Overall Rating: 1.7
Heavy-handed, preachy television is generally not my preferred medium. Heavy-handed, preachy, obnoxiously misplaced, socially damaging and frankly, just plain old mean television...I like even less.
Plot Synopsis:
Full plot coverage can be found here courtesy of BuffyGuide.com.
Writing: 0.0
I'm not sure it would be humanly possible to count the Lifetime Television cliches uttered in this episode. I swear...if I have to see one more badly presented scene where some chick is getting pounded on by some completely insane dude and then a minute later is in his arms apologizing for making him so angry, I'm going to spew. Hard. That's NOT how abusive relationships actually work, folks. I've had several friends over my relatively short adult life who actually were in abusive relationships, and the cycle of fighting and forgiveness and self-recrimination takes weeks...not seconds. Seeing it dramatized this way only cheapens the real complexities of relationships like these (and we'll discuss more about the harm stuff like this does to culture later).
Oh...and the dialogue was pitifully lacking in zest when it wasn't filled with purple shades of melodrama so thick you could cut them with one of those huge paper-slicing knives they used to have right next to the tiny kindergarten tots at the back of the classroom when I was in school (right next to the lawn darts for recess...LOL) like a swath of velvet. See what I did there...I cracked a joke that was actually funny. Marti Noxon usually does that too...and it was pretty easy to come up with a joke that, while lacking in cutting edge BtVS word-play, was significantly more entertaining than anything in this dastardly script!
Acting: 5.0
Regular cast: a forgettable 6.0 or so...no one did poorly, but I did think Eliza Dushku was the strongest performer despite the horribly misandrist things Ms. Noxon put in her mouth...the rest of the cast seemed uncomfortable with their readings from time to time. The whole thing was oddly unsettling to watch.
Guest Stars...a two or three...and that's probably being pretty generous. John Patrick White and Danielle Weeks breathed about as much humanity and realism into their scenes (Debbie and Pete) as the muscle-headed idiots who "perform" on "WWE Raw"...sorry folks...this whole episode is a real dud...one of the worst BtVS episodes of all time...I don't have a lot of brilliant things to say to lighten the mood.
Message: 0.0
It takes two to tango...even if the tango is deadly and one of the two is the aggressor. Well done renderings of the inner workings of dysfunction relationships tend focus on the psychological flaws that lead certain people to choose badly for themselves in relationships and to feel trapped with those choices...as well as the deeper psychological flaws within the abuser (usually male, though statistically, domestic violence is not as uneven as the media would have us believe...the ratio is roughly 1.7 to 1 between men and women as the aggressor in a domestic disturbance). What this show did, instead, is simplify the entire dynamic down to "insecure men unleash their inner monster and beat on helpless women."
A careful reading of this should make any feminist angry enough to walk away from Marti Noxon. Do you realize how negatively this reflects on WOMEN? Why would someone with no flaws of their own choose an insecure, violent man...and KEEP choosing him? Fear is not enough of an explanation - there are plenty of opportunities for women like Debbie to escape and keep violent offenders from returning, and we know from experience that the first sign of psychological recovery for a battered woman is overcoming her fears and striking out on her own. Love is insufficient here, too. You can love someone without giving yourself to him for more pain and torment. No...there are two possible explanations...1) it's a hell of a lot more complicated than Marti Noxon made it seem here and both parties in most abusive relationships need therapy and a reworking of their personal beliefs...or 2) women really are emotionally weak and willing to submit themselves to torture at the hands of men out of simple fear or a sense of obligation. I trust none of you liked option #2...I certainly don't.
And don't even get me started on how negative this episode is regarding men. All of the men in this episode take on some monstrous form after Faith (no doubt the PERFECT person to offer life-affirming philosophical thoughts for the audience (note the sarcasm)) treats us to a lecture on the inner evil that lurks within every guy. This thought will come back again in a later episode in which Oz's werewolf persona is seduced by a female werewolf and I'll be just as annoyed with it then. Does Ms. Noxon honestly believe that men are more prone to animal lust than women? I say nay verily. A quick look at history suggests that when women have held the weapons, they've been just as brutal as men in combat, and my own experience tells me that women in today's world simply express their animal instincts in different ways than men. Thankfully, we'll get to see Faith's animal instincts in later episodes (serving to undermine her point here), so some balance will get restored, but this episode, standing on its own, is appalling.
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