With mere hours to go until this season's Supernatural Premiere, we give you the final battle of the Season Seven Showdown.
Supernatural Episode #23 - "Survival of the Fittest" The Lightning Round Recap:
"Carry On, Wayward Son" kicks it off as per usual, and we pick right up with Crowley in the belly of the beast - negotiating a deal with Dick friggin' Roman at Sucrocorp. The deal's this: if Crowley replaces the blood the boys need for the super-weapon (The Macguffin), he can have all of Canada after the apocalypse. Luckily, Crowley promptly screws Dick over (with no explanation as to the how he fudged the contract) and gives the boys his actual blood. The boys obtain the final ingredient, the blood of long dead nun Sister Mary Constant, and the super-weapon is ready to rock.
Meanwhile, Castiel's still in lalaland, but he gets back involved to let the boys know all the Angels have been murdered. Crowley is infuriated that the boys have had Cas stashed from him the whole time and even more annoyed that he's too cracked to give him some satisfying revenge.
Over at Sucrocorp, Kevin Tran discovers that a poison creamer has been created to weed out the skinny humans...and this is where this plot line has been taken too far. Creamer now? Come on, it's the Season Finale let's step it up a bit, sheesh. Meanwhile, Dick has used the frozen arm of the original Dick friggin' Roman to create many avatars of the CEO, thus confusing Sam & Dean as to who's the real one. Bobby shows up, having body-jacked that poor, unsuspecting maid at the motel and Sam is forced to stop him. This helps Bobby see how dark he's gotten and he makes the decision to finally move on. So the boys burn the flask, setting Bobby's soul free while Castiel watches from the sidelines.
Now Crowley, had cryptically mentioned that Cas would be needed n the final battle. See he can spot the actual fake Dick Roman, since all the Leviathan were inside of him at one point. So Dean talks Cas into helping and they FINALLY pick up the car just so Meg can smash it through Sucrocorp's welcome sign. Ugh, what shit is this? Meg distracts the guards but ends up getting caught by Crowley's men. Inside, Dean and Cas go on a mission to find the real Dick while Sam and Kevin blow up the....creamer...lab. Dean stabs Dick in the neck with the convenient weapon, killing him dead but with some sticky side effects: Crowley snatches up Kevin Tean, Dean and Castiel end up in Purgatory where they immediately get separated and Sam's left all alone.
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Buffy Episode #22 - "Chosen" The Lightning Round Recap:
Here we go! After Buffy kills Caleb once and for all, Angel passes the amulet to Buffy and they have a nice little post-kiss chat. A chat about Spike, a chat about the future, a chat about cookie dough. Oh yes, cookie dough…see Buffy is now a metaphor for the very thing that was in the ice cream her and Angel shared oh so many years ago. Basically, when Buffy is fully a baked warm delicious cookie, Angel will be waiting. Spike sees and hears the whole thing but Buffy tells him she didn't use tongue, so it's all good. Buffy gives Spike the amulet then spends the night with him, even though she has "Angel-breath." Speaking of 'ships, Kennedy/Willow are still making use of the latter's tongue piercing, Anya/Xander have rekindled and Faith/Wood have a moment where he puts her in her place for putting up emotional walls, so they make a deal about their post-apocalypse relationship.
Buffy then comes up with the big plan to finally defeat The First, which freaks Willow out because it involves some major mojo and she doesn't want to go all "Black Eyes of Shut Up Willow." The entire group heads over to Sunnydale High and it's pretty epic, actually. There's a fab moment between the original core-four Scoobs, calling back to "Welcome to the Hellmouth"…Giles says "The earth is definitely doomed." Willow's spell uses the Scythe to call all the Potential Slayers to their duty and triggers their powers. Instead of "Evil Eyes of Shut Up Willow", we get to see her go "white-hair of Goddess Willow." A huge fight ensues down in the Hellmouth betwixt the now-Slayers and a gajillion Ubervamps. Oh man, I had a feeling Buffy would make it but I remember being so scared Faith was going to die here.
Unfortunately we do lose some Slayers and one of the major casualties is Anya, but not before she showed some rare bravery, brought forth by the thought of floppy, hoppy bunnies. During the battle, the amulet now around Spike's neck is charging up. It brings forth the power of the sun and kills all the Ubers in one fell swoop. Right before Sunnydale go boom, Buffy says to Spike "I Love You", which he doesn't really believe, but appreciates. Spike makes the ultimate sacrifice and the surviving gang make a run for it in a School Bus, with Buffy jumping rooftops to try and catch up to. Once the town is imploded, they look back and wonder what to do next. Buffy just smiles.
Finale Final Ruling:
Look, this season finale of Supernatural felt more like a mid-season Finale than anything else. Killing the Leviathan and Dick Friggin' Roman was a little too easy, and too many of the season's loose ends weren't tied up. Bobby's goodbye was a little too unceremonious and with Dean in Purgatory over the summer, well I just feel like we've been here before. "Chosen" is the obvious winner here, but this episode is not without it's problems. First off, it's not even the best season finale, never mind a way to end the series, and it definitely should've been a 2-hour event. I remember being very upset that it wasn't at the time. But the real problems are with the details. Buffy called all the slayers to power and I'm still not sure I agree with the morality behind this decision. But most importantly, everything they did was in vain. Willow's Spell, The Scythe, Spike's kamikaze, the battle tactics, none of that was even needed. Straight up, the person who defeated The First Evil was Wolfram & Hart. They saved the world, sending that amulet.
So the Scoobs don't get credit for that. This wasn't the school banding together to beat The Mayor or Buffy driving a sword through a loved one. And it definitely wasn't Buffy sacrificing herself on top of a tower to avert the apocalypse. To this day it's that moment that feels like the true, epic ending this series deserved. This ending just falls a tad short...but, it did have some fantastic full-circle moments. I'll give it that.
FINAL SEASON TALLY:
Supernatural=15
Buffy=7
Post-Season thoughts:
I remember really hating Buffy Season Seven and we have beat it with a bat over the years. But really, it wasn't as vile 10 years later. It has major flaws, but at this point I *might* even scootch it ahead of Season 6. For Supernatural's part, I can't really crown it a glorious winner here. Sure it beat the numbers, but that's only because it was marginally better than Buffy, not because it kicked Buffy's ass. I probably could make the argument for it being the worst of all Supernatural seasons. Lucky for us, it gets another chance where Buffy didn't on TV. So with that, I'm going to make some popcorn and get ready to see how Season Eight kicks off tonight. Thanks for reading :)
Maestro here. Buffyfest has been hard at work wrapping up the Season Seven Showdown with this marathon lightning round in honor of tonight’s season premiere of Supernatural. Episode by episode the Winchesters have maintained a lead, but the Slayer is known to finish strong. Who will take the final episodes? We'll work it through within a minute.
Before Tara comes back here to compare the grand finales, we have a small mathematical issue to address. The creative team behind Supernatural saw fit to write an extra episode into their seventh season, stretching it across 23 parts instead of the usual 22. This leaves us with a conundrum: we are left without a fair matchup in the end and it is obviously wrong to not let the finales stand up against one another. With great deliberation your bloggers have made the only executive decision we think that is appropriate under the circumstances.
It’s time for Ben Edlund vs. Ben Edlund. Supernatural Episode #21 - "Reading is Fundamental"
The Lightning Round Recap:
An overachieving Asian lad plays cello according to a ridiculously regimented schedule while Frank and Joe Hardy squat in an abandoned loft and chisel masonry off of the handprops. The concept for this new character is actually a bit racist.
So, the brothers hammer away at that chunk of stone that they lucked into during the whole Felicia Day incident assuming there is a creamy center inside, and expose an ancient tablet hand inscribed with ten commandments and eleven secret herbs and spices, and for some reason freeing it results in crazy stuff hundreds of miles away: the young man we barely know gets hit by lightning and Cas wakes up.
The kid sleeps through a day of school and then steals his mother’s car to run away while displaying the an unusually orange shade glowing eyes of mystical mind control while Meg summons our protagonists back to the mental institution. They discover that our favorite trenchcoated seraphim is in fact up and about, but definitely not all there. He’s like 25% Cas, 50% Gravelly-voiced Rain Man, and 12% Teleporting Conflict Avoider. I’m not sure what the rest is, for now we’ll just say tar.
Misha better be having fun with this (probably is.)
Anyway, Crazy Angel’s reluctance to stay in one place for unpleasant conversations will be leading to a few incidents of strange script pacing for the remainder of the season. This first time it inserts a gap that allows him to give Dean a really awkward apology while Sam and Meg tackle the boy we met earlier, Advanced Placement Kevin, who had successfully slipped in and stolen Sam’s Holy Backpack with the rock of doom, which he can read for some reason.
We’re short on time so to quickly explain that reason the writers instantly beam in a hit squad of angels to tell us: the kids a prophet. Tough plot twist for you, Asian boy. You just inherited Chuck’s job. (Unless Chuck was secretly God. They never actually made that clear.)
Anyway, my watch says we’re only a couple of episodes from the end of the year, which according to the Supernatural writing formula means it’s time for the boys to find the Macguffin that will conveniently take out the big bad. Turns out the magic rock that conveniently dropped into their laps is not that Macguffin: it’s the instruction manual that tells you how to make the Macguffin. No, that’s not ex machina at all.
So Team "No Apocalypse" is on the run being chased down by a number of angels and demons and Leviathan FBI who all want AP Kevin before he can translate the ancient cookbook. Long story short: fighting ensues, demons and angels die, the Leviathans do get their hands on the prophet but not before the heroes get a marble composition book that contains the cheat sheet for the end of the season.
Also: great work on protecting God’s chosen one, entire forces of good. How has evil not won seasons ago?
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Angel Season 4 Episode #20 - "Sacrifice" The Lightning Round Recap:
This is coming out of left field for some of you with very little buildup, but while Buffy and Company have been in this middle of their Mal and the Uruk-Hai crap the Angel Crew have been fighting Zoe and her Cult of Happiness. Basically this was the year that the bastard step-child Firefly came back to wreak vengeance on its favored siblings.
So to catch you up: all of Los Angeles has been mind controlled by Zoe, who is basically a god whose parents are Comatose Cordelia and Creepy Connor, with all the alliteration and uncomfortable incest vibes that brings.
In the last minute of the previous episode our whole team of heroes is freed from the brainwashing by the magic of plot contrivance, except Connor decides to stay with the zombies anyway and betrays everyone to the cult. So this week opens with Angel having to beat the extreme amounts of pretty out his extremely pretty son’s face and then everyone escapes in the Angelmobile.
The brainwashing appears to have spread over northern California (except specifically Sunnydale, where apparently there is no longer any television or radio and also people are busy with their own apocalypse) and soon the whole world will be affected once the good guys are dead. Zoe projects herself into random individuals to try to kill the heroes, so we take to the sewers for safety.
Here we find the last temporarily un-kool-aided citizens who have been hiding out even since the extended eclipse from earlier in the season. Because without them we wouldn’t know about the strange monster that our characters really shouldn’t be wasting their time with right now but luckily will somehow tie back into the main plot although there is no way for them to know that. Wes gets to have a brief conversation with the creature, an alien from another dimension that thankfully came to our world to deliver exposition to the heroes, while everyone wanders the smelly tunnels looking for someone or another. Fred gets a line in about how even if their lives are pain and suffering she’d still prefer that to being a shell, so there’s a nice piece of cruel foreshadowing for next year (thanks for that.)
