In praise of "Beer Bad"
Jul. 29th, 2010 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beer_good_foamyI'm currently rewatching s4 of Buffy and I just got to "Beer Bad". And since it's one of my favourite comedy episodes (to nobody's surprise) I thought I'd take this opportunity to jot down some possibly slightly serious thoughts (and a poll!). Let me just get a beer...
*pop*
...Now, trying to explain why I love this episode should be simple, but... see, when I started getting into fandom after seeing the whole series, there were a couple of huge surprises in store for me. "Season 6 is considered awful?" "What's a shipping war?" "People don't like 'Beer Bad'? Seriously?" I'm not going to argue that it's a great Buffy episode, and it's undeniably very very silly, and there's no accounting for taste; some people simply don't find it funny. But...
One common argument against it that I keep coming across is that people treat it like a morality play. As if the writers of Buffy try to warn impressionable youths about the dangers of alcohol, and fail miserably because the message is simply a prissy "Kids, don't do drugs." Which, IMO, is unfathomable for two reasons:
One, because it's so gloriously silly. It's got cave!Buffy, ferchrissakes. There's no way in hell anyone could write, direct and act this and think they were doing anything with any sort of serious message. If anything, it's a parody of the sort of after-school specials I'm told US students have to sit through. It's a bit like watching Reefer Madness (the original), except Buffy knows it's being ludicrous. ETA: And the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy agrees with me!
At least one show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," was rejected after it showed itself to be immune to the drug office's worldview. "Drugs were an issue, but it wasn't on-strategy. It was otherworldly nonsense, very abstract and not like real-life kids taking drugs. Viewers wouldn't make the link to our message," says someone in the drug-policy office camp who read and helped reject it.
Two... because the message of it, if you desperately want to find one, isn't abstinence – whether from beer or anything else. Yes, it hammers home the "beer bad" message so hard it becomes ridiculous – but it does the same thing to almost everything in the story, including things that are absolutely necessary for us to survive.
Not convinced? Okay.
BUFFY: Just lots and lots of beer. It's nice. Foamy. Comforting. It's just beer.
It's easy to overlook how arcy "Beer Bad" is. Not so much plotwise – the Initiative is still just a background event – but in setting up the early character arcs here. Buffy's trying to get over Parker (and her own reaction to Parker), Willow and Oz are about to break up, and Xander and Giles are mostly feeling useless. All of that turns up in "Beer Bad", but it's a Buffy-centric episode...
BUFFY: You know maybe, maybe he's just having trouble dealing. I mean, don't guys sometimes put the girl they really, really like inside these deep little brain fantasy bubbles where everything's perfect? They do that right? Maybe I'm in his bubble and then pretty soon he's going to realize that he wants more than just bubble Buffy and he'll pop me out and we'll go to dinner and it could happen right?
So we start off right away with Buffy dreaming of rescuing Parker. And when she wakes up and sees him flirting with another girl...
WALSH: So, how does this conflict with the ego manifest itself in the psyche? What do we do when we can't have what we want?
...she does the same thing again, except she exaggerates the rescue to ridiculous proportions. Ice cream, flowers, bare chest.
Xander's working as a bartender. Note Xander's ID. Does anyone buy that? Of course not. It's not remotely realistic.
WILLOW: I don't believe this is entirely on the up and up.
XANDER: What gives it away?
WILLOW: Looking at it.
If that's not metacommentary on the episode itself and its supposed message, I don't know what is. And then we step into the bar, where we're going to stay for much of the episode. We meet the Beer Jerks: a gang of very pretentious students who want beer, women, and admiration for being smart – except when they try to sound smart, all they do is pile big words on top of each other. Which is pretty dumb. But hey, one of the best things about drinking beer is that everything you say to others drinking beer beside you becomes very deep and thoughtful. They've paid attention in class, but they haven't actually learned anything. Well, maybe one thing:
BEER JERK #1: The thing that the modern day pundits failed to realize is that all the socio-echonomical and psychological problems inherent in modern society can be solved by the judicious application of way too much beer.
