I nearly cried at the scenes when Joyce was talking to herself/the monster, with Dawn trying so hard to ignore it because it was too hard to deal with and Buffy turning up the music and finally just breaking out into tears while washing the dishes.
Yes, that was definitely the most powerful scene in the episode for me. I recently rewatched it, and it was especially difficult since we had a very similar situation in my house about a year ago, when my grandma was dying. I know that at this point Joyce was not necessarily going to die, but the covering your head with a pillow, and turning up the water so you could block out the noise or cry, as well as hearing someone you love saying very strange things to you or someone who isn't there, really hit home for me. SMG, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Kristine Sutherland were all brilliant in this ep.
*hugs* Yeah... there was a particularly bad time in my family when my grandmother was living with us for a little and was experiencing the first stages of Alzheimer's, and just how scary and disturbing it was. I felt exactly like Dawn.
I knew Riley was sort of pulling away from Buffy, I didn't realize he was pulling away from the Scoobies as well
It's hard to defend Riley too hard here - but it is a two-way street. And as the shows go on, the ineptitude of these characters at reaching out to one another is exposed to a greater degree. Such that, oftentimes, we'll see how the other characters stay defined withing the group based upon their romantic tie to B/W/X - and very rarely develop interlocking relationships.
For example, I think "the Replacement" might actually be the last episode where Riley has a meaningful 'friendship' type scene with Willow, Xander, Giles, Tara or Anya... and they with him.
Yeah, the only Scoobie significant other that I think really fit in with the group was Oz... I always liked S1 Angel because it got the outsiders on Buffy who didn't interact together.
I think the interesting thing about Riley is that he seems to be deliberately distancing himself -- Anya and Tara more often than not seem to feel out of place, but still sort of seem to want to be accepted (Tara in particular), and Riley in S4 was like that too, very friendly, very nice. Now he's really starting to pull away -- he's sort of gone off on his own and ditched the Scoobies twice, he hides the Initiative involvement, very interesting.
Hi there! - I stumbled upon your cool episode analysis through Mutant_Allies. And I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts - they tap into a lot of my own sentiments, regarding the episode, the characters, and the season. As you so wonderfully stated, I think there's a lot of emotionally resonant material in S5. I found the dynamic between Buffy, Dawn, and Joyce really affecting and very much heart-breaking. I'm a total sucker for the theme of family =)
Listening to Fear is a neat episode for me - on re-watching it, I start seeing stuff I originally missed out on. As I've rambled about in my own journal, Dawn's arc was written to be a metaphor for adoption. I missed out on that during the first viewing - but on repeated viewing, I see all this wonderful subtext on the matter. Like this little exchange from Listening to Fear...
JOYCE: Dawn... She's not ... mine, is she? BUFFY: No... JOYCE: She's ... she does belong to us, though
( ... )
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Yes, that was definitely the most powerful scene in the episode for me. I recently rewatched it, and it was especially difficult since we had a very similar situation in my house about a year ago, when my grandma was dying. I know that at this point Joyce was not necessarily going to die, but the covering your head with a pillow, and turning up the water so you could block out the noise or cry, as well as hearing someone you love saying very strange things to you or someone who isn't there, really hit home for me. SMG, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Kristine Sutherland were all brilliant in this ep.
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It's hard to defend Riley too hard here - but it is a two-way street. And as the shows go on, the ineptitude of these characters at reaching out to one another is exposed to a greater degree. Such that, oftentimes, we'll see how the other characters stay defined withing the group based upon their romantic tie to B/W/X - and very rarely develop interlocking relationships.
For example, I think "the Replacement" might actually be the last episode where Riley has a meaningful 'friendship' type scene with Willow, Xander, Giles, Tara or Anya... and they with him.
Reply
I think the interesting thing about Riley is that he seems to be deliberately distancing himself -- Anya and Tara more often than not seem to feel out of place, but still sort of seem to want to be accepted (Tara in particular), and Riley in S4 was like that too, very friendly, very nice. Now he's really starting to pull away -- he's sort of gone off on his own and ditched the Scoobies twice, he hides the Initiative involvement, very interesting.
Reply
Listening to Fear is a neat episode for me - on re-watching it, I start seeing stuff I originally missed out on. As I've rambled about in my own journal, Dawn's arc was written to be a metaphor for adoption. I missed out on that during the first viewing - but on repeated viewing, I see all this wonderful subtext on the matter. Like this little exchange from Listening to Fear...
JOYCE: Dawn... She's not ... mine, is she?
BUFFY: No...
JOYCE: She's ... she does belong to us, though ( ... )
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I love the entire Dawn arc in S5 (I have a little sister, so I am sort of biased). And welcome aboard the LJ!
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