@@justsomerandomwalker6557 It's in The Girl in Question. Angel and Spike are arguing over who's saved the world more, and Angel (hilariously and unconvincingly) tries to take credit for having stopped Acathla
Yeah, there was even a rainbow in the background. I was kinda surprised he didn't mention it. A little disappointed to being LGBT and all, but still an awesome review!
And the kicking out of the house.. That scene breaks my heart. I also wished he had talked about it, but I guess it's more obvious to some people.. And I forgive him because the review is *really* great!
@@lamuccafamuh I don't know that it's wholly fair or accurate to say Joyce "kicked out" Buffy in this episode though. I hear that reading a lot, but it in the episode, it actually was said as a ultimatum to attempt to prevent her from leaving the house (and only then after it became clear that she couldn't restrain Buffy any other way on top of the fact, that from her perspective, there were serious concerns that needed to be dealt with) That's not to say (like much great fiction) there aren''t undertones into which people can read other specific life experiences, but in the mechanics of the narrative of this story, I think some of that requires a somewhat strained representation of what's presented one screen (though I don't think the potential subtext was unintentional either, but when this show really wants to deal with thematic topics, it tends to do so in a more straightforward way).
One of my favourite things about this episode- how Buffy's "close your eyes" to Angel right before she kills him recalls Darla saying the same thing to him before she killed him. I love little continuity things like that. Also- I became obsessed with the Sarah McLachlan song Full of Grace thanks to this episode. And on rewatch, I can safely say I still love it.
Katherine Hompes I love that song as well but that MAY be my only quibble with this episode. I omitted it because it is SUCH a quibble and I wanted the ending to be strong - but I really love how the show uses a lot of underground or unrecognizable bands. Using a song from such an iconic pop singer dates the episode to me. I wish they'd just let Beck do something a little more timeless. Just me though.
The Passion of the Nerd It's not just you. I watched it years later, too, and so I instantly recognized Sarah McLachlan's voice and thought "Ohhh, the nineties."
The Passion of the Nerd It's not just you. I watched this show years later while I was an adult, too, and so I instantly recognized Sarah McLachlan's voice and thought "Ohhh, the nineties."
@@PassionoftheNerd agreed. I didn't like that they used that song either. It took Buffy into reality too much... I wasn't rushing to find out who the band was... it was like oh... its the sad commercial song... it *almost* took away from the scene as distracting. Almost.
The whole "Xander not telling Buffy that Willow was trying the spell again" thing bothers me to no end. Probably more so than anything else in the series that bothers me. And I think what bothers me the most about it is that Buffy doesnt find out until much later on (I think either season 6 or 7) when its brought up mid argument, but as quickly as it is brought up it is dismissed, Buffy doesnt even comment on it. In my mind she should be PISSED! it is a big damn deal, she might have been able to save Angel had she known that she just needed to bide time. Great review man, almost had me in tears at the end haha. p.s One of my favourite Spike lines ever- "You hit me with an axe once, remember, get the hell away from my daughter"
thunder1soldier Always felt a bit weirdly fan-servicy when they brought it up again after all those years. Hell, I was surprised Buffy even remembered it. On the day you had to kill your beloved to save the world, where you also got expelled and thrown out by your mother, would you remember one line your mate said!?
Thats the thing though, she had to kill her boyfriend. If Xander told her, maybe she wouldnt have had to. I dont think she would have just shrugged it off when she found out. If you think about it- its a pretty shitty thing for a friend to do
thunder1soldier Am I the only one who really loves the way the lie is brought up in "Selfless"? At that point, it was so long ago that it seemed meaningless, and there was no reason to have a big debate about it, but by bringing it up, the writers made us really feel the HISTORY these characters have with each other. It made the "should we kill Anya?" debate feel incredibly important (which it was), and it showcased the way these characters RESENT one another for things - which becomes an important point in "Empty Places". I love it.
thunder1soldier Oh yeah, it's awful of him, I'm not disputing that, just thought it was off in the s7 episode. Also, she didn't find out. She accuses both Xander and Willow of telling her to kick Angel's ass. If she'd found out Xander had lied about what Willow was doing then she would've just accused Xander in that episode.
Few things 1. We need to remember the 'knight' imagery around Angel. A virtuous knight killed Acathla. Angel as the 'dark' knight must pull the sword from the stone. This is used again later with Buffy and the Scythe. The comics touch on the idea that the Scythe's companion blade in Excalibur and that Whistler wasn't an angel, he was Merlin. 2. The episodes contrast Buffy and Angel's lives before being 'Chosen'. How they were called into the lives they have as slayer and vampire. Both living frivolous vapid existences. 3. I'll be very interested to hear how you compare the Gift to this episode. How Buffy is presented with the same choice and chooses differently. I'm shocked so few people get that Angel's blood is the key to hell in this episode. Buffy's would later be the key to heaven. The blood must stop to close the portal. Buffy chooses to sacrifice Angel but when presented the same choice later, she sacrifices herself. Their subsequent resurrections also need to be compared. How Whedon inverts our concepts of heaven and hell. Angel comes back from hell in a blaze of light from above and Buffy comes back from heaven in darkness from below.
@@Kuudere-Kun I agree with you, she could sacrifice herself in the Gift to stop Hell from raising over because her blood was the same as Dawn's. I'm pretty sure she would have chosen any other option if she had any than killing Angel.
I've always called Buffy and Angel's relationship the "unattainable ideal". It's the kind of passionate, all-consuming, and beautiful love that every young girl dreams of but is never (or at least rarely) seen in real life. I just can't see them truly working as a couple to weather the everyday as well as the big, apocalyptic moments. That gets explored a bit more in season 3. That said, it breaks my heart to see them end the way they do. First loves are tough.
That damn song. Every time. Its just the most tragic love story ever and it doesnt matter that I know the ending and I've seen it time and time again. It still hurts. No other show but buffy has resonated that strongly with me and I've seen lots of television. I wonder if we will ever see quality like this again.
We will, if Whedon writes and directs it XD Also same my heartbreaks every time I hear the B/A music and I only just recently started watching the show (recent being about 2 weeks).
Awesome! I started watching in 2014 and was "Buffy's and love's bitch" from the get go (although the paraphrase is from S3). There have been 2 shows which have TOTALLY captured me: Leftovers and Rectify - other than the Buffster. I gave an old friend the first THREE seasons of Buffy on DVD 18 months ago. I even got an autograph from James Marsters but this 'friend' never bothered to watch. Talk about a waste. Can't please some :( Still, this is a great channel.
Three notes from Buffy and Angel's theme, and I am cry. It's awful. (Or, I mean, it's wonderful that music can move me so easily, but still.) Christophe Beck is an amazing composer, and I am so glad Buffy the Vampire Slayer had him.
I love this episode for all the reasons you said and I am not ashamed to say that despite being a die hard Spuffy shipper I cry every single time Buffy says 'Close your eyes' and I don't stop for a considerable time after.
Spike has so many amazing moments in this episode, one of my favorite for some reason is when he and Buffy are trying to pretend they're in a band and when Joyce asks him what he plays he responds "well I sing". It makes me laugh every time. Also I love that in the livingroom you can see he and Joyce are kind of wearing the same outfit
This video... for the first time I actually felt something for Buffy’s relationship with Angel. Always understood it, never a fan of it; but I understood it to the point that despite me not being a fan, I knew it was needed for the development of both Buffy and Angel as separate characters. I loved the emotions presented in “Becoming”, but it wasn’t until now that I actually felt it. Still not a fan of their ship, but I sincerely thank you for this feeling.
What really got me in this episode was the acting. Every time either Buffy or Willow cries it feels like I'm getting hit in the soul with Olaf's hammer. You can actually see the exact moment when it sinks in to Buffy that she has to kill the love of her life. And the way Angel reaches out to her for help and she just has to sit back and watch. SO MUCH FEELS. The whole situation is so tragic and heart breaking. The only moment that can compete with this one was Tara's death in seeing red. THEY JUST GOT BACK TOGETHER. I waited so long for that I actually squealed when Tara was like "Can't we just skip it, can't you just be kissing me now?" It was so beautiful and- wait, what was I even talking about? It seems I got sucked into a vortex of fangirlism and and just started spewing out a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the episode at hand. Oops. My apologies.
mattienicole b It's a CRIME that Sarah Michelle Gellar never got an emmy for this show. A CRIME. Also, is it just me, or is SMG really pretty in this episode? I mean, prettier than usual? When she goes to stop the apocalypse, she really dresses for the occasion.
You can't save the world if you ain't cute. lol. But all jokes aside I thought the exact same thing about Amber Benson in family.(I love that episode its a shame that was the only Tara-centric one we got to see)
+mattienicole b I cheered when Tara died. My whole family did, we HATED Tara. Nothing else in the series compares to the end of this episode but certainly not Tara.
Her "mind" has been torchured, her "soul" believes she could still get him back, but her "heart" coldly lies to her so she can find the strength to do what she must. That's how I saw that scene playing out, moral judgment on Xander's character aside. I am enjoying the rewatch of your videos. Again, well done, Sir. 👍
Symbolic name or overthinking it? An artistically-minded friend of mine pointed out that Whistler is the name of a painter whose most famous work is in grey, black and white. So is the name a deliberate reference to how the character Whistler exists between different worlds - good and evil, demons and "angels" - and how he sees more subtleties in the characters' situations that they can see?
I think Xander's comment - and his attitude toward Angel, and later Spike - can be attributed to a simplistic view put forth in The Harvest: "I don't like vampires. I'm gonna take a stand and say they're not good." And he's never moved from that stand. All the way through to Season 7.
Except Xander could have told her "Willow is preparing the spell to restaure Angel's soul. Don't let him awaken Acathla by any means". Xander put in jeopardy the safety of the world just for Buffy to kill Angel.
@@argo1221 I don't see how knowing about Willow trying the spell again would have in any way changed how hard she's gonna try and stop Angelus waking Acathla. Would it have made her go faster, fight harder?? Every strategy would have started with keeping Angelus away from Acathla for as long as possible, whether Angel got his soul back or not. But IF the spell didn't work, or it took too long, going into the fight thinking "Angel's gonna come back... any moment noooow...." would have been detrimental and possibly disastrous. Xander should not have lied. But it would have made things so much harder for Buffy to do what she had to do with that in her mind the whole time. And in the end, it didn't matter, because Angelus was ready to pull the sword out when they got there.
@@NCC-1701_no_bloody_a_b_c_or_d If Buffy would have known about it, she may have adopted another strategy and concentrate on Angel instead of the sidekick. When she made her entrance, she cut off the head of one vampire, so maybe she'd have changed that she'd have stabbed them in the back quickly to then fight with Angel. That is the difference.
@@argo1221 I still don't think it would have made a difference. Angelus was about to DESTROY THE WORLD (emphatic voice), there shouldn't have been any other strategy than trying to keep him away from Acathla. But (watching through this series again), as much as I disagree with Xander lying, and especially how in Dead Mans Party he's completely oblivious to how much it meant to Buffy, can't help but think about how much Buffy would have blamed herself for. There was no stopping Angelus, he had one goal, to pull the sword out. That was pretty much impossible to stop happening. Once Dru got into Gile's head, I don't think there's anything Buffy could have done to stop it. There was no other strategy she could have implemented. But knowing the whole time, she would have undoubtedly blamed herself more after for not being able to stop it.
I always related to the scene where Buffy tells her mom she's the slayer, since I saw it as coming out. The whole have you tried not beeing the slayer and the "couldn't even if I wanted to" kinda gave me the feeling.
Yes! I always thought of this too. I had a lot of friends in high-school come out to their parents and in turn had the same reaction and ended up sleeping on my couch.