Meanwhile, the plot is spiralling merrily into lunacy – as always in Buffy with some humorous exaggerations and misunderstandings, though here they seem even more on topic than usual. Willow claims to have killed a man to get a table (hyperbole), assumes Buffy had group sex (jumping to the extreme conclusion, which of course is wrong), and finally takes Parker apart into tiny little pieces (not for having sex with Buffy, but for betraying Buffy's trust), by applying her (rather outdated) Freud from psychology class.
WILLOW: I'm tired of you men and your... man-ness.
...says Willow and stops driving stick. Ahem. Thanks, Parker, we owe you. (Hyperbole!) And then the cavemen start running wild, beating each other with sticks, kidnapping girls and setting fire to stuff. Fire. Huh-huh-huh. Xander – who's just been tipped about half a month's wages by the Beer Jerks, clearly too much, and actually seems to be warming up to the bartender job – finds out what's going on and confronts the villain:
BARTENDER: Relax. It will wear off in a day or so.
XANDER: In "a day or so", someone could get killed. (Leaves, comes back) You're a bad, bad man.
Yup, Captain Obvious and Idboy are writing this episode. And they know what we want: we want to see cave!Buffy scare the pants off Xander and Giles, and then give Parker what he deserves to tie back to the start; Buffy the College Student dreams and mulls over, Buffy of the Clan of the Cave Bear cuts through all the shit and applies the simplest solution. And obviously it's presented as a good thing, because sometimes, the id needs to tell the other two blowhards to quit yakkin' and get the job done with what they've got. Cavemen win.
BARTENDER: That's the great thing about beer. It makes all men the same.
Now, I could sit here for a while and list the funniest moments in this episode – apart from the fact that I think the funniest thing about it all is the way it consistently sends up and subverts everything it touches simply by making it impossible to take completely seriously. But I was trying to meta, right? Well, here's a key line:
BUFFY: It's just... Parker's problem with intimacy turns out to be that he can't get enough of it. And I knew it.
And yet nobody says the message of the episode is "Don't try to connect with people." Well, OK, I guess a lot of people see it as yet another "Sex is bad" message, but... note the repeated use of the word "intimacy" rather than "sex." And note who ends up on the ground with a bump on his head. Silliness can be a wonderful way to deflate a serious subject, and "Beer Bad" is very silly. But in the end, I love it precisely because it doesn't have a simple message of "Don't do this" (except for Parker.) The point is that anything, if judiciously applied to extreme levels without fore- or afterthought, will fuck you up. What you learn isn't the morals, isn't the big words, isn't the exact rules on what to do or not to do; what you learn is that you learn something from everything that happens, and you somehow piece it together into a workable self after you sober up. It's called experience.
XANDER: And was there a lesson in all this huh? What did we learn about beer?
BUFFY: Foamy!
XANDER: Good, just as long as that's clear.
...And with that, Buffy's out of the bubble(s). The moral? Intimacy, education, bubbles and beer aren't bad things, and categorically saying they are makes you look silly. They're all just what they are, and they can be used, underused or overused. Now, learn how you handle them.
WALSH: We won't be able to cover it all in the class, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth knowing and it doesn't mean it won't be on the mid-term. Now, if I've been unclear in any way, speak now.
[Poll #1599026]
*pop*
...Now, trying to explain why I love this episode should be simple, but... see, when I started getting into fandom after seeing the whole series, there were a couple of huge surprises in store for me. "Season 6 is considered awful?" "What's a shipping war?" "People don't like 'Beer Bad'? Seriously?" I'm not going to argue that it's a great Buffy episode, and it's undeniably very very silly, and there's no accounting for taste; some people simply don't find it funny. But...
