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wAug 13, 2009 | |
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Season Three [rewatch] [Link to Buffy Season Two rewatch is here.] Specific Episodes Out of 22 episodes, I really enjoy 14, and by "enjoy," I usually mean emotionally satisfying, significantly advancing the plot, possibly an intense character study that does not feel cliched, and none of the uncomfortable "This is really cheesy" plots. This is a lot of episodes! In Season Two, my list consisted only of five episodes. Season Three List: Band Candy Revelations Lovers Walk The Wish Amends Helpless Bad Girls Consequences Enemies Earshot Choices The Prom Graduation Day, Part One Graduation Day, Part Two The Zeppo sort of gets an honorable mention...I found Xander pretty irritating in this episode, but the juxtaposition of his storyline versus Buffy's, and the fact that the opening of the Hellmouth was the subplot was pretty hilarious throughout the entire episode. Lastly....Is it just me, or did Charlaine Harris totally steal her plot for the Southern Vampire Mysteries from the episode "Earshot"? A girl not judgmental of "good vampires" who can read minds, goes almost crazy from it and can't really be around people, but has a vampire boyfriend whose mind she's incapable of reading? HMMM.... Shallow Notes: I am a big fan of Buffy's blonde hair. Also, the late-90s middle schooler in me swoons over Buffy's butterfly hair clips and unnecessarily complicated up-dos. This season kind of makes me nostalgic for high school in ways that other seasons do not. Like, at the end, when Willow and Harmony are signing each other's yearbooks, and Buffy's like, "I thought you hated her." "Yeah, but I'm gonna miss her!" I remember having these exact same exchanges with my friends. In Relation to Future Seasons It was almost sad watching the episode where Buffy receives her high SAT scores, but in retrospect, I'm kind of glad that the show went this way. Being smart doesn't necessarily mean that you can afford college, or that your life circumstances to permit you to attend college and stick it out all the way through. Or in Willow's case, getting accepted to big-name schools doesn't necessarily mean that you will choose to go to them: you might have perfectly good reasons to attend other schools instead. Characters Cordelia: I really do love Cordelia this season. And I still think that her character assassination on the show Angel is probably the biggest reason why I can't love the show. I think it would have worked much better with Cordelia's snark. You can't take that shit away. Xander: I am still hating Xander a lot more during the re-watch than I ever did the first time through the show. I find his blind hatred for Angel unreasonable, and I also think that he is one of the most self-centered characters. Seriously, even Cordelia, while bitchy, is constantly thinking about (and commenting about) other people. Angel: I like watching Angelus in Season Two. But so far as Angel the character goes, I find him far more interesting in Season Three than in Season Two. His angst is meaningful (to me!), he's there when people need him, people misjudge him and he angsts, HE CUTS THE HEART OUT OF A DEMON AND FEEDS IT TO BUFFY.....HE DRINKS BUFFY'S BLOOD AFTER SHE BEATS HIM....BUT ONLY TO SAVE HIS LIFE! Favorite Angel episode is "Enemies," hands down. I'm a sucker for it every SINGLE time they do it on either Buffy or Angel, playing between Angel/Angelus, but I love it the most when they fuck with the audience and make you think one thing for an entire episode only to realize that it was a lie. I also like how severely this fucks up both Angel's and Buffy's headspace, and I think it's ultimately the reason he leaves at the end of the season (well, that and biting Buffy's neck and draining her of blood). "You still my girl?" "Always." THEIR LOVE IS SO EPIC AND I WILL NEVER DOUBT IT AGAIN. Angel leaving Buffy totally emotionally scars her in ways that I think she never gets over. Wesley Yeah, from a Buffy-perspective, Wesley is a joke, and is super annoying - he makes Faith distrust him, and loses her when everyone needs to find her most. He repeatedly messes things up for everyone else. But from his perspective, he's trying to butt in to a tightly-knit group into a position of power that Giles already fills. His tenure at Sunnydale is a string of failures, especially with Faith, and he is left without dignity, ready to go to a different show, get his soul ripped out and trod on, and morph into a bad-ass motherfucker. It was so weird watching him on Buffy, though....he's so different from the way he is when Angel ends! I kind of want to start re-watching Angel now, just to salivate over the character metamorphosis of Wesley. Wrap-Up I had forgotten Buffy's dream sequence with Faith while they are both knocked out in the hospital, and it is really well done. I think most Whedon dream sequences are. I'll still need to re-watch Seasons Four-Seven, but I really found the Season Three finale to be emotionally cathartic. It wasn't just heartbreaking, like the end of Season Two (although it was also that, what with Angel leaving, which still confuses me and makes me sad), but it's also just....satisfying in a way that the other seasons aren't. The banding together of the entire senior class made me a little teary-eyed, not going to lie. Out of the first three seasons, Season Three is easily my favorite. Then Two, then One. Labels: tv: buffy scribbled mystickeeper at 12:03 PM 
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