BTVS Episode Poll: 6.11 Gone

[mcjulie]

Here we are, at the halfway point of season 6, with Gone! (Otherwise known as, the episode where you let your star take a vacation...)

Comments

[mcjulie]

1. Ultimately, I went with hilarious, although I almost clicked on "intolerant bigot." I kinda love the opening scene, the way Spike tries to be all helpful and makes everything worse. But the vibe coming from Mrs. Keller is, "you're all a bunch of weirdos, there's no way you could be providing a good home for Dawn."

2. Invisible Buffy is her own id. I think the psychological significance of this episode is frequently overlooked. Invisible Buffy is meant to be symbolically dead, that's pretty obvious. So, what does symbolically dead Buffy do? Fools around. Has fun. Just as Tabula Rasa showed us that she was being emotionally crushed by the weight of memory and experience, this episode seems to suggest that Buffy's unhappiness is intensified by her attachment to things like a sense of responsibility and social expectations. It's not life per se that she dreads, so much as her life, and what it has come to mean.

3. Hilarious. And also naked Spike. Seriously, is he ever more naked than in this episode?

4. Because Xander wants so badly to remain clueless on this particular topic.

I've always been conflicted about this scene. Does it push Clueless Xander beyond the point of believability? Is it too funny for me to care? When Xander delivers the line about how Spike should get a girlfriend, what is he thinking? Does he assume he caught Spike in the middle of some elaborate kind of masturbation? Why would Xander care if Spike had a girlfriend? Is he thinking of girlfriends because he's subconsciously picking up on the clues of Buffy's presence? Is he thinking of girlfriends because of a subtle attraction he has toward Spike?

Anyway, I can't quite figure it out. So if there's a good explanation that I just haven't offered, please share!

5. She recognizes invisible Buffy as symbolically dead. Unless you realize that, I think Dawn's reaction seems way over the top.

6. He still thinks it's cool to be a villain. In this episode I like the Trio again. I like that they provide a real, but still trivial-feeling, threat to Buffy. And for some reason I love the nerdy-Willow detail about her knowing Warren is going to kill Buffy because she saw the plans and UNDERSTOOD THEM.

Jonathan -- I think, like Willow, he pursued darkness, because he wanted power. The cost hasn't caught up to him yet, but it will.

7. Her relationship with Spike has been therapeutic. Why? I don't know. I think that's a bigger idea than can be addressed in a single poll question.

8. There was a voice. It made my coffee dance. I picked this one, because "making the X dance" is a thing I still say/do.

9. I give it an 8! I get the impression a lot of people don't like this episode much, but those people are wrong, wrong I tell you!

[red_satin_doll]

It's not life per se that she dreads, so much as her life, and what it has come to mean.

EXACTLY. She "wants the fire back", "I just wanna feel"; she tries to connect with Spike in a meaningful way, as well as turn to him as a "release value" of sorts. Those aren't the words and actions of a person who WANTS to die.