Given where we’re headed in terms of content,
'Five By Five' with 'Angel'
and 'Restless'
and 'Buffy Season 5',
it behooves me to attack my resistance to getting this particular review done.
'Where the Wild Things Are' is a regular staple on 'Buffy' worst-of lists.
But I don’t think it should be put in the Top 10 Worst by any stretch.
'Doomed' was technically broken
and it’s bad-episode moment of redemption,
which I’ve argued ANY episode of 'Buffy' has,
wasn’t REALLY better than the one in 'Where the Wild Things Are'.
But booooy is 'Wild Things' a mess.
Let me see if we can distill something from the chaos.
Buffy and Riley are out patrolling when Buffy pretty much sums up what the episode is like for us the audience.
"Ok,"
"...you get Fang."
'I'll get Horny."
They return to the frat house to...
...bangarang each other.
There’s a long tracking shot of the frat with ominous music to suddenly suggest SOMETHING is afoot.
Even though we’ve had this set for 18 episodes now.
Riley gets up for a shirtless wander and nothing happens.
After his brief stint as a pizza delivery guy,
Xander is now driving an ice cream truck.
There are a couple of really fun details to this scene.
The music from the truck is written in a minor key
and sounds to me like a variation on the 'Halloween' theme:
[ice cream truck music]
['Halloween' theme]
[ice cream truck music]
It’s effectively unnerving and introduces the idea into our subconscious that something creepy might be going on.
And it does so much more elegantly and creatively than the previous on the nose tracking shot shot through the fraternity.
I also noticed on the dashboard a toy from the...
...GIANT INSECTS COLLECTION.
At this point, the Xand-man must have some seriously WEIRD fetishes
The two of them missed an evening of sexy time and Anya thinks it’s a herald for the end of the relationship.
It’s likely that being a vengeance demon didn’t give her an overly positive perspective
...on love’s staying power.
Good thing she’s with dependable Xander.
Xander traumatizes some children.
The Scoobies sans Xander are debriefing Giles over the events of the previous evening
...and tell him there’s a party tonight.
Oddly, I kind of admire Riley drawing the line with Giles that the party will go on.
"At a time like this?"
"Who, well, whose idea was that?
"Mine."
"Boys are pretty ragged, need to let off steam."
"Point taken."
That evening, Buffy and Riley are at it again
...which causes...
...a supernatural event in the living room.
More on-the-nose metaphors for watching this episode.
Spike has been scaring people into giving him money and he fails with Anya.
"Oh, now come on."
"You’re not even bumpy anymore."
Spike and Anya don’t have many scenes together
but when they do the two of them have some terrific chemistry.
Back at the party, one of the snobby dorks from 'Beer Bad'
who is hitting on another party goer,
touches a wall and...
...has an orgasm,
after which the woman he’s with has a dramatically understated reaction.
Of course, as this is a group of highly trained military men
the dude brings the matter up with Riley IMMEDIATELY
...and shuts the party down.
I’m just kidding.
He invites more friends to touch it,
...not warning them to bring a change of shorts.
You can argue that the soldiers were spell drunk,
but the drunkness strikes me as perfectly convenient for the plot
as Spike, Anya, Xander, Forrest, Willow and a number of other people
...still seem untouched.
And yet, there’s a large group of people standing around here
...watching each other set off fireworks in their pants.
Having had a fight with Anya, Xander starts hitting on another woman at the party in front of the trophy case.
Anya shows up with Spike
“Anya, this is crazy."
"We had a little fight."
"It just means that we have to work our way through some stuff."
"It doesn't mean that we rebound with the evil undead.”
You were JUST
hitting
on the redhead at the trophy case.
We’ll just sum up a big chunk of the next few scenes by saying...
...wacky,
sexy,
haunted
hijinx ensue.
This woman has like fifteen turns on the wall.
Jeez, lady.
Don’t be a selfish waller.
Kissing Xander makes the redhead want to cut off her own hair.
Etc.
etc.