Gunn beats up a little kid while the alien tells Wes that to beat Zoe, Angel has to travel to his home dimension and find out the god’s True Name. Then Angel kills him.
Anyway, the main character has to jump through the portal alone (because the air is poison) and everyone else gets captured while Zoe creepily laughs feeling every wound and injury her minions receive. And scene!
Final Ruling: Obviously under the circumstances this would not be a fair matchup to include in the final tally, so we’re going to call this one an exhibition match. Just for fun.
This is definitely an interesting one, since both these episodes were written by a guy mostly known for doing the wacky humor episodes. But apparently at the end of a season he puts down his Tick skills and focuses and darkness and gravitas. These are both pretty decent episodes that have powerful moments, and they further the overall plot arc but still squeeze in time for big character growth as well. They both have the same major flaw: the heroes are so far behind that they need a ridiculously lucky twist if they want to win in time, so the universe has to just hand it to them in an unbelievably improbable way. You can blame that on previous episodes being too inefficient, but in Supernatural’s case I feel like this happens every year. But we’ll forgive both shows because these chapters are enjoyable enough that you don’t really get hung up on how improbable it is during the first viewing.
So, high marks all around, almost a tie but the scales tip very slightly in favor an Angel for better plot momentum.
Supernatural Episode #22 - "There Will Be Blood" The Lightning Round Recap:
Hey, remember that Alpha Vampire from last season? No? Don’t feel bad, not sure anyone else did either.
So, Evil Dick has conquered the high-fructose corn syrup industry, because he wants all Americans lazy and fat and blah blah blah meta-message. He also thinks he can bribe AP Kevin with a letter of recommendation to Princeton, so that racism from last week is still present. When that doesn’t work he threatens to kill his mom, which is really a motivation that transcends all ethnicities.
Sam and Dean are debating whether or not to be smart for once or just rush in, while Bobby points out that they’ve missed the window for smart and now just have to be fast. So they call Crowley in, figuring that they need his blood to make their superweapon. Crowley agrees, but won’t give it to them until they get the other ingredient from the heavenly recipe first: the blood of the original vampire that got captured last year by Grampa X-Files.
They drive to a town indicated by Crowley but can’t eat any food because everything with sugary goodness is poisoned with happy juju like the Turducken sandwiches. We reach Casa de Vampyre where the bloodsuckers are all dead with burns on their mouths. But hey, there’s a nice traumatized thrall locked in a secret room who appears to have not mentally aged in the last decade since she was kidnapped in a really, really, upsetting writing choice.
So, we’ve figured out the blood of the corn-syrup zombies is what killed the vampires so the boys steal some from a random person to use as a weapon. They then lock the vampire’s slave in their motel room with Bobby’s flask, completely not realizing that she’s been obviously evil this whole time and instantly calls “Daddy” to warn him. Bobby gets pissed and steals a maid’s body so he can go murder Dick.
The captured Winchesters try to negotiate with the vampires for their precious pernicious plasma, but Lethal Latino Leviathan arrives to sour the deal. Smooth Alpha Vamp chooses at first not to believe that Dick would betray the other monsters, but Triple L’s arrogance lets it slip that the black-bloods want to be the only predators on the block: their drug will not only subjugate humanity it will kill everything that eats humans except for the Leviathans. So Lethal Latino gets beheaded, the Vamp let’s us know he’ll be back next year, and Sam and Dean leave with the blood. Everything is now going their way.
Except that Bobby is missing, walking around in a maid suit.
Oh, and Dick has captured Crowley. Cheers!
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Buffy Episode #21 - "End of Days" The Lightning Round Recap:
So, at this point in Buffy there were very, very few people who had actually read Fray so the significance of the weapon in front of our heroine is not well explained, but Mal will try to convey it to us with his very expressive face.
Before any fighting can happen, the First taunts Buffy with the fact the newbies are all about to die so she has to run out the door and save all their asses. They appear to have survived the bomb but are surrounded by Uruk-hai, so obviously Buffy (who previously had to spend weeks fighting just a single one of them) is now able to dispatch three of then in 30 seconds, because “Shut up, audience, we don’t have time for this now.”
The wounded are all teleported back to the house somehow, and Buffy talks about how Faith shouldn’t be blamed for falling into a trap because she could have done the same thing (except you just did the same thing, like yesterday, but good job faking the moral high ground) and everyone can ooh and ahh about Buffy’s new magical Axe of +5 Vampire Slaying. They mistakenly refer to it as a scythe, which it totally is not, and I refuse to ever refer to it as such even if they call it that forever after. It’s either an axe or a glaive or a “fuck you medieval polearm experts”, take your pick.
Anya and Andrew have nothing good to contribute to this episode so they go off to scavenge medical supplies from a hospital. Buff assigned One-Eye the task of kidnapping her sister to take her out of harm’s way (one quick tase later and she’s on the way back). Willow and Giles waste our time not finding out about the axe in order to remind the audience how great and special the witch is.
Mal and Sarah Michelle First have a creepy sexual moment in order to roid him up into UberCaleb for the end of the episode, and then Faith has a creepy sexual moment with the new Mr. Pointy as a setup for her wasting our time in order to remind the audience how great and special the Slayer is.
It strikes me that if the creators spent a little less time talking themselves up here, we might have enough time here to build to a resolution that isn’t a total ass-pull.
So, Spike and Buffy reiterate everything we’ve seen from them a million times so far this season without getting any further than we ever have, and Buffy goes off to destiny. Destiny is a white-haired woman in a grave who apparently is that last of an all-female order of sisters that have been deeply entwined with the slayer line from the very beginning, so it makes total sense that we have never heard of them before the LAST FUCKING MINUTE IN THE SERIES. Anyway they made a weapon that could superboost Buffy’s power in case the world was ending and left it in a place that she would find it at like the tenth time in her life that she really needed it. If she had died in one of those many other times they world was going to end, this old woman would have felt very stupid.
Before she can tell us anything that’s actually useful Mal snaps her neck, an act which reaches across the universe and into another television network to anger the rightful king of neck snappings, who then leaps across the void to the UPN for his revenge.
Just as Buffy is losing her fight despite her new glaive juju, in walks the Ex to help with the killing blow. “Hey honey, I just came back from this alternate dimension with a villain destroying Macguffin and thought you might like it if I picked you up one too.”
What happens next is either the best thing ever or the worst thing ever depending on your ship: Bangel kissage.
Final Ruling:
I don’t have much to complain about this Supernatural exactly: while there is a strange convenience to all this and weird pacing I can’t say that is anything particular bad about the episode. It really more of a sense like: this? This is what we’re doing? It’s alright, but are you sure there wasn’t a better option, some superior way of going about this? But okay, I guess. The vampire is cool at least.
As for Buffy: it was like old times. Especially with Angel being here and everything. But it was also crammed full of too many moments for the real characters because of all the wasted time in previous episodes focusing on unimportant new people. No matter which character you love or which ship you support there was something in this for you to appreciate, but no matter which character you hate or which ship you are against there was something to piss you off. I could try to make an argument for this ep as it was at least much better than the two that came before it, but it must forever be penalized for the revelation that Dawn killed Tara’s cat.
Advantage Winchester.
Season tally so far:
Supernatural=15*
Buffy=6
Well, there you have it; nothing left to do now but wrap it up. If anyone has any complaints or anything to add, well, that’s what the comments section is for. Otherwise: back to you, Tara.
We're winding down now to the final countdown! If you're just joining us, we've taken longer than we should have to determine whether Supernatural Season Seven was as truly awful as Buffy Season Seven was. Since last October we've been pitting each episode against each other in a battle to the death.
Now the Season 8 premiere Supernatural starts tomorrow night, so we've got to get through the final handful of episodes in the next 24 hours. Luckily, we'll have a guest blogger tomorrow to help out with that and then the finales!
So excited! Here we go: Supernatural Episode #19 - "Of Grave Importance" The Lightning Round Recap:
Annie Hawkins, an old hunter friend who just happened to sleep with the whole crew, calls Sam & Dean to pass them some of Bobby's old books and stuff. They high tail it to Bodega Bay, California, only to find she's missing. This leads them an old Bordello, where ghosts are getting ganked and unfortunately, Annie's now gone and got herself all dead as well. The boys run around town trying to figure shit out, all while Ghost Bobby makes bitchy remarks because he's ten steps ahead of them, but can't contact them unless he calms his spirit ass down. Finally, while Dean is naked in the shower, Bobby exclaims "I can kill werewolves, fix a Pinto and bake cornbread. I will be damned if I can’t get Zen", and succeeds in writing a helpful note on the steamy bathroom mirror.
So now the boys know Bobby's a ghost and they're led back to the house where it turns out it's former owner, Whitman Van Ness, was a killer in life and in death. He's keeping the bodies of former hookers and current teenagers in a hidden room and sucking their ghostly life force, or something, as needed. Annie & Bobby plan on burning the bodies and putting the souls to rest (including hers at her request), while Sam & Dean visit the Van Ness grave so they can burn the murderer's bones just in time before he destroys Bobby. This works out nicely. When the boys return to the house, Bobby is now visible to them, but they are furious about his choice to hang back on this spectral plane and proceed to yell at him for a while. A hurt and angry Bobby disappears, but eavesdrops on the boys worried conversation anyway from the backseat of their car that isn't Baby. Dean wonders aloud "What are the odds this ends well?"
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Buffy Episode #19 - "Empty Places" The Lightning Round Recap:
Sunnydale's a crazy zone and Buffy's acting like a bitca! She's totally insensitive to the fact that XANDER LOST HIS EYE and ditches him and Willow at the hospital to cry on each other's shoulders, but it seems like this behavior is coming from a guilty place. She takes a time-out to reflect on this over at Sunnydale high, where Caleb shows up and beats her senseless. My my, Fillion is terrifying in this role. Back at the Summers home, other members of the gang try to gather info about Caleb, the Ubervamps, The First and the rest of the impending doom.
Even though the bulk of Sunnydale's townfolk have fled, The Bronze is still packed and a band is playing...Nerf Herder, to be exact! So Faith takes the Potentials there to have a little pre-apocalypse fun while Giles sends Spike and Andrew to gather intel. All of these decisions PISS OFF Buffy pretty royally. Unfortunately, the fuzz show up at The Bronze, seemingly to arrest Faith but in actuality they just want to brush up on their Police brutality skills. After the brawl Buffy shows up and bitches Faith out big time for bringing the girls, but when Faith makes a good point about Buffy putting the girls in danger herself Buffy punches her in the face! Luckily, we're treated to famous the Spike/Andrew "Onion Blossom" scene to diffuse that tension. Then Spike and Andrew reach their destination and find an engraving on a creepy wall that says "It is not for thee, it is for her alone to wield."
