av Mr Chase » mån apr 05, 2004 1:40
Mr Chase är hjälplös i Cuernavaca:
46. Helpless
After a couple of lacklustre instalments "Buffy" cranks up a notch with this one. It's basically a coming of age story involving, who else, Buffy. After the initiation rite a youngster gets to become an adult, leaving the parents behind. Mind you, the slayer has in effect long since left all childish things behind her. Slayage is a serious business.
For at least "the past dozen centuries" the Watchers Council has put its slayers to the test on their eighteenth birthday, and so must Buffy when her turn comes. There is a terrible price to pay though, as it requires her watcher, Giles, to betray her when he must rid her of her powers in order for the test to commence. As a consequence, the hard-earned trust between watcher and slayer is compromised.
That might not have been that big a problem with previous slayers as they've probably never gotten as close as Giles and Buffy has. He has in effect become a father figure for her, standing in for her own absent father. That is reinforced when Buffy's dad stands his daughter up on their annual visit to the ice show and Buffy tries to convince Giles to take her there instead.
Giles has become so much more than just Buffy's watcher and it pains him to carry out the instructions from the Council. In the end, and after a powerful confrontation with Buffy when he admits to what he's done (*great* acting from both Tony Head and Sarah), he throws tradition and protocol out the window and runs to the aid of his charge. Quentin Travers, the Council supervisor (played excellently by Harris Yulin) clearly sees that Giles has a father's love for the child and promptly fires him.
This is obviously leading up to something bigger. For centuries the Council has been running the slayage show. Not without successes, but then again not without any great victories either. For all we know it has been status quo for a long time. So perhaps Joyce was right when she, in "Gingerbread", said that slaying didn't actually accomplish anything, as in resolving the problem.
The Council is old and has petrified in its ways. The average life-span of a slayer is probably *very* short, and if they reach eighteen they have to take part in an archaic and possibly suicidal ritual. Might there be a method to that apparent madness? The Council wants compliant slayers, like Kendra, and the older they get they gain in wisdom, and with that comes independent thought and that's perhaps dangerous from the Council's viewpoint. Hence, the test?
But Buffy's been different from the start. She's never been compliant. She's resourceful and free-willed. She does not merely follow her watcher's order; they're a team. In fact she's done what no previous slayer has done, she's drawn a circle of fiends around her to help her with getting the job done. No other slayer has had Slayerettes and that is Buffy's hidden strength.
The Council quite clearly doesn't realize this. They're so set in their old ways that they cannot comprehend that there probably should be a new way of dealing with evil matters, and that Buffy, unbeknownst even to herself, has pointed the way to the future. The present modus vivendi isn't working anymore, if it ever did.
Buffy also has identity problems in this episode. If she's not the slayer, then who is she? What's she worth? Before her calling she thought of herself as a shallow "Spordelia". If she has no mission in life does she mean anything? And more important, would others care for her as a person in her own right?
The answer is yes, from everyone from Angel and Giles to even Cordelia. Angel reassures her that he fell for her way back when he first saw her in Los Angeles ("Becoming, part 1") and Giles sure proved how much he cares for her even when, or perhaps more so, she was powerless. He even declares to the Council supervisor that he's not going anywhere even after he's fired. And Cordelia takes her home without question after Buffy's confrontation with Giles.
Speaking of Cordelia, she's on the rebound after Xander but apparently her heart is not into it as she stands a boy up. That was some violent creep by the way, so she did the right thing. If only she'd get back together with Xander (I know, I know...). Oz is back with Willow, Angel and Buffy are almost-couply, so why not? Sorry, I digress...
Some nit-picks include why Buffy would get *so* weak. Her strengths was diminished but her proficiencies shouldn't have gone away just like that. She has been trained after all.
Why did Kralik have to take pills? He's a vampire, doesn't need to eat and breathe etcetera, so how could he be affected by medication? And his vampirizing of that guard took an awful short time.
There wasn't a lot of fun moments in this episode. But the kryptonite discussion among the Scoobies was great. Buffy's "Guys? Reality?" was hilarious considering, well, vampires aren't exactly reality either, except in the Buffyverse.
Buffy tries to be funny in her talk with Angel: "Or what if I just become pathetic? Hanging out at the Old Slayer's Home, talking people's ears off about my glory days, showing them Mr. Pointy, the stake I had bronzed."
That statement is poignant since there never was, and never will be, an Old Slayer's Home. Slayers don't get old.
Senast redigerad av
Mr Chase mån apr 05, 2004 13:59, redigerad totalt 1 gång.
Rupert Giles: "I'll be back in the Middle Ages."
Miss Calendar: "Did you ever leave?"