Restless

[Updated May 1, 2013]

Many of the commenters at AtPO were of the view that “all things lead to Restless”. By this they meant that the episode works both forward and backwards. Looking back, it gives insight into previous episodes by telling us how Joss saw the characters up through that point in time. “I thought a nice coda to the season, which had been very anarchic and sort of upheavely season, would be to do a piece that just commented on the four characters we had grown to know and love, and where they were in their lives, what they felt about things and each other….” (Joss DVD commentary; all quotes from Joss below come from the same source.)

Looking forward, it sets the stage for seasons 5-7. Many of the themes and images from Restless will be used in future episodes. This is specifically true of the prophetic aspects of Buffy’s dream (see below), but it’s also true in many other respects as well.

I might not be quite as enthusiastic in my acceptance of the “all things lead to Restless” view as some, but I do think it’s generally true and a very useful way to explore the themes of the episode and the show generally.

Primeval

[Updated May 1, 2013]

Unlike every other season, S4 has its climactic events in the penultimate episode. Primeval “concludes” the season, but the brilliant coda of Restless gives us closure. Because it comes right before Restless, Primeval is often overlooked or criticized, but I really enjoy the episode and can re-watch it repeatedly.

The Yoko Factor

[Updated May 1, 2013]

The Yoko Factor threads together several of the themes we’ve seen earlier in the season. The disputes among the SG were foreshadowed in Pangs, and their insecurities in Fear, Itself. Spike aggravates the insecurities of the SG, playing on them to bring their fears to the surface. That causes Buffy’s family to fall apart, setting up the events of Primeval.

New Moon Rising

[Updated May 1, 2013]

I really like New Moon Rising in many ways, but it walks a very fine line with its metaphor. There’s a tolerance theme, obviously, with Oz as the text, and Angel, Willow and Tara as the (barely) subtext. That’s all good, but it creates a real potential for misunderstanding the entire rest of the series. I’ve actually seen people argue from this episode that vampires and demons symbolize an oppressed class, and that Buffy is an oppressor because she slays them. I’ve even seen the syllogism that (a) blacks are the most oppressed class in America; (b) vampires and demons therefore represent them; thus (c) Buffy is racist.

Where The Wild Things Are

[Updated May 1, 2013]

I have a hard time writing much about Where The Wild Things Are. I see it as one of the very weakest episodes in the series. While there are good scenes with Spike and Anya in the Bronze, with Giles singing, and with Spike talking himself out of helping rescue Buffy, the sexathon manages to be boring – even disgusting for some viewers – and the religious fundamentalism explanation is used as an anvil rather than a metaphor.

Superstar

[Updated May 1, 2013]

For all that S4 gives us a generally favorable view of magic, Superstar demonstrates that magic can be carried to excess. The episode is another take on identity, this time Jonathan’s attempt to magic himself an entirely new one at the expense of everybody else. There’s no doubt that what he did was wrong. An authentic self isn’t constructed out of thin air, it’s the process of a lifetime of work: "Buffy: Jonathan you can't keep trying to make everything work out with some big gesture all at once.  Things are complicated. They take time and work."

This Year's Girl and Who Are You?

[Updated May 1, 2013]

Who Are You? is the 72^nd episode, exactly the half-way point of the series. Although it could never have been intended, I think it’s fitting that the whole series is pretty much designed to answer the question posed in the episode title.

Goodbye Iowa

[Updated April 30, 2013]

Goodbye Iowa ties together all of the themes I’ve mentioned thus far as important to S4: identity, including the creation of one’s authentic self; identity theft; indoctrination, including its relation to identity theft; family; science v. magic; individualism v. collectivism. It’s a little hard to discuss them all because they’re intertwined with each other, but I’ll do the best I can.

The I in Team

[Updated April 30, 2013]

The I in Team brings us to the second real world event which impacted S4: Lindsay Crouse, Prof. Walsh, left the show. Her death at the end of this episode was not part of the original plan. It was written in when she decided to leave. Nobody has ever explained just why she left; it’s all very professional on both sides. Something happened but we don’t know what.

Her departure had a major impact on the season because she was supposed to be the Big Bad. Adam got substituted as the Big Bad, but this changed some of the thematic points which had been intended (I’ll talk about that in the next post and later ones). As a result, in my view, a lot of the emotional resonance of the season got lost. I’ll explain this in more detail later on.

