Episode 7’s are normally the igniting point for the season’s arc but Season 5’ is
a little bit different.
As the pattern goes typically, the early episodes are concerned with cleaning up odds and ends
from the previous season and then rolling out some of the themes through various character
bits.
But...perhaps since ‘Season 4’ was so unusual, both in where the arc ended up and
with the one-of-a-kind conclusion with ‘Restless,’ ‘Season 5’ changes things up slightly.
Yes, this season’s spectacular Episode 7, ‘Fool For Love,’ (one of my favorites
in the entire series) provides a ton of important nuance for Season 5’s themes but it is ‘No
Place Like Home,’ which really propels the season 5 arc into motion.
Brutal, lovely, wonderful ‘Season 5’.
And all its Glory.
Summary The episode opens with a flashback to two
months earlier, with a trio of monks running from a force unseen and speaking o each other
in Czech about protecting a Key.
In the present, Buffy stakes an e-normous vampire - more evidence, as with the rest
of this season so far, that she has this slaying thing down to a science.
A security guard stops and hands her a shiny looking bauble that was on the ground.
The next morning, Dawn and Buffy are still squabbling a bit and we come to discover that
Joyce’s symptoms have come back.
Once again, I am astonished at how grounded and realistic the Summers’ family chemistry
feels.
Dawn and Buffy seem like they’ve been squabbling over their stuff for years, not four episodes.
And Buffy is jealous over the connection Joyce and Dawn have been developing since she’s
gone off to college.
5:00 “You guys have a book club?”
It’s opening day at The Magic Box and Buffy never let’s Giles have any fun.
(4x04) “Happy Halloween!”
Willow, on the other hand.
7:30 “Giles!
Where’s your hat and cloak?”
Buffy shares the glowy babule with the group and Giles offers his wizened insight.
G: Appears to be paranormal in origin.
W: How can you tell?
G: Well, it's so shiny.
X: Can you believe the Watchers Council let this guy go?
Back at home…*sigh…Joyce...has...a...headache.
And Buffy heads to the hospital pharmacy and runs into Ben who is tending a disturbed man,
strangely not unlike the guy that spoke to Dawn in ’Real Me’.
“Radioactive spider bite?”
I always love a Spider-Man reference as Buffy shares more in common with Peter Parker than
any other superhero.
It’s the security guard from the glowy bauble factory that the Buffster ran into earlier.
And,at said factory in question is one of the monks.
A giant metal door he’s standing by buckles revealing the terrifying, beastial…
“I have been looking all over for you.”
...Glory.
1.
Yes, no one says her name in this episode but, unlike the Host, it was in the shooting
script and there is nothing lost in the reveal, so you know...for the sake of simplicity.
GLORY interrogates the Monk while speaking in riddle but, as with any Buffyverse...verse
there is truth hidden inside.
15:30 “Like there’s something deep inside and it’s swelling up and making me crazy.”
After becoming a little...uh...unglued, she fingers another security guard’s brainy
bits and seems fine.
Though HE isn’t.
Buffy suspects someone has cast a spell on Joyce and Anya explains that magic tends to
leave a fingerprint which you can see with the right kind of trance.
Buffy gets all trancified and discovers that the only traces of magic in the house are
from…
25:00 “Who said you could come in my room?”
“You’re not my sister.”
What.
a.
cool.
reveal this was the first time through.
I always thought it was so neat just letting Dawn hang as though she’d always been there
for 3 episodes, leaving us all scratching our heads.
It felt like a really special piece of fantasy.
We got to find out when Buffy did.
In fact, when I watched the first time, Dawn had been around long enough that I had just
acclimated to her.
“WHO IS..wha...I...okay fine…”
Such that when trancetacular Buffy found no magic fingerprint on Joyce but looked past
her to see a flicker-pated Dawn in the picture, I almost jumped out of my seat.
“FINALLY.”
Giles has a finger on what the glowy bauble is for.
28:30 “The Dagon Sphere was created to repel that which cannot be named.”
*Voldemort cut In the yard, a strangely docile Spike calls
the Slayer something to her face he uses very rarely.
30:42 “Hi Buffy.”
Her name.
There was that one time when he was engaged to her thanks to Willow’s spell.
“BUFFY!”
And ‘Out of My Mind,’ when he was about to have his super sexy dream about her.
But here, she notices.
“No one has time for this, William.”
Buffy returns to the factory, gets her butt handed to her by Glory, and saves the monk
who reveals to her what Dawn is.
