Great Buffy Rewatch of 2015: Reptile Boy

[gillo]

We're at the fifth episode of S2 now, and it seems in some ways to be just another MOTW episode, with a cheesy snake monster. Somebody really should have warned Mutant Enemy about them - do they ever really work? However, there is rather more depth here than one might expect, though the Spikelessness is depressing for some.

Comments

[rebcake]

This was the first episode I watched. Cordelia was very amusing to me.

The awful reputation of frats aside, there is a "secret" society at Yale called "Skull and Bones" which has a lot of the demon-worshipping trappings you see in this episode, and the men (of course) who are admitted do indeed go on to be soul-sucking captains of industry and presidents and what all. It's all in good fun, though. Bitter? Me?

[perpetual]

Meh, I live down the street from Skull and Bones. The reputation is entirely about the reputation; nobody really expects there's anything demonic going on in the Yale secret societies.

[rebcake]

Well, of course not. It's pretty silly, actually, and I always got a kick out of it when Trudeau poked fun in Doonesbury. I'm just saying that the frat in this ep is a metaphor for that kind of thing. A what if all those rich white boys really did get their power from some evil demon? What if it wasn't just dress-up - not unlike what we call cosplay these days? The truth - that (many of) those that have think they deserve it and just keep taking - isn't really any more comforting is it? As Mal says in Firefly "every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sommbitch or another."

The other side of this - which the episode doesn't touch at all - is that people who "have not" very often don't do any better at being good people when they do finally get resources behind them. This episode is really bringing out my misanthropic side, I guess.

[perpetual]

Sure, and that adds a lot to the episode. I just think that the standard frat house stereotype, which uses its influence to cover actual crimes, is a closer parallel than the secret societies, which use empty secrets to look cool. Cultivating the appearance of danger and the occult means they benefit from the air of mystery without actually doing anything wrong. The reptile boys had it the other way around.

And okay, I have a bit of a soft spot for Skull and Bones. My dad sez they got the real skeleton of Geronimo in there!

[trepkos]

Well, if they have, they should give it back!

[perpetual]

Why not just put on robes and bury it in consecrated ground?

[trepkos]

One man's consecrations is another man's ... not-consecration? I'd have thought the Apache might like to bury him in their own way.

[gillo]

They certainly should be offered the chance to do so. That's quite gross.

[perpetual]

Was making a "When She Was Bad" reference, nm. Point being that the rumor is most likely just another spooktacular fabrication.

[gillo]

I think we see that on other occasions. Rich, entitled boys are an obvious target in a show about the perils of being an adolescent girl.