(Review) BtVS 9.01 'Freefall' Part I

[stormwreath]

And here it is. Buffy Season Nine, episode 1, written by Joss. Very funny, occasionally downright silly, with a few hints of darkness and a few mysteries - though nothing so extreme as the 8.01 Giant Dawn reveal, you'll mostly all be glad to know. Not a lot of deep content, though: I'm reminded of the first half of 'The Freshman'. Buffy's kind of

Comments

[angearia]

Great review! I enjoyed the recap. It helps to go over the text thoughtfully

[stormwreath]

Thanks!

I can see why you might think Dawn has sadface in that scene, but it didn't come across like that to me. She's just a little serious/not smiling. A total contrast to Xander in the panel to the left of that one, who actually looks like he should have a black stormcloud over his head with little lightning flashes and pouring rain soaking his hair. In fact, it could be that Dawn is looking serious because she's concerned about Willow at that particular moment.

I can see Willow trying to get Buffy to understand what breaking the Seed means, but why is she still going on about it nine months later? (Or however long it's been.) To me, that says she's got a purpose; she needs to convince Buffy of something rather than just wanting to get her feelings off her chest. It wouldn't be like Willow to just keep on harping on about a bad thing over and over again unless she thought it was important

[angearia]

Oh yeah, I think it is Severin. Whoops

[stormwreath]

Have you read Gene Wolfe's 'Shadow of the Torturer'? That's what the name Severin makes me think of. Which is not entirely comfortable

[ceciliaj]

Yes, amazing review! You caught every single detail, making me check back to my text several times. I'm worried about Xander :(.

[angearia]

Worried is good, though. XANDER HAS A STORY. Poor guy. He looks so depressed in this issue.

[stormwreath]

Thank you! Though I'm sure I missed some things... Xander is in deep, deep trouble. And why doesn't he want Dawn to know?

[candleanfeather]

A great review very pleasing to read. You even caught and explained details like the photo, the hack circles, Mrs Leary's cow...

What has kept my attention the most is Xander. It seems like he could have a real story this season which is good. Perhaps something with all the losses he has endured in his years of fight along Buffy.

About the demon (El Draco ?) let's play a little game of hazardous :-) pronostics. He seems very threatening, but what if, in a very big twist, the target of his "kill them all" was vampires? Could that be that him and Séverin (? if so , it's a French name, not a very common one though, the female one is Séverine.) are linked?

[stormwreath]

Thanks! I look up all the details of things like 'hack circles' when read the comics so I can understand them, so I may as well share. :)

Nice idea about El Draco - it certainly would be a twist if he turns out to be the good guy. After all, so far we've only seen him kill demons. :)

I know the name Severin from the Gene Wolfe books I mentioned above, and 'Venus in Furs' by the Velvet Underground. :) Though Wikipedia has a whole page of "famous people called Severin". I'll add the é to how I spell his name if he turns out to be French after all. :)

[frogfarm]

God, that art was seriously hit and miss. Even at best I was working harder than I felt I should have to. At worst, well, I had to figure out Riley from context, and had *no* idea that was Andrew.

[stormwreath]

Yeah, it didn't come across as Jeanty's best work. I could only recognise Andrew because he was namechecked early on, so I could flip back to that page to compare the pictures...

[ladycallie]

Oh, thank god, I wasn't alone! I seriously didn't figure out that was Riley until just now. Oi. I was skimming, but yes, the art was vague at times.

[immortality]

I haven't read the issue (and only skimmed the latter half of S8), but in regards to Willow's intentions for restoring/replacing/etc the Seed, I would tend to assume she's straddling the line between 'good for the world' and 'personally beneficial.' Destroying something fundamental to the world isn't a good idea at all, so there's that, but also, no matter how much Will may have worried about becoming less human because of the magic, it is still so ingrained in her that I can imagine she suffers greatly each day from the loss of it. Maybe she doesn't want to basically be controlled by the magic as she was, but she still wants to be able to have her magic ability.

[stormwreath]

I'm sure she does want her magic back; her motives aren't entirely selfless. Even so, I was expecting her to be much more broken up about it than she's actually shown in this issue.

I thought she'd be "suffering greatly", as you put it; suddenly being deprived of her ability to fly, use telepathy or control objects with her mind must be like becoming paraplegic and blind simultaneously. But from what we see, she seems to have her life together much better than Buffy herself does. She has a decent job, a new girlfriend (maybe not serious), and she's the one to comfort and reassure Buffy, not vice-versa. So either Willow is now incredibly mature, or there's something bad going on under the surface. Or both. :) But I do think she's focussed on the bigger picture, not being selfish.

[immortality]

So either Willow is now incredibly mature, or there's something bad going on under the surface. Or both

Willow's always been a bit more mature than Buffy, Imho, so yeah, I can definitely see it as being a mix of both. Or Willow is just trying to SEEM more mature and cool with it, especially using the new girlfriend as a distraction.

Aura seems really boring and obnoxious; I don't understand, I actually want Kennedy back ... ! My bb Tara is obviously never coming back, so I guess I'm just aiming for the next best thing, after Oz.