Over the course of 'Buffy''s seven seasons Joss Whedon wrote and directed 22 episodes.
Most of them the best in the series.
A few of them are some of the best episodes of television ever made.
If there is a problem with 'Lie to Me' it is that it is Whedon competing with himself.
In a list of Buffy Top Ten it would be Number Eleven.
Funny how that is the best
and the worst thing you can say about it.
I love this episode and I think that it holds a uniquely important place in the series.
Drusilla is prowling for a snack when she runs into Angel, who tells her to leave town.
"Take Spike and get out."
"Or you'll hurt me?"
I love the look of shame on Angel's face here as the torments he inflicted come back to him.
Buffy happens upon the two of them and gets all anxious.
I don't know what she's worried about.
Vampires are really hands'y.
For all she knows they're talking about the cost of rent.
Buffy introduces Willow and Xander to a new Sunnydale student,
Ford.
"Uh, Ford and I went to Hemery together in L.A.."
They meet up later at The Bronze
where Angel lies about his previous evening and Buffy doesn't call him out on it
but instead takes a passive aggressive walk with Ford.
On the walk, Ford catches her slaying a vampire.
"I know you're the Slayer."
Angel asks Willow to check into Ford and she invites him in
then finds out Ford isn't even a student at Sunnydale.
Ford and Buffy run into a pair of vampires and, while Buffy is indisposed,
Ford coerces information out of one of them.
Angel, Willow, and Xander stumble on a vampire counter-culture club that Ford is a member of.
The vampire that Ford said he killed steals one of Giles' books and Buffy realizes something is amiss.
On that note, Ford goes and sees Spike to broker a deal.
"You make me a vampire..."
"...and I give you the Slayer."
Buffy confronts Angel and asks who Drusilla is
and Angel confesses to Drusilla being the culmination of all is evil.
Buffy shudders and seems glad she'll never have to meet the man he was.
He then warns her not to trust Ford.
Buffy tails Ford to the vampire club and he seals her into it
disclosing his plan to trade Buffy for eternal life and save himself from cancer.
Ford and Buffy then have a conversation that gets to the heart of the episode.
"These people are sheep..."
"...they want to be vampires cause they're lonely."
"...miserable..."
"...or bored."
"I don't have a choice."
"You have a choice!"
"You don't have a good choice but you HAVE a choice."
Buffy tries one last time to talk some sense into the others and Ford sucker punches her.
Spike and the others enter and start feeding.
Buffy knocks Ford unconscious and uses Drusilla to bargain for everyone's safety, locking Spike in when they leave.
Ford stands up and asks for his reward and there's a strangely haunting hanging shot of Spike and Dru.
At Ford's grave, Buffy and Giles talk about the complexity of their lives
and Buffy slays Ford.
Buffy asks Giles if things will ever be simple again and asks him to lie to her.
"Yes. It's terribly simple."
Unsurprisingly, the writing is witty, sharp and purposeful.
I loved Xander's peanut gallery commentary throughout.
"But, if you guys already had plans would I be imposing?"
"Oh, only in the literal sense."
And Angel ranting about how the vampire nerds don't know anything about the life,
as a guy walks by wearing his outfit.
The final conversation between Giles and Buffy while standing over Ford's grave is achingly sweet.
The mirror theme between Spike and Buffy continues with their mutual jealousy over Angel and Drusilla.
The first time I watched the episode Spike's jealousy over Angel seemed petty, even for a vampire.
But it's something that gets explained and understood later in the series.
'Lie to Me' didn't quite land with me when I first watched it.
I felt like I'd watched something with a certain amount of wisdom beneath it but I was too distracted by surface details to appreciate it.
I felt like the episode wanted me to identify or empathize with Ford enough so that I would ask myself the question:
What would I do in his circumstances?
The problem for me was his decision was so manifestly evil that I couldn't for a second put myself in his position.
During my rewatch of the episode, one of Buffy's lines made me realize my mistake.
"Isn't this exactly how you imagined it?
"You tell me how you've suffered and I feel sorry for you."
Ironically, I think I've been stuck trying to watch the episode the way Ford had been wanting me to.
But the episode isn't about Ford or me,
...it's about Buffy.
And unlike my untested faith in my own goodness,
we have a reason to believe the things Buffy says.
She made an incredibly difficult choice in 'Prophecy Girl'.
She chose to go to her death to save others.
What is significant here is CHOICE.
While promoting 'Serenity' in 2005, Joss Whedon said he was an atheist and an absurdist.
And in the DVD commentary for the 'Firefly' episode
'Objects in Space',
he stated that 'La Náusea', by existentialist Jean Paul Sartre
was the most important book he'd ever read.
*'Buffy Season 3', Episode 8: Lovers Walk
So to grossly, even criminally, oversimplify:
One of the basic principles in existential philosophy is that the universe is completely indifferent to you.
There is NO true meaning or purpose to existence.
No finish line.
No ultimate goal.
"It doesn't."
"Doesn't what?"
"Mean anything."
"In the greater scheme, in the big picture...
"...nothing we do matters."
"There's no grand plan. No big win."
An existentialist sees that as both terrible and wonderful at the same time
as it means we are free to create our own meaning through our choices.
But not only that we are required to choose because if we don't there is no meaning.
To some people existentialism seems bleak
but there is something reassuring to know that the power to live a meaningful life rests inside each of us.
Now let's consider Buffy and Ford again.
For sure the universe is indifferent to Ford.
It has given him cancers that are liquefying his brain and Ford has said:
"I don't have a choice."
This is what an existentialist calls 'acting in bad faith.'
Individuals can never escape or have taken away their freedom to choose, even in overwhelming circumstances.
If you assume that one choice you have takes undeniable precedence over another
then you have made yourself an object in the world at the mercy of its circumstances.
To put it another way:
"You have a choice."
"You don't have a good choice, but you HAVE a choice."
This scene between Buffy and Ford could be read as a philosophical mission statement for the rest of the series.
Buffy always chooses.
Friends.
Circumstances.
Destiny.
Her life is filled with meaning and what she says to Ford will be relevant in her own life
again,
and again
and again.
Let's consider that line in context from later in the season:
Ford: "I don't have a choice."
Buffy: "You have a choice."
"You don't have a good choice, but you HAVE a choice."
VISUALLY SPOILER-Y MONTAGE FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES INCOMING! CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
In doing some research for this episode, I was reminded one of my favorite quotes.
In an interview, Stanley Kubrick was asked if life is purposeless does he feel it is worth living.
He responded:
The very meaninglessness of life forces a man to create his own meaning.
Children of course begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder,
a capacity to experience total joy
at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf.
But as they grow older the awareness of death and decay
begins to impinge on their consciousness
and subtly erode their joie de vivre,
their idealism,
and their assumption of immortality.
As a child matures he sees death and pain everywhere about him and begins to lose faith
in the ultimate goodness of man.
But if he's reasonably strong and lucky
he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life's élan.
Both because of and in spite of his awareness
of the meaninglessness of life,
he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation.
He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with
but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining.
The most terrifying thing about the universe is not that it is hostile
but that it is indifferent.
But if we can come to terms with this indifference
and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death
our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment.
However vast the darkness,
we must supply our own light.