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Wacky Watches: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel

It's true, the two magic/occult shops I've been to in NY were much smaller, but then that's more about NY rents.

There was a new age shop in my hometown that was as big as the Magic Shop, but they were less about spells and more about chakras.

Yeah.
 
First Impressions - Gunn's all "skinny white girls don't know what it's like on the streets Denzil should have won an Oscar" Cordy's all "I'm just trying to help!" and they end up with a new respect for each other by the end. It's probably a necessary episode to bring Gunn closer to the group but again it's not a super exciting episode. Angel is having sex dreams about Darla and he wears a pink crash helmet and Wesley calls him a wanker, so that's all good.

Out Of My Mind - Riley's having heart problems but he doesn't want help because he feels weak because his girlfriend's the Slayer and also he thinks she doesn't love him and he's Riley. But also Harmony's being adorable and has funny scenes with Spike ("Is it a sodding breadbox?") and she stops smoking because the doctor points to the no smoking sign. Oh and Buffy and Willow still go to college! I was wondering about that. Willow's magic has been slowly getting stronger and it's good that they keep that going in the background. Graham is still wooden as fuck. Joyce faints and Ben appears for the first time. SPIKE IS ACTUALLY ATTRACTED TO BUFFY!? This episode is pretty good despite all the Riley?
 
Untouched - I was slightly surprised that this episode was directed by Joss as it's a fairly normal standalone episode (with the Darla stuff still playing out as well) but Joss doesn't just directed the big event episodes OKAY. And it is a good standalone episode! The actress who played Bethany did a good job and the scene where she was going to kill her dad but stopped at the last second was very good. Of course it plays out like an origin story for a new character and then we never see her again so maybe that was a bit of a waste. It's good seeing more of Lilah and how she differs from Lindsey.

No Place Like Home - Dawn isn't real!? But she's Buffy's sister! This is the episode where Buffy asks Spike to tell her what he's doing in five words or less and he says "out for a walk...bitch." Glory appears for the first time she's fine. Like her acting doesn't blow me away or anything but she's good enough in the "acting crazy" scene to be interesting. The Magic Box is really really busy on opening day! Willow and Anya don't like each other and Xander seems like less of a loser now and it's good that they have these things going on in the background.
 
Dear Boy - Angel finds out the truth about Darla and we find out that she's actually been brought back as a human! It's a good episode. There's flashbacks with Angel and Darla and Dru. Wesley specifically calls Angel's bad side "Angelus" so they've started doing that. Kate is back and she thinks Angel gets people killed and I guess she'd kind of right since Wolfram and Hart kill an actor (while Lindsey's listening in. Lindsey isn't really a good guy.)

Family - Written and directed by Joss Whedon. He must really like Tara! I do too. Some people (Menty) hate her but I'm not sure why as Amber Benson gives a great, likable performance. Her family are jerks. Even her cousin Beth (how come Amy Adams is much hotter now than she was 15 years ago? HOLLYWOOD MAGIC?) The scene where everyone stands up for Tara is really nice (Dawn's a hair-puller.) And if you do hate Tara you probably enjoyed Spike puncher her nose! Buffy says that Glory is "kid of like Cordelia" and then I can't help but think about how awesome Charisma Carpentar playing Glory would have been.
 
Guise Will Be Guise - Jane Esponsen returns to Angel with another very funny episode. It's the one where Wesley pretends to be Angel to help a girl and he drinks blood and does other funny things! Meanwhile Angel is staying with a fake swami and that's funny too! This episode is funny, is what I'm trying to say. It's good.

Fool For Love - Buffy continues her quest for Slayer knowledge by asking Spike how he killed two Slayers. We get flashbacks to poet William The Bloody for the first time and find out that actually Dru sired Spike, not Angel! I guess he meant to call Angel "grandsire" those times. There's also a subplot with Riley taking crazy risks against vampires but it's brief and the scenes are fine! We get the first moment of Spike actually showing sexual interest in Buffy to her face and she's disgusted by it and says even if she is aware of the connection between slaying, killing and sex it would never be with Spike. We'll see! This episode is great.


