MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*
Season Five and the following two seasons seem to undergo a subtle storytelling shift. Whereas the previous four seasons seemed to alternate between short story-arcs and mostly self-contained episodes, Five bears more resemblance to a traditional soap opera, with a lot of long arcs interspersed with short episodes loosely tied into the season's main continuity.
BUFFY VS. DRACULA (P)-- This half-baked story was probably cooked up as an attention-getter for the new season. For no real motivation, Dracula (Rudolf Martin doing a Lugosi) sets up shop in Sunnydale and goes out of his way to give Buffy a heads-up. In addition to being the only vampire in the show who can change into animals or into mist, he also manages to turn Xander into a Renfield and to enthrall Buffy, luring her closer to the Dark Side. Buffy defeats but does not kill the vamp, who apparently decides to pull up stakes (heh) and leave Sunnydale. The episode ends with the introduction of Buffy's little sister Dawn, who came into existence here due to various multiversal meddling.
REAL ME (F)-- It's soon apparent that everyone in Buffy's circle, from her mother to Spike and the Scoobies, think that Dawn has been around for the last fourteen years. Dawn's fully aware of Buffy's Slayer nature but the two sisters frequently snipe at one another and get on each other's nerves. While Spike has more or less receded into the background, his former girlfriend Harmony gathers some vampiric minions and attacks Buffy's house. After the owner of a magic shop is killed, Giles buys the store, which becomes the group's base of operations for a while. A real threat is suggested by an increase in the number of crazy people in Sunnydale.
THE REPLACEMENT (F)-- This Xander-centric episode is at least better conceived than "The Zeppo." Toth, a new demon in town, tries to magically split Buffy in two but strikes Xander instead. While Xander's confident side takes over his job and his relationship with Anya, his more insecure form thinks that his other half is a demonic impostor. After the two Xanders are merged once more, Riley makes a private confession to United Xander: that he knows that despite their ongoing relationship, Buffy doesn't really love him.
OUT OF MY MIND (F)-- Riley suffers the after-effects of the drugs he was given in the Initiative, but a government scientist is willing to cure him. Spike finds out about the surgeon, and he re-teams with Harmony to coerce the doctor into removing Spike's restraining chip. Buffy and Riley drive off the two vamps and Riley receives the medical care needed. Later in his crypt with Harmony, Spike dreams that he and Buffy give in to a mutual passion, and he awakes in horror.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME (F)-- Joyce begins suffering from an ailment later diagnosed as a brain tumor. She will seem to recover after surgery, but the soap-operatic handwriting is on the wall. Buffy accidentally stumbles across the being responsible for the epidemic of craziness: Glory (Clare Kramer), a being from another dimension who sucks brain-energy to build up her strength. Glory almost beats Buffy to a pulp, but the Slayer escapes with Glory's prisoner, a monk who apprises Buffy of the threat. Before the monk dies, he informs Buffy that Glory's come to Sunnydale looking for a dimensional "key." The monk and his fellows embodied the formless energy of the key into the new existence of Dawn, essentially rewriting reality so that everyone would accept Buffy's belated younger sister.
FAMILY (F)-- It's suggested that Ben, one of the physicians at Joyce's hospital, has a mysterious connection to Glory. Glory sends some demon-minions after Buffy, guessing that the Slayer may have learned something about the key from the dead monk. At the same time, Tara's religiously repressive family show up at the magic shop, seeking to make Tara come back with them, much to Willow's displeasure. After the demons are killed, Spike proves unusually helpful in proving to the other Scoobies that the family has no just claim on Tara-- a strong shift of his sympathies toward the group, since he doesn't care anything about Tara and hasn't expressed any feeling about Willow apart from wanting to make a meal of her.
FOOL FOR LOVE (G)-- Buffy's continued worries about Joyce are exacerbated by losing her confidence in her own skills. She and Giles agree that she needs to know more about Slayer vulnerabilities, but the only being who can tell Buffy anything is Spike, who killed two Slayers in previous decades. Most of the episode is devoted to Spike gleefully telling his nemesis about his past ravages, though he omits some aspects of his "origin story," having been a pretentious amateur poet before being turned by Darla and Angelus. At the same time, Spike's own sudden passion for Buffy begins to manifest, and though the Slayer doesn't take his sexual metaphors seriously, she roundly rejects him. Spike's conflicting emotions run the gamut from hate to empathy here, setting up his future status once Riley departs.
