free her arm and try to convince her everything is okay now, she points off toward the direction that our bad guy went, so they can send men after him.

Scene 03: Our SWAT come across the bad guy trying to escape from a locked window, and order him to freeze. He's ordered to drop the knife, but turns instead -- and our bad guy is DEAN WINCHESTER! Oh, noes!

Is the girl a demon? Was Dean interrogating her? Could she have something to do with the Yellow Eyed Demon? Who knows, we have to time travel back a week first in order to find out how we've come to be here.

Commentary: So. Does anyone really believe that Dean lost his crap in episode 6 of the first season and turned into a psycho? No? Good.

Which is to say that the opening is harrowing and tense, but this type of episode set up would have worked better later in the series when we do see Dean starting to crack up as he's trying and failing to save Sammy from his traumas. Still, it isn't a bad way to start.

Scene 04: Back a week- The Impala takes our boys to a gas station, where fuel is at $2.65 a gallon... ahh, the good old days.

Dean is laying out an itinerary for them, to Sam's apparent disinterest. He explains that he's getting caught up on his emails as Dean gets out to gas up Our Girl. Dean has trouble believing that Sam would keep in touch with his Stanford pals, considering what he and Dean are up to these days. Sam tells him that he's going with "I need time off after Jess and am on an extended road trip with my brother" without getting into the details of what the road trip actually consists of.

Dean advises cutting everyone from Sam's previous life out of it, as that is the hunter way. But we know that Sammy isn't planning on doing this forever, even if Dean thinks differently. Sam's only interest in continuing is finding Jess' (and his mother, Mary's) killer.

Scene 05: Sam gets "oh my god"-ed by whatever he's reading in his email over his palm-pilot like gadget. To Dean's inquiry, Sam tells him that a girl he went to school with is telling him about her brother -- he's been charged with murder, but girl is convinced he is innocent. Sam can't believe that Zach is a killer either and tells Dean that their plans just changed -- they're headed to St. Louis next.

Dean is not down with this, but Sammy gives him implacable face. Dean complains that St. Louis is 400 miles back the way they came, and this doesn't sound like supernatural-monster business. Yeah, neither Sam nor I are convinced by this as a reason to not help Our Sam's friends. We're... "Uh, you're going, Dean".

Scene 06: In St. Louis, Sam and Dean arrive at Becky and Zach's.

There is exposition to explain why we'll not be seeing adults in this episode (away in Paris, on their way back). Sam asks for details of Zach's situation.

According to Becky, Zach had come home to where he and his girlfriend lived. He found her tied to a chair where she'd been beaten. He dialed 9-1-1, but the girlfriend wasn't breathing and couldn't be saved. The police arrested him.

The reason is that across the street from Emily's (the girlfriend's) place, they retrieved taped evidence of Zach going in at 10:30p with the medical examiner confirming Emily had died shortly thereafter. But, Becky swears to Sam that Zach was at this house with her having a few beers until shortly after midnight. There is no way that he could have gone to Emily's that early.

Sam suggests that he and Dean check out the crime scene to Becky's confusion. Sam lies to her that Dean is a police officer. Dean isn't pleased with this, either, and changes his bio to detective out of Brisbane, Arizona [which happens to be the place he wanted to go instead of coming here with Sammy].

Becky is hesitant, but Sam points out that they need proof of Zach's innocence. She goes off to get the keys.

Scene 07: Dean throws in a dig at Sam for the whole lying thing he is doing with his so-called 'friends' (Shut up, you ass. Not everyone can be socially disconnected like we can). He also returns to the "not our kind of case" reasoning for not getting involved in this.

Sam points out the "two places at once". He tells Dean that they've looked into cases on less evidence in their storied pasts.

Scene 08: Becky worries they're going to get into trouble, but Dean only-a-tiny-bit sarcastically claims his law-enforcement credentials.

In the apartment, there is evidence of Emily's violent ending.

Commentary: And, for some reason, no body closes the door. Now, you could understand with Becky but Sam and Dean should not want everyone walking by to see people wandering around in a place that has been marked off with crime tape. Professional hunters, everyone -- let's give 'em a hand.

Sam questions Becky more about what the police say, while Dean gives everything a closer look. Becky states that Emily apparently let her attacker in and the lawyers are already talking about a plea bargain, so even Zach's attorney's are pretty sure he did it. Becky, being confronted by the evidence of Emily's bloody death, becomes deeply upset. Sam gets her back on track by asking her if anyone else she can think of would want to harm Emily and pin it on Zach.

Becky can't think of anyone, but she does relate a weird occurrence of a week prior: Someone had broken into the apartment, only to steal some of Zach's clothing, which the police have dismissed as having anything to do with the murder itself. Sam goes to give the apartment a once over.

In the meantime, Dean has returned to the front door of the apartment, where a dog is barking up a storm. Becky mentions in passing that the dog used to be the sweetest animal and now has changed. To Dean's question, she guesses that he suddenly got meaner around the time of the murder.

Scene 09: Dean leaves Becky at the front door to join Sam in the kitchen. He's staring at a buddy pic of he, Zach and Becky. Dean reports the tidbit about the suddenly psycho-dog. Sammy smirks that maybe it is their kind of case? Dean denies that this is probably so, but he's willing to take a look at the security footage.

Becky joins them in the kitchen, where Dean asks about it. She reports that she stole a copy of it from the lawyer's desk as she wanted to see it for herself.

Scene 10: Fading out on the fridge-picture, we join... Zach? Not-in-a-jailcell-Zach??

He is currently scoping out a man saying good-bye to his wife on his way out of town for an overnight business trip. By the way that woman walks back to her home in slo-mo, it is apparent that free-Zach-doppleganger has found another victim. The music, creepy half-lipped smile, and flicking eyes also adds evidence to back up my assertion.

Commentary: Nice effect on the eyes. But the story portion of this is a bit draggy as we go through the procedural part before Sam and Dean can get to the monster fighting/evil Dean bit.

Scene 11: Back at Becky's parents' place, they're watching the video tape that Becky procured from her brother's lawyer. She says that video analysis finds no tampering, as the Winchesters see Zach entering the apartment at 22:04. Sammy asks for those beers that were offered earlier.

With Becky safely off in the kitchen, Sam replays a part of the tape that shows Zach up close... and he has reflective eyeshine.

Scene 12: Over at business man's place, he has returned home because of the meeting being cancelled that he was supposed to be gone overnight for. He finds the place too quiet and Lindsey not answering him... then he spots the blood smear along the wall.

He finds her tied down to a chair, gagged and injured. When he tries to release her, she begs him to stop hurting her to his confusion. But he's interrupted from freeing her by the sounds of smashing glass. He goes stalking through the apartment, at no time grabbing a weapon or a phone.

As he stands in the hallway, we see his duplicate behind him holding a baseball bat. He sees 'him' also, and stands in shock at the doppleganger eyes flick.

Alas, standing there isn't a great plan, as he takes a shot to the head with the bat and goes down.

Scene 13: The following morning, Our Sam, Dean and The Impala pull up to an alley parking lane. As they get out, Dean explicates for us that it is 5:30am, and he's not real thrilled with the hour. We then find out we're out back of Zach and deceased Emily's place. Sam shares that he noticed while watching the videotape that they never saw Zach leave the apartment after Em's murder. But since they're going by the fact that a monster is involved, it must have left via the back door into this alley -- a lead that the police wouldn't have followed up on because they're so convinced that real-Zach is the killer and ergo never left after carving up his girlfriend.

Sam now looks for any trace of the actual killer; Dean grumbles about the early hour a bit more. Sam uses his well developed spot-check skills to... finally... notice that absolutely huge splash of blood on a pole right near his face. (Good going, Our Sam!! Kudos for that crack-detecting skill! -end sarcasm-)

As Dean points out that the trail, assuming it is one, doesn't seem to go anywhere from there however - leaving them in another jam. Thankfully, some angel (HI CAS -- Can't wait for you to show up!) is looking down on them and sends an ambulance into their path to follow.

Scene 14: When the boys reach the front of Asian guy's door, they ask a bystander about what happened. She relays that the guy tried to kill his wife and had apparently tied her to a chair and beaten her pretty badly. She further explicates that she'd see him leaving for work everyday and they seemed happy together.

Sam and Dean share "this isn't what it appears" glances at one another. But with the police hauling off their witness, the wife being loaded onto the ambulance and the crime scene being covered in cops, this is all gonna have to wait for later.

Scene 15: Minutes later, Sam has gone around to the back of the building to look for another blood smear. He doesn't find anything, but while he was off doing this, Dean used his natural gift for gab (this is a real thing -- the ex has this gift in spades) to get information from a patrolman, because until those guys make detective they can never keep their mouths shut.

He relays that his blabbing source reveals that the guy's car is on streetcam at the time of his wife's assault. Even more weird, the guy is telling the detectives about his twin being in the house and bashing his head (which apparently doesn't mean that he should also be checked out before getting shoved into a police cruiser and shuttled directly to jail).

Dean is now fully onboard the "we have a shape shifter monster and your friend is innocent after all" train, where before he was only kinda hanging out of a box car.

There is brief discussion of shapeshifter lore with Skinwalkers and Werewolves getting a shout out.

Sam then tells Dean that he found a trail (we didn't see any of the evidence that Sammy if referring to -- let's call it blood drops), but then the (blood drops) end suddenly and the trail vanishes. Dean points out there is a way to go... the sewer cap that Sam is practically standing on (well - embarrassing).

Scene 16: Our boys go under into the St. Louis tunnel system. [And, we'll find that The Sunnydale Mayor wasn't the only politician to make sure that their city was demon travel friendly.]

They soon run across slime, blood and skin in a puddle confirming for them that the shapeshifter is using this underground trail. Much revulsion ensues.

Commentary: This was another nice effect. Simple, economical, but supremely nasty. I'm pretty sure I spotted an ear in that flesh pile. Up to this point, the only problem with this story is her pacing. It's a bit slow to get the boys up to speed so they can really start hunting in earnest. But as things progress from here the action picks up nicely so stick with us, here.

Scene 17: At the Impala, Dean retrieves guns and silver bullets while sharing with us that all shapeshifters are vulnerable to silver as a rule.

Sam then receives a call from Becky. She is pissed. Since Sam presented Dean as a police officer, Becky updated Zach's lawyer about their helping her find evidence to prove her brother's innocence. Unfortunately, she also shared that they'd been to the crime scene which panicked the lawyer enough to check for a Detective Dean Winchester which blew Sam and Dean's lie which has not placed her brother's entire case in jeopardy for their trespass into a sealed crime scene.

She tells him to stop what he and his brother is doing and cuts off his apologies by hanging up on him.

Scene 18: Dean, having heard Sam's side of the conversation has enough information to point out that he'd warned Sammy that they can't have friends the way other people can. You tell them lies about what they're doing and they freak out. It'd be even worse to try to tell them the truth. [He doesn't mention that Sam wasn't in this catch-22 until Dean intruded back into his life.]

Commentary: And to the Dean-defenders-unto-death, Yes - I'm aware that Jess was doomed from the start because of the greater implications of the Yellow-Eyed Demons' plans. Sam and Dean don't know all that, so chill out.

The brothers put aside Sam's friend-issues for the moment to concentrate on finding their bad guy.

Scene 19: Back in the generously spaced underground tunnels, Dean tells Our Sam that they may be getting close to the monster of the week's lair. Our Sam wonders how he's coming to this conclusion, and he points out the bits of grue near Sammy on a pipe running along a wall. This leads to more pile o' ick and some clothes.

Sam wonders how many murders this shapeshifter has gotten away with. As he turns in his brother's direction with the light, Our Shapeshifter is RIGHT THERE.

Dean gets backhanded to the ground, and Our Sam takes a few shots but the Shifter is able to retreat successfully. Our Sam sees to Dean, but he's pissed and sends Our Sam off to "get the sonuvabitch!", while he nurses his injured shoulder.

Commentary: Some more good, icky effects work for the waste product of the Shifter's assuming new forms. I also, again, want to appreciate the chemistry between Jared and Jensen when it comes to their interactions. Both guys play well off one another, continuing the trend from their Pilot.

Scene 20: The Shifter comes up into the city and dashes down the block, while Sammy is too far behind to see which way he disappeared to. Dean comes up behind him still nursing his shoulder, and there is a quick move to hide the guns. Alas, by this time the Shifter is a block away.

The brothers split up and try to head him off (although, how they know which direction he went isn't explained -- there is no way in hell that Our Sam could have seen which direction the monster split).

Scene 21: We switch back and forth between Dean scoping alleys and Sam eying the pedestrians around him.

Commentary: This is an interesting shot, just because of how often we don't see Sam and Dean in crowd shots trying to do their job. It was weird to see both boys having to hunt with the inconvenience of actually having people around them in a busy urban environment.

Scene 22: At a corner, Our Sam is standing in frustration. Dean calls out to him from behind and asks if he's spotted anything, but their search is a bust. Dean directs them back to The Impala.

But, of course, when a car goes by its headlights reflect off of Dean's shiny eyes... It ain't Dean that Our Sam is now with.

Scene 23: Back at the car, Our Sam gets a look of "waaaiiit a minute". He throws out a trick question to Dean about their father's past hunts to see if Dean will correct his 'mistaken' information. And, Dean does. The Shifter, you see, has the memories of the swap-ee via demon-sympathy-magic or something so he is able to perfectly mimic Dean Winchester as long as he has his form.

Sam goes to the front of the car, while Dean pops the trunk. He grins at the amount of hardware stored in The Impala.

But, Our Sam isn't so fooled after all. He pulls a gun on "Dean". Our Sam points out that Dean caught the tossed Impala keys with his left arm... the shoulder that he was just nursing without so much as a wince. Dean tries to convince Sam that its fine now, and he's not a whiner about it. Our Sam declines to believe him.

Dean tells him to pull the trigger if he's so sure. He implores Our Sam that he knows him, but Our Sammy doesn't lower his gun.

Not that it does him much good. Y'see the Shapeshifter is one fast dude. A quick lunge to knock Sam's gun hand away and a little help with the crowbar that Dean-shifter snatched up from the trunk, and Our Sam is on the ground. And, he's out cold to boot.

Scene 24: When Our Sam comes to, he's been bound in the underground lair of Dean-shifter. Dean wanders up to him, apparently just to get another backhand out of his system.

Our Sam pulls himself together to demand to know where the real Dean is. Shifter implies that Dean is either already dead or at least in horrible straits, and then turns his attention to all of the new memories he's pulling from his new shape. He's finding himself amazed at just how screwed up the Winchester clan is [and he doesn't know the half of it, because it hasn't been written yet!].

Under Sam's questioning, Dean-shifter starts telling Sammy that Dean has some major issues with him for being able to break free and try to be something else. Sam tries to deflect this by asking where the real Dean is again, but Dean-shifter tells him that he's his brother. He starts unloading Dean's psychological and emotional baggage onto Sam. He claims that deep down "I" am really just jealous because Sam got to have friends and a chance at a real life. "Dean" claims to feel like a freak and to know that in the end, everyone will leave him behind.

But in an echo of something that real-Dean said earlier, he points out to Our Sam that the hunter life does have its perks. Perks like "little Becky"....

Sam is covered in a tarp.

Commentary: This is very interesting, because the way it plays out, you can't tell if Dean-shifter is just screwing with Sam's head or if he really is channeling Dean's buried resentment and feelings of inadequacy. It's the first real chinks in Dean Winchester's emotional armor that we get hints of, and the way that the Dean-shifter keeps referring to Dean's memories and feelings with "I", seemingly without sarcasm, leads one to conclude that at least a good portion of his ramble really is coming from Dean.

It's the start [small future spoiler!] of a long road to us finding out just how screwed up in the head Dean is in regards to his self-loathing over John's turning him into a pale reflection of himself over the years. It's even more fascinating as we watch Dean struggle with this, and come to a complete 180-degree turn in his feelings toward his father, his childhood, and his conflicted feelings toward his brother - especially when it comes to Sam's options that he can't see for himself. [end small future spoiler!]

Scene 25: We skip a bit forward in time to Becky's parents' home. She answers a knock on the door and finds a smirking Dean on the doorstop. Becky is, of course, not very pleased to see him standing there. But, as we know, Dean -- even faux-Dean -- is quite the charmer. He claims that he came despite Sam's asking him not to in order to explain the lying to her.

Alas for her, she doesn't slam the door shut and lock it while dashing madly for the phone to call 9-1-1.

Scene 26: But, before we can catch up with ourselves in the time stream and return to our opening scene, we skip back over to Sammy in the 'Tunnel de Bondage'.

Our Sam has gotten the tarp off and is swearing at his situation as he's been unable to slip the ropes securing him. In the background, he hears a cough. It is real-Dean, who was there all along -- also captured and apparently unconscious and under his own tarp this whole time. Real-Dean snarks at him.

Scene 27: Back at Becky's parents' she's ... uh... invited Dean in, gotten them beers, lit the fireplace(?!), and sat intimately on the sofa with him (!?!) ...

