BUFFY: 4.22 ‘RESTLESS'

Some of the best funny bits of season four

WRITER: Joss Whedon

DIRECTOR: Joss Whedon

WHAT’S THE SITCH?

With the battle against Adam and his demon horde won, an exhausted Buffy, Giles, Willow and Xander return to Buffy’s house to relax and chill out. Soon, though, they all fall asleep, in to what will turn out to be very, very strange and potentially deadly dreams in which something angry and primal is stalking them — the spirit of the First Slayer, furious that her power was invoked for the gang's enjoining spell. And original slayer wants to make ‘em pay.

WHAT’S THE SITCH BENEATH THE SITCH?

Where to start with Restless?

It’s perhaps the strangest, weirdest, (arguably) smartest episode of the entire series. Joss decided to end season four in a way no one expected, or that had been done before to my knowledge on a major US TV series. Here we delve deep in to Buffy, Giles, Willow and Xander’s subconscious’s through their dreams. Dreams which play out just as dreams usually play out – disjointed, apparently nonsensical, surreal.

There’s a lot here to explore, to think about.

Joss says he pretty much sat down and wrote by free association, letting it all tumble out of his head on to the page. And you can tell. That kind of writing works well here as dreams are often like that - a jumble of images, of ideas, hard to interpret. But there’s also lots of foreshadowing of future events in Restless – mostly from season five with a certain unexpected arrival, but also from season six and what happens to Willow. And then a certain major event from season seven concerning Spike. It’s subtle but it is all there.

For Willow it seems her fears are of being a major player in all things Scooby and that she’ll not be truly accepted for who she is by her friends. Her biggest fear, though, seems to be that underneath the cool, cute, magiced-up College girl Willow, she is still really the mousy, insecure little geek from school.

On to Xander, whose fears are mostly about him being trapped in a loser life, stuck in bad low paid jobs and never escaping his parents’ basement. Oh, plus some guilt around being kinda hot for both Willow and Tara and, ahem, Buffy’s mom.

Giles, meanwhile, seems to focus on how he treats and relates to Buffy, seeing her as a little girl, an innocent, naïve daughter who he must be hard and strict with in order to keep her safe.

Finally, Buffy herself deals with issues such as marginalising her mother (who literally becomes part of the building, living inside its walls) and confronting the source of her power as well as the question of who and what she really is.

In the end Buffy confronts the First Slayer who is furious that Buffy isn’t like her: a pure primal power for killing and nothing more. Buffy settles in her own mind that she is much more than that, and that she has to have her friends back, that she needs them to be strong, to keep her as her and not as something similar to the First Slayer. This fundamental realisation forces the dreams to come to an end and the gang to wake up, disturbed but in one piece and with lots to ponder over, just like the audience.

WHO’S GIVING US THE WIGGINS THIS WEEK?
The First Slayer

WHY IT ROCKS

1. Original. Restless is like nothing else I’ve seen on TV. Sure, other TV shows have gone weird and trippy, but not with the same depth of meaning, clues, signs and portents which do pay off in future seasons. Often weird and trippy is just weird and trippy for its own sake. Not here. Joss’s idea was to as accurately as possible capture the look and feel of a genuine dream but to layer it with meaning and with ideas and clues to be argued and debated over by fans until time itself ends.

2. Direction. This episode is beautifully directed. The camera work, composition, cinematography is quite something. Individual shots are quite stunning as are the dissolves. It kinda reminded me in places of a Tarsem Singh film, just not quite as visually batty. The use of the interconnected sets at the studio Buffy was filmed in is quite ingenious too, allowing characters to, in a single unbroken shot, literally step from, say, the Bronze right in to Xander’s basement, then on in to a Sunnydale U hallway etc. Its how the studio space was arranged for real but is also quite odd and jarring when watched as part of a constructed narrative. Two of my fave directed bits are the black and white Spike-striking-poses sequence and the single slow motion close up shot of Ms Kitty Fantastico walking towards camera. Joss was really rockin’ the camera on this one.

3. The First Slayer. Actress/model Sharon Ferguson does a great job as the First Slayer being full of so much wordless, primal power and lethal ferocity. With her animalistic movements, long wild hair and war paint she makes for a truly scary figure. Thankfully we will see her again in future eps of Buffy.