One common argument against it that I keep coming across is that people treat it like a morality play. As if the writers of Buffy try to warn impressionable youths about the dangers of alcohol, and fail miserably because the message is simply a prissy "Kids, don't do drugs." Which, IMO, is unfathomable for two reasons:
One, because it's so gloriously silly. It's got cave!Buffy, ferchrissakes. There's no way in hell anyone could write, direct and act this and think they were doing anything with any sort of serious message. If anything, it's a parody of the sort of after-school specials I'm told US students have to sit through. It's a bit like watching Reefer Madness (the original), except Buffy knows it's being ludicrous. ETA: And the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy agrees with me!
At least one show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," was rejected after it showed itself to be immune to the drug office's worldview. "Drugs were an issue, but it wasn't on-strategy. It was otherworldly nonsense, very abstract and not like real-life kids taking drugs. Viewers wouldn't make the link to our message," says someone in the drug-policy office camp who read and helped reject it.
Two... because the message of it, if you desperately want to find one, isn't abstinence – whether from beer or anything else. Yes, it hammers home the "beer bad" message so hard it becomes ridiculous – but it does the same thing to almost everything in the story, including things that are absolutely necessary for us to survive.
Not convinced? Okay.
BUFFY: Just lots and lots of beer. It's nice. Foamy. Comforting. It's just beer.
It's easy to overlook how arcy "Beer Bad" is. Not so much plotwise – the Initiative is still just a background event – but in setting up the early character arcs here. Buffy's trying to get over Parker (and her own reaction to Parker), Willow and Oz are about to break up, and Xander and Giles are mostly feeling useless. All of that turns up in "Beer Bad", but it's a Buffy-centric episode...
BUFFY: You know maybe, maybe he's just having trouble dealing. I mean, don't guys sometimes put the girl they really, really like inside these deep little brain fantasy bubbles where everything's perfect? They do that right? Maybe I'm in his bubble and then pretty soon he's going to realize that he wants more than just bubble Buffy and he'll pop me out and we'll go to dinner and it could happen right?
So we start off right away with Buffy dreaming of rescuing Parker. And when she wakes up and sees him flirting with another girl...
WALSH: So, how does this conflict with the ego manifest itself in the psyche? What do we do when we can't have what we want?
...she does the same thing again, except she exaggerates the rescue to ridiculous proportions. Ice cream, flowers, bare chest.
Xander's working as a bartender. Note Xander's ID. Does anyone buy that? Of course not. It's not remotely realistic.
WILLOW: I don't believe this is entirely on the up and up.
XANDER: What gives it away?
WILLOW: Looking at it.
If that's not metacommentary on the episode itself and its supposed message, I don't know what is. And then we step into the bar, where we're going to stay for much of the episode. We meet the Beer Jerks: a gang of very pretentious students who want beer, women, and admiration for being smart – except when they try to sound smart, all they do is pile big words on top of each other. Which is pretty dumb. But hey, one of the best things about drinking beer is that everything you say to others drinking beer beside you becomes very deep and thoughtful. They've paid attention in class, but they haven't actually learned anything. Well, maybe one thing:
BEER JERK #1: The thing that the modern day pundits failed to realize is that all the socio-echonomical and psychological problems inherent in modern society can be solved by the judicious application of way too much beer.
Meanwhile, the plot is spiralling merrily into lunacy – as always in Buffy with some humorous exaggerations and misunderstandings, though here they seem even more on topic than usual. Willow claims to have killed a man to get a table (hyperbole), assumes Buffy had group sex (jumping to the extreme conclusion, which of course is wrong), and finally takes Parker apart into tiny little pieces (not for having sex with Buffy, but for betraying Buffy's trust), by applying her (rather outdated) Freud from psychology class.
WILLOW: I'm tired of you men and your... man-ness.
...says Willow and stops driving stick. Ahem. Thanks, Parker, we owe you. (Hyperbole!) And then the cavemen start running wild, beating each other with sticks, kidnapping girls and setting fire to stuff. Fire. Huh-huh-huh. Xander – who's just been tipped about half a month's wages by the Beer Jerks, clearly too much, and actually seems to be warming up to the bartender job – finds out what's going on and confronts the villain:
BARTENDER: Relax. It will wear off in a day or so.
