Figured I'd post this on both the BOTN and the Showtime threads, since I had these thoughts after watching both of them.
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So, I was watching the Buffy eps on FX this weekend (
Bring on the Night and
Showtime) and had some thoughts about season 7. Thoughts about these two eps, yes, but really those led to thoughts about the season as a whole and so on. In order to get them out of my head and maybe see what you guys think . . . much babble follows.
First, I remember at the time how some folks (myself included sometimes) were talking about how the uber-vamp was so powerful and almost undefeatable by Buffy in thse first eps but that by the end of the season, even the potentials were fighting against them.
But in watching these two eps, a couple of things really struck me that make me look at this supposed change in a new light.
The first thing that came to mind was being reminded how very very exhausted and overwhelmed Buffy is in BOTN. She hasn't slept for days, she's worried about Spike and frustrated that she can't save him immediately, she's just found out that the Watcher's Council is gone and that this probably truly apocalyptic apocalypse is at hand and it's all on her, etc. etc. So she's scared - more scared and desparate feeling, I think, than she was even when she ran from Glory. And this affects her in her fist first fights with the ubervamp. Plus, she doesn't yet know how to defeat him, because she's fighting like he's just a vamp, but an ordinary stake won't kill him. So she freaks out. I could compare it to how she reacted to the Cruciamentum. Initial panic because the rules have changed, but ultimately, she still finds a way to dust her foe, all by herself.
So, really that means the ubervamps are just slightly harder to kill vamps. Another killable monster, once you find out how to kill it.
As to the potentials, well by the time we get to
Chosen, they've been training hard all season. We've watched them! They are not the same almost defenseless girls that we saw in BOTN and
Showtime.
Second, there's the scythe, which, like many, I've tended to view with a slightly cynical eye. But, thinking about it this weekend, it makes more sense when I started thinking about all the things we learn about TFE in these eps (and others in season 7). I started thinking about how we are reminded of "balance" and how this fight/apocalypse is different because TFE is "done with" the balance between good and evil.
BtVS never had a defined "head of the supernatural good guys" like AtS had in TPTB. But we have seen someone intervene against TFE before, and in a supernatural way. The snow that falls and saves Angel. So, if you think about it, we've been shown all along that generally, both the ultimate good and ultimate evil stay out of things - they strive for balance, generally, and let the humans and demons fight it out in an individualized way. But each can sometimes go too far and throw the balance out of whack and then the other will step in more than they usually would.
In seaon 3's
Amends, even though Angel is destined to play a big part in a later apocalypse, TFE decides to step in personally to try and stop that. So, the "other side" also intervenes and creates the snow. In season 7, I think what Beljoxa's Eye was getting at was that TFE belives that the balance has been tipped "too far" because of the creation (supernaturally) of two slayers. If so, then that's why it has the opportunity to intervene directly again, this time hoping to tip things its way, ending the balance once and for all. BUT, I think it's this direct intervention by TFE that is what allows the Guardian to also intervene directly, giving Buffy the scythe.
So, this would make the scythe a logical and almost to be expected instance of supernatural good guy meddling, rather than just a too-convenient deus ex machina. Plus, it means that it's OK that we never hear about Beljoxa's eye again, it's not necessary. The info it provided was just a clue on the path to the scythe.
It's like two issues I've had with the 7th season, things I thought were weaknesses, just suddenly make more sense in the larger arc to me now. Cool!
Other cool things that just really struck me when watching these eps?
* Buffy's first speech, the one at the end of BOTN, when she's all "I'm standing on the mouth of hell, and it is gonna swallow me whole. . . . And it'll choke on me. We're not ready? They're not ready . . ." and so on? It's her St. Crispin's Day speech! The one that, as Spike pointed out, she didn't give when going after Glory! I love how Joss makes us really feel how noble and truly stirring this speech is. But he also uses the rest of the season to tell us that a leader needs to be more than inspirational and even lets us mock the speechifying too.
* TFE, in the image of Eve the dead potential, actually gives us a hint at what Buffy's ultimate plan will be. When they're talking about how there are 2 slayers (nice parallel to what Giles and Anya are learning from the Eye, by the by), she says it wouldn't help them, "no matter how many there are".
* Once again, I was struck by how many examples of eyes and the loss of eyes we got in this season - leading up to Xander's eye. In
Showtime, we not only got the Eye of Beljoxa, but also the changing point in Buffy's fight with the uber-vamp is when she takes out one of its eyes.
Whew!! So good to get all those bubbling thoughts out of my head! Feel free to chime in with other ideas, take up oposing points, etc. etc. Or, you know, just scroll on by all my tl;dr. ;D
P.S. By the by, the whole "torture the unbreathing vamp by holding his head under water" still seems goofy to me.