Wow, 'charmer' is right. It's nearly a mutant superpower.

Anyway, fake-Dean has explained the actual truth of what happened to her brother. She's trying to wrap her head around it and Dean admits that it all sounds crazy.

Becky asks how such a thing could even exist, and Dean asks her how else she can explain her brother clearly being in two places at once. She decides to play along, and asks him if it's some sort of genetic freak. We can see faux-Dean's face fall for just a split moment, before he agrees that maybe it was born human but different.

He goes on to give his own backstory, but relating it to Becky as a 'theory' of the Shapeshifter-hypothesis.

Scene 28: Back at the tunnel nest, Dean has finally worn through his ropes and as he's getting free, Our Sam is telling him about the Shapeshifter-Dean actually sounding like he was becoming him... not just that he looked like him, but that he was remembering things from Dean's past that he couldn't know otherwise.

The boys, as Dean is untying Our Sam, wonder if this is why they've been kept alive: So that the demon-shifter can keep a psychic connection in place (which works for Dean, but not really for Our Sam -- unless the Shifter is holding his form for next).

Our Sam tells Dean that they have to get over to Becky's.

Commentary: This episode, like many of season 1's eps, has a great premise and Jared and Jensen continue some really nice work -- especially opposite one another, but the pacing is a bit lag-gy with the expositioning dialog of things that we've already figured out on our own. At this point, we're really ready to get to the ass kicking now that we know the answers. But our scenes are still the boys escaping from the tunnels into the alleys and talking about where they need to go.

It isn't bad... but... some tightening of things and more punching, rather than talking, could only have helped out this one.

Scene 29: Over at Beck's, Faux-Dean is still playing suave. Fake-Dean plays the sympathy card, comparing the Shifter's loneliness to his own (Again, it's hard to know if he's actually channeling a bit of Real-Dean here -- or if he's just trying to seduce her now -- which, actually, could still be channeling Dean).

Faux-Dean uses a "it's so hard to be different" gambit while brushing her hair from her face. She isn't playing and tells him he should be on his way.

Commentary: And that side-look she throws is this actress' greatest performance in this episode so I just had to screen cap ---

LOL. That's wonderful!

Faux-Dean leans forward instead and whispers in her ear. Whatever he said, she is instantly off the couch and yelling at him to get his disgusting ass out of her home. But, y'know, Demon-Dean so the answer is a big, fat 'NO' on that.

They get into a yelling match and then Becky goes for the phone to call the police. It doesn't go well, as Faux-Dean starts using the phone cord to wrap up her hands instead. When she won't stop screaming, he also back hands her hard (but we jump cut away before the blow is struck).

Scene 30: Did I say we jump cut away? I meant, we jump cut to a bit in the future (but still the past from the beginning scenes) where Faux-Dean is wiping his hands from retrieving some more rope and some chains. Becky is already secured to her chair and has blood on her. Fake-Dean is telling her about how nice of a girl she is in that creepy, serial killer way in which even compliments just sound awful.

He complains about actually liking her and how it only makes this next part harder as he pulls out a wavy knife. Before he can stab/slash her, we return to the SWAT guys breaking into her home as Faux-Dean creeps casually away. We return to SWAT confronting Dean at the exit window and telling him to drop the knife.

As we move past our own beginning, Shifter-Dean throws the knife into one SWAT's arm. A kick to the abdomen of a second guy sends him into a third and allows him to jump from the second story into a rolling landing below onto the lawn.

As SWAT recovers and fires at him to take him down, Faux-Dean runs off into the night.

Scene 31: A bit later and Faux-Dean has made it back to the sewers, where he starts stripping off his clothes (And yes, Jensen-fans, you get a bit of man-skin. I'd only say to freeze-frame and savor before it quickly gets icky --- uh, which is totally not what I'm doing... *cough-cough*. WHAT? Freeze- framing is a completely necessary reviewing procedure!).

So, anyway... *sigh*... our brief bit of above-the-waste nudity is soured as Shapeshifter has been injured and is now ready to shed the Dean identity.

As he convulses and grunts, we see his finger nails come off first. This is followed by his skin-under-Dean's-skin bubbling and contorting as he begins to split (rather painfully also, it appears) apart. He loses his teeth next. And then the fun really begins as he starts tearing off his own ear and then ripping his chest open.

Commentary: Yes, these effects are really done very well. I could do without "Hey Man, Nice Shot" by Filter over the scene. It would have been better without the music getting in the way of the squishy, ripping sounds -- but the scene is quite fine at taking a fan-squee and changing it into a fan-squick.

Scene 32: Sometime later, we see a local news report. It is about the attack on Becky and a sketch of Dean's face is now all over the airwaves as a suspect in her assault. Dean and Sam are seeing this and while the usual banter is from our beleaguered, Our Sam isn't as jokey about it.

They head down an alley out of public view. Dean gets more pissed as they're walking, while Our Sam is relieved that at least Fake-Dean didn't kill Becky. Dean is ready to head back down into the sewers, find his doppleganger and visit some serious hurt on him. Our Sam is more practical and reminds him that they don't have any weapons (especially the kinda-necessary silver bullets).

Our Sam suggests finding The Impala to see if their special weapons are still with it. They head over toward Becky's, where they're hoping Fake-Dean parked it without the police impounding it. The thought of the Shifter touching his baby drives Dean to distraction.

Scene 33: A bit later, Dean and Sammy arrive in another alley and spot The Impala. Dean exclaims that something finally went their way that night, which of course is Tempting Fate. He's immediately punished for his slip by a police car turning on its siren and pulling into view.

As their avenues of escape start to get cut off, Our Sam stays behind to distract the cops sending Dean over a fence to hopefully escape. As Sam point out, they don't really have anything to hold him on.

Our Sam yells after him for Dean to stay out of the sewers alone... Uh-Huh.

Scene 34: The following morning, Dean has returned to The Impala to retrieve his gun and silver bullets and heads down into the sewers, as expected.

Commentary: And, wow, awkward insert scene. I'm pretty sure this was filmed as a pick-up later as the POV is so cramped we barely see the car at all and can't see any of our surrounding location. It's also awkward because of the nonsense. There is no way that the plates of the car wouldn't have been run as a matter of course when they took Sam into custody so nearby it. Especially since Becky would have been asked about what her attacker had been driving, and she'd been in The Impala to go over to her brother's girlfriend's apartment.

That car is SO impounded and being swept for evidence! It's a total logic-fail to move the episode along.

Scene 35: In the sewers, Dean hunts for his (now non-existent) twin and finds hunks of shifter meat on the ground. He hears a noise and rushes to investigate, where he finds another tarp covering a human-shape. When he uncovers it, he finds... BECKY!?!

Scene 36: Meanwhile, over at Becky's parents' place - BECKY is serving Sam a beer and trying to wrap her head around Sam's explanations that it wasn't his brother that attacked her.

Commentary: OH, FUCK ME!!

NO! NO, No, no... the entire episode just blew any Suspension of Disbelief into shards of pointed bitterness for me. WHAT THE?!

1) Becky wouldn't have been released from the hospital after one night.
2) Police wouldn't have allowed her back into her home after one night. They'd still be there with CSI combing the place for any trace evidence to determine any clues as to where "Dean" had been recently and for eventual prosecution of him.
3) Sam is Dean's brother and there is no way the police didn't hear Sammy yelling at him to avoid the sewers when they were being surrounded. Even if they didn't have enough to hold Sam at that moment (which is iffy -- clearly he was with his wanted brother, so they could have held him for 24 hours surely without charging him as a material witness, or via arresting him for being an accessory after the fact even if they ultimately had to let him go).
4) "Becky" would have had to get to Real-Becky and abduct her to the sewer lair between the time the shifter threw off Dean's form and Real-Dean finding Real-Becky in the sewer lair, and the timeline just doesn't add up to do all of this at the same time that Real-Becky would be dealing with her injuries and the police due to the assault.

I mean, jeezus -- there's minor logic problems (The Impala being left for Dean to retrieve his weaponry) and there is THIS MESS....

BUT... Faux-Becky goes on to ask how Sammy plans to stop the Shifter, assuming that he and his brother aren't just crazy-cakes. Sam replies with 'silver bullet to the heart'. Fake Becky gives him a smashed beer bottle over the head as an answer to that plan.

Scene 37: Meanwhile, in the sewer, Becky tells Dean she was walking home and got hit over the head from behind. She came around just in time to see "that thing" turn into her and leave.

Dean tells her that Our Sam is on the way to see "her" right now!

Commentary: Excuse the continued pissiness, please, but NO! There isn't any time for all of this with what we've seen. In addition, Becky "WALKED HOME"? From the hospital?! Unescorted, when her attacker is still loose?

Wow, St. Louis' police department is stone-cold when it comes to victims of violence.

And, also -- Just how does Dean know where Sam is? Shouldn't he be more worried right now that Our Sam is being interrogated by the police and may be charged with obstruction? Wouldn't he think that if Sam was free, that he would be visiting Becky in the hospital to convince her Dean is stuck in the same boat as her brother. Or, that he may be investigating her empty house? Or, that he may be somewhere in the sewers trying to track down the Shifter (or him -- surely he realizes that Sammy would assume he'd ignore his injunction against investigating the sewers alone, especially when he finds the car emptied of the silver bullets and would come down after him)?

Why would he assume that Becky would be back home already and that Sam would be there? Did they speak since he fled the police? HUH, WHA, TIMELINE-LOGIC BROKEN.

*Sigh* He pulls up the traumatized and beaten woman to rush off to her house to confront the monstrous-her... without any protest from Becky who apparently is stronger than a normal person in this situation. Fine.

Scene 38: Back at Becky's, by the way, we get shots of blonde hair and bloody mess upstairs in her room before joining Our Sam. He's been tied up again and is just as irritated as we.

"Becky" has become "Dean" again.

He pulls a large knife and with amusement shares that Dean's whole life is going to be spent running from the murder of his own brother.

Scene 39: And then it's a while later, and Faux-Dean is still yapping and drinking, instead of slicing. He tells Sam that his brother has a lot of good qualities and he should hold more regard for him.

There is some time wasted with Faux-Dean doing slightly menacing things without actually hurting Our Sam. Our Sam, despite being tied up, power kicks Faux-Dean to the floor. He's able to rub the ropes tying his hands against the absurdly sharp knife that Faux-Dean jabbed into the pool table and nearly instantly the ropes are cut through, freeing his hands to fight.

There then follows a fight echoing the Dean vs. Sam battle at Sam and Jess' place in the pilot. Well, except its a lot more vicious since Faux-Dean isn't playing around and Our Sam knows this isn't actual-Dean.

Ultimately, Fake-Dean is able to get Our Sammy on the floor and begins to strangle the life out of him. Things look pretty bleak -- when suddenly we hear real-Dean shout at his faker counterpart from off screen.

Actual-Dean shoots Faux-Dean a few times in the chest, presumably with the special bullets of really-killing. Becky comes in behind him.

Everyone exchanges looks with one another and Real-Dean reclaims the necklace that Faux-Dean had stolen from him.

Commentary: A few things -- Obviously the transition between scene 38 & 39 is really clumsy. But, once the fight occurs there is some really great stunt fighting between Fake-Dean and Real-Sam. I can't help but kinda wish it was between Faux-Becky and he though... watching Sammy and her trading just-as-brutal blows with one another would have been awesome in a Buffy-fight way. But, still, this was really well done especially with the amount of grunting and vocal reactions to each hit. It was just executed well, even if the set up was clunky.

I also want to mention another glimpse we get of Dean's inner turmoil via his doppleganger. When he mentions that Sam doesn't appreciate Dean's good qualities enough, this must logically be Dean's actual thoughts since the Shifter never took on Sam's form and so wouldn't know his actual feelings about his brother (assuming that we can accept that there is any actual logic left working in this episode by this point). But the thing is that if you add this utterance with what was said in Scene 24 (which may have only been mind-screwing with Sammy, admittedly) it points to Dean really needing Sam's validation much more than he's let on. This plays well with Dean in the pilot, as well, as it seemed like Dean really was needy for Sam to stay with him at the end of the episode before Jess' death acted as The Return Call to Sam.

We are getting this subtle appearance of Dean's underlying psychology that we're going to get so much more deeply later and I really like looking back at these hints of where we're going. It really does help in getting that Dean isn't just the pretty-boy-wisecracking-tramp that he seems to be even before we get into the serious angst in upcoming seasons. Very nice.

I also always like seeing when Sam can hold his own against Dean in hand to hand, instead of only being the computer-guy/information-dude. Especially since Jared is a bit too well built to not be able to do so.

Scene 40: With the Shifter dead, Dean has a map out on The Impala's hood. They were traveling to a specific destination, after all, when Sam's friends' problems intruded and have to get back to The Search For Dad.

Meanwhile, Becky is trying to wrap her head around the Sam she thought she knew being a monster hunter... and that there are monsters. She asks if Jess knew, and Sam shares that no, she didn't. (As we know, this is a sore spot for Sammy as he feels guilt over not warning her about the things in the dark -- even though we know that it wouldn't have helped her any.)

Scene 41: Sam joins Dean at the Impala and his brother asks about Zach. He's to be cleared and freed as now the police are pretty sure that Emily was killed by Dean Winchester and that the tape with him on it was tampered with after all.

This is relayed with some amusement, and we en--- oh, wait, no we didn't end here.

Scene 42: A bit later, on the road in The Impala: Dean apologizes to Our Sam for his life interrupted. Sammy tells him it's okay (it isn't, though Sam seems to swerve back and forth on just how okay/not okay it actually is).

Dean jokes about how he'll be missing his own funeral.

Commentary: But future!us more groan than smile because we know how many effing times they pull out the "The brothers are killed! Oh, never mind." plots.

The Good: I like the effects in this one: They were generous with the smeared blood, there was hunks of shapeshifter meat around, some gnarly teeth falling out of head and the eye-flashing. It was all a good time.

There are some really good scenes between Jared and Jensen where again the actors are just clicking with one another.

I really love the glimpses that we're getting via our Shapeshifter [assuming he's not just mindgaming] of Dean as a three-dimensional person who is dealing with some heavy psychological and emotional baggage that he keeps tightly underwraps using his playboy persona. I'm so happy that they not only embrace and explore these things heavily with the character in future, but that Jensen Ackles really sinks his teeth into these opportunities and handles them exceptionally well.

I will never complain about Jensen's torso being displayed (well, unless it turns into a S6 Spike debacle).

The Sam/Faux-Dean beat down is some awesome, brutal fun.

The Bad: The timeline is completely screwy and you need to ignore it almost from the beginning, especially when it involves anything having to do with policework and the amount of time it takes up (which would inconveniently get in the way of returning to Becky's home over and over, not to even mention the Becky/Faux-Becky swap).

The Logic-Fails because of the screwy timeline is the real problem. It's SO outrageous that it yanked me completely out of the story.

What was with the sharpest knife in the world vs. weakest rope ever made thing about? Could we have not had a better way for Sam to free himself? And why were the actually-much-stronger-because-steel chains never actually used to secure a prisoner... like the heavily muscled Sam? Why have the chains in the episode at all if they were going to be an illogically not-used prop?

Other Thoughts: The utter lack of Zach is bizarre! Everything about him is relayed through Becky and we never seen him - the boys never once visit him in jail to get his side of the story firsthand. And at the end of the episode, he's still not seen thanking Sam and Dean for clearing him and for saving Becky's life. He's a complete non-entity.

It really drives me to distraction when people are supposed to be sneaking into forbidden areas and then they do things like leave doors so anyone passing by can seen them snooping.

The middle of the episode can get a bit draggy... it isn't really bad, so much as just slow, a bit.

The Score: This episode was humming along nicely, until the severe logical fails piled up and broke the story. I had to deduct a full half-point just for those flaws. I liked this one overall though, but as with the usual S1 episodes - watching the Winchesters get caught up with the things we already know is a bit draggy on the pacing. But the special effects and the stunt work was really good. But, man, the script problems with that timey-whimey and associated logic bombs....

3.25 out of 5 stars

--end--

Next Up: BTVS, Season 9 Issues 3 and 4 to wrap up the "Freefall" arc.

Best of / Worst of Character Moments: BTVS

2013-04-14T06:08:44Z

Best of / Worst of Character Moments

Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Killed by Death"

But first, let me apologize for not posting in an absurd number of days. I don't really have any reasons for my lack of general energy - the changing of the weather? Whatevs... I still should have had something of interest to post.

I'm working on the SPN review. Strangely, I'm only doing like 5 minutes at a time and it isn't because I'm not interested in the episode or anything either. It is just feeling like a real load to describe/comment on each scene. Yeah, I'm going with the changing weather and all of the cold rain we've had over the past week. It's makin' me wanna bundle myself in blankets and nap the everlasting nap all day.

Anyway, onto the point of this post:

Our Heroes Get a Hip-hip-hooray!

Buffy: Well, Buffy proves she can kill a life-sucking monster even while raging with fever. Kudos.

