|
|
Post by William the Bloody on Aug 18, 2003 3:06:37 GMT -5
Story by Joss Whedon
Teleplay by Ashley Gable & Thomas A Swyden
Directed by Reyza Badiyi
Air date: 5/19/97
As Cordelia prepares for Sunnydale High's May Queen competition, an invisible force starts attacking her closest friends.
|
|
|
|
Post by beccaelizabeth on Jul 9, 2004 4:48:54 GMT -5
From the Watcher's Guide-
The Giles/Buffy exchange about listening (Giles: "You may have to work on listening to people." Buffy: "Very funny" Giles: "I thought so") was not in the original script, and was added in postproduction as a transition voice-over.
(be says- I'm tempted to tweak the punctuation on that one just because the / has lost its innocence on the net. But thats what was in the book.)
When Marcie arrives at her new school, the teacher has her open to Chapter 11. That chapter's title is "Assassination and Infiltration." The first case study: "Case Example D: Radical Cult Leader as Intended Victim."
Pop Culture IQ:
"Monsters don't usually send messages. It's pretty much 'Crush! Kill! Destroy!'"
Buffy, referring to a famous line uttered by the robot in the television series Lost in Space.
Continuity:
The seeds of Cordelia's eventual induction into the Slayerettes are sown here, as she comes to Buffy and the others for help when she egotistically yet correctly realizes that the attacks are directed at her. Giles mentions The pergamum Codex[/b] to Angel, which ahs various prophecies regarding the Master and the Slayer, which Angel obtains for him- said prophecies prove vital in "Prophecy Girl".
|
|
|
|
Post by Rachael on Sept 1, 2004 0:26:13 GMT -5
Wow. So, what surprised me on this viewing was that I no longer sympathize with Marcie. As Buffy says, there's one thing I hadn't been taking into account - she's a thundering loony! And, well - I don't much care how she got that way. Marcie is responsible for Marcie's behavior, and egads!, but she's a nutball. I don't know from the "Invisible Girl" syndrome, 'cause my high school problems were more about being too visible to the wrong people, and I did have friends - I was more a Willow than a Marcie. I guess, though, that I find it hard if not impossible to believe that there was a person so unpopular that even Willow never noticed her. . .unless she wasn't trying to be noticed. Unless she deliberately faded into the background. But her flashbacks indicate that that wasn't the case. So, then - I find myself questioning the veracity of the flashbacks. All of which has me thinking that the construction of the episode needed work. But - following from Erin's earlier observation, the theme is dead obvious, and spelled out for us during the classroom scene - the anger of the outcast in society. The outcast, or outsider, theme is illustrated in a couple of ways - first, there's the whole Marcie thing, the obvious one. But, in addition, there's Buffy's outcast state - with the Sunnydale "in" crowd, obviously, but to a lesser degree, with Xander and Willow. The scene where they're reliving their childhood memories, and speaking in a language reminiscent of twinspeak, shows that Buffy might be close to them, but she's nowhere near an "insider" yet. Oh, hey - another Marcie question: why Cordelia? Because she was most popular, or what? Because, if everyone ignored Marcie, why focus on Cordy? Well, one reason is - it made it possible to focus some attention on Cordy's character. She got all sorts of dimension in this one. We learned: - Cordy does the homework. She's not dumb. She reads. She makes opinions of her own. - She's lonely, despite her popularity. I don't think it was an act. I mean, the guy she's dating doesn't even know what color her eyes are. (Shades of TGIQ, anyone?  ) - Cordy is capable of feeling sympathy for others. She gets why Marcie is so unhappy, for a moment. - She wants to change. It's Step 1 for Cordy - she comes to the Scoobies for help, and is honestly grateful afterwards. And she really wanted to have lunch with them - but she couldn't make herself do it. Cordy has depth. Overally, I found myself empathizing with Cordy this time around. Next question: what was the deal with the Angel subplot? Feels sort of tacked-on, to me, and there must be a reason it's there. I got nothin', except - huh? But. . .the Codex is about "The Slayer's role in the End Years". Wow. I forgot about "The End Years". End of what, I wonder? And did we ever get to see it? I mean, I guess it could mean the end of having a single slayer. . .but that seems wrong. And also: not even a "thank you" to Angel for saving their lives. And why lie to Buffy about HOW their lives were saved? Fun lines: "There are no dead students here. This week." "Maybe it's a vampire bat." "This girl's sort of petty for a god." Damn, baby, wait till you meet Glory. ;D "A vampire in love with the Slayer. It's rather poetic. . .in a maudlin sort of way." That's what I always thought. The maudlin part. "Uh, can we just revel in your fabulous lack of priorities?" |