38:30 “We had to hide the Key, gave it form, molded it flesh, made it human, and sent it
to you.”
“Dawn.”
So the Monks were protecting an energetic key that Glory wants and made it into Dawn
so Buffy would protect it.
39:30 “She’s not my sister.”
“She doesn’t know that.”
Somehow, this guy's little performance does (for me) a wonderful job of fostering empathy
and compassion for Dawn while also providing a MAJOR piece of exposition.
Buffy returns home in a more compassionate mood.
B: “I'm sorry, okay?” D:
“Broken record much?”
B: “You can't even take an apology.
You ALWAYS do that.
Ever since…”
Also, SUCH a cool moment, that Sarah plays beautifully.
This is a magical piece of fantasy but Sarah and Michelle's performances make it feel SO
grounded and human.
“Buffy...what’s wrong with Mom?”
UGH.
Review It has taken me a little to understand why,
but I have found this early ‘Buffy’ season a little challenging to review.
As I mentioned in ‘Out of My Mind,’ the show has become so successful at turning itself
into an arc-series and, until we get to ‘Fool for Love,’ this stretch of episodes almost
feels to me more like one single cohesive unit, with some occasional hijinx thrown in,
rather than a set of five very distinct memorable episodes.
It all has a very gentle feel.
Maybe even a little (and I DON’T mean this word as a pejorative) soapy, at times.
The familiar and easy breath of everyday life in Sunnydale.
Take, for example, ‘The Replacement’, where the demon Toth appears unheralded, splits
Xander in two, and disappears for most of the episode until he can be easily dispatched
close to the end.
The rest of the episode is a character study.
Love.
Relationships.
Entrenched fears and insecurities.
I think it’s all been brilliant - I’ve even found love for boy band Drac and the
pink pants.
And, I actually kind of love ‘Days of Our Sunnydale Lives.’
Plus, this season has already given us a few all time classic fan favorite lines:
“Out.
For.
A. Walk.
Bitch.”
It’s all very...pleasant.
I think it has just taken me a little bit of time to accept that a change in the show’s
style inevitably means some alteration to my own during these kinds of stretches.
All of that said, ‘No Place Like Home’ gives us some terrific moments in this season’s
developing arc.
We only get a tiny continuation from the previous episode’s cliffhanger but Marsters makes
every second of it count, as Spike is obviously grappling with the implications of his dream
about Buffy.
31:00 “Satisfied?
You know, I really hope so because God knows you need some satisfaction in your life besides
shagging Captain Cardboard and...I never really liked you anyway and...nd you have stupid
hair.”
When you consider Spike over the course of the show, Marsters’ emotional range with
the character has been terrific and will only gotten better.
Hangabout Riley’s continued pointlessness gets called out in this one by Dawn.
8:05: “You can’t patrol.
Buffy said.”
Buffy attempts to compensate by bringing him along for a spell in which he’s totally
unnecessary.
21:25 “So you need me to light incense and pour sand?”
“Magic...incense...and SPOOKY sand.”
Since I’ve harped mostly on Riley’s end of things for the past couple episodes let’s
shift focus for a minute.
An INCREDIBLE number of changes occurred since they started this relationship, a relationship
that Buffy wasn’t really interested in because she didn’t want another super-honey but
a Joe Regular...and now that Riley actually IS a Joe Regular, it has started to appear
that she’s mostly interested in keeping him at bay.
They’re not really talking about anything.
Since Riley quit his job... *punch.
...the extent of their intimacy appears to be almost purely physical.
Yes, Riley has no life and is probably currently making Buffy the central focus of his, but,
other than their conversation in the cave when actual life and death was on the line,
it almost seems like Buffy has been treating their physical intimacy as the only maintenance
necessary for their connection.
She kept her restlessness to herself in ‘Buffy vs. Dracula’.
Later, after Riley appeared a little insecure at Buffy’s star strucknessness she hinted
at bedroom antics.
‘Buffy vs. Dracula’ 14:43 “Nothing you’re about to say will lead to sleep.”
She forgot about their plans in ‘Real Me’.
In ‘The Replacement’ when Riley was feeling antsy about Buffy confronting Toth, rather
than addressing any concerns... *smooch barf
‘Out of My Mind’ has their cave conversation, yes.
But, after Riley opens up about insecurity over their physical power imbalance…
“You’re getting more and more powerful everyday…”
Buffy recontextualized his confession to being about the physical.
“See?
Still touchable.”
