My husband picked out which Christmas thing to watch today. It took him an incredibly long time to decide. He almost went with Rudolph, then decided on Buffy. Logical.
Buffy was never big on holiday-themed episodes. In the course of seven seasons, they did three Halloween episodes, one Thanksgiving, and one Christmas. So let's talk about that Christmas episode, which was actually written and directed by Joss Whedon himself.
Angel is being haunted by his past, as usual, only in a slightly more obvious way than usual. The Scoobies discuss their holiday plans: Xander is camping out in his yard to avoid his family's drunken fights, Cordelia is going skiing (and is in raging bitch-mode because this is right after she and Xander broke up), Willow is emphatically "BEING JEWISH," and Buffy is "Tree. Nog. Roast beast." Her unenthusiastic summary makes me giggle. Tradition must seem so asinine when you have literal demons to slay.
Willow and Oz reconcile, yaaaaay! I always loved them together. Love Willow and Tara together too though.
Buffy and Mom picking out a tree at a live tree farm. I like the idea of doing that, never done it myself. Joyce suggests they invite Faith over for Christmas Eve, a suggestion to which Buffy is largely ambivalent. Buffy then suggests inviting Giles, which makes Joyce twitchy and weird because she recently had sex with Giles under the influence of magic chocolate. But Buffy doesn't know that. After suspiciously eyeing a patch of dead trees, Buffy goes to Faith to extend the invite, and Faith rather pathetically lies about having a big party to go to. Faith was really interesting before she became a villain.
Angel goes to Giles for help, and is haunted some more. Willow and Oz plan to watch videos together on Christmas Eve because Willow's Jewish parents will be out of town. And Oz has no parents, at least not that we ever see.
Buffy and Xander question Willy the Snitch about where the bad guys might be, and come up with nothing. Xander proposes "I think right now the best plan is to deck the halls with boughs of holly."
Willow tries to seduce Oz, he gently and romantically turns her down. How do you romantically turn someone down? It helps if you're awesome like Oz.
Buffy and Mom decorate tree and build a fire even though they live in California. Joyce: "So, angel's on top again?"
Buffy: "What?"
Joyce: "Angel, or star?"
Snerk.
Faith turns up, because she was never invited to a party at all, and she's lonely. She even brings gifts, and I for one would like to know what they are, but we never find out. I'm weird like that-- I often wonder what fictional characters get each other for Christmas. Angel shows up and freaks out, Buffy takes off running and trades some slayer snarkage with the First Evil while Angel goes off to meet the sun-- preferred vampire suicide method. He has to do this atop a cliff, even though we don't usually see cliffs in Sunnydale. He monologues a bit about the kids below waking up and sneaking downstairs, and it's a pretty effective "vampire is sad about things he can't have" moment. Buffy and Angel are dramatic and teary, like they always were.
Aaaaaaaaaand then... the Christmas miracle happens, which truly makes this a Buffy Christmas: it snows! In Southern California! There's a sweet little montage of all the characters noticing the snow: Willow and Oz get up from her bed and go to the window, with the light looking pretty on Alyson Hannigan's face. Joyce and Faith step outside and look around, Giles peers out the window in astonishment, Xander shivers in his sleeping bag, and Buffy and Angel walk through town hand in hand, under a marquee that says "Pray," which Joss Whedon claims was an accident. A TV weatherman says "Sunnydale residents shouldn't expect to see the sun at all today," just to drive home the nature of the Christmas miracle. Angel was going to kill himself via sun, but he can't, because something out there wants him to be alive.
Joss Whedon is an atheist, but he admits to framing this as a Christmas miracle. Christmas miracles are part of television's collective consciousness. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas--or, at least, the spiritual aspects of it-- when you grow up surrounded by a culture that is, let's face it, rather obsessed, it has a way of sinking in. And it's my humble opinion that one might as well embrace the cultural aspects of Christmas, since they're here to stay anyway. That's life!
Edited to add ratings:
Visuals: 3 out of 5
Music: 0 out of 5
Spirit: 3 out of 5
Nostalgia: 3 out of 5
Humor: 4 out of 5
Overall: 3 out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment