Stew’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer Retrospective: Season 5, Episodes 10-11

Don’t Troll Me: A BTVS Retrospective, S5 E10-11

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Episode 10

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

With the entire Buffy gang hanging around the hospital awaiting news of Buffy’s mom’s surgery, the doctor finally approaches post-op. Joyce died on the table and is gone forever!

Wait, no, that was just what I was hoping for. Mom is actually completely fine, and the surgery was a total success. Nuts. At the joyous news, Buffy scoops the doctor up in a bearhug, inadvertently hurting him.

Later on, Xander and Anya are babysitting Dawn, who reports she is old enough to know they are just watching her so Buffy and Riley can bang. Which lets us cut to Buffy and Riley, NOT mid-coitus yet, as they are just romantically dancing together. Riley mentions that Buffy was very strong through her mom’s ordeal and never even cried, but Buffy tell him that she did actually cry a few times. Riley seems upset to have missed this because he’s becoming a real selfish jerk this season.

At that, we cut to a sex montage between the two, with the implication being that Riley’s anger at missing his girlfriend crying was channeled into his taking her to Poundtown? What’s the opposite of “romantic”; I need more words here.

The last moment of the scene shows Spike standing in Buffy’s yard and… sensing the sex? Somehow? With his Spiker Sense, I guess? He looks forlorn about it all. But… how loud could Buffy and Riley have been? SHE LIVES IN A NICE NEIGHBORHOOD. Bite down on your pillow, young lady.

After copulating–still my favorite word for describing the sexual activity on this show–Riley sneaks away from the bed and out the front door. Despite the fact that Spike is smoking 20 feet away from Buffy’s house, our trained tactical agent does not see or smell him as he slinks away into the night. Spike tails Riley to the seedy part of town.

Mom is home from the hospital the next day, and she has just a tiny bandage wrapped around her hair and forehead, which is, I’m sure, all that you get after massively invasive surgery to remove a tumor on your brain. Way to commit to your role, actress-who-plays-Mom! You can’t even cut your hair?

During Mom and Buffy’s talk, we find out that Buffy is blowing off Riley to spend time with her. I’m sure Riley is taking that just super maturely and not doing anything self-destructive like letting a werewolf give him a blowjob.

But Buffy is not the only person talking about our boy Riley at that moment, as Riley’s former Team Riley buddy is talking to his new Army mates. They are preparing a demon sweep in Belize, and he thinks they should bring Riley into the squad to help out…

At some nebulous point later on because time is a fictional construct on this show, Spike shows up in Buffy’s house, and hey remember that time a few episodes ago when Spike and Harmony tried to kill Buffy and Riley, and she STILL hasn’t rescinded her invitation into her abode? Or much less KILLED THIS ASSHOLE? Spike continues to live not because it makes any sense for Buffy to let him, but because the writers insist upon it.

ANYWAY, Spike shows up. He takes Buffy to the derelict part of SunnyDale and through a busted up building where they see vamps feeding on willing victims. He tells her to ignore all that and takes her upstairs where she finds Riley doing the same thing with a female vampire.

Spike taunts the taken-aback Riley; Buffy freaks out and runs away. As Spike tries to leave, some of the vamps take issue with his having brought the Slayer to their peaceful little set-up.

Riley heads back home where his buddy is there to greet him. He lets Riley in on the details of their plan in lovely Belize, but Riley doesn’t want to leave Buffy behind. Especially now! They have so much to talk about!

We move on to Giles’ magic shop because the writers really decided his house wasn’t a good meeting place for the team anymore. Setting up Episode 11, we see Anya and Willow bickering, but that’s not our plot YET. Buffy storms in and alerts everyone to the den of scum and depravity she saw the previous day. Giles essentially gives her the “It do be like that sometimes, though” speech about how such places crop up, and it’s potentially dangerous for the willing victims but it’s not really a BUFFY level problem. He wants her to focus on Glory, and UGH… can we not? She is boring. Buffy is aghast at this and wants the place taken apart NOW.

Buffy rushes the vampire brothel from the day before, but the nest has been cleared out since they know that she knows about them. In cathartic defiance, she burns the building down, wasting the time and energy of several SunnyDale firefighters. Because they are distracted cleaning up her mess, a family home elsewhere in SunnyDale burns to the ground, killing at least two family pets.

I may have made up that last sentence. But just because the show didn’t tell us it happened doesn’t mean it didn’t!

A furious Riley encounters Spike and stabs him through the heart… with a PLASTIC stake. Just to show that he COULD kill Spike if only the writers would let him. AGAIN: none of this makes any sense. As far as Riley is aware, not only is Spike a monster who would kill him and Buffy if he could, but he’s also a competing love interest. JUST. KILL. HIM.