I love this show so much that I can't help but always think up solutions for any Buffy continuity errors so here I go lol. 1. Buffy wasn't using abrupt strength against the police woman. They had guns, she knew the situation and still had a respect for the police then up until she heard she was getting arrested, then she decided to open a can of whoop-ass! Plus Buffy has held back on her slayer strength before. 2. Drew went unconscious not because Spike was cutting off her no oxygen to the brain, but because he was choking her so hard that it disturbed blood to the brain. It's vampire science how blood still flows without a beating heart. But Spike pointed out in season 5 that's why vampires eat it, because it keeps them alive. So blood must still have its own way of working for the vamps. Good review. I look forward to them. I've watched Buffy repeatedly again and again since I was six and even still whilst watching it I find something new that I may not have noticed before. The show is just that deep. You bring some more subtle but intelligent things to my attention about the show that I still have never really noticed before so I really enjoy these reviews... and sometimes you're just so funny! :D
I actually thought of it like this (regarding Dru): Vampires still choose to breathe, a lot of em, regardless of whether they need it or not. So it's like a habit. When Spike forcefully removes that from her, it triggers shock to her system which is why she passed out. She may not need to breathe, but that doesn't stop it from hurting when she can't do it anymore. That's just my take though.
I definitely agree that Buffy probably has an innate switch for her Slayer strength, which is why she was so shocked at herself in Ted (🎵 _Come and knock on our door..._ 🎶). And there's one episode in a later season where she punches a guy and he shouts in pain, and she is surprised to find he is just a regular mugger. So she feels puny little human arms holding her back, and she immediately turns off her strength.
I watched this episode so many times I can recite every line, and yet even now, years later, when the spell works and Angel says "Buffy...?" I have to look away from the screen because feels.
I remember watching this when it came on television, one episode per week. (Yeah, I'm old). I'm not sure if they still show this in the credits or not, but when this episode was done and the credits were rolling, and I was sitting there, shook and broken-hearted, the Mutant Enemy alien came across the screen and instead of it's usual "grr arg" it said "Oo, I need a hug". Me too buddy. Me too.
One of my favorite episode so much gold. Hello cutie" But I have to save the world ..again" with that scene Buffy was becoming adult right in front of Joyce. You must perform the ritual in a tutu Pillock"love Giles No weapons no friends no hope take all that away and what's left? ME." Then close your eyes scene where they shot and stab me a same time.
I think the episode Ted kind of explains to me why Buffy doesn't break free of the cops' hold. She has already made the mistake of using slayer strength on a human, I think she just doesn't allow herself the possibility of doing it again. I don't think this is a conscious decision, though, just a sort of self-regulation she's grown
The ending to Becoming Part 2 is easily one of my favourite season endings let alone episode endings. I much prefer later seasons like 5 and 6 but as a finale Becoming Part 2 does its job beautifully and perfectly encapsulates why season 2 is so enjoyable.
The finale is epic. All i can say... the first time I saw it definitely left a mark and left me seeing the show in all new perspective somehow - the not so happy ending was refreshing and really nailed down the choices Buffy had to make in her life (to grow up and take responsibility), not to mention the amazing portrayal and chemistry of all the characters.
Something about what makes Buffy (and Joss) special is its ability to make you feel, crying (in Becoming, The Body, The Gift, and some others) or laughing out loud (Tabula Rasa or Triangle, for me). Even when you're watching an episode again, and again - you really feel along with the characters.
As a Romanian, I loved how they used Romanian for spells up til season 2, then changed to Latin. Jenny and her spells/clan were speaking Romanian and she had a Romanian name ! so cool
I'm still partial to the headcanon that it was Jenny that was speaking through Willow. The door that opened could have been Jenny coming through from the afterlife to fulfill the last thing she intended to do, and thereby earning her forgiveness. 😢
This is the episode that changed everything for me. My brother had been watching Buffy for a while, but even though I had seen and enjoyed the movie, I was completely uninterested in it. Then I walked past the TV as Spike's speech about saving the world and happy meals was playing, and I was rooted to the spot, No going back after that. In fact it's one of the strongest memories I have of that year, lol.
Okay, you got me, I'm hooked. My sister attended your panel at Denver Comic Con 2016 and had me watch it. I then watched your 'why you should watch Buffy' and '...Angel.' I said what the hell, my sister loves this and this guy brings up some interesting points, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Made it through the giant mantis and the creatures from the black lagoon, and now I can't stop watching. I watch a couple shows, jump on your channel, watch the reviews, and then back to the show. If only work didn't get in the way of my Buffy watching. Thanks so much for the analyses. I really enjoy them. On to season 3!
I watched the whole 7 seasons in 6 weeks -on holiday with my son! He was 12 turning 13 and said: "another one, let's watch another one." It changed the way he viewed television. Now he doesn't want to watch anything else! Mr Nerd's reviews are brilliant though
perfect review. what I love about Buffy is that it has this inherent and obvious moral to each and every episode and moment. but you can keep diving deeper and deeper and deeper. ive been re watching the show for years and every time i do i make new connections and understandings. its truly amazing how all these little stories do connect into something bigger, but even if you dont see those patterns, its still got this epically beautiful tale.
To PotN... I'm never sure it its worth posting on Videos when my posts were like 4 years ago... but you did reply to one of mine 2 nights ago... I just want to thank you for these reviews which I really enjoy, and which adds more to a series I loved when I watched it for the first time nearly 20 years ago... and on all the reruns since, When Buffy was first shown on UK TV is was the same evening as my Driving Lessons; I caught one or two episodes - like the one with disappearing Marcy - and I thought it was mildly diverting - and then I caught this (double) episode.... and I was hooked..... Becoming 2 is the only rival to 'The Gift' as my No 1 episode... I had no idea who the characters were apart from Buffy - I assumed The Whistler was a major part of the series.. But Both Becomings were bathed in a mystery, helped by the score, and the slow-mo of Buffy running back to the library with the voice over that you include here bout the moments in life etc etc.... Of course the episode grew in meaning when I knew all the back story
I am one of those people who practically hated Xander with a fiery passion during my first watch of BTVS, and since then have developed a lot of involuntary and reactive compassion for him, and hence have become not only a Xander apologist, but also a hardcore Xander fan. This is in regards to his most controversial act in this episode, his not telling Buffy what related to her directly and what she absolutely deserved to know. When I first watched it, i was outraged, because it's one of my first demands in any relationship to be respected, not patronized, not lied to and not be manipulated. Since then though, even though i still think Xander let himself and Buffy down, i have stumbled upon a few realizations that made me look at Xander's conduct in it in a completely new light. Of all the discourse surrounding it, i have heard of a few explainations provided for his behaviour. 1. He is jealous of Angel (which i never gave credit to even on first watch, it seems a little too one-dimentional for a character as complex as Xander). 2. He hates all vampires due the whole thing with Jesse and is hence incapable of distinguishing between Angel and Angelus. 3. He doesn't trust Buffy to actually be objective and kill him because she has been sparing him and letting him get to her a few too many times now. But it never occured to me before this could have a little something to do with his home life, of which we know very little. Maybe he is too used to his father being violent under the influence of alcohol at his mom as well as everyone, and then later changing tactics to manipulation when he is sober; maybe his standard response to that kind of terrorization is not to stop and think about what version of a monster the victims are dealing with, but to instinctively abhor and despise the whole cycle at once and wish for its termination at any cost. Maybe he has watched his mother give his father a few too many chances in face of overwhelming evidence that she shouldn't do it to not recognize the same behaviour in Buffy, for whom we know his feelings have been changing from romantic to protective big-brotherly. None of that makes it right, but somehow that fact that it never occured to me before makes me give him an excuse.
Also, I personally have realized that a lot of Xander hate I felt before is because the actor just isn't good at portraying pain. Nicolas Brendon is an actor with great chemistry with practically everyone and with amazing comedic timing, but he really falls short in pathos, the only emotion I see from him in very emotional moments is either anger or a shell-shocked face. I have come to believe that Xander is a very tragic character in BTVS, second only to Buffy, and if only I felt his pain more in his performance rather than having to infer it from my own analysis, I would have loved him infinitely more. Just take into account Willow-Xander-Buffy situation in season 1 through 2. Willow is behaving towards Xander exactly like Xander is behaving towards Buffy, but we hate Xander constantly for the crime of falling in love with Buffy and being petty about it, while we feel so much for Willow and just want her to be happy. Why? Answer- Alyson Hannigan can make us cry with just those wet eyes and that quivering lip of hers.
I used to completely hate Xander for lying to Buffy like that and that it was never brought up again. After rewatching, I’d like to believe Buffy knows Willow better than that because they are so close. She knew Xander was lying and didn’t bring it up because no matter the outcome, she knew what she had to do. I know this is late, but I’m binge watching for the umpteenth time and love the explanation I forget to comment.
Damn you for opening old wounds and making me cry again. :) Phenomenal job on the videos (the Becoming 1 and 2). Easily in my top 5 episodes (you have to lump these two together), maybe top 1 or 2? Love Whistler's speech at the end of part 1. I totally agree with you that Whedon weaved a masterpiece with this episode. It makes you think that this was where he wanted Buffy to be (the initial movie and Season 1 / most of Season 2). You have to grow into the characters and the universe before an episode like this. You put Becoming at the end of Season 1 (too soon) and you don't get the same emotional reaction. You save it till Season 3 and you may not get a Season 3. Perfectly timed and paced. I need to find my tissues. /end scene
Oh god, I've just got something in my eye.... Great reviews. I agree that Becoming Part 2 is an episode to just 'gush' about. It truly is so well-written, beautifully directed and wonderfully judged in all particulars. As for Xander's lie: ooh, let's not go there, we could all argue about that for a decade or so. As, indeed, we all have. I am vastly relieved that you are promising to review up to Season 4 AND Angel. Thank you so much for that. Now I have to go and wash my face and put my t-shirt in the tumble-dryer: nothing on TV has ever affected me like Buffy and these reviews bring it all back every time. Thanks!
Nicely done Ian. The season 2 finale was a brilliant tapestry of interweaving storylines that Whedon brought together masterfully for maximum dramatic impact, and as you said, it was devastating. The first time I watched it I was powerfully reminded of an experience I had around the time it would have originally aired, even though I didn't see it back then, where I was forced away from many people I loved when I was younger. Buffy's leaving at the end alone, without comfort or closure, brought it all back and I actually went into a depressive episode for several days. Even the Sarah McLachlan piece they used in the episode is from an album I was listening to at the time. The show's gone to some weighty dramatic places in it's run, but this one was actually painful for me to experience the first time through. The first several episodes of season six are like that as well, because Geller portrays severe depression so well, which I live with, that it's uncomfortable to watch. I was thinking about Xander, but I haven't read anything on any fan sites or whatnot, so I probably don't have anything to say that other people haven't said a thousand times. But my personal take on it is that when it comes to Buffy and romance, that's his drug, like magicks for Willow. It's his blind spot, this crawling dark side that never goes away in the series where his judgment can't be trusted. Even if his motives are pure, and I don't think they always are, when it comes to this his ability to see clearly gets all clouded with his desire and jealousy and resentment, and he does reckless, destructive things. So yes, I agree with you that he's putting himself and his own judgment ahead of Buffy here but I don't necessarily think it's even so altruistic as to just be about strategy. I think there's other elements too, both positive and negative. For one, I think he assumes that Buffy's resolve might weaken if she still thinks there's a chance to get Angel back so she might lose. But I think there's also just the simple desire to get Angel gone, and all the different motivations just swim together into a rationalization gumbo in his head.
