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There's been a recurring of the Willow-Spike bedroom scene in "The Initiative", and how it's bothersome to some viewers that an act played as murder/rape suddenly switches to impotence metaphor. The incongruity of considering how a person would likely respond if actually faced with the circumstances. I recognize that argument, though I can think of a large number of scenes in any number of stories that a greater offenders than this one.
Some of the scenes and storylines are not meant to be taken seriously. In this particular case, the metaphor switches rapidly in the scene and it becomes played for laughs. As long as you don't think too seriously about it, or infuse it with much depth, it works. If you take it seriously, and consider what it would indicate about an actual person living within the reality, it becomes a very disturbing thing.
I liked the scene. I think it's funny. In general, it's crafted in a way that I don't think very seriously about it. The challenge, I suppose, is to know when to take characters seriously, and when to look at the show as shallow entertainment. And lets not forget that, sympathetic as Willow seems to Spike's "impotence", she still has the presence of mind to recognize him as a danger and whack him with a vase.
There are far worse offenders on the shallow/deep/glib score than this scene. I do, at times, get disappointed because I do want to see depth, and because it's not always there. It's worse for me when I think the storyteller means for depth to be there, but fails to communicate it. But that's as much my issue as a reader/viewer, as it is a problem with the story itself.
Some of the scenes and storylines are not meant to be taken seriously. In this particular case, the metaphor switches rapidly in the scene and it becomes played for laughs. As long as you don't think too seriously about it, or infuse it with much depth, it works. If you take it seriously, and consider what it would indicate about an actual person living within the reality, it becomes a very disturbing thing.
I liked the scene. I think it's funny. In general, it's crafted in a way that I don't think very seriously about it. The challenge, I suppose, is to know when to take characters seriously, and when to look at the show as shallow entertainment. And lets not forget that, sympathetic as Willow seems to Spike's "impotence", she still has the presence of mind to recognize him as a danger and whack him with a vase.
There are far worse offenders on the shallow/deep/glib score than this scene. I do, at times, get disappointed because I do want to see depth, and because it's not always there. It's worse for me when I think the storyteller means for depth to be there, but fails to communicate it. But that's as much my issue as a reader/viewer, as it is a problem with the story itself.
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The raging feminist inside is going to have to think about the metaphors in that scene now, damnit.
There were other inconsistent moods/jokes that I hated much more than switching the metaphor mid-scene for humor though. I actually dislike the times where they make a flippant joke about something that was played very seriously more, and it's happened on both of the shows.
Does have some slightly dark implications
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Re: Does have some slightly dark implications
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Absolutely. This is a scene that works, but it's also something I think a writer shouldn't do lightly. Xander getting distracted by jello when he's racing against the clock to stop a murder spree is borderline. Anya's jokes about evisceration were funny in "The Prom" - but less funny when the repetition wasn't met by introspection over what it meant about her as a character. (Which they didn't really get to until "Selfless")
I thought Angel make a flippant joke about "Becoming" was over the line...
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Re: Does have some slightly dark implications
the Initiative
There's always a risk when you're mixing humor and dark themes the way these shows do, and everybody has the ones that bug them. I'm annoyed when Xander tells Buffy, "If you die, I'll bring you back, that's what I do" -- because I don't see the resurrection spell as something they'd EVER joke about except in that dry "Me? Dead. You? Rat" way.
On the other hand, I thought Angel saying "I signaled her with my eyes" was hysterical, because, well, he's talking to Spike, about Buffy, a situation that has consistently turned both of them into idiots. But then, I love "The Girl in Question." When the DVD comes out, I want SMG doing the commentary: "When David & James were getting the bag with the exploding head, Freddie and I were dropping Ex at a night club in Tokyo."
Re: the Initiative
It's sort of an interesting counterpoit to "Seeing Red" -- I saw a great hue and cry because ME had cut to commercial in the middle of a sexual assault scene... but that certainly wasn't the first time they'd done so. It's a dangerous area to be playing around in.
I thought Angel saying "I signaled her with my eyes" was hysterical, because, well, he's talking to Spike, about Buffy, a situation that has consistently turned both of them into idiots.
It doesn't work for me, because it's to shallow and trite a reading of the character. They may be less mature when the subject comes up, but they aren't idiots. I get that it's farce, but I don't think it shows us anything new about the characters. As it turns, the writers have Angel reference "Becoming" - not because it's particularly characteristic of Angel to do so, but because they've got to set up the comeback in Spike's dialogue. So they can't very well have Angel reference his many years of casework that don't involve Spike, or the times he defended the world from Spike, even though Angel would be far more likely to do so.
Nor does the script point out that Spike didn't save the world -- he ran off still expecting Buffy to die and the world to go to hell -- the scene is mostly about making Angel the butt of a joke, and not any particular insight into the characters. But then, I didn't think TGIQ was particularly clever or funny -- just a lazy script with a few cheap gags.
Re: the Initiative
If anything, The Initiative bothers me more because it's played for laughs.
But then, I didn't think TGIQ was particularly clever or funny -- just a lazy script with a few cheap gags.