And, in this episode, after Dawn openly emasculating him in front of everyone using Buffy’s words
(which made it VERY clear that the two of them never talked about how things may be
different after his power reduction surgery) followed by Buffy trying to bring him in on
a spell he couldn’t have been less necessary for, rather than the two of them clearing
the air Buffy once again seems to resort to the physical to make sure the relationship
is “all right.”
“A girl needs a little more luck than that.”
To be clear, and before anyone accuses me of shaming, a healthy sex life is a tremendous
thing and dear GOD has Buffy been due for one.
After the metaphor for ‘Season 2’, at least on a surface level, got the show off
in maybe a sex-negative light, ANY instances of sex-positivity on the show are a welcome
thing.
Willow and Oz were probably our trailblazers... (3x21) “What are you doing?”
- “Panicking.”
Tara and Willow...kind of?
Holy hell, wouldn’t it have been great if they could’ve just been banging without
all of it need to be through subtext.
“I believe the subtext is rapidly becoming text?”
Giles and Joyce seemed to have a nice happy roll on the cop car…
(3x18) “Twice!”
Even if that was a bit of a drunken chocolate affair.
Giles and Olivia… (4x01) “I’m not supposed to have a private
life?”
“No.
Because you’re very very old, and it’s gross.”
And Xander and Anya seem on a healthy track, now that they’ve settled into the relationship
side of things… (4x20) “He’s a viking in the sack.”
Even Riley and Buffy late ‘Season 4’ hit the list.
My only point is that it's interesting how often Buffy seems to be resorting to the physical
right now when there are things for them both to talk about.
The fact that neither of them are is certainly their shared responsibility.
Speaking of Xander and Anya, now comes the time in the video when I point a finger at
a few things and say, hmm...something to notice.
Somewhat under the radar this season, Anya has been developing a nice little arc.
After our former demon of directness went to the Prom with Xander at the end of ‘Season
3’, ‘Season 4’ was mostly about the two of them grappling with whether they would
or would not.
“I’m over you.”
- “Okay.”
- “OkAY?!?”
But now that she’s officially a staple of the show (Emma Caufield actually became a
part of the opening credits this season) the writers have been using ‘Season 5’ to
explore her character a bit outside of just being Xander’s girlfriend.
Hilariously, one of the seminal Anya moments occurred during ‘The Game of Life’ in
‘Real Me’, where she may have internalized some of the games win mechanics:
“Can I trade in the children for more cash?”
If Anya has three significant characteristics that might be a brutally whip sharp memory...
*The Prom boils conversation Lack of tact and a complete inability to read
social cues…
“Please leave now…”
As well as being prone to some obsessive fixations…lack Xander and money.
“Your cash register looks like squirrels nest in it.”
Within the lore of the show, it’s easy to understand the shaping forces behind her personality.
Anya is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1100 years old and only a microscopic amount of
that time was spent as a human.
It follows that she wouldn’t be as “up” on general social prerequisites, due to general
lack of demon-necessity.
But I’ve also read a compelling reading of her character as being an early representation
of Asperger’s syndrome on television, as many of her characteristics I’ve mentioned
would align with the disorder.
I’m not familiar enough with Asperger’s to make a call, but it’s an interesting
interpretation and I think, intended by the writers or no, Anya being a representation
isn’t mutually exclusive with her vengeance demon backstory, since beings with somewhat
alien attitudes interacting with humanity are often handy for outsider allegories anyway.
But as she branches out and interacts with the rest of the Scoobies, it also begins a
trend of Xander...uhhh...providing her feedback on some of her more tactless impulses around
other people.
We’ve seen a lot of them alone where Xander usually ignores or deflects with humor she
probably doesn’t always get.
But, other than a rare moment here and there in ‘Season 4’:
New Moon: They probably haven’t had time to eviscerate
him yet.
“Anya, you can help by making this a quiet moment.”
This season is where we really start to see Xander...uhm...offering advice.
And in a way that’s very in-character for him.
“Anya,the Shop Keeper’s Union of America called.
hey wanted me to tell you that ‘please go’ just got replaced with ‘have a nice day’.”
Now...first of all, Xander DOES speak this way to EVERYONE, including Willow and Buffy.
(4x09) “Will,not liking the drowning of sorrows.”
(Yoko) “Angel killed his girlfriend.
Yeah Giles can be pretty petty about that.”
Humor is his crutch for intimate communication.
His only long-term romantic relationship previous to this was founded on barbs and mutual revulsion.