Xander: Xander's confrontation, standing toe to toe, with Angelus is brave (foolhardy, but brave) and I am proud of him for keeping his composure and not showing an iota of fear toward Angelus' threats.

Willow: I'm gonna give a kudos to Willow for her quick thinking in distracting security with her 'frog-fear hallucination', allowing Buffy to slip away after Der Kinderstod.

Rupert: I'm not really impressed enough to Kudo Giles.

Cordelia: Cordy's character continues to evolve and she is particularly helpful in this episode. Including taking the lead in shoring up Xander without even being asked by coming back to the hospital at night with coffee and donuts for him. She also ends up locating the demon that we're hunting this episode.

Alas, Angel remains missing.

Our Heroes get a Boo-hiss-you-idiot!

Buff: I don't fault Buffy for anything enough to demerit her.

Xan: Xander's confrontation with Angelus is cool. Doing so without any armament tucked away is not.

Wills: Willow doesn't do anything to annoy.

Giles: Rupert doesn't faux pas.

Cordy: Cordelia isn't a cause of any consternation for a black mark.

And, yay -- I don't have to give Angelus an anti-kudo for extreme harshness!

--end--

BTVS Review: Season 9, Issue 2

2013-04-03T18:35:51Z

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 9, Issue 2

"Freefall, Part II"

Script: Andrew Chambliss, Pencils: Georges Jeanty, Inks: Dexter Vines, Colors: Michelle Madsen,
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Jimmy Betancourt, Cover: Steve Morris

Blurb: With the destruction of the seed, the fight against Twilight was brought to an end, and magic's connection to our earth was severed. No more Slayers will be chosen. No more Slayer army. No more gang: Buffy's a waitress in San Francisco; Dawn and Xander are attempting normal domesticity; Willow is struggling with the loss of her powers. It's a new(ish) world, but there are still demons and vampires to slay -- even as their popularity with the masses continues to grow -- and Buffy is on point to do what she has always done...

She is the Slayer.

Page 01: We open on a dead body lying on an alley floor. There is a voice off-panel stating that this boy is just like a dead girl from the prior week. Dead from no obvious cause and no ID.

Page 02: The voice belonged to Detective Miranda Cheung. She's with her partner, Detective Robert Dowling. He wants to know if the boy is "John Doe", what do they call everyone else, as the viewpoint has zoomed outward, and we can see seven other bodies strewn about the alley with him, presumably all in the same state.

In the meantime, Buffy is being confronted by the student loan collection demon and he wants some payment toward her debt.

Page 03: Buffy chooses to treat this with violence, as is her want when demons come calling. Spike and Willow call her off, as her loan problem isn't going to be solved with some slaying.

The demon pitifully tells her that loan collections is just a day job, since he got unexpectedly trapped on Earth when The Seed was shattered. He's just trying to make ends meet and needs to keep his job.

Buffy cuts Willow off before she can make any more comments about The Seed's destruction. She demands to know where the nearest ATM is located.

Page 04: A bit later, Buffy has emptied out her savings, but it isn't even enough for the first installment amount. Spike pulls her aside to find out about that bank stash she stole with the other Slayers, but she tells him everything that was left after Slayer Operations (and the occasional outfit) was returned as part of the deal that Riley Finn brokered to get the Slayers off of Interpol's most wanted list.

Next, Spike turns to working with the demon on her behalf, noting that she didn't even finish school... and it was 'only' UC Sunnydale at that.

Page 05: The demon lets it slide, but warns her that he'll be back for another payment.

Willow takes this opportunity to remind Buffy of all of the unintended consequences about her destroying The Seed. She basically accuses her of hiding her head in the sand about the real repercussions of what she's done to the world.

Buffy's response is the same: She had no choice at the time.

Willow tells her that doesn't excuse her dealing with the aftermath, before she walks away.

Commentary: I'm just as irritated with Willow as I've ever been. You lost your magic... boo-hoo... You're still pulling down a comfortable living using your computer skills, so GET OVER IT, OR LEAVE. I'm so over Wills constant attempts to make Buffy feel guilty for stopping Twilight by destroying The Seed. She has said her piece (multiple times) and Buffy can't undo what happened, so the constant guilt-tripping is doing no good for anyone. It's selfish wallowing. (Sorry, Willow-fans, I know you're going to want to kick my ass for that.)

Page 06: Spike has Willow's back... up to a point. He tells Buffy that she has to stop sitting back about everyone gunning for her.

Meanwhile, we can see somebody hopping rooftops until it reaches her apartment and slips into her room. My first thought was that it was Simone, but she isn't really the subtle sneaking type. Plus, the figure has really red skin.

Page 07: And, it's a guy. He searches her room, finding the Vampyre book and a stake and concludes Slayer. Meanwhile, Buffy's roommate Tumble is up late and hears sounds from her room. Demon-Guy summons a cutting ring of energy and waits for Tumble to come into the room....

Commentary: Naturally, this is our mysterious warrior guy who broke free from a mystical prison last issue and promptly slaughtered his captors. You couldn't tell his skin color then, because of the green pall from the mystical energies there.

Page 08: Thankfully, when he opens the door to find out if Buffy wants to hit some Ramen Noodles, the hunter has slipped away.

Across town, at the morgue, Cheung is checking in with Dowling over any progress on their mysterious dead people case. Dowling tells her he has an ID on one of their girls, who was reported missing from Oakland. Miranda insists that she checked missing persons and she doesn't miss things, but he informs her that he had to go back to 1941 to find her.

Miranda states the obvious -- no way this young girl went missing that far back.

Page 09: Dowling reports that her prints were a match with what is in the file. In addition, two other bodies were identified the same way from 1954 & 1963. He wonders to Miranda's continued skepticism if they're actually looking at the bodies of former vampires (that weren't dusted).

Page 10: Speaking of... one of such creatures is currently chasing down a young man in another alley. Buffy is there, though her mind is on Spike's ambiguous warnings and Willow's passive-aggressive guilting of her.

The would-be victim wants to help, but she tells him to get out of there and let her handle it.

Page 11: She flips the vamp on his back and stakes it... just in time to be caught dusty-handed by a patrolman, who tells her nearly disbelievingly to drop the stake.

Page 12: A short time later, Buffy finds herself in a police interrogation room -- which happens to be the precinct that Robert and Miranda work in.

They question her about their unusually young looking old-dead people in the morgue.

Page 13: Miranda tries a little bad cop, accusing Buffy of killing them, but Buffy points out the obvious: Vampire 101 - Dead Vampires Dust Away.

Buffy also corrects Miranda that she doesn't kill, she slays and wants to know if it isn't time for a lawyer.

Minutes later, Cheung and Dowling argue in the corridor over how to handle Buffy the killer/slayer.

Page 14: Dowling repeats Buffy's vampire lesson, but Miranda doesn't want to believe her just because she's a 'slayer'. She, sensibly, reminds him that Buffy has every reason to lie about everything at the moment (but Miranda sure does seem grouchy about it all). She tells her partner to keep questioning Buffy until something shakes loose.

As she reminds him, right now Buffy is the only lead they have on who may be killing their now-mostly-accepted old-people-in-young-bodies.

But when Dowling returns to the room, Buffy has somehow slipped out.

From the rooftop of the police station, she sees the patrolmen mobilizing, and wonders if waiting for a lawyer might not have been more wise.

Commentary: I wish that I had more to speak of here. I like the mystery of the possible-vampires who don't dust but are dead, or rather, the mystery of if Dowling's supposition is even correct or there is something else going on. It's possible -- and my first thought wasn't vampires -- that some youth spell was keeping them alive and with The Seed busted, that enchantment had failed. But, I suppose that would either a) only cause them to start aging again (either normally or at an accelerated rate) or b) would have instantly made them old. Unless they died from the shock, but then you'd think that it would have been instant, rather than finding them scattered in alleyways.

So, the next thing I'm thinking is that Red Guy with the Hand Blade will be involved. That doesn't explain why the "vampires" didn't dust though. Hmmm.

Page 15: Buffy retreats to Dawn and Xander's again, rather than return to her apartment. She's already all over the news as wanted for questioning and Xan sarcastically congratulates her for her fugitive status. Dawn wants to know what is up with the bodies that they're talking about, but Buffy doesn't know enough yet. She needs to stay free long enough to give the police the correct suspect.

Page 16: Unfortunately for Buffy, Dawn and Xan deny her the ability to turn them into accessories after the fact. Though, it isn't that they don't want to and more of a "Xander is in trouble and sleeping on her couch" deal.

Commentary: Though, they could have offered her the floor or she could have shared Dawnie's bed. I sense some reluctance here of Xan and Dawn to do any more Slayer-adjacent activities at all. It feels like Season 6 all over again, actually -- except only toward Buffy, and not as depressingly harsh (yet), which would be bad. I don't like it when our gang isn't together (though I'm ready for Willow to take a long break, if it'll spare us anymore of her guilt-tripping Buffy about The Seed).

Page 17: Buffy turns to a random building roof to lament her lack of normal in her life the way that Dawnie is finding it (you could start by not patrolling).

Spike finds her there and wants to help out. She is wishing that breaking The Seed had taken away vampires and Slayer instincts along with extradimensional magic, but then does admit she'd probably miss Spike since that would mean he'd have been dead for reals.

Page 18: Spike offers to find out who is gunning for Buffy in the background, so that she can focus on clearing her name. But her subsequent attempt to investigate who is leaving behind bodies for her to get blamed for only manages to find more vampires, which she then must dust so that isn't helping much.

Page 19: The weird thing though, is that she ends up saving the same guy as the night previously, who again is menaced in an alley. And, as far as can be told, is putting himself in danger on purpose. This boy tells Buffy, again, that he can help.

But this time he adds that he's a Slayer -- which... no, probably not unless The Seed has screwed up the Slayer line even more than anybody imagined.

But, there isn't time for Buffy to argue a point right now, she has a vampire to chase down.

Page 20: Buffy's chase of another non-verbose vampire leads to another dead end alley as it has so many times before. But this time, as - okay, not really uncommon - the vamp has a group of friends.

The number of which is relatively unusual.

Buffy's noticing just how much she's outnumbered gives the chased a chance to tackle her to the ground and drip saliva on her face (GROSS).

Page 21: As chased vampire is all up in her face, it begins to smoke from behind. The vamps features shift to human-looking to Buffy's amazement. Standing over her and now-dead-human-body, is the boy she's "saved" twice, telling her that he had told her that he could help.

Buffy checks out the body, and yes, it is the same as those that Dowling and Cheung are investigating. And, the vampire isn't a vampire anymore.

We've found who has been leaving mysteriously young-looking-old-people corpses around.

Page 22: The guy has not only de-vamped the one he touched, but all of the vampires in the alley.

Buffy's all, "Cool! Maybe I can retire!" which we all know isn't the case.

Commentary: And ergo, we should all be able to see that mysterious guy is probably going to be bad guy, too....

The Good: I liked the mystery of the dead vampires who aren't vampires and aren't dusted (I'm reserving judgement on the cause that we find out here).

I really like Spike sticking around to staunchly ally with Buffy, especially since her family seems to be less reliable these days.

The Bad: Nothing, really.

Other Thoughts: I'm tired of Willow's whining obsession in bringing up The Seed at every conversation.

I'm also annoyed by Xan and Dawnie not helping Buffy out more, but at the same time, I can understand that the whole goal of their normal domestic life is to not get involved in Buffy's fugitive Slayer business. I'm conflicted.

My judgement is out still on all of these side characters, who aren't capturing my attention thus far.

The Score: 3.0 out of 5 stars -- Not much to comment on, but hopefully next issue will give us more substance to explore.

--end--

Next Review: Supernatural's "Skin" -- where Dean's devil-may-care-horndog starts his progression of getting a really complex character makeover. YAY!

Movie Review: B-horror, "Teenage Zombies"

2013-04-02T04:02:39Z

Teenage Zombies
(1959)

Starring: Don Sullivan, Steve Conte, Katherine Victor [actually it stars no one -- everyone is giving a "with" credit]
DIR: Jerry Warren

Blurb: A crazed female scientist uses nerve gas to turn local teenagers into her unquestioning zombies.

My Blurb: This is from the "A Big Box of Zombies" collection. Please check out this cover:

And now, please promptly forget you saw this cover. There will be nothing at all remotely this cool in our collection. We'll have spoilers, of course.

Scene 01: We open on a shot of a diner.

Scene 02: Inside, a soda-jerk is busy messing around. He delivers two milkshakes to a table with teens directly from the earlier 1950's. There is a second guy to the party, but he doesn't order anything because somebody-somebody is going to be meeting him in a few minutes, so he can't stay.

We spend some time with our teen-wonders discussing mundane plans for later today.

Reg and his girlfriend are planning to go waterskiing on the boat that Reg has been working on all week. Second Guy and his girlfriend Dottie are going to go horseback riding, but there are plans to meet that evening to figure out something to do.

As Second Guy gets ready to leave he's mildly harrassed in a jokey way by Third Guy. This new guy joins Reg and Girlfriend. Third Guy mentions that his girlfriend, Pam, is going to be bringing lunch for them on their boating excursion. He also mentions that they have plans for Reg and party to visit an island, that he assures us Pam says is "a gas", which in the temporal parlance is a good thing. I believe that Third Guy is Skip.

That would make Second Guy, Morrie.

So our guys: Reg (boat restorer/owner), Older-Looking Skip and Younger Looking Morrie

Our Girls: Pam (Skip's girl), Dottie (Morrie's girl) and through a process of elimination in the cast list, Reg's girl must be Julie.

There is some argument whether this mysterious island, far out where it is too choppy to waterski, actually exists. Skip insists that it does and if Reg will take them all out there and the island doesn't exist, he'll buy two new carborators for Reg's boat as penance. Julie wants to explore this mysterious island, and that's all that Reg needs to agree.

Scene 03: We cut to a shot of an abandoned motor boat just offshore. On the beach is Reg, Skip, Pam and Julie. Skip explicates how awesome it'll make as a beach party hangout now that its existence isn't in doubt any longer.

[Somehow, they also managed to reach shore through the water without getting wet -- or they've been laying out in the sun for hours before we got here.]

After lounging along the shoreline for a bit, they all get up to explore their new playground.

Commentary: And, yes, you've seen that right. We're going into scene 04 and I haven't found one image I want to bother screen capping. I'm going to have to grab one from our next scene, no matter how dull.

Scene 04: They come across a giant Jungle-Jim looking dome (actually it looks like it may have one time been an aviary or greenhouse? I don't know and we quickly move on).

Our gang stops to exclaim their (misplaced) amazement. (And then realize it isn't of any interest, because as mentioned we move on without even watching them check it out -- nice direction, there.)

Scene 05: Our foursome wander, wander. Suddenly, Julie exclaims to Reg to look at something. It turns out to be a house. Amazing.

Nearby, we see another group trekking along a dirt road. Our dull Scooby Gang stare at this new group of people with Pam muttering something. We take note that the new group seems to include a lot of shambler-gaited people.

Skip says that they look "like they're doped, or dead or something".

Commentary: I'm sorry -- WHAT?!? Are dead people regularly, if harmlessly, shambling around in this universe? They looked doped - OR DEAD??

Into view comes a woman, inappropriately glamorously dressed overseeing her line of stumbling people. This new woman spots our interlopers and gives them a point, apparently ordering the zombified people to pursue. I guess.

Our foursome make a dash back toward the beach.

Scene 06: Back at the beach, they find the boat missing. A plan is made to circle around the shore until they find it. This is all to tense music to assure us we're excited.

Scene 07: Wander, wander, look in inappropriate directions as if the boat is hiding behind a mound of knee height grass, wander wander.

The music continues trying to prompt us to be afraid and excited over our foursome's circumstances. They wander. Wander. Wander.

Scene 08: Finally they collapse on the beach again, apparently having circled the small island to no avail. Reg decides they'll have to sneak inward again to see if the boat's been tied up away from shore. Pam refuses - she's exhausted. She tells the boys that she and Julie will remain there.

Scene 09: In the meantime, we see a hunchback stumble through shrubbery.

Scene 10: Back on the beach, under the watchful eye of Hunchback-Spy, Skip and Reg trek off.

Scene 11: Reg and Skip then go back to the mysterious house belonging to the woman and shambling-gaited weirdos they ran away from and... knock on the door.

They meet Glamourously Dressed For Stroll Through Fields Woman, who invites them in when they tell her they couldn't find their boat.

Scene 12: There is some uncomfortable attempts at hospitality (along with some appalling microphone work) as Dr. Myra questions them about their missing boat. The boys ask Dr. Myra if she took the boat, but she insists she hasn't and hasn't been away from the house all day.

The boys argue that somebody had to take their boat and despite Dr. Myra insisting she's the one in charge on the island, goes on insisting she didn't take their boat. She also shares that she and her staff don't have boats of their own, either, since no one ever leaves the island.

The circular argument over their missing boat and Dr. Myra's claims of ignorance with bad miking goes on and on.

Commentary: And, I take a long break....

