Buffy 4x02 Living Conditions
Now back to Buffy... a nice break from all the new stuff I've been watching.
- I take it Cher is not cool?
- Kathy seems like a bit of a control freak. Which instantly makes me suspect that she is a major demon or the minion of a major demon out to destroy Buffy.
- Willow: "Did we not put the 'grr' in girl?"
- Really dorky demon this time round.
- Are the demons following Buffy or Kathy?
- Buffy visits Giles. I pause for my obligatory "how I love Giles" moment. Giles: [Panting] Hello.
Buffy: You run?
Giles: And jump. And bend. And, occasionally, frolic. - And as usual the dialogue with Giles is better than the dialogue with anyone else (okay, except Spike, but he isn't around this episode, worse luck.) Giles: It's a good day for me, actually. A friend of mine recently acquired a-uh an original Gutenberg demonography... and it suddenly occurred to me that you've never once asked me what my day's plans were, which leads me to inquire whether you're feeling entirely yourself.
Buffy: That's not true. I ask about you all the time. Okay, well, think about it. - Hasn't Giles learned to trust Buffy's instincts yet? Apparently not. Buffy lets him talk her into thinking she's just being fussy, that everything is all right, really. That's the kind of reasoning that ends in wives murdering their husbands, suicides in colleges, and killing sprees in schools.
- Lovely introduction to Parker: Parker: Ex-boyfriend? Or loan shark?
Buffy: Excuse me?
Parker: The person you're hiding from.
Buffy: Oh... both. Ugly breakup. - "Random adorableness" is a nice way to refer to Parker, and I must say, though he was reasonably witty, he didn't seem adorable. Does Buffy have low standards? Has she got to the point of liking any man who isn't a vampire or demon?
- Sounds like Xander wants to hunt demons. Sounds as if he's lonely.
- The theme of Kathy as roommate-from-hell steams up a little bit. And in this show "roommate from hell" can be taken literally - especially since there's no major demon theme in the primary plot. I like Buffy's reference to her as a "cellmate". But it seems Buffy isn't even taking the dream thing seriously. Isn't that a little lame? She's smarter than that. Perhaps Kathy has a brainpower-dampening field.
- Willow: "nightmare fairy". I like that.
- Oz might be realizing there's a serious situation?
- Then Buffy decides: "Kathy's evil. I'm an evil fighter. It's simple... I'm gonna have to kill her." Perhaps Willow will realize something's going on now? And why isn't Buffy worrying more about the funny-looking demons she saw at the beginning of the episode?
- So they net Buffy. Heh. But they're dumb enough to let her escape. No one is at their best this episode. It's as if they've regressed several years' worth of experience.
- So they fight. Kathy's a demon. Big, big surprise, hmm? And in trouble with Daddy. Some sort of comment about the universality of parents and offspring here? ...Waaait a minute, since when do demons have offspring?
- Kathy: "I'm 3000 years old! When are you going to stop treating me like I'm 900?" Cute, but none of this is up to Whedon's best repartee. Or even his average. Suffering from a case of first-episode-of-season doldrums, I think. Which is an odd pattern for a show to take on.