BtVS Bad Girls review
I posted a review of Bad Girls on BuffyForums. I am posting an LJ version.
Bad Girls is one of my favorite eps. Top 5 for S3. This ep features a number of power struggles- most prominently a Watcher power struggle, a Slayer power struggle and a villain power struggle in this ep. Introducing a villain diva-off between the Mayor and Balthezar is actually hilarious in a season that features a slayer-diva off between Buffy and Faith and a Watcher diva-off between Giles and Wes. However the result of these power struggles is to firmly state that the main protagonists/antagonists (Buffy, Giles, The Mayor) inarguably deserve their status.
Balthezar: Second Place from the Mayor
Balthazar is a very underrated MoTW. Like the Mayor, Balthazar had a mission to become more powerful through ritual and he thought out a pretty clear game plan. Balthazar had about the same number of vamps in his army as the Mayor. Even more, Balthazar has a real uniformed, weapon-outfitted disciplined, loyal real army. Sorry Spike, but I respect vamps that carry additional weapons besides just their fangs. (Although, per Mr. Trick, an ouzi >>>> a sword).
In the first season, someone could be a trapped, immobilized demon but attain Big Bad street cred by having an army of super-loyal, samurai-code vamps. Pop culture portrayals of vamps usually paint vamps as very independent, counter-culture personalities who revel in their power and evil for themselves. You gotta respect demons who could force vamps into a self-sacrificial army at the behest of the top dog demon.
However, the Mayor is the Big Bad and Balthazar is the MoTW. Even in his last words, Balthazar admits that the Mayor is the bigger bad ass but they were running in the same competition. The Mayor seems to have crippled Balthezar because the Mayor regarded the big guy as a threat. The Mayor can aspire to greater ambitions because he's in the thick of Sunnydale politics, he can blend into the real world. The Mayor worked for decades to curry the "political" favor to achieve a once in several generations (at least) feat by Ascending. As someone who passes as human, the Mayor can own the town. Balthazar, despite his vampire army, long term planning skills, and great MoTW villain wit, is confined to his tub. His ambitions are necessarily much less than the Mayor's. His amulet will lend him greater power; the Mayor's century of back-scratching will give him pure demonic form.
Wesley: Second Place After Giles
The Mayor and Balthezar obviously have the heaviest competition since Balthezar sent an assassin after the Mayor. However, at this point of the story, Giles and Wesley certainly have the second most intense competition going. Buffy catches some fair criticism for how she jealously reacts to Kendra or Faith disturbing her "I'm the only slayer" specialness.
However, IMO, Giles is way more immature than Buffy about working with other Watchers. Buffy reaches a point with Kendra and Faith where she'll really partner with them and she displays compassion for their lot in life. I think Giles softens a little towards Wesley towards the end of the season. Wesley is his most inflexible and obnoxious in Bad Girls and Consequences but he quietly softens *a lot* throughout the season and bends a lot to try to work with Giles as S3 progresses. Wes openly regrets their non-cooperative relationship in AtS S1. However, Giles is always competitive and hostile towards Wes.
Part of this discrepancy is that Buffy is a kinder, more compassionate person than Giles. In her way, Buffy is also more clear-eyed practical about defeating evil at the expense of pissing contests. However, I also think that slayers are more likely to work together in harsh, field conditions than Watchers. Fighters want good comrades in arms. Certain types of strategists/brains of the operation tend to want to be the only ones talking so their ideas carry the day and that's Watchers. Slayers are also more obviously sympathetic cases than Watchers. Kendra's and Faith's traumas were laid right out in the open for Buffy to see.
How I think the Council picks field watchers: I think the Council tries to send Watchers without spouses and children for a number of reasons. Married Watchers with families tend to be older and more established and could hold more political sway to avoid a draft. The Council is likely inclined to not want to send a father or mother into harm's way. Watcher's with children have a responsibility to bring up their children to be exemplary Watchers as per their family legacy.
IMO, the Council sucks in a lot of ways but IMO, they seem to send genuinely talented Watchers to serve in the field. Perhaps not the creme de la creme in the political hierarchy of the Council but from what we've seen, there's a lot to be said for Giles, Wesley, Nikki Wood's Watcher, Kendra's and Faith's first Watchers according to the slayers' (however Stockholm Syndrome miserable life created) testimonial.
Of course, there's trade-offs. The Council chose wisely on the surface by assigning Giles to Buffy. Through his rebellious and goody goody days, Giles manged to reach forty-something years by living a life that gave him a ton of useful skills and experience in magic and fighting but never formed romantic/family permanent ties. I don't think Giles is a particularly disciplined or even gifted researcher or scholar but he has wide-ranging talents and he's great at magic for a Watcher. And Giles's deficiencies as a researcher/scholar are assuaged by how all the Scoobies really help him with research.
I think the Council just missed a surprising subtlety. One one hand, Giles's monastic lifestyle was logically appealing to the Council because he hasn't burdened himself with a family and it bespeaks exactly how Giles really regrets the excesses of his youth and became all about the duty and the job. Plus, Giles isn't a weird older bachelor. He's focused on doing the right thing- he's not still single because he's too awkward to interact with the opposite sex or because he's on a perpetual self-centered pervy older-man hunt for young tail. However, the Council missed out that a socially high functioning guy who failed to have a family out of guilt could very well still have empty nest syndrome.
Now, Giles is discriminating in his romantic aspirations and empty nest syndrome. He only really fell in love with Jenny and he only developed parental feelings about Buffy. I'm a little bit of a broken record when I discuss the strategic reasons why Giles should have taken the Scoobies, especially Faith and Willow, under his wing and into his heart. However, Giles maintains a politely distant "I'm not the Watcher of you" attitude with those guys partly because he already filled up his emotional empty nest. Only Jenny and Buffy were special enough to Giles to really make it into his heart. Basically, Giles just would married the love of his life and had *one* kid and he couldn't exactly deal with having a Key-created kid even if it's a twinsy-package deal with the kid that Giles *actually* considers a daughter.
