Klytaimnestra's Review of "Help"
by Klytaimnestra
** Apologies to Kly - I missed uploading this last week! ** [-
editor]
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I'm trying really hard here to review the episode I saw, rather
than reviewing the episode I didn't see. But it's hard.
You see, ME made a huge mess last year. They did their best to
make sure they'd utterly destroyed the characters. They took their
time doing it. There were some continuity problems but big deal.
They're talented writers. They succeeded. By the end of the season
here wasn't a single character left standing, of the original Scoobs,
that I had the slightest respect for.
So I wondered, at the end of the season, how are they going to
retrieve these twerps? Because they're going to have to do something
to make me care about them again, build them up somehow. And I figured
the beginning of this season, at least, would be devoted to putting
the characters back together, showing them learning from their mistakes
and growing up sadder and wiser.
But gosh, guess what. It turns out that the person who didn't learn
anything last season was me. Because just as every episode last
year we were supposed to forget the Bupiphany from the episode before
- God knows Buffy did - apparently, this season, we're supposed
to forget that last year ever happened at all. Build them up? What
for? Nobody, apparently, needs any retrieving. Maybe Willow's going
to have a little magic control problem. But as for the rest? Apparently
the world is suffering collective amnesia. We're all good guys again
and we didn't do anything bad.
Xander dumps his girl at the altar? Trust the bitch to over-react.
Gee, lucky escape, getting away from an evil vengeance demon like
that. Her store gets trashed when she helps avert another apocalypse?
She's not a Scoobie, so who cares; let her cart out the debris herself.
Meanwhile he'll be all supportive for his childhood buddy, never
mind that she was on the wrong side of that particular world-destruction
attempt.
Buffy beats up her talking dildo, lies about him, abuses him, destroys
him, and can't scrape him off the soles of her shoes fast enough?
Apparently perfectly acceptable behaviour. Because we're supposed
to forget all that now. Certainly everyone else has.
Spike goes and gets a soul for love of Buffy, and is suffering
the torments of the damned in consequence? Sorry, non-Scooby, no
credit, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, do not leave the basement,
and we'll make fun of you when the urge strikes.
If Season 6 had never happened, "Help" would have been a perfectly
acceptable episode. Buffy's first week as counsellor, she finds
a student, Cassie (loved the name; poor Cassandra, always right,
never believed) who knows she's going to die. And she does. But
not before Buffy does everything in her power to help her, asking
the unanswerable question, "what do you do when you do everything
you can to help, and you can't?" And the scenes where Buffy saves
the girl from being murdered, or from being shot by a crossbow bolt,
were decent; good fight scenes, good quips; good stuff.
And continuing the "Help" motif, Spike drags himself out of his
madness long enough to help save Buffy's ass, and the girl's too;
suffers pain in order to drag the attacker off her (and what was
Buffy thinking, sending him to attack a human?) But he'll do anything
to help, and do anything for Buffy. So quips are quipped, fights
are fought, Buffy tries to help, Spike tries to help, help is given,
ultimately help isn't enough. Philosophical questions are asked.
Not a bad episode as BtVS goes.
Except. Except. Season 6 DID happen. And I don't know about anyone
else, but *I* can't forget. I can't just say, okay, bring on the
Lethe's Bramble, let the good times roll.
So the entire first scene, with first Dawn and then Xander & Willow
recounting the things on Buffy's mind - Willow's not exactly all
there yet, Buffy has a school day tomorrow, the Hellmouth is opening
- I kept thinking, WHAT ABOUT SPIKE? Nobody even bothers to mention
him. Apparently everyone's happy to forget him, and so is she. Finished
using him, I guess. No use to her crazy.
But no, hey, here she is, heading into the basement halfway through
the episode. Gee, she needs hired muscle, where to go to get it?
Let's try the crazy vampire, never mind the smell. Gee, he's having
a bad spell, not too useful today, for the very first time he can't
help her when she asks. Watch that thin little mouth thin even further
with irritation. Of course, he's Spike; he comes through in the
end, for the girl he thinks he hurt.
So Spike helps Buffy. Spike tries to help Cassie. Buffie tries
to help Cassie. She dies anyway. But in the end, as Dawn points
out, what matters is that Buffy tried.
I couldn't agree more. So I'd like to end with the help she DIDN'T
try to be. When Spike, her sex toy, her dirty little secret, her
abuse victim, her broken vampire doll, asks her not to leave him
alone with his ghosts, his pain, in the basement, what does she
do?
Stays and comforts him, of course. Is what help she can be. Holds
his hand and tells him she'll help him through. The way she did
with her world-destroyer friend Willow. Because he did it for love
of her, he's got a soul now, and hey, she's got loads of strength
...
oh. right. sorry. That was a Buffy I could respect.
It sure as hell wasn't the one I saw.
As for the little trollop on the screen? When the demon finally
showed up (anyone notice he looked like Skip?) I was hoping he'd
rip open her chest and piss in the empty hole where her heart's
supposed to be.
But I guess this isn't going to be the season, either, where I
get to watch the story I really want to see.
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Klytaimnestra
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