BtVS S8.34 "Twilight" Part Three
Nothing you can do that can’t be done
Just like it said on the tin, this is an issue of them (Buffy and Angel) doing it - a spoonful of sugar to make the exposition go down (and everything I write is going to sound like a bad sex pun in that context). It’s a change from the style of distraction traditional in superhero books, which tend to be ultraviolent (and hence only R rated). It also subverts the hideously misogynistic “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” version of superhero sexing. Buffy is having herself a *very* good time. Artwise, I like the fragmented composition and wonder what the sound track is supposed to be. In Innocence it was tasteful strings, in Smashed bitterly rising music but here I’m thinking something more like the Joan Jett cover of Bad Reputation.
Nothing you can know that can’t be known
Exposition comes courtesy of Willow and Giles. Willow has a bad track record on guessing the true history of the universe, getting it wrong about the source of Buffy’s superpowers. Giles also invites doubt by calling his version a fairy story.
His fairy tale version of natural history is indeed painfully wrong. Nature is incredibly wasteful. There is no design, no balance, just shit getting thrown at the wall and whatever sticks and multiplies is what you get. In our world.
However, in Buffy’s very non-Darwinian universe, Nature, aka said Universe, has a plan. It sounds familiar. In her opening voiceover to A Beautiful Sunset Buffy said something like “The world keeps trying to change. It has to.” But it wasn’t the world that changed itself at the beginning of the story, it was a person. Two people. Two women. It also wasn’t the world that created the Slayer it was men. Men made Buffy the offer of more power in S7 and she turned them down. The world, it seems, believes in catching more flies with honey, specifically Buffy’s honey. Angel appears to know something. It’s ironic given that he told her changing things brought about the backlash that killed 206 girls. The backlash to his pushing her looks way more cataclysmic.
One last thought. Giles talks about the Universe, the Earth, having a plan to birth a new reality. In Retreat when the Slayers thought they were letting their powers go back into the earth, ‘the Earth’ turned out to be the new name for the local scary vengeance goddesses. So I wonder who ‘the Universe’ is the new name for?
All you need is love
Love is a selfish emotion. Whiskey said that on Joss Whedon’s behalf in the second season Dollhouse opener and love has been the constant backdrop to this comic book continuation of BtVS. The new slayers love Buffy, humanity loves vampires, Warren loves Amy, Kenny loves Dawn, Dracula loves Xander. None of them really knows the first thing about the objects of their affection. Love at first sight, love as a celebrity crush. Now the Universe reveals itself to be Buffy and Angel’s biggest fan and methinks this can’t be good.
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