When I get back, the boys are fed up with Dr. Myra pretending she doesn't have their boat. They tell her that they're going to go off and see the Sheriff... somehow... someplace... in the middle of the ocean with no boat. She's not all that threatened, although she does tell them they're very courageous with a hint of sarcasm.

Our boys suddenly hear the sounds of screams from somewhere deeper in the house. Skip recognizes the screams as coming from Julie and Pam and Reg wants to know what the girls are doing there (of course, both of them are reciting their lines like a bunch of clueless dullards and Dr. Myra is practically oozing "bad guy" slime on them so this is all coming across as ruthlessly badly acted).

Dr. Myra pretends she doesn't know anything about that either and goes off to "find out for you". She walks across the room to call over the intercom to Ivan (our hunchback).

Scene 13: To her summons, Ivan lumbers to the intercom... in real time... and looking like he may be a zombie too, if one were to go strictly by his gait and vacant expression.

He doesn't speak, but is able to communicate to her question by keying the intercom a few times. Dr. Myra's voice tells him that's fine and that she is bringing the boys down to see them. A pan shows Julie and Pam stuck in a cage.

Scene 14: Doctor Myra returns to the boys and tells them the girls are downstairs; she leads them to see their girlfriends.

Scene 15: We follow them mosey along... in real time... to the basement prison. Unshockingly to everyone not in the movie, the boys are quickly snatched up by Ivan from behind and shoved into a cell next to the girls, before they can react.

Doctor Myra asks for excusing of Ivan's manners. With the interlopers restrained, the doctor lets them know that yes, she does have their boat and that they are prisoners [which was important, because our heroes are pretty thick so may not have realized it yet] and will be helping her in some very important work.

We get the usual mad-science speech that doesn't tell us what exactly she's doing out here. The usual "we'll be missed and our friends will find us" bit and the "let us go, we won't tell anyone" stuff.

Naturally, all of this is waived aside by the mad doctor. She assures them though that if they don't make trouble, they'll not be hurt.

Scene 16: Meanwhile, back at the diner they're having earth trem--... oh, wait, no that's just the shaky camera work.

Within, Morrie comes looking to ask the soda-jerk about Reg and Skip as they never showed to pick up he and Dot. Obvs, they haven't been seen.

They exchange some more dialog and the soda-jerk finally suggests the Sheriff, especially since soda-jerk has heard that the waters offshore can get a bit treacherous unexpectedly. Soda-jerk gets one of his employees to drive out to the sheriff's with Morrie and the soon-to-be-picked-up Dottie.

Scene 17: Morrie and Dot are taken to an extremely threadbare Sheriff's Office and are understandably reluctant to seek help there. To Dot's shove, Morrie finally asks the desk sargeant for assistance. Morrie is completely useless in saying, "Our friends went boating and haven't returned and we're worried", leaving Dottie to take over.

[I'm hoping Dot will also take over being our hero, because the others in the movie are incompetent.]

The Sheriff is summoned... in real time... from the back office. He promises a search, but warns them that without a definite area where the friends were expected to be, it could be nearly impossible to track them down. There is angst.

Scene 18: Out on the water, we get extended shots of Sargent and Sheriff plying the coastal waters looking for signs of wreckage, or a disabled boat. (With no steadicam, these shots are mildly disorienting.) Previous dialog suggests that another party was searching throughout the night and the Sheriff and Deputy took over in the morning, meaning the kids have been missing all night.

Our lawmen return to the dock where Dot and Morrie await news (but nobody's parents, because why would any of them need to know).

Scene 19: The Sheriff has to report to Morrie and Dot that they have no news to share. With this, Morrie decides to borrow a boat from the docks and go out on his own to search with Dottie for their missing friends.

Scene 20: More slow boating footage.

And more. And, a bit more. And, some more.

Finally, Morrie and Dot reach the mysterious island that no one knows about, but is apparently quite easy to run across. They shore the boat.

Scene 21: They explore. Morrie could've sworn he could see someone walking as he was pulling the boat up toward the beach. At first Dot believes he must have been mistaken, but then they see Ivan wandering around that abandoned aviary/jungle-jim structure. They follow.

Scene 22: Which leads back to Doctor Myra's house/lab combo.

Morrie hesitantly knocks. Doctor Myra welcomes them, decked out in a swanky party gown. Morrie asks after Ivan, so that he can ask about his missing friends. The doctor assures them that Ivan isn't there, didn't see strangers, and that they were both inside all day yesterday.

Morrie and Dot leave... and are allowed to, apparently - as they make it back to the beach and their awaiting boat. They push off... in real time.

Scene 23: As they get ready to power up the boat motor and take off, they're passed by two mysterious men in suits going to the island... this after Doctor Myra had insisted that no one ever comes out to the island (and at least offer an explanation as to why she is in a cocktail gown).

The men exchange shifty glances at them, but pass by without exchanging words.

Scene 24: Back at the doctor's, she serves up drinks to her visitors. One of our men is testy at there being snoopers around, but Doctor Myra points out that they're of no concern, as they were only kids looking for some friends. And besides, the risks he talks about are all ones she is taking by remaining at the island lab.

We learn that the two men are middlemen of "The East" and that Doctor Myra has been researching mind control for them. They're getting impatient with getting working "capsules" and want them within the next six weeks or they're threatening to cut off funding and explore other options to get over on us.

Doctor Myra suggests and the men confirm that "The East" is thinking the hydrogen bomb. She's incensed by this for the waste of land and resources it would cause by the radioactive contamination. But the men point out that they're not in charge of these decisions. They press her on speeding up her work enough to complete it within the deadline.

Scene 25: She leads them back to her lab, where she shows them the capsule research and goes through the problems that she's run into with making the subjects compliant using them.

She shows them two subjects that she exposed to the same formula -- one has become a will-less lump of useless. The other, filled with a rage (that he nevertheless doesn't do anything with except make vague clawing gestures toward the one way mirror in the room -- he doesn't even bother to attack the sedate man next to him -- some rage virus).

The men point to Ivan as what they're looking for, and she does agree he'd be the perfect example of what they're going for, but thus far she hasn't been able to track why he's responded so nicely to the mind control formula when no one else has. She worries that there won't be enough time to crack that nut before their impatient superiors decide to skip subletly and go straight for big bombing of the U.S.

But, she's willing to press into more dangerous territory if the time constraints demand it. There is also the problem of distribution across a wide enough population to cripple the U.S. before they can respond. For this, she's come up with a completely different paralyzing agent that could be introduced as a gas from the air and that would infect the water systems.

The problem with this gas, is that it could be easily countered if everyone isn't exposed quickly enough, and if she makes it any more powerful it could cause wide spread death, rather than the work slaves that their Superiors demand.

They request a demonstration anyway. Doctor Myra exposes a man-in-gorilla-suit to the 'paralyzing agent' and despite starting out as riled up, he quickly calms and becomes compliant. She summons Ivan to take the beast and ready him for tests before he's destroyed.

Ivan enters the gas-filled chamber to retrieve the test subject and take him to the basement holding pens... in real time... as Doctor Myra and her guests awkwardly wait and wait for this to occur, so they can move on... in real time.

Commentary: Clearly, pacing is going to be an issue to be noted in the Scoring Section. I'd also like to point out that the story elements are all there to make this a cold war/mad science picture, but Jerry's direction is so leisurely paced that what should be exciting just sits there. In real time.

It's disappointing. I can see why IMDB currently has this as 2.5 scoring. I do like Katherine Victor's work. I just wish that she had more to do but stand around and talk.

As it is though, I need another break.

Scene 26: After Ivan and Ape get out of the way, Dr. Myra's guests inform her that the time table is so critical because they were "betrayed" by their South American contact, Felix. It turns out that Felix was the Argentinian contact that helped the doctor get a passport into the country. It was supposed to be a fake, but Felix was actually an American agent (which is why betrayed is in quotes -- seems to me you were played, not betrayed) and that he's now dead, but they don't know if he managed to get word to his superiors about the entire operation.

(Well... one would think, yes. One would further think that as soon as she'd been given the "fake" passport, that was actually real so she wouldn't have problems at customs, she'd be under observation if they weren't busting her. One would think. If one were trying to make sense.)

With this new information, the doctor is willing to rush her testing to the human phase while they still have time. The enemy agents agree, and offer to stay for security while she completes her work.

Scene 27: Meanwhile, at some government security agency or another, Colonel C.J. Adams gets a visitor. The arrival is Major Coleman.

The Major has delivered the papers found in Agent Felix's belongings, as they've found his body. But he also reports that what they'd located doesn't appear very useful.

The Major gives the Colonel some details about Felix/Felis' (he used two names) mission, including the fact that he wasn't to contact any fellow agents because of the importance of his mission, meaning he couldn't go for help when he ran into trouble. But, they did find a single photograph of a woman and local law enforcement has already been wired to be on the look out for her for questioning.

Commentary: Which... sigh... still doesn't make a lick of sense. His mission was so critical that he gave the enemy scientist a valid passport into the country without informing anyone (including his handler/superior) so that she could go ahead and set up her super-secret lab somewhere in the vastness of the United States and continue her sponsor's evil plot against America??

I mean, was he on her tail when he was intercepted? Because that at least would make some sort of sense, except no one says that. They just stumbled across the fact that he was a U.S. agent and killed him after he was involved in a sting against Dr. Myra -- while not actually making sure she could be intercepted/observed once she hit the U.S.

This is dumb.

With this ill-thought out sting having gone pear-shaped, the Major plans to dispatch additional troops to California hitting every air base in the state with agents on the look out for our evil doctor. Then, they'll move along the coast to Oregon and Washington and then they'll do the same eastward state by state.

Commentary: And should be done by 1964 -- or when we're all already zombies. This is dumb. Script Review & Revision? What's that?

With the Colonel agreeing to supply helicoptors for aerial surveying, the Major pushes his luck to ask for every available plane from the Air Force as well. The Colonel mentions that's a tall order, but the Major is in a tizzy [as well he should be -- his stupendously stupid operation is the cause of our difficulties]. The Major insists that the gas of the bad guys cannot be allowed to be released or their looking at a projected 80% loss of the population to zombie-dom.

Commentary: Which is why Doctor Myra was allowed... y'know... nevermind. It's supremely dumb and now we're all screwed. Thanks Top Notch Government Agency!

Scene 28: Back in the basement cells, Skip has picked the lock on his and Reg's cage. They try to break their girlfriends out, but Reg can't pick the lock, as it is more difficult... apparently.

Commentary: Yes, we did just see Skip pick a fucking lock. No, there is no explanation for why he didn't just take the pick to the girl's lock, since he obviously knows what he's doing. Especially as soon as Reg admits that he can't get it. And why can't Julie grasp a little concept called 'whispering' rather than braying at Reg. Honestly, I'm not sure why the enemy nation (U.S.S.R. given the time period) is trying so hard. This version of America is filled with people who are already halfway to zombie-stupid, already.

With Reg unable to get the lock undone, the boys have to retreat back to their own cage as Ivan is coming into the room with food trays.

Commentary: And I must conclude that Skip is an alien, a mutant or a cyborg. How else could he have determined that Ivan was silently approaching a closed door? I couldn't tell if he had super hearing, X-ray vision, or some sort of Alien-esque motion detector powers but he's definitely not baseline human.

Ivan leers at Julie, freaking her out, while Pam just keeps her own gaze averted from the 'horror' of him. He completely ignores our boys' call to him.

Once Ivan exits, Reg and Skip let themselves back out. That still leaves the prospect of the girls' stubborn lock. Reg and Skip decide that even if they could free the girls, they'd make too much noise doing it and even if they could still escape, they're not getting off the island without knowing where their boat is stashed.

The decision is made, to Julie's frustration, that the boys will have to continue to pretend to be locked up until nightfall. They'll scan the island after dark to find their means of escape, then come back and deal with the second lock so that they'll all have a place to retreat to once the girls are free [And now both Julie and Reg have to continually be reminded by Skip to keep their g'damned voices down].

Neither Pam nor Julie are wild about this plan, but they finally and reluctantly agree it's the only way.

Scene 29: Much later, the boys decide it must be dark by then and leave their cell. They slip out into the night.

Scene 30: Later, they're scanning the beach again looking for their boat. In the distance of this hidden, secret island is a ... huge-ass 'nother island! So much for being tucked away.

Commentary: Also, the boys were supposed to be back by first light so they wouldn't be discovered missing - but we're in daylight now. Is this day for night? Because it is so not even close to 'moonlight'.

The boys search and search the shoreside [which yes, they already did way back before their capture]... in near real time. And, hello big honking island just across the bay from this secret, secluded isle that barely anyone knows about.

After (much too long), the boys sit down by the shore having been unsuccessful in their second search of the beach. Skip laments that the sun is nearly up [LOOK - If you can't film at night, then don't write your script requiring a night time shoot! Especially, if you can't at least afford a filter!].

The boys decide to abandon their boat search and turn to building a raft from detritus around the beach. Though there isn't enough time to do so, they decide they'll at least get a start on putting it together to be completed that night. They find boards and [conveniently unrotted] rope and begin their makeshift raft prep. This is quickly tucked into the bushes and hidden for later as the sun is coming up and they have to get back to their cage before they're discovered.

Scene 31: The boys make it back to the house. They slip in and down the stairs to the basement (in real time) where Julie and Pam are anxiously awaiting. Despite their cages abutting one another, the boys feel the need to risk being caught by standing outside of their cell to update them, instead of getting into their own cell and whispering to them side by side. And, Julie again talks way too loud.

Scene 32: Later that morning (with shaky-cam), we revisit the diner. Morrie is there using a payphone to call the Sheriff's office.

Scene 33: Across town, deputy Johnson answers the phone. Morrie informs the deputy that he and Dot were out in the boat and found something strange and believe they know where their missing friends are... we've also skipped back in time, because Morrie states this happened 'today', even though an entire night has passed since he and Dot returned from speaking with Doctor Myra.

Deputy Johnson directs Morrie to the Sheriff's home since he isn't in the office.

Commentary: *sigh* So, instead of just calling back the operator and asking for the Sheriff's house or instead of the Deputy calling the Sheriff and asking him to meet Morrie at the diner, Morrie has to find a ride and go to the Sheriff's house. *roll eyes -- c'mon, this isn't even a difficult script quandary that we have to glide over -- there is no reason for Morrie to have to go to the Sheriff's home*

Scene 34: Morrie, with Dot, pulls whoever's car into the Sheriff's driveway (and yes, we have to watch him drive slowly up to the house in real time).

They get out of the car and walk up to the Sheriff's front door (real time!). Morrie and Dot excitedly tell the Sheriff about the 'strange' island 30 to 40 miles east (In that little dingy they were traveling in?! Not likely!) where they believe their friends ended up. The Sheriff recognizes the place, but informs the kids that no one has lived on Mullet Island in 50 years or so. But, he's intrigued by the kids' report that a woman was definitely living there these days.

Dot tries to convince the Sheriff that Doctor Myra was lying to them when she reported that she hadn't seen their friends, but she can't articulate as to why she's so sure. The Sheriff rightly points out that just because a person chooses to live an isolated life, doesn't mean that they're being nefarious. [He doesn't mention how the hell all of these tiny row boats, even with a motor, is traveling 60 miles round trip for all of this investigating.]

The Sheriff tries to put them off, but Morrie brings up Doctor Myra's claims that no one ever came out to the island only for them to have passed the two men in the boat while they were leaving. The Sheriff remains skeptical and seems to be concluding that the foursome probably sank and drowned.

Commentary: Hilariously, due to the continuity error, the kids insist that they rushed right over putting this happening in the late afternoon following their excursion to find the foursome. Which of course, is just more obvious evidence of the backward time traveling they've done since we already know that a whole night has passed. Between the time distortion around the island and Skip's super-senses, the continuity errors are actually making the movie far more interesting than what was actually filmed!

The Sheriff finally promises to take a boat trip out to Mullet Island, just to look around a bit.

Scene 35: Back at Mullet Island (and presumably in the actual present, rather than in the backward time-skip that the mainland is in) Doctor Myra is working with her chemistry set. The two enemy agents are in attendance. There is more discussion of the hows to the gas distribution once her formula is set.

Apparently (and this is all directly from the dialog), Doctor Myra's gas is going to be made into hard pellets that involve bacteria of some sort. Once the pellets are dropped into a body of water, it releases the gas through the bacteria which infects the water column creating mindlessly obedient servants of anyone who drinks it.

She summons Ivan and tells him she's ready for the two girls to proceed with her human trial (rather than say one of them, in case she instantly kills her).

Scene 36: Ivan trumbles through the kitchen and down the basement stairs (real time!) to the cage room. He drags the pleading girls away (who being in the late 50's are forbidden from actually fighting for their lives) while the boys yell at him ineffectively to leave them alone (but who don't rush him from their unlocked cage).

Scene 37: With the girls dragged away down a corridor, the boys now decide to slip out of their cage and tiptoe (nearly literally) after him.

