On Dark Willow, gratuitous Nirvana references, and looking good in black

Episode 6.21

 

Reviewed by Sanguine

Clever title, Mr. Petrie. Two to Go. Two episodes, two nerds to kill . . . you get the picture.

When we last saw Darth Rosenberg (as Virgin Andrew refers to her) she was gently removing the skin from Warren. Death. It only hurts a little. "One down," she tells Buffy and friends. Oooh. That means that our little Willow doesn't just have a lust for revenge. She's developed quite a taste for violence in general. And Buffy is determined to stop her from crossing that line, from offing Andrew and Jonathan. Of course, one could argue that Willow crossed a big line already when she tortured then gruesomely killed Warren, but who am I to quibble with Buffy's impeccable moral compass?

Most of Doug Petrie's episode, Two to Go, is a set up for the big denouement, the episode where Willow will inevitably repent and see the error of her ways.

But while she's evil, it sure is a lot of fun.

In particular, Dark Willow shows remarkable insight into her companions' personality flaws (and her own self-loathing is allowed to flourish in interesting ways). Dark Willow is the best villain since Angelus. I hope Willow falls off the wagon very early next season, say, episode 1. It'll sure make for lively television.

So, my new friend, Dark Willow, uses her acerbic wit and magical talents to cut the Scoobies down to size. And God, they richly deserve it after their reprehensible behaviour this season. She lambastes Dawn for being a whiny brat, offering to turn her back into a ball of mystic energy. Sounds good to me. She then turns her razor-sharp tongue to shredding the Slayer. After Buffy tries to convince her that the world is really a shiny, sparkly place, Willow sardonically replies, "You're trying to sell me on the world? The one where you're lying to your friends, when you're not trying to kill them? And you screw a vampire, just to feel? And insane asylums are the comfy alternative?"

A bit later she beats Buffy up. "Oh, Buffy," she tells her erstwhile friend, "you really need to have every square inch of your ass kicked."

I couldn't have said it better myself. It was no fun watching Buffy the Boring Burger Slinger for weeks on end. It wasn't even fun watching her shag Spike, and I really expected to enjoy that. Sure, there were some bright spots this season, but this was really the feeblest effort from the Mutant Enemy team since the debacle of Season 4. They systematically made all the principal characters unlikeable. But, if the end of the season is any indication, the writing staff has the fire back. From Normal Again onwards, I've consistently been engaged and entertained. It doesn't make me forget the mediocrity of Doublemeat Palace or As You Were, but it helps.

Willow also turns her considerable powers of analysis on herself, and she doesn't like what she sees. Well, she likes Super Willow just fine. It's the wimpy, geeky Willow Rosenberg that she can't stand, the Willow that, as Jonathan wistfully remembers, "packed her own lunches and wore floods, and was always . . . just Willow." Willow was just a lot of us, and that made her self-loathing kind of hard to hear. But when a person is devalued every day, told they aren't special, called names, that does something. No matter how much success you have, you still have a niggling voice in the back of your head, telling you that someday someone is going to find out how not special you really are. In one of the best speeches this season, Willow explains her self-loathing: "Lemme tell you something about Willow. She's a loser. And she always has been." Being Super Willow allows her to silence those voices, if only for a little while, the voices that scream, "loser." And what has provoked this desire for power? It was always there; Tara's death just brought it to the surface. Willow has always gained her sense of self-worth from other people. Xander's best friend. Buffy's trusty sidekick. Oz's cool girlfriend. Tara's wiccan lover. And when things went wrong, when people rejected her or left her, Willow has always reacted in the same way: badly. The spell in Something Blue. The mind-wipe in Tabula Rasa. Why does Willow behave this way? Because it makes her feel powerful, in control: something she never felt when she was just pitiful Willow Rosenberg, being teased at school.

Definite parallels can be drawn between Willow's descent into darkness and Spike's escape into vampirism. Both Willow and William were social outcasts. Both of them loved absolutely and got only pain in return. Both reacted badly to rejection. Both chose power as a means of escape. And both will have to choose whether to face the consequences or to keep running.

A few final thoughts about this episode: Alyson Hannigan is a truly spectacular actress and it was nice to see her given such weighty material to work with. She did a brilliant job conveying Willow's desire to be completely evil and the small spark of humanity that still lurked beneath her gothy surface.

The scenes with Spike in Africa were less effective and were rather distracting (and not in a good way). While Mutant Enemy shows an obvious desire to exploit Shirtless Spike, these scenes were not properly integrated and felt a bit superfluous, particularly as Spike's trials were fairly lame. It would have been nice if his tests somehow reflected the request that he had made. Instead, we got to watch him spout rather funny one-liners (something Marsters always does well--I particularly liked "Here we are now, / Entertain us"). He also fought a rather meaty looking guy with flames coming out of his hands. Of course, since Marsters' radical weight loss this season, everyone looks bulky in comparison. In short, Spike's little African safari was kinda boring. It felt like a cheap way to fulfill Marsters' contractual obligation without interfering with the main storyline. Of course, that was one of the problems with this season. Spike simply served Buffy's needs and, compared to the rich story he had last season, was underused. Marsters shouldn't be relegated to mere eye candy. He's one of the finest performers on the show and now Giles is gone, he could be the one to spout the pages of exposition required to set up any demonic threat worth its salt. Especially now . . . but of course that happens in the next episode.

 

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