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Episode 3.09: The Wish | Episode 3.11: Gingerbread
Characters:
| Buffy | Angel | Xander |
| Willow | Giles | Cordelia |
| Oz |
Overall (5/10)
Buffy:
"I wish that I wished you dead."
That quote goes straight to the heart of Buffy's struggle with Angel's return. She knows that she shouldn't forgive him. But her compassionate heart overlooks this simply because she loves him and believes that he can do good now that his soul back (The all-important soul is something I actually take issue with, but I'll have opportunity to address that in later seasons. For now, having a soul effectively makes Angel a completely different person in the context of the show).
Now the astute viewer may recall that Buffy called things off with Angel a couple episodes ago (In Lover's Walk) because of this struggle. At the end of that episode, she listens to her head to forgo what her heart wants. It seems that in this episode, she reverses her decision in the face of Angel's struggle (This is the only explanation I can think of for the sudden coupleness of the two later on in the season).
Let's also note that Buffy's compassion doesn't just affect her actions towards Angel, but it motivates both Giles and Xander to lend a helping hand. I'll get more into those two in their own sections.
Now a sidenote on Faith, where the hell is that girl getting the money for that motel room? Actually, I probably don't want to know. But I wonder why Buffy and her mom haven't offered for Faith to stay with them. Maybe they have and Faith refused, and we just aren't shown it. Regardless, this episode shows the strained Buffy/Faith relationship take a step in the more sisterly direction with Faith accepting Buffy's invitation to spend Christmas together. Those two go through just about as many ups and downs as Buffy and Angel do.
And a couple rather shallow observations. I love how Faith shows up at Buffy's place for Christmas wearing a nice blouse but a totally skanky, trailer-trash mini-skirt. And Buffy has rather unfortunate bangs in this episode.
Angel:
This episode is All About Angel! Not only that, but it's gearing Angel up for his own spin-off to come up at the end of the year.
I find it slightly amusing that most of the First Evil's (FE) taunting of Angel echoes my own feelings of his character throughout S2. In this episode, he's faced with the fact that, yes, he is a pathetic loser who may not deserve to live.
We see that as a human, he wasn't the greatest person in the world. And as a vamp, he was unusually cruel and sadistic. In essence, the FE is telling Angel that he has no hope for redemption.
Now here's where I get a little confused. So...the FE brought Angel back to make him go bad and kill Buffy. But they're okay with him dying, too? Why bring him back in the first place? Or, as is ambiguously suggested, perhaps another, nicer power brought him back to put him on the road to redemption. This fuzzy confusion is what you get when you try to explain the unexplainable. No matter what spin you put on it, Angel's miraculous return in this season just makes no sense.
One could make the argument, though (And people surely have), that the FE knew it would suffer a massive defeat at the hands of a Slayer and a souled vampire. Angel, being the only souled vampire at this time, becomes their most obvious target so they try to keep this from coming to be. However, we'll find out in S7 that Spike is actually the vampire in question. (Of course, S7 hadn't even been conceived of at the time this episode was written, so this would be a completely unintentional explanation.)
Anyway, the FE successfully causes a big enough guilt-trip on Angel's part to drive him to suicide. In the end, he changes his mind partially because of Buffy's impassioned speech of belief and love (Another similar Buffy-speech will give a souled-Spike the strength to withstand the FE's torture in S7. Don't knock the power of her speeches). Also, he stays his suicidal hand by some miraculous snow which somehow tells him that he should give life another chance.
Yeah, I don't really get the snow either.
Anyway, Angel walks along in the snow with his mission statement for his own show. Happiness (And coldness) abounds.
Xander:
I'll start this section by making a comment as to Xander camping out on Christmas night. Cordelia informs us that he does so to get away from his family. We've seen hints before as to the unstability of Xander's home life and how much he desperately wants to get away from it.
I start by mentioning this because I think this is the primary reason he helps Buffy to help Angel. There's no love lost between Xander and Angel, and I think that Xander is still not inclined to help the guy. However, he has such strong ties to his surrogate family, the Scoobies, that he puts that aside to help his surrogate-sister (And somewhat crush), Buffy. In essence, he's helping for Buffy's sake. Not for Angel's.
Regardless of the reasons, I give Xander kudos for it. He puts aside his own concerns to recognize that, yes, this Angel guy is important to Buffy.
And we all knew that Willow would help Buffy with Angel no matter what.
