Listening to Fear is part 2 of this seasons odd bleak trilogy and,
while there are a couple memorable bits, really overall...uhhh…
27:30 Dawn: I hate it. ...that pretty much sums it up.
The episode opens with the girls keeping mom company and stealing her jello. Joyce
is post-diagnosis but pre-surgery, reminding us of where we left things after ‘Fool for
Love’ and ‘Shadow.’ Buffy tells Joyce that Riley and the gang are out covering for her on patrol
but the gang is kicking undead tuckus without him. For some reason Willow's outfit stands out to me
here. Neither "young nerdy" nor Mayor of Wicca-stan. Sans Tara,
perhaps she doesn't bother? She just looks like a plain old adult that could almost be Giles' date.
Turns out Riley was...someplace else. Willow stops by for a gift-i-vus
with the Summers’ and Joyce has a… 6:30 “I’d rip it in half and stick
it in bed with me…” ...moment.
Another of Glory’s victims has a momentary fixation on Dawn. Resident Ben notices.
Willow and Tara share one of the episode’s two major highlights -- a behind-blue-eyes
type-of-moments that I’ve noticed a lot of fans remember but seem to forget what episode it’s in.
As the two cuddle, Kal El’s distant cousin, Darin, crashes to earth and kills Glory’s
brain wipe victim from earlier. The gang investigates the ceiling turd with a face
and discovers the murder. Riley sends them away and calls the government because what season 5
really needed...was a return to the authenticity and realism of the Season 4 military stuff.
Buffy gets everyone home and makes the room pleasantly dark for Joyce and Godzilla’s tapeworm.
The gang is doing research at the University Library Astronomy section, a set I only remember
from this one episode, which is surprising because this is really kind of a neat prop.
Willow: The most recent meteoric anomaly was the Tungusta blast of 1917.
Oddly. The Tunguska (as opposed Tungusta) thing in Russia she’s referring to actually happened in
1908. I say odd since the Bolshevik revolution is what actually began in 1917 and the gang figures
out the demon is a queller demon summoned to quell the rising tide of Glory’s victims. Quell
is a term often used in reference to rebellions. Such a specific crossing of the timetables feels
curiously deliberate. Then again, in the Buffyverse where there are vengeance demons
granting wishes all the time, who knows if these events might have been altered slightly?
The gang wonders at who summoned Satan’s dingleberry.
At home Joyce is in full on talking to herself mode. Buffy puts on some
groovy tunes to drown her out and starts crying. Cut to a truly unnerving scene in Joyce’s bedroom
where what-the-orc-ate-last-night falls on Joyce and tries to kill her. Dawn comes to Mom’s aid.
Buffy hears the fight at the last minute and saves the day with Spike who is once again, and unlike
Riley, in the right place at the right time. And the episode ends by revealing to us that
Ben was the one who summoned the Joss Whedon, and Joyce knows that Dawn is not her real daughter.
‘Listening to Fear’ is probably my least favorite episode of Season 5 but Season 5 is so good that
means that bar is somewhere in the realm of, “It’s just pretty all right...it’s okay...it’s fine.”
I mentioned that there is a sort of informal dreary trilogy of episodes here in the heart
of an otherwise inspiring season 5 and this one picks up in the trilogy where ‘Shadow’ left off.
It feels like there is a LOT going on, from Riley’s continued emotional descent,
to Joyce’s awareness of Dawn, to that lurvly scene between Tara and Willow,
to Sarah Michelle Gellar’s beautiful moment in the kitchen. On the surface,
it’s all very busy and interesting but ‘Listening to Fear’ feels like it has that occasional Buffy,
cart-leads-horse problem where the plot feels invented to carry a theme and some
symbols that were constructed well in advance. Glory has victims that are capable of detecting
Dawn - the military has geiger counters to detect the monster. Joyce’s illness and Buffy caring for
Dawn fit the show's allegory of growing up, crossing into a stage of life where we might
have children of our own or our parents, who raised and cared for us, now needing us to
do the same for them. Etcetera etcetera. I’ll just let it burn scene + hospital bed
But the thread trying to stitch all of those disparate elements together is a crushingly
heavy handed X-Files derivative tale about the search for a killer snot monster from outer space.
“I did not say that.” There is some self-awareness
of the connections. ‘Tungusta’ is the title of a pretty memorable X-Files episode directed by
Kim Manners from Season 4. Oil falls on Mulder's face
Snot on Joyce’s And the queller bears a
resemblance to the flukeman played by Darin Morgan in Season 2’s episode, ‘The Host.’
Pretty much everyone in the late 90s was borrowing from ‘The X-Files,’ so no big.
The problem is we know from Buffy Season 4 that neither of the show’s strengths
are authenticity with science fiction or shadowy government intrigue.
Buffy’s is way less way with the... “We start with the basic mobilization patterns.
Sweep and search just like practice.” And the
“This is your objective. Sub-T number *nobody-cares.”
And way MORE with the “Buffy I can’t take you
with me.” - “You’re not taking me with you. I am going and I’m letting you come along.”
And the “Oh. Yes. I am a lesbian.”
And whenever they go back to this particular well which, mercifully, isn’t all that often,
I can’t help counting the seconds until the next magic spell or dancing demon.
