Helpless: AKA Buffy is Awesome (as if you didn't already know)
Hello again. The re-watch is back with a bang - or at least with one of the best, and certainly the most disturbing, episodes of season 3: Helpless. Screencaps this time from the bloodqueen.com, to whom many thanks and all credit, as I couldn't get the usual site to work for me at all.
When I re-watched this, I spent a lot of my time yelling, "Don't do it, Giles!" at the telly.
This is why.
And also this, which I've put behind the cut for those who are squeamish about needles.
Have to say, though Buffy is continually betrayed by the people she loves and trusts throughout the run of the show,
this betrayal, at the hands of her father figure, strikes me as the worst of all. I love Giles. I do. And I appreciate that during the episode he rebels against the cruelty and idiocy of what he's being made to do, but there should have been more personal repercussions for him from this. There really should.
"
Anyway, these are the idiots ultimately responsible for nearly getting Buffy and her mother killed.
Quentin (almost sounds British but not quite) Travers and a couple of cannon-fodder junior watchers.
Cannon fodder one ends up bloodily dead.
Cannon fodder two ends up bloodily dead and vamped.
Both at the hands of this guy, Zachary Kralik, who was an insane serial killer with an Oedipus/Norman Bates complex even before he became a vampire.
And Buffy is expected to fight him without her Slayer powers,
when she's already completely demoralised on finding she can't even protect her friends from bullying jocks,
(not that Cordy ultimately needed protecting, but I think it's great the way seeing what the bully does to Buffy makes her extra-mad.
I also love the way that, when she walks in on the traumatic scene where Buffy learns about Giles's betrayal, when Buffy asks her if she will drive her home, Cordy immediately responds, "Of course," even though she's clueless about what's going on.
I love the Cordy cameos in this ep, as you can probably tell).
To get back to Buffy, yes, she's had a horrible day. Can't deal with bullies in the schoolyard, gets leered at by jerks on the way home,
and like most girls can't/daren't do anything about it,
learns that Giles has betrayed her (though him revealing what he's done is also a betrayal, according to Quentin (sounds almost British but not quite) Travers),
then finds that Kralik has kidnapped her mother,
so she will be forced to undergo the Watchers' Councils' grotesque rite of passage whether she likes it or not.
Poor little Buffy! She can hardly carry that bag of Slayer supplies.
That she defeats Kralik and rescues Joyce is a tribute to her bravery and resourcefulness (the exact reason for the test, in fact)
but you have to wonder just how many girls have died in similar circumstances just because they weren't quite so quick-witted, or lucky, or because, unlike Giles, their Watchers didn't turn against the whole process and rally to their sides.
Ultimately, this is why Buffy forgives Giles, I suppose,
and why Travers never will.
Of course, the whole thing only happens because it's Buffy's birthday,
and it's a fundamental law of the Buffyverse that Buffy should always have a horrible, horrible birthday (except in season 4).
Even Angel (in what is almost the lightest scene in the episode, which tells you something about it) manages to give Buffy a wildly inappropriate present,
the world's most miserable book of poetry. Come on, Angel. We all know you can clothes shop like a pro. What on earth were you thinking?
I suppose it's yet another AtS is coming-y anvil.
Best lines:
Buffy, to Quentin (almost sounds British but not quite) Travers: Bite me.
Thoughts, anyone?
When I re-watched this, I spent a lot of my time yelling, "Don't do it, Giles!" at the telly.
This is why.
And also this, which I've put behind the cut for those who are squeamish about needles.
Have to say, though Buffy is continually betrayed by the people she loves and trusts throughout the run of the show,
this betrayal, at the hands of her father figure, strikes me as the worst of all. I love Giles. I do. And I appreciate that during the episode he rebels against the cruelty and idiocy of what he's being made to do, but there should have been more personal repercussions for him from this. There really should.
"
Anyway, these are the idiots ultimately responsible for nearly getting Buffy and her mother killed.
Quentin (almost sounds British but not quite) Travers and a couple of cannon-fodder junior watchers.
Cannon fodder one ends up bloodily dead.
Cannon fodder two ends up bloodily dead and vamped.
Both at the hands of this guy, Zachary Kralik, who was an insane serial killer with an Oedipus/Norman Bates complex even before he became a vampire.
And Buffy is expected to fight him without her Slayer powers,
when she's already completely demoralised on finding she can't even protect her friends from bullying jocks,
(not that Cordy ultimately needed protecting, but I think it's great the way seeing what the bully does to Buffy makes her extra-mad.
I also love the way that, when she walks in on the traumatic scene where Buffy learns about Giles's betrayal, when Buffy asks her if she will drive her home, Cordy immediately responds, "Of course," even though she's clueless about what's going on.
I love the Cordy cameos in this ep, as you can probably tell).
To get back to Buffy, yes, she's had a horrible day. Can't deal with bullies in the schoolyard, gets leered at by jerks on the way home,
and like most girls can't/daren't do anything about it,
learns that Giles has betrayed her (though him revealing what he's done is also a betrayal, according to Quentin (sounds almost British but not quite) Travers),
then finds that Kralik has kidnapped her mother,
so she will be forced to undergo the Watchers' Councils' grotesque rite of passage whether she likes it or not.
Poor little Buffy! She can hardly carry that bag of Slayer supplies.
That she defeats Kralik and rescues Joyce is a tribute to her bravery and resourcefulness (the exact reason for the test, in fact)
but you have to wonder just how many girls have died in similar circumstances just because they weren't quite so quick-witted, or lucky, or because, unlike Giles, their Watchers didn't turn against the whole process and rally to their sides.
Ultimately, this is why Buffy forgives Giles, I suppose,
and why Travers never will.
Of course, the whole thing only happens because it's Buffy's birthday,
and it's a fundamental law of the Buffyverse that Buffy should always have a horrible, horrible birthday (except in season 4).
Even Angel (in what is almost the lightest scene in the episode, which tells you something about it) manages to give Buffy a wildly inappropriate present,
the world's most miserable book of poetry. Come on, Angel. We all know you can clothes shop like a pro. What on earth were you thinking?
I suppose it's yet another AtS is coming-y anvil.
Best lines:
Buffy, to Quentin (almost sounds British but not quite) Travers: Bite me.
Thoughts, anyone?