Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where We 'Wish' We Could Make 'Amends' During 'Slayerfest' - Season 3

00:00:00.000 class is in session hey everybody welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session guys we're on

00:00:07.920 season three we're on season three of buffy i have stew with me i have stefan with me and we're ready

00:00:14.120 to do i don't know if we're going to do this in one episode but we're going to see what we can do

00:00:17.480 we'll we'll see how it plays out because i'm already looking at about seven episodes i love

00:00:21.940 stew you want to introduce yourself for the listeners at home if they haven't caught us

00:00:26.600 before hello so you can find me on tiktok my name is stew um you can find me there under jannikin j

00:00:34.680 and i koa underscore and i feel like watching season three again maybe i am part of the lonely

00:00:42.360 ones maybe that was my calling maybe i could be in too stefan how are you doing today do you want

00:00:54.760 introduce yourself not too bad so far so good uh my name is stefan you can find me at sj maroney

00:01:00.680 on instagram but i'm also the creator and one of the hosts for rebel without a closet 0.60

00:01:04.500 deep dive into the queer and queer adjacent that turned us into the rebellious messes that we

00:01:09.380 happen to be today uh you can find that at rwac pod on instagram and uh pretty much link dot tree 0.97

00:01:17.200 slash rwac amazing and all of those details and dots and ads will all be in the description below

00:01:24.740 if you guys want to go check them out so guys today we're tackling season three of buffy now

00:01:30.480 it's funny because we were just chatting a little bit and i said season three i always say i like

00:01:34.760 season three i never said i loved it and then i'm going through episode per episode thinking

00:01:38.860 loved it loved it loved it loved it there's only maybe a few that i'm like man not so good but

00:01:45.780 stefan you know uh stefan's i think on side with me oh a hundred percent season yeah a hundred

00:01:52.280 and i'm hoping that by the end of this stew is over here i think i don't know he has something

00:01:59.880 i'm not too sure what's going on xander maybe gets a lot of role i don't know what happens

00:02:05.880 i'm going to take a lover's walk with stewart and my wish is that he makes amends with these

00:02:10.440 revelations you're welcome oh wow bad girls let's go um all of those references otherwise they are

00:02:22.520 titles of episodes yes exactly i also think that like yes i will agree with you guys there's a lot

00:02:27.880 of really like great standalone episodes in this season i just feel like you came from such a strong

00:02:35.480 season in season two where it was like a really good continuous storyline had all the big bads

00:02:41.720 of the week and then you went into this season and there was like all of that like you were up here

00:02:46.720 and then we sort of went a little bit lower but like that was a couple hundred years

00:02:56.940 and then you had like this new slayer we gave her a bunch of screen time

00:03:01.480 and you were like i want to learn more about the slayer and joss whedon was like no

00:03:05.880 instead i'm going to tell you about wesley and you're like i don't care about wesley

00:03:11.780 i i disagree i disagree it's we got to explore that dark side with faith and what could be

00:03:18.540 it completely it was it was fresh it was so fun every episode was just so well done i i loved it

00:03:26.540 I love the reveal of the mayor.

00:03:28.880 I love the addition of faith.

00:03:31.480 I love Wesley because, again,

00:03:33.100 Wesley becomes one of my favorite characters

00:03:34.700 of the entire Whedonverse at one point.

00:03:37.640 An angel, though.

00:03:38.700 An angel.

00:03:39.560 You have to start somewhere.

00:03:40.600 You got to start somewhere.

00:03:41.960 Yeah, but he was bad in this.

00:03:43.780 I will say, though, that, like, I will give you this.

00:03:47.240 The mayor was a great villain.

00:03:48.860 He really? 1.00

00:03:49.560 He really enjoyed the fact that he was this fucking monster. 1.00

00:03:54.020 He was afraid of germs. 1.00

00:03:55.800 Bad Giles.

00:03:56.540 he was just bad giles and i was watching it recently i'm like oh this is literally just

00:04:01.260 the dark the doppelganger of buffy and giles is the mayor and faith it's a hundred percent 0.90

00:04:07.340 i loved it all of that aside stefan joanna he is a giant worm listen literally he hates worms

00:04:17.500 what we don't need to talk about 1999 was the bad cgi my god the snake at the end was problematic

00:04:27.260 it was and i just think maybe they overshot their capacity for cgi maybe a hundred percent

00:04:36.460 a hundred percent because i just re-watched this season and i i don't know if it's the

00:04:42.620 the upgrading they did to the film or if it was just what it was supposed to look like and just 0.96

00:04:48.460 we had terrible tvs back then so we couldn't see how bad this was another thing yes crap

00:04:55.100 yes it's another thing our tv sucked in 1999 we didn't know how bad it was i think i watched it

00:05:00.940 on a 27 inch tv who has that anymore you would if you told me sarah michelle geller did all stunts

00:05:07.500 back in 1999 i'd be like yeah i can see her doing them that's her that's her that blurriness though

00:05:14.220 yeah oh like you can see her like it's so bad because in certain shots you're like

00:05:19.740 well that's not her that's a 40 year old woman graduation day part one when faith

00:05:24.700 goes against buffy it is one of the saddest moments of the entire series because

00:05:29.180 the actresses playing their stunt doubles are so clearly decades older and there are

00:05:33.900 cameraman in the shots and i'm like oh my god these stunt double is a different race she does

00:05:44.140 like it doesn't even make like if you like it like usually you try and match them

00:05:48.860 it's not even the same apparently they were like we here you are faith

00:05:53.500 why over here shorter and also like asian and you're like okay wait a minute in 1999 let's just 1.00

00:06:04.100 assume is there a shortage of female stunt doubles i hope so because they match they match 1.00

00:06:11.740 together with hers pretty well like she looks similar until you really got like a clear shot 0.96

00:06:16.900 and you're like that woman is older that's true if you can get a body double for kim kardashian 0.59

00:06:21.840 just to do fittings, you can get a stunt

00:06:23.920 double with at least somewhat the same measurements

00:06:25.920 as Elijah Dushku.

00:06:27.820 It was crazy. But I will say, for the

00:06:29.860 terrible CGI, there were some

00:06:31.880 really great moments of CGI, because

00:06:33.640 Doppelgangland, when it was Vampire

00:06:36.120 Willow and Willow,

00:06:37.460 just in the same shot,

00:06:39.800 really well done.

00:06:41.680 Yeah, but on the split screen,

00:06:43.960 that's been well done since Elvis

00:06:45.800 did it in Kissing Cousins.

00:06:47.540 When she's over her shoulder.

