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Empty Places.
This is not an easy episode to like. But then I don’t think liking has much to do with it. To be honest I’m rather impressed with the way they have manged to capture such an all-pervading sense of hopelessness, making your heart sink lower and lower as you watch. Buffy is excellent in this - the way she desperately tries to keep her composure, that little half-smile when she says “It’s OK” or “I’m fine” for the umpteenth time and you can see how she curls further and further into a little ball, away from everyone.
I only have a few points. Firstly, when she goes to the High School, we can see a poster on a door in the background. It reads:
People
can
ALTER
their lives by altering their
ATTITUDES
Damn this show is good.
But of course the main thing is the ending - that horrible big confrontation. I’ve read the shooting script, and although there are a few things that might have made things work a little better, the difference isn’t huge (although the original doesn’t have the final scene with Faith).
First, what always strikes me is that Buffy is finally back on track. Until now she’s been reacting to things, because she doesn’t have a clue where to start. Willfully walking into Caleb’s trap in ‘Dirty Girls’ is (at least in part) about trying anything at all, because it’s better than doing nothing. But suddenly she’s had an epiphany - she knows what to do and why. She can take the initiative, finally. There is a certainty to her that’s been lacking for a long time. And then everything comes crashing down around her...
Pondering this scene, I came up with a very strange parallel that yet somehow made sense. Compare please:
1) BUFFY: I—I don't understand this. For 7 years, I've kept us safe by doing this— exactly this, making the hard decisions. And now, what— suddenly you're all acting like you can't trust me?
XANDER: I'm trying to see your point here, Buff... but I guess it must be a little bit to my left... 'cause I just don't.
2) BUFFY: Then what? What else do you want from me, Riley? I've given you everything that I have, I've given you my heart, my body and soul!
RILEY: You say that, but I don't feel it. I just don't feel it.
You can feel the frustration in both scenes, because Buffy feels that she did everything right and suddenly - out of nowhere as far as she can see - it’s all gone wrong. And - oh - oh - it’s ‘Help’ all over again! She did things the way she thought she had to, and now there’s a dead girl (= trust) at her feet. Dead because of heart failure! Wow. This is good. Because in both cases Buffy has been doing the job without engaging her heart:
1) BUFFY: These are girls that I got killed. I cut myself off from them...all of them. I knew I was gonna lose some of them and I didn't— You know what? I'm still making excuses. I've always cut myself off.
2) WILLOW: The pain is not a friend.
BUFFY: But then I can't help thinking, isn't that where the fire comes from? Can a nice safe relationship be that intense? It's nuts, but part of me believes that real love and passion have to go hand in hand with pain and fighting-
And both times, Xander - “The Heart of the Slayer machine” - was a fundamental part of things: In ‘Into The Woods’ he urged Buffy to open her heart, in ‘Empty Places’ he has been injured, and cannot support her anymore.
The problem is of course that she was trying to protect herself from pain, which as we know is the key thing for a Slayer (just to make sure this is the most quoted part of BtVS ever):
BUFFY: I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?
FIRST SLAYER: Only if you reject it. Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love ... give ... forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature. Love will bring you to your gift.
Because we know what rejecting love and pain leads to:
Angelus: If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank... Without passion, we'd be truly dead.
And so, in ‘Touched’, Buffy will open a door and let Spike enter one of those empty rooms. Risks the pain. And love brings her to her gift.
I only have a few points. Firstly, when she goes to the High School, we can see a poster on a door in the background. It reads:
can
ALTER
their lives by altering their
ATTITUDES
Damn this show is good.
But of course the main thing is the ending - that horrible big confrontation. I’ve read the shooting script, and although there are a few things that might have made things work a little better, the difference isn’t huge (although the original doesn’t have the final scene with Faith).
First, what always strikes me is that Buffy is finally back on track. Until now she’s been reacting to things, because she doesn’t have a clue where to start. Willfully walking into Caleb’s trap in ‘Dirty Girls’ is (at least in part) about trying anything at all, because it’s better than doing nothing. But suddenly she’s had an epiphany - she knows what to do and why. She can take the initiative, finally. There is a certainty to her that’s been lacking for a long time. And then everything comes crashing down around her...
Pondering this scene, I came up with a very strange parallel that yet somehow made sense. Compare please:
1) BUFFY: I—I don't understand this. For 7 years, I've kept us safe by doing this— exactly this, making the hard decisions. And now, what— suddenly you're all acting like you can't trust me?
XANDER: I'm trying to see your point here, Buff... but I guess it must be a little bit to my left... 'cause I just don't.
2) BUFFY: Then what? What else do you want from me, Riley? I've given you everything that I have, I've given you my heart, my body and soul!
RILEY: You say that, but I don't feel it. I just don't feel it.
You can feel the frustration in both scenes, because Buffy feels that she did everything right and suddenly - out of nowhere as far as she can see - it’s all gone wrong. And - oh - oh - it’s ‘Help’ all over again! She did things the way she thought she had to, and now there’s a dead girl (= trust) at her feet. Dead because of heart failure! Wow. This is good. Because in both cases Buffy has been doing the job without engaging her heart:
1) BUFFY: These are girls that I got killed. I cut myself off from them...all of them. I knew I was gonna lose some of them and I didn't— You know what? I'm still making excuses. I've always cut myself off.
2) WILLOW: The pain is not a friend.
BUFFY: But then I can't help thinking, isn't that where the fire comes from? Can a nice safe relationship be that intense? It's nuts, but part of me believes that real love and passion have to go hand in hand with pain and fighting-
And both times, Xander - “The Heart of the Slayer machine” - was a fundamental part of things: In ‘Into The Woods’ he urged Buffy to open her heart, in ‘Empty Places’ he has been injured, and cannot support her anymore.
The problem is of course that she was trying to protect herself from pain, which as we know is the key thing for a Slayer (just to make sure this is the most quoted part of BtVS ever):
BUFFY: I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?
FIRST SLAYER: Only if you reject it. Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love ... give ... forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature. Love will bring you to your gift.
Because we know what rejecting love and pain leads to:
Angelus: If we could live without passion, maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank... Without passion, we'd be truly dead.
And so, in ‘Touched’, Buffy will open a door and let Spike enter one of those empty rooms. Risks the pain. And love brings her to her gift.
no subject
I very much agree with your conclusion that Buffy needs to connect but this is not how I get there. Walking knowingly into Caleb’s trap she seemed not only to be taking the initiative but to have thought out quite clearly the reasons why she was doing it and what the risks and benefits were. In trying to get them to go in again, although she has figured out that Caleb is hiding something and is confident about that, the assault plan is completely unformed. There I think you see her desperate need to do something, to make up for the previous disaster coming in. She won’t be swayed on there being something they need to find at the winery but she does back down about the strategy for getting it. Eventually but by then everyone’s talking at cross purposes. They’re arguing against following her in another full scale attack while she’s defending her theory about there being something there in the first place to be worth attacking for.
I love this episode for its unrelenting bleakness. That final scene when she turns to Faith and tells her to lead them just says it all.
no subject
Yes, that's the weak spot! And which is why they're all at cross purposes - Buffy has the right idea, but (at this point) the wrong strategy. In 'Touched' she finds the right one, and succeeds. I still think her motives weren't as clear in 'Dirty Girls', when her plan was good.That attack was all about finding stuff out - who was Caleb, how well could the Potentials fight etc. Now Buffy has a clear goal - get what Caleb is protecting - but their new knowledge is working against her.
I love this episode for its unrelenting bleakness.
Me too. :)