XANDER: In "a day or so", someone could get killed. (Leaves, comes back) You're a bad, bad man.
Yup, Captain Obvious and Idboy are writing this episode. And they know what we want: we want to see cave!Buffy scare the pants off Xander and Giles, and then give Parker what he deserves to tie back to the start; Buffy the College Student dreams and mulls over, Buffy of the Clan of the Cave Bear cuts through all the shit and applies the simplest solution. And obviously it's presented as a good thing, because sometimes, the id needs to tell the other two blowhards to quit yakkin' and get the job done with what they've got. Cavemen win.
BARTENDER: That's the great thing about beer. It makes all men the same.
Now, I could sit here for a while and list the funniest moments in this episode – apart from the fact that I think the funniest thing about it all is the way it consistently sends up and subverts everything it touches simply by making it impossible to take completely seriously. But I was trying to meta, right? Well, here's a key line:
BUFFY: It's just... Parker's problem with intimacy turns out to be that he can't get enough of it. And I knew it.
And yet nobody says the message of the episode is "Don't try to connect with people." Well, OK, I guess a lot of people see it as yet another "Sex is bad" message, but... note the repeated use of the word "intimacy" rather than "sex." And note who ends up on the ground with a bump on his head. Silliness can be a wonderful way to deflate a serious subject, and "Beer Bad" is very silly. But in the end, I love it precisely because it doesn't have a simple message of "Don't do this" (except for Parker.) The point is that anything, if judiciously applied to extreme levels without fore- or afterthought, will fuck you up. What you learn isn't the morals, isn't the big words, isn't the exact rules on what to do or not to do; what you learn is that you learn something from everything that happens, and you somehow piece it together into a workable self after you sober up. It's called experience.
XANDER: And was there a lesson in all this huh? What did we learn about beer?
BUFFY: Foamy!
XANDER: Good, just as long as that's clear.
...And with that, Buffy's out of the bubble(s). The moral? Intimacy, education, bubbles and beer aren't bad things, and categorically saying they are makes you look silly. They're all just what they are, and they can be used, underused or overused. Now, learn how you handle them.
WALSH: We won't be able to cover it all in the class, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth knowing and it doesn't mean it won't be on the mid-term. Now, if I've been unclear in any way, speak now.
[Poll #1599026]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 09:55 pm (UTC)ETA: Thematically, season 4 is about changing identities. How do we change when our circumstances change, and what is fundamental about us that doesn't change? Cave!Buffy? Still Buffy! Look at her rushing into the fire to rescue her friends. And it's not just "Still the Slayer" because by the end of that season we know what pure Slayer looks like. We get a chance to see Buffy as pure undiluted Cave!Buffy and see who she is at heart.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:16 pm (UTC)XANDER: Buffy, this hurts me more than it hurts you.
BUFFY: Not yet, but it will.
XANDER: Don't say that. ...Oh, PLEASE don't say that!
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-07-29 10:10 pm (UTC)You found a lot of interesting and true things to say about this supposedly awful episode. But what's really great, is that I'd have a meta that says a bunch of other interesting (to me, anyway) and true things about the same episode. I love that it took so much screen time for Buffy to work through her Parker issues, which is pretty much just Angel redux as a farce. Ending it with a farce is brilliant. I love that there's just a hint of how scary a slayer really can be to ordinary humans (see some of Giles' reactions). Excellent follow up to the same theme in Living Conditions, and an important subtext in the Scoobie break up plot. I personally love the shoutout to Aquinas even though it's in the middle of all the pretentious blather, because that particular remark is exactly the nub of the difference between Joss and me, and I love that it's text. It's funny as all get out (though I think some of the running around at the end gets a wee bit tedious, which might be the only bad thing I have to say about the episode). I could go on. I think my commentary on the episode to my brother ran for pages. (Season 4 in general is much more brilliant and well-crafted than people think. The main arc was silly, but boy everything else is tight and that's what counts. Scoobie relations are dissected in a million different ways, Buffy's slayer issues, her relationship issues, patriarchy issues, insider-outsider issues, etc. etc.)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-07-29 10:15 pm (UTC)And also this features the first of two actors (that I'm aware of) that appeared on both BtVS and Ats, but in different roles: Kal Penn, later of House M.D. He's one of the Beer Jerks here and he shows up as one of W&H's pet psychics on Ats - I think he gets his skull sawn off.