00:06:49.620 When she's over her shoulder and she's like,

00:06:51.180 lick that was i thought it was i thought it was a good touch it wasn't bad it wasn't bad

00:06:55.140 yeah i don't yeah that's that was that was older like uh trick of cameras and stuff i don't know

00:07:01.860 how it's just the monsters but see i'm still to this day to this day and to 2022 standards of cgi

00:07:10.480 i prefer jabba the hut being operated by 10 different puppeteers to the cgi jabber the hut

00:07:19.760 so i i still don't think we're there yet we're still not there yet it still doesn't look as

00:07:25.060 cool as it could right and that's why the makeup on buffy was so amazing because you know the

00:07:30.660 vampires were great that wasn't cgi that was makeup that that's what makes it more authentic

00:07:35.540 right speaking of jabba the hut though joanna balthazar was in this season as well oh there

00:07:42.360 oh yeah his arms it was amazing but but do do you both remember the the blooper no what do you

00:07:51.340 remember the blooper the blooper where the the the front of it opened and you just saw his little

00:07:56.020 legs it was so cute second these are my legs which is again like that is practical effects

00:08:01.980 i think it's just because they joss whedon just wanted to be like look how big and crazy i can go

00:08:07.300 we want to we literally have to destroy this chapter of their lives because for a long time

00:08:11.500 they were debating whether or not they were

00:08:13.480 just going to do a Saved by the Bell-esque show

00:08:15.440 where they're just always perpetually

00:08:17.380 in high school. But he's like, if I'm going to

00:08:19.300 destroy the school or leave

00:08:21.200 with a graduation, it's got to be a bang.

00:08:23.420 So there had to be something huge.

00:08:25.780 And the practical effects of season one

00:08:27.440 for the Hellmouth were

00:08:29.080 so bad. The puppeteering,

00:08:32.020 it was like a Muppets

00:08:33.160 Halloween episode.

00:08:36.000 No, not really. They never got better.

00:08:37.780 Really. I don't think the

00:08:39.300 CGI ever got better.

00:08:40.580 like i and i don't want to go too far into it but when we get into the hell mouth again 0.77

00:08:45.700 um i hated the cpi i'm like just hire extras god please for the love of god i want to see 0.91

00:08:51.620 a stormtroopers i want to see a vampires i want just hire them pay them they're literally you're

00:08:58.260 already screwing them over anyways yeah and just hire them to do that job you literally just have

00:09:03.380 the same ones doing this just like moving their hands when we started and this season we quite

00:09:09.620 literally start in hell now i don't think it's like i don't it's not a big jump right she has

00:09:16.020 to go through hell to get through hell so she runs away from home and she ends up in hell and

00:09:21.020 it's in hell she decides if she's gonna die there or you know if she's gonna fight what did you guys

00:09:27.640 think about that episode i think it started off i think this season started off very strong so i

00:09:33.560 think that ann which is the first episode in dead man's party which is right after were two of the

00:09:38.340 of the strongest episodes um to start off the season going forward um i think honestly that is

00:09:44.980 one of my favorite episodes of this of this season i think her re-meeting lily at or chanterelle

00:09:54.900 and still being as um dependent on the man in her life and looking for an identity of

00:10:03.940 of a strength in identity. 0.73

00:10:06.760 I think having Buffy given up hers and taken Anne, 1.00

00:10:10.660 this kind of like meek waitress,

00:10:12.520 which Joss Whedon ultimately had kind of framed Buffy over, 1.00

00:10:17.140 of like this weak blonde waitress who's a nobody, 0.80

00:10:21.200 who ends up responsible for saving the world, 1.00

00:10:24.480 was really, really great callback to the kind of origins

00:10:26.840 and seas of the show.

00:10:28.040 And I love that kind of idea of her having to

00:10:32.460 work through how to get out of it and go back to her life and be able to kind of work through

00:10:37.900 that post-traumatic stress but also have you guys also ever thought the fact that now she is older

00:10:43.600 than all of her friends because she spent a considerable amount of time where time is faster

00:10:50.240 yeah right she should have been older but it's like she only spent a day down there but the day

00:10:57.240 should have been at least a year yeah exactly yeah yeah i mean i really i really did love this

00:11:05.640 episode i i love the callback to bringing lily in so that she can remind buffy of this is where

00:11:12.220 you're from this is your calling you're supposed to help you used to help everybody yeah yeah but

00:11:16.640 i but when it comes to um uh the next episode which was um sorry dead man's dead man's party

00:11:23.800 thank you because no man's land i don't know why uh with dead man's party i don't know there was

00:11:28.040 something the one thing that i'll say that i'm a little irked by is that anytime buffy and the

00:11:34.620 scoobies have an argument it's solved within five minutes so we see it in season four we see it in

00:11:39.440 season seven actually season seven is probably the longest stretch of when they were kind of

00:11:42.720 disconnected but like season two season three and season four there's always like a conflict where

00:11:49.920 they're all at each other's throats and then within like one scene,

00:11:53.340 two scenes,

00:11:54.360 they're giddy and there's a fun,

00:11:56.800 happy track playing.

00:11:58.120 And I don't know if that was the only thing that I,

00:12:00.960 I didn't like about that particular episode,

00:12:02.880 but I thought they were both really strong.

00:12:05.580 Agreed.

00:12:05.980 And I mean,

00:12:06.700 the fact that that last shot of her holding the sickle and panning up on

00:12:10.540 her body is being the credit opener from two to seven.

00:12:14.040 Like that's, 0.83

00:12:14.660 yeah,

00:12:14.800 there's a reason this was like such a strong episode. 0.96

00:12:17.000 that moment where where the guy slaps her butt you guys know what i'm talking about yep she 0.98

00:12:23.360 slaps her butt you think that's it she's gonna take her no i don't think any single moment 1.00

00:12:29.200 showed how much she had made herself small than that and i was just like oh she's gonna take off 0.99

00:12:36.320 his head and what does she do nothing she just walks away from it and takes it i'm just like

00:12:41.000 it's amazing to me because then you start thinking of all the applications it's it's amazing to me

00:12:46.440 Now, she did go through some torment. Let's be honest. She had to kill the love of her life, having said that. It's interesting to me how from something that traumatic or that horrible that happens in your life and how easily then we can, as people, make ourselves, we have a choice, right? And the and shows it. We can make ourselves small. We can make ourselves non-existent.

00:13:11.480 we can you know give up any big aspirations of anything because it's too hard and it's too much

00:13:17.900 risk and it hurts too much or you know you put your hand in and you go play another you know you

00:13:24.120 go play another game and i think that's the powerful part about buffy because it happens

00:13:28.720 again and again and again and again so many different ways and i do have to say oh sorry

00:13:34.240 well i was just saying the thing i also really enjoy is that we're never going to touch on it

00:13:38.440 again just because it's an angel reference now but i love that um chanterelle turned lily then

00:13:43.880 anne does continue her growth and storyline in angel as the the leader of a health um a youth

00:13:51.040 center and then in season five i believe it's in not fade away which is the very last episode of

00:13:55.280 angel she still makes an appearance fighting the good fight and it's all because of what

00:14:00.080 buffy did for her and anne and i i just and what buffy did for her and lie to me so i just

00:14:04.340 i love that subtle uh just little update on her it was really fun it was really cool i just i think

00:14:11.740 but that's the best part about it is the fact that whereas buffy used the name and to be weak

00:14:18.380 and small she was able to give and to to lily to be brave and to be the powerful woman lily wanted

00:14:27.640 and saw in buffy so buffy kept her powerful name in buffy and she was able to pass on that power to

00:14:33.980 to Lily um I think with Dead Men's Party I'm going to agree to disagree with you about their

00:14:42.480 fights being very fast I do agree that usually in these seasons they are but I would say the

00:14:48.460 fight with Xander um and that sort of um his resentment toward Buffy and her her um romantic

00:14:59.420 interest continues from there like it doesn't stop and it actually is something where this is

00:15:06.960 the episode I really started like I was like oh Xander like what is going on because like even