Funny, looking back at Spike deciding to help Buffy because he likes the world as it is and thinks Angel's scheme to destroy it is crazy, it kind of foreshadows Wolfram and Hart's approach to THE Apocalypse as the world continues as it is and doesn't get obliterated.
Man, this episode gets me every time. Even after all these years and after watching the show at least 6 times... The feels. Oh, and also, great reviews, love them :)
Ian, I'm beginning to think that you're a warlock. No one can put out two amazing Buffy reviews in one day without calling on the powers of darkness... Nevertheless, great job! Becoming pt. 2 is one of my favorite episodes of anything ever. Most shows will never have an episode as great as Becoming in their entire run. It's the perfect blend of drama, comedy, romance, action, suspense, and shocking moments all rolled into one phenomenal episode. If I did a review of this episode I would have to give about 45 minutes of commentary in order to do it justice, but you managed to do it in 12 minutes. Very impressive. Already looking forward to the next season!
I just finished rewatching season two. I took it one episode at a time and watched the guide of the episode after each full episode and there it one thing I've taken away more than anything: this show can be soul destroying. Excuse me while I go have a good cry now
I've found your reviews completely by accident but I have never appreciated this series more than after hearing them. I started watching Buffy at a very young age with my Dad when I had the seasons on VHS, but me and him still watch this series together on Netflix to this day and there's so much depth to it that I have missed for all these years. But saying that, I think that's what makes the show so great. It is enjoyable on so many levels to suit people who are looking for different things within a show and it satisfies those. I got through your reviews of S1 and S2 in a day and I am absolutely hooked, cannot wait for the coming seasons! Keep up the good work.
The "kick his ass" line wouldn't bother me as much if it wasn't for the fact that Xander never faces any consequences for it. He lies to Buffy's face and puts words in Willow's mouth and just gets away with it and that angers me cause what he did was wrong plain and simple.
@@GreyDeathVaccine Yes! His lie made Buffy feel isolated and was definitely a big factor in her running to LA. Yet he’s one of the characters who is the biggest asshole to her when she gets back. Xander is a terrible friend.
ive said this b4 and ill say it again season 2 is my personal favorite season! it had enough funny/candy episodes while still maintaining the overall arc & big bad. i love the look of this season and the big bad (spike/dru but really angelus). i think this is the first episode i watched in the series where i was like wow anything can happen who knew a show about a vampire slayer could get this emotional?! little did i know.. great guide as usual! us buffy fans appreciate it
Pretty spot on review. Love how you focused on finally 'meeting Spike.' This is the Spike I love. Although, I've loved him since I met him in School Hard. In fact, I met James in 6/07.
I always thought Xander was selfish for not telling her but then I thought about what happened when they tried it before. I think him not telling her was to keep everyone alive rather than die. Buffys motivation in the fight would have changed and mistakes could have been made. Instead she went in with one purpose. When before she was distracted and missed the lure. I watched buffy as a teen so Xanders action not to tell her pissed me off but then as an adult my perspective shifted. This wasn't about killing Angel this was about keeping buffy alive.
STOP PLAYING WITH MY FEELINGS! That entire montage at the end was brilliantly sad. All of your reviews so far have been fantastic and your channel has become one of my favourites. I eagerly await your take on season 3!!
The police are examined much more through Kate in Angel, I was always a little curious about exactly what was going on in the Sunnydale PD. I almost wonder if maybe the initiative plot would have been better served by it being the Sunnydale Police Department ratcheting up now that the mayor was gone. The groupthink themes explored with Riley could also have worked with the cops too...
My mom thinks that Buffy isn't a very sophisticated show, but it's episodes like this that make me think she's wrong. The show doesn't do want it thinks the audience wants. It does what it thinks the audience needs, and that's really what makes this show so incredible.
THE GEEK CLUB I'm sure your mother is a lovely person but in this case she incorrect. The writers are beyond ambitious with their themes...even when they sometimes don't work. :-)
I am going through a rewatch of all you reviews because one of my best friends is finally watching the show (took me years of begging but it’s worth it!) and I want to say THANK YOU because I noticed the subtitles are perfect now. My English is not perfect, so this gives me the opportunity to finally understand the reviews 100% and it makes me appreciate them even more. Thank you for this awesome work 🙏
Xander's lie has never bothered me. Buffy spent the entire second half of the season refusing to make the choice her heart (Xander) knew she had to. She didn't do it because she loved Angel, because Buffy never entertains the notion that Angelus and Angel are the same person. She, the ego, simply refuses to let go of her love story, of her somewhat childish notion of her prince on a white horse. Willow, her super-ego, as a result looks for other options and finds one, in the form of the curse. Whereas Xander, the id, is a slave to emotion, to guilt, and he punishes Buffy, the ego, for it repeatedly. Remember, Angel was killing and torturing off screen during this half of the season. This guilt and punishment was warrented. Xander was clearly planning to tell Buffy about the curse, but at the last moment he decides not to. Buffy's heart hardens itself and decides it cannot trust the ego and the super-ego to make the right decisions, because they have refused to before. So Xander takes away Buffy's choice and passes it to the slayer, who we see Buffy pass the front wheel to during the fight with Angelus and when she decides to kill Angel despite the soul. As Whistler states, this is one of the moment's which make Buffy who she is and this is a choice that she repeats over and over again throughout the series. Every season it takes less effort to shut out her friends out and to give the slayer (her adult self) the reigns. It also isn't a coincidence that by the end of the series (spoiler alert) the only one Buffy truly trusts is Spike (the slayer's mirror image). Willow, her super-ego, has fallen after to delusions of grandeur and an obsession with control and Xander, the id, has allowed his future (his wedding to Anya) to be destroyed by irrational fears. Even her younger self (Dawn and the potentials) betrays her in the end. The only one she can count on is the slayer.
I never did understand the logic of Angel’s curse: he gets happy and loses his soul? How is that a punishment? Angelus doesn’t care he doesn’t have a soul. Angelus is truly happy killing and torturing. It would have made sense for Angel to know he could never really be happy when he had a soul so that he would be scared to lose it and understand the consequences of that. That would be punishment - to know you cannot allow yourself to be happy-ever..
Best episode of the entire series. Yes, above OMWF, Restless and The Body. Those are all masterpieces in their own right and I adore them, but this episode is the complete package - humour, action, sadness, depth and meaning (and I'm a sucker for flashbacks). To be fair though, it's pointless to rate certain episodes against others. The other episodes I mentioned are the Palm D'Ors of the Cannes Film Festival, Becoming Part 2 (as well as Graduation Part 2 and The Gift) are my Oscars for Best Film.
AAAAHHHhh this is so good! thank you so much for these reviews, man. You did justice to a mind-blowingly awesome episode. I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you're doing here, so I'll just jump to the little bits that jumped to my mind during the review: - I always liked this episode's focus on CHOICE, and the fact that each of the main characters makes a hard choice, and braces himself to deal with the consequences: 1)Willow chooses to attempt dangerous magic to help her friend, and has no idea what the consequences of that are, yet. 2) Xander chooses not to tell Buffy of Willow's choice, and also has no idea if his choice payed off. 3) Joyce chooses to put a hard ultimatum on her daughter, in the hopes of protecting her, and pays the price. 4) Cordelia chose to save herself in the library fight, and as a result, discovers that her disregard for the world around her, makes that world disregard her as well ("I must have ran 7 blocks before I realized that no one was chasing me"). That seems to fit Cordy's role as Buffy's immature shadow-self - If Buffy chose to avoid her responsibility, she would become meaningless, she would be nothing (As Willow would one day tell Faith: "You were a slayer, and now you're nothing, you're just a big, selfish, worthless waste"). 5) Spike chose to betray his role as a vampire (in contrast to Buffy, who finally embraces her role as a slayer) to save his love, Dru, but Dru turns against him, implying that he lost her - just like Buffy lost her love, Angel. And of course, you covered Buffy's choice perfectly. God I love this episode. - You seemed to imply that you thought Buffy's "I think I was in heaven" speech from 'After Life' was "clumsy"? Look, I'm an atheist, and that speech (and that episode) is one of my favorite things in the entire show: 1) Buffy doesn't say she was in heaven, she literally says she "thinks" she was in heaven. That is significant in my opinion - Buffy fell through a dimensinal portal when she died, so it makes perfect sense that she would go to a different dimension, a heaven-ish dimension, instead of just dying. I don't see it as a confirmation that there's an after-life in the Buffyverse. We never see any reason to believe that anyone else who dies goes to a christian heaven or hell in the show. Death in the Buffyverse is still just as uncertain as it is in our world. 2) Buffy's description actually sounds similiar to real people's descriptions of a near-death-experience, and that fits perfectly to Buffy's storyline in that season - she suffers from depression after going through a near-death-experience (on the metaphorical level, of course. On the literal level, it's just a plain old "death-experience"). It's a lot easier to relate to that than to a "post-death trauma". Of course, the main function this scene has to fulfill is just to establish a tangible reason for Buffy's season-long depression (Not that depression always starts because of a single traumatic event, but as a story, it works better that way. The audience needs a "cause-and-effect" scenario to really FEEL what Buffy's feeling) and I think it does that brilliantly. 3) As I said, I'm an atheist, but when I think about what death would be like... well, I don't KNOW, and I BELIEVE that death just leads to a big fat nothing, but when I think about what the "best-case-scenario" would be like for death - I think about something that's very similiar to what Buffy describes in this monologue. It's beautiful, which provides a brilliant contrast to the heartbreaking situation Buffy's in, in that scene. 4) That speech is just really emotional for me, OK? - I actually read somewhere that, when Spike chokes Dru, he's using a technique that's meant to stop the flow of BLOOD to the head, not air. So, that's nice. If it's true. - I noticed some really nice parallels between "Becoming" and "Graduation Day" in my last rewatch: 1) At the end of "Becoming, part 1", Buffy finds Kendra's dead body, and is blamed for it. At the end of "Graduation day, part 1", Buffy looks at Faith's unconscious, dying body, for which she IS responsible, and is NOT blamed for it. 2) In "Becoming", Joyce uses that infamous ultimatum to get Buffy to not fight against the end of the world. In "Graduation Day", Joyce and Buffy have a heart-warming conversation, in which Buffy explains the situation to Joyce, and Joyce leaves town as Buffy requests. Yay, character growth. 3) In "Becoming", Xander tells the infamous lie to Buffy. At the end of "Graduation Day", Xander tells Buffy that Angel survived the battle, although she doesn't even ask him. Yay, character growth, number 2. 4) In "Becoming", Cordelia flees from battle, and takes no part in stopping Angel. In "Graduation Day", she fights with everyone in the battle, and stakes her first vamp. Yay, character growth, number 3. 5) In "Becoming", Buffy "kills" Angel. In "Graduation Day", Buffy risks both her life and her morals to save his life. Yay, character... deterioration? *sigh*, I really don't like the Buffy-Angel relationship in the second half of season 3. Parallels are cool, though.
Guy R Great stuff. I'll have to think about it after I catch up on sleep. But for reference sake I LOVE that Season 6 speech by Buffy as well. I just found dancing around the heaven stuff a bit ham handed. I'll think about what you said though. That review is a LONG way off. :-)
The Passion of the Nerd Oh. I actually thought, while writing about the "after life" scene, that I was writing an essay-long rant about a second-long tidbit, but my love for the scene trumped all reason, heh. Thanks for the reply. this comments section is a goldmine.