Pam and Julie are shoved, with the weakest of resistance, into the gas-room. The boys (literally Scooby-Doo Tip-Toeing) follow and crouch down in the same corridor. As Skip and Reg lament that the girls are probably going to be killed in front of them... well... that's it really. They lament.

Scene 38: But out on the water, the Sheriff is pulling up to the beach. Morrie and Dot (but not any other policemen) are accompanying.

They trek along the familiar path to the doctor's *cough*secluded*cough* home (In near realtime, 'natch).

Scene 39: In the lab, Doctor Myra is juuuust about to subject Julie and Pam to the gas when Sheriff, Dot and Morrie (actually) stumble in. Somehow, the doctor recognizes the Sheriff right off, despite a complete lack of uniform, badge, or his identifying himself.

Agent Guy insists he knew all along there was going to be trouble, but Doctor Myra smoothly asks to what she owes the honor. In the background Pam and Julie try to yell for help, but the room is soundproofed (although in normalverse, they'd still be impossible not to notice immediately). For some reason Enemy Agents don't immediately draw their guns and blow the intruders away, grab the gas and Doctor Myra and make a hasty retreat to poison America another day.

Dot notices the frantic gesturing of Pam and Julie and points out that they were right and their friends are prisoners. Doctor Myra insists on calling them guests. She uses Ivan to grab Dot and Morrie, while the Sheriff stands there impotently -- without a gun himself, apparently.

Well -- There is a logical explanation for everything (for a change), as the doctor informs the kids that the Sheriff won't be helping them. It turns out that he's in on it! He complains to Dr. Myra that their deal was for some test subjects, but that she's now gone too far by kidnapping kids that have families. He tells her that the disappearances have drawn attention and he can't control or suppress things anymore.

Commentary: Needless to say, we've seen no indication that anyone outside of Dot and Morrie are the least bit interested in the kids not coming home. Which could be related to the backward time-differential between mainland time and Mullet Island time -- if only it was meant rather than just clumsy and inattentive film making. Oh, the interesting details that were utterly unacknowledged mistakes!

Anyway, Enemy Agents insist they just need a little more time while Skip and Reg are overhearing everything. Skip and Reg, for their part, plot a save.

Scene 40: Skip wanders away to find pipe, or pieces of wood to use as clubs...

Commentary: ...and the soundtrack has the nerve to treat this as "tense" and "exciting", while I treat it as "no" and "it's not".

Scene 41: Back with our assembled bad guys and victims, Enemy Agent in Charge tries to calm the Sheriff that there is no need to panic, yet. He and the doctor exchange barbs about how he's a big whiner and you don't see her complaining about every problem she's run into. Sheriff gets on his hurt-fee-fees high horse and says, rather stupidly for his vulnerable position, that maybe they should just replace him then.

Which they do... with Enemy Agent in Charge's pistol. Bye, Idiot Stooge (bloodlessly).

Ivan is ordered to take Sheriff Deaden Weight out, while Doctor Myra then orders her two agents to hold Dot and Morrie to serve as the second set of test subjects when she's done with Pam and Julie.

Scene 42: Meanwhile, Skip returns to where Reg remains crouched down in the hallway. He apparently couldn't find so much as a hanger for a weapon (C'mon - Even Cordelia Chase was able to once grab a spatula). But after the Sheriff's shooting, Reg tells him there isn't any more time to wait. Skip rushes to the soundproof room holding the girls to let them out.

It's locked, of course.

Reg joins him, and though they attempt to be quiet, Enemy Agent in Charge hears them. As he rounds the corner, Reg and Skip attack - with Reg wrestling with the Agent, while Skip grabs Doctor Myra. Reg is able to force Enemy Agent's gun from his hand and knocks him to the floor where they start wrestling.

Meanwhile, Other Enemy Agent (who still doesn't get a gun?) is distracted by the goings-on, allowing Morrie to jump on his back and awkwardly knock him to the floor as well. Skip joins him to control Second Enemy Agent. Dot -- after a moment's hesitation -- takes over wrestling with Doctor Myra.

Since all Agents are trained in deadly hand-to-hand combat, the boys are nearly immediately overpowered and... no, no wait.

Over in his fight, Reg has the upper hand on Enemy Agent in Charge and is straddling/punching him.

Skip delivers some kidney punches to Other Enemy Agent, while Morrie wrestles to pin the guy's arms down.

Dot tries to pin Doctor Myra to the floor of the lab area (and semi-effectively -- our two women are the only ones acted as if they really are fighting for their lives, even if they can't really get down and dirty and have to wrestle "like girls").

Unfortunately for Pam and Julie, Doctor Myra is able to reach the control button on her lab desktop and release the zombie poison into the holding room.

Reg and Enemy Agent in Charge continue rolling around on the floor. Skip and Morrie are having better luck with Other Enemy Agent and have him nearly helplessly pinned. Well -- for a quick minute, before they lose control again and go back to goofily wrestling around. Morrie stretches for a dropped gun that was lost on the complete other side of the room, but somehow migrated over -- or it's Other Enemy Agent's, from whose suit coat it dropped during the wrestling match (I don't care, it's equally stupid for it to be there).

Meanwhile, back with Reg -- he's starting to lose, with Enemy Agent in Charge beginning to strangle him. But, rather than crushing the boy's windpipe, he gets wrestled back over onto his back and Reg ends up delivering some fisticuffs that has him down for the count.

Somehow, Doctor Myra and Dot have managed to wrestle themselves onto the opposite side of the lab, without disturbing a single beaker. Thank goodness that Dottie respects science as much as Doctor Myra! Dot seems to be giving better than she's getting, and is choking the scientist out.

Meanwhile, Other Enemy Agent still isn't pinned down despite being piled two-on-one by Skip and Morrie.

Reg reaches out and grabs Enemy Agent in Charge's gun and orders him to his feet. In the background, Other Enemy Agent's gun is also being retrieved by Morrie (So, why didn't Other Enemy ever draw the gun during the drama of minutes before? No wonder he's not Agent in Charge, despite looking older).

Scene 43: With our protagonists in the driver's seat, Dot screeches they need to get the other girls out, but Reg complains they can't open the door. Then he stands there awkwardly in confusion over what to do before the lightbulb dimly goes on and he realizes that Doctor Myra must have a key.

Pam and Julie are pulled from the room, but they're dazed and blank-faced. Skip exclaims that their minds are blank like the rest (referencing that line of shamblers from the beginning, whose presences totally disappeared without explanation -- presumably, Ivan was marching them off to eliminate them in a conveniently pre-prepared pit).

Reg threatens to shoot the doctor if she doesn't make an antidote for Pam and Julie's condition. The doctor insists she doesn't have an antidote, and even if she did, she'd rather be shot than to cooperate. Reg looks like he's ready to follow through, but Skip interrupts to remind him that the gas makes people completely will-free and to do what they're told....

Doctor Myra is hauled into the gas room. The boys spend precious (running time adding) time looking for how to release said gas. As both boys with the guns are distracted from holding them on our Enemy Agents, they strike out with precision speed... uh, no... they cooperatively stand there, instead. My mistake.

Our doctor is gassed. Meanwhile, Morrie is left alone to guard the prisoners for several precious seconds with his attention entirely focused away from the Enemy Agents. Other Enemy Agent makes his move -- clumsily, and Morrie immediately points the gun at him and ends that rebellion.

Scene 44: The scientist is marched back to the lab table, gonked out. Skip starts shaking her around and demanding "you know what we want, something to help the girls!" while she stands there, completely helpless.

Reg takes charge. He tells Enemy Agents that they're going to tell them how to get through to Doctor Myra or get shot. Other Enemy Agent tells them they can't help. Skip decides to put one of the Agents into the booth next to make one of them more compliant as well. Reg shrugs with a why not, and chooses Enemy Agent in Charge. Rather than get will-sucked, Enemy Agent in Charge tells them that he thinks a certain liquid from the shelf might be the antidote that Doctor Myra mentioned as the counter agent, once.

Reg complains it could be poison for all they know, so Skip tells him to use it on the doctor and see what happens to her.

Scene 45: Just as Doctor Myra is showing signs that the liquid dosing is doing something, Ivan returns from his task. This distracts the boys enough for Doctor Myra to struggle with grabbing the beaker of antidote and throwing it to the floor (she's obviously a much more dedicated enemy agent than the two men). But, Skip had poured two cups and he takes the second one with the girls away from the brawl now breaking out between the bad guys, Reg and Morrie.

[And Pam is running like somebody under zombie-gas, while Julie is running just fine - thank you very much.]

Scene 46: In the cage room, Skip gives the antidote liquid to Pam and Julie.

Scene 47: Meanwhile, in the lab, there is fist fighting between Morrie, Reg and the two enemy agents. Doctor Myra is obviously still not quite with us yet and Ivan is awaiting instructions.

The boys are able to make a run for it, with Other Enemy Agent and Ivan following (why Ivan is suddenly deciding to capture them without explicit instructions is a mystery). Meanwhile, Enemy Agent in Charge helps the doctor to her feet. These two take off to get to the police launch before the teens can get to it.

Scene 48: Elsewhere in the basement, that "obviously man in a suit"-Gorilla that was a test subject? He's suddenly and inexplicably loose. He shuffles into the lab, where he is boring. He then wanders over to that spot on the floor where the antidote ended up. He fingers it and then licks his fingers -- which is apparently all it will take to free him from his ... docile-ness, I guess - presumably.

Scene 49: In the cage room, the girls and Skip hear the animal grunting. As they proceed to investigate, they come across Other Enemy Agent wrestling again with Morrie and Reg, who he apparently caught up with... without his dropped gun. Skip tries to intercede after sending the girls back, but gets punched away.

But, this fight is interrupted with the sudden appearance of the re-pissed Killer Gorilla. The boys are able to slip out from a Gorilla Hug, but Other Enemy Agent is left trapped in a corner to be mauled.

Our Gang runs. (Where did Ivan vanish to??)

Scene 50: At the beach front, Enemy Agent in Charge and Doctor Myra make it to the police boat.

Scene 51: Back with the kids, they run from the house and follow that well-worn path we know so well by now. Mad Dash, slight unscripted trip on uneven ground, Mad Dash, Mad Dash (with Jay Hawk as Morrie doing the most spastic run a man can do). Over the hill with the abandoned aviary, run - run - run.

Scene 52: Somehow, despite the extreme head start of our enemies, they still haven't been able to start up the boat (apparently hot wiring is another secret agent skill that wasn't passed along to Enemy Agent in Charge). Battle is again joined with Reg beating up Enemy Agent in Charge -- AGAIN and Skip taking on the wildcat, Doctor Myra.

The kids pile into the boat, subduing any further trouble with numbers. [Ivan? Hello?! IVAN?!]

Scene 53: Later, back on the mainland: Deputy is on the radio with a patrol car who informs him that they've picked up Major Coleman and are on their way in.

Our Scooby Gang of Enemy Agent Busters are all self-congratulatory. There is some filler dialog by Deputy that a department investigation will be coming into the Sheriff's activities. Another mention is made of the opening line of shamblers, which everyone assumes is still alive somewhere on the island (I think not, it's more brutal that way).

Agent Coleman is delivered to the station.

Commentary: And, the movie is basically over! We don't need any of this.

He congratulates Deputy Johnson on being assigned as new temporary Sheriff, which (presumably from gossipy patrolman) he heard is likely to be permanent. He next congratulates the kids on their busting a spy ring that U.S. Intelligence couldn't even find. (And Jay Hawks is overly mugging amusingly.) Reg blows off the heroics as their just being scared and trying to save their own lives. Coleman nevertheless tells them how wonderful they all are. Blah-Blah.

Skip gets excited over medals that surely will be coming and the accompanying accolades. Reg is still worried about his missing boat. Coleman tells them they can come when his men search the island thoroughly.

We end on a lame joke and the kids drive off whooping and celebrating.

The Good: The outdoors photography is handled pretty well, with the exception of the shaky cam in front of the diner.

Katherine Victor as Doctor Myra was fun in an imperious, smooth-criminal way.

I liked the plot-twist, explaining some problems with the Sheriff character, with him being a stooge for the enemy agents.

The Bad: General pacing is a real problem due to too many scenes that follow characters walking from point A to point C in real time. It's also repetitive, as we keep following people along the same outdoors path and down the basement stairs over and over. Shots are held too long, and people traveling is always in or nearly in real time, wasting precious watching time in which nothing is happening. Walking people walking is not interesting or germaine to the story!

And, part and parcel of the above, the amount of time we spend looking at the shore is mind-numbing. I'm all for location shooting, but jeezus - try editing.

That Scene 12 Kitchen microphone work has got to go here. That was some real bad soundwork.

The entire Gorilla thing was pointless, dumb and way too convenient (but unnecessary at the same time) in taking out Other Enemy Agent.

The interior sets are horribly bare, which is really noticeable because of the outdoor photography that has plenty to catch the eye.

There is some real continuity issues as discussed, mostly having to do with timey-whimey confusion.

The script entirely blows the Good Guy Intelligence Agency's role in the story by having them be so utterly incompetent. It is inconceivable that a good guy agent (and it's clear he wasn't a double agent or anything) would give Doctor Myra - a suspected terrorist scientist - a valid passport into the country without having a surveillance operation already set in place. And the script doesn't even bother trying to address this incredibly dumb plot crater.

Oh, that day-for-night shot! Appalling. No amount of suspension of disbelief is going to help you there.

If you're giving Evil Enemy Agents guns, they'd better damn well shoot somebody.

Other Thoughts: As to our male lead characters, Reg and Skip: Don and Paul have uneven acting throughout. When they're good, they're decent but when they tip into awkward, they're really bad. So watching them is a mixed bag. Jay is fine for the most part, but he can't stop himself from mugging in scenes where he shouldn't be the focus.

On the female side (apart from Katherine), we have Dottie, Pam and Julie: Both Nan and Bri swerve wildy as well. I think Bri was the stronger, especially in scenes where she needs to react or do things in the background, but isn't the focus of the scene. Nan starts to gain your favor, but then she'll suddenly turn screechy and overacting. Mitzie started off well enough, but as the movie went on, I swear she faded more and more into the background. Often, when she wasn't the one delivering the dialog, she looked like she wasn't really sure what she should do, so just stood there in the background, disconnected from the scene.

I was disappointed by how little Ivan was given to do, considering his menacing setup and being Doctor Myra's henchthug.

The bad guy plot is muddled to say the least. I've made some sorta sense out of it for you, but the confusion between the poison pellet/gas/bacteria nature of their diabolical weapon really needed some more thought at the script stage. It isn't a deal breaker, so not in The Bad -- but it is pretty amorphous.

One of the real problems (not quite in "The Bad" league, but it's definitely there) is that with The Bad Pacing, you notice the continuity issues and you're able to actually start building a nice mad science story of your own with the elements presented that are better than what you have to watch. The time discontinuity, Ivan's role, the mind-numbed people from the beginning, Skip's super sense powers.... I'm disappointed that a better story didn't come out of the elements that Jerry was working with (even ignoring the continuity issues, the basic mad-evil-science mind control elements could've made this a good story).

The Score: What a disappointing handling of some pretty easy B-Movie elements. The acting is swerving around a lot, but nobody made me want to claw their faces off, but even when you saw some acting that you liked, it was generally in a scene where the pacing was killing off the goodwill. Like with so many B-Flicks of this era, another few rounds of script work and a slightly more ruthless viewpoint could have done wonders. They really needed to go through every scene where somebody was walking around fruitlessly, edit it down, and then come up with material to fill that time that would be more attention-holding.

The elements of a good B-Movie were there, but none of it was exploited by our writer/director. Alas.

2.25 stars out of 5

--end--

Next up: BTVS, Season 9, Issue 2.

Random Love - Corey

2013-04-01T02:54:44Z

Oh, my Lord. The crushing I did on this guy. I still love hearing him sing, though the only song I tend to occasionally hear on the radio is "Sunglasses at Night", which of course is exactly the MTV video that started my hard crush in the first place. COREY HART

But I also love:

Eurasian Eyes

A Little Love

Angry Young Man

92 Days of Rain

It's actually that last one that inspired/hounded me to post this Random Love: The damned thing has been on repeat-play in my brain for days. You can read more about him on the WIKI ... of course.

As to the movie review I'm working on. I've got 20 minutes to go, but ... yeah... maybe tomorrow night? The car is having problems, so I'll be working on that and no doubt paying a fortune. I think it's a cooling fluid pump... maybe. Anyway, we'll see how long it takes to get taken care of and how angry/depressed/tired I am when I return. If it doesn't tomorrow, though, it will certainly be by Tuesday.

Following "Teenage Zombies", will be the comic review for BTVS: S9, Issue 2.

Okay, that's all I got... go back to what you were doing, which you immediately dropped when you saw I had posted because my life is so utterly fascinating and I'm magnetic, and stuff.