While it's not my favoritest ever, I think this may rank as one of my top underrated comedic episodes.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:40 pm (UTC)he shows up as one of W&H's pet psychics on Ats - I think he gets his skull sawn off.
Really? I never noticed. I'll have to keep my eyes open next time I watch that... Wait, is he the guy who sends visions to Cordy? Big pulsing brain on the outside of his head?
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:15 pm (UTC)I remember how I couldn't stop laughing when Xander and Giles found CaveBuffy in her dorm room, and I love that she thinks Xander smells good. It makes the Bander in me very happy.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:16 pm (UTC)there were a couple of huge surprises in store for me. "Season 6 is considered awful?" "What's a shipping war?" "People don't like 'Beer Bad'? Seriously?"
I had pretty much the same surprise moments. It was unsettling. And 'Beer Bad' is fantastic.
WILLOW: I'm tired of you men and your... man-ness.
...says Willow and stops driving stick.
*sporfle*
And obviously it's presented as a good thing, because sometimes, the id needs to tell the other two blowhards to quit yakkin' and get the job done with what they've got.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Cavemen win.
I've always thought so.
The moral? Intimacy, education, bubbles and beer aren't bad things, and categorically saying they are makes you look silly. They're all just what they are, and they can be used, underused or overused. Now, learn how you handle them.
Perfect summation. This post is my new best friend.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:57 pm (UTC)Oh yes. I don't know why I left that one out. Then again, pretty much everything (apart from the icky "WOMAN! MAN!" stuff over unconscious Willow towards the end) here is pretty hilarious.
I had pretty much the same surprise moments. It was unsettling.
I remember going back and rewatching some stuff. "Am I wrong? No... No, this is still hilarious... Yup, I'm rolling around on the floor wheezing with laughter right now... No, they're wrong. Phew."
*sporfle*
I'm surprised Parker doesn't get more props for giving Willow that little nudge. ;)
And thanks for friending!
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 10:57 pm (UTC)Season 6 is awesome. So is Season 4. IMO, all the even-numbered seasons are thee bombe. I do not understand the even-numbered season hate. Bad, bad, fans.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 08:15 am (UTC)You know, I keep meaning to join that comm, and then I look at how much time it would eat up, and... Hmm. We'll see.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-29 11:52 pm (UTC)Don't be a pretentious ass.
Seriously... Many of your same points can be heard here:
http://www.upsidedownhappyland.com/2010/04/happyep054-pretentiousness/
(and I'd LOVE To have you on as a guest sometime..........)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 12:01 am (UTC)there were a couple of huge surprises in store for me. "Season 6 is considered awful?" "What's a shipping war?" "People don't like 'Beer Bad'? Seriously?"
Just adding my voice to the others who were shocked by the majority of opinions upon entering fandom. However, I am well assured of the superiority of my own opinions, and everyone else can suck it.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 02:12 am (UTC)when I started getting into fandom after seeing the whole series, there were a couple of huge surprises in store for me.
Yes. Just...yes.
I also really enjoy Beer Bad. I think it's like the fluffy S1 episodes, but much more enjoyable because now we have three years of character development behind everyone's goofiness.
I totally agree the beer bad (but foamy) lesson is pretty tongue in cheek. IIRC, there's significant financial incentives for American shows to have anti-drug messages in the storylines once in a while, and I really enjoy seeing that turned on its head. (See also The Dark Age: you, too, can watch a buddy die during an LSD-fueled orgy and still grow up to become a successful member of the secret society keeping the world from doom!)
Funniest moments have to be a tie between Buffy whacking Parker, and Giles, Xander, and Caveslayer.