00:15:12.560 the conversations he has where he's like throwing out a bunch of stuff about Joyce in the middle of

00:15:18.100 a party in front of all of her classmates I was like what are we doing like you're not part of

00:15:23.320 the family you can be mad at her as a friend but what you're talking about really doesn't concern

00:15:28.340 you you're not a white knight here to save all of us and make sure we all feel heard um and

00:15:34.820 and in revelations i'm sorry like i am on the i hate xander train at least for season three

00:15:40.900 because his his nonsense about angel and buffy and how much he just he will turn on her on a dime if

00:15:47.780 it has anything to do with angel in this season and it is so exhausting to the point where then faith 0.77

00:15:52.340 goes and tries to take out angel because of xander it's just on ridiculous like i just uh and then

00:16:00.640 he just but then he's like oh sorry guys i guess i didn't this is also the season where in in the

00:16:06.380 entire scooby gang's mind he is the reason that oz murdered someone like there is a point where

00:16:13.340 i might be wrong but i believe it's this season where oh it is it's um oh uh it was these yes

00:16:21.240 Beauty and the Beasts I think it was

00:16:23.080 yes it was Beauty and the Beasts where

00:16:24.940 he falls asleep

00:16:25.960 watching Oz

00:16:29.320 and then notices that the window is open

00:16:31.100 but he's so like well

00:16:32.700 oopsie tootsies and Giles is like

00:16:35.140 you were sleeping Oz got out

00:16:37.260 potentially you're the reason

00:16:39.220 someone is dead he's like shucks 0.81

00:16:41.140 oops like

00:16:42.880 that's not cute you're not cute

00:16:45.020 you're the reason that Oz now thinks he murdered someone 1.00

00:16:47.320 you're a monster 1.00

00:16:47.980 well I think 1.00

00:16:50.960 I think Stu's right. The whole white knight thing. Like I said, I think Xander is very much used 0.76

00:16:57.360 for the typical sort of old school, patriarchal, bumbling. He's very typical, so he has to be that.

00:17:09.220 He still has to represent that all the way. I don't think he ever comes to any sort of

00:17:13.800 grand revelation, to be honest with you. And Stu said that before. But I think

00:17:19.760 you know it's funny because i still think that's an important character to have even if it's in

00:17:28.100 the group because guys we're in 2022 and there's a whole bunch of xander still kicking around

00:17:33.860 running government and running the show you know what i'm saying like it's not like 0.68

00:17:38.780 it's gonna take it's gonna take civil rights after civil rights after war and i don't mean

00:17:46.200 war literally but you know well hopefully but it's going to take waves and waves and waves of

00:17:52.100 this to really move that dial again and i think he's just supposed to be symbolic of how stuck

00:17:58.440 we can be in traditional all all the crap you know what i mean for everybody um so i think he

00:18:05.140 has to stay like that can i can i have like i don't think it's sad though because you had such a

00:18:13.220 a great amount of characters in this show who all grow so much in the seven years that we kind of

00:18:21.240 follow with them um you have Buffy you have Willow who go consider through a considerable

00:18:27.100 amount of growth I would say Buffy probably um I would say Buffy has the the uh the luxury of

00:18:37.940 having the uh ability to have look beyond death and see what she has kind of lost and what she

00:18:44.860 wants to kind of bring back into her life but the rest of the characters sort of continue their

00:18:49.500 growth um throughout even Anya who is a demon who is a thousand thousands of years old you see her

00:18:56.200 progress and become more empathetic and kind of like when she goes back to being a demon in season

00:19:02.900 seven she can't do it because she's grown too much and she feels too deeply whereas i find xander

00:19:10.640 i i think my my biggest issue is xander is i agree with you i think that he does symbolize

00:19:16.860 like the everyday man but i think that's insulting to every everyday man because

00:19:24.420 it gives them it gives them no ability to grow like the the the same things that xander deals

00:19:31.820 with in season two and three you see in season seven and six and i think that's the the failing

00:19:39.140 of xander's character is that the writers didn't give him the enough enough attention to allow him

00:19:46.140 to grow outside of himself to allow him to like yes grow from all those things you said in the

00:19:52.120 last episode about his shitty family about his shitty upbringing about all of his like 0.94

00:19:57.800 low self-esteem and personal issues and all of these things kind of saying in his way we're 0.96

00:20:03.780 saying that the the everyday man was unable to do that but Oz was able to because he's supernatural

00:20:10.060 and therefore has another factor but I think the supernatural okay the supernatural is though

00:20:15.460 always the metaphor so maybe the supernatural in this way when you look at all of these characters

00:20:22.660 and all the supernatural characters, some bad, some good, some in the middle. And you look at

00:20:28.160 the why, right? The why they can make those jumps and those leaps. It's the supernatural as the

00:20:33.700 metaphor for their transition. And maybe everybody's an everyday person. Do you know

00:20:39.040 what I mean? Everybody's an everyday person. We say an everyday man in Xander. What we mean is

00:20:44.340 the person who consistently chooses not to have that revelatory experience, the person that

00:20:50.220 consistently chooses not to grow chooses not to see something and it's not to say men in general

00:20:56.740 it's just to say that you know all those other people all those other people had these things

00:21:02.480 that they that they harnessed and then stepped through his transmission his transformation

00:21:08.020 should have been is it is zeppo the zeppo in season three zeppo yeah that should have been it yes

00:21:16.520 that should have been it that should have been his but that should have been his moment to see

00:21:22.380 like he could have stepped from that or what's the other one where he deals with the dead guys

00:21:27.700 is that is the zeppo same one all right yeah right that's the moment yes well but i wonder

00:21:36.660 though it was an episode where xander stood on his own two feet and solved his own problems and

00:21:42.400 realize that what he was doing in the path that he was down the search for for um individualization

00:21:50.280 from the group and his own path this was a perfect thing to be like I do not want to be this

00:21:55.900 so where is what I do want to be and that was episode 13 and from that kind of onward it was

00:22:03.880 like they were like oh my god a great episode amazing acting this is on the way up and then

00:22:09.100 they were like except for Xander well and so here's the thing though so that actually wasn't

00:22:14.540 written by Joss Whedon that was written by Dan Weber which is fascinating because Joss Whedon

00:22:19.220 has always constantly said that he sees himself in Xander so it's almost like he doesn't have

00:22:23.760 enough confidence in that character or in himself to write him to be better but I will say that it

00:22:29.660 does give me my fan theory does have a little bit of weight especially when it comes to the

00:22:34.500 supernatural aspect of xander because i think at this point in season three because they were

00:22:39.260 looking what to do for season four five and six or at least four and five they were still struggling

00:22:43.800 as to what to do next but they were dropping little hints here and there like as an example

00:22:48.700 faith says gotta get ready for 730 which is the debut of dawn but what but what xander also says

00:22:59.100 throughout that episode is i'm the key i'm the key because buffy makes him the key he says it

00:23:04.300 multiple times so i wonder if they were wondering what to do with him because yeah because again

00:23:10.640 we we know that there was a um a debate as to which character would um would be queer between

00:23:17.180 willow and xander and ultimately they chose willow but there are so many things that they weren't

00:23:23.940 ready to to sort of evolve xander into at the end of season three that again by the time we start

00:23:29.820 season four and we'll talk about it he literally just disappears does a road trip yeah doesn't

