I swiped this from someone's post on the MBTV board about last night's Buffy. I agree of most of what she said...and deleted the parts I didn't.
"I liked the episode, but for me, it didn't have the gut wrenching impact of, say, "Becoming." [Barb's note: Which I just watched on Friday night and it killed me. That was Buffy at its peak.] I did like many individual moments, but some things just didn't add up for me.
The problems:
*Plotholes as big as that Portal. Did I miss something earlier this season in which it was made clear that Dawn was made of Buffy somehow? B/c if not, I'm totally not buying that whole rationale. It seems as if Joss had to trump up some reason for Buffy's blood to serve as an acceptable substitute for Dawn's, so he threw in that whole Buffy speech about "She was made from me." Bah. I mean, Dawn is the freaking Key? You can't just make that a cipher all of a sudden, when it's been such a huge deal all season.
*The whole "It always comes down to blood" bit just irritates me. As many have already ranted, the Key doesn't have to be human, does it? In fact, for centuries, it wasn't; the monks just put it into human form with Dawn. So why are there ancient rituals predicated around the Key being something that contains blood?
*Dagonsphere relegated to basement? WTF? Why weren't they using that long, long ago? Sheesh!
*Xander proposing to Anya. I don't want them to get married. This is not a show with married people in it! [Barb's note: I knew this was coming, but was hoping that Anya would get killed off.]
*Tara gets her brain back. Cop out! cop out! Why couldn't they just keep her nuts? That way we'd not have to endure the lack of chemistry that is the Willow/Tara relationship.
All that said, I did like many things:
*Spike. All his scenes. [Barb's note: Especially his scene with Buffy at her house. Choked me up more than Xander's proposal]
*Ripper! I loved him yelling at Buffy; 'bout damn time somebody talked back when she started snipping out orders. And word to whomever pointed out that he offed Ben in an almost gentle (but inexorable) manner. Just doing his job.
*The set up of Joel Grey as next year's Big Bad. Yahoo, can't wait for that one. My only question is, how did he fit his tail into that well-cut suit? You'd think there'd be an unsightly bulge problem.
*Strong Willow. Strong Xander. Ineffectual stupid gits of season five, begone! We've got the old mojo back."
I really did like this episode, except I continue to believe that Dawn should've jumped, not Buffy. Because you can have Buffy the Vampire Slayer without Dawn...but not without Buffy. I wasn't really affected emotionally by this...but I loved the end of Angel when you just saw Willow sitting there. That was brilliant.
Posted by Barb at May 23, 2001 12:01 PM | TrackBack