FREE-FOR-ALL META COMMENT-A-THON

[upupa_epops]

Old news: lj is dead. Everyone is crazy busy, or they have other reasons not to be here. No one has time to read those huge meta posts we used to write once upon a time. But maybe we can all find ten minutes to do this:

FREE-FOR-ALL META COMMENT-A-THON!

Comments

[red_satin_doll]

Costume: Buffy's clothes fit this blue color design. Perhaps more interestingly, Spike begins wearing this garish blue shirt

Costume is one of the aspects of the show that I think gets overlooked a lot in terms of design/visuals. It's interesting how frequently Buffy and Spike's costumes are color-matched in key moments in S6 (I haven't done an analysis of it by any means, alas): both wearing red and black in the final scenes of OMWF; both wearing blue and black (leather and cloth) in Smashed; and I think that applies here as well. Buffy's camisole is much likes ones she wore in earlier seasons, up to early S6 (All the Way) before her sexual liason with Spike and the loss of friendship and trust between them. Her covered-up, conservative clothes seems to be a way of "hiding" her body, her shame, as well as the truth of her relationship with Spike; whereas her top in BY, especially in the church scene, seems almost defiant: she's reclaiming her own body, to decorate and display as she pleases, not the possession of anyone else. Her sexuality is her's alone to wield.

But it also, as in OMWF, and Smashed, matches her to Spike visually and not just in terms of the color, as you mention. They are both slender, with pale hair and skin, and she can't be "shirtless" on tv, obviously, she's far more "naked", physically and emotionally, than she was in Smashed. I'm curious as to what the large, MOP cross pendant she's wearing is meant to signify - why the old fashioned, pre-Christian "sun symbol" type cross, why so large and prominent?

I noticed recently that the shot of Buffyby the window with Dawn behind her at the beginning of the ep is almost exactly reversed in the shot of Spike clutching the cross with Buffy behind him near the end, down to the blue tones and the framing - each Hero has their own cross to bear this season, and in these moments they feel terribly alone, but eventually they will lift each other and make each other stronger (I've lightened the caps a little for emphasis):