00:23:35.100 really doesn't evolve doesn't grow doesn't do anything gets stuck in a strip club two states

00:23:39.580 over and he worked in a strip club but like isn't it interesting a gay strip club um but but just to

00:23:46.760 add but just to conclude my thing i just love the fact that dan vever who wrote the zeppo had

00:23:51.100 confidence to build xander's character and joss whedon just shut it down yeah i think that's an

00:23:56.360 amazing point i also just want to touch on something you said there because i think it's

00:23:59.540 important as well i you i often forget that this is in the the um uh the era of like you will uh

00:24:09.480 this is in the era of characters being made gay to find a way out of the character that they are

00:24:19.000 so they could basically write a whole new character and have a bridge being the sexuality

00:24:24.460 like the revelation of sexuality to make me an entirely different character and i think that

00:24:29.900 they really honestly i love willow i think willow is a great character i love the fact that she was

00:24:35.500 um one of our major like lesbian characters on television but i will play devil devil's advocate

00:24:42.460 for a second saying that with the magic she already had a way into kind of like growth

00:24:47.500 and i think that it would have worked a lot better for xander's character but i think and

00:24:52.860 and I think Joanna is probably going to do it.

00:24:54.320 Oh, yeah.

00:24:54.800 I see what you're going to say.

00:24:55.800 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:56.240 Is that I don't think,

00:24:57.560 I think we also at this point had Jack on Dawson's Creek 0.90

00:25:01.620 as the queer character. 0.94

00:25:04.120 And Jack,

00:25:05.280 Kara Smith and Nicholas Brendan look similar enough.

00:25:11.400 They do.

00:25:11.700 So it's like,

00:25:12.580 they're not going to have two out gay character,

00:25:16.760 gay male characters on the same network. 1.00

00:25:20.400 It's true.

00:25:21.900 but like it's ready for one character one character yeah just one we can just have one

00:25:27.760 we don't want to one boy one girl um two things number one it makes your your idea there stew

00:25:34.980 makes perfect sense you're right willow had a way through with her magic and she would have been now

00:25:40.540 you would have missed all the fun jokes like you go away to a liberal arts school and yada yada

00:25:44.720 i mean those are fun but but you know you're right xander could have had that transformation

00:25:51.460 that could have been his big thing it didn't need to be so it could have been way more powerful to

00:25:56.220 be honest with you you're right but here's what wasn't going to happen in 1999 um I don't think

00:26:03.080 because is Dawson's Creek on at the exact same time no it wasn't on the same time it was like

00:26:08.200 Thursdays at eight no for crying out loud I mean oh years years yes

00:26:14.800 it was part of the wv lineup yes it was felicity josh's creek buffy

00:26:21.020 like joe like so season two when he came out would have been this would have been this year

00:26:29.200 first buffy would have been season three okay perfect because here's the interesting part

00:26:34.940 about jack because i still say we have some we have some homophobia some sort of internalized

00:26:41.720 homophobia or whatever whereas it's it's still at that time if not still today much more acceptable 0.76

00:26:49.220 for women to be gay yes prettier the women the more effeminate the better we're all we are right 0.85

00:26:56.440 so it's literally a dream sequence exactly so you have those guys kissing willow and tara kissing 1.00

00:27:04.280 which by the way really doesn't happen it almost happens and then it doesn't you know it takes a

00:27:09.300 happens in response to trauma right uh oh yeah at the end of the day we don't really see

00:27:16.580 well i guess we kind of there's all sorts of inferences during the musical episode

00:27:21.300 so season six we see it in season five we see it in responses to joyce dying the bottom when

00:27:26.820 will is looking for her sweater um yeah yeah and that was like the only time too sure but there's

00:27:33.060 no sex but just a second think of no of what's his face's character off austin's creek he's the 0.99

00:27:40.660 worst gay ever i've never met somebody more repressed and more tired and more boring i'm 0.99

00:27:48.340 like i don't think the gays want you hon you are and he never changed he never changed that whole 0.99

00:27:55.300 series he never changed right to the end i'm just like i would have preferred to see pacey being 0.96

00:28:00.100 being gay he would have been at least funny oh my god joanna i think it literally where stefan 0.77

00:28:05.660 has always heard is me to complain about jack he's awful it's true he's awful but also like 0.99

00:28:13.300 i think that it's like he hates himself for the last episode then he has to die he stops hating 0.52

00:28:19.580 himself but both gay men and women can love a woman of power who's in power so having that

00:28:26.120 representation in willow was fantastic but yeah i wonder like who do you two think because they

00:28:33.340 rather than joss whedon see himself the character he's created to be himself be gay i'm just be

00:28:40.020 speculating he tear one of the most solid relationships of his entire series and create a

00:28:48.120 new one which again love tara we're not there yet so we will we will be but who do you two think

00:28:54.140 that Xander would have met

00:28:56.880 if not Anya?

00:28:58.520 Do you think there may be another character

00:29:00.720 we've already been introduced to within the first

00:29:02.480 few seasons? Or do you think that maybe

00:29:04.680 there would be a new character introduced?

00:29:07.800 I feel like

00:29:08.920 we're fishing for Larry and it won't

00:29:10.820 be Larry.

00:29:14.200 Maybe they would have just invented a 0.89

00:29:15.960 boy version of Anya.

00:29:18.900 Which would have been amazing.

00:29:20.880 They could have just brought in a demon. 1.00

00:29:22.700 Anya could have been a dude.

00:29:23.920 I mean, don't get me wrong. 1.00

00:29:25.880 Her as an actress is probably one of the funniest parts of the entire show.

00:29:29.160 I love her. Yes.

00:29:29.880 She is amazing.

00:29:30.680 Yes, McCawfield is hilarious.

00:29:32.500 He brought so much to the show.

00:29:34.700 But could it have been?

00:29:36.080 Yeah.

00:29:36.940 Larry.

00:29:37.340 Oh, I didn't even get that reference, Stu, until just now. 1.00

00:29:40.760 I mean, Larry, but all gays must die because Larry Dines is the last episode. 1.00

00:29:44.720 But here's a theory. 0.99

00:29:47.460 I mean, I was 50 years old.

00:29:48.820 It's a theory.

00:29:50.180 What do you think about this?

00:29:51.420 What do you think about this?

00:29:52.020 Because they kind of played it off.

