Much Madness is divinest Sense--

To a discerning Eye--

Emily Dickinson

The wise fool, the madman who has uncanny knowledge, who speaks truth in spite of his muddled brain is a frequent visitor in western literature. In Listening to Fear, written by newcomer Rebecca Rand Kirshner, the wise fool conceit is used to great, and sometimes painful, effect. For in this case, the wise fool is Buffy's own very sick mother.

As the title Listening to Fear indicates, this episode dealt with the ramifications of hearing the truth, even as it is seen through lunatic eyes. Aside from Joss Whedon's The Body, it was the most painful episode for me to watch all season. Any child who has seen his or her parent become delirious or delusional through the ravages of illness know how "true" some of the moments in this episode were. Dawn desperately pulling the pillow to her ears as she fruitlessly tried to block out her mother's raving. Buffy turning up the radio in the kitchen (a radio that played an incessant loop of ultra-cheery salsa music), but then breaking into tears over the mundane task of the dishes. Neither Buffy nor Dawn was successful in "drowning out" the truth of their mother's situation: Joyce is desperately (and perhaps terminally) ill.

The episode opens in the hospital with the two girls sitting on the bed with their mother. Joyce finds out that it will be two more days before she can have the operation, and is not pleased. She advises Buffy to go home. Joyce knows her daughter has a duty; a duty that is more important to the world than waiting around a hospital with her sick mother. Buffy, with forced cheerfulness, replies that Riley will be filling in.

We then cut to a big fight with Xander, Willow , and Giles in the graveyard. They are being attacked by several rather butch-looking vampires and things are not looking good. Hey, where's Riley? Hmmmm. Willow comes through, driving her stake home not once but twice. You go grrrrl! The Scoobies then discuss the obvious absence of Buffy's commando boyfriend who (as a quick cut shows us) is . . .

unfortunately letting a vamp-ho make a very personal withdrawal from his blood bank. Riley, Riley, Riley. Not good. The look of self-loathing on his face as the vamp trull sucks says it all. He is horrified, but addicted to the pleasure. Again, I am reminded how much they rushed this storyline and how profound it could have been if they had really examined some of Riley's motivations. Riley had been "addicted" before. He had been pumped full of performance-enhancing drugs for years by the Initiative. When they were out of his system, he almost died from the withdrawal. As soon as he went back to being an ordinary mortal, insecurity came rushing in, and once again he found himself succumbing to addiction, one that would have eventually led to increased power if he ever decided to let his vamp trull go all the way. Many have discussed whether his visits to the vamp-ho constituted him "cheating" on Buffy sexually or was it the betrayal of a drug addict, a betrayal of Buffy's trust? I believe it was both things simultaneously. The vampires' penetration of their fangs has always, from Bram Stoker onwards, been a metaphor for sexual penetration. We know that Buffy experienced intense pleasure when vampires chomped and noshed upon her. So there is undoubtedly a sexual element to what Riley is doing. But he is also an addict. He seeks the dangerous, but exquisite, pleasure that the vamp trull provides, even though he knows it might kill him. Riley, quite simply was, and probably is (somewhere in Belize), one screwed-up puppy. Damn. He was just getting interesting and angsty, then he took off Into the Woods. Ah well. The cast was too big anyway. Too many storylines, not enough time. That should be the theme song for this season!

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, Santa Claus (except thinner and younger and Jewish) has come to visit the Summers' women. The endearing Willow comes, bearing a sack of goodies and, in a much-needed moment of levity, reveals her gifts. A beer hat for Joyce. Uh-huh. Spells for Dawn. And homework for Buffy. "Homework? I don't believe in tiny Jewish Santa anymore!" The fun doesn't last for long; Joyce makes the first of many bizarre statements: "I'd rip it in half and stick it in bed with me." Everyone is horrified. Joyce's descent into madness has begun.