Best of / Worst Of Character Moments: BTVS

2013-03-29T00:36:04Z

Best of / Worst of Our Characters:
Our subject of interest today is BTVS: "Passion" *sob*

Our Characters' Finest Moments:

Buffy S - Buffy shows some real maturity when she basically gives Jenny the go-ahead to make up with Giles, even though she herself cannot forgive Ms. Calendar for not telling them all who she was and why she was in Sunnydale. It's a really big thing for her to do on behalf of Giles' happiness.

Xander H - I can't give Xan any kudos.

Willow R - I also can't issue a kudo to Willow.

Rupert G - Rupert Giles... bad-ass Watcher with a flaming baseball bat of fury. Awesome, and probably pretty shocking to our bickering vampire trio.

Cordy C - Sorry, Cordy - giving the Scooby Gang a ride isn't enough at this point. No kudos to you.

Angel, alas - for reals, is not in residence.

I want to give a special kudos to Jenny Calendar for working so hard to put Angel to right, rather than a) continuing her people's blood feud despite her upbringing and b) despite Angelus' butchering of her Uncle. She could've easily spun the other way under the circumstances, but she takes the gang's spite and does what she can to fix things, anyway.

I am also issuing a half-kudo to Spike's not allowing Drusilla to save Angelus from that baseball bat beating he was taking from Giles. It was completely self-serving, which is why I can't give him a full heroic kudo -- but, c'mon, that was awesome.

Our Characters' Suck-i-tude:

Buffy - C'mon Buffy. You really have no problem sleeping through a vampire wandering into your bedroom, sitting on your bed and spending an hour sketching you and stroking your hair?? A vampire who you already know is after you and your friends? C'mon!!

Xan - Xander. Man, I'm so tired of your jealous-ploy. Even when you've a girlfriend now, you're still being passive-aggressive with Buffy for being friendly with Angel, pre-Angelus return. She just wasn't that into you -- get over it.

Wills - I have no demerits to issue to our red head.

Rupert - Well, I understand that Giles is trying to keep Buffy calm and focused, but his non-panick at Angelus being in Buffy's room all night, without her knowledge until after the fact strikes me as all kinds of wrong. Why in the world is being so casual about this development?!

Cordy - Oh, Cordelia! And, yes, it always makes me laugh out loud -- but, you traded your grandmother's safety by pressing her into exchanging cars with you?! Really?

And, yes, once again I'm forced to acknowledge the awesome evil that is Angelus against my will. I simply must give him the special Anti-Kudo award for leaving Jenny in Giles' bed along with that whole romantic night 'wrapping for the gift'.
BASTARD.

Angel Review: Angel & Faith #2

2013-03-25T05:58:58Z

Angel & Faith #2

"Live Through This, Part 2"

Script: Christos Gage, Art: Rebekah Isaacs, Colors: Dan Jackson, Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Jimmy Betancourt
Alternate Cover: Rebekah Isaacs, Andy Owens, Dan Jackson

Blurb: Twilight is over. Magic is gone. Giles is dead, and Angel killed him -- that is, the possessed-by-mystical-forces Angel. Now his need for redemption is greater than ever, after Buffy and everyone else have turned their backs on him -- all except one rebel Slayer with a cause, Faith Lehane. Together, in the flat she inherited from Giles, Faith and Angel are living through the aftermath of Twilight, and keeping the London streets safe from the ever-present forces of evil...

Page 01: We open with the London Slayers fighting a group of vampires on the streets. Unusually though, one of them is rabbiting with a briefcase that he's holding more valuable than trying to collect some Slayer blood. Nadira takes off after him.

Meanwhile, feet away, Faith is fighting some skeleton with horns. As she watches with one eye Nadira take off, she yells after her to wait for backup and complains to herself.

By the way, our demon is also carrying a briefcase and it appears to have nothing in it but cool, hard cash. Giles would be appalled.

Commentary: And, this is neither here nor there, but I had to try to spell 'skeleton' three times and even then I had to google it. I KNOW HOW to spell 'skeleton' damn it. Why do certain words just plain look wrong when you're typing them out? I probably spend 5 minutes of every review doing nothing but looking up words that I know I'm right spelling out, but they don't look right.

Anyway - we see here more of Faith's usual role being completely 180'd from where she was. Now, it's she that is telling other Slayers to stop running off after the bad guys without a plan and backup. Buffy would surely find this hilarious... assuming she's over Faith's staying with Angel and inheriting everything from Giles... I'm still having problems with the latter, so I wouldn't blame her if she isn't.

Page 02: Faith shouts after her to give her a sec to take care of demon guy and she'll come with. She stabs the bonehead, but gets her sword, hand and forearm froze for the effort.

Meanwhile Nadira is all "stop mother henning me" as she insists she can take care of one measly vampire. You'd hope. But, this vamp has learned a new trick -- whipping out a submachine gun! And, in England of all places!!

He opens fire, but sucks, so she's only hit in the leg and knocked off her feet.

Page 03: The vamp keeps firing wildly down the block, but Nadira has dodged behind a car for cover. He's laughing at her over her medieval weaponry, when someone in the shadows shows him a good sword and some stealth can still get the job done. We don't see who it is, but there is the swoop of a leather coat which hints that Angel has followed Faith into the fray.

Meanwhile, Faith is complaining away in her head at Nadira's being all rage and no brains (Oh, Faith... how's that shoe stuck on the other foot).

The demon tires of fighting with her as he has gotten what he's come for. He gives her a bull-type head butt to her chest.

Page 04: With Faith on the ground, the demon bids his adieu. He does leave another briefcase behind. The one that beheaded vamp was carrying.

When Nadira opens it, they find a smashed beaker of a foul, green liquid. Faith takes it with to investigate. Meanwhile, Nadira mentions her mysterious, broadsword-armed savior. Faith says she'll ask around, but her facial expressions make Nadira suspicious she already knows who else is running around London killing vampires and is avoiding addressing it.

Page 05: Faith confirms it was Angel in the alley by berating him for risking a confrontation with the other Slayers when they, particularly Nadira, wants him deader than vampire-dead. He tells her that he can't hide in the house trying to avoid everyone that wants a piece of him.

Faith turns attention to his revelations last issue that he wants to rescue Giles from the land of the dead. She reminds him that Giles didn't die a mystical death and that if a resurrection was possible he would have known about it and used it to save Cordelia when he was working for the evil law firm.

He insists it isn't that easy. He says that resurrections have always been possible, it's just that you get a zombie for the trouble. He's aiming higher at retrieving Rupert's soul.

Commentary: Yay, continuity! I love Faith mentioning Cordy's death and using it as a reason as to why Angel can't possibly save Giles. We don't know where this arc is going yet, but it's nice that they're acknowledging in story about what we learned about resurrection in the earlier Buffyverse. Logically, in a world cut off from the heavenly dimensions, it should be even more difficult - if not flat out impossible - to succeed in Angel's goal.

Page 06: Angel explains the difference between dying from a mystical cause and dying by a 'human' one. It's a matter of the soul moving on after a physically caused death, while the soul can be bound by the magic used to kill the body in a mystical one. Angel goes on to explain that parts of Giles are in every magical thing he interacted with while a physical being and Watcher.

Faith is shocked at Angel's insinuation that he can pull Giles back together from these various objects. She angrily asks if he plans on digging him up next. When he replies "Not until I have to", she's had enough and goes to storm out on him.

Commentary: The only part that I'll take a small exception to, is Angel calling Rupert a 'warlock'. Technically, I guess that could be so since Giles clearly could cast spells but the word - to me - has a connotation of a more advanced user than I think of Giles as. A warlock, to me, indicates someone whose life was centered on magic... like Roden and Rayne. It's a curious word to use in relation to Rupert and feels like it may have been used on purpose just to remind us that he did access magic so Angel's plan has a shot, rather than being a word that anyone in-universe who knew Giles would use to describe him.

Page 07: Angel stops her and tells her that he knows how crazy the whole thing sounds and that he sounds like he may be losing it, but he insists with Giles' help (from his Watchers Files), he can work this.

Faith is unconvinced, to say the least. But, she also remembers how Angel was the one who stood by her when she was in the middle of her own crash and burn after everyone else had written her off. She wonders if she could really call herself a friend if she left him to drown now....

Commentary: I also love Faith's thoughts here. She doesn't want to do this, but she does feel a need to stay by Angel's side if for no other reason than to make sure he doesn't get lost. I really like that she refers back to "Five by Five" and "Sanctuary" in Angel's first season. I would count these two episodes (as well as the preceding Buffy episodes of her Buffy-body swap) as a few of the most important episodes for her character.

Page 08: Angel turns away and tells her he understands why she wants no part of his attempt, but she tells him she'll be his wingman... though she doesn't look very reconciled to the whole plan.

Page 09: Angel takes Faith to a demonic fight club to check in with a contact. The contact is friendly enough, until Angel starts asking questions about his boss' operation.

Page 10: Faith jumps the gun a bit by trying to strongarm the contact into sharing. This only, as could be predicted -- not so far from Nadira, still huh Faith? -- starts a brawl.

Page 11: During the brawl, Kurth the contact makes a run for it. Angel assures Faith it's all part of the master plan. This comes as news to her, as she didn't even know there was a plan.

A bit later and she snarks that the plan involved their being beaten to bruises to make them blend into the night easier and pronounces it the best plan ever.

He tells her it worked. Kurth thinks he made a clean getaway, but he's heavily bleeding and Angel's smell-detection can track this particular species of demon without any trouble over extensive distances.

Commentary: I want to give a shout out here to the dialog and writing. It's really pretty funny and Gage is perfectly capturing Faith's smartassness. It's also nice to see Angel in the spirit of things and returning his straight-faced gibes right back. These two make a really good pair as co-stars, and it just makes me wish so badly that we'd seen more of Faith and Giles as a comparison. WHERE THE HELL IS THAT LIMITED SERIES?

Page 12: Faith and Angel track Kurth to the boneheaded demon Faith had fought earlier, who gets a name: Baphon.

He begs Baphon to help him with his injury (Angel had torn off his third arm from his back).

Page 13: Baphon gives Kurth some magic juice which allows his arm to regenerate. Watching, Angel informs Faith that they're using a vial of Mohra Blood, which is capable of regenerating any organ or tissue (also a discovery from Angel, Season One).

Page 14: On the rooftop, Angel gives Faith a very sketchy history about how he knows about Mohra Blood and what it can do (Angel's "I Will Remember You" where Angel became human again briefly and reconnected with Buffy before the whole thing had to be undone to save her).

He points to this Blood as to how they're going to regenerate Giles' body once they get his soul. He asks her to stand with him, again.

Commentary: Although, technically, I can't help but think that what Angel is trying to do is actually to create a copy of Rupert Giles. He's trying to collect imprints of the Giles that was, regenerate his dead body, and place this carbon copy of his soul into it. I'm almost ready to withdraw my complaint of undoing Giles' death if they'd be willing to explore how the copy of Giles isn't actual-Giles and having that lead to complications and developments. ALMOST -- one of the things I hate most about fiction is the "Death is Cheap" trope. It's why I dropped Marvel Comics -- they really pissed me off by resurrecting Jean Grey after her stellar exit in the Dark Phoenix Saga.

I don't want to see them ruin Giles' shocking death the same way, by just blowing it off by undoing it.

Page 15: Faith's answer is to join Angel crashing through a skylight into Baphon's lair.

Page 16: With the two going on the offensive, they quickly render Baphon powerless thanks to information Angel gleaned about him from Giles' diaries.

Meanwhile, Faith is thinking to herself about how energized Angel looks now that he has a purpose again. And, the fact that he seems happy to have someone to share it with. It's clear though that Faith is only humoring him at the moment and remains highly skeptical of his ultimate aim.

Page 17: Angel tries to fight a 'flammable gas' demon, but mentions to Faith that the only thing the files had on it was to perform a vague banishment spell. Faith tells him to stop depending so heavily on the "rulebook". She tosses her lighter at the demon...

Page 18: ... which yes, does a nice job on its flammable body.

Unfortunately, it also does a good job of setting the table on fire where the Mohra Blood is sitting. A table that was knocked over by the creature's flailing, smashing the blood's flask on top of it.

Angel puts it down as a temporary loss, for clearly there is a Mohra somewhere around that is supplying the blood.

Page 19: Angel puts the squeeze on the powerless, but alive Baphon to reveal where the Mohra is located. He offers to spill everything he knows since he also realizes that making a run for it from his Fraser Gang bosses is the only way he has a chance of living now. He's hoping Angel will give them enough distraction to allow him to get away.

In the meantime, Faith is feeling guilty about pretending to go along with Angel's plan. Secretly, she feels that they can't bring Giles back -- because he told her that himself.

Page 20: Flashback - Faith and Giles in his flat.

Rupert was addressing the idea of resurrecting a human being from a "natural death" because Faith was asking about it. She wanted to know if she could undo a death she'd caused. Rupert is sympathetic to her guilt, but insists that the deputy mayor's death wasn't completely out-of-line, since he was knowingly consorting with the Mayor and his plans.

Faith tells him she barely thinks about Finch. It's Professor Worth's murder she wants badly to undo.

Commentary: I LOVE THIS. I think that the poor professor's death was pretty much forgotten by everyone (as Faith spotlights here) because of the Mayor's huge arc and the accidental stabbing of the Deputy Mayor being the catalyst for Faith's slide off the slope. But to me, it was always Worth where she completely became the bad guy not worth saving anymore. In spanderverse, I included a confrontation between Faith and the Professor's sister while she's in prison. Here, they use Faith's keeping tabs on Professor Worth's daughter who still visits the Sunnydale crater to leave flowers for her father.

It's very nice that Gage also remembers her murder of an entirely innocent victim with no ties to anything supernatural, except a chance discovery of a "dinosaur" on a dig.

Page 21: The flashback continues with Giles telling her that they can't undo the evil they've done onto others (and one can't help but think he's referring to his actions with Eyghon) but that they can atone for them by focusing on acting for the good of others now as a counterbalance.

In the present, Faith's thoughts (while Angel is still questioning Baphon in the background) turn toward Angel's trying to undo what he's done. She offers the opinion that with all of the good he's done over two lifetimes and the number of times he's saved the world, he's already made up for what he did to Giles before he even did it as Twilight. But, she also knows he'll never buy that unless she somehow forces it on him.

Commentary: This opinion of Faith's is very in character, but it's also very disturbing. There are some very unfortunate echoes to Faith's justifying how Deputy Mayor Finch's death at her hands wasn't a big deal because of the number of lives she and Buffy had already saved that already put them in "the plus column". [And note how Faith was trying to usurp Buffy's saving the world as partially her own deeds through their Slayer bond, which was always particularly aggregiously self-serving -- but even putting that aside, her expressed opinion here seems like a throwback to that Faith.]

I'm not sure how to take this, because it's coming as an almost direct counterpoint to her flashback conversation with Giles in which she clearly didn't believe any longer that the lives she saved somehow innoculated her from the life - Professor Worth's - that she took. Is this just because she's being forgiving of another -- would she still express this opinion about herself if she kills another person on accident, or while under some influence?

I'm not sure if the unfortunate implication just wasn't thought of while this was written, or if this is a "forgive my friend" thing that she'd never be able to extend to herself under the same circumstances because of her own past.

Page 22: Elsewhere, there is another couple who is interested in the miracle Mohra Blood. Unfortunately for Kurth.

Our other players are the already met bit of unpleasantness, Nash and Pearl.

To get his cooperation is taking him to the Mohra, Nash relieves Kurth of an arm again... and Pearl indicates it's only the start if he refuses.

The Good: The writing, and especially the thoughts of Faith and her dialog with Angel.

I especially really like the conflict within Faith over Angel's audacious plan.

No effect on scoring, but I really like the art team of Rebekah & Dan.

I also like the callbacks to both Faith and Angel's histories.

The Bad: Nuthin' rankled.

Other Thoughts: I will say here though that I hope Nash & Pearl will be limited in their appearances. They're both a bit too over the top and the way they "spend" magic like there isn't a shortage is a bit annoying. If you went to the trouble of cutting off magical regenerating itself, then even those who are tapping magic from within themselves should be running into problems with supply, you'd think. It has to be coming from somewhere.

The Score: I really like the writing and I'm getting involved in Angel's plot to resurrect Rupert, even if I am ambiguous to not leaving him alone.

4.0 outta 5 stars

-- Next Review: Movie Review - "Teenage Zombies" from 1959.

Short Update

2013-03-24T18:40:07Z

Cold and Windy.

Taxes Done -- refund; yay.

Nose gone crazy. Stomach gone crazy. Body aches starting in earnest. I knew I was sick -- been that way for the past 3 days, but now I'm thinkin' flu rather than just an end-of-winter/beginning-of-spring cold. Bummer.

The next review will be Angel & Faith #2. I was gonna get that done today, but right now all I wanna do is nap and nap. Wish I had some NYQUIL to knock me out for a few hours. I'll see how I feel later tonight.

Tomorrow is a mega-laundry day, assuming I'm not feeling half-dead. But if I don't get to the next review tonight, I'll push for tomorrow evening hard and we'll see what happens.