00:29:53.740 as a um a will they won't they spike and xander no well let's just think about like they had such

00:30:02.340 a like they were always at each other's throats but like you could have flipped that on it's on

00:30:07.540 this like the script and been like you know what it's them being because he wouldn't have been

00:30:11.780 obsessed with buffy any longer which means that whole storyline with buffy would have been different

00:30:14.940 but he could have been doing it for xander you know like vampires are notoriously bisexual and

00:30:21.340 they've hinted that an angel that buffy and spike had a relationship or at least have relations

00:30:26.140 so it would have been so interesting if they instead made it about xander and spike and then

00:30:31.280 spike trying to get his soul back for xander to show that he's worth it you know what i mean

00:30:36.520 because again xander is just an everyman but he still has to have a supernatural partner

00:30:39.980 would have been really interesting i'm making fan fiction as i go

00:30:44.780 it's so so hard although i'm into the flashback i'm into the flashback i remember in one episode

00:30:54.500 it was in season seven where buffy's just like maybe you should wrestle it out with some

00:30:59.840 jello or something i don't know who she was talking about some kind

00:31:02.980 buffy angel and spike how do we do a flashback to angel and spike i'm i'm okay with that

00:31:08.680 oh yeah i don't know xander needed somebody to smack and i guess that could have happened i

00:31:13.560 i can't get around i i i can't see it ending any more perfectly than the series did 100 but like 0.93

00:31:21.480 for someone who is so against buffy being with angel as a vampire then to be such a hypocrite

00:31:28.400 and turn it about him being with the vampire i think that would have been just a lot of fun they 0.84

00:31:32.360 could have had a lot of fun with the writing anyway that's just me being crazy i'm gonna

00:31:36.880 to write fan fiction later in my diary but the thing is is that spike was too sexual

00:31:43.980 he as a person whether he was straight or gay it doesn't matter he was too sexual he had way

00:31:51.740 too much charisma to then turn that into a gay male storyline i don't think 1999 could have

00:31:59.380 handled it they wouldn't there's no way no way it would have had to have been funny it would have 0.65

00:32:04.300 had to have been campy it would have had to have been yeah you know it couldn't it they wouldn't

00:32:10.320 have handled spike you know it just reminds me like we wouldn't have got because it worked for

00:32:15.900 willow and tara but they would have made it like they would have made it something like jack where

00:32:22.460 he was like he was never with someone he was just miserable until the last episode was a flash

00:32:29.880 forward and they were like oh by the way he's now with doug and you're like what the why is he with

00:32:34.400 doug exactly like they're always like interaction with those characters it would have been something

00:32:40.380 like willow and tara we'll talk about this obviously when we get later down the road but

00:32:45.220 um everything about them is so soft it's all soft under your spell softest song in the whole world

00:32:52.860 and you know there's always candles burning somewhere they just got a kitten like it is

00:32:59.420 just so much of a stereotype. I bet they're singing.

00:33:03.380 They're probably singing right now. You know what I'm saying? Kennedy's the one that comes and

00:33:07.300 throws the season seven. You hate Kennedy? I love the

00:33:11.340 name. I hate her. I mean, here's the life was 0.82

00:33:15.240 one of my favorite scenes. Y'all aren't lesbians. That's why. 1.00

00:33:19.200 You don't know. No, no, no.

00:33:22.480 What was her name? I love her name. Yara. Anyway,

00:33:26.640 I would have liked Kennedy

00:33:29.840 if I had a breath

00:33:31.520 after the tragedy that was Tara

00:33:34.040 but it was like

00:33:35.460 11 episodes into season 7

00:33:38.400 and she was like suddenly being

00:33:39.800 licked up the neck and I was like

00:33:42.020 what about Tara in her bed 1.00

00:33:44.360 like the killer

00:33:46.020 in me is one of the best episodes of season 7

00:33:48.260 best episodes

00:33:49.700 we can't go that far

00:33:51.140 let's talk about faith

00:33:53.220 let's talk about faith

00:33:55.320 let's talk about beauty and the beast for a second because it's an important i think it's a

00:33:59.580 wicked important episode and this season also does a lot of standalone episodes that are very

00:34:04.600 and we're going to get to a couple important ones that are very culturally um specific

00:34:10.400 and judgmental and you know sort of highlighting problems within our culture and i think it does

00:34:17.520 it a bunch of times in season three and beauty and the beast is that what it's called beauty

00:34:23.040 and the beasts is the best episode for that.

00:34:26.760 Does somebody want to give like a quick little rundown

00:34:28.720 of what that episode was?

00:34:31.020 Oh, yeah.

00:34:31.480 It's basically like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

00:34:35.960 where you have basically someone who's trying to find,

00:34:42.320 make himself stronger, smarter, taking a potion

00:34:46.560 who ends up making him the most aggressive,

00:34:49.300 most monstrous version of himself

00:34:50.940 Basically, it's an allegory for an abusive relationship where the monster of this man who clearly doesn't love this woman, it's more about ownership of her, ends up in a supernatural way.

00:35:11.740 it's because of the potion it's because it's all that stuff and it's also with buffy um

00:35:18.300 the beast mean angel comes back from hell and seems to be feral and she can't decide whether

00:35:25.320 or not um he is the one he is the one who is uh beating these people to death and she leaves him 0.98

00:35:35.940 she she she chains him up so for everybody so angel comes when she stabs him he goes to hell

00:35:42.620 he goes to hell for we don't know how long an eternity he somehow gets spit back out we find 0.77

00:35:47.240 out way later and he comes back incapable of words in like growls and that's about all he has

00:35:55.160 and at the same time you have this girl's boyfriend beating the heck out of her and

00:36:01.100 killing other people because he's amping himself up. Um, and all the while Buffy's hiding

00:36:07.540 what she, cause she thinks Angel's doing it. She's pretty sure he's doing it actually,

00:36:13.540 but she's still, I'm going to protect him. I'm going to protect him. Um, I think that's

00:36:19.020 interesting. I think it's interesting speaking of an abusive relationship. I mean, we can also

00:36:24.300 look at angel and buffy symbolically being that right we isn't it in this episode where she talks

00:36:33.140 to the guidance counselor yeah yeah yeah remember because debbie was using the same one yeah and he

00:36:40.180 makes the comparison when she's kind of talking about angel he's like he wasn't the person you

00:36:45.000 thought he was anymore right and she's saying these things and he's analyzing her without all

00:36:50.880 the supernatural, and you're going, without the supernatural, it is an abusive relationship.

00:36:57.460 It is. Actually, talking to an angel is more of a perfect abusive relationship allegory than this

00:37:04.180 other couple, right? Because the height of his evil and the height of his love

00:37:10.680 is equally passionate. And we're going to get to that in a second. It drives him without reason.

00:37:18.020 and i think i think that's a really cool comparison because at the end of this all

00:37:23.880 when they solve it and they find out it's the guy and he takes she takes care of him

00:37:27.420 everybody's like well he was a monster and and she says something to the effect of no he was

00:37:32.600 just a man he was just a man who chose this um another line episode yeah and then another line

00:37:41.960 that really stuck with me is when debbie's sort of like um uh pacing on the floor and she's like

00:37:47.700 he loves me he loves me and willow says i think we broke her and buffy says she was already broken

00:37:52.660 there we go yeah because every time he came back to his senses he apologized and she took him back

00:37:58.180 even though she's gotten a beaten and i think that was yeah it was it was a really strong

00:38:02.160 because you're right buffy and angel had a very at the start had a very abusive relationship if

00:38:08.780 you really think about it without the theatricals and the supernatural but here we finally see it

00:38:13.620 happening to another couple and I'm sure a lot of the audience took note you know well it's funny

00:38:21.040 because when you're sitting outside of it and they're all sitting outside going that relation's

00:38:24.960 awful and we're going to come back to Xander for a second because Xander's the one that's like 0.98

00:38:28.440 angel's garbage angel's garbage he's always been garbage and you're just wondering if he could see 0.99

00:38:34.080 he was jealous and he had all those things but if he was outside of the relationship when you're not 0.99

00:38:38.820 drawn into the relationship and you don't feel that build and then that letdown but then that

00:38:44.180 build again you're in that trauma with them and you bought in we bought in you know the dude is