A New Man

[Updated April 30, 2013]

A New Man is another POV episode, this time seeing the world through Giles’ eyes. As was true for the previous POV episodes, we learn important things about Buffy in the course of this. That’s because Giles is reacting to what Buffy does and, more importantly, doesn’t do. We can see the episode title as referring to him – he’s a “new man” in the sense that his role has changed this year, and he wakes up after his evening with Ethan very new indeed. But the title also refers to Riley, as the new man in Buffy’s life. It’s Buffy’s relationship with Riley which is the source of Giles’s alienation.

Doomed

[Updated April 30, 2013]

Doomed may seem like an odd episode to feature an apocalypse. It’s not a season finale, which we might expect. It isn’t played as farce like The Zeppo. What makes the situation apocalyptic is metaphorical: Buffy’s fear of starting a new relationship, particularly one that might be similar to her relationship with Angel. She was happy to date Riley when she thought he was a “corn-fed Iowa boy”. The idea that she’s about to hook up with another professional demon hunter is deeply worrying to her for two reasons: (1) It may say something about the men she’s attracted to; and (2) Riley’s been concealing some pretty important facts.

Riley was quick to point out that she hasn’t been fully forthcoming either, but what happened next was crucial. Buffy immediately told him who she was, namely, “Slayer, The”. Riley, in contrast, wouldn’t tell her about himself, leaving her to provide him with an all-too-accurate description. The relationship can’t succeed if she’s disclosing her identity and he’s not.

Hush

[Updated April 30, 2013]

Regardless of the success or not of the seasonal arc, S4 contains two of the most innovative episodes of any TV series ever. Hush is the first of these. It’s a very popular episode, regularly appearing on Top 10 lists and often cited by fans as their favorite episode. There are so many great little details and great scenes that I can’t even try to describe them all.

Worse yet, from my perspective, there’s been so much discussion about Hush that it’s hard to come up with anything new to say. Note, though, that it fits right in with the theme of identity I’ve been discussing, particularly when it comes to Buffy and Riley, but also for Willow as I’ll explain later in order to avoid spoilers now.

Something Blue

[Updated April 30, 2013]

Something Blue is a fun episode, and it works very well to advance certain plot points (Buffy/Riley) and to deal with Willow’s pain from Oz’s departure. The problem I have in writing this post is that the episode has no apparent relationship to any of the season themes. I’ll therefore deal with the episode on its own.

Pangs

[Updated April 30, 2013]

Pangs gets my vote as the funniest episode in the whole series. “You made a bear” cracks me up every time.

The Initiative

[Updated April 30, 2013]

The Initiative is the seventh episode of S4, and by now we know that the seventh episode is a very important one. The previous 3 such episodes were Angel, Lie to Me, and Revelations. Each of those addressed the most important issues of their respective seasons, so we should be on the alert for something of equal significance here.

Wild at Heart

[Updated April 30, 2013]

I love Wild at Heart, but many viewers (including me) were very disappointed that Oz left. There was no secret about it at the time so it’s not a spoiler now to say that his departure was caused by an outside event. Seth Green had a movie offer which he badly wanted to take, so they let him leave. By all the public statements, the departure was amicable and BtVS would have been happy to have him back. The fact that he left was one of the factors I had in mind in my comments on S4 in the post on The Freshman, and Oz leaving will have extremely important and long-lasting ramifications both on the show and perhaps for the show.

Beer Bad

[Updated April 30, 2013]

There are worse episodes than Beer Bad, but not very many. If you ask a random Buffy fan to name the worst episode in the series off the top of his/her head, Beer Bad will come up pretty often. The problem is not that the point is obscure, as was true of, say, IRYJ. To the contrary, the episode beats us over the head with the message, even more than Buffy beat Parker. Emotionally satisfying that may be for her, but less so for us. At least I can discuss the point of the episode instead of stretching to find one as I did with IRYJ or Go Fish.

Fear, Itself

[Updated April 30, 2013]

Fear, Itself may have the ending of a shaggy dog story, but it’s actually a critical episode for the season. Structurally and thematically, this episode identifies the most significant problem Buffy must solve in the climactic episode – not the finale this year – and the solution to that problem.

The Harsh Light of Day

[Updated April 30, 2013]

The Harsh Light of Day gives us a lovers’ triangle: three pairs of lovers (or “lovers” in the case of Spike and Harmony). Each is contrasted with the others, all three connected by their eventual unhappiness. Note that the three women walking on campus at the end form a triangle.

Living Conditions

[Updated April 30, 2013]

There’s an obvious life lesson in Living Conditions: don’t have the bad judgment to be the college roommate of someone who grows up to be a Hollywood writer.