As I said on a previous video, your channel is so easily 'becoming' (pun intended) my favourite on UA-cam. I hope you keep making these wonderful videos, embracing each day and continuing to love life. :)
as for Spike choking-out Drusilla, and this is a stretch-hypothetitcal at best... It's possible that vampires still need the flow of blood to their brains for them to stay conscious (also how do they get knocked out, EVER? should be nearly impossible but I digress)-That kind of choke-hold would cut off blood flow to the brain thus rendering her temporarily unconscious. In humans to a severe degree it can kill them or cause brain damage
I gave myself the same sort of explanation. A vampire's heart does not beat. So how does the blood flow around the body? General anatomy requires the flow of blood for the body to work. It's mechanics. Now, a vampire is a dead body with a demon inside so I think suspension of disbelief and a little bending of science is allowed. I love the lore of Buffy and while "a wizard did it" is a bit of a cheat, trying to really explain all the logistics is both exciting and potentially burdensome. So I tend to go with: While the heart isn't beating - perhaps as a representation of inhumanity and a clear sign of being undead - regardless of why, whatever demonic or mystic power inhabits the body leverages the existing plumbing to keep things going so stopping that flow of energy by a measure such as constriction is enough of an excuse to keep me happy. 'Cause, they also turn to dust when they are stabbed with a piece of wood in the heart, one could argue that demonic/mystic force holding things together has to let go and that destroys it (since the excuse of the age of the body doesn't work considering the freshly buried and then risen also dissolve to dust). Then there is the "no breath" thing, yet vampires can speak. Perhaps interpreting this as life-giving breath (CPR), the actual way a human body utilises oxygen/carbon-dioxide. Since the heart isn't pumping the blood to operate the body, perhaps the general organ behaviour that would allow CPR to work doesn't either. But they can still talk. After all, they need to seduce their prey. And one could even stretch that to go with choking affecting the simulated "air" rather than "blood" for the same result. The demon still needs to trick the body into working somehow. But a basement full of gas doesn't affect that simulation of "air" going in and around and out again as the actual oxygen isn't required just the act of tricking the body into working. So when that "air" or "blood" is stopped by a choke hold even the demonic power can't override the mechanics of the body saying it needs to stop working for a bit. The demon still has to play the body's game even if it cheats most of the time. Just thinking out loud.
I, personally, agree with you on the matter of Xander’s omission. That being said, I would be very interested in hearing your counter to the common argument/s. Specifically, that in this case, Xander was well aware of how the news might impact Buffy on an emotional level and lead to her inability to act rationally, or inability to act at all. While I don’t agree with this, I’ve never been able to necessarily support my argument. Further, there’s a couple of episodes often cited that support Xander’s concern (I unfortunately don’t recall which). Generally, I would still argue and not believe that it is solely up to him to be judge, jury and executioner. However, in this case, it’s often said that he’s acting for the greater good of the world, and not just Buffy or the Scooby’s best interests. Where it’s common for Buffy and the Scoobies to be in danger, an instance where the entire world is at risk changes things dramatically. I’ve often pondered over this one, so I’d be very eager to hear your thoughts and opinion.
I have no idea whether you will even see this question, but if you do, I just want to express my gratitude for this entire series of videos. The effort you put into it doesn’t go without notice. Whether it’s one week, one month, or one year between videos, just know you’ll have at least one fan always ready and awaiting its release. We appreciate not just your work, but you yourself. The videos wouldn’t be the same without your captivating personality and stellar commentary. So, thank you! ❤
I stayed up until 3 am watching all of your Buffy reviews. The reviews are genius, and funny, and gives an incredible amount of insight that I completely missed while watching the series 50 million times. I love this show so much and I'm so happy I found your channel because it's been helping me to understand the show SO much better. I can't wait for the Season 3 reviews!!
+Mara Rogers Thanks for the good word. Just another couple weeks till season 3 I think. I'm AIMING to do Why You Should Watch Angel next week and then Buffy Season 3 the week after. Aiming. Best intentions and all that.
Definitely my favourite finale of the series. I can remember watching it on tele for the first time back when it originally aired, and it still gets me as much as it did back then. So much to discuss but...redundant. A+ episode and review! I love your videos.
My favourite review so far... You go into detail about things I never even think about and I've watched the series 1,000 times! Your articulate insight is the reason I watch.. I hope you're getting paid for these reviews, you're so professional. Great job 👍🏼
Love your beautiful montage at the end. I love your guides, because they are not only entertaining, they also make me better understand the show's metaphors. I'm looking forward to season 3 :D
Passion of the Nerd i love your recaps. You bring up sooo many things about the Buffy-verse I never noticed. I also love reading the comments and your buffy loving watchers bringing in their own ideas and thoughts. Its time for a rewatch with a fresh set of eyes. My bf is going to be THRILLED 😜
It is this episode that makes Joss's comic so unbelievable for me.. Buffy and Angel are the definition of love,... not lust or convenience like some of their past relationships have been. I don't believe in souls or soul mates but this kind of relationship comes pretty close - they would be together no question about it given half a chance. In 'Chosen' Angel laid it on the table that if she wanted a relationship he'd give her one now.. and I get her choice to find herself - but I still find it incredibly hard to believe that after watching scenes like Becoming and in I Will Remember You they wouldnt hesitate in being together once the dust has settled.
Bloody wonderful video it reminded me of why I love Buffy so much. From this point onwards it really gets better. Thank you Sir again for all your fine work and effort.
One of the most heart breaking scenes in the series. I always cry. SMG is such an amazing actress and her face in these scenes always really gets to me.
Thank you so much for this recaps. First of all I hate you and I love you for the last montage of Buffy & Angel story, it's been 17 years and I still cry like a baby everytime I watch that stupid scene. Damn you Whedon! I'm a grown up woman I shouldn't be crying over a fictional couple, especially after all these years! I honestly don't know how I feel about Xander. Yeah he's a good guy at heart, but his motives in season 2 came from a very selfish place, from his broken ego. And that's something that we keep seeing throught the show's entire run (the speech he gives to buffy when Riley is leaving, anyone?). I love him as a comedy relief and his friendship with Willow it's very beatiful to watch, but to this day I can't figure out how I feel about him. PS: English is not my first language, I apologize for any grammar/spelling mistake.
Thought I would watch some old faves while waiting for Pangs! 39,070 views!! Wow, i remember when this was at around 1000. Well done PTN. This is so well deserved.
What a good and developed guide and I must say, it was edited beautifully! By the end I was crying so much that it was ridiculous! A brilliant episode and a brilliant review. Congratulations on the channel, I am a big fan!
I am loving your episode commentary's as they are very enjoyable to watch. And it gives another take on the episodes and the charters that I haven't thought of before. I can't wait to see you cover the rest of the episodes. And I hope you do the Angel episodes after you finish the Buffy episodes.
This episode was the best episode of Buffy I’ve seen so far. It was so emotional for me going through also it made me fall totally in love with spike already 🤧 and the ending brought tears as she left. Poor Buffy.
This was an excellent review! I love how you tie up a narrative thread that you've slowly touched on in other reviews this season. Well thought out and on point.
Love that three's company music bit when John Ritter kicks slayer kicked. Also love ur firefly reviews and would absolutely love more if you're in a place to get it done. Hope all is well!
Slowly working my way through your reviews, and I don't ever think I've watched commentary I've enjoyed more, and that includes some of the BIG UA-cam names in the genre! Also you're commentary is so progressive and thoughtful, really working through the meanings of the episodes rather then just touching the surface! I can't wait to see more!
This is some of best commentary I've seen on this show and this episode in particular. Thank you for your work and your insight. It's touched me to no end.
Really like your analysis and review of the show. It was written so well, and so well thought out (apart from some) . I can re-watch the whole series and never get tired. Find it frustrating that I can't explain how well it is written and made to recommend to friends (!) Thanks for your videos.
Man… I watched the whole Episode Guide of Season 2 b2b now during Home Office. I‘m pretty stressed out currently with a lots of stuff. Buffy just gives me a warm comfort and relxing feeling. Your episode Guides are such a good way to revisit this universe without watching the whole show again… which I‘m forcing myself not to 😅 Think I should watch some different show at some point… but everything seems to drive me back to this… Anyway thank you so much for your Episode Guide ❤
I really enjoy your reviews and thoughts on these episodes. I do just want to say that I disagree with how you imply that Angel and Buffy didn't have adult love (to an extent). Or that their relationship did not allow Buffy to be her authentic self. I have always felt like these two inspire and bring out the best in each other. Yeah, there are times when it has grown unhealthy, mostly in season 3 once they realized that their relationship couldn't continue, however still tried. But for the majority of season 2 and 3 (and in Angels appearances in future episodes) they really do love each other unselfishly and want what's best for the other. I think you are correct to an extent that their love isn't yet a fully adult love (as they are both new to love - Buffy in that she is young, Angel in that he has never had that kind of love in his life), so they make young mistakes and let themselves get lost in each other, however it's never come across to me as obsessive or unhealthy, just a young love that matures as they go on. I just never felt like her relationship with Angel during the second season was ever interfering with her slaying (in fact he helped her), and I never felt like she or Angel weren't their true selves with each other, I actually feel like they are their best selves with each other.
Angel Season 5: "Yeah, but I made her do it... I signaled her with my eyes..."
I love that part in "Angel"! xD
That might be the best joke in either series. It cracks me up every time.
Which episode is this? I’ve watched season 5 a million times but I don’t remember angel ever saying that.
@@justsomerandomwalker6557 It's in The Girl in Question. Angel and Spike are arguing over who's saved the world more, and Angel (hilariously and unconvincingly) tries to take credit for having stopped Acathla
@@VinylAndImaginary thanks, I’ll go rewatch that episode
Buffy's confrontation with Joyce is totally a coming out metaphor "Have you ever tried not being a slayer" "you need help"
Yeah, there was even a rainbow in the background. I was kinda surprised he didn't mention it. A little disappointed to being LGBT and all, but still an awesome review!
And the kicking out of the house.. That scene breaks my heart. I also wished he had talked about it, but I guess it's more obvious to some people.. And I forgive him because the review is *really* great!
Saybrooke Gayming Well, that topic has a much better outlet in later seasons.
@@lamuccafamuh I don't know that it's wholly fair or accurate to say Joyce "kicked out" Buffy in this episode though. I hear that reading a lot, but it in the episode, it actually was said as a ultimatum to attempt to prevent her from leaving the house (and only then after it became clear that she couldn't restrain Buffy any other way on top of the fact, that from her perspective, there were serious concerns that needed to be dealt with)
That's not to say (like much great fiction) there aren''t undertones into which people can read other specific life experiences, but in the mechanics of the narrative of this story, I think some of that requires a somewhat strained representation of what's presented one screen (though I don't think the potential subtext was unintentional either, but when this show really wants to deal with thematic topics, it tends to do so in a more straightforward way).
Meister Incognito
😜
One of my favourite things about this episode- how Buffy's "close your eyes" to Angel right before she kills him recalls Darla saying the same thing to him before she killed him. I love little continuity things like that.
Also- I became obsessed with the Sarah McLachlan song Full of Grace thanks to this episode. And on rewatch, I can safely say I still love it.
Katherine Hompes I love that song as well but that MAY be my only quibble with this episode. I omitted it because it is SUCH a quibble and I wanted the ending to be strong - but I really love how the show uses a lot of underground or unrecognizable bands. Using a song from such an iconic pop singer dates the episode to me. I wish they'd just let Beck do something a little more timeless.
Just me though.
The Passion of the Nerd It's not just you. I watched it years later, too, and so I instantly recognized Sarah McLachlan's voice and thought "Ohhh, the nineties."
The Passion of the Nerd It's not just you. I watched this show years later while I was an adult, too, and so I instantly recognized Sarah McLachlan's voice and thought "Ohhh, the nineties."
Katherine Hompes Can't believe I never noticed that continuity before. Brilliant!
