The Great Buffy Rewatch: Season 2, part 2
And just fashionably late as always, here is where we are with character development as of the end of S2.
Trigger Warnings for: Mentions of DV, SA, and child death (related to sickness/hospitals).
For the novelty, I have decided to start out this section with the worst first.
Angelus
“Can’t we just kill him, shoot him and spill his blood?”
I have been pretty transparent about my sentiments that Buffy deserved a better boyfriend, and nowhere has that been depicted quite as succinctly as during the last eleven episodes. To start with, we’re supposed to believe that Angel sees her as being far more mature than her peers, but even on his best day he doesn’t treat her like it. She comes to him in the wee hours of the morning- a trip that, presumably, required her to walk across town in the dark by herself- because she’s having prophetic dreams about him and all he can bother to say to her is “Well, not all your dreams come true. What else did you dream last night?”. He doesn’t value anything she says, thinks, or concerns herself with except her friends (who are his friends by extension now) and, occasionally, vampire-fighting (but only the easily-killable, virtually non-sentient vampires; he’ll just let the Cult of Aurelius have her). I would care a whole lot less about their age difference if Angel genuinely treated her as his peer, but honestly he treats her like she’s his teenage step-child. Now he’s gone off the rails to make a Domestic Violence Predator plot.
For the majority of this half of season 2, the only enjoyable thing Angel brings to the show is his dynamic with Spike, and the fact that whenever he’s on screen, Drusilla is usually on screen, and I forgot how much I loved Dru as a villain. The season finale two-parter, “Becoming,” gives us the most watchable Angel content of the season. We get to see that he was an Irishman turned by a woman of high status after offering to protect her. In the span of their two minutes conversation, they manage to bring up that he always wanted to travel. Not sure where his accent went- Spike got to keep his- but whatever. Part 1 also shows the moment where he became obsessed with Drusilla; when she defied his call to do evil amid her religious struggle with her psychic abilities. Evidently, Angel always intended to help Buffy as the slayer (…okay, sure). It’s intriguing storytelling, and it says a lot that the writers of the show still have me invested in any of this right now- because I have absolutely no investment in saving Angel at all.
Tracking the BAngel-DV analogy, this is how the story looks: you decide to make your sexual debut with a guy you’ve been dating for months and he discards you immediately afterwards. Your relationship is, effectively, over, but he continues to abuse you by stalking, harassment, and threats that not only target you but everyone you love. The police either can’t or won’t help you no matter how obvious it is that you’re in danger, confiding in your parental figure only leads to more criticism, and a large majority of the other people you interact with continuously “poo-poo” your concerns until they’re being threatened the same way you are. Maybe he’s not literally murdering people, but he is doing heinous shit and obviously wants you to be afraid of him. You have the power to prevent further harm (*not the case in most DV situations) but even once he starts making good on his threats, you insist on fucking around so you can find out if you can save him- which gives him more time to cause harm and creates situations that are dangerous for both you and your friends in pursuit of a resolution you can’t be sure will work. Taking a more literal tack, Angel has killed two people- at least one of whom was a member of Buffy’s found family- threatened her mother, and violated her home. Even in the best-case scenario, he lost his soul once, and it could happen again. If that still doesn’t constitute “having to” (kill him), then I don’t want to see what does.
This is another plot thread where Hellmouth lore muddies the message with exculpation. You could argue that being “unsouled” reduces Angel’s accountability for his behavior- and that’s the problem. The real-life parallel for this would be any mental health issue that might motivate an abuser. It’s not his fault, he was “traumatized,” “having a manic episode,” “never taught how to communicate,” etc. He’s no less responsible for his actions than any other vampire, and no one’s pulling out the Orb of Thesullah for them. I really try not to be one of those people who’s out here screaming for nothing but squeaky-clean, wholesome, thoroughly unproblematic content; and, to be fair, I might have enjoyed it as a shorter story arc. It just goes on forever. The end of season 2 sees the fall of Angelus, and I’m enjoying that as much as I can until the next season happens. For what it’s worth, they do end this chapter with Buffy having to let go.
Xander Harris
Xander’s characterization throughout season two is…either complex or directionless. I understand that someone can experience romantic attraction to more than one person at a time, but he always seems to be pining for whichever of the girls he’s not with- and it’s not accidental; Cordelia points this out, which means the show is aware of it, but even after their break-up he doesn’t seem to learn his lesson- and the narrative lets it go after that, too. I’d even say his joke about Buffy’s “birthday spanking” crosses the line into “sexual harassment” (*given that he does not have explicit consent to make these jokes with her). Even when Willow starts dating Oz, he starts making up issues to have with him that obviously go beyond friendly concern or even older brother-like protectiveness. He expects to control all the girls’ romantic lives whether or not he genuinely wants to be a part of them- even when he’s actively dating someone else, to boot. I can only describe this as “cheater mentality;” I get the sense that he’s primarily “faithful” to Cordelia only because he has no other opportunities and not out of any love or genuine respect for her.