Xander arrives home and Buffy takes this moment to tell the group about her plan to go back to the scene of the crime: the vineyard where Xander lost his eye and a few Potentials lost their lives. Everyone (except for Andrew and Spike who haven't arrived home yet) tell Buffy to stick it. And even though I sort of get their fear and lack of trust of Buffy at this point, it's majorly fucked that they kick her out of her own house that they've all been living in. Especially Willow and Dawn. But in the end Buffy does walk out and leaves Faith in charge.
Final Ruling: Supernatural has a solid, classic ghost episode on their hands here that just also happens to be Bobby's grand return. On the other end, besides the "Onion Blossom" scene, I've seen this Buffy episode bashed by pretty much every faction in the fandom. "Empty Places" is infuriating and oh SO Season Seven. Supernatural takes it!
Supernatural Episode #20 - "The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo" The Lightning Round Recap:
Bobby's back and has a boatload of info regarding Dick friggin' Roman's entire plan that he became privy to moments before his untimely demise. Seems Dick has already broke ground on the facility in Wisconsin that will basically be center for disease control/human slaughterhouse, helping to provide a limitless food source for Leviathan, forever. That's the gist. Then Sam receives an email auto-sent from probably dead Frank Devereaux explaining that someone is likely hacking into his hard drive full of the boys private info. That someone is our very own Felicia Day, who is instructed by Dick friggin' Roman himself to break the encryption in 3 days or else. She's a geek girl so there are LoTR, ComicCon and Potter references being sprayed around. Frank had a GPS locator on the hard drive, so the boys set off to the worldwide headquarters of Richard Roman Enterprises in Illinois, sans Bobby.
Felicia Day learns the truth of the Leviathan pretty quickly and tries to make a run for it, but San & Dean cut her off at the pass. Thy all team up, Felicia sneaks into RRE, hacks all the files in the world and they learn that Dick has unearthed what he's been looking for all season at his many archeological dig sites: a tablet. The boys hijack the tablet at the airport and replace it with a borax bomb. Meanwhile, Bobby, who hitched a ride via-flask in Felicia's bag, saves her ass from Dick friggin' Roman but also goes dark, vengeful spirit in the process, which worries the boys. In the end, Felicia changes her name, gets on a bus and says "Peace out, Bitches."
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Buffy Episode #20 - "Touched" The Lightning Round Recap:
This episode starts right where "Empty Places" finished. Potentials are bickering and Kennedy and Anya are at an all time high of irritating, I want to mash both their faces. But hey! Double dose of Felicia Day! Since Faith has been crowned leader, she makes a plan to capture a Bringer and make it talk. They learn that the Bringers are housing an armory underground somewhere. Meanwhile, an ousted Buffy walks down Revello Drive, breaks open a door with her Slayer Strength, forces a man out of his house and raids his fridge! So rude.
Spike and Andrew return from their trip and after they learn of what happened with Buffy, Spike chews them all out and punches Faith in the face! They fight, he leaves and sniffs his way to Buffy's location at the stolen house. He tells Buffy that she was right all along, that Caleb is protecting for a mystical weapon at the vineyard. She doesn't want any of it though, she's just depressed. Spike tries to help and explains all the reasons he loves her so much. They spend the night, just sleeping in the bed. Back at the Summers home, The First appears to Faith as Mayor Wilkins and tries to rattle her. Principal Wood interrupts and tries his own hand at the helpful pep talk…and unlike the Spuffy in this ep, they have actual sex. Speaking of, Kennedy/Willow and Anya/Xander seal that deal as well. The next morning, Faith leads a team to the arsenal the Bringer spoke of while Buffy goes on her own mission to confront Caleb and The First alone at the vineyard. Buffy finds the Melaka Fray's scythe, Faith finds a bomb.
Final Ruling:
Once again I'm going to give this one to Supernatural. I mean both of these eps have tons of info and twisty, turny convoluted plots designed to set up the big finales coming up, so it's tough. But Supernatch succeeds in doing this it in a cooler, funner and more interesting way. Buffy has some good moments, The Mayor's appearance being a big one and a more compassionate point in the history of Spike and Buffy's relationship. I just hate the way the writer's have set up Faith and Giles to fall for a trap that Caleb set up for Buffy when they weren't wrong to question her. And really? Buffy really leaves her own home and sleeps in someone else's house? I guess the effects of "Empty Places" are still just wearing on me in this episode.
Season tally so far:
Supernatural=14
Buffy=6
Got a problem with this score so far? Let me quote Dean's alliterative and to-the-point outgoing message, "Leave your name, number and nightmare at the tone." Or rather sound off in the comments.
OK, Supernatural starts Wednesday and we're right in the middle of in the Lightning Round in this Season Seven Showdown - comparing the sordid seventh seasons of Buffy and Supernatch, of course. Let's get right to it! Supernatural Episode #16 - "Out With the Old" The Lightning Round Recap:
Sammy's not sleeping, Frank Deveraux is cranky and ballerinas are dancing their feet off. So our boys set off to Portland, Oregon in a car that is NOT baby. There, they find out that the ballet slippers have the hoodoo whammy on them and the wacky music of cursed objects begins! (Hilarious side-note, Dean is enthralled by the slippers as he has a hidden desire to dance.) So we end up at "Out With The Old", an antique store that is closing and selling off all the inventory, some of which is now causing gory deaths all over town. See a hunter woman owned the store and kept the questionable ballet slippers, tea kettle, gramophone and porn safe in locked curse-boxes for many years, but right after being forced to sell the shoppe to an annoying realtor named Joyce, the owner is killed and left no further instruction to her son about the deadly objects in question.
It turns out that bitchy realtor Joyce is actually an employee of Dick friggin' Roman and has been aggressively buying several properties in Portland. The Leviathan become privy to Sam and Dean's presence and set up a trap...but in a backstabbing twist, Joyce's assistant George turns on the bitch and he aids the boys in killing her. During all this, we learn that the Portland real estate is actually a front for a Leviathan research facility to cure human cancer for some unknown reason. We also learn that the only real way to kill a Leviathan is for them to be eaten. In the end, the boys find Frank's trailer ransacked and Frank nowhere to be found. Aww. First Bobby and now Frank. He was growing in me :(
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Buffy Episode #16 - "Story Teller" The Lightning Round Recap:
This episode starts off in a Geeky Masterpiece Theatre-esque opening with Andrew as host presenting his documentary "Buffy, Slayer of the Vampyres." See while he's been held "guestage" in the Summers home, he got bored and annoyingly recorded the current apocalyptic events…even though the opening of the Hellmouth this time was pretty much all his fault. There are many lovable and hilarious fantasy scenes, though…best one probably being the breakfast introduction scene, what with the wind machine and slo-mo and all. But that scene is interrupted by another one of Buffy's long, boring motivating speeches (Andrew's words but come on, oh-so true by this point.) There is also a fantastic scene of Spike doing his best impersonation of Spike. It's great.
During all this, the Hellmouth is really acting up. Since Andrew himself is linked to the Seal of Danthalzar in the high school's basement, he must face the music before it opens and tears apart Sunnydale. Willow uses a magic crystal to make Andrew remember all he knows even without a "refreshing Zima." Then Buffy hauls Andrew to Sunnydale High where she threatens to use the mystical knife he killed Jonathan with to gut him, but he painfully breaks down in tears at the revelation that he consciously killed Jonathan all on his own. His tears close the seal in place of his blood. Well played. Oh and Xander and Anya hook up and learn their relationship is really over.
Final Ruling:
Well, on Supernatch, the "Dick" jokes are getting old and the last cursed objects ep "Bad Day at Black Rock" was really much better. On the other side, the only way "Storyteller" fails is that it's similar to "The Zeppo" in that the apocalypse is almost silly in it's high-drama, but that ep was an awesome parody and this was for real. I sort of blame that on the fact that it's Season Seven. Still it's rock-solid character-development and a shining light in an otherwise dreary season. Buffy takes this one!
Supernatural Episode #17 - "The Born Again Identity" The Lightning Round Recap:
Sammy's "Lucifer Insomnia" finally causes a car accident which lands him both in a mental ward and in a B-plot of helping a fellow patient kill a ghost. But more importantly, the A-Plot: The Sam situation causes Dean to freak out himself. He has no luck getting help from fellow Hunters about how to cure Sam, but he does get a little assist from the other side. Bobby's diary is mystically thrown to the floor and a card falls out of it. This leads Dean to the house of a faith healer named Emanuel. Unfortunately demons are also after Emanuel but fortunately Emanuel is really the beloved, much-lamented and sorely missed Castiel. Where ya been buddy!? He wouldn't know because he has amnesia. Whomp, whommmppp.
Cas introduces his wife to Dean (and Dean definitely looks a little crushed, not gonna lie) and explains he can use his healing ability to help Sam, so they go on a little road trip. Since Crowley has cancelled the "hands-off memo" the demons are back on the Winchester's asses, so Dean recruits Meg to lend a protective hand. I miss the original Meg. When they reach the mental hospital Castiel's memories come rushing back in a fabulous little montage while he smites every demon in the parking lot. Cas nearly bails out of guilt, but Dean procures his iconic trench coat from the trunk and helps push him in the right direction.
Inside the hospital, Cas find Sam just in time before a demonic electroshock therapy session fries his brain, but sadly he can't heal Sam. So, he sacrifices himself by transferring Sam's madness to his own mind and permanently checks in at the hospital with Meg by his side.
VS.
Buffy Episode #17 - "Lies My Parents Told Me" The Lightning Round Recap:
This episode starts most woefully, with a re-cast Nikki Wood fighting Spike in 1977 NYC. The scene parallels a present day fight Robin Wood is having alongside both Buffy and Spike. He's just waiting for his moment to kill Spike, you see. The next morning at school, a concerned Giles returns from his trip with a magical stone that might be able to deactivate Spike's musical trigger. The stone turns into a worm and enters Spike's brain via his eyeball, which causes him to revisit his past. There we find that Spike and Lily Van Der Woodsen's share a mother! And it makes the family dynamic on Gossip Girl even more confusing than it already is.
In the past we learn that the trigger song is "Early One Morning" - a song Spike's mother would sing to him. And Drusilla! Oh it's the last time we ever get to see Dru in all her fabulousness. We also get to witness Spike's worst childhood traumas: his siring of his mum, her evil, incestuous advances and her strong need to finally be rid of him. In the end, he has to kill her and it's quite sad.
Meanwhile, in the present, Buffy's acting quite rash and protecting Spike...going so far as unchaining him even though he is still triggered and in all reality, should've been killed years before he got his soul. Giles learns the truth about who Wood is they team up behind Buffy's back in a plot to kill Spike. But it fails and Spike and Buffy both balk that Wood is a dead man if he ever tries it again. Really, everyone's being all fucked up. The most frustrating part, however, is the end. When Buffy says the mission is what matters, but her actions shows the opposite as she closes the door in the Giles' face. I'm still not sure she was right to this day and we never even get to see them make up after this.
Final Ruling:
"Lies My Parents Told Me" is fandom-polarizing. If you're in love with Spike you may love this good-quality episode. I think Spike is a deeply layered, fantastic character and clearly very different from every other vampire in the series, but that can't cure this ep. In a way, it's quite simply THE low point in the series. Not in a frivolous "Beer Bad" way, in a "changing characters forever" way. After this, it's shocking that Spike continues to wears her Nikki's coat as a sort of trophy to this day. I really wish they would've played it different. Now "The Born Again Identity" is an A+ Supernatural episode, but I wish Cas wouldn't be immediately off the grid again. It furthers the plot but then just stalls it. Even so, I really missed Cas and thought his sacrifice was refreshing in the face of Spike's actions. it's going to Supernatural.