Meanwhile, IMO, Wesley had to be around 22, 23, 24 at the oldest. IMO, he's right outta university. He's also a study in trade-offs. His youth and Watcher-centric upbringing means that he's absolutely loyal to the Council because it's all he knows. I also think there's validity behind sending young Watchers into the field. At the very least, it offers the Council institutional memory of Watchers with field experience who go on to take leadership roles in England. However, he's likely only five years older than Buffy and he's far less worldly and practically-experienced. He's in no shape to command her or even mentorly advise her. He would have done better if he got a Potential little girl to raise. (Although, Wesley's is just so Murphy's Law that I don't even want to make that call.) His Head Boy academic and disciplinary excellence at the Academy has terrific indicators for success- intelligence, preparedness for the research side of the battle, a talent at following orders, a track record of effort. However, Wes's early academic excellence comes from a childhood and young adulthood focused on books and little else. Years of merely striving for academic awards and titles imbued him with false, unearned confidence on his preparedness for war.
Even at his ponciest, Wesley really shows valuable insights and talents that IMO, beat Giles. Giles rolls his eyes at Wesley excitedly heading for his books on hearing that the vampires that Buffy faced carried swords. However, it *is* interesting that fanged vampires carried swords. Wes's instincts were darn right. And Wesley immediately identified the cult that carried those swords. Just-fresh-from-the-plane Wesley was wrong that Balthezar was extinct. However, Wesley *did* identify a powerful demon with his own army of vampires who was on the verge of becoming even more powerful, like, before he got over his jet lag.
Wesley’s instincts helped keep the amulet out of Balthezar’s hands to lend Balthezar even more power beyond Balthezar's current army of vamps. Meanwhile, all of these shenanigans were occurring in the very town that Giles was *Watching*. Giles didn’t have a tiny clue. Under Giles’s “watch”, Balthezar probably would have got his amulet and got a big power boost to a very dangerous end. So Giles can shut it with his “You know, your *dead* demon” “snippiness”.
Wesley’s little memorized parables can be tiresome but “A good slayer is a cautious slayer” could be the tag-line for the damn ep and the Buffy/Faith conflict. In a world before everyone carried cellphones, Wesley is not dumb to show up at the Bronze and suggest that Buffy should give him the phone number of where she goes after slaying so he can contact her. Giles should have such a policy. (Although, I'm picturing a funny fanfic where Wesley gets the number to the Bronze, the Expresso Pump, the mall, all of Buffy's favorite haunts, and regularly annoys all of the proprietors as he pompously checks if Buffy's there because he has urgent business to check with her.)
In Wesley's very first line, I see the first clue that Wesley came to Sunnydale with every genuine intention to fight evil in the field instead of wait out his slayer's death while hiding in a library and Wes's pragmatic, pro-modernity nature underneath his stuffy clothing:
Wesley: Of course, training procedures have been updated quite a bit since your day. Much greater emphasis on field work.
Giles: (very bored) Really?
Wesley: Oh, yes. Not all books and theory nowadays. I have, in fact, faced two vampires myself. Under controlled circumstances, of course.
….And yet, Wesley crumbled under the threat of torture. That makes him pretty unfit for the authoritarian leadership role that he aspired to. Obviously, he comes off like a big fat (well….thin) hypocrite when he orders Buffy/Oz/Xander to sacrifice Willow for the Box of Gavrok but he, the adult professional of destiny, is ready to hand over the super-important amulet when a demon threatens his kneecaps. Not just that but by some standards, Wesley rendered himself unfit to merely hear information/strategy sessions because the Scoobies can’t trust that he’ll keep his yap shut when things get pivotal. “He’ll see the big board!”- but keep the Dr. Strangelove reference without the satire.
Coupled with his fear of torture, he sucks at fighting. Now, the Scoobies have included some crappy fighters. I think BtVS S3 Wesley may still better be a better fighter than Tara, non-demon Anya, S5 Dawn, or Oz. However, no one cares to shelter Wesley even as a weak link fighter, who can be proactive with pep and research and planning if he’s a coward. Moreover, the fighty weak links like Anya or early Dawn or Tara get protection and a role to play outside of fighting because a core Scooby(ies) love them. I argue below how these support person roles are necessarily limited because combat is by far the most consistently respected role in the Scoobies (even more in AI). However, you can gain an entry into Scoobydom even though you're a sucky fighter and haven't really displayed out-of-this-world bravery (and in Anya's case, displayed utter cowardice in late S3 through mid S4) if you come in as a girlfriend or sister.
Although, this is my opinion of Wesley’s fitness. And I’m sure that Wesley’s cowardly display affected the Scoobies’ treatment/willingness to accept him going forward on a very pragmatic level. However, the Scoobies can be hypocrites. They included Spike in the loop even though everyone believed that he’d sell their asses to whomever from Adam to Glory for a carton of smokes. Moreover, I’d argue that Wesley already started growing as a person on BtVS and displayed acts of courage as early as the next ep. Plus, it's not just Spike. The Scoobies generally run a big risk by usually telling everyone classified information, even though torturing demons lurk on every corner.
Wesley displayed other weaknesses as well. Obviously, Buffy and Faith didn’t give him a chance. Wesley barely had a chance to talk before both Buffy and Faith decided that they didn’t like him in a totally superficial, mean-spirited way. However, Buffy’s and Faith’s immediate attitude problem with Wesley wasn’t really his fault. By the first handshake, Buffy refused to take his hand. By the first hello, Faith stormed out of the library.
BTW, sometimes I think Buffy misses out on golden opportunities to both better her life and actually, do the right thing out of over-the-top mistaken loyalty. If Buffy was reasonably friendly to Wesley and interested in getting to know him, Buffy could have benefited greatly. She'd get a second opinion from another Watcher instead of leaving Giles as the monopoly on adult slaying advice. She'd get to punish Giles a little for poisoning her and recklessly disregarding her safety two weeks ago and show that he doesn't own her ass. Giles would have to work a little harder to keep Buffy's favor. Wesley's whole arc shows that if one can engender his loyalty, he'll make any sacrifice for that person...or vampire...or Old One.
For Wesley's part, he's not personally invested in Buffy or Faith. He doesn't love either of them like daughters. Giles asks if Buffy's all right when Buffy said that last night's fight was intense; Wesley counts four limbs and a head and surmises that she's OK. However, Wesley's pedantry like asking for the phone number of Buffy's post-slay haunts or trying to plot out the timing of their mission down to the minute comes because Wesley takes his duty to Watch his slayers very seriously. He doesn't have to like them as people; the job is enough to merit his concern. In this ep, Wesley focuses a little more on Buffy than Faith because Buffy is the only slayer willing to deal him on any level whatsoever. That's true for most of BtVS S3. However AtS shows that deep down, Wesley was a lot more internally pre-occupied with Faith than Buffy because Faith ended up much further afield from where a Watcher is supposed to guide a Slayer- to be a whole, active, healthy Warrior *For* the People for as long as possible. It's in stark contrast to Giles who was always far more concerned with Buffy because Buffy was more appealing to him personally until she wasn't in S8.