@@PassionoftheNerd agreed. I didn't like that they used that song either. It took Buffy into reality too much... I wasn't rushing to find out who the band was... it was like oh... its the sad commercial song... it *almost* took away from the scene as distracting. Almost.
The whole "Xander not telling Buffy that Willow was trying the spell again" thing bothers me to no end. Probably more so than anything else in the series that bothers me. And I think what bothers me the most about it is that Buffy doesnt find out until much later on (I think either season 6 or 7) when its brought up mid argument, but as quickly as it is brought up it is dismissed, Buffy doesnt even comment on it. In my mind she should be PISSED! it is a big damn deal, she might have been able to save Angel had she known that she just needed to bide time.
Great review man, almost had me in tears at the end haha.
p.s One of my favourite Spike lines ever- "You hit me with an axe once, remember, get the hell away from my daughter"
thunder1soldier Always felt a bit weirdly fan-servicy when they brought it up again after all those years. Hell, I was surprised Buffy even remembered it. On the day you had to kill your beloved to save the world, where you also got expelled and thrown out by your mother, would you remember one line your mate said!?
Thats the thing though, she had to kill her boyfriend. If Xander told her, maybe she wouldnt have had to. I dont think she would have just shrugged it off when she found out. If you think about it- its a pretty shitty thing for a friend to do
thunder1soldier Am I the only one who really loves the way the lie is brought up in "Selfless"? At that point, it was so long ago that it seemed meaningless, and there was no reason to have a big debate about it, but by bringing it up, the writers made us really feel the HISTORY these characters have with each other. It made the "should we kill Anya?" debate feel incredibly important (which it was), and it showcased the way these characters RESENT one another for things - which becomes an important point in "Empty Places". I love it.
Guy R Thats an interesting perspective. Totally agree on the history thing, almost makes the characters seem more real.
thunder1soldier Oh yeah, it's awful of him, I'm not disputing that, just thought it was off in the s7 episode. Also, she didn't find out. She accuses both Xander and Willow of telling her to kick Angel's ass. If she'd found out Xander had lied about what Willow was doing then she would've just accused Xander in that episode.
Giles "perform the ritual in a tutu" line is just pure badass. Loved it.
Few things
1. We need to remember the 'knight' imagery around Angel. A virtuous knight killed Acathla. Angel as the 'dark' knight must pull the sword from the stone. This is used again later with Buffy and the Scythe. The comics touch on the idea that the Scythe's companion blade in Excalibur and that Whistler wasn't an angel, he was Merlin.
2. The episodes contrast Buffy and Angel's lives before being 'Chosen'. How they were called into the lives they have as slayer and vampire. Both living frivolous vapid existences.
3. I'll be very interested to hear how you compare the Gift to this episode. How Buffy is presented with the same choice and chooses differently. I'm shocked so few people get that Angel's blood is the key to hell in this episode. Buffy's would later be the key to heaven. The blood must stop to close the portal. Buffy chooses to sacrifice Angel but when presented the same choice later, she sacrifices herself. Their subsequent resurrections also need to be compared. How Whedon inverts our concepts of heaven and hell. Angel comes back from hell in a blaze of light from above and Buffy comes back from heaven in darkness from below.
Bloody brilliant. I love this CHANNEL! I hadn't thought of it as a comparison and allegory with The Gift.
04nbod FUCK
I really don't remember the 8/9 comics I didn't know about the Sword/Scythe or the Merlin thing
Oh wow, perfect comment! I hadnt thought of some of those things. God whedon’s a genius! An evil amazing genius lol
@@Kuudere-Kun I agree with you, she could sacrifice herself in the Gift to stop Hell from raising over because her blood was the same as Dawn's. I'm pretty sure she would have chosen any other option if she had any than killing Angel.
I've always called Buffy and Angel's relationship the "unattainable ideal". It's the kind of passionate, all-consuming, and beautiful love that every young girl dreams of but is never (or at least rarely) seen in real life. I just can't see them truly working as a couple to weather the everyday as well as the big, apocalyptic moments. That gets explored a bit more in season 3. That said, it breaks my heart to see them end the way they do. First loves are tough.
That damn song. Every time. Its just the most tragic love story ever and it doesnt matter that I know the ending and I've seen it time and time again. It still hurts. No other show but buffy has resonated that strongly with me and I've seen lots of television. I wonder if we will ever see quality like this again.
We will, if Whedon writes and directs it XD
Also same my heartbreaks every time I hear the B/A music and I only just recently started watching the show (recent being about 2 weeks).
Awesome! I started watching in 2014 and was "Buffy's and love's bitch" from the get go (although the paraphrase is from S3). There have been 2 shows which have TOTALLY captured me: Leftovers and Rectify - other than the Buffster. I gave an old friend the first THREE seasons of Buffy on DVD 18 months ago. I even got an autograph from James Marsters but this 'friend' never bothered to watch. Talk about a waste. Can't please some :( Still, this is a great channel.
Three notes from Buffy and Angel's theme, and I am cry. It's awful. (Or, I mean, it's wonderful that music can move me so easily, but still.) Christophe Beck is an amazing composer, and I am so glad Buffy the Vampire Slayer had him.
That song never stopped haunting me. Still makes me cry even without also watching the show at the same time.
@@djdoc06 hmmmm 🤔. Not sure which song I was thinking of. Probably “Close Your Eyes” which is the Buffy and Angel theme
I love this episode for all the reasons you said and I am not ashamed to say that despite being a die hard Spuffy shipper I cry every single time Buffy says 'Close your eyes' and I don't stop for a considerable time after.
Knitting Mummy You and me both.
I still can't hear those three words in any context without the music coming unbidden to my head and my eyes stinging. 😭😭😭
Spike has so many amazing moments in this episode, one of my favorite for some reason is when he and Buffy are trying to pretend they're in a band and when Joyce asks him what he plays he responds "well I sing". It makes me laugh every time. Also I love that in the livingroom you can see he and Joyce are kind of wearing the same outfit
Joice or Joyce? 😮😅😮😅😮😅
This video... for the first time I actually felt something for Buffy’s relationship with Angel. Always understood it, never a fan of it; but I understood it to the point that despite me not being a fan, I knew it was needed for the development of both Buffy and Angel as separate characters.
I loved the emotions presented in “Becoming”, but it wasn’t until now that I actually felt it.
Still not a fan of their ship, but I sincerely thank you for this feeling.
What really got me in this episode was the acting. Every time either Buffy or Willow cries it feels like I'm getting hit in the soul with Olaf's hammer. You can actually see the exact moment when it sinks in to Buffy that she has to kill the love of her life. And the way Angel reaches out to her for help and she just has to sit back and watch. SO MUCH FEELS. The whole situation is so tragic and heart breaking. The only moment that can compete with this one was Tara's death in seeing red. THEY JUST GOT BACK TOGETHER. I waited so long for that I actually squealed when Tara was like "Can't we just skip it, can't you just be kissing me now?" It was so beautiful and- wait, what was I even talking about? It seems I got sucked into a vortex of fangirlism and and just started spewing out a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the episode at hand. Oops. My apologies.
mattienicole b It's a CRIME that Sarah Michelle Gellar never got an emmy for this show. A CRIME.
Also, is it just me, or is SMG really pretty in this episode? I mean, prettier than usual? When she goes to stop the apocalypse, she really dresses for the occasion.
You can't save the world if you ain't cute. lol. But all jokes aside I thought the exact same thing about Amber Benson in family.(I love that episode its a shame that was the only Tara-centric one we got to see)
mattienicole b Both Sarah and Allison are excellent at crying. I simply can't watch Willow cry, and hold it together myself.
+mattienicole b I cheered when Tara died. My whole family did, we HATED Tara. Nothing else in the series compares to the end of this episode but certainly not Tara.
@@aylabilse3697What? Why?
You've reignited my passion for Buffyverse. Dammit.
+Georgina Kaye I regret nothing
Her "mind" has been torchured, her "soul" believes she could still get him back, but her "heart" coldly lies to her so she can find the strength to do what she must. That's how I saw that scene playing out, moral judgment on Xander's character aside. I am enjoying the rewatch of your videos. Again, well done, Sir. 👍
Yes, Buffy is still a teenager in love. Xander lies because he know this
Symbolic name or overthinking it? An artistically-minded friend of mine pointed out that Whistler is the name of a painter whose most famous work is in grey, black and white. So is the name a deliberate reference to how the character Whistler exists between different worlds - good and evil, demons and "angels" - and how he sees more subtleties in the characters' situations that they can see?
I think Xander's comment - and his attitude toward Angel, and later Spike - can be attributed to a simplistic view put forth in The Harvest: "I don't like vampires. I'm gonna take a stand and say they're not good." And he's never moved from that stand. All the way through to Season 7.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and her sidekick
Xander the Vampire Hater 😅
Xander is buffy's heart / strength. when Xander lies to buffy, it really is buffy lying to herself to better prepare herself to kill angel.
I like it!
Except Xander could have told her "Willow is preparing the spell to restaure Angel's soul. Don't let him awaken Acathla by any means". Xander put in jeopardy the safety of the world just for Buffy to kill Angel.
@@argo1221 I don't see how knowing about Willow trying the spell again would have in any way changed how hard she's gonna try and stop Angelus waking Acathla. Would it have made her go faster, fight harder?? Every strategy would have started with keeping Angelus away from Acathla for as long as possible, whether Angel got his soul back or not. But IF the spell didn't work, or it took too long, going into the fight thinking "Angel's gonna come back... any moment noooow...." would have been detrimental and possibly disastrous. Xander should not have lied. But it would have made things so much harder for Buffy to do what she had to do with that in her mind the whole time.
And in the end, it didn't matter, because Angelus was ready to pull the sword out when they got there.
@@NCC-1701_no_bloody_a_b_c_or_d If Buffy would have known about it, she may have adopted another strategy and concentrate on Angel instead of the sidekick. When she made her entrance, she cut off the head of one vampire, so maybe she'd have changed that she'd have stabbed them in the back quickly to then fight with Angel. That is the difference.
@@argo1221 I still don't think it would have made a difference. Angelus was about to DESTROY THE WORLD (emphatic voice), there shouldn't have been any other strategy than trying to keep him away from Acathla.
But (watching through this series again), as much as I disagree with Xander lying, and especially how in Dead Mans Party he's completely oblivious to how much it meant to Buffy, can't help but think about how much Buffy would have blamed herself for. There was no stopping Angelus, he had one goal, to pull the sword out. That was pretty much impossible to stop happening. Once Dru got into Gile's head, I don't think there's anything Buffy could have done to stop it. There was no other strategy she could have implemented. But knowing the whole time, she would have undoubtedly blamed herself more after for not being able to stop it.
I always related to the scene where Buffy tells her mom she's the slayer, since I saw it as coming out.
The whole have you tried not beeing the slayer and the "couldn't even if I wanted to" kinda gave me the feeling.
Yes! I always thought of this too. I had a lot of friends in high-school come out to their parents and in turn had the same reaction and ended up sleeping on my couch.
I love this show so much that I can't help but always think up solutions for any Buffy continuity errors so here I go lol.
1. Buffy wasn't using abrupt strength against the police woman. They had guns, she knew the situation and still had a respect for the police then up until she heard she was getting arrested, then she decided to open a can of whoop-ass! Plus Buffy has held back on her slayer strength before.
2. Drew went unconscious not because Spike was cutting off her no oxygen to the brain, but because he was choking her so hard that it disturbed blood to the brain. It's vampire science how blood still flows without a beating heart. But Spike pointed out in season 5 that's why vampires eat it, because it keeps them alive. So blood must still have its own way of working for the vamps.
