(no subject)

[sapote]

I'd forgotten how disturbing I find the Angel/Buffy biting scene, and how relieved I have always been when Angel leaves, even though now I know that it's just opening the door to Riley freaking Finn. Urgh, Buffy's love life. I was also beginning to question my devotion to Buffy/Faith, because: I remember exactly that kind of infatuation, when I was sixteen, with girls in low-cut shirts who Broke All The Rules and were morally ambiguous and did what they would etc. I remember when I was nineteen and watched season 3 for the first time, flailing at the tv screen and going OMG, that's exactly it. That's exactly what it feels like to get pulled into the orbit of the bad-girl girlcrush. But I'm twenty-three now, and most of those girls from high school have wrapped their cars around trees, so it's harder for me to reach back and remember how it felt before the laws of physics applied to us.

It was a relief to me to get to the dream sequence in Faith's apartment and go, yes. Buffy and Faith are still more alike then they are different, and this pairing is still true for me. Because it would suck to lose an OTP entirely.

I am also struck by how much truer to early canon seasons 6 through 8 feel after I go back and rewatch 1 through 3. Spike is a villain, not a lovable woobie: Buffy is a Leader of (Wo)men who takes her moral responsibilities all seriously, and on my first watch-through I think I missed the part of canon where Willow gets into the Black Arts through Miss Calender's old books and files, but that sure explains where that started.

The S.O. and I am taking a break before season 4, because in my mind season 4 is where it really starts to go downhill; Season 5 has a bit of shark-jumping, season 6 is depressing as hell, and season 7 takes way too long to get where it's going even if Conversations with Dead People is still one of my favorite episodes. Season 3 is, to my mind, Buffy perfection. Sigh.

Comments

[bradcpu.livejournal.com]

Reading this made me feel good. Always so nice to relive everything through the eyes of another fan. Totally agree about S3 and subsequent seasons.

The point you make about those kinds of girls having wrapped their cars around trees... I had never thought of it that way. But, really, that's pretty much what Faith did as well. And the rest of her plotline through S7 was about trying to salvage what she could.

Buffy was such a complex show. So many layers.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

What I love about Buffy is how the stories it tells through myths and monsters really reflect normal things happening to normal people as they grow up - that's totally what happened to Faith, she fell in with a bad crowd and got hurt and then brought herself back from that place. God, she's such a great character.

I always love reading other fan's episode reviews too - other people always notice things that I don't, or put them a way I didn't think to. Oh, fandom.