Why lazy? I see not liking the script (I thought I hated it for about 24 hours then came around in a big way). But I think they worked within some almost impossible constraints (no SMG) and ended up doing a story that nobody expected. Perverse, maybe, but the opposite of lazy.
Re: the Initiative
Self-imposed constraints, like choosing to do that Italy/Buffy story at all -- which, with or without SMG, wasn't going to add anything in and of itself.
The "story nobody expected" is a non-sequitur. Which would be okay if it explored, revealed, or examined anything about the characters that the audience or characters didn't already know, or looked at them in a way that hadn't already been done. It didn't.
Actually, the subplot with Fred's family, which doesn't particularly fit with the Italian excursion sequences, hints at some more disturbing aspects of the characters -- that the group (including Wesley who knows it's her dying request) never notify her family, but even that goes unexamined.
The surface is shallow, which is fine. Humor is a subjective thing -- though I think the episode suffered because ME played too much to the cheap seats. It's a common enough trope - the shallow facade hides something deeper, and they've written deep stories under shallow veneers before. But in this case, scratching the surface just reveals more surface. Underneath the farce is just more stuff everybody already knew ten episodes ago. That's what's lazy about it.
Re: the Initiative
I don't know if I'd phrase it in terms of telling us something new, but there is an important shift over the course of TGIQ. By the end, Angel and Spike are on the same side -- they're both Buffy's castoffs and the Immmortal's chumps. TGIQ is a bit like "Tabula Rasa" in the sense that the farce going on at the surface is not sufficient to explain the emotional shifts going on underneath. And I like that. It doesn't have to be spelled out. I much preferred TGIQ to "Destiny" which brought all their "issues" to the surface in a baldly expository way. Any competent fanfic writer could have come up with that ep. TGIQ took (1) a touch of crazy genius and (2) the balls to realize that at least half of the fan base was going to hate it (of course they knew that).
I can think of half a dozen reasons that they didn't notify Fred's family (they haven't actually accepted that she's gone, they don't know how to explain it, everybody thought someone else was taking care of it). The plot mechanism went unexplained, but I don't think that's the same thing as the emotional implications going unexplored. The question becomes "why doesn't Wes tell them now?" and I think that's painfully clear, without being spelled out. Wes doesn't want to know the truth himself, so he decides to let her family have a beautiful lie.
Yeah, there are nits to pick with plot, but then this IS a show about ensouled vampires. I let things slide here that I wouldn't on Law & Order. Such is life.
Re: the Initiative
I don't think they did.
By years, I assume, you mean, a few months. Angel and Spike have issues between them, of which Buffy is just another to add to the pile. If Spike was going to bail on Angel, he would have already done so long before.
Also it lets their priorities for the "last day on Earth" in "Not Fade Away" be something other than Buffy.
Again. Not necessary. Based upon S4, we already know that Connor is Angel's largest priority. And as to Spike - if Buffy were truly Spike's biggest priority, he wouldn't have stayed in LA when he's been free to leave for months. That Buffy isn't his top priority doesn't need explaining - he's voted with his feet. What needed to be examined, was this: what are his priorities?
there is an important shift over the course of TGIQ. By the end, Angel and Spike are on the same side -- they're both Buffy's castoffs and the Immmortal's chumps.
I recognize that this can be used to make Spike & Angel feel tighter, but there's no real shift here. Until such time as the Curse gets addressed, that relationship is in stasis -- even if she actually showed up, he'd still turn her away. Beyond which, the situation in TGIQ is no different than it was in S1 when he knew she was with Riley, or at the end of "Chosen" when he knew she was choosing not to be with him.
And for Spike? The primary external obstacle he's faced in pursing a relationship with her is his perception that's she's not "In Love" with him. That, given freedom and hope for the life she wants for herself, she'd choose not to go after him. And he also knows that she's chosen not to pursue Angel.
Whether or not she's actually got someone new is irrelevant at best. (Unless one wants to go back toward playing up William/Spike's troublesome tendency to see his love interests primarily as objects to be possessed rather than as autonomous indivuals -- and which I thought S7 was supposed to show him overcoming.)
Buffy's not there and she's not coming for either of them anytime soon. Which, these characters have fully well known for quite some time. That was all the impetus needed. TGIQ ressurrects a non-existent love triangle (that all parties know is non-existent) in order to wind up (literally and figuratively) expositioning what has already been shown to have happened over the course of the season, but without actually adding, introducing, or revelaing anything new. Beneath the Italian Farce, is an episode that is farcical on a larger scale, and not the advertised "emotional shift" -- which already occurred over the prior months.
A competent fanfic writer could do better than that.
The question becomes "why doesn't Wes tell them now?" and I think that's painfully clear, without being spelled out. Wes doesn't want to know the truth himself, so he decides to let her family have a beautiful lie.
That's not the only question - it's just the easy question.
The real question though, is why Wes ignored her dying request and whether his interactions with other people might reveal some other aspects of his character. Why he won't share his grief.
Not telling Fred's parents, two people that have as much right to grieve her as he does (he can blame Angel and Gunn), allows him to maintain ownership over the greatest pain from her death and enables him to wallow in it. Why is he doing that? What does that show us about his character? It's a darker aspect of his relationship w/Fred, and his character but no less deep than the "beautiful lie".