Faith: Second Banana From Buffy
Faith is also not the Main Protagonist Slayer. This ep tries to lay that at her moral failings- to refuse to take responsibility for her actions.
Faith also has her strengths. Like Buffy, Faith is a slayer and also a *leader*. Morally and strategically, Faith *led* Buffy through the big underground fight with the Illuminati until Finch’s death. That….doesn’t happen often. In the history of the show, Buffy only made herself remotely subordinate as a slayer to (a) Faith in this ep, and (b) briefly the Initiative.
Faith forced Buffy into the fight with the Illuminati. Buffy thought Faith's risky "dive into the hole" would fail. Faith's strategy actually succeeded. Then, Faith got Buffy to retract Buffy’s series-long line about how being a slayer sucks. Faith got Buffy to cut class to slay vampires and then, influenced Buffy’s behavior at the Bronze. Faith induced Buffy to steal and got Buffy to declare the “Want. Take. Have” as her new guiding principle to be a slayer. Faith convinced Buffy, against her better judgment, to break out of the cop car. Faith’s social pressures were enough to make Buffy gleefully stand up her best friend and then, it was enough to get Buffy to pull the slayer card to exclude Willow from a hunt that Buffy already invited Willow to before Faith started living large all over Buffy’s behavior.
In general, Buffy has far more advantages than Faith and the show/fandom covers those. However, Faith comes with her own advantages potent enough to subordinate the Unsinkably Alpha Buffy Summers. Faith has a bold, magnetic personality that certainly rivals and may even eclipse Buffy’s. Faith’s whole life revolves around slaying. This could be how Faith knows about vampire nests before Buffy does. Faith can go after the nests in the middle of the day when the slayers have the advantage over vampires without cutting class. Buffy has to please and balance a lot of people and a wear a lot of hats. Faith can just focus on being a slayer. Faith is fearless in a careless, nihilistic, doomed to die young way. Buffy’s caution is generally much better but in this ep, Faith actually crazily calculated correctly that the two slayers could defeat the Iluminati vampires underground…and that intercepted Balthezar getting the amulet the first time around.
However, Buffy does stop following Faith's lead in this and definitely in the next ep. Buffy actually doesn't stop modeling herself after Faith out of Buffy's ego or jealousy or even Buffy's pride or preference of her own life choices. Faith loses her influence over Buffy's behavior because Faith refused to take responsibility for her actions.
Still, early into Faith's fall (really until she tries suffocating Xander), it's very hard for me to blame her for a lot of stuff. I suppose I'd be remiss if I didn't weigh in on the legality/ethicality/black....stainality? of Faith accidentally killing Allen Finch. On the surface, I take a vanilla position. It was clearly an accident. However, Buffy exhibited control and dexterity to avoid making similar accidents i.e. when Buffy reflexively stopped staking Vamp Willow when Willow called out "Buffy no!"
However, not only does Buffy "work out" as she proudly and pointedly proclaims in Doppelgangland, Buffy also gets close, careful training from Giles. A lot of Giles's job is designing specific work-outs for Buffy to improve her strength, her speed, her dexterity, her flexibility, her reflexes, meditation techniques to stop stresses from hurting her performances. Even if Faith's first Watcher was awesome and totally did her job, Faith hasn't benefited from a Watcher for months because Giles hasn't picked up any of that slack. Of course, child soldier Faith will work out her strength before her reflexes to follow orders in combat since Faith never gets those combat-orders anyway. Remember, Faith's been sent out alone to fight the lurking evil in most eps.
There's also something pitiable about the "Faith as a Thief". Faith spouts off Want.Take.Have but she's living in a pit. We saw her try to sell her body to make rent. At the end of this ep, Faith was doing her best to scrub the stubborn stains from her crappy, cheap wife-beater because she's not planning to steal a brand new shirt just because the first one was stained and she's above laundry as a slayer. What did Faith steal on-screen? Weapons to slay demons.
I can be very critical of how Buffyverse characters fall into darkness/villainy in an OOC or rushed way. However, I do believe Faith's fall 100 percent. However, it's not because Faith is a bad seed and Faith's been a bad seed since she rolled into town. Faith's hardened her heart to the world since it treated her so poorly to the point that she's cynical about everyone. The world instructed to Faith that the world functions as a dog-eat-dog world where everyone is just out for themselves.
However, I do think there's something exceptional in Faith that wishes the world was a better place. That spark of goodness drives Faith to endure selling her body to live in a crappy motel while she risks her life fighting demons to protect everyone else. At the start, I actually think that becoming a slayer and meeting Buffy was good for Faith. In her eyes, becoming a slayer was the first halfway lucky break that Faith ever got. From an outside perspective, Buffy and the Scoobies showed Faith that the world didn't have to be a nihilistic competition. But then, it hurt all the more when Faith came to realize that Buffy/the Scoobies *is* a competition and one that she's doomed to lose all the time. "The Scythe feels like mine...which means it must be yours". To a great extent, Faith's not wrong that the Scoobies are a competition and accepting a place in Buffy's world frequently means resigning yourself to second banana status. That has to be beyond frustrating to a slayer who's laying her life down too.
Controlled Circumstances Can Control You!
Balthazar's impotence as a demon confined to his tub reverberates on Willow, Wesley and the Council in general. In S1 when the Master was the Big Bad even though was confined underground, the Council had the most silent influence over Buffy. Giles was the closest to who the Council wanted him to be. Buffy generally listened to Giles. Simple as that. The Council actively starts feeling their limitations in S3 when they tried playing a more active role in Buffy's life and she spurned them. Buffy can comfortably do that because the Council was confined to England for the first three years of her career. They failed to define an important role in the field for themselves without Giles as their representative.