When things got personal he didn’t seem to know what to do with himself.
“I never knew I was locker door material.”
And, as a new human with poor understanding of cultural norms Anya could probably benefit
from some guidance.
“I have their money.
Why do I care how the rest of their day is?”
And...that’s all I’m going to say about this right now.
Anya and Xander’s dynamic is something worth noticing.
That’s all.
Buffy’s continued frustration with being on the outside of Joyce and Dawn that I highlighted
in ‘Real Me,’ continues here.
9:10 - She’s so annoying.
Especially now that Mom’s sick and I have to be the grown up.
And this particular episode gets a lot of Dawn dislike.
The character was originally envisioned as a twelve year old but the creators, and specifically
Sarah Michelle Gellar, who she had worked with on ‘All My Children’, just liked
Michelle Trachtenberg, who was fourteen at the time these episodes were filmed.
And that probably explains a few details here and there where Dawn feels WAY younger than
she actually is.
The chocolate face didn’t even feel twelve, really...more like seven?
4 As much as I personally think her episodes
of acting out feel perfectly realistic along with the wonderful chemistry in the Summers’
home, my friend Autumn made a wonderful observation that put things like chocolate Dawn to rest
for me.
Simply put, Dawn is NOT a fifteen year old girl.
Dawn is what a bunch of likely celibate man monks THINK a 15 year old girl is supposed
to be.
These guys.
Right here.
Do they look like they have a ton of experience around your average California teenager?
That particular head canon has worked wonders for me with things like chocolate Dawn - thank
you, Autumn.
Last, but not least of course, is the splendiferous introduction of Glory.
The monks refer to her throughout as ‘The Beast.’
Graduation Day (Part 1): “The Beast will walk upon the Earth and darkness will follow.”
Though...in fairness there seems to be a lot of ‘The Beasts’ when it comes to demon
prophecy so who knows.
Glory is fabulous, uber-powerful, and connects a few dots for us in her limited screen time
here.
She started acting a little unhinged until finger tickling a man’s branium.
He gets a little drooly and we can infer that Glory is probably responsible for that guy
from ‘Real Me’ as well.
“I know you.
Curds and whey.”
Glory, “Sit down on her Tuffet…”
So there is a sanity theme developing, which started in ‘Out of My Mind,’ through both
the title and with Riley and Spike both acting a little crazy.
“Buffy, Buffy, Buffy.”
Thematically there are now lots of questions to be answered.
Who is Dawn in all this?
Nor just the younger sister that Buffy is jealous of but, as Willow says:
“She’s the baby.”
What is Glory’s relationship to Buffy, in all her powerful feminine majesty?
When Buffy happens upon Glory’s handiwork, she is very deliberately framed as standing
in the exact same spot Glory was.
And the super-powerful blonde business is also quite apparent.
So yeah, this episode gives us a lot of great stuff to dig into.
Maybe the only bit of this one I don’t care for is the red herring nibblet when Buffy
is meeting the Monk for the first time.
33:00 “Want tea, Mom?
I made it for you.”
Having Dawn act all weird after she and Buffy have their fight.
Yes, BUFFY thinks that Dawn is the source of evil in the house...but...she isn’t.
And Buffy isn’t IN these scenes.
So having Dawn act like a weird Manchurian robo-Dawn, just to maintain tension that something
MIGHT happen to Joyce is a trick being played on ONLY us, the audience and no one else.
Like the hypno-coin from ‘The Replacement,’ I HATE that kind of thing.
It’s a tactic that shatters the organic escapism of a story by reminding us of the
fact that we are consuming one.
Conclusion
Still, this is a great episode and this run of Season 5’ is lovely with a rather comforting,
‘day in the life,’ kind of feel to it.
As I’ve said, my favorite types of shows are ones where the characters have so much
chemistry you wouldn’t mind watching an episode of them sitting waiting for a bus
together.
And, to some degree, ‘No Place Like Home,’ has that feel to it.
From the kitchen lives of the Summers to Giles’ excitement over his new business.
12:30 “Did you see that?
They gave me money!...”
As a metaphor for growing up and, by association, life in general, the fact that the show contains
these tranquil stretches strikes me as both beautiful and necessary.
Even when there may be worrying clouds on the horizon, I’m not sure we can ever completely
steel ourselves against the comforting effects of the metronomic rise and fall of our daily
tides.
Work.
Love.
Relationships.
Family.
There is value in savoring moments where things feel mostly in balance because, soon enough
and somewhat inevitably, they won’t be.