00:38:50.500 240 years old she's 16. yeah weird it's it does it and i guess now even like older because he was

00:38:59.140 in that hell dimension for like a hundred some years yeah well what is he now 500 yeah we don't

00:39:03.680 yeah also we're introduced to scott hope i forgot about him um oh yeah oh yeah i like scott

00:39:11.140 he's so cute he could have dated xander he could have though he could have dated xander and i think

00:39:18.640 that's the most interesting thing is that that character we had for three episodes and it

00:39:23.280 basically was like a series of events that basically buffy was unable to date him everything

00:39:31.780 always been wrong and she ends up breaking this his heart um you never see him again though also

00:39:40.900 i really do think that he was um a great character but he couldn't play the gay character because

00:39:46.420 he played a gay character in the original queerest folk he was justin's boyfriend after

00:39:51.540 because he was born and raised in toronto toronto yeah oh we got to get him

00:39:56.740 him on the podcast um no you're totally right and i think it's interesting because you again

00:40:04.440 he was if you could have flipped those things if we if we look at the parallels between that

00:40:11.060 broken couple and and buffy and angel he's the one that looked at her at some point and said

00:40:15.640 you're broken yeah you're not you're not okay you're broken and it's like him saying that and

00:40:22.420 all of a sudden everybody's like oh and he walked away from her like she broke his heart but he's

00:40:27.420 like no you're not okay and it's like the rest of us just think oh no but she's just it's because

00:40:33.380 he was in a hell dimension and he's allowed also the realization in this episode where um oh sorry

00:40:42.680 it wasn't this episode it was in um i think it was revelations where uh when they find out that

00:40:48.960 angel is around and the conversation that giles has with buffy because again just feeding into

00:40:56.200 the abusive relationship she's so she's so hypnotized by her love for him that giles says

00:41:02.780 to her he tortured me with a smile on his face for hours you have no respect for me or what i do

00:41:08.880 get out of my way well there we go i was just like wow because like that was painful because

00:41:14.420 for all intents and purposes giles is the father figure in in buffy's life and one of the most

00:41:19.880 stable figures in her life and will be until season seven where you know things happen

00:41:25.720 it's it's really really hard to see that that break between them but then it coming back

00:41:34.900 for her birthday um when she's helpless in that episode well no he leaves in like season

00:41:39.900 Really fun, very interesting episode was Helpless.

00:41:42.620 I mean, probably my least favorite of the season, but still very good.

00:41:47.620 Stu, I don't know what's – Stefan's mic is kind of having problems here.

00:42:03.720 Stu, I'm going to talk about Homecoming a little bit,

00:42:06.760 and uh and then we can yeah he'll come back in in a second so homecoming's just a one-off anyways

00:42:14.000 but it's yeah come on slayer fest slayer fest is great i want t-shirts to say slayer fest

00:42:20.360 there he is stephen we're just talking about slayer fest we're talking about homecoming as

00:42:25.920 a one-off like i want t-shirts and candy i mean these are um still good episodes but they're

00:42:32.600 definitely I get what Stu's saying in the sense that there's there's some one-offs like it's a

00:42:37.820 bit of a throwback to having these one-offs like Slayer Fest was highly enjoyable but what I liked

00:42:43.380 about Slayer Fest was Cordelia's strength you saw her start to transform you saw her kind of going

00:42:50.740 you have no idea who the real queen is and you're like oh I like that I like that you know so you

00:42:58.240 You saw glimmers of who she was going to become later.

00:43:01.900 I think.

00:43:13.240 I do.

00:43:14.360 I don't think like that, Stefan.

00:43:15.840 I think like you hit the nail on the head there, Joanna,

00:43:19.540 when you're saying like this season had a lot of really,

00:43:23.780 really great episodes, but I think these one-off episodes,

00:43:28.240 feel so displaced from the story that all of the character work we saw in them like Cordelia

00:43:36.040 you don't get to carry that through the next episode it almost feels like it was just like

00:43:40.920 out of time and I think like even with like um with Gwendolyn Gwendolyn Post arriving in

00:43:48.080 Revelations I love that episode I think Gwendolyn Post is such an interesting character I wish she

00:43:53.900 could have been around longer because then it would have made more sense that faith felt so

00:43:58.980 betrayed by her a couple of scenes does not a relationship make and i think we're trying to

00:44:04.720 we're building that i think we're the writers are hoping that we are feeling that faith is a lot more

00:44:12.300 broken than maybe she happens to be depicted on screen to make that any sort of attention any sort

00:44:18.700 of um kind of like poking of Gwendolyn a manipulation works on her but that doesn't 1.00

00:44:25.980 give Faith a lot of autonomy of her own like she doesn't seem to have a mind of her own

00:44:31.840 she's very swayed depending on her whims and I think yeah we can have that conversation about

00:44:37.580 trauma and that kind of looking for a safe harbor but also like Gwendolyn was a really interesting

00:44:44.580 antithesis to giles yeah it was a good foil for him very much like ethan was and i wish we had

00:44:51.060 more time with her because at the end of it it would have been a lot more of an emotional weight

00:44:57.620 if maybe we got wesley in season four and we got gwendoline for all of season three so when she was

00:45:06.580 when she was a villain or like when revelations happened we were really ready for it yeah

00:45:12.100 like she came in the beginning of it would have loved that I agree and I think they to be honest

00:45:18.820 I think Faith's character got was definitely um well a underplayed and under explored I think

00:45:27.860 I think there should have been she shouldn't have left when she did she should have been around

00:45:32.140 longer um I mean I get the whole mayor like fine there was a finality to that but at the end of the

00:45:39.680 day. She still could have come back and still been in Buffy. I would have liked to have seen 0.55

00:45:43.800 more of her, just like we talked about with Kendra, before she got there. We have all these

00:45:48.660 grand flashbacks of Spike and Angel and Drusilla and Darla. Where's Faith? Faith's a huge, huge

00:45:57.840 character. She should have been bigger. Where's her flashback? Where's her crappy parents? Where's 0.99

00:46:04.340 her? I need her thing. You know what I mean? I need every moment she was broken. How was she that 1.00

00:46:09.680 broken by the time she got to Sunnydale.

00:46:19.940 Yeah, and that's it.

00:46:29.740 Well, this is the thing.

00:46:33.560 Yeah.

00:46:39.680 like even even like the food insecurity and when she's first introduced and Buffy brings her home

00:46:46.660 to dinner and when Buffy and Joyce talk outside of the room and Faith is legitimately shoving

00:46:52.980 food into her mouth of all the plates like there's not more of a conversation I don't understand why

00:47:02.000 we had to look out and make a whole new character like Don when we had a character like Faith who

00:47:08.100 needed to be needed a sister needed a mother do you think anybody out there likes don't

00:47:14.980 no i don't think she'll track tomorrow guys guys i'm gonna be i made you know

00:47:20.980 i made anna watch all seven seasons want to know who her favorite is don't say dawn

00:47:28.020 no don

00:47:29.540 we'll talk about it in season five nobody can and i don't think the problem with people that watch

00:47:46.840 the show now so if you're a new time viewer and you're watching hopefully you're watching the

00:47:51.400 season right ahead we do these podcasts so we don't actually ruin the season but the biggest

00:47:57.440 problem i think is when people can watch this dead in a row and they don't have the pain of

00:48:05.940 finding out she had a sister and then waiting god knows how long for the net because they didn't

00:48:11.960 dissolve they didn't resolve it the next episode like it waited right it felt like two months

00:48:17.440 real time it was right it felt like it was may sweeps or something anyways and so that kind that

00:48:25.040 that kind of animosity i don't think anybody else can possibly feel i do want to mention lane because

00:48:30.400 i i also just i want to mention one thing because i want to go off which is she's the only character

00:48:36.500 in buffy in the whole buffy universe who gets an entirely entire show based on her perspective of

00:48:43.000 all the characters after she's introduced zander did zander yeah and the zeppo oh but yeah like

00:48:52.100 sorry, I'll rephrase, from a completely new character that is coming in and we're like

00:48:58.240 supposed to care immediately about this person. Sorry, Stephanie, you were saying something,

00:49:01.060 I cut you off. Because he's frozen.