Good review. I look forward to them. I've watched Buffy repeatedly again and again since I was six and even still whilst watching it I find something new that I may not have noticed before. The show is just that deep. You bring some more subtle but intelligent things to my attention about the show that I still have never really noticed before so I really enjoy these reviews... and sometimes you're just so funny! :D
***** I can live with that. Thanks for the good word.
I love these explanations! Thank you :D
@@anotherlemontree you're welcome :)
I actually thought of it like this (regarding Dru): Vampires still choose to breathe, a lot of em, regardless of whether they need it or not. So it's like a habit. When Spike forcefully removes that from her, it triggers shock to her system which is why she passed out. She may not need to breathe, but that doesn't stop it from hurting when she can't do it anymore. That's just my take though.
I definitely agree that Buffy probably has an innate switch for her Slayer strength, which is why she was so shocked at herself in Ted (🎵 _Come and knock on our door..._ 🎶). And there's one episode in a later season where she punches a guy and he shouts in pain, and she is surprised to find he is just a regular mugger.
So she feels puny little human arms holding her back, and she immediately turns off her strength.
I watched this episode so many times I can recite every line, and yet even now, years later, when the spell works and Angel says "Buffy...?" I have to look away from the screen because feels.
I remember watching this when it came on television, one episode per week. (Yeah, I'm old). I'm not sure if they still show this in the credits or not, but when this episode was done and the credits were rolling, and I was sitting there, shook and broken-hearted, the Mutant Enemy alien came across the screen and instead of it's usual "grr arg" it said "Oo, I need a hug". Me too buddy. Me too.
One of my favorite episode so much gold.
Hello cutie"
But I have to save the world ..again" with that scene Buffy was becoming adult right in front of Joyce.
You must perform the ritual in a tutu Pillock"love Giles
No weapons no friends no hope take all that away and what's left?
ME."
Then close your eyes scene where they shot and stab me a same time.
I think the episode Ted kind of explains to me why Buffy doesn't break free of the cops' hold. She has already made the mistake of using slayer strength on a human, I think she just doesn't allow herself the possibility of doing it again. I don't think this is a conscious decision, though, just a sort of self-regulation she's grown
The ending to Becoming Part 2 is easily one of my favourite season endings let alone episode endings. I much prefer later seasons like 5 and 6 but as a finale Becoming Part 2 does its job beautifully and perfectly encapsulates why season 2 is so enjoyable.
The finale is epic. All i can say... the first time I saw it definitely left a mark and left me seeing the show in all new perspective somehow - the not so happy ending was refreshing and really nailed down the choices Buffy had to make in her life (to grow up and take responsibility), not to mention the amazing portrayal and chemistry of all the characters.
Beautifully edited, outstanding review. You're like BtVS itself - great humor, great pathos. Hearty well done.
Being a grownup (and a slayer) really sucks, sometimes...LOVED this review!
Thanks so much. This video means a lot to me.
Something about what makes Buffy (and Joss) special is its ability to make you feel, crying (in Becoming, The Body, The Gift, and some others) or laughing out loud (Tabula Rasa or Triangle, for me). Even when you're watching an episode again, and again - you really feel along with the characters.
As a Romanian, I loved how they used Romanian for spells up til season 2, then changed to Latin. Jenny and her spells/clan were speaking Romanian and she had a Romanian name ! so cool
I'm still partial to the headcanon that it was Jenny that was speaking through Willow. The door that opened could have been Jenny coming through from the afterlife to fulfill the last thing she intended to do, and thereby earning her forgiveness. 😢
@@JhadeSagrav havent watched buffy since i made this comment so i dont know the details enough to agree or disagree
This is the episode that changed everything for me. My brother had been watching Buffy for a while, but even though I had seen and enjoyed the movie, I was completely uninterested in it. Then I walked past the TV as Spike's speech about saving the world and happy meals was playing, and I was rooted to the spot, No going back after that. In fact it's one of the strongest memories I have of that year, lol.
Okay, you got me, I'm hooked. My sister attended your panel at Denver Comic Con 2016 and had me watch it. I then watched your 'why you should watch Buffy' and '...Angel.' I said what the hell, my sister loves this and this guy brings up some interesting points, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Made it through the giant mantis and the creatures from the black lagoon, and now I can't stop watching. I watch a couple shows, jump on your channel, watch the reviews, and then back to the show. If only work didn't get in the way of my Buffy watching. Thanks so much for the analyses. I really enjoy them. On to season 3!
I watched the whole 7 seasons in 6 weeks -on holiday with my son! He was 12 turning 13 and said: "another one, let's watch another one." It changed the way he viewed television. Now he doesn't want to watch anything else! Mr Nerd's reviews are brilliant though
perfect review. what I love about Buffy is that it has this inherent and obvious moral to each and every episode and moment. but you can keep diving deeper and deeper and deeper. ive been re watching the show for years and every time i do i make new connections and understandings. its truly amazing how all these little stories do connect into something bigger, but even if you dont see those patterns, its still got this epically beautiful tale.
To PotN... I'm never sure it its worth posting on Videos when my posts were like 4 years ago... but you did reply to one of mine 2 nights ago...
I just want to thank you for these reviews which I really enjoy, and which adds more to a series I loved when I watched it for the first time nearly 20 years ago... and on all the reruns since,
When Buffy was first shown on UK TV is was the same evening as my Driving Lessons; I caught one or two episodes - like the one with disappearing Marcy - and I thought it was mildly diverting - and then I caught this (double) episode.... and I was hooked..... Becoming 2 is the only rival to 'The Gift' as my No 1 episode... I had no idea who the characters were apart from Buffy - I assumed The Whistler was a major part of the series.. But Both Becomings were bathed in a mystery, helped by the score, and the slow-mo of Buffy running back to the library with the voice over that you include here bout the moments in life etc etc.... Of course the episode grew in meaning when I knew all the back story
Appreciate the kind word. Cheers.
I loved this show. But your analysis has made me love it even more and I want to re watch the entire series
I am one of those people who practically hated Xander with a fiery passion during my first watch of BTVS, and since then have developed a lot of involuntary and reactive compassion for him, and hence have become not only a Xander apologist, but also a hardcore Xander fan. This is in regards to his most controversial act in this episode, his not telling Buffy what related to her directly and what she absolutely deserved to know. When I first watched it, i was outraged, because it's one of my first demands in any relationship to be respected, not patronized, not lied to and not be manipulated. Since then though, even though i still think Xander let himself and Buffy down, i have stumbled upon a few realizations that made me look at Xander's conduct in it in a completely new light.
Of all the discourse surrounding it, i have heard of a few explainations provided for his behaviour. 1. He is jealous of Angel (which i never gave credit to even on first watch, it seems a little too one-dimentional for a character as complex as Xander). 2. He hates all vampires due the whole thing with Jesse and is hence incapable of distinguishing between Angel and Angelus. 3. He doesn't trust Buffy to actually be objective and kill him because she has been sparing him and letting him get to her a few too many times now. But it never occured to me before this could have a little something to do with his home life, of which we know very little.
Maybe he is too used to his father being violent under the influence of alcohol at his mom as well as everyone, and then later changing tactics to manipulation when he is sober; maybe his standard response to that kind of terrorization is not to stop and think about what version of a monster the victims are dealing with, but to instinctively abhor and despise the whole cycle at once and wish for its termination at any cost. Maybe he has watched his mother give his father a few too many chances in face of overwhelming evidence that she shouldn't do it to not recognize the same behaviour in Buffy, for whom we know his feelings have been changing from romantic to protective big-brotherly. None of that makes it right, but somehow that fact that it never occured to me before makes me give him an excuse.
Also, I personally have realized that a lot of Xander hate I felt before is because the actor just isn't good at portraying pain. Nicolas Brendon is an actor with great chemistry with practically everyone and with amazing comedic timing, but he really falls short in pathos, the only emotion I see from him in very emotional moments is either anger or a shell-shocked face. I have come to believe that Xander is a very tragic character in BTVS, second only to Buffy, and if only I felt his pain more in his performance rather than having to infer it from my own analysis, I would have loved him infinitely more.
Just take into account Willow-Xander-Buffy situation in season 1 through 2. Willow is behaving towards Xander exactly like Xander is behaving towards Buffy, but we hate Xander constantly for the crime of falling in love with Buffy and being petty about it, while we feel so much for Willow and just want her to be happy. Why? Answer- Alyson Hannigan can make us cry with just those wet eyes and that quivering lip of hers.
I used to completely hate Xander for lying to Buffy like that and that it was never brought up again. After rewatching, I’d like to believe Buffy knows Willow better than that because they are so close. She knew Xander was lying and didn’t bring it up because no matter the outcome, she knew what she had to do. I know this is late, but I’m binge watching for the umpteenth time and love the explanation I forget to comment.
Damn you for opening old wounds and making me cry again. :) Phenomenal job on the videos (the Becoming 1 and 2). Easily in my top 5 episodes (you have to lump these two together), maybe top 1 or 2? Love Whistler's speech at the end of part 1. I totally agree with you that Whedon weaved a masterpiece with this episode. It makes you think that this was where he wanted Buffy to be (the initial movie and Season 1 / most of Season 2). You have to grow into the characters and the universe before an episode like this. You put Becoming at the end of Season 1 (too soon) and you don't get the same emotional reaction. You save it till Season 3 and you may not get a Season 3. Perfectly timed and paced. I need to find my tissues. /end scene
Oh god, I've just got something in my eye....
Great reviews. I agree that Becoming Part 2 is an episode to just 'gush' about. It truly is so well-written, beautifully directed and wonderfully judged in all particulars. As for Xander's lie: ooh, let's not go there, we could all argue about that for a decade or so. As, indeed, we all have.
I am vastly relieved that you are promising to review up to Season 4 AND Angel. Thank you so much for that. Now I have to go and wash my face and put my t-shirt in the tumble-dryer: nothing on TV has ever affected me like Buffy and these reviews bring it all back every time. Thanks!
Nicely done Ian. The season 2 finale was a brilliant tapestry of interweaving storylines that Whedon brought together masterfully for maximum dramatic impact, and as you said, it was devastating. The first time I watched it I was powerfully reminded of an experience I had around the time it would have originally aired, even though I didn't see it back then, where I was forced away from many people I loved when I was younger. Buffy's leaving at the end alone, without comfort or closure, brought it all back and I actually went into a depressive episode for several days. Even the Sarah McLachlan piece they used in the episode is from an album I was listening to at the time.
The show's gone to some weighty dramatic places in it's run, but this one was actually painful for me to experience the first time through. The first several episodes of season six are like that as well, because Geller portrays severe depression so well, which I live with, that it's uncomfortable to watch.
I was thinking about Xander, but I haven't read anything on any fan sites or whatnot, so I probably don't have anything to say that other people haven't said a thousand times. But my personal take on it is that when it comes to Buffy and romance, that's his drug, like magicks for Willow. It's his blind spot, this crawling dark side that never goes away in the series where his judgment can't be trusted. Even if his motives are pure, and I don't think they always are, when it comes to this his ability to see clearly gets all clouded with his desire and jealousy and resentment, and he does reckless, destructive things.
So yes, I agree with you that he's putting himself and his own judgment ahead of Buffy here but I don't necessarily think it's even so altruistic as to just be about strategy. I think there's other elements too, both positive and negative. For one, I think he assumes that Buffy's resolve might weaken if she still thinks there's a chance to get Angel back so she might lose. But I think there's also just the simple desire to get Angel gone, and all the different motivations just swim together into a rationalization gumbo in his head.
***** I relate similarly to different parts of the series, especially season six. Thanks for the good word. I like your explanation for Xander.
Thank you. I'm looking forward to your insights into season 3. :)
Funny, looking back at Spike deciding to help Buffy because he likes the world as it is and thinks Angel's scheme to destroy it is crazy, it kind of foreshadows Wolfram and Hart's approach to THE Apocalypse as the world continues as it is and doesn't get obliterated.