Nothing takes me out of this show more right now than the continued existence of Spike.

Anyway, Spike and Riley end up commiserating somewhat and sharing a bottle of booze. Spike basically gives him the “Neither of us will ever TRULY have her” speech. Whatever.

Buffy is hard at work pounding the heavybags when Riley shows up to the magic shop. He sends Anya and Xander away so he can talk to Buffy, and that would leave… no one minding the store? How does Giles run a business like this? But it WILL get worse next episode! Lots of foreshadowing Episode 11 here, actually. Anya wants to go home and bang, but Xander says he has something to do…

We get SO MUCH “Blah blah blah” after this, as Riley and Buffy confront one another. He tells her he was scared of the power Angel had over her emotionally and Dracula had over her mentally. The vampire whores needed him in a way Buffy did not, and that made him feel something. Buffy didn’t even call him when Mom went to the hospital. As Buffy argues back, he tells her about the mission to Belize. He is ready to leave unless Buffy gives him a reason to stay.

After the argument, Buffy is sad walking, and the whorehouse nest she scared away surrounds her. She pretty effortlessly kills them all. It looks as though she is going to let the girl who was feeding off of Riley go, but then she fucking javelins a splintered plank of wood through her heart.

Xander just suddenly appears after this brief action sequence to give us some more “blah blah blah”. He tells her that what she has with Riley is real. She can’t afford to just let him leave! She tries to deflect, but Xander–who is frustratingly a much more acceptable and less awful character since he started dating Anya; I kind of like Voice Of Reason Xander–turns it back around on her. Buffy realizes she can’t let Riley go! She rushes away after him! Dramatic music plays!

But as the dramatic music continues, she arrives at the helicopter too late, and Riley and his new team lift off. She yells after him, but he can not hear over the din of the chopper. She has a sad walk home.

At Xander’s place, he walks up to Anya and tells her he is in love with her and doesn’t want to take her for granted. What he said to Buffy got through to him, too, and he realizes how important she is to him.

Episode 11

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

This episode leads with Anya and Xander in bed together, talking about the fact that Riley is gone. They are hoping Buffy does not take it too hard or make any drastic life changes…

And that segues to Buffy killing a vampire who is scaring a church convent. After the brief battle, she helps up the ridiculously young, attractive nun up and asks her what being a nun is like.

After that hilarious scene and the opening credits, we see Buffy NOT nun-ing, but instead, training with Giles, who keeps giving her crap about telegraphing her punches… until she wallops him. I feel like that’s how all of their training scenes in this show have ever gone. He scolds her, then she humiliates him.

Anyway, Giles is heading back to Merry Old England to talk to the Watcher’s Council about Glory. Buffy is very concerned about the Council getting any info on Dawn, but Giles notes he’ll have to tell them there is a Key that Glory is after. But he promises not to say any more than that.

While Giles is gone, Anya expects to manage the shop, but is gently told she isn’t the best people-person. Willow volunteers to help with the store while he is gone, and Anya takes great umbrage to this; she doesn’t want or need any help. The two of them bicker a bit, and aside from last episode’s brief scene, absolutely no work has been done to establish that these two don’t like each other. But buckle in because we are about to get a whole episode dedicated to that idea!

We move on to the Summers residence, and Mom is out of her robe and wearing regular clothes again. Dawn wants to spend some time with her big sister. She mentions how all of Riley’s pictures are gone, and more “Blah blah blah”. Absolutely nothing of note happens in this scene! But we do get more boring talking.

Meanwhile, in Spike’s lair, we see him with a Buffy mannequin and a box of chocolates. Where… where has Harmony gone? Last we saw, she was bunking with him, but that’s apparently not the case anymore. Did the writers forget she exists? Anyway, Spike is imagining his apology conversation to Buffy, but even in his head it goes poorly, and he ends up clobbering the mannequin with the chocolates.

This guy is my wife’s–and many others’!–favorite character, and I seriously just don’t see it. I feel my life ebbing away every time he’s on screen this season. He used to be pretty awesome! Even last season when he was the pseudo-anti-hero, he was great. Now he’s such a chore to sit through!

Willow, Tara, and Anya are all in Giles’ shop together now that the erstwhile librarian is out of the country. Willow is talking about STILL trying to de-rat-ify Amy, and I refuse to believe that for as powerful as she is, she can’t figure that out. Amy was able to do it effortlessly for Buffy, but Willow and all of her skill can’t manage it? Come on. Willow literally helps fight demons and shit.