00:49:05.800 Frozen. No, he's not frozen. He lost. Yeah.

00:49:09.940 You're good.

00:49:22.100 We can't, we got to wait, we got to wait to season five to talk about it, because I have

00:49:44.780 a lot, we got to wait till season five to talk about that, because there's so much,

00:49:52.100 true and the lost fate yeah yesterday i think you could have used all of like have her move

00:50:02.220 into buffy's house live with buffy's family like be part of her friends don't have the separation

00:50:07.580 you had in season three you could have used the already existing separation in season four they

00:50:12.620 all felt to have her be wooed by the dark side if you want to call it that right and then end up 0.99

00:50:19.760 leaving midway through the season for angel like probably after she switched places with buffy

00:50:26.000 because she wasn't angel before that but you could have had her on screen the whole time

00:50:30.640 yeah when she left she could have been even worse and it would have been a lot more impactful for

00:50:36.080 the series because you would have lost a character that everyone's already felt pathos for and empathy

00:50:49.760 Well, this is a question.

00:51:03.760 Yeah.

00:51:08.760 Yeah.

00:51:11.760 It's okay.

00:51:14.760 There's a shark, guys.

00:51:16.760 Don't worry.

00:51:17.760 Just fell down.

00:51:18.760 yeah exactly

00:51:22.040 Wesley's the worst

00:51:37.240 I know you love him 0.57

00:51:39.200 but he's the worst in both

00:51:40.400 he's the worst 1.00

00:51:41.680 disgusting 1.00

00:51:46.680 I can't get that out of my head 0.89

00:51:48.760 so awful it was it was so awful we are because we're gonna skip lover's walk because we're just

00:51:55.660 gonna get to the end of lover's walk and then we're gonna get to the best episode of season

00:51:59.120 three i think we can all agree because we're gonna skip lover's walk and what happens we don't

00:52:04.200 whatever happens yada yada yada xander and willow think they're gonna die so what do they do they

00:52:09.760 kiss and then all hell breaks loose right so then you have the wish and the wish i think is the 0.55

00:52:19.160 perfect episode i also cordelia is impaled in a rebar she gets a little injured because she runs

00:52:26.900 away crazy maybe there are some overreactions going on to this kiss but anyway so cordelia 1.00

00:52:35.920 gets impaled. Her life is crap. Everybody finds out she got cheated on by Xander. Uh, Oz won't 1.00

00:52:42.860 talk to Willow anymore. And then we have, we have the presence of, I'm sorry. Then we have the

00:52:52.880 presence of Anya and we have Cordelia making the wish. It's amazing. I wish Buffy never came to

00:53:00.980 Sunnydale. I wish Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale. But it's this beautiful ripple effect,

00:53:12.200 right? This butterfly effect of pure chaos, right? And you get all of these doppelgangers

00:53:21.860 because everybody's been turned to a vampire. You get my very favorite scene, and I use this to talk

00:53:28.580 about my class because you have the master who wasn't killed who is still running the show

00:53:33.600 and he's he's built a factory in order to mass produce blood from victims and he says in one

00:53:44.400 of his lines he said the most you know what does he say the most evil creation ever invented by man

00:53:52.000 you know mass production and it's just true people say to me all the time joanne if you

00:53:58.660 could change one thing about history what would it be and they're always looking to me say like

00:54:01.600 i kill somebody off and i say get rid of mass production get rid of the assembly line oh he

00:54:07.260 says the assembly line the assembly line because because of mass production leads to mass consumption 0.83

00:54:15.300 leads to destruction of everything.

00:54:17.480 And this is the perfect episode to show that, right?

00:54:21.880 But then you get hot willow in leather.

00:54:31.900 I feel like I'm going to take it.

00:54:45.300 This is the world.

00:54:49.680 Wow, it's so good.

00:55:07.220 Yeah.

00:55:11.300 It's amazing.

00:55:15.300 it's just it it is perfect it's a perfect episode it really is i like the fact that even in that

00:55:36.700 the grimness and the the the pain and torture of that episode that giles still holds on to hope

00:55:43.940 that something has to be better than this and he smashes that amulet he smashes it having no idea

00:55:51.160 what the other thing is yep but it just has to be better than the hell he's living in now

00:55:56.160 and i find it i i think first of all i would have loved anya if she had stayed evil i would have

00:56:03.480 loved her if she loved her and whatever she was just in her like done like i i imitated that way

00:56:11.860 she said it every single day. Like, yeah, right? Same. Or she's like, done. Like, I just.

00:56:22.740 Lord, no. Right? Yeah.

00:56:29.120 Nope. Nope. Angel didn't know. Yeah. He said, he goes, I was supposed to come here

00:56:36.220 and I was supposed to meet her. It wasn't supposed to be like this. So he says that,

00:56:40.100 but he doesn't know that it was a way he's not aware of the dual realities i just think he thinks 0.98

00:56:44.700 he just went to shit like we i was told to come here by the oracles or the whistler or whatever 0.97

00:56:49.740 this is a great opportunity for whistler i know you're very upset about that 0.99

00:56:56.940 what do you oh yeah yeah yeah it would have been really interesting if

00:57:14.460 yeah it would have also been really interesting if you had

00:57:19.420 faith

00:57:21.580 faith as uh the master's

00:57:23.960 uh slayer

00:57:24.780 like she was a vampire 0.89

00:57:26.840 yeah

00:57:27.840 a slayer

00:57:30.640 yeah

00:57:49.420 Yeah.

00:57:55.140 It would have been.

00:57:56.660 Yeah, you're right.

00:57:58.560 Dear diary.

00:57:59.700 I have so much more to say with this season.

00:58:02.580 We're going to have to do a part two.

00:58:04.100 I don't think we can ever get through a season in one part.

00:58:06.600 But let's get through a couple more episodes before we have to go to the next.

00:58:09.180 I really want to talk about gingerbread. 0.97

00:58:13.100 Yeah, so we're going to go through a men's because we can – 0.96

00:58:16.640 Did I get it? 0.97

00:58:18.280 Did I get it?

00:58:18.980 Yeah.