4. The Cheese Man. Perhaps no other character in Buffy outside of the core group has been more discussed/debated/pondered than the mysterious cheese man, a happy bespectacled chap who turns up now and again to talk about and offer to the Scoobies some slices of processed cheese. Bizarre! I have nothing. Joss…?

5. Spike’s b&w photo shoot. As mentioned earlier, really cool sequence. James Marsters is clearly having way too much fun striking those cheesy poses.

6. Guest stars. Yay! Oz is back, albeit a dream Oz in Willow’s head seen canoodling with Tara in class. Still, it’s Oz. Big smile. Plus we get Phina Oruche back as Giles’ on and off girlfriend Olivia playing mommy figure to Buffy in Giles’s dream. But best of all is the excellent Armin Shimerman back as odious (now eaten by giant snake demon) Principle Snyder doing his best Marlon Brando/Colonel Kurtz impression. Love it.

WHY IT SUCKS

It doesn't suck. But I get why some people wouldn’t like it. It is weird. It is rather self indulgent. It is mostly about Joss getting to play in his sandbox and doing what ever the hell he wants to do. But so what? Joss doing what he wants to do almost always ends up being out of this world awesome! Just as it is here.

IT’S BUFFTASTIC

Spike striking a pose

DIALOGUE TO DIE FOR

Xander: “Apocalypse Now is a gay romp. It's the feel-good movie of whatever year it was.”

Xander: (to Willow) “So whatcha been doin'? Doing spells? (to Oz) She does spells with Tara.”
Oz: “Yeah, I've heard about that.”
Xander (dreamily): “Sometimes I think about two women doing a spell... and then I do a spell by myself.”

Buffy: “But what else could I expect from a bunch of low-rent, no-account hoodlums like you? Hoodlums, yes, I mean you and your friends, your whole sex. Throw 'em in the sea for all I care. Throw 'em in and wait for the bubbles. Men, with your groping and spitting. All groin, no brain. Three billion of ya' passin' around the same worn out urge. Men... with your sales.”

Cheese Guy (to Giles, while wearing two slice of cheese on his head): “I wear the cheese, it does not wear me.”

Giles: “Somehow our joining with Buffy and invoking the essence of the Slayer's power was an affront to the source of that power.”
Buffy: “You know you could have brought that up to us before we did it.”
Giles: “I did. I said there could be dire consequences.”
Buffy: “Yes, but you say that about chewing too fast.”

AND ANOTHER THING

1. This episode marks Seth Green’s final ever appearance in Buffy, though not Oz’s. The character returned in the Season 8 comic book series where he was living happily in Tibet with a wife and child…until Buffy and her band of on the run slayers turn up.

2. The outfit Willow wears in her dream, after Buffy rips off her "costume," is the exact same outfit she wore in Buffy 1.1 'Welcome to the Hellmouth.'

3. A quote from Joss re. The Cheese Man: "The cheese man means nothing. He is the only thing in the show that means nothing. I needed something like that, something that couldn't be explained, because dreams always have that one element that is just RIDICULOUS. Thus, man of cheese. Plus funny. (to me)"

4. When Giles is singing at the Bronze, Buffy composer Christophe Beck and Four Star Mary (the real band behind Dingoes Ate My Baby) are all onstage with him.

HOW MANY STAKES?

Cave Slayer is very angry! 5 (out of 5)


And so ends my Buffy Season Four retrospective. It’s on to season five soon.

BUFFY: 4.20 ‘THE YOKO FACTOR’

Giles sings Freebird

WRITER: Doug Petrie

DIRECTOR: David Grossman

WHAT’S THE SITCH?

Buffy gets back from her troubling visit to Angel in LA. Meanwhile Spike, recruited by Adam with the promise of removing his chip, hatches a dastardly plan to weaken the slayer: he intends to separate her from her friends by spreading rumours and lies amongst them. This proves very successful, putting the Scoobies at each others throats. Then Angel turns up, looking to find Buffy to apologise for how things went in LA, but he has a run in with a jealous Riley. Eventually the pair face off in front of Buffy who enforces a peace. She makes things right with Angel, who then leaves for LA. Buffy must then put things right with Riley…and break the news to him that she saw Adam kill his friend Forrest in an earlier run in she had with the big lug, one which Buffy barely survived. Shocked, Riley storms off alone. Later, Scooby Gang infighting comes to a head at Giles’s place (no pun intended) and an angry and distraught Buffy, worried about Riley, walks out on them all, heading off to fight Adam alone. Meanwhile Riley has found Adam, and the two of them, alone, face off.