The Lightning Round Recap:
"Party on, Garth"
When a drunken teen is murdered in the woods in Kansas, apparently by a ghost named Jenny Greentree, everyone's favorite uber-skinny hunter Garth Fitzgerald IV arrives to burn the bones quite nicely, but when the teen's brother is also murdered the next day, he calls Dean for the assist. Dean and Garth investigate the case, and find out the father of the dead co-owns a brewery douchily named: Thighslapper Ale, which has some behind-the-scenes corporate shenanigans going on. Seems one of the partners had been forced out of the company for not wanting to sell out, resulting in his suicide. But enforce he offed himself, he sent a box of Sake and intentionally released a Japanese Alcohol Spirit called a Shojo you can only see when you're drunk to kill all the other partners' children. I mean really? Japanese Alcohol Spirit? Whatever.
Meanwhile, Garth is on to Bobby's ghost. Dean and Sam are in denial, but when the blessed samurai sword needed to kill the Shojo during the big fight just magically glides into Dean's hand, he becomes suspicious once again. In the end, we are shown Ghost Bobby's presence through the flask, confirming what we've been suspecting for a while...that they killed Bobby and kept him off the show for half a season, just to bring him back. Just like they did with Cas. Ugh.
VS.
Buffy Episode #18 - "Dirty Girls"
So in the middle of "Lies My Parents Told Me" Willow got a phone call from Fred in LA. "Orpheus" happened, which we've discussed endlessly here at Buffyfest as being both a stellar Angel episode and one filled with plot-holes and fail. One thing is for sure, however: Faith kicked ass during her arc in Angel and now she's here in Sunnydale, ready for the big fight. Anyway, she and Willow come upon a Potential Slayer in the road that was just knifed by a Nathan Fillion shaped Priest named Caleb. Here we go.
As soon as Buffy sees Faith she punches her right in the face. And maybe she deserves that after the events of "Five by Five/Sanctuary" but I do wish this show would've reflected Faith's atonement a bit better. People don't really change much in this world, but the loose cannon known as Faith the Vampire Slayer actually did…but you'd never really know it if you only watched Buffy. It's a shame. Then there's the part where Andrew tells the story of Faith killing a Vulcan. More shame. Anyway, after learning of Caleb's arrival in town and his message "I have something of yours", Buffy stands up to Giles and makes it clear that she's going for Caleb without much of a plan. What results is a shitshow. Two Potentials die, Buffy, Spike and Faith are easily taken and ohhhh the worst part is Xander. Xander and his eye.
Final Ruling:
Like the boys, Garth has really grown on me and he actually saved this Supernatural episode for me. Now "Dirty Girls" is in my memory bank as being a poor episode. But seeing it again and going up against "Japanese Booze Monsters" it's the clear winner...a real plot advancement and a dose of Fillion, which is what's needed so late in a season. Buffy wins.
Season tally so far:
Supernatural=12
Buffy=6
Got a problem with this score so far? Let me quote Dean's alliterative and to-the-point outgoing message, "Leave your name, number and nightmare at the tone." Or rather sound off in the comments.
Hello all! After a month long break here at Buffyfest, we're back and ready to finish this particular bitch off. Many of you might remember that last year we embarked on a grand television experiment to weigh and compare the progress of two very similar programs: Buffy and Supernatural. After years of strange parallels culminating in nearly identical fifth season finales followed by a passing off of the reins to another creator for the sixth year, we decided to scientifically attack the issue by painstakingly analyzing the seventh season of each show week by week, noting what they had in common and measuring the differences in quality between the two - naming this: The Season Seven Showdown.
Several of you may also notice that this ambitious experiment petered out months ago, and updates of any kind have been scarce of late. But no more! In honor of the upcoming premiere of Supernatural's eight season this Wednesday, Buffyfest is preparing for you a concise but swift resolution to the great Showdown! The lightning round begins!
For the rules of the lightning round, our format will shift slightly in order to see that this gets completed this time. Some of you are calling this a cop-out. Well, yes. Yes it is. But it's our cop-out, and to be honest no one really asked your opinion anyway, George. You always have to crap on everything. So where were we? Oh that's right... Supernatural Episode #12 - "Time After Time"
But first, previously on Supernatch:
Dick friggin' Roman, Leviathan, Bobby dies.
The Lightning Round Recap:
So Sheriff Jody Mills contacts the boys about mummified bodies in Ohio which leads to Sam & Dean staking out a demon in a Fedora. While following him down an alley, Dean gets sucked through a red glowy portal and into 1944. There, Dean teams up with hunter Eliot Ness when they realize they're working on the same case - hunting the Greek Titan of Time, Chronos.
Meanwhile, Sam and Sheriff Mills miss Bobby with whiskey and try to get Dean back. For his part, Dean is inspired by the underrated Back to the Future 3 and gets a message to Sam by leaving message behind the crown molding of the house they're squatting in the present. The note mentions that out Chronos is "banging some chick named Lilah Taylor." Since she's now an old woman, Sam and Mills go to talk to her and she divulges that the clocks stopped on Nov 12th at 11:34 (hell!) Sam summons Chronos just as he's trying to kill Dean and Eliot tosses him the stake that can kill him, which slides across the floor when they get to the present. Sam grabs the stake and kills Chronos. His death is accompanied by some cool lit up vein effects and a warning that the boys future is "covered in thick black ooze" and that the Leviathan are everywhere.
VS.
Buffy Episode #12 - "Potential" The Lightning Round Recap:
Buffy and Spike are in hardcore training mode, trying to prepare the Potential Slayers. Buffy is also in rousing speech mode, telling all of the girls how special they are while Dawn watches on. Meanwhile, Willow learns that there is another Potential Slayer in town and it still annoys me that Buffy's death will call the next slayer. How's that? It should be Faith's death. Kendra's death called Faith, so why it would revert back to Buffy is upsetting. Oh Season Seven. Anyway, Willow casts a spell that leads half of the Scoobs to think Dawn is the new Potential.
While walking around, Dawn runs into her friend Amanda from school who tells her strange things have been happening to her and that she basically trapped a vampire in a room. Dawn believes thinks she can handle the situation so they go to school to investigate. Bringers show up, there is a fight and Dawn realizes that Amanda is the true Potential, not her. Amanda stakes the vamp, they escape and Buffy Spike and Xander arrive to kill the Bringers. Back at the house, Amanda gets to know the other Potential Slayers while Dawn secretly watches on from the other room. Xander catches on to Dawn's disappointment and relates to being a non-supe. He reminds her that she doesn't need to be special with powers, she's "extraordinary" just the way she is. Shades of early Xawn, perhaps?
Final Ruling:
While Dean looks extra handsome and snazzy in his 1940's 3-piece style and there are not one but two references to Justin Timberlake, this retro pastiche episode could've been a tad bit better. As far as campy throwbacks go, Charmed's own Season Seven's "Charmed Noir" was much more effective, imo (although I'm sure my fellow Buffyfest Brethren will balk at that). And really where the hell is the car already? Still, it beats the bucket of poop that was "Potential." Honestly, this episode is when Buffy hits the wall hard and really starts to stink up the joint. There are plot holes, Andrew is annoying and so are the Potentials. They both bit it, but Supernatch barely gets this one.
The Lightning Round Recap:
The episode opens with a man getting attacked, his hands and feet severed and a symbol carved into his chest. Sam and Dean learn this is a pattern and investigate at the local college and bar. There Dean meets a redhead named Lydia and the two go back to her place to the tune of ACDC's "Shook me all night long"...classic Supernatch. The next morning, Redhead is 9 months mystically pregnant and acting all kinds of shady. Dean visits and sees the child then go from toddler to "Hannah Montana (early years)" in a matter of hours.
Back at the college hey! It's the Mayor! In a nutshell, the symbol carved on the victims' bodies is a sign of the Amazon warrior women, who breed quick and have a blood mission to kill their fathers. So Dean's in trouble. When his now adult daughter Emma visits him, Dean hesitates in killing her so Sam steps in and does the deed instead, reminding Dean of what he said after the Amy Pond incident "You kill the monster". The rest of the Amazon women disappear.
Note: This is also the first appearance of Bobby's flask, wielded lovingly by Dean.
VS.
Buffy Episode #13 - "The Killer in Me" The Lightning Round Recap:
Giles takes the Potentials on a vision quest, but Kennedy and Willow go to The Bronze instead and they end up making out. During the kiss, Willow is magically transformed into Warren, freaking us all out especially Andrew. While this is going on, Buffy learns that Spike's chip is malfunctioning and causing him major pain. When she can't reach Riley by phone, they dig down to The Initiative where they encounter a demon, which is confusing because I swore they said "The Initiative itself will be filled in with concrete. Burn it down, gentlemen. Burn it down and salt the earth". Oh Season Seven. Soldiers show up and Buffy decides to rid Spike of the chip forever, even though it could've been repaired. Good idea? That's still debatable to this day.
Xander gets a phone call from England which prompts the Scoobs to suspect that Giles is The First, like we all did at the time. Since the Potentials are alone with him, they set off to the desert and tackle Giles to the ground, thus proving he's himself. Meanwhile, Willow-as-Warren visits her old college coven to try to fix her situation where she finds Amy, who is claiming to no longer be rat or evil, but Kennedy discovers otherwise. This prompts a whole re-enactment of Tara's murder scene which is neither comfortable to watch or entertaining. Basically, Willow feels guilty for having feelings for someone other than Tara but Kennedy's kiss brings her back to herself, "just like in Fairy Tales." Blasphemy.
Final Ruling:
Oh I don't know. Buffy is just so bad at this point. I don't think anyone I know would argue against "The Killer in Me" being one of the worst episodes of the series. "The Slice Girls" is actually a decent monster-of-the-week episode but at this point, I'm struggling to understand why Cas isn't here, why the effing car isn't here and why they thought killing Bobby would be smart at this particular time. I'm frustrated that I have to give this one to Supernatural, because compared to some of it's better eps, this one isn't all that.
The Lightning Round Recap:
Sam and Dean investigate a series of mysterious murders in Wichita, Kansas such as an fatal octopus suction, unicorn impalement and ball crawl shark attack! Sam and Dean figure out that the deaths are the result of kids drawing their childhood fears at a kid's restaurant chain called, you guessed it, Plucky Pennywhistle's. Turns out it's all the fault of some old fashioned hoodoo and a disgruntled Redheaded Plucky's employee named Howard, hell bent on ridding the world of parents who ignore their children. Lots of evil redheads this season. Throughout the episode Sammy, who as we know has serious clown-fear, is subjected to all sorts drama including a CGI glitter fight with a couple of demonic green haired clowns sent by Howard himself. In the end, Dean eventually kills him by setting Howard's own worst fear on his ass...his dead brother who drowns him and leaves.
After Dean laughs that Sam looks like he "got attacked by some PCP crazed strippers" he apologizes for dumping him at places like Plucky's when they were young while he chased girls. Man, this episode sucked.