SHADOW (P)-- Though the title refers to a "shadow" on Joyce's CAT-scan, it could also refer to the shadow on the relationship of Buffy and Riley, as the Slayer slowly shuts the soldier out of her life. Riley encounters a female vampire at a bar, and though he later kills her, he lets the vamp bite him first, signaling his sense of lacking any emotional stimulus from Buffy. Glory transforms a cobra into a demon that can track down the Key. and it does find Dawn, who's not yet aware of her status. However, Buffy kills the creature before it can return to Glory.
LISTENING TO FEAR (P)-- An extraterrestrial demon descends to Earth on the day before Joyce is scheduled for her surgery. It's very much a filler episode.
INTO THE WOODS (F)-- It's finally time to bid Riley goodbye. The writers didn't do a good job of setting up this departure, for Riley suddenly becomes emotionally addicted to getting erotically bitten by vampires. The justification-- that he doesn't feel connected to Buffy-- seems strained at best. Spike exposes Riley's fetish but the overall sense is that in some sense Riley was Buffy's "second rebound guy." Riley gets a convenient offer from his military buddies to accept an assignment elsewhere and he takes it.
TRIANGLE (F)-- This is almost an Anya-centric episode, though it also concerns Willow's hostility towad the former demon. Willow accidentally conjures up Olaf, a former human whom the Demon Anyanka changed into a huge, hammer-wielding troll. The troll rampages for a while. Eventually, after lots of fights and male-female contention, Willow hurls the troll back to his own realm-- at least in theory-- but the troll leaves behind the hammer, to serve as a plot-point later.
CHECKPOINT (P)-- In response to Giles' inquiries, the Watchers Council comes to America with information about Glory-- but the Watchers insist on putting Buffy and the Scoobies through a host of humiliating tests. Though there are few good moments as the Scoobies defend one another from this ill treatment, the Watchers' desire to get the Slayer under their thumb makes no sense given the high stakes involved with defeating Glory. I can only guess that Whedon's Watchers represented to him some form of unreasoning authority-figures.
BLOOD TIES (P)-- The only crumb of information the Watchers reveal is that Glory is not a demon, but "a god"-- though not until "Spiral" does anyone explain the distinction. Buffy, who up to this point has only revealed to Giles the truth of Dawn's existence, comes clean to the others as well. Unfortunately, Dawn overhears part of the conversation. She decides to launch her own investigation and talks Spike into helping her break into the magic shop. There Dawn gets the first inkling of the truth, which traumatizes her despite Buffy's attempt to convince her that the two of them are valid sisters. Later Dawn stumbles across Ben and accidentally learns that he shares a body with Glory-- also a point not expanded upon until much later. The Scoobies show up and fight Glory, and Willow manages to teleport Glory away. Despite some good moments, the overall plot is unwieldly.
CRUSH (G)-- Most of the really good episodes this season are Spike-centric. Drusilla returns to Sunnydale, and even though she resisted Spike's attempts to woo her months ago, she suddenly decides she wants him after all. With her psychic powers she nullifies the effects of the chip on Spike's brain-- though she may only be blocking his experience of the pain-- and the two of them slay a couple of innocent humans together, like old times. Dawn broaches to Buffy the fact that Spike's into her, which disgusts her. Later Drusilla and Spike set up a trap for Buffy, but Spike captures and binds both of them, trying to work out his conflicted feelings for both women. However, Harmony, enraged at Spike's cavalier treatment of her, intervenes, making it possible for Buffy to break free. Drusilla and Harmony both withdraw and Buffy punches out Spike.