Last ep focused on how Xander felt about being fray-adjacent. In this ep, Willow deals with that. Both Xander and Willow are strangely upset to be banished from dangerous combat zones, LOL. However, they've in this war for two years. Recently, the American military allowed its service-women to serve in combat zones if they're physically fit enough for the job. One of the most important reasons was that service-women couldn't earn promotions or advancement past a certain level if they didn't see combat experience, no matter how they ranked at West Point or how long they've been in the military or what great ideas they had.
"Buffy's Army" operates similarly. A huge part of status in the group comes from someone's combat experience and abilities. Being on stable, top-notch, inner-circle, golden footing in the Scoobies requires: (a) a fuzzy-wuzzy tight connection to Buffy and (b) *perceived* usefulness in the fight against evil which can mean anything from actual indispensability to some utility but a whole lot of bad-ass aeshtetics. You really need both. The former dynamic is the most common. A Scooby can have a fuzzy-wuzzy emotional connection to Buffy but if they are perceived as weak kitteny than they get cut out of most of the most important life-or-death emotional moments of Buffy's life because she doesn't think they can keep up safely and effectively.
The latter dynamic is kind of rare but it's a real thing. Faith and Robin Wood had badassery going for them- but Buffy wasn't that tight with them so they were on a much shorter nerve with her. The previous ep, The Zeppo focuses on Xander's exclusion from the group because while he's emotionally tight with Buffy, he lacks the appearance of super-powered badassery. However, Faith had the opposite problems up until Bad Girls. Like Xander in The Zeppo, Faith was out of the Scooby zone for most of the day and evening. She didn't research, prep the spell, fret or banter about the lurking evil or have doughnuts. Unlike Xander, the Scoobies called her in for the fight because they needed her Slayer muscles when the going got tough. However in a season long pattern, they didn't include her in the actual team stuff during The Zeppo because everyone regards Faith as a loner-badass and the invulnerable slayer who walks alone.
But make no mistake, Faith was muscle. She's not any more a part of the in-crowd than Xander because she lacks that fuzzy-wuzzy friendly draw (although Faith was making gains on that point in Bad Girls). It makes narrative sense that Xander has the emotional bond with the Scoobies but they don't have sufficient respect for his skills and Faith has the mad skillz but she doesn't have the Scooby bond. Even though their challenges are opposite, it still puts them out of the library and into each other's arms.
However, Bad Girls shows an alternative where Faith can get it ALLLL- the superpowered bad-assery and the tight connection with Buffy. A super-status usually only enjoyed by Angel and S7 Spike.
I'll get this out now- Willow was rationally threatened by Faith. After one great sisters-in-arms bonding experience with Faith, Buffy stood Willow up from Willow's tutoring session without the grace to call to cancel or acknowledge the stand-up in the next day, jettisoned Willow from a mutually agreed on patrol, and barely summoned a yawn at Willow providing Buffy with a protection spell which I think should be pretty damn welcome for a slayer in Sunnydale.
Since Faith accidentally killed a guy and felt no remorse, Buffy's infatuation was verrrrry short-lived. However before Willow learned about that, Willow had reason to fear that Buffy would drop Willow from this patrol and that tutoring session to the point that Willow really didn't play a role in Buffy's life anymore and certainly not the life-and-death war against evil that defines Buffy's life the most deeply and pivotally.
I do think it's interesting that The Zeppo and Bad Girls features Buffy excluding Xander/Willow from the fight. In both cases, Buffy cites surfacey and partly true "I must protect my powerless friends!" reasons but Buffy also excludes W/X because of Buffy's social dissatisfaction with both of them. Xander has it worst- Buffy is pretty tired and annoyed with him full-stop. With Willow, I think Buffy is unconsciously comparison-shopping to see if she can get a more understanding, cooler best friend when Faith appeared like such a great option. Of course when Faith flopped as a friend after Finch's murder, Buffy went right back to Willow because Buffy doesn't have a problem with Willow per se. Buffy is just wondering if she can do better.
Needless to say, I have a problem with this. Other than some understandable coldness for like, a day in Dead Man's Party, Willow had been a terrific friend to Buffy from Welcome to the Hellmouth through Bad Girls. Moreover even if Faith never went dark, I don't see what Buffy quite gets out of the comparison-shopping. Faith and Willow both previously expressed a fondness for and curiosity about each other in Faith, Hope and Trick, Beauty and Beasts, Homecoming, and The Wish- although they've lived in totally different worlds in a bunch of the eps before Bad Girls and Faith's actions sour Willow toward Faith in the next ep. If Buffy wants to be better friends with Faith, there's no pre-existing reason why she can't also include Willow.
I mentioned earlier than I wished that Buffy tried to embrace Wesley more, for Wesley's sake but also because Helpless gave Buffy ample cause to send Giles a signal that Buffy won't automatically follow him. And I think a Watcher is kind of like a doctor or lawyer or any kind of professional who has discretion to dispense high level counsel- never hurts to get a second opinion. Buffy is playing the wrong game to serve justice or her own cause by rewarding Giles with absolute loyalty, even if he tried to poison her or even if his professional performance as a Watcher could stand a little second-guessing, but then among her peers, picking Faith over Willow when Willow did nothing to deserve that and there's been no indication that Buffy has to even start excluding Willow to be better friends with Faith.
Willow and Xander are my darlings. Part of that is how they instinctively "get" the reason for their rejection (as Willow says in this ep, she's had years of practice with rejection) while also adorably falling somewhat off-kilter from their deficiencies. In The Zeppo, Xander *was* right that part of his problem is that he lacks "cool". He really has an unquestionable record of outstanding performance in the war against evil. However, he lacks the presence to make a rep that sticks. He has a lot of opinions about how the Scoobs should function but he's only alienated/bothered people in how he brings it up. IMO, Xander was aware of these larger problems but he was too afraid to speak in a paragraph of meta about his issues. So, he boiled it down to "cool" and through trivializing his issues, he fumphered around for a trivial solution that he knew was futile because he knows his obstacles are more serious.
In this ep, Willow's right that Buffy does lean toward Faith partly because Faith is supernaturally gifted. Willow logically tries to sell herself as an equal asset with witchcraft because those are Willow's powers. However, Faith's superpowers appeal meshes with the appeal of Faith's devil-may-care Bad Girl attitude that's drawing Buffy in. Willow's success in off-setting the sulfur fumes of her protection spell with a minty fresh aroma is the opposite of devil-may-care cool and Willow calls attention to that in her pitch.