Which drives me nuts, because his dynamic with Cordelia is one of the saving graces of this half of the season. Despite how the relationship feels a bit tainted by the events of “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”- it baffles me that Cordelia was persuaded to return to Xander after watching every other woman in town completely lose their autonomy over him- I’m still having a great time when they’re on-screen. One day I will master the magic of writing two borderline-unlikable characters into the most lovable couple.
Until then, sign my petition to give Buffy the himbo boyfriend she deserves. If the only two men in the running for her are Angel and Xander, she should just be single.
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Joyce Summers
The character assassination of Joyce Summers during the second half of season 2 is unforgivable. For the last eleven episodes, all she has done is remind me of why I hate when shows mix age groups. Grounding Buffy “for the rest of her natural life” because she was fully dressed and on the phone a little late at night seemed so uncharacteristically dramatic of her. Saying “I thought you would have shown more judgment” to a teenage girl who, from her perspective, was just blatantly manipulated into a romantic/sexual relationship by a much older man at a time when Buffy is clearly concerned about retaliation is some cartoon villain shit- and her reaction to finding out her daughter was the Slayer gave me flashbacks to coming out. They did her dirty this season.
Buffy Summers
Looping around to “characters we might actually like to meet in real life,” Buffy’s influence on the rest of the cast- particularly Willow- begins manifesting. It’s because of Buffy’s flair for leadership that Willow starts to develop her own, and because of her consistency in showing up for her that she finally moves on from her feelings for Xander and pursues another possibility. These eleven episodes are heart-breaking for her character; making her sexual debut with her first love gave new meaning to the phrase “sucking the soul out of him,” the majority of the cast continues to dismiss both her intuition and her tangible concerns- being told to “not let it get to her” that she’s being stalked by a serial killer (until someone else is getting targeted the same way), both her techbro mom and her other Slayer sibling die as a result of her devotion to Angel, and her mother becomes a heartless bitch. This season is so bad for her that needing to be rescued from SA was barely a footnote. I kept expecting to see more of a mental breakdown from her. She has her tearful moments, but nothing on a level that feels like a proportionate emotional release- which makes it all the sadder.
Other than that, we get a little more history on her. In “Killed by Death,” we find out her cousin died in front of her when she was eight as a result of that episode’s villain- “Child Death”. “Becoming, pt. 1” gives us a glimpse of “Regina George”-era Buffy from before she became the Slayer. It’s fun to see these pre-TV show moments for her.
Willow Rosenberg
Willow gets some of the most thoughtful character development, this season. On this re-watch, I am reminded that her foray into magic started with her bond to Ms. Calendar, who took an interest in magic but did not possess the intrinsic quality that would make her a witch. Willow casts her first spell in “Passions,” revoking Angel’s home invite.
It’s worth noting that Willow is, so far, the only character who doesn’t immediately start looking for ways to discredit Buffy every time she senses some magic afoot. Even if Willow isn’t 100% convinced, she usually will do what’s asked of her to help look into something- the whole scenario with Angel stalking Buffy being a great, if incomprehensible, outlier. Getting to watch her build her adorkable chemistry with Oz and stand by him after it comes out that he’s a werewolf, gives us a more rounded-out view of who she is- and we see that she and Buffy share more similarities than what’s immediately obvious. Both are open-minded, compassionate, and loyal- to a fault, one could say.
Misc:
More characters worth an honorable mention.
Cordelia Chase: Quickly becoming a member of the main cast, this season. Her budding relationship with Xander, as well as the rest of the cast, is heartwarming. Some of the best scenes this season include her love declaration to “Xander,” her bonding chat with Willow, her using her previously-unknown talent for illustration to do “police sketch artist”-type work, and showing up to visit everyone in the hospital.
Rupert Giles: One of our main guys, to be sure, but most of his development for this season happened in the earlier part of it. The main thing to add in here is that he gets aboard the birthday party train this season, which was really nice to see after he had to learn his lesson about letting Buffy do things like this. So far, he hasn’t gone back on his word to do better for her.
Spike: Just wanted to mention him because we get to see him and Buffy do the “enemies teaming up” trope, which is one of my favorites. He’s pretty much been a menace all season and outs Buffy as the Slayer to Joyce during the season’s final sequences. Watching them work together brings a lot of intrigue.