VS.
Buffy Episode #14 - "First Date"
Giles is very upset about Buffy's feelings for Spike, he says wants more for her. So Buffy ends up going on a date with Principal Wood. But she's concerned, telling Willow that Wood is "being showered with evil. Only from underneath. Like a bidet. A bidet of evil." This is hilarious for all the wrong reasons and just the type of top notch writing we get from Season Seven. Fast forward to the date, where Buffy learns that Wood was the son of re-cast Slayer Nikki Wood, whom Spike killed in NYC in the 70's. Over at a random construction site, Xander meets Lissa poorly played by Ashanti, popular R&B singer of the aughts. They go on a date, but she ends up a demon, no shock there...so Spuffy + Wood save the day, just before Wood finds out the truth of his mother's death.
Other highlights: The First fails to force Andrew into killing all the Potentials, he fails to record The First on tape and Giles has lactose intolerant related communication problems with the new Potential, Chao-Ahn.
Final Ruling:
Here's the deal. This episode of Buffy had too much going on and none of it was good (except for Anya)...but it still really was better than "Plucky's". I don't think I ever want to see "Plucky's" again. Buffy takes it!
The Lightning Round Recap:
Four years ago in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Sam and Dean helped a good witch named Nora exorcise a women-killing demon from man named Jeffrey's body . But as Ruby explained around that same era: getting possessed by a demon leaves a human "rode hard and put away wet", which I always thought was squicky wording but hey, gets the point across. The boys dropped a beaten up Jeffrey off at a hospital and said to never tell anyone about what just happened, but he talked....and four years later he's finally leaving the loony bin for a halfway house. At the same time a slew of new serial killings has returned to Coeur d'Alene and the boys have to visit poor Jeffrey to see if the Demon has in fact, returned. Jeffrey remembers a list of all the women the demon planned to kill as well as his hideout. So the boys split up, hardly ever a good thing.
Meanwhile, Lucifer is back and tormenting Sam with horrible visions and in a surprise twist, has been doing this all season long behind the scenes. But when Sam is keeping tabs on the next potential victim, it turns out that Satan's actually quite helpful with the case. Sam finds out that Nora helped Jeffrey with some demon business when she found out he been kidnapped her son. See Jeffrey is actually a psycho killer himself who was in love with the demon who possessed him and the power it brought him! His big plan is to be reunited with the demon by tying up Dean at the hideout and using his blood for the summoning spell, but the demon chooses to possess Nora's son instead. When Sam and Nora finally arrive at the scene they exorcise the demon from Nora's son while Dean shoots and kills Jeffrey dead. Back at the motel, Dean falls straight asleep but unfortunately now that Sam opened up to Lucifer, he now has a strong hold on Sam's mind once again.
VS. Buffy Episode #15 - "Get it Done"
Principal Wood gifts Buffy with a bag that he got from his mother so she brings him over to the Summers home, which is pretty overcrowded at this point with Potentials and Andrews and whatnot. She introduces Wood to the gang, including his newfound enemy Spike. Later that night Buffy finds Potential Chloe dead, having hung herself, which pisses Buffy off royally. So the Scoobs proceed to use a set of shadow figures in the Slayer's bag to trigger a portal. The shadow puppet theater is actually pretty cool. When Buffy goes through the portal, a demon pops out.
In the shadow world, Buffy's meets the men who created the First Slayer . They tell her of the origin of the Slayer and offer to infuse her with more power, which she refuses. It's right here that the cannon is established: The slayer line was basically formed by men raping innocent young girls with dark demon energy. Nice one, show. Take away the main thing that makes the series awesome.
Anyway, with Buffy stuck in the shadow world, Willow has to tap into her witchiness and Spike has to kill a demon. Anya's pretty awesome again here, I don't remember liking her this much at the end. And the Shadow Men? The leave Buffy horrible vision of what the future holds, thousands of Turok Han.
Final Ruling:
I do think Supernatural missed an opportunity here - taking us back to season 3 meant they could've thrown in some fan service/continuity porn in the form of Ruby herself (or something similar.) But it was nice to see a good 'ole classic demon episode, something we haven't seen much of in many seasons. For Buffy's part, it's nice that there have consistently been vampires peppered throughout every season, the show never really lost sight of that. This is a pretty good episode of Buffy Season Seven, but I feel I can't give it to them based on the First Slayer Demon Rape. We longed for this origin story for so long and it was a fail. Supernatural gets it.
Season tally so far:
Supernatural=11
Buffy=4
Got a problem with this score so far? Let me quote Dean's alliterative and to-the-point outgoing message, "Leave your name, number and nightmare at the tone." Or rather sound off in the comments.
First off, just want to thank The Maestro once again for guesting on the last Season Seven Showdown! Bobby's death on Supernatural was a tricky one and having another opinion on this here blog was really refreshing.
For anyone who STILL doesn't know what we're talking about, we've been comparing Buffy's Season 7 to Supernatural's still-in-progress Season 7 since the premiere back in Sept. So far Supernatural is winning, but sadly Bobby is gone so if they don't bring back Cas/The Impala soon, I'm going to start getting irate.
Now I have the enormous displeasure of recapping one of Buffy's worst Season 7 episodes imo, "Showtime." Lord knows I looove me some David Fury, but this episode gives me a headache and a case of the snores. And eye roll syndrome. It might not even be Mr. Fury's fault, I mean the decision to have Buffy not be able to kill one of these ubervamp dudes for several episodes only to end so anti-climatically might be all Whedon, or Marti Noxon or someone else for that matter...but still. Man, have I digressed and we didn't even start yet. Let's get to this showdown already:
Supernatural Episode #11 - "Adventures in Babysitting"
Episode Synopsis:
Bobby's gone and Sam & Dean are mourning. While seeking revenge against Dick Roman, they end up trying to help a child avoid the hunter lifestyle and pain that goes along with it, something they both know all too well.
The Deets:
This was a pretty great episode, but I'm starting to get an itch about this season. There are unresolved things that are teetering on Giles plot hole territory. Things like the fallout of bringing down Sam's wall or Castiel's disappearance have been quite underwhelming. Shouldn't these topics have had way more of an impact by now? And if they're waiting for maximum results by bringing them all up at the end then I ask, why suffer a season just to have a bombshell at it's finale? Is it worth it? Just throwing that out there.
Anyway, the episode starts with man who is eating in a truck stop. He leaves the table to chase a hooker he's been watching out the window, but uh-oh, the waitress he just left catches up to him outside, showing her true demon self while beating his ass. "That's for the crappy tip" she says and off to the credits.
A title card says:
Week one - the boys sit in somber silence, mourning the closest thing they ever had to a caring father.
Week two - Dean drinks and stares at the numbers Bobby wrote down in his final moments, while Sam stares at a phone book.
Week Three - the Hunter Wall is up! full of Dick Roman photos and newspaper clippings about Turducken Slammers. The boys are clearly starting to come out of their funk and begin the revenge obsession. That's how it's done.
Sam, drinking a beer, tries to get Dean's take on whether they should contact any of Bobby's people, but Dean is too busy wondering where the frick is Frank with the number research already!? Meanwhile, Bobby's phone rings. It's a young girl looking for Bobby and Bobby only. During the conversation, Dean takes motice of a flask in Bobby's bag and picks it up. The girl hangs up on Sam but he thinks they should check up on her. Since Dean is in a Frank Frenzy, they decide to split up. Oddly, Dean looks down at his beer which was full a second ago and notices it's empty, accusing Sam of drinking it. Only thing is, Sam still has a full brewski right in front of him. What does it mean?!
Sam shows up at the young girl's place. Her name is Krissy, and Sam promises to help her find her dad who hasn't called her in 5 days. Dad's in the business, which is confirmed when Sam find's a Hunter's Wall behind the clothes in the closet. Last known place was Dodge City, so that's where Sammy is off to.
Meanwhile, Dean pulls up to Frank's home in the middle of nowhere and has a gun pulled on him almost immediately. Frank needs to rule out Leviathans since, as it turns out, even Gwenyth Paltrow is now a "Big Mouth" now! So the guys decide to prove to each other that their blood is red, not black goo, by cutting themselves up. Once that's over with, they drive to an RV, where Frank has now set up camp. Dean's pissed because he paid Frank $15,000 and it's been 4 weeks since he heard back about the numbers. After offering Dean a little LSD paired with a shiatsu, Frank explains that the numbers alone are "bupkes", but if you consider the 5 numbers are really 6 numbers, then they might actually be coordinates. Coordinates to a field in Wisconsin owned by a subsidiary of Richard Roman Enterprises. And off they are to set up surveillance.
After Sam leaves an autopsy, Sam and Dean quickly touch base over the phone as Dean and Frank are now in Wisconsin, dressed as telephone repairmen. Aww, remember the days when Sam & Dean used to dress up in fun costumes besides FBI types all the time? Good times. Frank notices there are cameras set up everywhere and that it would be better to just tap into the Leviathan's feed. Once inside the RV, Frank tells Dean he looks horrific and should take a nap while he takes the first shift of watching the screens.
Sam leaves Dean a voice mail, explaining that he thinks he's tailing a Vetala which their dad hunted back in the day. After he hangs up, we find him at the same truck stop from the top of the hour and he gets jacked the same way as Krissy's dad did,
After the commercial, Dean wakes to find that Frank made some headway in the stake out. Turns out the Leviathans are building something, but Dean has another hissy fit because he has no patience to wait and find out what. Frank takes notice of Dean's deteriorating state of mind and advises him to either quit or hunt with a professional smile and shut up. After, Dean listens to his voice mail and flips out because Sam's info is wrong Once he gets a call from Krissy, he knows his brother is in danger. His concerned face is as hot as ever, though, just had to note.
Sam wakes up in a warehouse tied to a chair. Krissy's dad, Lee Chambers, is next to him tied up as well. Lee explains that there are 2 Vetala that bleed the guys there dry, and that after 3 or 4 feedings, you die... he's already been drained thrice. Sam ends up taunting one of the Vetalas into biting him to save Lee's ass. Meanwhile, Dean's at Krissy's place where they're having a bitchfest over whether Krissy is going with Dean to find Sam and ger dad. Dean has little choice as Krissy'a burned all the research from the hunter's wall, but she now has it memorized. So off to the Not!Impala it is.
During the drive, Krissy wants to know how the heck this one measly demon took out both her dad and Sam? Dean reveals it's because Vetalas work in pairs and since Sammy was off in college when Dean learned this bit of important info, he wasn't aware. Krissy seems shocked and intrigued when she hears a child in a hunter family can still follow some dreams and pursue a higher education. After arriving at the truck stop and then tailing the waitress to the warehouse Sam is tied up in, Dean offers a fist bump to Krissy in celebration. But because she's a brat kid she poo poos his fist bump saying "What century is this? No on fist bumps anymore." His cuteness makes her and I melt, though, so she obliges and because he's a slick hunter he takes the opportunity to handcuff her to the steering wheel! Ha!
Dean enters the warehouse and pretty quickly starts beating Vetalas to hell, only to have Krissy arrive anyway and ruin the beat down. But it's ok, because just as one of the Vetalas go to take a bite out of little Krissy's neck, she procures a blade and STICKS THE VETALA IN THE CHEST! Nice one, kid. Sam then gets freed himself and kills the other Vetala. Done and done.