Bad Girls is one of my favorite eps. Top 5 for S3. This ep features a number of power struggles- most prominently a Watcher power struggle, a Slayer power struggle and a villain power struggle in this ep. Introducing a villain diva-off between the Mayor and Balthezar is actually hilarious in a season that features a slayer-diva off between Buffy and Faith and a Watcher diva-off between Giles and Wes. However the result of these power struggles is to firmly state that the main protagonists/antagonists (Buffy, Giles, The Mayor) inarguably deserve their status.
Balthezar: Second Place from the Mayor
Balthazar is a very underrated MoTW. Like the Mayor, Balthazar had a mission to become more powerful through ritual and he thought out a pretty clear game plan. Balthazar had about the same number of vamps in his army as the Mayor. Even more, Balthazar has a real uniformed, weapon-outfitted disciplined, loyal real army. Sorry Spike, but I respect vamps that carry additional weapons besides just their fangs. (Although, per Mr. Trick, an ouzi >>>> a sword).
In the first season, someone could be a trapped, immobilized demon but attain Big Bad street cred by having an army of super-loyal, samurai-code vamps. Pop culture portrayals of vamps usually paint vamps as very independent, counter-culture personalities who revel in their power and evil for themselves. You gotta respect demons who could force vamps into a self-sacrificial army at the behest of the top dog demon.
However, the Mayor is the Big Bad and Balthazar is the MoTW. Even in his last words, Balthazar admits that the Mayor is the bigger bad ass but they were running in the same competition. The Mayor seems to have crippled Balthezar because the Mayor regarded the big guy as a threat. The Mayor can aspire to greater ambitions because he's in the thick of Sunnydale politics, he can blend into the real world. The Mayor worked for decades to curry the "political" favor to achieve a once in several generations (at least) feat by Ascending. As someone who passes as human, the Mayor can own the town. Balthazar, despite his vampire army, long term planning skills, and great MoTW villain wit, is confined to his tub. His ambitions are necessarily much less than the Mayor's. His amulet will lend him greater power; the Mayor's century of back-scratching will give him pure demonic form.
Wesley: Second Place After Giles
The Mayor and Balthezar obviously have the heaviest competition since Balthezar sent an assassin after the Mayor. However, at this point of the story, Giles and Wesley certainly have the second most intense competition going. Buffy catches some fair criticism for how she jealously reacts to Kendra or Faith disturbing her "I'm the only slayer" specialness.
However, IMO, Giles is way more immature than Buffy about working with other Watchers. Buffy reaches a point with Kendra and Faith where she'll really partner with them and she displays compassion for their lot in life. I think Giles softens a little towards Wesley towards the end of the season. Wesley is his most inflexible and obnoxious in Bad Girls and Consequences but he quietly softens *a lot* throughout the season and bends a lot to try to work with Giles as S3 progresses. Wes openly regrets their non-cooperative relationship in AtS S1. However, Giles is always competitive and hostile towards Wes.
Part of this discrepancy is that Buffy is a kinder, more compassionate person than Giles. In her way, Buffy is also more clear-eyed practical about defeating evil at the expense of pissing contests. However, I also think that slayers are more likely to work together in harsh, field conditions than Watchers. Fighters want good comrades in arms. Certain types of strategists/brains of the operation tend to want to be the only ones talking so their ideas carry the day and that's Watchers. Slayers are also more obviously sympathetic cases than Watchers. Kendra's and Faith's traumas were laid right out in the open for Buffy to see.
How I think the Council picks field watchers: I think the Council tries to send Watchers without spouses and children for a number of reasons. Married Watchers with families tend to be older and more established and could hold more political sway to avoid a draft. The Council is likely inclined to not want to send a father or mother into harm's way. Watcher's with children have a responsibility to bring up their children to be exemplary Watchers as per their family legacy.
IMO, the Council sucks in a lot of ways but IMO, they seem to send genuinely talented Watchers to serve in the field. Perhaps not the creme de la creme in the political hierarchy of the Council but from what we've seen, there's a lot to be said for Giles, Wesley, Nikki Wood's Watcher, Kendra's and Faith's first Watchers according to the slayers' (however Stockholm Syndrome miserable life created) testimonial.
Of course, there's trade-offs. The Council chose wisely on the surface by assigning Giles to Buffy. Through his rebellious and goody goody days, Giles manged to reach forty-something years by living a life that gave him a ton of useful skills and experience in magic and fighting but never formed romantic/family permanent ties. I don't think Giles is a particularly disciplined or even gifted researcher or scholar but he has wide-ranging talents and he's great at magic for a Watcher. And Giles's deficiencies as a researcher/scholar are assuaged by how all the Scoobies really help him with research.
I think the Council just missed a surprising subtlety. One one hand, Giles's monastic lifestyle was logically appealing to the Council because he hasn't burdened himself with a family and it bespeaks exactly how Giles really regrets the excesses of his youth and became all about the duty and the job. Plus, Giles isn't a weird older bachelor. He's focused on doing the right thing- he's not still single because he's too awkward to interact with the opposite sex or because he's on a perpetual self-centered pervy older-man hunt for young tail. However, the Council missed out that a socially high functioning guy who failed to have a family out of guilt could very well still have empty nest syndrome.
Now, Giles is discriminating in his romantic aspirations and empty nest syndrome. He only really fell in love with Jenny and he only developed parental feelings about Buffy. I'm a little bit of a broken record when I discuss the strategic reasons why Giles should have taken the Scoobies, especially Faith and Willow, under his wing and into his heart. However, Giles maintains a politely distant "I'm not the Watcher of you" attitude with those guys partly because he already filled up his emotional empty nest. Only Jenny and Buffy were special enough to Giles to really make it into his heart. Basically, Giles just would married the love of his life and had *one* kid and he couldn't exactly deal with having a Key-created kid even if it's a twinsy-package deal with the kid that Giles *actually* considers a daughter.