Man, this episode gets me every time. Even after all these years and after watching the show at least 6 times... The feels. Oh, and also, great reviews, love them :)
Ian, I'm beginning to think that you're a warlock. No one can put out two amazing Buffy reviews in one day without calling on the powers of darkness...
Nevertheless, great job! Becoming pt. 2 is one of my favorite episodes of anything ever. Most shows will never have an episode as great as Becoming in their entire run. It's the perfect blend of drama, comedy, romance, action, suspense, and shocking moments all rolled into one phenomenal episode. If I did a review of this episode I would have to give about 45 minutes of commentary in order to do it justice, but you managed to do it in 12 minutes. Very impressive. Already looking forward to the next season!
I just finished rewatching season two. I took it one episode at a time and watched the guide of the episode after each full episode and there it one thing I've taken away more than anything: this show can be soul destroying. Excuse me while I go have a good cry now
I've found your reviews completely by accident but I have never appreciated this series more than after hearing them. I started watching Buffy at a very young age with my Dad when I had the seasons on VHS, but me and him still watch this series together on Netflix to this day and there's so much depth to it that I have missed for all these years.
But saying that, I think that's what makes the show so great. It is enjoyable on so many levels to suit people who are looking for different things within a show and it satisfies those.
I got through your reviews of S1 and S2 in a day and I am absolutely hooked, cannot wait for the coming seasons!
Keep up the good work.
+Beth Burndred Welcome. Glad you found us. And thanks for the good word.
The "kick his ass" line wouldn't bother me as much if it wasn't for the fact that Xander never faces any consequences for it. He lies to Buffy's face and puts words in Willow's mouth and just gets away with it and that angers me cause what he did was wrong plain and simple.
What's worse, he was brutal for Buff in 3x02.
@@GreyDeathVaccine Yes! His lie made Buffy feel isolated and was definitely a big factor in her running to LA. Yet he’s one of the characters who is the biggest asshole to her when she gets back. Xander is a terrible friend.
ive said this b4 and ill say it again season 2 is my personal favorite season! it had enough funny/candy episodes while still maintaining the overall arc & big bad. i love the look of this season and the big bad (spike/dru but really angelus). i think this is the first episode i watched in the series where i was like wow anything can happen who knew a show about a vampire slayer could get this emotional?! little did i know..
great guide as usual! us buffy fans appreciate it
Pretty spot on review. Love how you focused on finally 'meeting Spike.' This is the Spike I love. Although, I've loved him since I met him in School Hard. In fact, I met James in 6/07.
I always thought Xander was selfish for not telling her but then I thought about what happened when they tried it before. I think him not telling her was to keep everyone alive rather than die. Buffys motivation in the fight would have changed and mistakes could have been made. Instead she went in with one purpose. When before she was distracted and missed the lure.
I watched buffy as a teen so Xanders action not to tell her pissed me off but then as an adult my perspective shifted. This wasn't about killing Angel this was about keeping buffy alive.
STOP PLAYING WITH MY FEELINGS! That entire montage at the end was brilliantly sad. All of your reviews so far have been fantastic and your channel has become one of my favourites. I eagerly await your take on season 3!!
BTW I love ur videos.. I showed a friend of mine the "why you should watch buffy"
Shes now at season 2 :D
+LPBasti92 Huzzah. Glad to hear it. It only gets better from there.
+Passion of the Nerd oh yes. 😁
"I point to constellations that may or may not be there. But aren’t the stars beautiful regardless?" -PoTN
Pirates of the Naribbean? 🤔 OH DUH Passion of the Nerd 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ right, right, i'm new here, sorry! 😅😅😅
the end of this made me cry, i have never thought about whislers speech like that before.
your videos are amazing!
“In case you haven’t noticed, the police of Sunnydale are deeply stupid.”
Still the best line in Buffy.
The police are examined much more through Kate in Angel, I was always a little curious about exactly what was going on in the Sunnydale PD. I almost wonder if maybe the initiative plot would have been better served by it being the Sunnydale Police Department ratcheting up now that the mayor was gone. The groupthink themes explored with Riley could also have worked with the cops too...
My mom thinks that Buffy isn't a very sophisticated show, but it's episodes like this that make me think she's wrong. The show doesn't do want it thinks the audience wants. It does what it thinks the audience needs, and that's really what makes this show so incredible.
THE GEEK CLUB I'm sure your mother is a lovely person but in this case she incorrect. The writers are beyond ambitious with their themes...even when they sometimes don't work. :-)
Good Job TPN, 0 dislikes
Please keep going and finish the series!
I am going through a rewatch of all you reviews because one of my best friends is finally watching the show (took me years of begging but it’s worth it!) and I want to say THANK YOU because I noticed the subtitles are perfect now.
My English is not perfect, so this gives me the opportunity to finally understand the reviews 100% and it makes me appreciate them even more.
Thank you for this awesome work 🙏
can't believe i'm just now discovering this channel but i love it
Omg! Those speeches kill me. They're some of my fave moments of the episode and I loved how you showcased them.
Oh, the tears and feels.
loopyvirgo season two is awesome!!!!!!!!
Xander's lie has never bothered me. Buffy spent the entire second half of the season refusing to make the choice her heart (Xander) knew she had to. She didn't do it because she loved Angel, because Buffy never entertains the notion that Angelus and Angel are the same person. She, the ego, simply refuses to let go of her love story, of her somewhat childish notion of her prince on a white horse. Willow, her super-ego, as a result looks for other options and finds one, in the form of the curse. Whereas Xander, the id, is a slave to emotion, to guilt, and he punishes Buffy, the ego, for it repeatedly. Remember, Angel was killing and torturing off screen during this half of the season. This guilt and punishment was warrented.
Xander was clearly planning to tell Buffy about the curse, but at the last moment he decides not to. Buffy's heart hardens itself and decides it cannot trust the ego and the super-ego to make the right decisions, because they have refused to before. So Xander takes away Buffy's choice and passes it to the slayer, who we see Buffy pass the front wheel to during the fight with Angelus and when she decides to kill Angel despite the soul.
As Whistler states, this is one of the moment's which make Buffy who she is and this is a choice that she repeats over and over again throughout the series. Every season it takes less effort to shut out her friends out and to give the slayer (her adult self) the reigns. It also isn't a coincidence that by the end of the series (spoiler alert) the only one Buffy truly trusts is Spike (the slayer's mirror image). Willow, her super-ego, has fallen after to delusions of grandeur and an obsession with control and Xander, the id, has allowed his future (his wedding to Anya) to be destroyed by irrational fears. Even her younger self (Dawn and the potentials) betrays her in the end. The only one she can count on is the slayer.
Thank you.. I’m glad someone has said it here.
I never did understand the logic of Angel’s curse: he gets happy and loses his soul? How is that a punishment? Angelus doesn’t care he doesn’t have a soul. Angelus is truly happy killing and torturing. It would have made sense for Angel to know he could never really be happy when he had a soul so that he would be scared to lose it and understand the consequences of that. That would be punishment - to know you cannot allow yourself to be happy-ever..
Best episode of the entire series. Yes, above OMWF, Restless and The Body. Those are all masterpieces in their own right and I adore them, but this episode is the complete package - humour, action, sadness, depth and meaning (and I'm a sucker for flashbacks).
To be fair though, it's pointless to rate certain episodes against others. The other episodes I mentioned are the Palm D'Ors of the Cannes Film Festival, Becoming Part 2 (as well as Graduation Part 2 and The Gift) are my Oscars for Best Film.
Oh, I forgot to mention Hush, of course.
I agree with you but even though I loved it, The Body was so hard to watch
+Alistair Drennan the gift is the best episode to me
I Will Remember You has me in floods of tears every time! But I never noticed the outfit!
Oh man... that episode... I can't even... *cries*
AAAAHHHhh this is so good! thank you so much for these reviews, man. You did justice to a mind-blowingly awesome episode. I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you're doing here, so I'll just jump to the little bits that jumped to my mind during the review:
- I always liked this episode's focus on CHOICE, and the fact that each of the main characters makes a hard choice, and braces himself to deal with the consequences: 1)Willow chooses to attempt dangerous magic to help her friend, and has no idea what the consequences of that are, yet.
2) Xander chooses not to tell Buffy of Willow's choice, and also has no idea if his choice payed off.
3) Joyce chooses to put a hard ultimatum on her daughter, in the hopes of protecting her, and pays the price.
4) Cordelia chose to save herself in the library fight, and as a result, discovers that her disregard for the world around her, makes that world disregard her as well ("I must have ran 7 blocks before I realized that no one was chasing me"). That seems to fit Cordy's role as Buffy's immature shadow-self - If Buffy chose to avoid her responsibility, she would become meaningless, she would be nothing (As Willow would one day tell Faith: "You were a slayer, and now you're nothing, you're just a big, selfish, worthless waste").
5) Spike chose to betray his role as a vampire (in contrast to Buffy, who finally embraces her role as a slayer) to save his love, Dru, but Dru turns against him, implying that he lost her - just like Buffy lost her love, Angel.
And of course, you covered Buffy's choice perfectly.
God I love this episode.
- You seemed to imply that you thought Buffy's "I think I was in heaven" speech from 'After Life' was "clumsy"? Look, I'm an atheist, and that speech (and that episode) is one of my favorite things in the entire show:
1) Buffy doesn't say she was in heaven, she literally says she "thinks" she was in heaven. That is significant in my opinion - Buffy fell through a dimensinal portal when she died, so it makes perfect sense that she would go to a different dimension, a heaven-ish dimension, instead of just dying. I don't see it as a confirmation that there's an after-life in the Buffyverse. We never see any reason to believe that anyone else who dies goes to a christian heaven or hell in the show. Death in the Buffyverse is still just as uncertain as it is in our world.
2) Buffy's description actually sounds similiar to real people's descriptions of a near-death-experience, and that fits perfectly to Buffy's storyline in that season - she suffers from depression after going through a near-death-experience (on the metaphorical level, of course. On the literal level, it's just a plain old "death-experience"). It's a lot easier to relate to that than to a "post-death trauma". Of course, the main function this scene has to fulfill is just to establish a tangible reason for Buffy's season-long depression (Not that depression always starts because of a single traumatic event, but as a story, it works better that way. The audience needs a "cause-and-effect" scenario to really FEEL what Buffy's feeling) and I think it does that brilliantly.
3) As I said, I'm an atheist, but when I think about what death would be like... well, I don't KNOW, and I BELIEVE that death just leads to a big fat nothing, but when I think about what the "best-case-scenario" would be like for death - I think about something that's very similiar to what Buffy describes in this monologue. It's beautiful, which provides a brilliant contrast to the heartbreaking situation Buffy's in, in that scene.
4) That speech is just really emotional for me, OK?
- I actually read somewhere that, when Spike chokes Dru, he's using a technique that's meant to stop the flow of BLOOD to the head, not air. So, that's nice. If it's true.
- I noticed some really nice parallels between "Becoming" and "Graduation Day" in my last rewatch:
1) At the end of "Becoming, part 1", Buffy finds Kendra's dead body, and is blamed for it. At the end of "Graduation day, part 1", Buffy looks at Faith's unconscious, dying body, for which she IS responsible, and is NOT blamed for it.
2) In "Becoming", Joyce uses that infamous ultimatum to get Buffy to not fight against the end of the world. In "Graduation Day", Joyce and Buffy have a heart-warming conversation, in which Buffy explains the situation to Joyce, and Joyce leaves town as Buffy requests. Yay, character growth.