|
|
|
Post by Lola m on Sept 1, 2004 8:04:59 GMT -5
Wow. So, what surprised me on this viewing was that I no longer sympathize with Marcie. As Buffy says, there's one thing I hadn't been taking into account - she's a thundering loony! Yeah, I seem to recall my first viewing of this started with some Marcie sympathy that was gone by the end of the ep. But this time, not even from the start! The first time we meet Marcie, she's doing the creepy laughing thing at Cordy's boyfriend in the locker room. And then gettin' out the L. slugger on him. I mean, that's just psycho-girl stuff! I never thought of that aspect of it. But if what we're seeing is Marcie's memories, then like anyone's, they are being filtered through her feelings and hopes and prejudices. So it's best to take them with a grain of salt. I always wondered about the teacher in particular - 'cuz she seems like such a good one, and she seems like she's calling on absolutely everyone, so why would she have totally ignored Marcie? Unless she really didn't totally ignore her, but rather called on her as much as others but not as much as Marcie wanted. Add this to the fact that even in the flashbacks and everyone's recollections later, all that happened was to be ignored or maybe have Harmony say a mean thing. Which is not nice, but hey - we all know that kids could be doing way worse things. And so she decides they have to die or be mutilated? Yeah, she's "not all there girl" in more ways than one. Oooh! Oooh! I remembered that too! ;D The minute we were in the classroom, I'm like "remember what Erin said, this is gonna be the theme". And it is, but it's a very season 1 theme. Straightforward, as you say, dead obvious. Very one to one correlation with high school stuff. Also, we have Cordy's very funny take on The Merchant of Venice, which could also be a nice summary of Marcie - people who think the world revolves around them. Marcie apparently thinks that when folks don't revolve around you, you should kill them. Oh, yeah. Really kind of made me think of what they'll do again in the "Jonathan in a tower with a gun" episode. Pointing out the pain and lonliness and isloation of everybody. Buffy is feeling it, not only, as you say, with not being Miss Popular here as she was in L.A., but also with Willow and Xander being all joined at the hip. It's not coincidence that the "twinspeak" scene comes right after some obvious shots of Buffy looking at Cordy's popular life. And then there's Cordy and the conversation with Buffy about her lonliness - as well as that telling scene at the end where she's actually thanking the gang for helping her and is deflected by her boyfriend's opinion of them. I got the same vibe as when she dumped Xander because the Cordettes were giving her attitude. We see that side of Cordy that is unsure of herself and worried about the way she is percieved by others. Of course, this also makes us remember how Xander and Willow are outsiders. And we even get a hint of Cordy being an outsider with the scoobies - when Giles is all "I don't think I've ever seen you here in the library". Yep. Nice Cordy episode for all the things you mentioned. As becca quoted from her source book, they are setting us up to have Cordy become part of the gang next season. My other thought was, if Cordy was the main target, why not go for her right away? Because then we wouldn't have had the whole plot, of course, but why from the idea of Marcie's character? Sort of tied in with "why Cordy?". Because Marcie is making Cordy more powerful than she really is in her life. And so, once she decides it's "all Cordy's fault", then she's larger than life. Must be destroyed, but also kinda scary to tackle first and so she has to work up to it. Sorta. But they had to get the main Angel ideas back in front of us to start thinking about in time for the next ep. (Broody hero guy who is a vampire, in love with Buffy and this is not a good idea in Giles' eyes, has access to books that contain info that will be important, etc.) Very interesting idea. Yeah, I don't think they meant it that way at the start of the show, but actually it fits kinda nicely with the way things turned out. Of course, prophesies are always nice and enigmatic so that no matter how things turn out, they somehow are right. Total apocalypse and everything gone? Ah, yes, end days. Save the world and change the idea of how the whole slayer thing works for all times? Ah, yes, end days.  