Meanwhile, IMO, Wesley had to be around 22, 23, 24 at the oldest. IMO, he's right outta university. He's also a study in trade-offs. His youth and Watcher-centric upbringing means that he's absolutely loyal to the Council because it's all he knows. I also think there's validity behind sending young Watchers into the field. At the very least, it offers the Council institutional memory of Watchers with field experience who go on to take leadership roles in England. However, he's likely only five years older than Buffy and he's far less worldly and practically-experienced. He's in no shape to command her or even mentorly advise her. He would have done better if he got a Potential little girl to raise. (Although, Wesley's is just so Murphy's Law that I don't even want to make that call.) His Head Boy academic and disciplinary excellence at the Academy has terrific indicators for success- intelligence, preparedness for the research side of the battle, a talent at following orders, a track record of effort. However, Wes's early academic excellence comes from a childhood and young adulthood focused on books and little else. Years of merely striving for academic awards and titles imbued him with false, unearned confidence on his preparedness for war.
Even at his ponciest, Wesley really shows valuable insights and talents that IMO, beat Giles. Giles rolls his eyes at Wesley excitedly heading for his books on hearing that the vampires that Buffy faced carried swords. However, it *is* interesting that fanged vampires carried swords. Wes's instincts were darn right. And Wesley immediately identified the cult that carried those swords. Just-fresh-from-the-plane Wesley was wrong that Balthezar was extinct. However, Wesley *did* identify a powerful demon with his own army of vampires who was on the verge of becoming even more powerful, like, before he got over his jet lag.
Wesley’s instincts helped keep the amulet out of Balthezar’s hands to lend Balthezar even more power beyond Balthezar's current army of vamps. Meanwhile, all of these shenanigans were occurring in the very town that Giles was *Watching*. Giles didn’t have a tiny clue. Under Giles’s “watch”, Balthezar probably would have got his amulet and got a big power boost to a very dangerous end. So Giles can shut it with his “You know, your *dead* demon” “snippiness”.
Wesley’s little memorized parables can be tiresome but “A good slayer is a cautious slayer” could be the tag-line for the damn ep and the Buffy/Faith conflict. In a world before everyone carried cellphones, Wesley is not dumb to show up at the Bronze and suggest that Buffy should give him the phone number of where she goes after slaying so he can contact her. Giles should have such a policy. (Although, I'm picturing a funny fanfic where Wesley gets the number to the Bronze, the Expresso Pump, the mall, all of Buffy's favorite haunts, and regularly annoys all of the proprietors as he pompously checks if Buffy's there because he has urgent business to check with her.)
In Wesley's very first line, I see the first clue that Wesley came to Sunnydale with every genuine intention to fight evil in the field instead of wait out his slayer's death while hiding in a library and Wes's pragmatic, pro-modernity nature underneath his stuffy clothing:
Wesley: Of course, training procedures have been updated quite a bit since your day. Much greater emphasis on field work.
Giles: (very bored) Really?
Wesley: Oh, yes. Not all books and theory nowadays. I have, in fact, faced two vampires myself. Under controlled circumstances, of course.
….And yet, Wesley crumbled under the threat of torture. That makes him pretty unfit for the authoritarian leadership role that he aspired to. Obviously, he comes off like a big fat (well….thin) hypocrite when he orders Buffy/Oz/Xander to sacrifice Willow for the Box of Gavrok but he, the adult professional of destiny, is ready to hand over the super-important amulet when a demon threatens his kneecaps. Not just that but by some standards, Wesley rendered himself unfit to merely hear information/strategy sessions because the Scoobies can’t trust that he’ll keep his yap shut when things get pivotal. “He’ll see the big board!”- but keep the Dr. Strangelove reference without the satire.
Coupled with his fear of torture, he sucks at fighting. Now, the Scoobies have included some crappy fighters. I think BtVS S3 Wesley may still better be a better fighter than Tara, non-demon Anya, S5 Dawn, or Oz. However, no one cares to shelter Wesley even as a weak link fighter, who can be proactive with pep and research and planning if he’s a coward. Moreover, the fighty weak links like Anya or early Dawn or Tara get protection and a role to play outside of fighting because a core Scooby(ies) love them. I argue below how these support person roles are necessarily limited because combat is by far the most consistently respected role in the Scoobies (even more in AI). However, you can gain an entry into Scoobydom even though you're a sucky fighter and haven't really displayed out-of-this-world bravery (and in Anya's case, displayed utter cowardice in late S3 through mid S4) if you come in as a girlfriend or sister.
Although, this is my opinion of Wesley’s fitness. And I’m sure that Wesley’s cowardly display affected the Scoobies’ treatment/willingness to accept him going forward on a very pragmatic level. However, the Scoobies can be hypocrites. They included Spike in the loop even though everyone believed that he’d sell their asses to whomever from Adam to Glory for a carton of smokes. Moreover, I’d argue that Wesley already started growing as a person on BtVS and displayed acts of courage as early as the next ep. Plus, it's not just Spike. The Scoobies generally run a big risk by usually telling everyone classified information, even though torturing demons lurk on every corner.
Wesley displayed other weaknesses as well. Obviously, Buffy and Faith didn’t give him a chance. Wesley barely had a chance to talk before both Buffy and Faith decided that they didn’t like him in a totally superficial, mean-spirited way. However, Buffy’s and Faith’s immediate attitude problem with Wesley wasn’t really his fault. By the first handshake, Buffy refused to take his hand. By the first hello, Faith stormed out of the library.
BTW, sometimes I think Buffy misses out on golden opportunities to both better her life and actually, do the right thing out of over-the-top mistaken loyalty. If Buffy was reasonably friendly to Wesley and interested in getting to know him, Buffy could have benefited greatly. She'd get a second opinion from another Watcher instead of leaving Giles as the monopoly on adult slaying advice. She'd get to punish Giles a little for poisoning her and recklessly disregarding her safety two weeks ago and show that he doesn't own her ass. Giles would have to work a little harder to keep Buffy's favor. Wesley's whole arc shows that if one can engender his loyalty, he'll make any sacrifice for that person...or vampire...or Old One.
For Wesley's part, he's not personally invested in Buffy or Faith. He doesn't love either of them like daughters. Giles asks if Buffy's all right when Buffy said that last night's fight was intense; Wesley counts four limbs and a head and surmises that she's OK. However, Wesley's pedantry like asking for the phone number of Buffy's post-slay haunts or trying to plot out the timing of their mission down to the minute comes because Wesley takes his duty to Watch his slayers very seriously. He doesn't have to like them as people; the job is enough to merit his concern. In this ep, Wesley focuses a little more on Buffy than Faith because Buffy is the only slayer willing to deal him on any level whatsoever. That's true for most of BtVS S3. However AtS shows that deep down, Wesley was a lot more internally pre-occupied with Faith than Buffy because Faith ended up much further afield from where a Watcher is supposed to guide a Slayer- to be a whole, active, healthy Warrior *For* the People for as long as possible. It's in stark contrast to Giles who was always far more concerned with Buffy because Buffy was more appealing to him personally until she wasn't in S8.
