Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Ep by ep; Selfless
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The Bad; ?
Anya's song. This is a great episode, but I hate that song. I always use the mute button when I watch that scene.
Ep by ep; Selfless
The Bad; ?
Best line; Villager; "Pelt him with fruits and various meats!"
Women good/men bad; D'Hoffryn kills Halfrek to spite Anya, almost like killing one of his daughters. What the Frat boys do to the girl is horrible but doesn't warrant having your heart torn out.
Jeez!; Frat boys with their hearts ripped out! Not the ep for you if you're arachnophobic (we know Willow is from 'Nightmares' but she appears to keep it in check)
Kinky dinky; Love Will's miniskirt and booties, you forget what a hot momma-yomma she can be sometimes! Buffy comments that Anya 'boned a troll' whilst Anya refers to the 'sweaty' part of a relationship.
Captain Subtext; Xander refers to himself as 'giddy' which even Willow comments isn't a very masculine term.
Guantanamo Bay; Buffy is prepared to kill Anya for the greater good, Xander doesn't want to. Buffy makes a good point that Spike, Angelus, The Master etc never chose to be evil, Anya chose to become a vengeance demon once again and poses an ongoing threat to humanity. Also do we doubt that Xander and certainly Giles would have killed Angelus in season 2 if they could have?
Missing scenes; I would love to have seen the scene where D'Hoffryn looks at the slaughtered frat boys and says someone should phone Maxim and cancel 12 subscriptions, perhaps a comment on the Buffy/Angel girl's tendency to strip off and pose for that particular magazine seemingly at the drop of a hat (or a large cheque/free publicity for their upcoming projects?). Also interesting on the commentary is that they wanted Halfrek to appear to Anya in 'Conversations with Dead People'.
Scoobies knocked out: yep, Xander
Kills: demon spider for Buffy
Scoobies go evil: Anya does although she's not technically a Scooby at this point
Recurring characters killed: Halfrek but she's evil so she doesn't count-12
Sunnydale deaths; 12 frat boys dead but alive again by the end of the ep 99
What the fanficcers thought; Read a bizarre one once called Web of Desire where Buffy and Xander are captured by the demon spider and Buffy get's impregnated by it (which is normally Cordy's job?). But in the follow up story they both escape after Buffy beguiles the spider with her feminine wiles and strangles it with it's own web because SHE's the Black Widow, she mates and then she kills (she certainly did with Angel!). You know what they say about the female of the species?
Also a much funnier one is where Anyanka's bunny fear stems from her cursing an unfaithful man to 'Go like a bunny forever' whereupon he is turned into a killer rabbit which goes on to attack Gabrielle in the Xena ep 'In sickness and in hell' and takes on the Monty Python's Knights of the Round table before being finished off by the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!
Questions and observations; Very little Dawn in this one (plenty of her next ep), she only has one scene but it's Anya's ep so that's OK. A wonderful tour de force showing us all how much we've learned to love and care about Anya who was introduced as a one-note character 4 years back but who is now a regular and so deserves to be! Especially love her little vengeful stare when she first meets D'Hoffryn.
Buffy still doesn't know about Xander's lie in Becoming pt2, another point against Normal Again being true but you wonder will he ever really pay for what he did? Dawn's advice to Willow about fitting in is reminiscent to that given to Bart by Homer Simpson. It never occurred to me until this ep but much like the end titles for season 6 having the Buffybot at the end this season actually has the First-as-Buffy.
Unfortunately the last we'll ever see of D'Hoffryn or Halfrek. Anya comments she's good with math which is weird as we heard that she was failing it in season 3 (maybe running the Magic Shop improved it?). Anya's invented surname is Jenkins, did we know that before? A vengeance demon's 'soul' is referred to? The final scene is very reminiscent of the final bit 'The Harsh Light of Day'.
Aud comments she likes Olaf's muscular arms which is another feature which Anya finds attractive in Xander. Here we see that Aud/Anya was always the outsider and as part of her vengeance on her boyfriend she makes him the outsider by transforming him into a troll. Also noteworthy that Anya's invented name gives her the initials 'ACE'?
Does D'Hoffryn kill Halfyrek not just to hurt Anya but because he fears that she will side with Anya in the coming battles of the First Evil, that everyone will be forced to decide where their loyalties lie? Olaf comments on the strange logic of Trolls or 'Insane Troll Logic'?
Marks out of 10; 10/10 first of the season