"Oz..."
"...don’t you love me?
[sniffle]
"My whole life..."
"... I've never loved anything else."
[Willow cries]
Buffy is out hunting on campus and slays a vamp
...who has no appreciation for righteous punning.
As she wishes for a more competent adversary
...the camera pulls back in one of the best reveals of the show.
"--The Big Bad is back."
"And this time it's--"
[a shocking turn of events]
There are many many great moments in the series that act as icons for what the show does.
But this is probably one of my favorites.
The damsel’s back is turned.
The evil creature of the night lords over her monologuing,
...and then our expectations are instantly subverted.
That night, the Gang is commenting on how The Bronze is such a comfort as...
"Because The Bronze is nice and-and familiar."
"It's like a big, comfy blanky."
"--it's nice to have one place that you can come back to"
"...and...where everything's predictable."
"Hello, all."
Giles, still in the midst of his midlife crisis awkwardly shoehorns himself into the Bronze-going Scoobies.
It is positively heart-warming to watch Giles try and fit in due to his desperate need for a social life.
Onstage comes Veruca
...and again we see Oz’s clear preoccupation with her.
The next day, Oz and Willow wake in his bed.
It’s a lovely little scene.
We see such easy, comfortable intimacy between the two of them.
Willow speaks softly and plays with Oz’s arm hair.
I love his line when she’s dreaming.
“Come back to me.”
They decide to meet for lunch and the only table open is one
...with Veruca sitting there.
At first, Oz resists
...but Veruca seems open and inviting.
The two of them talk shop for a moment.
The set's starting to come together, but the amps still sound dirty to me."
“Well, what do you use?
"A 50 or a one-twenty (120)?
'Star Trek' had this thing the called "technobabble".
The writers would just put that flag in a script
and there was a small team of guys whose job it was to insert stuff that sounded convincing.
“Captain, we’ve got a problem with the warp core"
"...or the phase inducers"
[chuckling] "...or some other damn thing.”
I wondered here, if Oz’s lines occasionally had a "bandbabble" flag.
Willow shows up, tries to hang, and things become slightly awkward.
That night, Oz locks himself up for wolf time
...but the Wolf has other ideas.
Oz-Wolf chases down Professor Walsh
...who ends up in a hairy crossfire.
(See what I did there).
The next morning, he wakes up in the woods.
And Veruca’s reveal brings a hard truth for Oz.
“You know what I am."
"You’ve known since the first time you saw me.”
Veruca seems to nearly seduce Oz in human form
...and Oz manages to hold his urges at bay.
He returns to his dorm to look for news of any damage he and Veruca did that night
...and Willow shows up in a new outfit her insecurities bought for her.
She speaks as frankly to him as anyone has to that point,
...telling him that she knows she’s been overthinking things.
“Maybe..."
...you could help me"
"...stop."
"I’d really, really appreciate anything you could do.”
"That is SO..."
"...naked."
Please show me I matter to you.
Please?
And then...
“You don’t want to?”
Willow reaches out to Xander for support.
To some degree, after 'Lovers Walk',
Willow’s friendship with Buffy supplanted her’s with Xander.
Buffy, on the trail of the wolf attacks finds out Oz got out the night before.
He tells her nothing happened.
A music montage ensues
and we see Oz juggling with a significant decision.
He picks up the phone.
“So this is why you called me here.”
Oz attempts to reason with Veruca
and get her in the cage with him
...while the two of them boil in their incoming wolf hormones.
She is having none of it
...and appeals one last time...
...to the animal.
“Did you sense me?”
He succumbs
...and the next morning…
"Oh, my God."
There are so many layers to the fallout between Oz and Willow.
Her insecurities being validated.
“I knew."
"I knew, you jerk.”
Their history rearing its head
“I know how it feels."
"I remember.”
God, this is such a good scene,
carried by the characters' history together
...and two wonderful performances.
Willow reveals to Buffy what’s been going on with Oz and Veruca,
...and Buffy takes Oz hunting for her.
When Buffy leaves,
...Willow once again turns to magic.
Oz and Buffy find Veruca’s bait in the woods
...and realize she’s after Willow.
Willow can’t bring herself to complete a revenge spell.
Veruca attacks and Wolf Oz kills her before getting tranq’d by Buffy.
And then...
"What are you doing?"
No.