Faith: Second Banana From Buffy
Faith is also not the Main Protagonist Slayer. This ep tries to lay that at her moral failings- to refuse to take responsibility for her actions.
Faith also has her strengths. Like Buffy, Faith is a slayer and also a *leader*. Morally and strategically, Faith *led* Buffy through the big underground fight with the Illuminati until Finch’s death. That….doesn’t happen often. In the history of the show, Buffy only made herself remotely subordinate as a slayer to (a) Faith in this ep, and (b) briefly the Initiative.
Faith forced Buffy into the fight with the Illuminati. Buffy thought Faith's risky "dive into the hole" would fail. Faith's strategy actually succeeded. Then, Faith got Buffy to retract Buffy’s series-long line about how being a slayer sucks. Faith got Buffy to cut class to slay vampires and then, influenced Buffy’s behavior at the Bronze. Faith induced Buffy to steal and got Buffy to declare the “Want. Take. Have” as her new guiding principle to be a slayer. Faith convinced Buffy, against her better judgment, to break out of the cop car. Faith’s social pressures were enough to make Buffy gleefully stand up her best friend and then, it was enough to get Buffy to pull the slayer card to exclude Willow from a hunt that Buffy already invited Willow to before Faith started living large all over Buffy’s behavior.
In general, Buffy has far more advantages than Faith and the show/fandom covers those. However, Faith comes with her own advantages potent enough to subordinate the Unsinkably Alpha Buffy Summers. Faith has a bold, magnetic personality that certainly rivals and may even eclipse Buffy’s. Faith’s whole life revolves around slaying. This could be how Faith knows about vampire nests before Buffy does. Faith can go after the nests in the middle of the day when the slayers have the advantage over vampires without cutting class. Buffy has to please and balance a lot of people and a wear a lot of hats. Faith can just focus on being a slayer. Faith is fearless in a careless, nihilistic, doomed to die young way. Buffy’s caution is generally much better but in this ep, Faith actually crazily calculated correctly that the two slayers could defeat the Iluminati vampires underground…and that intercepted Balthezar getting the amulet the first time around.
However, Buffy does stop following Faith's lead in this and definitely in the next ep. Buffy actually doesn't stop modeling herself after Faith out of Buffy's ego or jealousy or even Buffy's pride or preference of her own life choices. Faith loses her influence over Buffy's behavior because Faith refused to take responsibility for her actions.
Still, early into Faith's fall (really until she tries suffocating Xander), it's very hard for me to blame her for a lot of stuff. I suppose I'd be remiss if I didn't weigh in on the legality/ethicality/black....stainality? of Faith accidentally killing Allen Finch. On the surface, I take a vanilla position. It was clearly an accident. However, Buffy exhibited control and dexterity to avoid making similar accidents i.e. when Buffy reflexively stopped staking Vamp Willow when Willow called out "Buffy no!"
However, not only does Buffy "work out" as she proudly and pointedly proclaims in Doppelgangland, Buffy also gets close, careful training from Giles. A lot of Giles's job is designing specific work-outs for Buffy to improve her strength, her speed, her dexterity, her flexibility, her reflexes, meditation techniques to stop stresses from hurting her performances. Even if Faith's first Watcher was awesome and totally did her job, Faith hasn't benefited from a Watcher for months because Giles hasn't picked up any of that slack. Of course, child soldier Faith will work out her strength before her reflexes to follow orders in combat since Faith never gets those combat-orders anyway. Remember, Faith's been sent out alone to fight the lurking evil in most eps.
There's also something pitiable about the "Faith as a Thief". Faith spouts off Want.Take.Have but she's living in a pit. We saw her try to sell her body to make rent. At the end of this ep, Faith was doing her best to scrub the stubborn stains from her crappy, cheap wife-beater because she's not planning to steal a brand new shirt just because the first one was stained and she's above laundry as a slayer. What did Faith steal on-screen? Weapons to slay demons.
I can be very critical of how Buffyverse characters fall into darkness/villainy in an OOC or rushed way. However, I do believe Faith's fall 100 percent. However, it's not because Faith is a bad seed and Faith's been a bad seed since she rolled into town. Faith's hardened her heart to the world since it treated her so poorly to the point that she's cynical about everyone. The world instructed to Faith that the world functions as a dog-eat-dog world where everyone is just out for themselves.
However, I do think there's something exceptional in Faith that wishes the world was a better place. That spark of goodness drives Faith to endure selling her body to live in a crappy motel while she risks her life fighting demons to protect everyone else. At the start, I actually think that becoming a slayer and meeting Buffy was good for Faith. In her eyes, becoming a slayer was the first halfway lucky break that Faith ever got. From an outside perspective, Buffy and the Scoobies showed Faith that the world didn't have to be a nihilistic competition. But then, it hurt all the more when Faith came to realize that Buffy/the Scoobies *is* a competition and one that she's doomed to lose all the time. "The Scythe feels like mine...which means it must be yours". To a great extent, Faith's not wrong that the Scoobies are a competition and accepting a place in Buffy's world frequently means resigning yourself to second banana status. That has to be beyond frustrating to a slayer who's laying her life down too.
Controlled Circumstances Can Control You!
Balthazar's impotence as a demon confined to his tub reverberates on Willow, Wesley and the Council in general. In S1 when the Master was the Big Bad even though was confined underground, the Council had the most silent influence over Buffy. Giles was the closest to who the Council wanted him to be. Buffy generally listened to Giles. Simple as that. The Council actively starts feeling their limitations in S3 when they tried playing a more active role in Buffy's life and she spurned them. Buffy can comfortably do that because the Council was confined to England for the first three years of her career. They failed to define an important role in the field for themselves without Giles as their representative.