I put this in the same camp as when Angel comes to visit on Thanksgiving in season 4 and Giles hides his presence from Buffy. Giles doesn't really think this whole Angel and Buffy thing is such a good idea, and he knows that Angel is trying to stay away from her. He doesn't mention Angel being there, 'cuz he doesn't want to have her start thinking about Angel or doesn't want her to feel hurt. But the no thank you thing was a little tacky. I mean, I know they were all woozy from the gas and needed to run off and make sure Buffy was OK, but would a couple of words kill them? To the guy who, you know, kept Marcie from killing them? Don't forget: "Maybe it's a vampire bat." "What! So there's homework now? When did that happen?" Snyder's repeated, "don't sue!". Cordy being all weepy over seeing her boyfriend in the hospital, "He's lying there all black and blue! How're we gonna look good in the pictures?" Marcie's very creepy: "you're not the student, you're the lesson". Ewwwww! Buffy and the government boys: "Did you know you guys are very creepy?" Anyone else think of the Initiative when they saw the "school" Marcie is sent to? Lola |
|
|
|
Post by Rachael on Sept 1, 2004 11:44:03 GMT -5
Yeah, I seem to recall my first viewing of this started with some Marcie sympathy that was gone by the end of the ep. But this time, not even from the start! The first time we meet Marcie, she's doing the creepy laughing thing at Cordy's boyfriend in the locker room. And then gettin' out the L. slugger on him. I mean, that's just psycho-girl stuff! Exactly. The first time I saw it, I was all, "oh, poor Marcie, they made her invisible and crazy by ignoring her". Now I'm all, "she was nuts already, and the being invisible has only made it possible for her to act on her insanity". True. . .but if we're supposed to believe those things happened not quite like she remembers them, it would have maybe been nice to have someone else's memory of the same event to compare with. Oh, yes. That was one of my warning flags, too, that Marcie might not be remembering stuff accurately - 'cause all we see is that there are LOTS of hands up, and that particular day, Marcie doesn't get called on. Could be completely accurate - and NOT mean what she thinks it means. Precisely. I'm all about "suck it up and deal". Maybe try making friends, one-on-one, with someone NOT in Cordy's clique. Maybe join a club or a sport. . .or, if you can't, then be unhappy and see a therapist. You don't attack the people you view as your oppressors. Nice summation. Nice catch. And again, nice catch. Good points. I guess in only 12 episodes, which had to have some "monster-of-the-week" aspects to draw in new viewers, they didn't have time to integrate Angel as smoothly as I'd like. Eetah. Xander, at least, could do to remember it a little later. Oh, yeah. Pretty sure the two are connected. |
|
|
|
Post by Spaced Out Looney on Jan 11, 2005 15:16:19 GMT -5
Next question: what was the deal with the Angel subplot? Feels sort of tacked-on, to me, and there must be a reason it's there. I got nothin', except - huh? Angel is another example of an outcast. He's linked with the main theme, particularly with his comment about looking in the mirror and seeing nothing there, something that applies both to Marcie and himself. I can sort of buy the explanation that Giles didn't want to mention Angel to Buffy and have her get all angsty, but frankly I see this as the beginning of a pattern which is repeated not so much with Angel but with Spike and Buffy never explicitly acknowledging to the gang her gratitude for anything he does for her. The one thing I thought was key about this episode that I don't see mentioned yet is that we see the first discussion about Power, the Use of Power, and about having Power and being an outcast for Buffy, Marcie, and Angel. |
|
|
|
Post by Lola m on Jan 11, 2005 20:16:10 GMT -5
Angel is another example of an outcast. He's linked with the main theme, particularly with his comment about looking in the mirror and seeing nother there, something that applies both to Marcie and himself. Nice one. I wonder if there is an element here of "well, saving people and so on is just what you're supposed to do, so no special mention should be made". But really, world and people saving is Buffy's job, not the other folks. They don't do it because of a calling or destiny (well, maybe Angel does so that kinda spoils my thought). Hmmmm. Lola |
|
|
|
Post by Spaced Out Looney on Jan 11, 2005 21:29:54 GMT -5
I wonder if there is an element here of "well, saving people and so on is just what you're supposed to do, so no special mention should be made". But really, world and people saving is Buffy's job, not the other folks. They don't do it because of a calling or destiny (well, maybe Angel does so that kinda spoils my thought). Yeah, but it's common decency to give credit where credit is due, especially when asked (Giles didn't just fail to mention Angel did the rescuing, he said it was the janitor instead when directly asked) whether or not it is the rescuer's job to do so. |
|
|
|
Post by jeff on Apr 15, 2007 15:12:13 GMT -5
not one of my favorite episodes.
I like they way they introduced Angel to Giles. Although I am curious how Angel knew a 15th century book was misplaced and not lost.
|
|