Anya accuses the pair of stealing Giles’ supplies while he is gone so they can practice magic in the shop. Xander enters, and Willow and Anya complain about each other to him. Willow tries a spell, but it makes the cash register disappear; when she manages to bring it back, it is busted. Anya is furious she could have damaged the money inside.

Later on, but still at the store, Willow is still working on a spell, but this time, Anya is keeping a running total of all of the supplies she uses so she can charge Willow for them later. Willow is working on making a portable sunshine ball so Buffy can easily kill vampires. This is one of those things where that sounds like a great idea, but I’m sure will be immediately dropped and never brought up again, much like the protection charm that Willow was working on in, I think, the very same episode where Amy first became a rat.

Yeah, I remember that! What happened to that protection charm, BTVS? Huh? The same thing that is going to happen to this sun-ball! Nothing! I see through you.

I hate Hate HATE to say this next part, but as Willow works on the spell, a gold band appears, and Anya keeps talking to her during the spell and throwing off Willow’s concentration causing the spell to backfire and oh my god, Spider-Man: No Way Home totally ripped off this stupid BTVS scene. I feel just… so entirely dirty for this.

Anyway, the backfire here is that they release a big blue demon who, quite literally, wrecks shop and leaves.

Buffy and Tara are at college–HEY REMEMBER COLLEGE, GUYS?–getting their new class schedules that are irrelevant because Buffy has only had one class ever to this point. Tara mentions the bickering between Anya and Willow and how they fought in front of Xander. Buffy starts crying at the notion that Anya and Xander might break up.

A BUNCH of quick-hit set-up scenes follow, including:

-Willow and Anya, still quibbling with each other, as the follow the monster’s trail of destruction in Giles’ car. Anya is making up how to drive on the fly.

-Spike and Xander run into each other at The Bronze.

-Buffy and Tara head to the shop and see all the destruction.

-The demon guy is roaming around Sunnydale, causing mayhem and threatening civilians.

Finally, we get a scene of consequence, and it starts off with Xander and Spike playing pool together and SERIOUSLY, HE JUST TRIED TO KILL BUFFY AND RILEY LIKE FIVE EPISODES AGO AM I GOING INSANE HERE. WHY IS–you know what? No. Haha, no! You think you can just “get me” like this, BTVS, but I continue to see through you! This is a game you are trying to play here, and I won’t join you. This is nonsense, and we both know it!

Anyway, Xander is trying to lament the fighting between Willow and Anya, but Spike keeps turning it around to talk about Buffy. At this point, the monster breaks in! He wants ale and he wants to eat babies. Xander and Spike try to distract him for a bit, and finally, Willow, Anya, Buffy, and Tara all arrive. We find out this beast is not a demon, but a troll. A Troll named Olaf. Who Anya used to date until, well, she turned him into a troll centuries ago.

Does he eat babies because he’s a troll? And he remembers what it’s like to be human and NOT eat babies, but now he eats them and doesn’t mind that he does? Or did he ALWAYS eat babies and being a troll changed nothing about his diet? And if you think about it, which is actually worse?

Willow tries to banish Olaf as a fight breaks out, but it fails. He ends up breaking some support beams, burying some innocent bystanders, and he gets away. Buffy and Spike tend to the injured, and Spike wants credit for not feeding off of them while helping them (wait, COULD he even, with the brain chip?), but Buffy won’t give it to him.

Willow and Anya make it back to the magic shop so they can work on banishing Olaf again, but they are still arguing. Anya knows Willow and Xander have a history and that she broke up Xander and Cordelia. Olaf busts in on them with Xander close behind. He tries to fight the troll, and it goes SUPER poorly aside from the fact that someone off screen granted Xander about 100 temporary hit points for this fight. He repeatedly gets smashed, but gets back up.

Eventually the troll wants to celebrate Xander’s fighting spirit; he agrees to spare either Anya or Willow; Xander’s choice. Xander, of course, hesitates, and Olaf breaks his wrist. Anya pleads with Olaf to kill her if it will save Xander.

God damn it, I am so invested in these two crazy kids. Who would have thought I’d eventually care about a Xander subplot?

Buffy shows up to save Xander from his Sophie’s Choice, and she fights Olaf for a while. It goes back and forth after Willow casts a spell to separate Olaf from his hammer, and eventually our favorite witch is able to banish Olaf to another dimension.

She sends an evil monster troll to another dimension.

ANOTHER DIMENSION.

But remember: She can’t change her friend back from being a rat. Because that’s… harder?

I am starting to think Willow just likes having sexual relations in front of rat Amy. She’s a pervert!

After the fighting is over, we finish the episode with Giles back in town. He reports the Watcher Council was pretty much useless as far as info on Glory went. As he and Buffy talk about Dawn being The Key, Buffy’s little sister overhears them.

*******

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