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Episode 3.01: Anne | Episode 3.03: Faith, Hope, and Trick
Characters:
| Buffy | Angel | Xander |
| Willow | Giles | Cordelia |
| Oz |
Overall (6/10)
Buffy:
In this episode, we have Buffy trying to get back into her old life. Unfortunately, she can't just jump back in as if nothing had happened. Obviously, she wasn't expecting things to be quite as difficult, though, as she almost runs away again.
Firstly, though, things are strained with her mother. Neither of the two are sure how to act around each other. Doubly so as Joyce is still adjusting to the whole Slayer thing. Buffy wants to get back into school, and she casually complains about private school. Joyce, though, is the one who's having to try to get her daughter back in the school system, and she snaps at Buffy about the choices she's made.
This escalates during the party, when Joyce sees Buffy considering running away again. She feels that Buffy left to punish her. I was actually dismayed to see her brush aside Buffy's very real concern that Joyce kicked her out.
Yes, it's obvious that Joyce would have welcomed Buffy back. But, to a 17-year-old girl in the state Buffy was in, having been told not to come back was surely traumatic. I felt that Buffy's mom should have acknowledged her mistake a bit more thoroughly.
Of course, it's not just Buffy's mom who's having issues. The rest of her friends are not too happy that she up and left for three months. They aren't sure how to act around her, and it gets to the point where Buffy isn't sure she wants to be around any more.
Now we know logically that Buffy should talk about what happened. She says many times that nobody knows what she was going through. Then, when she's asked about it, she just says they wouldn't understand. While that may be true, it would help Buffy a lot just to discuss it (Indeed, Giles gets her to do just this in the next episode, Faith, Hope, and Trick).
However, at this time, the memory of what happened is too painful for Buffy to talk about. So she ends up keeping her friends in the dark.
I know that the zombies are not very popular in this episode, and I see why. I know that the writers were using the zombies as an example of buried issues coming back to get you. But that seems a little forced, to me.
What I don't mind, though, is the zombie attack on the party. That argument would go nowhere. That argument was a bunch of people lashing out at each other emotionally. There's no right or wrong. No conclusions that can be reached. It would just escalate to the point of more tears.
However, it is with the introduction of a threat that the group immediately spring into Scooby-action. They're able to recognized that, yes, they have grievances with each other. But they're still able to rely on each other in a crisis to survive.
Angel:
Angel is still in hell. But he is using his time away to learn how to knit. He's made Buffy a couple socks, but, due to the lack of a postal system, has no way to send them to her.
Xander:
Of the group, Xander actually seems the most angry with Buffy. While Willow at least tried to get Buffy to open up to her, Xander simply slings accusations and admonishments.
I was actually taken aback by how cruel Xander appeared in this episode. When confronting Buffy, he's belittling of her issues and doesn't try in the least to see where she's coming from.
However, I can see that he's coming from a position of hurt, as well. One of his best friends left without warning and remained gone for three months without even a postcard. She finally comes back with no explanations for her absence. We see throughout the series that during highly emotional times, Xander tends to react with anger (the best example being S5's The Body).
He's angry with Buffy on behalf of himself and everyone else. And he's not afraid to call her on what she did. To an extent, yes, he has valid points. However, the way in which he presents them is incredibly hostile. It's no wonder that Buffy tends not to confide in Xander given these types of reactions.
While Xander is angry-guy, Willow is just plain hurt. She doesn't know how to deal with Buffy when she comes back. We get a bit of Buffy's "all about me"-syndrome when Willow is confronting her in her bedroom. Buffy assumes that Willow's just upset about her being gone. However, Willow's upset because she was going through traumatic life stuff without her best friend.
Willow isn't angry with Buffy for being gone, per se. She's upset over the extended loss of her friend and confidant, and she's also upset when said friend refuses to talk to her about her absence. It actually seems likely that the reason Willow was ignoring Buffy at the beginning was because she didn't want to seem attention-hungry by bringing up her own issues to Buffy. She knows that Buffy went through something (though what that is, she doesn't know, yet), and she doesn't want to belittle that by bringing up her own life stuff, which probably seem trivial in comparison.
However, when Willow comes across Buffy in the midst of running away again, she reacts with anger. She finally got her best friend back, and now she's leaving. I can definitely see where she's coming from there. Unfortunately, she seemed to be making some progress with Buffy before Joyce walked in and then things go downhill from there.
In the end, though, we see Willow discussing all the life stuff that she'd been wanting to talk about. It's a nice scene between the two, especially as Buffy and Willow grow apart later in the series. It's nice to see them while they're still close.
Giles, of all of the characters, handles Buffy's return the best. When he sees her, he doesn't make an emotional display (Until he's away from her, that is). He's just happy to have his Slayer back.
However, he knows that something happened at the end of last year to prompt her leaving. And he's careful not to pry and to give her time to adjust. He expresses disapproval when Oz wants to turn Buffy's gathering into a hootenanny.
Giles doesn't judge Buffy. He doesn't accuse her. He just accepts her back and lets her be. And that's exactly what Buffy needs right now.
He really gets his shining moment at the end, though, when he confronts Snyder. He does have a point in that Snyder doesn't have any grounds to keep her out of school. When reasoning doesn't work, Giles isn't afraid to resort to threats. Giles realizes that Buffy needs to be in school for her own emotional well-being.
Cordy, like Oz, isn't incredibly close to Buffy. She therefore doesn't feel the betrayal of Buffy's disappearance like Willow and Xander do. She does try to help Buffy, though, during the party. However, she does so in her usual tactless way, which Buffy just doesn't appreciate.
And Oz gets a major miss in this episode. It is his suggestion to turn the party into a huge thing, after all. Apparently, Oz lost his people skills for a moment. He's got to recognize that a huge party is the last thing Buffy needs right now. But he's insistent on it.
The plot isn't too important. This episode is all about Buffy's return and her friends' acceptance of her.
Well, the zombies, technically. But the real bad guys are the Scoobies, themselves, as they lash out at each other in their pain.
Once again, we're wrapping up the S2 arc.
We do get a slight mention of the Mayor for the S3, arc though.
I know this episode gets some criticism for the zombie story. Personally, I didn't mind it very much. I felt it served its purpose. The heart of the episode is the characters and their issues, though, and this episode handles that quite well. Still, it's not a stellar episode, by any stretch.
Special performance award goes to the guy who played the party-goer who answered the phone. I swear, I've been to parties with a guy like him.
6 out of 10.
The big showdown at the party. It's painful to watch, but very important as it lets all our characters have their say.
This came out completely differently than I had planned, but I like it. It's geometric in a way. The screencaps were just cleaned up and cropped a bit. The highlight of this episode, for me, was the moment Giles saw that Buffy was back. Beautifully played by the both of them.
For the text, "prodigal daughter", I was thinking of the Xena episode where Gabrielle goes back to Potodeia (Admittedly, a worse than medicore Xena-lite episode).
Credits:
Caps: Screencap Paradise
Textures: Misplaced Moments, Ugly Business
Fonts: Aquiline (Link)
Brushes: None
Episode 3.01: Anne | Episode 3.03: Faith, Hope, and Trick
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