No Place Like Home
I can’t decide whether Dawn or Glory is more annoying. With Dawn, half the problem is her and her grating personality – she has *no* character traits other than “annoying younger sister,” oh and I guess she likes to read – and the other half is the indulgence she gets. Willow calls her “the baby” – she’s a teenager. Anyway, the trance-y spell was cool, and this has “Out for a walk – bitch,” and that *hilarious* Buffy-Giles staredown with him dressed in the wizard costume, heeee. And while I can’t stand Dawn, Buffy’s reaction to Dawn seems very true to me. I kind of felt the same way she did – wanting to choke the little brat all throughout the episode, and after finding out the truth, feeling sorry for the girl who doesn’t know she’s not real. I still wish the fake memories had disappeared after awhile because it’s SUCH a violation.

Family
Dawn’s running around like a little kid at Tara’s party. Why they made her fourteen when she was clearly written to be younger, I’ll never know. I didn’t hate this like I expected to; I still think it’s mawkish and overly sentimental but there’s a fair amount of funny dialogue, and Tara’s family wanting to control the “demon” when they’re really trying to control the lesbian is interesting. Then again, there’s the GAG-worthy exchange in the opener, “I don’t need to be snuggled”/“Vixen!” Overall, I can’t get too het up about this one; I tend to just forget about it. Xander looks really hot in it, the longer hair actually working for him and him wearing a tight blue T-shirt, so I can’t complain too much.

Fool for Love
*happysigh* Easily one of my top 10, despite Petrie making the Scoobs look like idiots on patrol while Riley is puffed up, though I always feel a little “aww” when Willow tells Xander, “I think you’re cool!” I can’t see Buffy telling Spike, “You’re beneath me,” as any way out of line considering what he said to her, and I still want to hug the poor little sweetie after she walks away. That is the main reason why I love their relationship; the show is completely honest about the fucked-up things that he does without whitewashing it, and we can still sympathize with him. The back porch scene at the end is a thing of beauty. I love his tentative back-patting and I have to admit I crack the fuck UP when I see the look on Buffy’s face as he does it, all, “Could my life possibly make any LESS sense right now?” He doesn’t know what to do after that but he can’t leave, and she doesn’t really want him there but can’t tell him to go away. It’s funny, it’s poignant, and the breathing in sync is the icing on the cake.

Shadow
I’ve noticed that in both this episode and LtF, Xander comes down on Riley for his isolationist loner crap, and basically says, “Buffy’s dealing with a lot right now, what the hell is your problem?” I can’t decide if this will make Xander’s upcoming asshattery in “Into the Woods” more or less forgivable, knowing that he tried to talk some sense into Riley first.

Listening to Fear
Okay, the Scoobs are such idiots. Well-meaning idiots, but idiots. They so badly want to not burden Buffy with the stuff about the Queller demon, but even after they make the connection between Queller = crazy people, they don’t think to call Buffy and tell her, “There’s a demon that’s attacking mentally ill people, we’re on top of it, but here’s a heads up in case it comes by your house?” Ridiculous. And I’m *sure* Riley made the connection, and there’s absolutely no reason he shouldn’t have called Buffy to let her know, and I’m certain that he didn’t do it because he wanted to be the big hero rushing in and saving the day. So I absolutely love it that he rushes in to see Buffy and Spike holding hands, and she doesn’t say a word to him and just runs upstairs to check on her mother.



"Into the Woods" is going to have its own post because I tend to ramble and even cite feminist authors with that one.