Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Get it Done Rewatch

May 5, 2016 5:56 AM - Season 7, Episode 15

Principal Wood meets the gang, The First continues taunting the potentials with deadly results, and Buffy comes face to face with the source of her power.
posted by yellowbinder (4 comments total)

I really do not know what the show is going for at this point. This episode features Buffy telling everyone off for someone having taken her own life, calling her an idiot. It's ugly, ugly stuff. And it feels like it's come from nowhere. The previous episode, Buffy went on a date, and the only threat the First has dispatched, Buffy killed. Now, by the end of this episode we know that there is a much bigger threat waiting in the wings, in the form of the vamp-army, but Buffy doesn't at the start of this episode.

The show wants to tell a story about a Buffy who cuts herself off from her friends to lead, but

a)doesn't really show her leading
b)doesn't really have anyone react to this.

In the first half of this season, the show took the time to have the characters talk to each other, and it was refreshing, but here, after a speech where Buffy is clearly wrong headed, no-one mentions it other than to tell her it was necessary. But that's a problem! Her speech here is insane, and the writers should know that, and it seems like this is building up to Buffy being kicked out. But apparently everyone thinks the speech is fine. The show should be building to something, but it seems to not know what it is.

This also relates to Buffy turning down the offer of more power at the cost of her soul. This is absolutely a choice Buffy would make, but then I think Buffy would be much more compassionate. After all, she literally just ranted at everyone in the room to actually utilise their power. She actually told Willow off for not using magic despite Willow's magic being demonstrably perilous to Willow's self (and the whole world). I don't understand why Buffy feels the need to lead the way she is here, and that's a real problem, because it makes me feel cut off from the story.

Again, I really want to say that the show needed to emphasise who the potentials are, other than let Willow's girlfriend talk. We need an inside look, and we never get it.

Again, if the seal had remained open (as it well actually be in a few episodes time, so whaaaa?) and there had been a continuing threat, then I would buy this more, but I just don't buy it here.

-"And now I'm unique. Well, more or less."
-Wood asks if Willow almost destroyed the world. How did that come up?
-The whole slayer training scene in the backyard, again, Buffy should be doing this, or be shown setting it up, or something!!
-Where is Giles in this episode?
-"I prefer to think of myself as a guestage."
posted by Cannon Fodder at 11:55 PM on May 5, 2016

In the first half of this season, the show took the time to have the characters talk to each other, and it was refreshing, but here, after a speech where Buffy is clearly wrong headed, no-one mentions it other than to tell her it was necessary.

I agree with you that it's an ugly, wrong-headed speech, but it doesn't land that way for everyone. I have friends who are totally on Buffy's side throughout S7 and pretty much think everything she does and says is justified, which I have a hard time understanding, but maybe the writers were in that mindset as well.

I do like Anya's reaction later on:

ANYA
She's right. And you know we have a choice. We can risk Willow's life and the rest of our lives to get Buffy back, or we leave her out there.

PRINCIPAL WOOD
If we play it safe back here, Buffy could stay lost.

ANYA
You missed her "everyone sucks but me" speech. If she's so superior, let her find her own way back.

But then Willow does the lifesource-magic-sucking thing to Anya as well as Kennedy, and we have no reaction from Anya, not even "I told you using magic to get Buffy back would be dangerous" and that seems out of character for Anya. She's not exactly the suffer-in-silence type of person. Sigh.

Also, I ran across this post on tumblr, which raises an interesting suggestion for improving Season 7:

Ok, how about this: the origin of the Slayer’s power is not a metaphor for rape.

Instead of the Shadow Men creating the Slayer by forcing the demon-essence into her (because that’s a fucked up origin for something that’s supposed to be about women’s empowerment) the First Slayer chose to merge with the spirit of a demon to protect her community.

(Even better, merging was something the demon suggested because this was a demon that was different from the rest and had learned to admire and appreciate humanity and she wanted to help them, and the demon and Slayer worked together to make it happen. Slayer/demon-spirit brOTP.)
. . .

The original purpose of the Watchers Council was to control the Slayer, not help her.
posted by creepygirl at 9:41 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]

-Where is Giles in this episode?

Since he brings potentials to Buffy's house on more than one occasion, I always assumed he was traveling the globe trying to save Potentials. Was there some dialogue somewhere that said he'd stopped doing that at some point?
posted by creepygirl at 9:46 PM on May 8, 2016

But then Willow does the lifesource-magic-sucking thing to Anya as well as Kennedy, and we have no reaction from Anya, not even "I told you using magic to get Buffy back would be dangerous" and that seems out of character for Anya. She's not exactly the suffer-in-silence type of person. Sigh.

This whole episode feels like the Doug Petrie didn't understand how to write Anya. Anya is self-interested, blunt and often petty, yes, but not in the way that has her claiming "I'm not" when Xander claims that the people in the room are Buffy's friends. Nor is she going to be that sensitive to a speech that's not directed at her (until her "I'm not" brings Buffy's rage her direction, anyway.) Also, throughout the series, her response to Demons has generally been knowledgable and excited about being knowledgable. She doesn't tend to freak out about them. Meanwhile, Willow sucking her life-force out is absolutely the sort of thing she would bring up afterwards.

Also, the episode clearly thinks its working towards trouble-in-the-house-of-Willow-and-Kennedy, (such that their reconciliation is underlined in "Storyteller" like it's something that matters at all) but since this is just another example of Season 7 trying too hard to make Kennedy happen, it doesn't land, and since Buffy comes back having rejected the offer, this whole episode is just treading water in a dour, ugly way. Nothing happens, nothing moves forwards or even backwards really, and it's just vaguely unpleasant.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:50 PM on November 21, 2020