I can't leave the Buffyverse alone. I just can't. Also, it's a nice comfort that high school is, in fact, the hell it appears to be. So for these reasons I have begun rewatching Buffy. A month after I finished it. Stop judging me.
And I don't think I'm going to review every single episode (or at least, not at length), only the ones I have a lot of thoughts on, but the first few, well, probably. Definitely these two. The two-parter pilot that started it all. Also, this is a rewatch, so it's retrospective, and therefore, spoilers, as I reflect on how things impact the series down the line. Just lettin' you know.
So, Welcome to the Hellmouth: begins like any horror movie, with hormonal teenagers (or, I guess, young people, whatever) doing something stupid at night time. Then one of them is a vampire and attacks and the other one dies and yeah. What I really appreciate about this scene is that, Buffy is about defying the blonde-girl-gets-killed-by-a-monster-because-she-can't-fend-for-herself trope. And even though this scene has nothing to do with Buffy herself, I really like that the guy isn't the vampire who kills the other one, it's the blonde chick who's the vampire. Who we will later know as Darla. I remember it catching me by surprise the first time, and it's something I've gotta give them props for now.
Then we cut to Buffy having one of her prophetic dreams, then she wakes up and it's her first day of school in this new small town they've just moved to (Sunnydale). La-di-la-di-la, first day nerves, and we meet Xander and Willow. It is worth noting that this is the first and last time we ever see Xander with a skateboard ever, because, apparently, filming someone skateboarding is hard. Our introductions to Xander and Willow paint a pretty good picture of how they typically are; Xander can barely control himself while on his skateboard, then he sees Buffy, gets googly-eyed and crashes into a pole. Willow finds him, she eye-rolls, helps him up, and it's revealed that they are best friends.
Then we meet Jesse. Who is apparently the third musketeer to Xander and Willow. Never heard me talk about him? Probably because he dies in the next episode. Whedon was trying to catch us by surprise by getting rid of someone set up to be important right off the bat. It's kind of his way of saying, "NO ONE IS SAFE."
But for the moment, he is alive. And he's kind of annoying. I mean, imagine Xander, with his constant attempts to up his status, but more desperate and less funny. I mean, I'm sure they would have developed him further had he stayed on, but as it is, kinda glad they killed him off. Also, killing him gives a great opening to develop Xander and Willow's characters - mostly Xander, methinks - but I'll get to that later. Also, I realize how shallow this is, but he's not very attractive.
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| There is no way I am the only one who looks at him and can only think of wanting to ask him, "Why the long face?" |
Except, on the way to the Bronze, she meets this dark, mysterious stranger who warns her about something called the harvest, and says something about standing on the mouth of hell, then gifts her with a cross necklace. We will come to know this person as Angel, and it actually frustrates me that they didn't keep Angel the way he is in these first few episodes. He's sarcastic and skeptical, but more in a "let's see what you can do" kind of way instead of the customary "The whole world's going to end and there's nothing we can do about it" kind of way. Anyways, I just really prefer Angel in these first episodes than to his later appearances on the show. A lot more fun keep-you-guessing stuff.
So, Buffy gets to the Bronze. Then, after Buffy gives Willow this wonderful lesson in philosophy about seizing the moment because life is short and stuff, Willow YOLOs it and goes with this guy she just met who (from Buffy's analysis) is clearly a vampire because geez, all vampires think that the walk of fashion dropped dead the day they did. So Buffy rushes after them, nearly staking her Majesty the Grand Almight Bitch Cordelia in the process. Some of my favourite lines from season 1 come from that scene.
Buffy: (attacks her, then stops, realizing it's not a vampire)
Cordelia: GOD! What is your childhood trauma?!
Buffy: (runs off)
Cordelia: (to the Cordettes) Excuse me, I have to call everyone I've ever met right now.
Also, Jesse's getting cozy with Darla. Anyways, Buffy finds the vamps and Jesse and Willow, Xander stumbles in after her trying to figure out if she's crazy or not, Buffy fights the vamps, the three musketeers escape, then Luke (a vampire) comes outta nowhere, Darla escapes the stake, and Buffy's about to die, and then TO BE CONTINUED.
Except the magic of the present day is Netflix and Internet and I don't have to wait all that long for it to be continued.
So, The Harvest: The cross necklace bestowed onto Buffy by Angel saves her from Luke, and then she runs off to make sure the three musketeers are okay, and they are, except for Jesse, who is nowhere to be found. Captured by the vamps. Whoops.
Turns out, the vampires are bringing sacrifices (or, you know, meals) for an ancient vampire simply called the Master. At first the Master gets super angry, 'cause that's just one guy, but then they're all like, "He's valuable to the Slayer!" and he's like "AHA! Okay! Bait!"
