BtVS S8.17 Time of Your Life (part II)
It bears remembering that this is the first Joss penned four-parter since A Long way From Home. I mean that would explain the deja-vued compulsion to go flicking back through the issues to see how it all adds up. Then it was what? This time it’s who? And clearly this circular crypticity is contagious.
More linearly at the end of last month’s issue Buffy had been timeported from Manhattan to Hadyn 200 years in her future and just in time and place to meet Fray. This issue begins by showing what Melaka was doing there - looking for some clue about the madwoman, the “black hope” helping Harth (yay Harth). So with the crazy and the vamp thing you’d think we were talking Drusilla but by the end of the issue some incarnation of Willow seems more likely. Certainly when we get to see her face it’s drawn very much as Moline draws Willow and like all Alt!Willows this one has a thing for frilly cuffs. But the absence of leather cleavage suggests not Vamp!Willow and though veiny she’s altogether softer, more emotional and less pigmented than Dark!Willow. Not Willow the White by any means but for now I'm calling her Mad!Willow and seeing how bad or good or straddling the divide she gets later.
Even when I did think she was Dru I was puzzled by Harth saying he’d dreamed of fighting her as the Slayer of Slayers. I don’t think Buffy ever fought Dru unless being tasered by her in Crush counts which it really doesn’t. She’s fought Dark!Willow so when Harth says this Willow hurt her (Buffy) did he mean because of Dark!Willow’s connection to real Willow? Is there a Willow/Willowlus thing going on in his vampire brain? Mad!Willowlus talks about the princess (is Harth the Prince whose rescue Robin said would follow her)? Ripples 21st century Willow mentioned in the last issue and what happens now being the precondition for that now I was hoping for but where does the slayers not strengthening each other come from?
Is Buffy going to be the cause of Kennedy’s death (well as least in so much as she was of Tara’s). We all know what Renee being wounded foreshadowed now. Or will it be something less personal will she slay the brave new Slayerdom, take back the gift she and Willow gave. Current Willow slips between "she’s the general" and “sweet girl not that bright” in her attitude to Buffy. Mad!Future!Willowlus may be set to destroy Buffy and all that's left of her world but still comes across as more genuinely fond of the girl. You always kill the thing you love. Dark!Willow so loved the world. Cut the fish’s head from its misery say Horrible and Harth.
Speaking of fish what’s with Gunther and the Britishisms?
More linearly at the end of last month’s issue Buffy had been timeported from Manhattan to Hadyn 200 years in her future and just in time and place to meet Fray. This issue begins by showing what Melaka was doing there - looking for some clue about the madwoman, the “black hope” helping Harth (yay Harth). So with the crazy and the vamp thing you’d think we were talking Drusilla but by the end of the issue some incarnation of Willow seems more likely. Certainly when we get to see her face it’s drawn very much as Moline draws Willow and like all Alt!Willows this one has a thing for frilly cuffs. But the absence of leather cleavage suggests not Vamp!Willow and though veiny she’s altogether softer, more emotional and less pigmented than Dark!Willow. Not Willow the White by any means but for now I'm calling her Mad!Willow and seeing how bad or good or straddling the divide she gets later.
Even when I did think she was Dru I was puzzled by Harth saying he’d dreamed of fighting her as the Slayer of Slayers. I don’t think Buffy ever fought Dru unless being tasered by her in Crush counts which it really doesn’t. She’s fought Dark!Willow so when Harth says this Willow hurt her (Buffy) did he mean because of Dark!Willow’s connection to real Willow? Is there a Willow/Willowlus thing going on in his vampire brain? Mad!Willowlus talks about the princess (is Harth the Prince whose rescue Robin said would follow her)? Ripples 21st century Willow mentioned in the last issue and what happens now being the precondition for that now I was hoping for but where does the slayers not strengthening each other come from?
Is Buffy going to be the cause of Kennedy’s death (well as least in so much as she was of Tara’s). We all know what Renee being wounded foreshadowed now. Or will it be something less personal will she slay the brave new Slayerdom, take back the gift she and Willow gave. Current Willow slips between "she’s the general" and “sweet girl not that bright” in her attitude to Buffy. Mad!Future!Willowlus may be set to destroy Buffy and all that's left of her world but still comes across as more genuinely fond of the girl. You always kill the thing you love. Dark!Willow so loved the world. Cut the fish’s head from its misery say Horrible and Harth.
Speaking of fish what’s with Gunther and the Britishisms?