(Here via the Herald.)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 08:34 am (UTC)Hee!
IIRC, there's significant financial incentives for American shows to have anti-drug messages in the storylines once in a while, and I really enjoy seeing that turned on its head.
Really? Huh. That's... unexpected. But even more love for "Beer Bad" if that's the case.
(no subject)
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From:no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 03:25 am (UTC)Also, yet another here who was shocked to find S6 not well received.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 08:36 am (UTC)Well, every once in a while. :)
Also, yet another here who was shocked to find S6 not well received.
I can definitely see and to some extent agree with some of the criticism towards it (though I think the brilliant far outweighs the kinda iffy). But what really surprised me is the way that almost every fan site or article (outside LJ) seems to take it as fact that it was awful beyond belief. Huh?
Boys smell nice
Date: 2010-07-30 03:29 am (UTC)I LOVE Beer Bad. I LOVE Season 4. I LOVE Season 6. I have nothing else useful to say except you got it, dude. I too was shocked when I entered fandom and discovered so much hate. Fortunately I never lost the belief that I'm doin' it right and they're they're doin' it wrong, so off with them. More Beer!
Re: Boys smell nice
Date: 2010-07-30 08:42 am (UTC)And sandwiches! (I actually own a cookbook called A Beer And A Sandwich. I love it.)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 04:02 am (UTC)were crazydidn't like them.I also love Season 6. It might be my favorite season. I liked Season 7, too, so maybe I'm just weird that way.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 08:44 am (UTC)were crazydidn't like them.Clearly, we both got it wrong. ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 05:19 am (UTC)I picked Xander, Giles and Caveslayer as my favorite part, but actually, I have two other favorite moments that weren't on the list:
-- Buffy throwing the fire extinguisher at the fire
-- "Whose van is that?" "I don't know. Wasn't locked."
Cheers!
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 08:46 am (UTC)Buffy throwing the fire extinguisher at the fire
I can't believe I left that out. It's a brilliant little gag, and I love the way SMG plays it, like she really expects it to work and doesn't understand why it doesn't.
"Whose van is that?" "I don't know. Wasn't locked."
Come to think of it, that's a fanfic jumping-off point I've never seen anyone use. I mean, that's got to be Maggie Walsh's car, doesn't it? ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 05:23 am (UTC)Personally, I don't get the Beer!hate, either, though it's one of the episodes where I just turn off the more serious parts of my brain, sit back, and enjoy the wacky.
"[...] and then came... beer."
"And then group sex?"
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 08:51 am (UTC)it's one of the episodes where I just turn off the more serious parts of my brain, sit back, and enjoy the wacky
Me too, really, though I do think it touches nicely on most of the themes of s4 (see Maggie's reply above). But if people are going to credit it with trying to make some sort of serious point, I figured it should at least be the right one. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 11:46 am (UTC)I'm all for people enjoying beer so have always had a soft spot for this episode. It's fun, and if ever someone deserved a cartoon-like whack on the head, it was Parker.
Also, Cave!Buffy is cute.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 12:04 pm (UTC)Awwwww. (http://vimeo.com/11384718)
Also, Cave!Buffy is cute.
Oh yes. That scene with her trying to figure out how a chair works... XD
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 11:57 am (UTC)I seem to remember that they were asked by the network to make an episode 'with a message', and 'Beer Bad' was the result, which is why it so deliberately plays with all these themes. (And you can't claim that it doesn't have a message - just look at the title! *g*)
Anyway, I love it too. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 12:01 pm (UTC)I was just given linkage (http://beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com/140359.html?thread=2717767#t2717767) about that. Apparently, the White House Drug Whatsit took one look at "Beer Bad" and went "But... this isn't a clear, unambiguous message telling kids to just say no!" I kinda love that. :)
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 12:57 pm (UTC)unfair! I had to choose between the Buffy watching TV / Willow assuming Buffy had group sex scene and Xander's obviously seminal (in a Jossian way) NOTHING CAN DEFEAT THE PENIS! moment :-). Chose the first because, well, I'm a guy, I do like Porn and Buffy & Group Sex? Got to be a winner, especially if it was Bouffet the Vampire Layer we're talking about :-)
Also I've never-even-remotely hid my love for Beer Bad; never thought of it as being a guilty secret, because I just love, as if I were a pig in muck, the sheer Badness of Beer Bad.