WHAT’S THE SITCH BENEATH THE SITCH?

Complicated relationships, group dynamics, the darker side of human nature – resentment, anger, jealousy. It all comes in to play here. Spike does his part to ferment it but the tensions were already there bubbling away under the surface.

WHO’S GIVING US THE WIGGINS THIS WEEK?

Adam and Spike

WHY IT ROCKS

Bad Spike. The platinum one gets to have a ton of fun messing with the Scoobies, sewing not-so-subtle seeds of discord amongst them. My personal favourite is how he gets Giles to degenerate in to a sulky drunk with the use of just a few well chosen words – observations about how Buffy treats her one time Watcher. Thing is, Spike is not too far from the truth. What’s best, though, is the one huge flaw in Spike’s plan that Adam identifies near episode’s end. Oops. Poor William.

Miss Kitty Fantastico. Tara and Willow get themselves a kitten who they call Miss Kitty Fantastico. She’s very cute and would make a good familiar. Shame she pretty much disappears after this season.

Angel. Unlike his last visit to Sunnydale, this one is really cool. Angel's fight with the Initiative guys and then with Riley is well done and pretty intense, as is his eventual confrontation with Buffy, after which the pair sorts out their issues and come to a peace. Boreanaz is great. Scowling, long black coat billowing, his brooding intensity is ramped right up to the max. Now THAT’S Angel. Plus his childish smirk to Riley after Buffy appears to take his side is perfect. Angel always had that slightly childish, petulant side to him. Great stuff.

Lots of plot. A ton of stuff happens in this episode. Lots and lots of character dynamics/exploration of relationships. Also a moving forward of Adam’s (still unknown) plan of action which seems to involve getting lots of demons in to the Initiative and also having Buffy lead the fight against them all. There’s not a moment in this ep that isn’t working flat out on character or plot. Nice work Doug Petrie.

Clown pants. Poor Riley is forced in to borrowing some of Xander’s less stylish clothes. Ugh!

WHY IT SUCKS

Um, nothing I can think of. This episode’s pretty much all-round great.

IT’S BUFFTASTIC

The current boyfriend and the ex-boyfriend smack down.

DIALOGUE TO DIE FOR

Xander (about the clothes he's letting Riley borrow): “Try those on. You'll feel like a new man.”
Riley: “Would this man have a bright red nose and big floppy feet?”

Spike (startling Giles): “You know, for someone who's got "Watcher" on his résumé, you might want to cast an eye to the front door every now and again.”

Anya (hitting Xander in the chest): “You're joining the Army?!”
Xander: “OK. (to Anya) One. Ow! (to Spike) Two. Where'd you get that idea? (to Anya) Three. Ow! (to both) I'm not joining the Army!”

Angel (angrily to Riley): “Don’t test me, boy!”

Buffy (to Riley about Angel): “He's... not bad.”
Riley: “Seriously? That's a good day? Well, there you go. Even when he's good, he's all Mr. Billowy Coat King of Pain, and girls really....”

Willow (fighting with Buffy): “We have to face it, you can't handle Tara being my girlfriend.”
Xander (to Buffy and Willow): “No! It was bad before that! Since you two went off to college and forgot about me. Just left me in the basement to… Tara's your girlfriend?”
Giles (drunk, off camera): “Bloody hell!”

AND ANOTHER THING

When Spike comes "bursting" into Giles', his reflection can be seen in a mirror behind Tara and Willow. Oops.

That’s really Tony Head playing an acoustic guitar and singing Lynrd Skynrd’s ‘Freebird’ right before he’s rudely interrupted by Spike. This was the second time Giles is caught singing. The first was in ep. 18 ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ when Willow, Xander, Tara and Anya walk in on him singing ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ at the Espresso Pump. Tony Head is a veteran of musical theatre. He had a brief role in Tim Burton’s film of Sweeny Todd (most of it was cut) and had a starring role in Darren Lyn Bouseman’s recent musical horror film Repo: The Genetic Opera.

HOW MANY STAKES?

Spike’s mixing it up. 4.5 (out of 5)