Buffy The Vampire Slayer continues to develop in its seventh season. In episode 3 Willow comes back to Sunnydale. But can anyone see her?
In the last episode it became known to the Scoobies: Spike got his soul back. This invites comparisons with Angel. Angel is a more regal figure. But since Angel's on a different television network with his own show its obvious that Angel has to direct his love at Cordelia and bring her back from the higher level of existence where she's bored. Therefore Angel isn't available to play Buffy's true love. So Spike is going to be given another opportunity with Buffy? Oh, I am just not keen on this idea. Spike is not truly heroic. I don't care what he does.
Xander: My mouth saved the world.
Hadn't thought of it that way but its true. At the end of season 6 by telling Willow how much he loved her he broke thru her hatred just before she destroyed the world.
Willow didn't finish the recovery course. So why was it important that she came back early? Probably the Hellmouth problem.
Buffy and Xander are ready to meet Willow at the airport. For reasons that are not immediately clear they somehow miss her at the airport.
A young guy is spray painting grafitti on some concrete. He thinks he hears stuff and stops and looks around. Eventually a voice speaks to him and in quick order some creature is attacking him.
Willow makes her way back to Buffy's place. BTW, does Willow pay rent to stay at Buffy's? Buffy could certainly use the money.
Willow entering Buffy's house: Welcome home me.
So is there a parallel universe? Willow came in to Buffy's house at 10:41. But so did Buffy and gang several minutes later. Also, the people getting off the airplane without and with Willow seemed to be the same people.
Buffy: If Willow flipped out its her bad. We can only be here for so her so much if she's not here (or close to that).
Also, what was the noise in the house both times? Separate identical houses? Or were they hearing each other as separate noises in the same house? That might be it.
Willow is walking toward what's left of the Magic Box. Recall that she had trashed the place at the end of the 6th season while fighting Giles and Buffy when she was given over to the Dark Side of the Force. Out comes Anya hauling out some remains in a box. Anya is none too happy to see Willing. But see her she can and Willow can see Anya too. They have a chat in front of what is left of the Magic Box. After insulting Willow for what she did eventually Anya describes how she's travelling around doing vengence demon work. Anya starts to describe how she made the guy Ronnie into a worm but Willow just wants to know where the gang is at. Anya says Buffy and Xander are both working at the high school. Off Willow goes.
Willow goes to the construction site and finds the body. Then the Xander and Buffy are there. They can't see each other again. Its becoming clear that they are in the same universe but invisible to each other. Do they hear the sound of her walking up the ladder as she's leaving? They are in the same universe but can't see or hear each others' voices. The body is skinned. It looks like what Willow did to Warren. Of course they suspect Willow.
Willow is wandering thru the high school. Spike can see Willow even though he's halfway insane again. Eventually Buffy and Xander come to talk to him. A weird conversation ensues with Spike realising that they are seemingly oblivious to each other.
Spike: Everyone's talking to me and not to each other.
Spike thinks the witch is not really there? Has Spike it figured out?
Spike: You did it once. I heard about it.
Spike is talking to Willow and Buffy/Spike at the same time. So we know Buffy and Willow can't see each other.
Spike: Everyone's talking to me. No one's talking to each other.
Given Spike's mental state its probably more likely in his mind that he's hallucinating either Willow or Buffy. He says things that ought to be a tip-off but of course Buffy is aware of just how much he's talking to demons in his mind or demons under the ground and doesn't connect the dots to realize that Willow is really there.
Willow goes to see Anya. Wilow and Anya are talking and Willow tells Anya about the skinned body at the construction site. Anya of course thinks Willow could have been the killer.
Anya: Was it you?
Willow: No.
Willow similarly wants to know whether Anya did it.
Anya as a vengeance demon has become a lot more interesting. She can't get any satisfaction from doling out the vengeance.
Anya: But its no longer fulfilling and its upsetting.
Willow states how Anya is feeling and its really how Willow is feeling too. There are obvious parallels here. Willow has done things she's ashamed of. Anya is doing things in the present that she takes no satisfaction from and which she appears to be morally troubled about.
Dawn is doing book research for Buffy. Dawn finds a gnarl that eats the skin. He laps up the blood because it is his natural beverage. We in the audience are supposed to be getting the idea that Dawn shows promise that she's going to become a clever detective.
Buffy realizes that Spike can track blood. So they are following the crazy vampire Spike and the blood trail that the demon left. But how can the blood drop off for that long a period of time?
Dawn: Its smellementary.
