Buffy rewatch: 2.20. Go Fish

[boot_the_grime]

This is the kind of standalone episode that would fit well in season 1 - an obvious but still effective metaphor about some particular aspect of the dark side of school life (Witch, The Pack, Out of Mind, Out of Sight). This time it’s a heavy-handed “don’t take steroids, they’ll frak you up” message, with a realistic portrayal of other unpleasant

Comments

[gabrielleabelle]

The worst scene is definitely when Buffy is telling the Scoobies about Cameron and how she was treated as the bad guy, and they are completely disinterested and looking at her with annoyance, like why is she even talking about it instead of getting to the serious business of helping them with the research.

Yeah, I don't know what to make of that scene, either. It makes me get all frowny-faced with the Scoobs.

but this time it seems like the episode is playing it like the audience is supposed to be enjoying the fulfillment of a revenge fantasy. I can’t say that I felt sorry for the coach, but I certainly didn’t feel that what happened to him was something to laugh at or enjoy, either - and the idea that someone would is rather creepy.

*nods*

It's...off-putting.

This makes 3 shirtless scenes for Xander, 1 for Oz, and 6 (in 5 episodes) for Angel (he was shirtless in a scene from I Only Have Eyes For You which I forgot to mention, where he’s washing himself, disgusted by having had love in him - but unlike his other shirtless

[frelling_tralk]

I always thought it was the most bizarre decision to follow up the IOHEFY cliffhanger with Go Fish and absolutely no mention of what Angelus, Spike and Dru are up too, it's a big part of why I think the pacing of season 2 is just terrible at times. I hate when an episode of any show ends on a cliffhanger, and then the next few episodes make no mention of it and go on like it never happened until they want to deal with it again

[boot_the_grime]

I've just had a huge debate about that scene on Buffyforums these last couple of days. Lots of people (at least 3 of them on BF) seem to think that there was nothing wrong with how the Scoobies reacted, because Buffy told the story in a "trivial and lighthearted" way, and because she wasn't traumatized by the assault itself and was never in danger from Cameron.

My feelings on this are summed up by this icon.

[frelling_tralk]

My reading of that wasn't that Buffy was telling it in a lighthearted way, wtf indeed. I would agree though that I don't think it was ever meant to be about Buffy being traumatized, but it was an angry Buffy who was pissed and ranting over what the authorities were condoning with their male athletes (which was something that the episode seemed to care about elsewhere. Xander actually had an angrier reaction when Willow told them about being forced by Synder into inflating grades, that was the scene when he chooses to get worked up enough to talk about how wrong that is and unfair on the other students). So for her friends to be so dismissive of Buffy being blamed for an athlete attempting to sexually assault her just makes that scene even stranger in context when the rest of the episode keeps pushing home how wrong it is that the athletes are getting away with what they do.