So with the monsters-of-the-week dead, we're whisked away to the hospital where Lee recovers and Dean advises them both to leave the family business. A goodbye to Krissy and a fist bump later, the brothers are back on the road. Sam wonders if Dean's ok and mentions that he himself just wants to get back to work.
The final moments feature some great acting from Jensen Ackles as Dean tries so hard to follow Frank's advice from earlier in the episode and smile through it all like a professional....but the subtle crack in that smile shows through.
Buffy Episode #11 - "Showtime"
"Showtime". Ohhh "Showtime". You think I don't remember watching you at the time? Sitting, watching in the living room of my old apartment, winter of 2003? I would barely make it home in time from work. I hadn't yet owned a Tivo, so I would have to set the VCR to record in case I missed the first few minutes. I would run off the bus at 8:12, start the episode, then after it was over I would have to go back and rewind the tape to the beginning just to see what I had missed. So I ask you this, "Showtime", do you think you were worth all of that effort? Of my precious Tuesday night time? No. The answer is no, you weren't. For shame.
This episode begins with a dreadlocked girl sporting the overalls Buffy wore after she sent Angel to hell in Season 2 getting off a bus. Next thing you know, Bringers are everywhere and Buffy kicking their asses. After some bad punning and slaying, Buffy introduces herself to "Rona" the newest addition to the most grating thing in the entire Whedonverse: The Potentials. These slayers-in-waiting couldn't be more screen sucking, but hey, this is the reason we're doing this showdown.
After the credits, Kennedy is hitting on Willow who is sleeping on the floor of her own bedroom. This particular slayer-in-waiting hints that she's super rich and also interested in Willow's magick, if that's what we're calling it these days. I roll my eyes. Downstairs, a bunch of Potentials including Felicia Day talk some shit about Buffy. Xander complains and Andrew's annoying. Must be Tuesday. In comes Buffy, introducing Rona to the room.
After some discussion, southern Potential "Eve" is questioning why the hell they have to save Spoike from a cave if he's a murdering vampire? Eye Roll #2. More importantly, Eve wants to know what the effing plan is. Since Giles is back (but only half ass just like the rest of the cast save Anya at this point) he chimes in with a suggestion of one of the lamest, least thought out oracle types this 'verse has ever seen "Beljoxa's Eye." What is it? How does it know how to help? We'll never find out because it's Season Seven!
Cut to the cave where Spoike is chained up and carved up with symbols. He almost gets away when he sees First!Buffy thinking it's real Buffy and gets all weak in the knees. Back to the chains it is. How? We'll never know. The First can't touch him and there wasn't any other demon around to beat him and chain him back up, but whatevs Like I said, Season Seven.
Since "Botox's eye", as Buffy calls it, can only be accessed by a demon, Anya chats up with an old demon flame in an alley and OMG. There is a cut here where I kid you not, the audio is completely not synched with Anya's mouth. Seriously, go check your DVDs. 12 minutes, 10 seconds in…the whole scene is a mess of audio problems. Man this show is totally phoning it in at this point.
Anyway, distracting as that is, the point of this scene is that Anya is trying to trade sex with the demon ex, in return for opening the gateway to Beljoxa's Eye. His answer? "Come back to me when you're a leper!" Ha! In the end he does the deed when Giles threatens to have The Slayer kill him dead. Gateway opened, problem solved.
Meanwhile, Buffy and Xander untie Andrew and threaten him once more for good measure. How long has Andrew been tied up? Willow enters explaining that a Wicca called on the phone about another Potential floating about. Then Dawn is the unlikely voice of reason, explaining to Willow that these punk ass Potentials are lame. Meanwhile, Penny from Dr. Horrible tells the other potentials that she's seen a blurry photograph of a vampire once and that she heard there's another Slayer somewhere….
And this is where I'm reminded of a personal horror story. Early in September 2002, I had been spoiled for Faith's return to the series. I naturally thought it would be shortly after I learned of it, so every single boring-ass episode I'd wait and wait for Faith's glorious return! But no. Just ubervamps and Potentials and all the other things that give me anxiety nightmares to this day. Then way at the end of the season, there she is, fresh off an amazing arc on Angel, only to fizzle at the hands of poor writing. Just wait until I get there around episode 19 or so…oh the hate is building already.
Aaannyway, Buffy and Xander go and investigate the mysterious Potential that Willow received the phone call about and find her dead for a while. Once they turn her body over they realize: IT'S EVE! The southern Potential thats been living at The Summers home for days! That was pretty good, actually, but brings up more lore problems about The First. Like: Can The First be at 2 places at once or does it only have time to taunt Spoike in the cave while "Eve" is in the bathroom at The Summers home. Important things like that. Doesn't matter now because Buffy's back home to confront First!Eve. And scene.
So, turns out Bejoxa's Eye is actually a ball full of eyes with a tail. A talking, sperm-like shape of twisted eyeballs. The only way I can describe it is….really fucking weird. Additionally, this scene is ridiculous with the wind and the yelling. I can only imagine what Anthony Stewart Head is thinking as he recites his lines. Something like "This is what I came back here for?" probably sums it up. In a nutshell, Beljoxa's Eye explains that the slayer line is vulnerable and unstable because Buffy's back from the dead, and that's how The First is able to hurt them all. Wait, what now?? Eye roll. And a head shake.
Back at The Summers home, The Scoobs and Potentials (plus Andrew) have a meeting and Xander suddenly says, "what?" Then The Scoobs go into the kitchen and stare at each other in silence. It's awkward and seems out of place. Cut to First!Eve in the cave, telling some Ubervamps to attack the entire cast. Cut back to The Summers home where Buffy is passing out weapons and Willow is telling Kennedy that Magick is a drug and that she wouldn't like to see the "Black Eyes of Shut Up Willow" ™
Then, the ubervamps arrive!! Willow starts to build a magick barrier like the one that held back Glory all while Andrew is chanting "deflector shields up"! He's good for the occasional hardy har. The barrier won't hold so everyone in the house flees while the ubervamp gives chase! Elsewhere in Sunnydale, GIles and Anya leave Bejoxa's Eye's Realm and decide it's not Buffy's fault The First is here, it's the idiots who resurrected her. See? Even the show thinks it should've ended in Season 5!
Back at the chase, Buffy tries to lure Ubey away and slow it by smashing it in the face with a bottle of holy water. It works! Willow and Xander lead the Potentials to a construction set, as all of the industrial lights turn on. Willow declares "It's showtime" and I die a little inside. Buffy speechifies about how she's the thing monsters fear and her stunt double does a most unbelievable flip off an exterior second floor.
Then as Dawn realizes out loud that this was all a set up, we're shown a weird flashback to the dining room earlier in the episode. When Xander said "what?" and they all stared at each other in awkward silence, they were reeeeaally reading each other's minds. But wait, Buffy started the conversation. Since when is this possible? Willow did some telepathic talking in "The Gift" (and bringing up that ray of sunshine into this recap darkens my soul just a little bit more), but since when can Buffy initiate it? Does she have magickal powers now? Also, the pacing of this flashback obviously didn't play out like the script. Eh, why am I even bothering trying to figure this out when clearly no one involved did?
Anyway, Buffy fights Ubey and finally bests it with a beheading-by-wire then says to The Potentials "Here endeth the lesson". Eye roll followed by stink face. The thing she couldn't kill for 3 episodes and beat the living hell out of her like no monster ever has on this series, had a neck like butter?
We end with Spoike in the cave and First!Buffy holding a knife. Or is it? No, of course not, this time it's real Buffy, freeing Spoike from his chains while the music of tenderness plays in the background. Oh brother.
How do the eps compare?
I don't know, man, there's a comment theme about teaching lessons to the youth, I guess? Trying to understand what the writers were thinking when writing "Showtime" is like trying to string theory, except much less interesting. "Adventures in Babysitting", on the other hand, had it's ass firmly planted in the show's lore. From referencing the Dad's book to REO Speedwagon...even suggesting Bobby might be a ghost. This show is at least recognizable in it's 7th season. But seriously, say it with me now: "Where the heck is Cas?"
Mini Battles!!:
Best Quote: "I'm bored. Episode I bored." - Andrew, "Your brother's the size of a car." - Krissy (about Sam) Winner: Supernatural
Best Episode Villains - Vetalas vs. The First as Potential Eve Winner: Buffy Best Ending - Dean's Smile vs. Buffy getting Spoike out of the cave Winner: Supernatural
Final Ruling:
This was a great mid-season premiere for Supernatural. Nice way to show how the boys dealt with the aftermath of Bobby's death and also nice to get back to basics. Buffy on the other hand is a travesty. I could bash it all day long, but I'm tired.
Guest Blogger! Yep, we're very behind on the Supernatural vs. Buffy Showdowns and in an effort to catch up (as well as voicing a fresh perspective on the subject), we have enlisted a long time friend of Buffyfest to offer another take. So, The Maestro will be taking the reigns for this ep! Thanks so much for the help, dude.
If you have no idea what we're going on about, that's because you've missed the quest we've been on all season long to try to determine whether Supernatural Season Seven will bite it as hard as Buffy's Season Seven did. So far the answer is "no" because Buffy was truly lame that season, but we've got quite a ways to go yet!
And here we give you, Episode 10 as compared by The Maestro:
Supernatural Episode #10 - "Death's Door"
Episode Synopsis:
Bobby is trapped inside his own brain, along with a bullet, a reaper, his most painful memories, and a short sequence of numbers that he is literally dying to tell someone about.
There is also a surprising amount of Rufus.
The Deets:
After the previouslies, we are treated to a way too extreme closeup of the bullet hole in Bobby's melon. The camera pulls out to the boys are driving panicked, Dean trying to get to a hospital while Sam tries to confirm that Bobby is okay.
Splash screen.
Now we zoom back in through the hole toward's Bobby's gray matter. It's one of those cgi shots from an episode of House that shows just how fat cells from a woman's liver are getting into her bloodstream and for some inexplicable reason causing her to speak Esperanto. But without Hugh Laurie's mellifluous narration it's just kind of gross.
Since the wound disappears, he fails to convince the two idjits with him that he has been shot. He struggles to remember what happened in the previous episode, and manages to write "7 8 15 16 23 42" or something like that on a piece of paper. Before he can express his desire for this extremely important message to be deciphered next episode instead of being strung along for six seasons and ultimately never explained, he is magically teleported to a bedroom where a hot woman in a negligee is waiting for him on a bed. Bobby, we should all be so lucky.
Except, the hot and amorous lady appears to be his deceased wife, Karen. For a moment Bobby appears to want to enjoy himself in the memory, but a pathetic fallacy knocks him out of it. Seriously, an actual thunderclap echoes in the air at the moment he realizes what a bad thing for him this is. More on that later.
The phantom thunder does not appear to be connected to the weather, but Bobby sees a young boy running scared through a field. His line, "I've got a messed-up fruitcake!" somewhat covers the situation.