More suggestions that Dawn is going to become the thinking fighter against demons. Of course, Willow was that way before she ascended to major witchhood. Still, the writers could send Dawn down this road iand it makes sense to do so since so far at least Dawn has no superpowers.
The Buffy gang's use of Spike to track the blood doesn't seem reasonable. The blood wouldn't drip off the Gnarl for such a long time.
Willow and Anya have done a spell with a Sunnydale map and can see where weird demons are in town. The spell caused a fire that burnt Anya's carpet and Anya is not pleased.
Willow is able to find the rock cave from the partially burned map. But there were other burn spots. The choice seems kinda arbitrary.
There's a funny bit when Anya tells Willow that as a punishment for turning Ronnie back into a human she needs to file a flight plan in order to teleport.
So now Willow and the rest of the Scooby Gang are headed for the same cave.
Willow can hear the demon but in the same cave Buffy can't. How can that be? That seems rather too contrived.
Is the creature that cut Dawn the same as the creature that is messing with Willow?
Implausibility Alert: Why would the same magic that makes Buffy's group invisible to Willow and Willow invisible to them also make the Gnarl invisible to Buffys' group? I didn't enjoy this part because it seemed like an arbitrary extension of the invisibility magic in order to make the cave fight more complex. The whole episode built up to this climax and the climax is not satisfying. I'm disappointed.The poison in Dawn's cut paralyzes her. They react by taking Dawn back to Buffy's house. Well, this seems like an awfully long interval.
Anya is asked to come over to Buffy's house and watch over paralyzed Dawn while Buffy and Xander return to the cave. The whole sequence of Anya showing how Dawn's joints can be positioned in various locations and stay there seemed unnecessary and not particularly well done.
But Anya knows about Gnarl and Buffy decides she has to come along after all. Also, Anya mentions that she's been helping Willow and that Willow was headed for the cave.
There's going to be some deeply symbolic message in all this about how Willow subconsciously didn't want to be seen or was too embarassed to be seen or something similar.
Why would Anya go to get help?
Then its decided that Anya should go with them back to the cave. Of course, this means that Anya will be able to tell them that she sees Willow right there in the cave.
While this is happening we see Gnarl taking slices out of Willow's belly and eating them while licking up the blood.
Eventually they all return to the cave.
Implausibility Alert: The trip back to Buffy's house, waiting for Anya to come over, playing with paralyzed Dawn (which seems incredibly cruel and out of character for the new Buffy who is now supposedly heavily bonded with Dawn btw) and then the trip back to the cave amounts to too much time gone by given what Gnarl is supposedly doing to Willow. Gnarl would have gotten much further along eating Willow if they had really taken the amount of time that would be required to make the round trip. Keep in mind that Anya can't teleport any more so there is a delay for her to arrive at Buffy's house as well.The final scene is between Willow and Buffy as Willow sits on the bed trying to mediate to pull energy from the ground to heal herself. Willow explains to Buffy that she inadvertently made herself invisible by thinking about the idea of how she wasn't looking forward to seeing them. This illustrates just how powerful her magic has become and it foretells future difficulties in her attempts to keep it under control.
Willow: Giles said everyhing is part of the earth.
Buffy: Explains why my fingernails get dirty when I don't do anything.
Willow: Its nice to be forgiven. Too bad I need so much of it.
The offer by Buffy to give Willow some of her strength and the final joint meditation is touching.
This episode has a couple of good premises. Willow subconsciously wished herself to be invisible to Buffy and gang. Gnarl was a thoroughly disgusting skin eating demon who happened to leave victim corpses that looked liked what Willow did to Warren. This of course caused the rest of the cast to suspect Willow of the killing. So far so good. It had some good funny lines in it too. Anya's lack of fulfillment as a demon is brought out clearly and nicely. The danger of Willow's only partial control of her incredibly powerful magic is made manifest.
But there were some problems in the structure of this story. Most crucially, the whole sequence of events involved with the trips to the cave needed to be worked out better. See my implausibility alerts above for some of the problems with the cave sequence. I think there was the delay of the trip back from the cave to Buffy's was implausibly too time-consuming given Willow's situation. I also think it was slow and dull.
Another problem I have with the story is the initial set up at the airport where Willow couldn't see or be seen by the Scoobys. Initially there were multiple interpretations possible to explain what happened. Were we meant to immediately realise that invisibility was the explanation for what was going on? Or were we supposed to wonder if, say, Willow had transported to a parallel universe or whether Willow was hallucinating that she was returning to Sunnydale? These things crossed my mind as I watched the episode and I wonder whether the writers wanted me to have the reaction that I had.
Posted by Randall Parker at October 23, 2002 01:11 AM