BtVS Episode Review: Pangs
The short? A personal favorite of mine, purely for the fact that it's fun. It's not deep, and it does next to nothing to develop the characters. But it makes me laugh. There's a bear. Full review below the cut.
Characters:
Buffy Xander Willow Giles Spike Angel Anya Riley
Plot
Bad Guy
Arc
Overall (6/10)
Best Moment
Buffy:
I suppose it's inevitable that Buffy would start feeling homesick after having been away at college for a few months now. That's why she becomes so focused on having Thanksgiving with her surrogate family.
She becomes so caught up in the dinner, she barely pays attention to the threat from the Native American spirits. Which isn't too big a deal because it's not a very big threat.
Buffy is now flirting with Nice Guy Riley. She even invited him to Thanksgiving dinner. Instead, Spike drops in and gets a seat at the table.
I'm not going to get into the Native American debate that took up a large part of this episode. It was well-covered in the actual episode, and I don't feel I have much else to add to it.
Oh, and note to Buffy: Please don't ever wear a cowboy hat again.
Xander:
Xander is now in construction, a profession he'll return to in S5. And he gets syphilis, which can't be fun.
And he lets slip that he believes that it's right to kill vengeance demons, a statement that Anya takes exception to.
Why is this? Xander is usually very much anti-demon. Yet he tells Anya that he didn't mean her. Why is she the exception? I'm not going to overanalyze this, because I think it simply comes down to: sex. Anya is willing and enthusiastic about sex. Xander surely doesn't mind it. He's a guy. He's getting sex, so he's not gonna advocate killing Anya.
Eventually, real affection will grow from their sexual relationship, though. And in this episode, while delirious, he does refer to her as his girlfriend, a term she seems to like.
Willow:
Willow is in full academic-mode. She channels her mother in her staunch defense of the Native American spirits. In the end, though, when the fight breaks out, she's right there fighting the fight.
We can already see her continued animosity towards Anya when she suggests that they not invite Anya to the dinner.
There's no mention of Oz-missage in this episode. It's likely she's still holding out hope that he'll come back. However, in the next episode, when Oz sends for his stuff, she'll go into full mope-mode.
Giles:
Giles plays the part of the patriarch in hosting the festivities. In this way, Giles really has become something of a surrogate father to all of the Scoobies.
Spike:
Spike plays at being the little match-vampire at the beginning. He can't eat anything (and apparently it doesn't even occur to him to go to the butcher's or hospital to steal some blood). He tries to go back to Harmony but she, justifiably, kicks him out.
With literally nowhere else to turn, and desperate from hunger, Spike goes to the Scoobies. Why? Well, he knows them. He knows that they've helped Angel, another vampire. And he thinks that he can talk his way into Giles' apartment.
Well, he's right. He offers up information about the Initiative in exchange for help.
Angel:
Angel returns for one, stunning episode to do a creepy stalker act on Buffy. Apparently, he's forgotten that he's the one who left her at the end of last season and, therefore, forfeits all rights to "check up on her" in such a pathetically stalker-like fashion.
He's also under some delusion that he's Buffy's "protector", when he'd be hard-pressed to name many times in the past when Buffy has needed his protection.
In fact, Angel serves little to no purpose in this episode other than to get Buffy to visit his show, and, as such, you can simply fast-forward through his scenes as they're all completely gratuitous.
Anya:
Anya reappears in this episode after having been absent from the past several episodes. I'd be willing to bet she was busy having kinky sex with Xander.
Anya integrates well with the gang, though, and even joins them for dinner. And she likes it when Xander refers to her as his girlfriend. Obviously, while Anya is happy with a sexual relationship, she wants something a bit more.
Riley:
We learn a bit more about Riley's background. He's from a farm in Iowa. With dogs. He's a country boy.
Plot:
Some spirits rise up to ruin Buffy's Thanksgiving.
Bad Guy:
The ambiguous baddie are the Native American spirits who are killing people, but they have a good reason for it!
Arc:
Not an arc episode.
Overall:
This episode is actually a personal favorite of mine simply because it's just fun. It's not incredibly deep or insightful. But the dialogue is snappy and the humor is spot-on. Angel's gratuitous appearance does hurt it a bit, but considering he doesn't actually do much, it can be overlooked.
Special performance award goes to James Marsters for becoming a pincushion...just with arrows instead of pins.
6 out of 10.
( About my scoring system)
Best Moment:
The final fight scene. It's fun. There's a bear.