And suddenly Rufus is here! Hey, Rufus. The young boy wearing Bobby's hat tells him that God is going to punish him, a glass of milk falls on some linoleum, and an earthquake causes both a church choir to dematerialize and lights to dramatically switch off one by one. Bobby is then taunted by a reaper with a kick-ass pocket-watch that fails to offset an unbelievably ugly blue paisley tie. They trade some words about Bobby's inevitable demise in his alcohol-damaged brain, and Bobby employs Standard Escape Death Maneuver #1: Running Away.
On the other end of the church the boys are arguing about action movies while Bobby's mom is making dinner. He and Rufus fight a ghost while the doctors try to stabilize him for surgery and the boys worry. There is seriously a lot of back and forth between scenes in this episode. The shooting script must have been a nightmare.
Bobby tries to call out to the boy he keeps seeing running around when he finally recognizes him, like the fact that they are wearing the exact same outfit was not a clue. Since the writers did not want to spend more than 40 seconds on any one topic this week, instead of pursuing his revelation he instead decides to ask Rufus about near-death experiences. Imaginary Rufus's rules are basically thus: doorways teleport you from one memory to another, but only your absolute worst memory has the door to the outside. This guy must have been a fantastic best friend, or at least that's how Bobby remembers him because he takes the fact that is a figment in stride and easily agrees to go on a brain-hopping adventure to deliver the post-it note of destiny to the real world.
They apparate back to the hot wife in the bedroom crying, and I'm filled with an enormous sense of apprehension. If my memory serves me right, the last time we saw this character was in a zombie episode where Bobby had the excruciating torture of having to put her down for the second time. He ends the episode asking the extremely bone-headed question "How many times am I going to have to kill her?" not realizing that he is on a television show and by the laws of the universe the answer to that question will always be "Well, at least one more now that you just said that. Jackass."
Sure enough, that's close to the memory we're at. Except Bobby now explains the more painful memory is not fighting her when she's possessed by the demon, but in fact the emotional regret of the last fight they had a couple of days before. The fact that Karen is reenacting the scene from Die Hard where Bruce Willis is pulling the broken glass out of his feet does absolutely nothing to distract from the heart-wrenching torture Bobby is feeling. Apparently he let her down because he was too afraid of being a fuckup to have a child with her, and her forthcoming possession by a demon the next day took away any chance of him ever getting to apologize. It's well-acted and also painful to watch.
Unfortunately, it's just not quite painful enough for the character because the door leads him to a park. Now the rules have changed so Bobby can watch himself in the 80's playing catch with young Dean. When Rufus asks why the power couple of the episode didn't have kids, our protagonist decides to speed up the exposition and save use several minutes: he is afraid to screw up a kid by turning into an abusive father like his own.
You know, call me crazy, but I'm starting to wonder if both Supernatural and Buffy might have some hidden underlying theme about bad fathers. You know, it's very subtle and you'd really, really have to look for it. Probably just my imagination though.
Anyway, Rufus theorizes that if that was such a big deal for young Bobby then that's the memory they need to go to. We get to see that a typical family dinner in the Singer household involves beatings, spurred on by that broken glass of milk from earlier. This is clearly the memory, it is totally obvious, but since we're only at the halfway point of the episode we can't do this scene now. So instead of going with the easy and correct Plan A, our heroes decide instead to go attack Death.
Cut to the real world, where a doctor explains how bad things look. Some administrator makes the mistake of asking about organ donation, so it's time to punch a wall. Good job, Dean. That's going to help things. Now you'll get to deal with security guards and pay for a broken window. Come to think of it, why the Hell haven't the police shown up to ask about the two guys with no identities who showed up with a man shot in the head?
Oh well, no time for that. Dean has to go outside and do a little posturing with Donald Trump. Corporate Cthulu is too afraid of people with cell-phone cameras to do anything more than taunt Dean a little bit, but then it is pointed out to him who the main characters of the show are. He looks like he might have a slight suspicion that the boys are probably going to get some all-powerful mystical weapon in the last few episodes of the season, as usual.
Speaking of, Bobby remembers that he has a magical cross to fight Death with, so he figures that he can also fight with a memory of that cross. Sure, whatever, this is your episode so do what you want.
Dean tells Sam about his little tête-à -tête, and Sam updates Dean about the dismal prognosis. Hey, Sammy! You had a line this week! It was really starting to look like that wasn't going to happen. This must have been a lot less work than normal for you, unless you decided to help out in the editing room because all these short scenes were probably a bitch for those guys. Moving on, we get all the usual reactions from the Winchesters that you would expect here, the surly and gruff brother wants to be angry and push his pain down to some secret place inside and the evolved and emotional brother wants to let his feelings out and grieve. It's predictable but it works, and is the right move at this point.
Some of Bobby's stuff starts disappearing as his brain cells die, but they still manage to summon and capture Paisley. The reaper tries to point out the futility of this plan, and reminds us that people that don't go along to the afterlife wind up as ghosts. Rufus seems to consider this, because ghosts on this show are almost always very bad. It's not like Bobby can just stick around as a friendly spirit to keep protecting Sam and Dean, he's more likely to go all angry and special-effecty and get burned and salted by another hunter in the future. But none of that matters, you know why? "Because they're my boys."
Here is where Bobby decides to defy all the laws of television and not kill Karen again. No, he's Bobby Fucking Singer and he decides what torture he's going to take, so let's go with the childhood suffering thing that Rufus had suggested. So we go back to Drunk Dad as he decides to hit Mom instead of Little Bobby for the milk thing, but at this point grown-up Bobby has had absolutely enough. He tells off his douchebag father and informs him that he went on to adopt to fantastic boys that grew up heroes. And it's kind of awesome.
Then Little Bobby shoots his father in the chest with a rifle. Also awesome, though evidently it was seriously traumatic at the time. I guess the choice here was relive killing your wife again or relive killing your dad again. The difference with this time is now that scared little boy has his older self to comfort him and tell him what to do. Paisley breaks out of his trap, but it's too late. Bobby makes it through the door. He comes out of his coma, unable to talk but manages to write the all-important numbers on Sam's hand. Then he takes one last look at the boys and utters his loving dying words, "Idjits."
ER slow zoom out to a string quartet as that sinks in. And finally, we close on Bobby in his living room. His final memory that hasn't slipped away is from not to long ago, sitting on the couch with the boys. Not fighting evil, not saving the world, but having some beers and watching bad movies with popcorn. He fights back tears as the boys argue the way they always do, and suddenly they are gone. The reaper asks him to make his final decision, will he move on or will choose to be trapped. And then we fade to black before hearing the answer.
Buffy Episode #10 - "Bring on the Night"
We open on Xander making a joke about "Life Serial" and how his curse is to repair Buffy's windows for all eternity. No one disagrees. It looks like we're having one of those "research the bad guy in the dusty old books" sessions that were so common in the early seasons. There is no information on The First, despite the fact that we saw otherwise four seasons ago.
The Scoobies lament the presence of unconscious Andrew and his lack of usefulness. Dawn decides to try the "punch him repeatedly" method of waking someone up. When Buffy stops her, she quite correctly points out the Anya gets away with that kind of stuff. This scene is only here to show how good Michelle Trachtenberg looks this week.
We get the first glimpse that something is awry when Joyce hands Buffy a book she is looking for. Buffy is clearly dreaming here, but we know that The First can appear to people in their dreams and can make itself look like anyone dead. So, it's totally vague here whether or not this is The First, or if Buffy is just dreaming about her mom, or if Joyce's spirit is really reaching out to her, or if she is dreaming about The First trying to appear like Joyce's spirit reaching out to Buffy in a dream. And actually I don't think we ever really find out because the point gets lost when more important stuff starts happening later on, so this is really just here to set the mood.
Shirtless James Marsters is being dragged along the ground by the monster that came out of the well last week. The First in Spike's form taunts him, before morphing into Dru (which is a much better choice for this episode.) We get treated to crazy comments with too strong an accent (I say that lovingly) about how long the cave-vampire has been waiting to rip up a girl, and how he's going to warm up first on Spike. The screams of pain segue into the familiar chords of Nerf Herder.
Dawn and Anya are having fun messing with Andrew who is tied to Spike's season 4 bondage chair (the one he got shot with all those arrows in in "Pangs") in a scene that I think is supposed to be a callback to how Anya was playing with Dawn like a giant doll when she was paralyzed a few episodes ago. Buffy catches them, but the comic relief is cut short by Andrew finally actually waking up. As he is no longer unconscious this will be the last time I can stand him this episode. He immediately launches into his "I'm a huge nerd that the nerd fans should relate to" schtick when he's supposed to be scared, so to save us time we skip to him leading the gang to the Manhole Cover of Evil. Andrew's deeds are pointed out to him, but it never sinks in and we're eventually going to just forget about them without him ever really redeeming himself. Everyone grabs a shovel and starts burying the seal. We bump into Principal Wood who is also carrying a shovel. In the basement. At night. And they're just going to let this go.
Seriously, both sides offer extremely lame excuses for what they are doing, and since neither side wants to tell the truth they just accept each other's obvious lie. Which makes absolutely no sense, because at this point they totally can't deny that something is going on with Wood and they know it, and he knows it, and they know he knows (and so on, ad infinitum) but why they would choose to just hold off on dealing with it is ludicrous. And at this point in the season there are still reasons to assume he may be evil and is involved with all this (the audience knows he is just coming back from burying Jonathan's body!) so naturally we should be pursuing this.
By the way, why did he do that? Later on we find out he is not evil and the reason he doesn't pursue the issue with Buffy is he knows all about her and is just waiting for her to initiate the conversation. When in a later episode he finally does reveal all, it seems like maybe he has gotten tired of waiting for her to finally ask what the Hell is going on. It's like when a British guy is too nervous to ask a girl out so he needs you to do introduce him.
Moving on. Wood is as nice as he can be about asking Buffy to get her ass back to work. Back at the house we're casting a magic spell to try to locate The First. It goes less than well. Oh, great, it's another "black eyes" scene. The First takes control of the redhead and speaks through her (and we get a cool brief special effect where the giant monster form of The First from the end of Amends flashes on the screen, nice callback there). Buffy gets shot with some Force Lightning, and Xander saves the day by smashing a piece of pottery. This is why we can't have nice things.
Now, something has gone wrong with my computer because I'm seeing the same scene repeat from like 20 other episodes where Willow is all weepy and afraid of magic because she doesn't want to turn evil again. No, wait, it's not my computer. Anyway, it's tomorrow and Buffy is planning to go out and walk around aimless by herself until she randomly finds the bad guy. A valid plan. But it's just a setup so that she can open the door right before Giles manages to push the bell. Unless he's just been standing out there for hours waiting for someone to open the door so he can do this sce- hey wait!
Hey everybody! It's Giles! He's alive! No chainsaw, but we don't care, we're just glad Tony Head is back on the show!
And the wonderful tear-jerking reunion is totally cockblocked by some random girls we don't know. Buffy is trying to run forward and give Giles the biggest hug he's ever gotten since the last time someone was presumed dead and she gave him the biggest hug he's ever gotten, but some strangers step in and block her path. And guys, she really needed that hug. We really needed that hug. But it's denied because of this stupid "no touching" thing I'm going to get into later.