I WAS MADE TO LOVE YOU (F)-- A little robot-maker named Warren-- later one of Buffy's major foes-- creates April, a robot girlfriend, and then tries to just leave her behind when he meets a human female. The script asks the viewer to accept that Warren doesn't just find some way to deactivate his robo-girl in order to save himself some trouble. All that saves the episode is the pathos of the artificial woman's inability to understand human fickleness, and the fact that Spike seeks to take advantage of Warren's expertise.
THE BODY/FOREVER (F)-- These two linked episodes impressed many fans in showing the intrusion of ordinary mortality into the Slayer's fantasy-world. They provide a good change of pace for the series as a whole, though I'm less sanguine about how well they fit into the season as a whole. Spike, who genuinely liked Joyce, aids Dawn in seeking to restore Joyce to life, and then fades from the story as Dawn triggers a resurrection spell and Buffy seeks to intervene. Angel has a brief scene with Buffy.
TOUGH LOVE (G)-- Though the Willow-Tara relationship has been all puppies and kittens up to this point, they quarrel; when Willow becomes oversensitive to Tara's suggestion that her occult studies are moving too fast. Glory, however, has decided to start ambushing the Scoobies individually to find out what each of them knows, and she brain-drains Tara. Tara becomes a babbling idiot, and Willow swears vengeance. Buffy thinks she's talked Willow out of retaliation, but Spike asks the Slayer what she would do had Glory killed Dawn, and Buff rushes to go help her friend. Willow and Glory engage in a major magical battle, but Willow's almost killed until Buffy intervenes. However, Glory then attacks the Scoobies at Buffy's house and finally learns the identity of the key. Willow's fantastic abilities will become important in Season Six.
SPIRAL (F)-- The Knights of Byzantium, an ancient order opposed to Glory's return to power, were briefly introduced in "Checkpoint." Here they become a new impediment. Though Glory's attack on the Scoobies is partly foiled by the influence of her body-partner Ben, Buffy and her friends elect to flee Sunnydale to preserve Dawn. The Knights chase the heroes down, intent on killing Dawn so that Glory cannot use her. Buffy and friends take refuge in an abandoned building out in the desert, while the Knights, appropriately, "lay siege." The Scoobies capture one of the Knights' commanders, and he supplies the long-overdue exposition as to how Glory was exiled from her "hellgod" dimension and was imprisoned in the body of a mortal man.to rein her in. She plans to sacrifice the key, which will open the way back to her own world, but in addition to killing Dawn, most if not all of the ordered universes will be destroyed as well. I don't think the delay of this Big Reveal provides much emotional resonance to the story and only creates a ramshackle story with too many holes in it. The overcomplicated story also depends on Buffy being able to summon Ben to aid her group, and when Glory takes over the body, she kills all the Knights and abducts Dawn.
THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD (F)-- After Glory escapes with Dawn, Buffy falls into an unresponsive state, weighed down by the enormous guilt she feels over losing her sister, as well as having the responsibility of saving the world. Willow must use a spell to enter Buffy's mind and suss out what's causing the Slayer's catatonia. The psychological tropes in this dream-quest seemed a bit too cut-and-dried for my taste.
THE GIFT (F)-- And here's the big finale, which is also the writers' opportunity to unpack all of the plot-points they've been caching for this story. Glory and her minions retreat to a sacrificial site they apparently whipped up for Dawn's sacrifice, but the Scoobies get a clue as to the villains' location because Crazy Tara has a psychic bond to Glory. There's a certain amount of time-wasting as Glory taunts Dawn for a while, and the heroes catalogue all the items they acquired in previous episodes that they'll use against their enemy, particularly the big troll-hammer. Giles brings up the possibility that they might have to kill Dawn to thwart Glory's opening of the dimensional doors. However, Buffy finally gets hip to the meaning of the ambiguous Slayer-oracle and sacrifices herself, while Giles confines his killing to Glory's mortal self. I suppose in many ways the finale delivers on what the plot promised, but there's not a lot of dramatic payoff. Though Clare Kramer infuses Glory with a lot of energy, she's a fairly one-dimensional villain and the whole "vulnerability in her mortal body" thing seems predictable. Season Six then must figure out how to bring back the star of a successful show after killing her off-- which also sounds like a fair number of daytime soap operas.