BTW, in third spot, has to bet that look on Giles' face when Buffy beats her chest. Who couldn't love that moment? I want it on a T-shirt. I wanna! I wanna!
LOL for this,
Still under Willow & Tara's spell,
Ray.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 10:04 pm (UTC)All part of my evil plan. >:-)
BTW, in third spot, has to bet that look on Giles' face when Buffy beats her chest.
Giles doesn't have a lot to do in this episode, but everything he does is spot on. There's also that scene where he tries to describe Cave!Buffy to an obviously stoned student. "Walks with a sort of, um, sideways limp...?"
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 02:09 pm (UTC)My favorite part is when cave-Buffy runs into Spike on campus and....Oh wait, that was fan fic. ;)
Enjoyed your analysis very much.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 10:05 pm (UTC)My favorite part is when cave-Buffy runs into Spike on campus and....Oh wait, that was fan fic.
There can never be too much "Beer Bad" fanfic. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 03:50 pm (UTC)"Nothing can defeat the penis!"
Also, it's like a Spuffy shipper wrote this prophetic exchange.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-30 10:15 pm (UTC)And yup, Riley is in pure awkward doof mode in this episode, god love him.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
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Date: 2010-07-30 03:53 pm (UTC)I can recognise flaws in Beer Bad, but every time I rewatch I go "But this is actually
In
Cave!Buffy is adorable, too - wonderful comic performance from SMG there.
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Date: 2010-07-30 10:22 pm (UTC)Absolutely. (I dropped Heroes about halfway through s1; I loved the basic idea, but then they just started piling on plot without giving me a chance to get the know the characters, and I bailed.) I think the only Buffyverse episodes I actually avoid rewatching are a couple in s1 of Angel - "She", for instance. Otherwise, there are gems even in the worst ones.
Be careful what you wish for indeed.
Or in Parker's case, be careful what your one-night-stands wish for. ;) (I really love Willow's grin as they stand over Parker, too. She looks so proud of Buffy. Poophead principle: understood.)
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From:no subject
Date: 2010-08-01 05:11 am (UTC)And is it possible to adore Aly more than in this ep when she's pretending to be won over by Parker's charms when she's about to burst out laughing? (Well, yes, it's always possible to love Aly more . . . :) )
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Date: 2010-08-06 06:04 pm (UTC)the apparently non-rational, but actual trans-rational force represented by the friendship that binds Buffy, Xander, Willow & Giles into a (S5 theme please) family.
"Trans-rational." I like that.
And is it possible to adore Aly more than in this ep when she's pretending to be won over by Parker's charms when she's about to burst out laughing?
She really took some extra adorable pills in s4, didn't she?
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Date: 2010-08-02 04:33 pm (UTC)This is a great, great writeup of the episode, which is of course an assault on the exact type of story people accuse it of being. Rather like the show itself. It's a bit of a mystery why this one seems to fool so many into thinking it is a simplistic message story--and I'm not excluding myself from it, since I dismissed the ep for a while, too. Isn't the entire series about playing with disreputable genres? Why not the "Just Say No" anti-beer ad genre?
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Date: 2010-08-06 06:12 pm (UTC)Isn't the entire series about playing with disreputable genres? Why not the "Just Say No" anti-beer ad genre?
Exactly. Buffy isn't perfect on everything, but there are a few common criticisms that seem to completely fail to understand what the show was even trying to do - this being one of them. "Buffy not only does preachy anti-drug episodes, it does them so badly you'd almost think it's parody!" Um...
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Date: 2010-08-07 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-08 10:05 pm (UTC)