The Scoobs try and rouse Buffy
...but she and Riley are unreachable.
This shot showing their magical and sexual isolation
is on the short list of things I REALLY love about this episode.
It’s haunting
and beautiful
and something I remember when I think about the series,
...even when I can’t remember much about the plot.
The Gang goes to find Giles for help
and, in the midst of this ridiculous episode,
...we get one of the greatest scenes in the series.
[I have hours,]
[only lonely]
“Now I remember why I used to have such a crush on him.”
(record scratch)
[Flashback Guide music]
Faith tries to alleviate Giles' jealousy.
"If I'd have known they came that young and cute I would have requested a transfer."
“Raise your hand if 'eww'."
There’s a great detail here.
Buffy and Xander both raise their hands.
And Willow doesn’t.
Did you notice the picture of Willow and Giles together in her locker in 'Season 1'?
[Returning to your Guide already in progress music]
Bit of research and it turns out the frat used to be an orphanage
run by an anti-sex religious type.
Turns out the haunting was caused by the masturbatory urges of the adolescent orphans
...that were suppressed by the old lady.
Gross.
But I...
GUESS...
you can hear some of the 'Season 1' and '2' themes in this one,
...albeit confusingly inverted.
It's....
i...
...it’s just a mess.
They perform a spell to sap the sexy mojo.
Anya wakes up Biley
...and everything returns to normal.
'Where the Wild Things Are' is named after the Maurice Sendak book by the same name.
In the story, a child is sent to bed without dinner for refusing to take off his wolf costume.
He ends up in a mysterious jungle where he is so ferocious,
the actual monsters known as Wild Things name him king.
However, he starts to feel lonely
and returns home to find dinner waiting for him in his bedroom.
Sendak has said that the term "Wild Things"
was inspired by the Yiddish term,
"Vilde Chaya",
...used to indicate “boisterous children”.
So in this one,
you have the connection to the book through the jungle
and the children
along with the double entendre of Riley and Buffy being horny wild things that can’t stop wombo comboing each other.
It’s all very weird,
tacky
...and a little gross.
Something feels off about naming an episode fueled by mediocre but neverending college sex
...after a children's book.
Anyway, I believe that's the framework of this one but...
...whoooo boy does it not really come together into anything interesting.
I’m not entirely sure how the...
...sexy
...sex
...sexxing
...applies to the season’s themes
because the episode is somehow both
pro
and anti-sex.
There are a lot of good lines
and wonderful bits from characters that the writers obviously know flat by now.
But the episode amounts to those characters being entertaining
...while they wander around inside a plot that never really finds itself.
It's interesting that if you removed the necessary details of the episode’s plot COMPLETELY,
whatever was left would be
...all the good stuff this one has to offer.
With the exception of the bedroom shot.
And most everything else would be tedious and uninteresting.
Including some
very,
very boring sex between Riley and Buffy.
“You’re too far away from me.”
NO, HE'S NOT!
That same bi-section would also apply to 'Doomed',
...which I find even more egregious than this one
by virtue of its technical issues.
There are a few good musical cues here,
but the fact that many of them are reused from better episodes that I’d rather be watching
...like 'Helpless'
actually take me out of this one more than pull me into it.
Maaaaybe you can read some religious symbolism in the thorns that keep Buffy and Riley doing the thing with all their stuff,
and the rigid old testament religion of the former orphanage overseer.
But anyway we try and examine it,
...this one still ends up being kind of a hot piping mess.
The show isn’t afraid to retread the same topics from time to time
and occasionally revisiting ideas from different angles
develops those ideas farther
or generates surprising results.
But we’ve already covered the haunted house genre this season
with the much more engaging episode,
...'Fear, Itself'.
The idea of using a haunted house to
explore the individual fears and personalities
of the Scoobies directly
...was clever
...and...
...kinda beautiful.
'Where the Wild Things Are' on the other hand…
[orgasm]
"Whoa."
[spooky orgasming]
(sigh)