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Episode 4.10: Hush | Episode 4.12: A New Man
Characters:
| Buffy | Xander | Willow |
| Giles | Spike | Riley |
Overall (7/10)
Buffy:
This episode is largely about our characters dealing with their past and transitioning to their future. S4 is very much a season of adjustment as they leave behind high school and go into the more adult years of the later seasons. This episode highlights that.
Buffy gets a little cold feet in her relationship with Riley. What her hesitation basically comes down to is fear. Knowing that he's in the demon-hunting business, she's afraid that he'll get hurt or die. She decides it easier to not care at all about him rather than to care about him and lose him.
We can also see that she takes the situation a lot more seriously than Riley does. Given her past, this isn't surprising. She HAS lost loved ones because of her Slaying whereas Riley, presumably, has not.
I also think their conversation at the beginning is very interesting. Riley focuses on the fact that she's strong and fast. And she's trying very hard to get him not to define her by her Slayer abilities. This does lend credence to the idea that Riley is enamored of the idea of the Slayer. But once that loses its glamor in S5, he finds he's not too thrilled with it.
It is appropriate that this episode should end up back in the old high school. This is the setting that formed the basis of most of Buffy's reservations and it is there that she overcomes them. Working together with Riley, she decides to take a chance with him.
Xander:
Like Buffy, Xander is having trouble getting past his high school years. This isn't helped by Spike who takes delight in tormenting him.
Xander is still feeling the plague of being the Zeppo. He's doing pizza delivery now and has little to contribute to the actual Slaying.
Willow tries so hard to escape the nerd label. This desire to change who she is plays a large part in her descent to Dark Willow in S6. She has an unpleasant reminder of her nerdiness in the form of Percy, whom she tutored last year.
Oddly enough, Willow seems to protest a little too much that she's not a nerd. Nerdy Willow, after all, wasn't popular or well-liked. Since going to college, she's adopted a new, quirky exterior that's worked well for her and she doesn't like the reminder of what she was before.
Giles gets knocked unconscious. Truly, he doesn't have much else to do besides deliver exposition.
Why is Spike still living with Xander? Shouldn't he be back with Giles, who tolerates him a lot better?
Spike, like the other characters, also gets a crisis in this episode. He is told off by Xander. Xander, of all people. He loses his dignity and his clothes. It's obvious that the clothes, the physical representation of his Big Bad exterior, are a big blow for him. It drives home the point that he's NOT the Big Bad anymore.
Thus he decides to try to kill himself, but is stopped by Willow.
Let's pause a moment. Why are the Scoobies keeping Spike around? Why don't they, as Xander suggests, just stake him? I think Willow puts it best in that they know him and it would be "ooky". It's one thing to kill nameless, fledgling vamps as they crawl up from their graves. But they have a name to the face and they've known Spike for a couple years. In that way, he's more a person to them than a vampire.
Okay, fine. But why don't they let him loose? Why keep him with Xander? Truthfully, I think it's for Spike's protection. Until this episode, they weren't aware that he could hurt demons. There's every likelihood that they were afraid he'd be unable to defend himself if he were to be given his freedom.
Things change in this episode, though. He finds out that he can hurt a demon with no pain from the chip. Spike is very much a scrapper. He likes a good fight. As his final speech to Willow and Xander shows, he just wants to kill something. And if that happens to be a demon, then...
This will lead him to the light side of the Force...er...I mean...his ability to only hurt demons will lead him to help Buffy in the future.
But first a detour. After having his Big Bad credentials questioned by Xander, Spike discovers a new way to be evil. While he may not be able to physically hurt them, he can still lash out with his words. And Spike has just the insight to be able to bring them down with his remarks. This is wonderful foreshadowing for the end of the season where he uses this skill to break apart the Scooby gang.
Nice Guy Riley finds out the shocking truth about Buffy!
What we discover in this episode is that Riley is very much in love with his job. He likes the excitement. He thinks it's fun. But he doesn't quite realize the tragic, serious side of it as Buffy does.
This shows in his attraction to Buffy. He knows she's unique and thinks she's fun and exciting. But it's doubtful that he's ready for the darker parts of being with the Buffster (as will play out in S5).
For now, though, he makes a good appeal to be with her when she gets cold feet about their relationship.
This episode gets some flack for the apocalypse plot. I say that's not important. Like Willow after she found the dead guy at the party. She keeps complaining about Percy, but stops herself saying she knows that's not what matters. But it is. Because this episode is all about our characters and continuing their journey from high school to adulthood. The plot is just background. I think in that way it's reminiscent of S3's The Zeppo, which also had an apocalypse plot in it.
Uh, some demons who want to open the Hellmouth. But they're not important.
We get to see how the Initiative works. This episode really highlights the "magic vs science" theme of the season. We see our Scoobies and the Initiative both trying to hunt the demons.
I give this episode more props than most people. It has a stunning amount of character development, including a large character turn for Spike. It fully moves ahead on the Buffy/Riley romance. While the plot is weak, I still consider it a successful episode. It resolves some of the transitional issues of Buffy and Spike and continues the issues of Willow and Xander.
Special performance award goes to the doomed party-goer for making the most of his 15 seconds of fame.
7 out of 10.
I rather like Buffy and Riley's meeting in the cemetery. It nicely shows both their characters as well as gives us insights as to what may eventually be problems in their relationship.
This is another attempt by me to do a comedy wallpaper. I made the mood very dark and dramatic for Spike's big suicide scene, planning it out as if it were a huge angsty moment in the show. Then I slam in the colors and grungy fonts for the final screenshot where he's sprawled on the floor. Well, I found it amusing.
Credits:
Caps: Screencap Paradise
Textures: Misplaced Moments
Fonts: Lilith (Link), PDTNC - Dirt Black Grunge (Link)
Brushes: Floral2 Brushes by hawksmont
Episode 4.10: Hush | Episode 4.12: A New Man
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