Out in the hallway, the girls stand in front of a poster that bears the image of a stylized head opened at the top with rays of light emanating from it. The poster exclaims, "Open your Mind." With this clever and very subtle device the writer and/or director seems to be telling us something. Glory's brain-suck maneuver literally opens people's minds, allowing them to see the truth behind the façade of reality. The Summers' women will also be asked to open their minds, as wise fools tell them things they don't want to hear. Speaking of which, one of Glory's brain-drained madmen wanders up to Dawn in the hallway of the hospital. As in the episode The Real Me, the madman sees that she is "empty" and has "no data." Dawn is understandably upset and is even more distraught when, later in the episode, her own sanity-challenged mother tells her, "You're nothing. You're a shadow." Perhaps Joyce's choice of words is significant. We learned in last week's episode (not -so-coincidentally called Shadow) that Joyce herself has a shadow, a low-grade glioma. Why does Joyce call her "daughter" a shadow? Did her daughter cause her illness? Is she simply referring to the fact that Dawn is not really there? Or is it a perhaps an indication that, while important for the world, her power can cause great destruction. We later learn that the Knights of Byzantium want to destroy her because she is dangerous. Could it be possible that in the wrong hands she could cause great evil?

Shortly after the upsetting scene in the hospital the big bad o' the week makes his slimy appearance. It's (to quote Giles) "a killer snot monster from outer space"! When I first heard Buffy was going all extraterrestrial on us, I scoffed. "What! Where's Mulder and Scully when you need 'em?" But the Queller Demon, unlike the endearingly cheesy snake from Shadow, was genuinely scary in spite of the fact it was a man in a rubber suit who looked remarkably like Fluke Man from the X-Files. The creepiness was achieved through camera angles (kudos David Solomon). Particularly effective was the use of the Queller-Demon cam; i.e., some sequences were shot from the creature's point of view. Also effective was the sequence in which Buffy and Dawn think Joyce is just ranting delusionally (and the audience thinks so too) until the camera pans up to the ceiling to reveal the Queller Demon. Freaky!

The final fight sequence at the Summers' home is well executed. Things are always more frightening when someone (or something) has intruded into your own personal space. And speaking of intruders with personal space issues, Spike bursts out of the basement and nonchalantly asks Buffy, "Did you hear something?" Geez. It's like he lives there or something! After Spike's lame attempt at covering his ass (Yeah, I was, um, stealing stuff! Yeah! That's what I was up to) Buffy sees him put something that looks suspiciously like pictures of her in his duster pocket. Why didn't this ring some major alarm bells? I guess she was distracted by the big slimy Queller demon that attacked a screaming Spike. Unfortunately, Spike, in his struggle with Mr. Snotty, knocks Buffy's knife out of her hands, but he redeems himself when he throws it back to her as she struggles on the floor with the Queller. Buffy dispatches the Queller in no time flat and Spike lends her a gentlemanly hand to help her off the floor, which she accepts. Just at that moment Riley and his band of G.I. Joes (Riley has, unbeknownst to the Scoobies, called in some of his Initiative buddies to help with the Queller) burst through the door and see Buffy and Spike clasping hands. Very, very bad timing. This little display won't help Riley's insecurity about Buffy and vampires. Buffy ignores Riley and runs upstairs to her mother, giving Spike the opportunity to point out that once again Riley wasn't there when Buffy needed him: "You missed a real nice time."

As Xander found out earlier in the episode, the Queller Demon needed to be summoned. So, who did it? Ben, the innocuous intern isn't as innocuous as he seems. He tells Dreg, who notably is nowhere near as obsequious to Ben as he is to Glory, that he was "cleaning up Glory's mess." Hmmm. The plot thickens.

This episode was full of wonderful moments and witty dialogue. Although Kirshner is new to Buffy, she wrote plausibly for all the characters. Xander is useful (he finds out about the Queller Demon) and has completely transcended buttmonkeydom in this episode. Anya is hilarious with her concerns about Riley's sterility and her observations about the snot monster: "I'm sure it frisked about like a fluffy lamb." The scene between Tara and Willow in which they named the constellations was particularly sweet. But one of the most touching exchanges occurred after Joyce's insane-yet -lucid realisation that her daughter is nothing but a "shadow." Buffy advises Dawn not to listen to the wise fools, even if the "fool" in question is her mother. Try not to listen, even though they might articulate some of your deepest fears, the things that you know deep down are true. The creation of the character of Dawn, Buffy's teenage sister who doesn't really exist, has allowed Joss to explore the painful nuances of adolescent angst with a crystalline clarity. Dawn's "emptiness," her existential crisis, has become a powerful metaphor for the emptiness and alienation many experience during that most horrible period of growing up: adolescence.