SEASON 4 EPISODE 1
Oh man, Season Four is finally here! This is where the show started to lose a lot
of people, as it begins to focus more on darker themes (not that the High
School Era didn’t have plenty of darkness to go around) and split the Scoobies
up to some degree. Everyone is sort of
off doing their own thing, which is a shame in some ways because it means that
a lot of the group dynamic is less prominent but it’s cool to see who the
characters are outside of their friendships with each other. With that out of the way, let’s get started!
We open up in the graveyard in traditional Buffy fashion
where the Buffster and Willow are simultaneously waiting for a vampire to rise
and trying to choose college courses for their freshman year. While they’re talking, the vampire crawls out
of the ground behind them, notices it’s the slayer, and runs away in comedic
fashion. After the credits, we get Buffy
at orientation and... jeez, UC Sunnydale is incredibly disorganized. They group people together by folder
color? And have no other system for
telling them besides yelling at small groups ineffectually? She also hears some protest groups and nabs
some party flyers from some creepers. That’s
definitely not how college works.
She finally runs into Willow and Oz and realizes that they
really shine in the college situation, whereas Buffy feels completely out of
place. I feel like that pretty
accurately represents how I felt in college (before I started my online
degree). I basically kept my head down
and never talked to anyone the entire time just because I felt so uncomfortable
there. Buffy catches very few breaks
this episode; Oz and Will don’t even laugh at her jokes, which are pretty
funny! I hate when people don’t laugh at
funny jokes. GRRR.
On the way to the (way too beautiful for the size of the
school) library, Buffy and Willow talk about our missing cast. Giles is unemployed and apparently loving it,
and geographically challenged Xand-Man is on a road trip to visit all fifty
states. Then they head to the book
store, where Buffy drops an uncomfortable line:
Buffy: I can’t wait until mom gets the bill for
these books. I hope it’s a funny
aneurysm.
There’s a big arc in Season 5 which will explain why that’s
so foreshadow-y and almost certainly on purpose, seeing as how this episode was
penned by Joss himself. Buffy (literally)
runs into the obligatory new love interest now that Angel’s gone. This bland hunk of a man is none other than
Riley. Lots of people hate Riley. He’s fine, he’s just not very interesting is
all. I gots no problem with him. Turns out he’s the TA in their new Psych
class so we’ll be seeing a lot more of him.
When Buffy finally gets to her new dorm, she’s greeted by
her roommate Kathy. Kathy is really
annoying, but this is on purpose and will be resolved next episode, so don’t
worry about her. Also, I never lived in
a dorm room, but this seems really huge.
The next day, in Buffy’s pop culture class she gets yelled at by the
douchiest douche professor in Douchonia.
I’ve never had a teacher that acted like this, but it seems like he
would be very lowly rated on RateMyTeacher.
For some reason, this is one of the most uncomfortable scenes in the
whole series for me.
She gets to Psych and we meet Maggie Walsh, who will be
important later, but for now is mostly just there to exposit metaphors to the
audience for a few episodes. She goes on
about how Psych 101 is a hard class. No,
it’s really not. Later that night, Buffy
gets lost and runs into a guy named Eddie on her way ba—wait. Is that Pedro Pascal? It is!
Oberyn Martell himself!
Weird. Despite him having a
couple of odd line readings, I think they have surprisingly good
chemistry. Sadly he’s killed as soon as
Buffy leaves by our villain of the week, Sunday. No, that’s not a dumb play on words, her name
is actually Sunday.
The next day in class, she looks for Eddie, but can’t find
him and finds out that he “took off” but left the novel that he talked about at
great length. She knows something’s
up. Why the vamp gang took everything
except that book, I do not know. Man,
these vampires are annoying. People
always comment on this villain of the week in a positive light... she’s
awful. Not to mention sidekick vamps
fatty girl and stoner surfer guy.
Spoilers: they all die this episode.
Buffy goes to Giles and finds a British woman named Olivia
wearing just one of his shirts, yikes, Giles gets laid! Creepy!
Buffy freaks out in the cutest way about seeing them post-coital and
eventually she basically gets rebuffed by Giles when he says that she doesn’t
need him anymore. That night, she finds
a vamped-out Eddie and kills him, then gets beaten up by Sunday and her
gang. This is supposed to signify that
she’s out of her element and less powerful because she’s on her own, but mostly
I just wonder why she can’t take this bitch.
Buffy’s arm gets sprained and she runs away to avoid being eaten. More really annoying banter between Sunday’s
gang. Ugh.
Buffy heads home where she discovers that her room is being
used for stuff from Joyce’s gallery. Do
you get it?! They’re stripping everyone
away from her so that she can come back bigger and stronger. A little on the nose, but hey, it works. Ooh, here’s a fun thing: Buffy gets a phone
call at her house and answers only to hear silence on the other line. This is paid off in the first episode of
Angel where he calls her and can’t find the words to say to her. I wish they had done more tie-in stuff like
this, actually.
She gets back to her dorm to find that all of her stuff has
been pinched by the gang. So she heads
to the saddest place in the show: the Bronze!
She wanders around for a while before she runs into Xander, who is back
from his failed road trip. Then he gives
her a really sweet speech (and says Avengers Assemble, which is funny in
hindsight) about how he’s always looked up to her and would gladly help her in
her time of need. There are always these
sliver of romantic feelings between them that I wish were delved into a bit
more, but alas it’s not meant to be.
They do some research and find the location of the gang’s
hideout and decide to go do some recon. Xander
goes to get Oz and Willow and they all head to help Buffy. Buffy climbs up on the roof to get a better
look, but falls through the glass right into their living room. Sunday then breaks her class protector
umbrella, making Buffy mad enough to fight back. The gang busts in and kill annoying surfer
vamp while a couple get away, and Buffy finally kills Sunday. Giles shows up, feeling bad about not helping
the Buffster and re-stakes his loyalty to her.
One of the vamps that got away sneaks through the woods but
is then tased and dragged away by a couple of army guys, and then credits!
I’ve got to admit, this is not one of my favorite
openers. I do like the Buffy/Xander
stuff, but for the most part not a lot happens despite Sarah Michelle Gellar
giving a great performance throughout.
The main arc for this season isn’t the best, but it has some fantastic
episodes just like any other season.
No comments:
Post a Comment