Review: BTVS's "Killed by Death"

2013-03-20T17:24:06Z

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 2, Ep 18

"Killed by Death"

Written: Rob Des Hotel & Dean Batali
Directed: Deran Sarafian

Blurb: While hospitalized with a severe case of the flu, Buffy battles a demon that sucks the life out of sick children.

Scene 01: We open on Buffy hauling herself up and over a wall. She coughs a bit and when she lands on her feet on the other side, she ends up falling over. She is doing more sniffling as she patrols a graveyard. Her Buffy-senses activate and she pulls out a stake before creeping around a mini-mausoleum.

She startles with a scare as her "vampire" turns out to be Willow, Xander and Cordelia. She barely stops herself from plunging a stake into Xan (I see his pants and beg her to go ahead, anyway).

Commentary: And I immediately flash forward to Faith's actions with Deputy Mayor Fitch. I wonder if this episode came up in the discussions that led to that development, or if it was coincidence?

The gang and Buffy confront one another: She for them running around Sunnydale cemeteries at night, and they for her patrolling when she has a flu that has taken out half their classmates. Even Cordelia is concerned "with how gross [you] look". (Hah!)

They bicker about her responsibilities, as she is guilt-ridden over Jenny's death and won't consider giving herself a night off to recover. She stresses that if she doesn't do her Slayer-duty, someone else could die and she won't let Angel kill anyone more.

Scene 02: Obviously, this is the perfect place for Angelus to do a walk-on, which he does. He snarks he just wants one more and rushes Cordelia, knocking her flat. It seems more to terrify than to kill since Buffy IS standing RIGHT THERE. She easily yanks him off so they can engage in fisticuffs.

Significantly, Buffy goes straight for the stake to the chest with him -- no playing around. But he tells her he can tell she isn't feeling well as he easily stops the strike.

They begin to trade blows, but with Buffy woozy on her feet, Angelus is able to start mopping the ground with her. He's then able to punch her out and pin her to the ground, snarking at her how it doesn't look good for "our heroine".

Commentary: And, once again, David's make-up is so heavily done that he looks like he's trying to be Vampire-Joker. May I direct your attention to his lipstick. Look, Angie-Baby, I'm all for expressing yourself -- but at least learn how to apply.

Fortunately for Buffy, the gang has stopped standing around watching and Xander comes up behind him. Unfortunately, none of them use a stake through his back. But, Willow is able to throw her coat over his head and Xander starts punching him as hard as he can manage. He actually gives him a very nice knee to the face! That was fun!

Cordy and Willow then haul out their crosses against the Angelus-flat-on-his-back. Angelus backs off, while making clear that they'll be doing this again sometime.

Scene 03: Buffy woozily gets to her feet. She berates the Scooby Gang for not retreating, but then she collapses - passed out thanks to the combo of Angelus-punches and flu-ickies.

Credits Doth Credit

Scene 04: On returning from credits, the gang come in with Buffy in Xander's arms. They report that Buffy had a mumble-mumble-clashing explanation, before Xan takes charge again and reports that Buffy had a flu-induced faint/fall.

Commentary: And Nicky is hauling SMG around like she's a paperweight. It's almost funny how really tiny she looks in this scene.

Buffy is whisked away, while the gang separate to get Giles and Joyce to the hospital.

Scene 05: With Joyce's arrival, the doctor lets everyone know that Buffy will recover, though she "still has some healing to do", which apparently is letting us know that Angelus caused some fracturing during his beating of her (however, this will not impact anything, so it's more of a throwaway then anything).

Scene 06: Buffy is rolled from ER to a room, with the gang walking at her side. She's clearly still a bit loopy from the high fever and whatever pain meds she has onboard. Buffy expresses her desire to go home, but of course, the staff isn't going to let that happen.

Buffy gets resistant and tries to leave, as the staff and Joyce try to get her to calm down. She yells for Giles to tell everyone that she has to patrol to stop the vampires. She gets a shot, while Giles and the gang cover for her being obviously delusional because of the fever. Joyce comforts.

Commentary: More importantly though, she provides yet more evidence that Buffy's "stay in a mental hospital" that was retconned in during Season 6 is clumsy. Her mother is remarkably non-impacted by her daughter raving about those vampires again... despite the fact that her retconned history had her and Hank so flipped out the first time she started going on about them that they sent her to a psych hospital for evaluation and treatment.

Oh, and Xander? Would you please... please... go change into a pair of jeans.

Buffy is calmed enough for the sedative to take affect, and she's rolled away to her room. Xan states how he's not used to seeing her so afraid. Joyce lets them in on some more Buffy-backstory in which her favorite cousin Celia went to the hospital and died, giving Buffs a phobia about staying in them.

Scene 06: Joyce notices through the door that Buffy seems settled, so she goes to call Hank. Giles walks with her. Joyce thanks him for coming and expresses her appreciation to him for looking out after her daughter.

Commentary: And obviously that will change by the beginning of next season where Joyce will express her anger toward him for the same thing, although that is due to The Secret.

She also expresses her sympathy toward him for Jenny's death, telling him that Buffy has been upset since it happened and told her that she and Giles had been close. She offers anything that she can do.

Commentary: And, this is a nice bit here because Joyce - in dialog - mentions that Buffy never gets sick. I've long had a theory that Buffy's abilities are tied to her emotional states and sense of self-confidence. It seems like whenever she is feeling particularly stressed or despairing, she does worse then when she's confident and quippy. But, this has never been made canon explicitly. I think it would explain nicely, however, why she seems to have such wild fluctuations in her strength, fighting ability, agility, etc. that would really be more of "the script says so".

Scene 07: Back in the hallway, Xan expresses concern that Buffy may be vulnerable in the hospital. Cordelia doesn't really get the point and goes on about one of her Cordette's botched nose jobs that was received at this particular hospital. While Wills and Xan worry over Angelus having an all-access pass to the public building, Cordy goes on about "that thing" that is wrong with Buffy's face that she should have worked on since she's there anyway.

Scene 08: Later that night, Buffy wakes up from the sedatives given earlier (and we get the DVD intro music, taken from this episode).

In the hallway and little boy stares at her wordlessly, before continuing on. But behind him, Buffy sees a tall, demonic looking man following. Buffy gets up groggily to follow.

Scene 09: As Buffy follows after the two through the darkest hospital corridors in the world, she has flashbacks to her time as a little girl when she was visiting that favored cousin. Her flashback self wanders down the brightest hospital corridors in the world.

Little Buffy approaches a white curtain draped bed where Celia must by lying, but we don't get confirmation because of a flash of white light.

Scene 10: We're back at current Buffy lying in her hospital bed. Apparently she'd had a Slayer dream/vision of the boy and the scary man and hadn't actually gotten up to follow them.

This time she does wake up for real at the exact time that her dream self awoke. She wanders down the corridor again, but this time it isn't the world's darkest hospital corridor, but is regular subdued lighting.

As Buffy wanders by patient rooms, creepy-red-herring security guard pokes his head out from one to watch her.

Scene 11: As she approaches one such patient room, two orderlies are rolling out a sheet draped body. One of the orderlies comments on hating when they lose the young ones. Buffy spies in the children's ward where she sees her emergency room doctor arguing with a children's doc about dosages of some experimental medications. She hears just enough to get an inkling that mad-science may be going on.

As she turns away, she runs into two small children behind her. They warn her that "he" comes at night and that 'Tina' was taken by him and he's going to return for them, too. When Buffy asks who, kids respond "death". They further exposit that the adults don't see him.

Commentary: This is one of the more exceptionally clumsy dialog scenes in Buffy. Kids simply wouldn't start blabbing about monsters to some strange sick teen girl in the hallway, what are these kids doing wandering around at 0230 in the morning, what kids would respond to Buffy's question with a dramatic "DEATH" rather than 'the creepy guy' or 'the monster'?

No, no, it simply doesn't work for me.

Scene 12: Later? The same time? The following evening?

Xander is sitting in the waiting room when we hear somebody whistling a jaunty tune. This turns out to be Angelus with flowers for Buffy. Xan (bravely/stupidly) steps up in his face and tells him that visiting hours are over.

Angelus taunts Xan with his powerlessness to stop him from getting to Buffy's room if he wishes to, but Xan won't back down. So, he next turns to taunting out that Xan still loves Buffy, but he got to bed her first and it must just eat Xan up. Xander's response is to stare him in the eye and tell him that he's going to die, and Xan will be there when it happens.

Angelus smirks, but he leaves.

Scene 13: Meanwhile, we get another flashback of little-Buffy playing Power Girl to rescue beloved cousin from an avalanche of pillows.

This flashes to the flashback where little Buffy is again approaching Celia's hospital bed. When she opens the curtain, Celia lies still, pale and unmoving.

Scene 14: Buffy awakes in her own hospital bed. She's feeling much better, but her attending won't let her leave quite yet as the flu virus she has is a nasty one. Buffy asks if it's the same one the kids have, but doctor only has time to get uncomfortable-glance before Giles and gang interrupt to visit.

They banter a bit. Buffy tries to tell them about the weird occurrance the night before with the kids, but a nurse is checking out her replaced IV. She suggests they go for a walk, as she's not confined to her bed or anything, just to the hospital.

Scene 15: Outside in the sun, as Buffy is being wheeled around by Willow, she shares that there is something off with what is happening in the children's ward. At first the gang blow off her concerns as the tales of scared children in a scary environment, but Buffy is adamant that they should at least take a closer look.

Scene 16: The first order of business is Xander and Cordy sneaking into the patient record's room to find the file on the girl that died that morning (and speaking of... just how long is Buffy's doctor's shift, anyway!). Cordy spends the time complaining about sick people taking advantage of their friend's compassion to get them to do sucky stuff like this.

Cordelia gets caught snooping by red-herring security guy (speaking of, just how long is his shifts!).

Scene 17: Back at the library, Willow and Giles are discussing how to proceed. At first Rupert believes that Cordy may have been right to suggest that Buffy is looking for a monster that doesn't exist due to her inability to fight regular diseases that kill children around her. But Willow counters they live on a Hellmouth.

Rupert tells her that a monster who children can see, but adults can't isn't ringing any Watcher-bells. But then, he suggests that sometimes children can see what adults don't... a person's real face. He suggests that the children may be afraid of an adult in the hospital and are calling him "death". Willow starts looking into mad science doctor.

Commentary: I also like how Rupert brings up their recent trauma with Jenny again, both because it shows what an impact her character had but also because it plays well into very next episode's "I only Have Eyes For You" where Giles will continue to presume a ghost in the school is Ms. Calendar even after it displays behaviors that would have nothing to do with how she died.

Jenny's death is one that haunts the series right up through the ending of BTVS: S8 and Angel & Faith.

Scene 18: Back with Xan and Cordy, she's been caught by the skulking security guard. But as we rejoin her, she's got the poor man wrapped around her finger. Through her coy flirtations and her standing just a bit too close, she's able to crack open the guard's secrets regarding the weird doctor and the little girl who died while Xan stays hidden in the shadows (and probably suffering extreme eye damage from the strain of rolling them).

Xander nearly ruins it all by making noise as he tries to slip out the door, but Cordelia saves the day by mentioning the guard's perfect nose, which she somehow turns into a "you must work out" comment without any cognitive dissonance at all.

Scene 19: When Cordy returns to Xan in the hallway, he's immediately annoyed at how touchy-feely her distraction was. She accuses him of being jealous, but he denies this. He does hand off Tina's file to Cordy to run back to Giles. He tells her he's staying and it's her turn to be annoyed over Xan's obsession with protecting Buffy.

He points out that somebody has to watch her back, and Cordy accuses him of doing this too often, as in watching her butt. He teases her for being jealous, and she storms out.

Scene 20: Meanwhile, Buffy has wandered to the children's ward where only Ryan is at currently. He's sitting in the dark, except for a lamp and lighted drawing table. Buffy notices his drawing is of a monster.

She flashes back to the scary monster face she noted while she was zoned out/having a Slayer vision the night before.

Ryan tells her that "death" will be returning that night for them. Buffy tells him that monsters are real, but so are the heroes who fight them. He doesn't believe that anyone can fight death.

Scene 21: With Giles and Willow, they're looking of the creepy doctor and find that he has several complaints on record.

Scene 22: We join mad-doctor in his office that night at the hospital, where he's reviewing some findings. He has an inspiration and goes to his in-office fridge where he pulls out a vial. After marking this, he returns to a book to confirm something or another, all the while muttering to himself.

Scene 23: Meanwhile, Xander is nodding off in the hallway where he has again positioned himself for the night to make sure Angelus doesn't make a return [because as we know, hospitals only have one way in and out of each hallway so it would be impossible for Angelus to simply use the back door... or scale up the building and use a window...].

Cordelia suprises him by bringing donuts (product placement!) and coffee. It is a wordless, but sweet moment.

Scene 24: We return to mad doctor with a vial in his hand heading toward the children's ward, obviously with more of that fever-enhancing experimental medication. We see Buffy waiting beside a door, where she starts to follow him.

Scene 25: In the children's ward, mad doc wanders to a bed of one of the really sick kids and readies to give her an injection. He's startled by a raspy laugh from behind him, but when he turns there is no one there.

No one he can see, anyway. It doesn't stop him from being slashed to death to Ryan's watching horror.

Buffy comes upon the scene just as mad doc is flung out into the hallway. She tries to see to him, but gets herself punched away against the wall by her invisible foe. Doctor is then dragged away.

Commentary: So, 26 minutes in and we finally have some onscreen carnage. Alas, except for one slash mark and some shadow/blood fling we don't get to see much in the way of horror. As you should be able to tell from the commentary thus far, this episode is simply lacking in its structure and visuals. There really isn't much going on on-screen, and since we already saw Buffy's vision of the monster we already know that Willow and Giles' suspecting the mad doc of being the bad guy is off base, so there isn't any mystery to get involved in either.

The episode isn't bad, really, but it isn't all that interesting either. There isn't even much going on to screen cap, explaining how few images got included in this review.

Scene 26: The following day, the Scoobies meet up with Buffy. They explain that Tina had been improving before she suddenly cratered and died. Willow tells Buffy that Doctor Backer isn't a very solid citizen, but Buffy has to share that he wasn't the bad guy. She explains the doc is dead and she was bowled over by it, but she couldn't see it. Cordelia reminds her that she told him that she did see something before, but she tells her that she was raging with fever and out of it.

She questions how it makes sense that the kids can see the thing just fine, but she can't otherwise.

But, before they can continue to puzzle it out, Joyce comes in. She jokes that it looks like she interrupted a secret meeting, which everyone strainably laughs off. Joyce is there with the good news that Buffy can be released.

Buffy plays that her symptoms are coming back and sends Joyce to speak to the doctor about allowing her to stay another day or so. They come up with a plan of action and separate.

Commentary: I'm not sure what it is either, but even the cute parts like Willow and Xan playing doctor as kids -- and doing it wrong -- just pass by with nary a smirk. Too many close ups? To much quick line readings? Too bright? I don't know. Maybe it's just too late in the episode for cuteness, when we should be gearing up for battle now.

Scene 27: In the hallway, Giles, Cordy and Xan review. Xander is staying at the hospital as sentry, even though Angelus won't be able to return until dark (I'm finding it impossible to believe that there aren't maintenance tunnels under Sunnydale's hospital to negate this assumption rather obviously). He sends Cordy to accompany Giles to the library.

In the one funny bit, Giles' first response is "Why do I have to... uh, right, good idea. I could use a research assistant".

Cordelia gives him a "Let's go, tact-guy".

Commentary: That one did get a snort of amusement from me, followed by a few giggles.

Scene 28: We cut to Ryan. He looks out at the hallway, but quickly ducks back in when he sees Security Guard prowling about.

Scene 29: Meanwhile, in mad doc's office, Buffy and Willow try to find a reason behind his targeting by the creature of the week.

Willow finds evidence that Dr. Backer was introducing controlled dosages of the virus the kids already had in their systems back to them in order to raise their fevers enough to burn it out of them, without it killing them. His results seem to indicate it may have been working, when the monster interrupted by slashing him to death.

Scene 30: In the library, Giles is trying to focus on identifying their beast, but Cordy is busy asking questions about every single demony picture on the desk, keeping him from concentrating. And even when he pointedly and sarcastically points it out, she doesn't get that is what he's doing.

Commentary: Okay, this was mildly amusing, too. Obviously, there was more untapped comedy potential in the Cordelia/Giles relationship that sadly we'll not get to explore.

Giles starts to despair that with the monster's relative invisibility they may never find a demon that matches Ryan's badly drawn picture. But when Cordy closes the current book she's looking in... whattayouknow, there he is, right on the cover!

Scene 31: Cut to Cordy on the phone, giving the lowdown on the demon. Der Kinderstod kills children by sucking the life out of them. At first Buffy is nonplussed at Cordelia giving her this info and asks after Giles, but Cordy insists she found the monster so she should just listen.