Last ep focused on how Xander felt about being fray-adjacent. In this ep, Willow deals with that. Both Xander and Willow are strangely upset to be banished from dangerous combat zones, LOL. However, they've in this war for two years. Recently, the American military allowed its service-women to serve in combat zones if they're physically fit enough for the job. One of the most important reasons was that service-women couldn't earn promotions or advancement past a certain level if they didn't see combat experience, no matter how they ranked at West Point or how long they've been in the military or what great ideas they had.
"Buffy's Army" operates similarly. A huge part of status in the group comes from someone's combat experience and abilities. Being on stable, top-notch, inner-circle, golden footing in the Scoobies requires: (a) a fuzzy-wuzzy tight connection to Buffy and (b) *perceived* usefulness in the fight against evil which can mean anything from actual indispensability to some utility but a whole lot of bad-ass aeshtetics. You really need both. The former dynamic is the most common. A Scooby can have a fuzzy-wuzzy emotional connection to Buffy but if they are perceived as weak kitteny than they get cut out of most of the most important life-or-death emotional moments of Buffy's life because she doesn't think they can keep up safely and effectively.
The latter dynamic is kind of rare but it's a real thing. Faith and Robin Wood had badassery going for them- but Buffy wasn't that tight with them so they were on a much shorter nerve with her. The previous ep, The Zeppo focuses on Xander's exclusion from the group because while he's emotionally tight with Buffy, he lacks the appearance of super-powered badassery. However, Faith had the opposite problems up until Bad Girls. Like Xander in The Zeppo, Faith was out of the Scooby zone for most of the day and evening. She didn't research, prep the spell, fret or banter about the lurking evil or have doughnuts. Unlike Xander, the Scoobies called her in for the fight because they needed her Slayer muscles when the going got tough. However in a season long pattern, they didn't include her in the actual team stuff during The Zeppo because everyone regards Faith as a loner-badass and the invulnerable slayer who walks alone.
But make no mistake, Faith was muscle. She's not any more a part of the in-crowd than Xander because she lacks that fuzzy-wuzzy friendly draw (although Faith was making gains on that point in Bad Girls). It makes narrative sense that Xander has the emotional bond with the Scoobies but they don't have sufficient respect for his skills and Faith has the mad skillz but she doesn't have the Scooby bond. Even though their challenges are opposite, it still puts them out of the library and into each other's arms.
However, Bad Girls shows an alternative where Faith can get it ALLLL- the superpowered bad-assery and the tight connection with Buffy. A super-status usually only enjoyed by Angel and S7 Spike.
I'll get this out now- Willow was rationally threatened by Faith. After one great sisters-in-arms bonding experience with Faith, Buffy stood Willow up from Willow's tutoring session without the grace to call to cancel or acknowledge the stand-up in the next day, jettisoned Willow from a mutually agreed on patrol, and barely summoned a yawn at Willow providing Buffy with a protection spell which I think should be pretty damn welcome for a slayer in Sunnydale.
Since Faith accidentally killed a guy and felt no remorse, Buffy's infatuation was verrrrry short-lived. However before Willow learned about that, Willow had reason to fear that Buffy would drop Willow from this patrol and that tutoring session to the point that Willow really didn't play a role in Buffy's life anymore and certainly not the life-and-death war against evil that defines Buffy's life the most deeply and pivotally.
I do think it's interesting that The Zeppo and Bad Girls features Buffy excluding Xander/Willow from the fight. In both cases, Buffy cites surfacey and partly true "I must protect my powerless friends!" reasons but Buffy also excludes W/X because of Buffy's social dissatisfaction with both of them. Xander has it worst- Buffy is pretty tired and annoyed with him full-stop. With Willow, I think Buffy is unconsciously comparison-shopping to see if she can get a more understanding, cooler best friend when Faith appeared like such a great option. Of course when Faith flopped as a friend after Finch's murder, Buffy went right back to Willow because Buffy doesn't have a problem with Willow per se. Buffy is just wondering if she can do better.
Needless to say, I have a problem with this. Other than some understandable coldness for like, a day in Dead Man's Party, Willow had been a terrific friend to Buffy from Welcome to the Hellmouth through Bad Girls. Moreover even if Faith never went dark, I don't see what Buffy quite gets out of the comparison-shopping. Faith and Willow both previously expressed a fondness for and curiosity about each other in Faith, Hope and Trick, Beauty and Beasts, Homecoming, and The Wish- although they've lived in totally different worlds in a bunch of the eps before Bad Girls and Faith's actions sour Willow toward Faith in the next ep. If Buffy wants to be better friends with Faith, there's no pre-existing reason why she can't also include Willow.
I mentioned earlier than I wished that Buffy tried to embrace Wesley more, for Wesley's sake but also because Helpless gave Buffy ample cause to send Giles a signal that Buffy won't automatically follow him. And I think a Watcher is kind of like a doctor or lawyer or any kind of professional who has discretion to dispense high level counsel- never hurts to get a second opinion. Buffy is playing the wrong game to serve justice or her own cause by rewarding Giles with absolute loyalty, even if he tried to poison her or even if his professional performance as a Watcher could stand a little second-guessing, but then among her peers, picking Faith over Willow when Willow did nothing to deserve that and there's been no indication that Buffy has to even start excluding Willow to be better friends with Faith.
Willow and Xander are my darlings. Part of that is how they instinctively "get" the reason for their rejection (as Willow says in this ep, she's had years of practice with rejection) while also adorably falling somewhat off-kilter from their deficiencies. In The Zeppo, Xander *was* right that part of his problem is that he lacks "cool". He really has an unquestionable record of outstanding performance in the war against evil. However, he lacks the presence to make a rep that sticks. He has a lot of opinions about how the Scoobs should function but he's only alienated/bothered people in how he brings it up. IMO, Xander was aware of these larger problems but he was too afraid to speak in a paragraph of meta about his issues. So, he boiled it down to "cool" and through trivializing his issues, he fumphered around for a trivial solution that he knew was futile because he knows his obstacles are more serious.
In this ep, Willow's right that Buffy does lean toward Faith partly because Faith is supernaturally gifted. Willow logically tries to sell herself as an equal asset with witchcraft because those are Willow's powers. However, Faith's superpowers appeal meshes with the appeal of Faith's devil-may-care Bad Girl attitude that's drawing Buffy in. Willow's success in off-setting the sulfur fumes of her protection spell with a minty fresh aroma is the opposite of devil-may-care cool and Willow calls attention to that in her pitch.