Home | About | Wallpapers | Links
Episode 4.02: Living Conditions | Episode 4.04: Fear, Itself
Characters:
| Buffy | Xander | Willow |
| Giles | Oz | Spike |
| Anya |
Overall (8/10)
Buffy:
This episode is about three women and their relationship troubles. But none of these women are really victimized by their respective guys. Instead, they each fall victim to their own unrealistic expectations of the relationship.
Let's start with Buffy...cause it's her section.
Last year, Angel left Buffy and told her that she should be with a normal guy. Enter normal guy Parker. He speaks from the heart, seemingly, and is interested in her. Buffy falls for him, believing that she's starting up a fairy tale romance a la Angel...just without the vampire complication. Feeling emboldened by his talk of seizing opportunities and making choices, she sleeps with him.
All is happy in romance-land until the morning after when Buffy wakes up. This marks the second instance of Buffy's Bad Sex Life. In a scene almost identical to the one in S2's Innocence (Right down to the red bed sheets), Buffy wakes up alone. And now that the night-mood is over, Buffy can see that the room is messy and not near as romantic as she had thought.
And then Parker gives her the brush off. Fortunately, he doesn't criticize her performance in bed (the poor girl is gonna be insecure enough as it is). But he blows it off as "fun". The fairy tale is broken for Buffy as she realizes that he was wanting something completely different than what she was expecting.
Buffy was expecting a long-term commitment. She was expecting a passionate romance. Parker was looking for a one-night stand. Buffy shows her naivete in romantic relationships by hopping into bed with a guy after having known him for a week. But to be fair to her, Parker did lead her on (This will be addressed more directly in Beer Bad).
Buffy was so quick to try to find a normal human guy to fall into a relationship with, she left behind her better judgment and will spend the next few episodes dealing with post-Parker depression.
This episode is interesting in that it takes the fairy tale romance that BtVS gave us with Buffy/Angel and pretty much shatters it. With Parker, she starts down that same horribly unrealistic road to love, only to get a reality check in the middle of the episode. It helps Buffy realize that relationships can be harsh. More importantly, it helps us realize that romances seen in TV-land are rarely realistic. From this point on, we're treated to more true-to-life romances on BtVS (Well, as true to life as you can get in a show with vampires), and it's very refreshing.
As much as some fans may not like Buffy's actions here, it is important set up for her. She's much more careful when Riley comes along. And, well, people do stupid things when they go to college.
Xander:
Xander's job for the episode seems to be helping Giles organize his books. Oh, the excitement.
But Xander does get a surprise when Anya returns, looking for a one-night stand to get over him. With some protesting, Xander eventually caves in and gives her what she wants. He is a man.
He also takes her at her word when she says she's over him. Xander has had sex-without-feeling before in the form of Faith, so it's no surprise that he isn't too affected by Anya's seduction. At the end, he brushes her off to help Buffy.
Willow needs to stop encouraging Buffy to find a boyfriend. This is something that I expressed annoyance with in S2's I Only Have Eyes For You, and I'm still irritated by it.
At the Bronze, she makes it clear that Buffy should "go for it" with Parker and acts incredibly supportive and excited after Parker and Buffy have sex. I understand she feels the need to be the supportive best friend, but she's encouraging Buffy to make bad sex decisions.
It's only after Parker blows Buffy off that Willow does an immediate 180 and calls him a "poophead".
Willow, honey, part of being a best friend is telling your best friend not to do stupid things. Something along the lines of, "Look, Buffy. He seems like a nice guy, and it's cool that you two are hanging out a lot. But should you really jump in the sack with him this early in the game?"
Think about it.
Giles gets very little to do, which is par for the course for the season. We see him alphabetizing and fencing. Then he does the exposition and research thing.
Oz, likewise, gets little to do. Which is a shame considering he's, ya know, leaving soon.
Spike's back in Sunnydale. Apparently, his plan to win Dru back didn't work (Of course, it wouldn't considering that the real reason she dumped him was because of his obsession with the Slayer. But Spike's in firm denial about that at this point). He's now out to get the Gem of Amarra to impress her. In the meantime, he's picked up Harmony as a...girlfriend of sorts. And, yes, I would love to know how those two met.
Spike is a man (vamp) with a mission in this episode. Obviously, he's still mourning over his break-up with Drusilla. Harmony is barely even rebound. I get the feeling that she kinda latched onto him and stuck around. Spike probably wouldn't think twice if she left. However, since she's there, he'll use her for sex. Cause..he is a guy. And let me have a brief fangirl moment to mention how damned sexy he looked crawling across the bed shirtless. Fangirl moment. Fangirl moment. Fangirl moment......okay, I'm done.
And Spike was doing a pretty good job at beating up Buffy in the fight at the end. Unfortunately, he takes the opportunity to run his mouth off. He shows his perceptiveness again and uses it during the fight to try to throw her off-guard. However, his words only invigorate her and allow her to kick his ass. Spike, just keep your mouth shut during fights. It's not worth it.
But let's talk about Harmony. Because she's one of the three women this episode is all about.
Harmony is with Spike. And she seems to be wanting some fairy tale vamp-love story a la Spike and Dru. Notice when Spike physically threatens her she doesn't react with fear. Instead, she gets turned on. She likes the evil vamp rough love stuff.
However, she doesn't understand the fact that Spike doesn't love her. He doesn't even like her. It's only at the end when he stakes her (after her mentioning France) that she's faced with the truth about the relationship she's in. Notice what she tells the Scoobies: Being a vampire sucks.
And Anya returns. She's been plagued with naked dreams of Xander, which is enough to drive anybody mad. So she decides to resolve this by having sex with him to get him out of her system.
It's easy to tell what her unrealistic expectation is. She expects to be over Xander after sex. When she isn't, she expects him to accept her with open arms. Instead, she gets shoved to the side so he can go help Buffy.
Anya is newly human, though, and is in the worst position of all three of our ladies. She truly doesn't understand the relationship thing.
Well, there's a gem thing that Spike's after. But this story's really about three women and their guy problems.
Spike. Yay!
Not an arc episode. We don't even see any Initiative soldiers.
It's always a joy to have Spike back, and I love the Spike/Harmony interaction. The plot isn't important. This episode deals with the fantasy of a relationship vs the reality of that same relationship. It's very well-done, and absolutely a joy to see this addressed on Buffy.
Special performance award goes to Jason Hall who plays Devon for wearing the teeny t-shirt in the teaser.
8 out of 10.
The final scene as we see the connection between these three girls.
Episode 4.02: Living Conditions | Episode 4.04: Fear, Itself
Home | About | Wallpapers | Links