And we're all happy to see the reconciliation of Willow and Oz. Her obvious contriteness and desire to make things right win him over, finally. We also get a scene reminiscent of the suggested making-out scene in Innocence in which Willow tries to overcompensate by offering herself up. In the end, they do sleep together but in a fully-clothed fashion.
Much happiness abounds.
In this episode, we get the first confrontation between Angel and Giles since Angel's return. Let me say right out that I was surprised that Giles even invited the guy in, crossbow or not. Of the group, Giles has the most reason to not forgive Angel for the events of last year.
And I would argue that he doesn't forgive Angel in this episode. Like Xander, though, he recognizes the importance of Angel to Buffy, and puts aside his own feelings to help her.
This is actually an unusual episode in that we again have a situation where Angel needs help and there's not a large argument between the Scoobies as to whether he deserves it or not (a la Becoming Pt. 1 or Revelations). Of course, this is a Christmas episode with a theme of forgiveness, so it would seem out of place given that. But, still, I would say that the only person that truly forgives Angel is Buffy. By the end, I don't think even Angel forgives himself. He just decides to try to redeem himself by making amends rather than kill himself.
On another note, I thought it was very sweet of Buffy to try to invite Giles to Christmas, and I'm actually kinda annoyed that her mother vetoed that idea. I know that it's played for comedy because of the events of Band Candy, but Giles really doesn't have anybody to spend Christmas with. It would be nice to see him spend it with Buffy and her family.
Unfortunately at this point in the season, Cordelia doesn't have much to do. After the break-up with Xander, Cordelia is relegated to scathing one-liners in one scene.
Oz, once again, shows his mature hand. He takes the step to forgive Willow, and he does so by trying to understand where she was coming from with the Xander-kissage.
And, yes, it shows very much his character when he turns down Willow-sex. I mean, come on! Who could resist that set-up? But he knows that's she's not coming from the right place for it, and he turns her down in the nicest way possible.
Really and truly? I want my own Oz.
The plot makes very little sense in that it's trying to explain something that just shouldn't be explained. Angel came back because he was a popular character, and Joss needed to use him this season to gear him up for his own series. There's no in-story explanation that would work to explain his sudden return.
Plus, some miraculous snow keeps Angel from killing himself and the FE just says "Oh well" and toddles off to do something else? Whatever.
The FE. It's a bad guy I've never been too impressed with. It's frighteningly vague so as to make it seem bigger and badder than it actually ends up being. It's slightly more effective here than it is as the Big Bad of S7, though.
Not an arc episode. It does, however, have the FE which becomes the villain of S7's arc.
This episode is a muddled mess that tries to end on a message of hope, but just ends up being hokey. It has the unenviable job of trying to explain Angel's return. And it also has the unenviable job of having both Xander and Giles somehow help Angel in his time of need after the events of last year.
The high points are the Willow/Oz reconciliation and Buffy's impassioned message of redemption and forgiveness at the end which is just so right for her character.
The low points are too numerous to mention (And I'm proud of myself that I didn't even make note of the bad wigs and bad accents in the flashbacks. Ah, shit.)
Special performance award goes to whoever played Daniel in Angel's flashbacks. Cause he had an even better kicked-puppy face than David Boreanaz.
5 out of 10, though I've wavered on how to rate it. The nonsensical nature of the plot and the lameness of the villain bring it down a lot. I also don't like how they try to tidily wrap up Xander and Giles' response to Angel in this episode. But, on the other hand, it does bring up very good points about Angel's character from last season (And serves as a good turning point for what his character becomes this season), and it does allow Buffy to shine in her unwavering faith in Angel. Plus, it has the lovely Willow/Oz scenes.
So my rating isn't so much saying that this is an average Buffy episode (because it isn't), but it is saying that this episode failed in a lot of what it attempted to do, but did succeed in some small measure. And, yes, I feel completely rotten giving a Joss-episode a 5.
Angel's suicide scene with Buffy. Highly emotional and a perfect portrayal of the Buffy-character. Also, a decent way to turn the page on the Angel-character to make him more confident and useful this season than he was last season.
Pretty basic wallpaper. Willow looking cute. "Do that thing" from the episode.
Credits:
Caps: Screencap Paradise
Textures: Shattered
Fonts: Courier New, Pea Mystie (Link)
Brushes: Unknown
*Some resources were used that I can't identify. All resources are generally linked to on the links page, but if you recognize an uncredited resource let me know so I can note it with the actual wallpaper.
Episode 3.09: The Wish | Episode 3.11: Gingerbread
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