Giles has come in at this point and Cordy freaks out at the image of the monster killing its prey. She complains about being dragged into this kinda stuff and huffs out of his office. Meanwhile, Rupert fills Buffy in on how the monster straddles its prey's chest before beginning its life-force suckage. His mention of how terrifying it must be for the victim causes memory flashback for Buffy.

Scene 32: She back in Celia's room, where she's moved aside the curtain. Celia suddenly snaps awake, screaming with her hands up as if trying to ward off something that isn't there.

Buffy realizes that she watched Der Kinderstod kill her cousin.

Commentary: I don't even know how to comment on this. Is it a pointer at Buffy's future fate that the monster's were touching her life even before she knew about them? Is it just bad storytelling? Is it really necessary to give Buffy a personal stake in avenging her cousin's death to battle this monster? Is there a reason we'll never hear about Celia again, if this is such a big moment of vengeance for her?

This just really seems out of left field, where the whole plot point is shoved back as soon as Der Kinderstod is dead. Also, is he unique? Is there only one of them?

Scene 33: Anyway, Buffy sits in shock at the realization and Willow hangs up with Giles. Buffy tells Willow they need to kill this thing, but she doesn't know how because she can't see what she's fighting against. Wills points out again that she saw it before, but Buffy isn't sure that her mind wasn't playing tricks on her because of the fever....

Scene 34: Cut to Doctor Backer's office again, where Buffy gets into the flu samples. She and Willow whip up a cocktail of flu virus for Buffy (although, I'm doubting the science here) to reinfect herself so she'll regain her fever.

Scene 35: Which strikes nearly instantly, amazingly. Willow helps Buffy stumble down the corridor toward the children's ward. But, when they reach it, they find all of the kids missing.

Scene 36: We cut to the kids, who have gotten proactive about their own survival. They're retreated to the basement of the hospital and are looking for an escape/place to hide where Der Kinderstod won't find them.

Scene 37: Upstairs, Willow and Buffy worry over where the kids have gone. As Buffy watches through the door, and her fever intensifies, she can suddenly see Der Kinderstod checking over the empty beds. It notices Buffy watching it and gives her a raspy laugh and a doff of its hat in her direction before heading to the basement access door -- which is ridiculously connected to the children's ward (I'm trying to accept this however, because of future developments -- we know that the Mayor is interested in babies for his own purposes, so I suppose he could have arranged for this sort of crazy architecture when Sunnydale's hospital go built --- but before we know all of this, this is just dumb).

Scene 38: Buffy realizes that the demon is going after the kids, but she can't break into the locked children's ward door with her fevered weakness (Yes, you put locks inside a children's ward, and give basement access -- I'm horrified for any parents dropping their kids off here divorced from the Hellmouth highjinks).

Before Buffy can take off after them, ER Doctor (who apparently wanders all of the floors during her shift, despite being the ER trauma doctor) finds them and notices Buffy's worsened condition. She tries to get Buffy to her room, but is pushed away. She calls for security while Willow and Buffy make a run for the basement.

As Buffy and Wills round a corner, they're met by lurking security guard and extra guard. Willow taps into her frog fear and starts acting flipped out, so that the guards' attention is on her, allowing Buffy to slip away to where she's needed.

The only living doctor in the hospital catches up and yells at the guards that Willow isn't the patient, it's the other one. Will has a sudden recovery from her frog flip out.

Scene 39: Meanwhile, Buffy runs into Xander who worries that Angel tried to attack her again. But she explains it wasn't Angelus....

Scene 40: In the meantime, Der Kinderstod is sniffing out the children despite their attempts to hide in a dark corner. Ryan tries to tell the others that they'll be safe now. But naturally, right after the phrase gets out of his mouth, he's snatched up by the demon.

Scene 41: Meanwhile, Xander helps Buffy shuffle her way into the basement.

Scene 42: Cut to Ryan screeching as Der Kinderstod shakes him up a bit.

Scene 43: Cut to Xan/Buffy jogging down the drippiest basement corridors in creation.

Scene 44: Cut to screeching Ryan getting thrown to the ground and stunned. He has a split moment to make a mad dash, but he stares at the other kids, who are too terrified to do anything but crouch there screaming for their lives.

Then Der Kinderstod is on him. The demon's eyes turn into tentacles and protrude from its sockets, where they go to latch onto the screaming Ryan.

Scene 45: Thankfully for Ryan, Buffy shows up then and beams Der Kinderstod in the back of the head, distracting it from its feeding. While Buffy engages in fisticuffs, Xander collects the screeching kids to rush them back upstairs.

Xan returns to see how he can help Buffy, but he can't see what she's fighting. She, in the meantime, is getting in some good hits but the demon is more than taking them and returning as good as he's getting. Which doesn't look good for Buffy, since she's still wracked with the flu.

Buffy is thrown to the ground, and Der Kinderstod is able to straddle/protrude the eyes bit at her. But, since she's not a paralyzed with terror child, she is able to reach up and snap its neck.

Scene 46: Later at the Summers house, Buffy is recuperating in her bed. Xan and Willow are there... and everyone is totally abusing Joyce by demanding: Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches with crunchy peanut butter and extra jelly and no crust; a juice with two parts orange juice and one part grapefruit juice, a refill on a soda and another bag of cheesy chips (which when she points out that Xan ate the last one, he responds that there is another bag hidden behind the raisins)... Joyce somehow bares this without rat poison.

Joyce also delivers Buffy a letter received from Ryan. He's drawn her a picture... Joyce says "how... nice..." as the picture is of Buffy standing over Der Kinderstod with its neck broken open and blood fountaining up into the air.

Sweet kid.

The Good: I liked the beginning confrontation with Angelus, especially Xander getting in on some nice fisticuff moves.

I liked Der Kinderstod's look.

I love that Jenny's recent murder is still hanging over the gang and continues to be mentioned.

I really liked the bits of humor revolving around Cordelia this episode, especially in her interactions with Giles.

The Bad: The whole Celia connection is kinda ham-handed, but would be okay, if they just hadn't included that she was also an early victim of Der Kinderstod long before Buffy was called. With no follow up on this unlikely coincidence, this just feels really tacked on and was completely unnecessary to Buffy's desire to fight the bad guy.

Other Thoughts: I liked Xan getting a chance to stand up to Angelus, but I also find it kinda empty since Angelus just goes away and doesn't come back later in the episode. It feels like a "oh, yeah, remember bad-Angel is still around too everyone!" which was already taken care of in the opening.

A big problem was pacing, as we spent too much time with the mysterious doctor when we already knew early on that he wasn't responsible for the kids' death because we already saw the demon. Also, it takes just a tad too long for our gang to put together Buffy's ability to see an otherwise invisible demon with the fever that she's sharing with the kids.

There were some cute moments, some scary moments involving Ryan... but only some.

The Score: Uninspiring and unremarkable. 3.0 outta 5

--end--

Next Review: I'm not positive; I'm leaning toward Buffy, S9 #2 and Angel & Faith #2

Random Love: MJ's "Thriller"

2013-03-18T17:21:23Z

Thriller seems to be a very popular choice for flash dances, wedding dances and the awesome vid.

And, since I'm including it here, you know that I love this song... this dance... this Michael!

He's even managed to invade the Sims-verse!

Another Request.

2013-03-18T13:42:43Z

I'd love a SPN/ATS/BTVS fic that basically follows the outline provided by THIS VID.

No 'musts', No "don't include" this-es.

I'd just like to see what you can come up with. Just include characters from all three.

[Obvs, reply here so I know where to look.]

Random Love post

2013-03-18T11:44:22Z

Buffy's confronting the Master... and Losing.

Wow.

Thank goodness Aly and SMG is capable of carrying their scenes.

Fanfic Request: YouTubbey.

2013-03-18T10:41:49Z

I would absolutely love a fanfic story based on the scenario from this vid. Note that it must include BTVS, ATS, and SPN. I'm fine with manipulating the timeline, but if you can avoid, there is major kudos.

The point is Faith/Dean without polluting either timeline (AHHH, there is the rub).

Please issue comment with story. I wanna check it out. Please note that the Prison Break isn't a requirement since I didn't watch it.

REQUIREMENTS: Buffy/Gang can't know prison escapee is involved. Buffy can't meet Sam or Dean and Faith can't rat out their "Hunter"-status.
Don't involve Cas.

Write in a way that Buffy/Scoobies and Sam/Dean/Angel/Faith won't blow their respective storylines. Good Luck. Please post comment/link!

Recommend... but only slightly and with severe caveats. [I know, right? Talk about backhanded.]

2013-03-18T07:43:06Z

Okay, so this recommend is a bit confusing. Not only to you, either. This guy, 'otoobach' , reviews some - what I would call - extreme cinema on youtube. The reason I can recommend is because, being YouTube, he can't subject us to the appalling images that make up the movies he watches. But, I do like him a lot and even though there aren't any movies (thus far) I would risk seeing - there are a few [VERY few] that almost sound like they might be interesting.

He seems to specialize in the "out there" or "fringe independent" sphere. I'd recommend (obvs, isn't that what this post is about) viewing his channel. BUT -- there is no way in hell, I'd recommend buying any of the flicks he watches and enjoys.

You can watch these reviews since we only see his descriptions (but warning -- adult language) and responses without seeing the appalling [apparently] images. I happen to like him because he seems funny and really cute, but that is neither here nor there. {Don't you judge me; You didn't realize I was a dick-muncher??!}

I have to say though, there were some movie reviews that even I had to look away from/cringe at description of action. I'm saying this because I do believe in free speech and do believe we should expose ourselves to things that make us uncomfortable so we can be forced to examine our own opinions and prejudices/judgements but that sure doesn't mean I'd ever be interested in actually seeing/buying/reviewing these films on this site. For the most part in fact, I'd say -- No, Thank You.

But Mr. Otoobach is pretty amusing throughout (He has this extremely warped "Mr. Rogers" tone, despite the very NON-PBS vibe of the movies themselves).

Honestly -- the more I tell myself not to recommend this site because I don't think the fringe films could be considered 'art/movies' in any way, at the same time I do feel the need to challenge myself and anyone else of an open mind enough to at least consider discomforting themselves.

So -- take this as a RECOMMEND, but only for those more adventurous (and again -- you can watch the reviews without actually seeing the images, as long as you're not scandalized by words like "pussy", "fuck", and other adult words. This is a good place to begin if you've wondered idly about what your fellow humans are delving into in the fringe / true independent market).

So, there it is. Please don't email me outrage when you're subjected to descriptions of images that you'd just as soon didn't think actually existed in film. I warned you, square and fair. [And, like I said, YouTube restrictions have spared us from the actual images so we only get a second hand account of what he's watching --- not that it necessarily makes it any better, since there are plenty of folks who actually watch this shit and ENJOY subjecting themselves to it.]

--end--

You do get that I'm not suggesting you jump right on over and buy these movies, right?

Latest Walking Dead.

2013-03-18T03:42:08Z

INTENSE

OMG. Andrea!

Whereas many of the series I'm currently following on TIVO have started to wane (SPN -- Not that I don't still heart you, and you have improved... but maybe it's time for Jensen and Jared to move on to something new), The Walking Dead is still making my heart beat hard and fast. The latest episode was fan-freaking-tastic. Although, Andrea kinda pissed me off by being dumb.

First -- you knew the Gov was in that vehicle coming for you (after she was at that abandoned factory/warehouse), so why would you go into one of the buildings rather than ... oh... going behind it and back into the woods. You find a tree and you climb it. Nobody ever looks up anymore, since they're watching for zombies.

Two - Okay, you go in the building instead. Why do you keep walking around, instead of finding someplace to tuck yourself into and remain quiet until he gives up and leaves. The only reason he knows you're there is because you keep making noises!

Three - So, you've totally ignored my first two observances (and remember - this is off the cuff, I'm not even giving it hours of thought), why would you go directly to the prison? Yes, he knows you're going there. But to assume the zombies are going to get him was dumb. You assume he's going to get away, then you absolutely take a-roundabout-route and come to the prison from the opposite end. If you get into zombie trouble, you again resort to trees, either weaving around them or, if necessary, climbing them and thinking. It's not ideal, but you have to presume the Gov already knows where you're headed. You don't make it easy on him by assuming he won't cut you off. And, thinking people are far more dangerous than the wandering dead. You really need to think ahead, too.

But you didn't think ahead, Andrea. And you assumed that he'd die in the ambush you (brilliantly) improvised. Now you're stuck in the torture chair and giving me a practical heart attack. Dumbass. Man, oh man. Oh, Andrea -- Please don't be the latest 'old guard' to get killed!

--end---

Best of / Worst of Character Moments: BTVS

2013-03-17T22:07:05Z

Best of / Worst of Character Moments

BTVS: "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered"

We have a caveat to include on this post. Obviously, with a blown-love-spell in effect, our characters are going to be acting OOC. We're therefore only going to include behavior for both before and after the magicworks. This won't apply to Xander, Giles and Cordelia, though, since they remain immune from the direct effects of the spell.

Our Heroes Get a Hug:

Buffy - Poor Buffy doesn't get any wonderful character moments before she's embarrassingly turned into a rat.

Xander - Alright, I do give Xan a little bit of credit for not accepting Buffy's passes. Not about the 'no sex' thing -- that should be a given. But, he had a shot at making out with her once, at least, but doesn't even consider it when he realizes what is happening. A half-kudo.

Willow - Willow is loads of adorkable fun, but there isn't anything to kudos over.

Rupert - Rupert does manage to pressure Amy into helping him break her spell, while she's under said spell and doesn't want it particularly broken. Kudo.

Cordelia - Cordelia gets a kudo for rushing out into a mob, including Willow with an axe poised, to save Xander's life.

Angel isn't in residence.

Our Heroes Get a Snub:

Buffy - Well... maybe a half demerit for just standing there while Amy is weaving her 'turn to rat' spell. A quick rabbit punch woulda done wonders.

Xander - Xander Harris, full stop. What he is planning on doing with that magic-whammy on Cordelia is way crossing the line for a little vengeance. In fact, Xan also gets a hard slap in addition to a full demerit.

Willow - I have nothing to complain about when it comes to unspelled Willow.

Rupert - Giles is also a-okay throughout the episode.

Cordelia - Oh, Cordy. Even for you accepting the gift from Xander, immediately breaking up with him (ON VALENTINE'S DAY) and keeping the necklace is completely tacky. Demerit upon you.

I'm going to have to give a special half-demerit to Amy for her ill-thought out attempts to cheat her homework by using magic. Obvs, magic shouldn't be resorted to for such things, anyway, but Amy is especially clumsy about it and that is really what gets her my black mark. BE MORE SNEAKY, AMY.

I also must give Angelus another anti-kudo (the kudos for bad guys). His presenting Drusilla with a fresh heart directly from a quaint little shop girl is aces; Y'know, for bad vampires.

In other news: That review. Uhhh... I-I kinda haven't been working on it. I will. But, yeah - more procrastination on this one.

Best of / Worst Of Character Moments : BTVS

2013-03-16T19:11:45Z

Best of / Worst of Character Moments

BTVS: Phases

Praise to our Heroes:

Buffy - Bending Cain's rifle stock. She destroys his weapon, she bends his metaphorical manhood outta shape, and she makes him leave Sunnydale and never return all in one action. Awesome.

Xander - Xander definitely gets a kudo for saving Buffy when she's too rattled by Theresa's taunting about "Angel" killing her under Buffy's watch.

Willow - Well, dear reader; I had assumed at first that I'd give a kudo to Willow for shooting Oz-Wolf with the tranq right when it was most needed. But, I think her power-moment was really when she hopped that fence, stopped running, and set up a "bash trash can into face of climbing werewolf" action. It was more clever, and she was alone and vulnerable and could have just dashed off panicking until she was tackled and killed. In the shooting scene, everything was moving so fast, so it was more of an instinct rather than a plan. KUDO to bashing Oz-Wolf in the face giving her more time to escape.

Giles - Well, I didn't find anything really impressive from Giles.

Cordelia - Cordelia didn't do anything for which I'm issuing a kudo.

Angel is out of residence.

Give our Heroes a Slap In The Head:

Buffy - Oh, Buffy! A simple net trap on the ground gets you?! Okay, okay, I know that you're really worried about the werewolf but still, I expect a little better from you. Demerit!

Xander - Xander... again & again with your pissiness? It's gettin' old, bud. I'm slapping a half-demerit on you for your jealousy. And no, your protectiveness of Willow where Oz is involved is not real concern for your friend. You are clearly just being possessive of her attention because there is a new guy moving into 'your' territory. It's unbecoming.

Willow - Hmmm. I think I get what you were trying to do Wills, but I don't like you suggesting to Buffy she be "weak" with neanderthal-Larry. I mean, she shouldn't throw him across a room, or anything, but she doesn't need to be girly-girl either. Quarter-demerit.

Giles - Our Watcher didn't annoy me.

Cordelia - Cordy didn't strike any bitca-warnings for me.

I was almost ready to include Oz as a regular lister, but I think Seth spent too much time away with Dingoes. But when he does do something inspiring, be assured that he'll get a special addition kudo (or that unwanted demerit).