00:58:19.420 we can skip over the amends the whole the whole thing the cool things about the only thing about

00:58:25.180 amends that i think it has is obviously the discovery of the first

00:58:31.500 the first evils mentioned i kind of go that sounds stupid to be honest i'm like what's the first what

00:58:38.380 the hell does that mean the first um you know and you have the cute little christmas where angel 0.93

00:58:44.300 doesn't kill himself and it's christmas saves him how very christian this is the thing i'm talking

00:58:49.740 about too is the first evil what an amazing uber sweeping across all of the seasons evil

00:59:01.820 right but like how amazing like this is a thing this is why i had an issue with the seventh season

00:59:07.740 was we were introduced to the first evil in the third in season 10 of the third season

00:59:12.460 of Buffy yeah where was this this should have been consistent throughout it should have been

00:59:19.220 the big bad of this season as well as the mayor like the underpinning of all of these things

00:59:25.480 same in season four season four anyway but um you know and it's interesting because

00:59:33.020 the first I mean especially after Buffy was resurrected yeah but you also have like

00:59:39.600 the whole season you know what i mean yeah boom right on all of these shows like you have joan

00:59:45.720 of arcadia where like joan is talking to god who's played by a different uh character in every

00:59:51.780 single episode but it would have been really great to have that consistency that the thing

00:59:57.360 they did in season seven where they wore the faces of the characters and like played in that sandbox

01:00:04.000 of like putting people

01:00:07.920 against each other

01:00:08.800 like more and more

01:00:11.440 and I feel like Joss Whedon wrote this episode

01:00:13.220 and directed it and then it was just like

01:00:15.680 dropped, we just dropped it

01:00:17.320 he was like first evil, opened hands

01:00:19.760 into a sewer

01:00:20.760 yeah

01:00:34.000 Yeah.

01:00:55.400 Go on.

01:01:00.920 All right.

01:01:01.580 well let's get to let's get to gingerbread man before we before we pause for part two

01:01:07.420 because let's be honest there's no way we're getting through the whole and this is this

01:01:12.080 is episode 11 so the gingerbread man is the premise is the premise is they play on people's

01:01:19.840 fear hansel and gretel run home and tell everyone about the big bad witch bad people like i just

01:01:27.720 I love the fact of the mob mentality in this episode.

01:01:31.540 It's so powerful.

01:01:32.740 And I love the fact that the mob mentality is not,

01:01:38.860 it's based around the parents' fear of the kids going into the occult.

01:01:43.920 It's very much of like the occult hysteria of the early 90s.

01:01:47.780 And I absolutely love the fact that it focuses on the witches in the show.

01:01:54.440 Like you have Amy, you have Willow, who's a burgeoning witch. 0.61

01:01:56.840 you have the gay character who um little goth gay who we don't ever see again yeah but it's 0.78

01:02:05.040 it jeremy said his name so he said shame oh jeremy that's his name okay yeah so um i just

01:02:12.500 i love the fact that joyce like mother of the slayer and um i can't remember willow's mother's

01:02:19.720 name come together to create moo mother's um nice acronym mom nice acronym mom um mother

01:02:30.400 thank you but like michael um but i also think that like it's a really interesting play on a

01:02:41.120 fable like it's a really interesting way to update that and kind of like put that into like the

01:02:47.200 Buffyverse, as like, it's actually a demon who started in like 1649, or the first documentary.

01:03:04.000 What I find interesting about this, and again, I consistently relate it to society, to history,

01:03:11.540 to all those things. It is the scapegoat. It is the fear to give us control. It is, I am going

01:03:18.560 to create an enemy, so you guys can always focus on that enemy, and you're not going to focus on

01:03:24.360 the real enemy, right? You're not going to focus on this. And I'm going to redirect everything

01:03:30.780 over here. It's very Nazi propaganda. It's very every genocide that's ever happened, right?

01:03:37.380 Mass hysteria.

01:03:38.580 It's very Donald Trump.

01:03:40.360 We create a mass hysteria over here.

01:03:43.240 Oh my God, we got to build the wall. 0.96

01:03:45.240 People get all riled up at the wrong goddamn thing, right? 0.91

01:03:49.520 And there's all this anger and violence and division and all of these things. 0.95

01:03:56.320 And when you try to tackle it, it's like, well, do you just, do you like the occult?

01:04:00.860 Do you like all of these things that, well, no, but you're missing the point, right?

01:04:05.480 and that's the brilliance of the episode right the brilliance of the episode and it's always the

01:04:10.600 parents the kids always know what's up the kids aren't idiots it's always us it's it's so great

01:04:16.680 though because it's like joyce wants to to further bond with buffy she sees these kids murdered in 0.98

01:04:23.640 the park so what does she do she takes it upon herself um to she's like the kids have had this

01:04:31.720 long enough they can't control this any longer we are completely not culpable in this tragedy

01:04:38.600 it's the occult exactly what you're saying so she bands together and she ends up the solution

01:04:45.160 to their problem is killing more people yeah to protect of course angelic children sure who are

01:04:53.720 a poor apparently pure and virtuous and it's a it's a horrific crime they were murdered

01:05:00.760 but yet no one can even tell me their names or where their parents were their parents

01:05:07.480 and again we just look at today right the crime itself didn't even happen we created the illusion

01:05:15.720 of violence we created the illusion of a crime the illusion of this kind of horrific event against

01:05:22.200 children because children are the hot button issue why do you think that the republicans

01:05:27.320 spend all of their time talking about school and kids and this and that. Why? Because it's

01:05:33.640 this hot button issue. If we create the illusion and we convince enough people that the illusion

01:05:39.820 is true, then they will do everything. They will burn the cities to the ground to protect their

01:05:45.980 kids. Right? And that's what's being played on right now. 0.52

01:05:57.320 right

01:06:00.640 I'm very sweet

01:06:16.120 sure

01:06:19.760 yeah

01:06:23.140 but that's the power right

01:06:25.640 Because if I make people afraid enough and I point to something that never happened, but I convinced them that did, right, then they will, because people will literally do everything and anything to protect their kids.

01:06:42.260 And that episode should be played right now.

01:06:44.840 And we should CGI that politician's face right onto that creature.

01:06:50.320 And the moniker, the storyline is perfect.

01:06:54.180 I'm just waiting for somebody to bend over and ask if they got him.

01:06:58.900 You know?

01:07:00.360 Did I get him?

01:07:01.140 Did I get him?

01:07:02.680 Did I get him?

01:07:06.140 Did I get it?

01:07:07.120 Did I get it?

01:07:10.040 Exactly.

01:07:11.960 Who's going to be that person?

01:07:13.640 Anyways.

01:07:14.720 Well, guys, we're going to stop here at part one of season three.

01:07:18.740 We're about halfway through.

01:07:19.860 We will come back next week and do the second half of season three.

01:07:24.160 You can pretty much look forward to 18 episodes.

01:07:26.360 We're never doing a whole season in one sitting.

01:07:29.500 Who was I kidding?

01:07:31.280 Who was I even kidding?

01:07:34.220 But thank you guys so much for hanging out with me today.

01:07:37.780 I am going to put all your stuff in the bio below.

01:07:41.020 You guys click on that.

01:07:42.200 You can find out where to find Stefan, where to find Stu, and where to find me.

01:07:46.920 So we will see you next Tuesday.

01:07:49.680 Same bat time, same bat station.

01:07:52.860 Have a good night, guys.

01:07:54.460 Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - August 23, 2022

The One Where We 'Wish' We Could Make 'Amends' During 'Slayerfest' - Season 3

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