My 64th least favorite Buffy episode of all time:
Season 3, episode 4.
Written by Marty Noxon.
When a student is found, shredded to pieces, in the Sunnydale woods (there's everything in Sunnydale!) the main suspect that pops to mind is werewolf Oz, but what if it's actually Angel, who came back from hell, all beasty and rough around the edges?
Well, it turns out to be neither of them.
The difference between 'Buffy' and, let's say, 'Charmed' is pretty simple: in 'Charmed', there's a monster the show centers around every week. Monster of the week, you might decide to call it. On the side, the characters are sometimes going through some things, mostly between encounters with said monster. In the end, the monster is defeated, never to be heard of again. Oh, good old reliable 'Charmed'.
In 'Buffy', there's usually an underlying theme for the episode. It could be 'everybody's lonely', or 'interaction between people is fucked up' or the ever so popular 'life sucks'. After the theme has been established, the writers are looking for ways to bring it to life. Often, they turn to using a corporeal villain that is a corporeal metaphor for the psychological problems our heroes are facing. Monster of the week, you might decide to call it. Unlike 'Charmed', the monster is not really important - it's just there to magnify the character's dilemmas. And the comparison between the message and its metaphor is done subtly and delicately.
But when watching "Beauty and the Beast", a rare thing happened: I felt like an episode of Buffy was hitting me on the head with its metaphor. And it, like, hurt. It left a huge bump on my forehead. "All men are beasts", Faith said. And what better way to show that all men are beasts, then to show men who are beasts? About five of them, in all shapes and sizes? Somehow it seems like we're getting into 'Charmed' territory here.
Why isn't the analogy successful? Let's look at the main three suspects (ignoring Xander and Scott Hope who were linked to the analogy, but weren't really explored in that way).
The Oz Beast.
Here we face the same problem we faced in "Phases" - who cares if Werewolf Oz eats babies three times a month (I mean, except for certain dingoes). Werewolf Oz has nothing to do with Oz Oz. They just happen to share the same body. Again, the conflict is external (how can we keep me locked up in a cage for a whole night?) and not internal (how am I gonna keep myself away from me?). When dealing with Oz, they should've learned something from the way J.K. Rowling handled Lupin.
I'll expand on that when we get to "Wild at Heart" and "New Moon Rising".
The Angel Beast.
This ridiculous treatment of Angel's storyline is ridiculous and can only be described with the adjective "ridiculous". Yeah, sure, brooding, contemplative Angel returns from Hell as an uneducated wild animal. That makes sense and not at all done for the purpose of this episode's ongoing theme. And it happens to get solved within 42 minutes. How convenient. It belittles the tragic relationship he has shared with Buffy until that point.
The Pete (was that his name?) Beast.
It showed us what a man is capable of at his worst. They tried to make us care by establishing a previous friendship between Pete and Scott Hope, but since we don't really care about Scott Hope, that goes down the shitter.
The abusive behavior men sometimes can't help but impose on their love interests is an important subject, but a show like 'Buffy' usually deals with such important subjects with gloved hands, not with iron fists. A few years later, the spinoff 'Angel' handled the subject much better with an episode named "Billy".
High point: I liked Buffy's counseling session, and the scene in which she talks to the counselor's corpse still holding the cigarette. It hit all the right spots without trying too hard.
Low point: I hate it when Xander gets mistreated, and in this episode it happens again. Giles is furious with Xander for falling asleep during Oz Watch, but when Buffy does it, it's perfectly reasonable, so reasonable that it doesn't even worth a mention. So unfair. Makes my blood boil.
Quality Quote:
XANDER: Not to freak. I rested my eyes now and then.
That's all.
GILES: How long... *exactly* did you... rest your eyes for?
XANDER: A little now, uh, a little then. But I never heard Oz leave, and he was here in the morning when I, um... when I...
GILES: (angrily) WOKE UP!
XANDER: You could put it that way if you want to, Mr. Technical.
Return of the Riddle:
Sunnydale is not well-known for its African-American residents. Name six other black characters that appeared in the series. Partial answers would not be accepted!
I totally forgot about Ashanti. lmao.