Meanwhile, the group that we will come to know as the Scooby Gang - which, for the moment, only consists of Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles - are trying to coordinate themselves with the idea that vampires are real and the only thing they can do about it is, well, let the Slayer do her job. Well, I mean, Giles and Buffy already knew. Willow and Xander are trying to coordinate themselves with the idea. Then what happens is Giles recruits Willow to help be his research minion to find what this harvest thing is that Angel warned them about, and Xander feels absolutely useless, so he follows Buffy down into the tunnels belowground to help find his friend Jesse and rescue him. But not before a scene between Buffy and Angel, in which Angel is surprisingly sarcastic, and then he says, "I'm afraid," and you're not really sure whether or not he's still being sarcastic. I always read it as though he wasn't, as though he was actually afraid, and trying to still be kind of mysterious. Actually, the fact that you're not even sure if he's being sarcastic or not is good mysterious-ness on his part.
Then he asks Buffy why Jesse's so important to her in the first place, and she says, "Because he's a friend. Or a potential friend." Then she throws in, just to be snarky, "Do you even know what it's like to have friends?"
Angel gets broody and silent, and Buffy, sort of taken aback by that, kinda goes, "That wasn't supposed to be a stumper." And it made me think, didn't Angel have any friends at one point? And, no. Not before his own show. Not even on Buffy, really, because, to quote Spike, he and Buffy "are not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both", and he ain't exactly tight with the rest of the Scooby Gang. I really love this exchange in the first episode:
Angel: Let's just say I'm a friend.
Buffy: Yeah, well, maybe I don't want a friend.
Angel: I didn't say I was yours.
Because first of all, it's a nice snark-ish-y thing to be coming from Angel, since that becomes unheard of in a bit, and second of all, he never really is her friend. And then, before Buffy, he was alone, or he was with Darla while he was evil, and he definitely does not count that. Whistler doesn't count either because Whistler was just a messenger who didn't really care a whole lot about him personally. Anyways. I just found that to be an interesting reflection.
Anyways, Xander follows Buffy down there with nothing except a flashlight, they find Jesse, then they get ambushed by vamps, 'cause guess what? He's bait. It gets to an entirely different level though, when it turns out that Jesse was in on the trap the entire time because whoops, he's a vampire now.
It's interesting what parts of the show suddenly become really funny, and what parts of the show suddenly gain an aspect of sadness to them on the rewatch. I remember the first time I watched this show, when Buffy and Xander escaped the vamps and they're filling in Willow on the situation, there's this part where Xander suddenly kicks a trash can and when everyone stares at him, he says, "I don't like vampires. I'm going to take a stand and say they're not good." The first time I saw that I remember laughing at that line, but on the rewatch it suddenly becomes kind of sad. It reminds me of that part in the episode "The Body", when Buffy's mom dies, and Xander suddenly punches his hand through the wall in frustration, and Anya goes, "Xander decided he blames the wall." It's basically the same thing. It's just, you don't really realize until the rewatch how much this single loss matters to Xander, because it suddenly becomes clear that it affects his character for the entirety of the series, but again, I'll get to that later.
So, this is where things start to get hazy - I guess what Giles and Willow uncovered in the research is that, first of all, Sunnydale is on a Hellmouth, which is kind of a hotspot for demonic activity because it's... I guess there's a portal to, um, hell? Or the fabric between dimensions is thinner? It's never really made clear what exactly it means that they're on a Hellmouth, but it's a pretty clever device that allows a lot of different demons to show up in the same town and for them to go "It's because of the Hellmouth." Some people find it cheap, I still think it's kind of clever, and a nice way to skip over the "why" question for every monster of the week.
Then they start talking 'bout the Master, who is this super-ancient vampire who came to Sunnydale centuries ago to try to open the Hellmouth and end the world, bring back all these demons, etcetera. And, I guess that ceremony had to be done in a church for some reason. The haziness continues. So, because opening Hellmouths is a risky business, a huge earthquake erupted in Sunnydale before he could finish, and the church he was in sunk into the ground. So I guess he's stuck underground in this church, and he's kept inside it by this force-field type thingy, so he can't leave without gaining sufficient power to overcome it. Which is where the Harvest comes in. So, the Harvest is a special ceremony that can be done once every so and so years, and in this case, one vampire will act as a vessel for the other, so that whatever they drink will nourish the one that can't be there. Make sense? I still don't really get it either. Basically, the Master is trying to gain enough power to escape his sub-terranean church-prison, so he appoints someone his vessel, and then that vampire will drink enough to replenish the Master.
The Master chooses Luke to be his vessel, and does this appointing ceremony that kind of reeks of homoeroticism - I mean, Luke bites/drinks the Master's wrist, then they both throw their heads back in some kind of sensation, then there's this whole "Tonight we are one, you are my soul," I'm 98% sure that Luke even says "My body is your instrument" at one point and I can't be the only one who sees a lot of subtext in there. This would be one of the scenes that become a lot funnier on the rewatch.
Anyways, vampires hit the Bronze, kill a couple people but not a whole lot because here comes the Slayer, and she's gonna kick yo ass. I still love how Buffy ends up killing Luke - she literally distracts him by making him think there's daylight, so he gets all dramatic and cowering, hissing and screaming, then she stakes him while saying one of my favourites: "It's in about nine hours, dumbass."