These girls are "slayers-in-waiting", the girls that the Watchers apparently purchase from their parents to put into a life of training for a job they probably won't even get like some kind of Romanian gymnastics coach. Short version: they have all the training that Kendra had and that Buffy and Faith were supposed to get but didn't, for all the good that seems to do a girl. These are also the girls that kept dying in the unexplained scenes in the early episodes of this season, it seems the Bringers have been going around the world killing all the potentials so there is no one left to be a Slayer when they kill the current one. The First got this idea by reading a book that Christopher Golden wrote about Spike and Drusilla called "All the Pretty Horses" or something like that. I'm told it's actually one of the better books, but still no points for originality for The First here. Buffy has not heard of the book, so she is more impressed. Giles informs the group that the Watcher's Council got themselves asploded. All that's left of their billions of books is a small satchel that he makes one of the girls carry because he's not allowed to touch anything.
See, we saw the scene where Giles almost got killed, but we haven't seen how he managed to inexplicably survive it and we won't for several episodes, so we need to make sure Giles does not touch anything or anybody in order to make sure the audience suspects there is a chance that he is dead and this is The First. Extra points to make him act very odd and unlike himself. A couple of weeks from now the characters and going to catch on and suspect, and then be disproven, but it is going to take way too long because how the Hell does no one give him a hug at all? At no point does anyone notice him pick up a fork or turn a doorknob or anything, even after they have a scene in an upcoming episode where The First does kill someone and impersonate them and they fail to institute any kind of "prove you are alive" rule. And I get what they creators were going for with this, and they get credit for the effort, but I would have just rather he be allowed to put his hand on Buffy's shoulder for comfort when she clearly needs it.
Moving on again. Andrew makes his presence known again, and gets his mouth duct-taped. I wish that could happen all the time. Giles explains exactly why they should suspect anyone that avoids touching things. The First is apparently really, really, really scary, and only Buffy can stop it. Luckily everyone believes in her, except for Kennedy. Seriously, f*@# you Kennedy. You are not a character yet, you shouldn't ever get to be one, and I really wish you would just die. If only you were the one to run off later instead of Annabelle (which would actually make much more sense given this outburst) the rest of this season would be so much better.
Now we get a scene I really don't get. The cave-vamp is drowning Spike. In water. While Dru is pointing out how it great it is that doesn't work. And then he does it some more. I'm assuming this is that thing where sometimes choking works on the vampires only when they are distracted and temporarily forget that they don't need to breathe. But other times when they are more clear-headed it doesn't work. But I can't begin to guess why Dru would lampshade it.
Giles and Buffy discuss how great an episode "Amends" was while he points out that this is in fact also a Christmas episode. Then they have a touching heart-to-heart about missing each other while I jump up out of my chair and scream at the screen to just put your fucking arm around her Giles GOD DAMMIT!!!
Andrew declares his intention to try to join the good guys' team and I cringe because even when I first saw this I knew it would happen, despite being a terrible idea. Then Kennedy decides to make a pass at Willow, and a little piece of me dies inside. The new girls are talking, and I start to realize that this is the show now. It is no longer about the old cast, it's these new people who are going to become the focus and overshadow the people I actually care about more and more as the year goes on. Thanks. Anyway, we found the spot where the showdown in "Amends" takes place and Buffy falls into a cave. Then Fugly shows up and attacks her. His makeup and clothing are very reminiscent of The Master, which I'm pretty sure was the whole idea, but Buffy is shocked and scared when she stakes him and he does not dust.
This confuses me, because at this point she should just assume he is not a vampire. I mean he looks a little like one, but mostly not, and everything else that she usually kills does not explode into ash and sand when poked with wood. But since she for some reason instinctually believes it is a vampire her world-view is shattered. She doesn't even think to check if he is wearing a magical ring than can be destroyed suspiciously easily, she just panics. So, she loses the fight but manages to climb up out of the hole. No idea where Giles is, it's not like he went to get a rope for her. But, oh! There he is. And he brought the sun with him. Like Gandalf. That was nice of him, but he still fails to give her a hand up or anything like that.
Also, how it suddenly got to be daytime is very confusing. Back at the ranch, Giles has been waiting to explain the new monster to Buffy for the whole walk home so the new main characters can hear it too. It seems this monster is an "Uruk-hai", Saruman has been mixing orcs and men to make a new master race that will invade Poland, or something. Or, it is the vampire prototype, the original ones that eventually got watered down into the modern version. Except that totally defies the established mythos of the show when the vampires are only created when the last true demon left the universe, and implies that these are the things the First Slayer used to hunt (and Buffy has been playing on easy mode this whole time) but it does explain why these things look like The Master. Or rather, as he aged he started to look more like them.
Missing is the explanation of why they don't look more like that spiky creature that Angel turned into when he was in that parallel dimension that gave him access to the full demon instead of the halfway form, but we'll ignore that.
The new girls are scared that they will die when the sun goes down, and Buffy decides to go to work. The books don't work, so she's going to use a non-lawsuitable version of Google. No one tells her that Angel Investigations has had access to an actual search engine that does find information on demon bad guys for three years now, because the two shows have different sets of rules for how to get things done.
I see that Buffy has one of those old G4 iMacs that looks like Eve from Wall-E had a baby with a desk lamp, which seems like that basis for the weirdest Pixar fanfic ever. Even though that movie won't be out for more than five years, and that thought then makes me realize that this episode is from a decade ago.
Buffy has weak Google skills and needs to filter her search results better. She and Wood make small talk about evil where he tries really hard to pique her interest and get her to ask about him, but she's too distracted with this other thing (which is part of the same thing) to ask him about this important stuff she needs to know.
First Dru is doing more of her ridiculous Dru thing which is stupid and chaotic and I don't care because I still like it. Spike even points out that she's not really Dru, but The First counters that she's still Juliet Landau so that should be good enough. And I really can't find a flaw in that argument. She asks that Spike get in line and join the dark side again, and he basically tells her that he's too busy being tortured to talk to her right now.
Buffy is suddenly really badly bruised, and Ambiguous Dream Joyce is there is talk to her again. She has fallen asleep while some poor kid was pouring his heart out to her while Wood watches creepily from a window.
At Buffy's house Xander tries to use his carpentry skills to keep himself on the show that is clearly about these new girls; Willow likewise talks about her whole "I wish I could do magic without being evil" thing for the billionth time. Even Andrew also asks if he can be a good guy. I wonder if this scene is here because the episode was running short. Oh, it's so that Annabelle can run away in fear instead of Kennedy, which is what I really wanted to happen. She left the house five seconds ago, so clearly she is already in the warehouse district which is right at the end of Buffy's block. Or maybe the actress just doesn't know her way around the soundstage. Either way she runs right into the hands of Ubey, who just happened to be there in that exact spot because, hey, why not?
Before the actress can care that that makes no sense, she is already dead. Then Buffy really casually and calmly walks into the same spot (since it's right by her house) and finds the corpse. Not Annabelle! We had so much time to grow to care about her as a person! So fighting ensues where Buffy limps away in fear and the orc slowly pursues her like a T-1000 or Pepe Le Pew when they have a target and know that like in any slasher movie they will catch the victim not matter what the difference in traveling speeds are (you know, an example from that exact stereotype that Buffy was created to avert?). More fighting, Buffy drops a pile of pipes on the guy. We can clearly see that he must have been flattened paper thin because all the pipes are sitting evenly on the ground, but somehow he reforms to climb out of them defying all the laws of geometry.
Then he throws her through a wall and drops the wall on her, and then I guess he gets confused and wanders away because that where she stays, helpless and unconscious, when Xander finds her later.
Spike declines to join The First because of some silly thing about Buffy believing in him, which I understand is a bone being thrown to the 'shippers but really doesn't fit in here because she's a little bit busy right now deciding if she believes in herself. It's not constantly about you, Spike.
Cut to Buffy wallowing about failing to to anything to safeguard the remaining 66% of the Potentials she possesses, and overhearing the doomsaying of all the other characters in the next room isn't helping her self-esteem any. So then here it comes. The speech. For all Buffy's confusion and doubt lately, and her losing to this monster that will prove to be easy fodder later, and her sorrow and misery and all that: she's going to try to make up for it here. She comes in to make a grandiose monologue about how much shit they are in, but now it's okay because she is seriously pissed.
Epic music slowly grows in the background as she gets her resolve on. They been in deep shit before, but this time its evil that should be afraid. Evil is going to get pimpslapped.
Other than at the end of "Checkpoint", she has previously only made speeches like this at season finale time, so this is a big deal. Later on she will start doing this every week, to the point where even the characters are openly mocking it. With repeated pep-talks it will start to lose its effect (I think even Xander makes one or two before then end) so there are definitely diminishing returns. But none of that matters yet because this one here hits with full power for one very simple reason: SMG acts the shit out of this scene. Some claim that partway through this season she starts phoning it in but at this point she stands there with all the wound makeup and and she hits her fucking mark. She may have lost the fight with the monster but she just kicked the ass of this speech.
How do the eps compare?
I could say how Buffy is the only character in her episode to show any real feelings and everyone else is disconnected, and how the single minute we get of Sam and Dean showing their feelings is spot-on perfect, demonstrating that they will go through this in exactly the way we would have assumed. But it doesn't matter because it isn't about them.
This in the end comes down to tragic loss of a beloved surrogate father figure going out in a good way, versus the hopeful return of a beloved surrogate father figure we had feared lost. It's a Bobby versus Giles (which is fair, because Bobby really always has been the redneck American version of the librarian anyway.) And while I was overjoyed that Giles was still around and hadn't been killed off, the method of his return was a giant missed opportunity (partially because of the no touching thing and partially because the story arc was currently off its footing). As much as I didn't want Bobby to go, this is a great way to go out and worthy of his character; I can't think of a better way for him to die. Giles deserved a better way to survive his decapitation than he got.
Mini Battles!!:
Best Imaginary Reappearance of Dead Beloved Character - Rufus narrowly beats out Joyce (Dru is not eligible), though her presence is bigger deal, but she is not given enough to do with it whereas Rufus really manages to come through for our hero despite not even being real. Winner: Supernatural
Best Episode Villain - Going to actually give this one to Buffy. Neither one has a clearly defined single villain, the Turok-Han is only briefly impressive and lame later, and The First does little more than ham it up as Dru. And Bobby's real enemy is a bullet in his brain, the big bad of the season only speaks to Dean and Bobby's antagonist, the reaper, is actually just trying to help him. So in the end let's call Bobby's real conflict his race against time and Buffy's real villain is her own self-doubt. And while Bobby's triumph was bigger, self-doubt can be a terrible fucking nemesis. Winner: Buffy
Best Ending - I won't deny that Buffy had that one fantastic scene right at the end, but the powerful and poignant send-off for one Robert Singer was perfect, and exactly the way for him to go out. The scale is tipped over the edge by the ambiguity of not knowing if we will have Bobby's ghost potentially be around later. Winner: Supernatural
Final Ruling:
A midseason finale that is a worthy sendoff to a fantastic character has too many advantages over the middle part of a three episode arc about a minor villain. Maybe it is a bit unfair, this was probably the single best episode of Supernatural to not start with “Carry On Wayward Son.”
Now I'm going to go watch the scene from the end of "Sex and Violence" where Bobby shows up to kill the siren. Repeatedly. In slow motion. You idjits.
