Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Merciful Zeus! Someone else's life has just flashed before my eyes:


But why go with Guillaume Tell apart, obvious, from the whole Lone Ranger thing? Surely La Cenerentola would have been more apposite?

Now that the latest episode of Season Eight has put Wolves at the Gate to bed, this seems like an opportune moment to look back at the most recent sequence of Season Eights.

The arc, which starts when a group of transmogrifying Japanese goth vampires steal the Scythe. In light of the obvious similarities between their attackers and Dracula, Xander goes to visit his old friend, who confesses that he gambled away the secret to his powers in a game of pai gow. With Vlad in tow, the Slayers head to Tokyo only to fall into a cunning vampire trap. There is much with the killing, crushing and destroying. There is a battle of between a giant and a mecha. There is pain and there is loss. But there is also Resolution.

There was much crunchy goodness in Wolves although I was slightly uncertain about some of Dracula's somewhat racist comments. Although I suppose his comments are probably in keeping with the character and the period when Stoke wrote his novel, although I don't remember the novel being particularly racist — not when compared to, say, Sax Rohmer's novels — and, to be fair to the comic, Xander does call him on it. But still.

The arc also covered a lot of good character stuff, with the Buffy and Satsu thing handled rather tactfully in a way that added to both characters. There were a couple of nice Andrew moments — his determined efforts to play Margot Kidder to Willow's Christopher Reeve and his authentic Love at First Bite costume were great — and the dark hints from Kumiko, the psycho witch, about Willow's mentor must surely presage something bad.

All of which leaves me looking forward, breathlessly, to the next episode...

I wonder, is it possible? Could Hush be my favourite Buffy episode? Let's examine the evidence.

The episode starts off by having Professor Walsh state its key idea: that communication is not what we say, but the thoughts and ideas that lie beneath our words. Witness Buffy's failed attempts to communicate her growing affection for Buffy; Xander's inability to express what he really feels for Anya, Anya's inability to speak without putting her foot in her mouth; and Willow's Wicca group who talk and talk and talk whilst missing the central point about witchcraft — that it involves magic — and Giles' failed attempts to get Olivia to understand that monsters really do exist. Thus, when the Gentlemen steal the townspeoples' voices, they do them a favour, allowing them to communicate the things that they can't actually come out and say to each other.

But the catch is that so much of our communicate is non-verbal. From the whiteboards that Willow and Buffy buy — Will's look of contempt when she sees the board huckster is divine and so necessary to the comedy of their arrival at Giles' — to Maggie Walsh's computer voice to Giles' overhead projector presentation — is anyone else disturbed by the enthusiasm with which he draws the removal of the hearts? There's even a nod back to Nightmares in the way that Xander cups his ears, mirroring the active listening gesture from his school days.

Thus the character are able to explain all the things they haven't been able to put into worlds. Buffy is finally able to kiss Riley and both accidentally reveal their secret identities to each other. Xander demonstrates his feelings for Anya by smacking Spike around and An demonstrates that, despite having no voice, she's still able to communicate the most inappropriate thing under the circumstances. And as if that wasn't enough, the whole fiasco triggers the first real meeting between Willow and Tara.

The Gentlemen themselves are — by a country mile — the most monstrously wonderful of Buffy's monsters. Certainly, they are the most gothic of its monsters. There appearance, with their elegant dress and their floating gait, suggests that they stand apart from the quotidian and expresses their fundamental inviolability. They also manifest another key gothic trait: that, rather than directing their primary attacks against the body — which they do do, albeit as a secondary way of obtaining their required tally of seven hearts — they direct their attacks against one of the key features of what it means to be human: the voice. For without the ability to speak, humanity is lost: no matter how clever an individual animal may be, without a voice, it remains completely apart from its fellows; an isolated island of consciousness in an ocean of ignorance.

This, I think, explains why I love Hush so. It works so perfectly as a piece of recitative, pulling the narrative forward, forcing the various nebulous relationships to crystalise out of the solution of the series so far. It contains some of the very best, most gothic, monsters ever to appear in Buffy. It features some wonderful comic moments and some great acting. But most of all, it tells us something important about what it means to be human.

Despite swearing off monthlies in favour of trades, I've found myself forced to pick up Buffy: Series 8 as it comes out, just because it's so insanely great. The most recent issue, six, finds Brian K Vaughan taking over writerly duties from Joss, whilst JW moves over to Brian's old stamping ground on Runaways, both of which feature cover art by Jo Chen. What an incestuous world it is. Anyways, the latest greatest features the first part of a story which focuses on Giles' attempts to recruit Faith to help with slayer problem. According to all the signs, auguries and soothsayers, including the Great Bearded Wizard of Northampton, there's a crazy English aristo-slayer who's going to destroy the world and F-girl is the only one up to the job. Despite an initial lack of enthusiasm, Giles gradually brings Faith round saying,

Do you honestly think you're the first person to have stumbled upon the notion of rebellion? You and I aren't so unalike. But those who refuse to pay the piper during our adolescence have a responsibility to should the most unpleasant costs of adulthood.

I love it. It give an in to why Giles is kinda uptight and big on the whole duty thing, but it also give Faith a convincing reason to trust him and buy into what he's asking her to do. Something tells me that things are going to be safe in the hands of BKV.

Thanks to the prompting of drspleen, I've just rewatched Once More with Feeling and it's just as fabulous as it ever was. Not only does it have really cool songs — I pretty much agree with the Spleen's list of best tracks, with the possible addition of I'll Never Tell &dmash; but it also pushes the arc of the series along nicely. Whedon can do no wrong.

I was going to go to bed early so that I'd be minty fresh for my return to the salt mines tomorrow but instead I stayed up watching a DVD, so now I'm going to be all totally knacked in the morning — curse my feeble mind and total lack of willpower. For the curious, I was watching the Buffy ep Revelations, it's the one where Faith's new watcher turns up, everyone discovers that Angel is still alive and there are like various shenanigans with a magic gauntlet thingy.

Today's subjects for detailed semiotic analysis included, amongst various other things, the deeply fabulous Band Candy. Not just a very funny ep, but a chance for all the adult characters who normally just get to sit around looking mopey to do some super cool acting, with Anthony Head doing his mockney. Plus, Ethan Rayne is totally value for money funny whenever he appears — I like the way his immediate response to any crisis is always to run away, a very non-Buffy thing. Also, is it just me or is Ethan so not an English name? It's like total retro. It's more than totally retro. It's like Edith Wharton retro.