Dancing demon? Wait...something isn’t right here.
Whatever. The result is that the episode’s plot feels like a slog compared to the arc’y bits.
In terms of dramatic weight, Joyce’s illness carries absurdly more for us than the monster
business but this one wastes so much time in silly scenes where I’m sitting there thinking,
"...how in the HECATE has no one noticed that stupid ceiling turd with a face?"
And, ignoring the one-off plot, the through-line stuff is fine but none of those elements
really get moved along by the episode. The inversion of Buffy and Joyce’s relationship
gets mostly dropped after this one and the only development otherwise is Dawn starting to suspect
something’s up. This feels like 10 minutes of interesting holding-pattern material,
all very clunky and repetitive. “You’re nothing. You’re a
shadow. I don’t know how you got here.” Yeah. We get it, guys.
‘Listening to Fear’ also contains a heavy dose of some of Buffy’s fifth season that is aging poorly.
And that is this season’s portrayal of mental illness. Now, before anyone gets
surly with me and tells me it’s an old fantasy show and I should lighten up,
let me make my usual acknowledgments: these are not indictments. Historical context matters and
that is one of the reasons the term ‘dated’ exists. BUT part of celebrating what works
and we still love today means acknowledging what doesn’t, not simply pretending it doesn’t exist.
There’s a simple acid test for this sort of thing: Does the story give the controversial
issue or historically marginalized group the same sort of relative human value,
dignity, or justice it normally provides it’s main characters?
The Buffyverse can be pretty good about this kind of thing. Already in Angel’s season running
parallel to this one we had Judy and Bethany’s stories. Both were shown to have agency and value.
Examples where the Buffyverse got this wrong might be the text
ignoring the sexual violence committed against Riley by Faith in ‘Who Are You?’
Even going so far as implying he had some responsibility for his own assault.
Or the twins that were sleeping with magic-mojo Jonathan in ‘Superstar.’ Everyone including Xander
being attracted to Jonathan is humorous until the episode literalizes it with the twins. The
twins are even used for humor again at the end of the episode when Jonathan pitifully tells Buffy
as though she is supposed to feel bad for him. “The twins moved out.”
This specific repetition of the ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ or ‘16 Candles’ ignorance of consent is
so odd because two seasons later the show revisits almost exactly the same scenario
WITH Jonathan but does so with strikingly different results.
So, the question remains, does the episode give the
issue of mental health and the people affected by it relative human value,
dignity, or justice? Well, Joyce’s bout of aphasia does feel gritty, unpleasant,
and real. There are a couple of nice moments here and there where Buffy supports her sister.
Aaaand that’s about the only positive thing I can say about this portrayal. On the negative
side you have the fact that the symptom comes completely out of nowhere and is never seen again
after this episode. The season is playing with the idea of sanity as an element to its theme...
27:00 “I think there’s something that happens in people’s brains when something’s wrong. It’s
like a short circuit. And it makes them feel like nothing’s real except for them.”
...but, ignoring that, this all seems to exist for a bit of unpleasant drama in a single episode.
Buuuut this discussion feels like an exercise in profound subtlety in comparison to the episodes
most damning bit, which is the fact that Mr Butthole-Chin the Intern MURDERIZES six
human beings by summoning the queller demon - the trail of brain sucked victims that Glory has been
amassing. Now...surely this will come to light right? Remember when Faith stabbed one teency
weency little government employee, by accident no less, and we had to endure a couple of episodes of
Buffy being all like, “Waaaaanh morals and stuff waaaaaaanh.” SURELY, Ben gets the same treatment?
Or receives some kind of justice specifically for the fact that he murdered six people?
Castle: “Spoiler alert.” He doesn’t.
Dawn: 27:30 “I hate it.” Foxhole-face’s transgressions are
immediately forgotten by the next episode and there are EVEN points in the upcoming season
where we’re expected to either like or feel bad for him. Ben. Who here murdered six people.
Returning to our test, the reason why that is is because none of the six
are just considered people by the script. They’re just quote unquote “crazy.” Expendable.
Still though, as with any episode of the show, there is an unforgettable moment or two. From
the aforementioned Tillow warm fuzzies to Sarah Michelle Gellar's breakdown in the kitchen. I’d
always thought the tune on the radio Buffy turns on was especially odd. After all the show has used
many popular tunes by this point, and this seasons score by Thomas Wanker has been cinematic and at
times, beautiful. But this song is so different. The same bits over and over and over over again.
Usually episode titles allow for a couple of different interpretations. We discussed in the
previous, how Riley has been listening to his own fears about Buffy for a while now, and those fears
have been shaping his perspective on the world - vectoring the shape of his downward spiral.
*tune fades in slow over the next paragraph. Earlier parts of the season felt so comforting
in the ways they represented the day in day out stability
of familiar life. But shadows can creep in when we aren’t paying attention. A moment ignored because
you told yourself you'd get back to it when there was time. A test. Things unaddressed begin to
pile up. And that whisper of fear becomes a hum. Joyce may not get better. Buffy doesn't love me.
What am I? I want to be the baby...I have a shadow Eventually that noise becomes the loud cacophonous
weight of the world that can’t be ignored as we come crashing
into that destination that now feels...inexorable. Inevitable.
Despair.