Darla - It's a crossover spectacular as we see some of the scenes from the Buffy episode in a different context (Angels' line "I guess that makes you one of us" seems a bit different this time!) This is the best reason to watch Buffy and Angel in the order they originally aired (although I've got a feeling I won't be doing that once we get to the Pylea episodes!) Both episodes are the height of vampire flasback stuff in either show. And the present day scenes here are great too as Lindsey is falling in love with human Darla in his own fucked up way and Angel and Darla have a great scene together at the end. This is a pretty great run of quality episodes from both shows!
 
Shadow - Joyce has a brain tumour. It's sad! The episode does a good job showing Buffy and Dawn's reaction to this news. Riley's story is continuing too. I feel like Riley's story this season has been goingon too long already? I mean it's just the same "he thinks Buffy is shutting him out/doesn't love him/could beat him up" thing every time. He catches Spike sniffing Buffy's clothes so that's something! Glory creates a big snake demon to find her Key but Buffy punches it to death. I like Glory's minions they're funny. This episode is pretty good!

The Shroud Of Rahmon - So to follow up probably the best episode of Angel (at this point) we have...a standalone about a shroud that makes people crazy. Like I have nothing against standalones IF THEY'RE GOOD (like Guise Will Be Guise was!) but this isn't very good. It starts a bit like a heist movie but it's not a very interesting one. The Shroud makes the people trying to steal it angry but makes Wesley forget things and Cordelia want to steal things from the museum. Tony Todd plays a demon but he could have had a better part really! This is just an episode.

Listening to Fear - This is the one where an alien comes to Earth to kill crazy people. It's kind of silly. Ben called it because...he's "cleaning up Glory's mess"? I guess he thinks crazy people mind-sucked by Glory are better off dead. We have more sick Joyce stuff here and I feel like the previous episode handled it better. Joyce starts saying random crazy things and it should be disturbing and sometimes it is but sometimes I just don't buy Kristine Sutherland's performance. The part where she tells Buffy she knows Dawn isn't real but she's still previous and needs protecting is good though.
 
The Trial - Angel wants to save Darla's life. He goes to some weird dimension with a posh guy in it to fight for her. He fights really hard! But it's all for nohting as she's already be resurrected once. He smashes some vases after and it reminds me of a Zelda game. So this is all very good but it's the final scene that is really really great as Darla and Angel have accepted that she's going to die when Lindsey bursts in WITH DRUSILLA who turns Darla back into a vampire right in front of Angel. That's pretty brutal! Also Holtz the vampire hunter is mentioned in flashback and Darla comments that she likes the smell of jasmine and I like shows that reward careful viewing!

Into The Woods - Written and directed by Marti Noxon? OH SHIT! But actually she does probably the best job possible with this episode. The problem here is with Riley. you have to care about the Riley/Buffy relatonship for this episode to work. And I don't really. In season 4 they pushed hard how great he is. In season 5 Buffy's ignored him for ten episods and he's started going to vampire crack dens. So I can't say I cried when Buffy ran after him and was too late. On the other hand Xander is great in this episode and the scene where he tells Anya he loves her is far more convincing than the Buffy/Riley relationship ever was.

Reunion - Angel's starting to go all Asshole Angel now as he tries to stop Dru and Darla. I feel like Dru's accent and overacting has been toned down quite a bit since Buffy season 2 and I think that's for the best? Maybe Juliet Landau just got better. Lindsey is a comlicated character. He does have something of a conscience but he's made his choice to be evil and he's knows he's trapped by it so he doesn't really care at all when Darla and Dru are going to kill him. Which they do after Angel locks them in the winer cellar with Holland, Lindsey and Lilah. All three dead! Crazy! And Angel fires his friends.