While this is happening, Vamp-Jesse is harassing Cordelia - I think he's trying to bite her, but they really set it up in a does-this-remind-you-of-anything-else kind of way, with her struggling on the ground while he's on top of her, holding her - I think you see what I'm getting at. Anyways, Xander jumps in with a stake, and it's so sad because he so doesn't want to do it. Jesse manages to get in a couple venomous remarks about what a loser he was before, and how being a vampire rocks and he doesn't care about him or Willow anymore. Xander's holding the stake at Jesse's heart, but doesn't really have the heart to do it, and I kind of appreciate what the writers did here, because someone pushes Jesse from behind in their rush to get out, and pushes him into the stake, dusting him. This is one of those things again, because I laughed at that before, but suddenly I just see that the writers were saving Xander from having to be totally responsible for killing his friend.
But this is what I've really been wanting to get at. Because the loss of Jesse, no matter how insignificant he was to the viewers, continues to affect Xander's character for literally the entire series. They never bring him up by name again, but this is the root of it all. Because Xander never gives a vampire a chance. Not ever. He detests Angel, even when he's on their team, and he loathes Spike even more. And people always hate on Xander for this, but this is where it starts. His best friend was murdered by vampires, and then turned against him, forcing him to kill one of his best friends. Giles even told him, "When you see Jesse, you're not looking at your friend. You're looking at the thing that killed him." So, I mean, can you blame him? People seem to attribute his hatred of vampires to some kind of fantastic racism, but it has a lot more to do with "looking at the thing that killed him". There's quite a bit of depth to Xander that people overlook. I love Xander, and I will defend him on this point to the end.
So, adventure over, everyone at school apparently thinks that that huge vampire attack was a gang fight. Which is funny, because whenever ANYTHING demonic happens in Sunnydale they write it off as a gang fight. Like, how much gang-fighting can there possibly be in a "one Starbucks town like Sunnydale"? The Scooby Gang are congratulating themselves, Giles gets giddy at the idea of what other demons might turn up on the Hellmouth (Giles is just awesome), and then Buffy, Willow and Xander start talking about the bright side, which is that they could always get kicked out of school. Giles turns away with the line that kills me every time: "The earth is doomed." Which is interesting upon reflection, because something very similar happens in the last episode of the series, where we're back down to Buffy, Willow and Xander, and they start talking about what they're going to do tomorrow after this final battle, maybe go shopping or something, and Giles turns away and says, "The earth is definitely doomed." I love the book-ends.
Oh, on an amusing note, you can so tell that the vampire make-up was still kind of being developed. It's just really amusing to listen to all these vampires lisping their way through their lines around the big fangs in their mouths. "Hith blood ith pure!" Makes me laugh.
Now, I'm going to do a quick comparison to the original, unaired pilot which is easy to find on Youtube. Because.... they're basically the same. The original is twenty minutes shorter, and it's not a two-parter. But the opening scene is exactly the same. The casting is all exactly the same as well, except for a fat-girl-best-friend version of Willow who sounds like she's reading her lines for the first time. And some conversations are even exactly the same.
There are some things I preferred in the unaired version to the actual one, though. Like, how it shows Xander and Buffy bonding as they point out all the different cliques in the school. I really enjoyed that, because it's funny, and gives Buffy and Xander a less awkward start to their friendship. Also, the unaired version gave Buffy a lot of different reasons to want to avoid slaying, besides not having a social life, which is nice because it makes her seem much less shallow about it. But, on the other hand, the actual aired pilot is better simply because it gives a better understanding of how the show is really going to be. Comedy, horror, action. Buffy, vampire, slayer. The original focused a lot more on the comedy aspect of it, which was great because it was funny, but as a result, it just felt like one of those high school dramedies that are about a dime a dozen, where things happen, but it's all light and nothing has any weighty consequences. And then, in the actual one, a friend died. Which is different. And I like it better like that, because I've always liked that Buffy was a show that could deal with actual issues in a way that felt real. So, some things would have been nice to keep in, but undoubtedly the actual one is better. On a side note, you've gotta appreciate that even in the unaired pilot they mention a band called Dingoes Ate My Baby, which was the band that Oz, who would later become Willow's boyfriend 'round season 2-ish, was the guitarist for.
Now, this is something a little different, but there's this person online who calls herself "The Buffy Virgin" because she never watched the show when it was on, and now she's watching it for the first time and writing her thoughts on each episode as she sees them. She makes some points, which are valid, and others which are just shallow, and I will probably make it a habit to reply to the points that annoy me, while leaving the ones that I either agree with or find uninteresting. Starting now.
Okay, she talks about being excited about seeing actors she recognizes, she talks about 90s fashion, no arguments so far, and then...
Second of all, what the heck's wrong with the name Xander? Whatever.
And there's nothing more of real interest that she wrote for the first two episodes, so yes, that is it.
Thank you for joining me - or enduring - or skipping over - my first adventure in the realm of the rewatch. This was a lot longer than I expected it to be, but in my defense, it was two episodes. Anyways, until next time.
This is going to be fun.
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