Not yet.
Let's come back to it.
I have to say again, working on the reviews always
...gives me newfound appreciation of the episodes.
There are a short list of scenes
and episodes in 'Buffy' that are transcendent.
That elevate beyond the show itself.
And I’ve always thought the final scene in 'Wild at Heart' was one of them.
But to me, the scene felt awkwardly paired to an episode that was beneath it.
I could never totally sort out why.
Over the course of three and a half seasons, the wolf/id stuff had been well covered
...but never really developed into anything more interesting.
None of the wolf episodes have been a favorite of mine.
“You’re a girl!”
And this episode, other than the final scene, felt a bit perfunctory to me.
A necessity given Seth Green had a movie deal he wanted to take and the producers let him leave.
This episode just happened to be where that clipping was made.
And it was done in a way I found frustrating,
and justified my frustration by saying it violated character.
Oz would never cheat.
I couldn’t really have been more wrong,
but in my defense,
...I was looking for someone to blame.
Oz’s preoccupation with Veruca has been sprinkled throughout this season,
...if a little awkwardly at times.
But the broad strokes of the episode were strongly foreshadowed
...where the Gang's deepest fears were manifested.
Oz feared he wouldn’t be able to control the Wolf
...and that he might hurt Willow.
And Willow feared that Oz would leave.
"Oz..."
“Oz, don’t leave me.”
Both of those things occur in this episode.
Within the episode itself, there is also some foreshadowing I found clever.
The opening in The Bronze very elegantly lays it out.
Willow is going on about how reassuring The Bronze is due to its predictability
...and Oz’s dialogue ties him metaphorically to the Bronze.
"Because The Bronze is nice and-and familiar."
"It's like a big, comfy blanky."
“Well, I was under the impression that I was your big, comfy blanky.”
At which point, Giles shows up at The Bronze to hang
...for the first time ever,
...suggesting that no matter what
-all things can change.
Including...
...The Bronze and Oz.
And maybe, Oz’s impulsivity and poor communication
...might not be as out of character as it seems.
Don’t forget, in 'Phases' when he found out he was a werewolf,
...rather than confiding in Willow, Buffy and Giles,
all educated in these matters,
...he tried to take things into his own hands.
Ultimately, putting Willow in danger.
In 'Beauty and the Beasts', he internalized his frustration over the Wolf
...and pushed Willow away.
“Get away from me.”
In reality, his decision to call Veruca to the cage instead of Willow
...has been pretty well set up over the course of Oz's time on the show.
Oz feels ashamed of the Wolf.
It’s also possible he’d just planned to lock Veruca in there with him.
Earlier in the episode, Buffy even suggested she might capture Veruca and bring her to him.
And Oz believes he can control or ignore the id.
"I'm only a wolf three nights a month."
“Or you’re the wolf all the time"
...and this human face is just your disguise.”
That it is separate from him,
...not a part of who he is.
And then, his id consumes him.
You might say, he’s become an object in the world at the mercy of its circumstances.
“She was gonna hurt somebody."
I didn’t have a choice.”
“But you did."
"Y-you could’ve told somebody.”
“You don’t have a good choice, but you HAVE a choice.”
The philosophy is always present.
So I think I have revised my feelings about this episode.
I think it’s kind of brilliant.
It’s just very hard to watch the ones you love doing wrong.
But dear God, do I appreciate the show’s willingness to go there.
And once again, we see Willow resorting to magic to try and manage her feelings.
At this point,
...a well established pattern.
She stops herself
...but it’s significant to note that making the right decision
...doesn’t bring her any relief from pain.
"Oz?"
In fact,
...Oz leaves.
The episode is also significant in that Whedon and company decided
...it didn’t need to relate to Buffy
either directly or metaphorically,
...a rare occurrence for the show.
In the DVD commentary for the episode, Whedon said they spent time trying to figure out how it would tie to her,
and
...finally
...decided it wasn’t necessary.
Buffy could still be strong and save the day
but ultimately,
...the episode was just about Oz and Willow.
And that was enough.
As stunning as the final scene may be,
as beautiful and poignantly acted,
...that really may be all there is to say.
There is no subtext.
No hidden meaning.
This moment...
... is not for us.
It's for Oz and Willow.
['Willow and Oz']
[Willow restless]
"It's a dream."
"Come back to me."