Triangle - Willow and Anya have never got on ever since that time Anya brought an evil vampire version of Willow to our dimension. It's good to have their long standing feud pay off as they have their biggest fight yet. Buffy is still upset over Riley but at least it's a more amusing kind of upset than just moping about. Olaf the Troll is really funny. I like him. It's kind of silly how Xander isn't hurt at all by Olaf smashing him around with his troll hamme? This episode is amusing.
 
Redefinition - This one is very good too. Maybe not quite as super great as the previous too, but still up there! We get more good Darla and Dru scenes. And then...Angel sets Dru and Darla on fire. And that's pretty much the end of them as villains this season, isn't it? I think there was maybe an expectation that they'd be around all season doing crazy stuff. But Angel just cuts that off pretty quickly. I'm not really complaining as it's a great scene but I would have liked to have seen more of them together. Also Cordy, Wesley and Gunn get drunk and sing We Are The Champions.

Checkpoint - The Watcher's Council arrive in Sunnydale and they have information on Glory but they want to test Buffy first. This episode is okay but maybe a bit slow? Like all the stuff with the Watchers just feels like a padding a bit. They're amusing scenes (it's a good episode for funny Anya lines and she wears a nice dress) it's just that nothing all that important happens until the last five minutes. Well okay the bit with Glory at Buffy's house is good too. Anyway the end speech by Buffy is pretty great. "It's about power" is said. Really I can't comment on season 7 yet but I'm pretty sure this speech is better than all the speeches she makes in season 7 and does a better job explaing the "it's about power" point. But maybe I'm wrong!

Blood Money - Anne is back. I like Anne. She's a good character. She should have been in more episodes. Or been in another spin-off series. Angel and a demon guy trick Wolfram and Hart out of money. A lot of money, yes, but Angel did like leave twenty lawyers to die a few weeks ago so it feels a bit small compared to that. But it's a good episode! I liked how the demon guy wasn't lying about wanting to fight Angel to the death. Gunn/Cordy/Wes continue to get closer and that's nice.
 
Blood Ties - "Get out, get out, GET OUT!!!!" Finally! Dawn discovers she's the Key and we get some Dawn/Spike stuff and that's entertaining. The viewers find out that Ben is Glory but Dawn can't remember it? Silly Dawn. Also there's stuff about Summers blood and Anya says "YOU MAKE A VERY PRETTY LITTLE GIRL." This episode is good.

Happy Anniversary - So yeah after a good start to the "Angel is dark now" story we get...a kind of wacky comedy episode with him teaming up with Lorne. He's still a bit moody in it and has a good scene talking to Lorne about his feelings, but I don't really like the placement of this episode. It's not actually as bad an episode as I remember and Angel/Lorne teaming up is kind of funny and the guy trying to freeze time because he's scared he'll be dumped and he keeps singing "all by myself" story is also kind of funny. But yeah it's kind of disappointing how season two has gone from incredible highs to just kind of decent?

Crush - Buffy finally realises that Spike has a crush on her (after being told by Dawn.) Spike tries to win over Buffy in his own twisted way but he can never really do it what with him not having a soul. Dru comes back (FOR HER FINAL EVER APPEARANCE AS REAL DRU) but also Harmony's there being great and Dru makes a face at Harmony that's great. This is an episode where lots of GIRLS felt sorry for Spike at the end and writer David Fury was like "HE'S LITERALLY A SERIAL KILLER" but I mean I can kind of see how he's likable!
 
The Thin Dead Line - It's the one about zombie cops. Anne's in it again and she's still nice. Kate is back too and she feels really like a minor character now compared to the first season when she seemed like she was going to be a big deal. Wesley gets shot. This episode is stupid.

I Was Made to Love You - Speaking of stupid! Warren appears for the first time. He made a robot girlfriend. She's annoying. This episode is annoying. Did we really need another "BUFFY WORRIES SHE WON'T FIND LOVE" episode so soon after Into The Woods? No, we didn't. There's a really boring long scene at a party that's boring and long. And Jane Espenson wrote it! She used to write good and funny episodes. Thie episode isn't good or funny (apart from Puffy Xander of course.) You wrote a bad episode, Jane.
 
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