3) In "Becoming", Xander tells the infamous lie to Buffy. At the end of "Graduation Day", Xander tells Buffy that Angel survived the battle, although she doesn't even ask him. Yay, character growth, number 2.
4) In "Becoming", Cordelia flees from battle, and takes no part in stopping Angel. In "Graduation Day", she fights with everyone in the battle, and stakes her first vamp. Yay, character growth, number 3.
5) In "Becoming", Buffy "kills" Angel. In "Graduation Day", Buffy risks both her life and her morals to save his life. Yay, character... deterioration? *sigh*, I really don't like the Buffy-Angel relationship in the second half of season 3. Parallels are cool, though.
Guy R Great stuff. I'll have to think about it after I catch up on sleep. But for reference sake I LOVE that Season 6 speech by Buffy as well. I just found dancing around the heaven stuff a bit ham handed. I'll think about what you said though. That review is a LONG way off. :-)
The Passion of the Nerd Oh. I actually thought, while writing about the "after life" scene, that I was writing an essay-long rant about a second-long tidbit, but my love for the scene trumped all reason, heh. Thanks for the reply. this comments section is a goldmine.
As I said on a previous video, your channel is so easily 'becoming' (pun intended) my favourite on UA-cam. I hope you keep making these wonderful videos, embracing each day and continuing to love life. :)
as for Spike choking-out Drusilla, and this is a stretch-hypothetitcal at best...
It's possible that vampires still need the flow of blood to their brains for them to stay conscious (also how do they get knocked out, EVER? should be nearly impossible but I digress)-That kind of choke-hold would cut off blood flow to the brain thus rendering her temporarily unconscious. In humans to a severe degree it can kill them or cause brain damage
I actually like this, and I don't think it's as far a stretch as you think.
I gave myself the same sort of explanation.
A vampire's heart does not beat. So how does the blood flow around the body? General anatomy requires the flow of blood for the body to work. It's mechanics.
Now, a vampire is a dead body with a demon inside so I think suspension of disbelief and a little bending of science is allowed. I love the lore of Buffy and while "a wizard did it" is a bit of a cheat, trying to really explain all the logistics is both exciting and potentially burdensome.
So I tend to go with: While the heart isn't beating - perhaps as a representation of inhumanity and a clear sign of being undead - regardless of why, whatever demonic or mystic power inhabits the body leverages the existing plumbing to keep things going so stopping that flow of energy by a measure such as constriction is enough of an excuse to keep me happy.
'Cause, they also turn to dust when they are stabbed with a piece of wood in the heart, one could argue that demonic/mystic force holding things together has to let go and that destroys it (since the excuse of the age of the body doesn't work considering the freshly buried and then risen also dissolve to dust).
Then there is the "no breath" thing, yet vampires can speak. Perhaps interpreting this as life-giving breath (CPR), the actual way a human body utilises oxygen/carbon-dioxide. Since the heart isn't pumping the blood to operate the body, perhaps the general organ behaviour that would allow CPR to work doesn't either. But they can still talk. After all, they need to seduce their prey.
And one could even stretch that to go with choking affecting the simulated "air" rather than "blood" for the same result. The demon still needs to trick the body into working somehow. But a basement full of gas doesn't affect that simulation of "air" going in and around and out again as the actual oxygen isn't required just the act of tricking the body into working.
So when that "air" or "blood" is stopped by a choke hold even the demonic power can't override the mechanics of the body saying it needs to stop working for a bit. The demon still has to play the body's game even if it cheats most of the time.
Just thinking out loud.
I, personally, agree with you on the matter of Xander’s omission. That being said, I would be very interested in hearing your counter to the common argument/s. Specifically, that in this case, Xander was well aware of how the news might impact Buffy on an emotional level and lead to her inability to act rationally, or inability to act at all. While I don’t agree with this, I’ve never been able to necessarily support my argument. Further, there’s a couple of episodes often cited that support Xander’s concern (I unfortunately don’t recall which). Generally, I would still argue and not believe that it is solely up to him to be judge, jury and executioner. However, in this case, it’s often said that he’s acting for the greater good of the world, and not just Buffy or the Scooby’s best interests. Where it’s common for Buffy and the Scoobies to be in danger, an instance where the entire world is at risk changes things dramatically.
I’ve often pondered over this one, so I’d be very eager to hear your thoughts and opinion.
I have no idea whether you will even see this question, but if you do, I just want to express my gratitude for this entire series of videos. The effort you put into it doesn’t go without notice. Whether it’s one week, one month, or one year between videos, just know you’ll have at least one fan always ready and awaiting its release.
We appreciate not just your work, but you yourself. The videos wouldn’t be the same without your captivating personality and stellar commentary.
So, thank you! ❤
I cried my eyes out on this one
I stayed up until 3 am watching all of your Buffy reviews. The reviews are genius, and funny, and gives an incredible amount of insight that I completely missed while watching the series 50 million times. I love this show so much and I'm so happy I found your channel because it's been helping me to understand the show SO much better. I can't wait for the Season 3 reviews!!
+Mara Rogers Thanks for the good word. Just another couple weeks till season 3 I think. I'm AIMING to do Why You Should Watch Angel next week and then Buffy Season 3 the week after. Aiming. Best intentions and all that.
Definitely my favourite finale of the series. I can remember watching it on tele for the first time back when it originally aired, and it still gets me as much as it did back then. So much to discuss but...redundant. A+ episode and review! I love your videos.
I think your reviews are one of the best things happened to my buffy fan life since I got into buffy 10 years ago, Thank you sir
Kyle Ahlm Kim My pleasure.
My favourite review so far... You go into detail about things I never even think about and I've watched the series 1,000 times! Your articulate insight is the reason I watch.. I hope you're getting paid for these reviews, you're so professional. Great job 👍🏼
hayleymiche Maybe someday. But I happy you dig it. Thank you.
Wow. This was a beautifully made video. I may have actually cried more than I did when watching the actual episode...
I am so happy that you are doing this, man.
Love your beautiful montage at the end. I love your guides, because they are not only entertaining, they also make me better understand the show's metaphors. I'm looking forward to season 3 :D
Passion of the Nerd i love your recaps. You bring up sooo many things about the Buffy-verse I never noticed. I also love reading the comments and your buffy loving watchers bringing in their own ideas and thoughts. Its time for a rewatch with a fresh set of eyes. My bf is going to be THRILLED 😜
It is this episode that makes Joss's comic so unbelievable for me.. Buffy and Angel are the definition of love,... not lust or convenience like some of their past relationships have been. I don't believe in souls or soul mates but this kind of relationship comes pretty close - they would be together no question about it given half a chance. In 'Chosen' Angel laid it on the table that if she wanted a relationship he'd give her one now.. and I get her choice to find herself - but I still find it incredibly hard to believe that after watching scenes like Becoming and in I Will Remember You they wouldnt hesitate in being together once the dust has settled.
Amazing. Probably you're best yet. PLEASE don't wait as long this time as you did in between season 1 and 2.
I can't stand that "Close your eyes", which was their love making song, is played during Buffy is killing Angel. 😢
Bloody wonderful video it reminded me of why I love Buffy so much. From this point onwards it really gets better. Thank you Sir again for all your fine work and effort.
One of the most heart breaking scenes in the series. I always cry. SMG is such an amazing actress and her face in these scenes always really gets to me.
Thank you so much for this recaps. First of all I hate you and I love you for the last montage of Buffy & Angel story, it's been 17 years and I still cry like a baby everytime I watch that stupid scene. Damn you Whedon! I'm a grown up woman I shouldn't be crying over a fictional couple, especially after all these years!
I honestly don't know how I feel about Xander. Yeah he's a good guy at heart, but his motives in season 2 came from a very selfish place, from his broken ego. And that's something that we keep seeing throught the show's entire run (the speech he gives to buffy when Riley is leaving, anyone?). I love him as a comedy relief and his friendship with Willow it's very beatiful to watch, but to this day I can't figure out how I feel about him.
PS: English is not my first language, I apologize for any grammar/spelling mistake.
María Lujan Ortellado Your grammar and and spelling is better than mine. I'm glad you're enjoying the guide. That scene always gets me as well.
Thought I would watch some old faves while waiting for Pangs! 39,070 views!! Wow, i remember when this was at around 1000. Well done PTN. This is so well deserved.
This video was brilliant. The way he inserted Whistler's monologue over the scenes at the end was perfection.
When you came in with the Bangel love music during the montage, I teared up big time.
I've seen this episode about 500 times. You made me see such a different side to this that I want to watch the series again. Bravo!
That sir was beautiful and epic. So deep and one of your best reviews to date. Bravo!
What a good and developed guide and I must say, it was edited beautifully! By the end I was crying so much that it was ridiculous!
A brilliant episode and a brilliant review. Congratulations on the channel, I am a big fan!
mdieguezramos Thank you so much. Glad you dig it.
I am loving your episode commentary's as they are very enjoyable to watch. And it gives another take on the episodes and the charters that I haven't thought of before. I can't wait to see you cover the rest of the episodes. And I hope you do the Angel episodes after you finish the Buffy episodes.
This episode was the best episode of Buffy I’ve seen so far. It was so emotional for me going through also it made me fall totally in love with spike already 🤧 and the ending brought tears as she left. Poor Buffy.
Two in one day? Thank you sir.
This was an excellent review! I love how you tie up a narrative thread that you've slowly touched on in other reviews this season. Well thought out and on point.
Love that three's company music bit when John Ritter kicks slayer kicked. Also love ur firefly reviews and would absolutely love more if you're in a place to get it done. Hope all is well!
Slowly working my way through your reviews, and I don't ever think I've watched commentary I've enjoyed more, and that includes some of the BIG UA-cam names in the genre! Also you're commentary is so progressive and thoughtful, really working through the meanings of the episodes rather then just touching the surface! I can't wait to see more!
Excellent review. I'm so glad it was put up so quickly after part one.
With such a skillful narrator reviewing my favourite show ever,
BLISS
This is some of best commentary I've seen on this show and this episode in particular. Thank you for your work and your insight. It's touched me to no end.
Really like your analysis and review of the show. It was written so well, and so well thought out (apart from some) . I can re-watch the whole series and never get tired. Find it frustrating that I can't explain how well it is written and made to recommend to friends (!) Thanks for your videos.
Man… I watched the whole Episode Guide of Season 2 b2b now during Home Office. I‘m pretty stressed out currently with a lots of stuff. Buffy just gives me a warm comfort and relxing feeling. Your episode Guides are such a good way to revisit this universe without watching the whole show again… which I‘m forcing myself not to 😅 Think I should watch some different show at some point… but everything seems to drive me back to this…
Anyway thank you so much for your Episode Guide ❤
I really enjoy your reviews and thoughts on these episodes. I do just want to say that I disagree with how you imply that Angel and Buffy didn't have adult love (to an extent). Or that their relationship did not allow Buffy to be her authentic self. I have always felt like these two inspire and bring out the best in each other. Yeah, there are times when it has grown unhealthy, mostly in season 3 once they realized that their relationship couldn't continue, however still tried. But for the majority of season 2 and 3 (and in Angels appearances in future episodes) they really do love each other unselfishly and want what's best for the other. I think you are correct to an extent that their love isn't yet a fully adult love (as they are both new to love - Buffy in that she is young, Angel in that he has never had that kind of love in his life), so they make young mistakes and let themselves get lost in each other, however it's never come across to me as obsessive or unhealthy, just a young love that matures as they go on. I just never felt like her relationship with Angel during the second season was ever interfering with her slaying (in fact he helped her), and I never felt like she or Angel weren't their true selves with each other, I actually feel like they are their best selves with each other.
Your reviews are amazing. It's like I'm falling in love with the show all over again.