5.20 The Girl in Question--A Tale of Two Tales
Writers: Drew Goddard & Steven S. DeKnight                        Director: David Greenwalt

So, counting down here to the last episode, all wracked with angst, drama, and profound existential issues, we have…a farce?

Well, that’s certainly not what I expected!

And it appears not to be what a considerable segment of the fandom expected, either. Instead of last week’s cries of “Squee!” there appears to be a resounding chorus of “What the f***k?”

The two masks of classic Greek drama are Comedy and Tragedy. But these days, it’s rare to find them together except in the form of black humor…which runs more to general disgustingness, now that I think of it, than it does to tragedy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for black humor and general disgustingness, like unattached demon heads that have to be retrieved to pupate, really I am. Some of my best friends….

I’m not fooling you, am I? Well I’ll admit it, then: this isn’t one episode but two stories--a farce and a gut-wrenching, intolerable impersonation of a dead girl by the live one that killed her. Black, maybe, but utterly no humor there at all.

There seems no point in attempting to analyze this as one coherent episode, with related themes running through it in its different segments. Because it’s not. It’s simply two unrelated tales with wildly contrasting moods, presented in alternation. So the best approach seems to be to treat them as what they are--separate and unequal, in terms of essential gravitas.


The A Story

The A story, the one we lead off with, involves a McGuffin, I mean a head, I mean a bomb, in a bowling bag. It’s totally a pretext for getting Angel and Spike to what purports, not very convincingly, to be Rome so they can have a major wiggins of mingled indignation, frustration, and disappointment over the fact that Buffy’s become involved with the Immortal, of whom we’ve never heard.

Though we have the pleasant chance to see the Fanged Four together one last time, the scene with Dru and Darla serves only as set-up for the present situation in which the Immortal has pleasured “their” woman blissfully once again. It’s intended to persuade us that Angel and Spike have a long history with, and a burning desire for revenge against, this Immortal--this perfect, total stranger who has, for us viewers, not the least resonance whatsoever.

Are we supposed to be assuming Highlander here? Connor or Duncan Macleod of the Clan Macleod? Or perhaps the wily Methos? (Doubt that.) In an episode about an overripe, disembodied, but quasi-living head, you would assume such a connection, since Highlander-flavor Immortals take heads. From each other. They also have Watchers. The similarities between the premises of the two series have been remarked upon many times. Like Jonathan in “Superstar,” the Immortal is the best at everything, loved and idolized everywhere he goes: the “perfect” fantasy lover so absurdly overblown it’s impossible to believe in his realty.

Calling the interloper “the Immortal” is an attempt to give the character meaning and resonance when the fact is that he has none. He’s a complete cardboard cutout. We never see his face, never get the least explanation, convincing or otherwise, of why Buffy should ever have taken up with him. Like the head/bomb, he’s a throw-away, a McGuffin, a plot point whose sole purpose (get it? “Soul Purpose!” It’s a joke!) to show Los Guys being inept dunces, being fooled, childishly bickering, and made to look ridiculous.

I suspect that what rings so false is not the comedy, per se. Angel behind Spike and hanging on for dear life as they careen on a smallish scooter through the well-known double-wide Roman streets in pursuit of a head they had, then lost through preoccupation with a half-seen Buffy (read: incompetence) is indeed funny. Angel and Spike debating who’s averted more apocalypses and bickering over whether Angel gets to count Acathla, that’s funny too. Spike mourning his beloved duster, despite all that it’s come to mean, then being presented with a surfeit of them (10! count ‘em, 10! Totaling 11, counting the one he’s wearing), none of them with the least significance (whereas the original duster was absolutely dripping with meaning, as Robin Wood could attest) and completely interchangeable with one another. And incredibly, Spike’s perfectly happy with the replacement! Meanwhile, Angel gets togged out in a parti-colored motocross racing jacket (and YES, it DOES make him look fat!). That’s pretty funny, too. Why these gags fall rather flat isn’t due to lack of funny--it’s the result of lack of meaning. Things we viewers have taken most seriously, imagined, and vicariously experienced have been shown here to have no meaning, no value, no gravitas.

Whether and how Spike would reveal to Buffy that he was magically restored, whether or not their tale continued from there, has spawned a hundred fanfics and is sad and poignant and obviously deeply felt in the exchanges between Spike and Andrew in “Damage,” along the waterfront. There’s pain there, and uncertainty, and deep reservations and reluctance we can only guess at. Gravitas. Meaning. Weight. In the present story, this issue has none. We never learn whether Buffy knows of Spike’s restoration to unlife. It doesn’t come up; it doesn’t matter. It’s not something the writers feel is worth resolving. And then, on top of being dismissed as unimportant, it’s played for laughs.

This is a diminishment of something of considerable stature, not unlike the midget Luchadores of “The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco.” It soured El Cinco on heroism to see something he’d given supreme value in his own life held up to ridicule--belittled, quite literally. It’s not surprising when some viewers felt the same in this present instance.

And it’s equal-opportunity belittlement. Angel is made to look just as foolish as Spike. He may have considered Buffy his soul-mate, but he doesn’t know the color of her eyes (thinks they’re blue, not hazel). He’s a fooled buffoon, whether getting stuck in a doorway as he and Spike crowd for literal precedence, or clinging to Spike on the back of a put-put Vespa, or stuffed like a sausage into a garish jacket a couple of sizes too small.

All the Italians we see, demonic and human, are characterized by their cartoonish Roman noses, their broad gestures, their thinly-veiled gangster connections, and (if female) their big bazongas. Stereotypes. And they are stereotypes despising other stereotypes, in the repeated flat and ritual dismissal of Gypsies. More savorless cartoons, cardboard cut-outs.

One of this season’s recurring themes has been robots, puppets, and hollow people, taken most seriously (well, I give you the puppets of “Smile Time”--but those puppets weren’t dumb!). This entire A plot is peopled with them, and Angel and Spike are as empty and meaningless as the rest. Shemps. Stooges. And this, we’re supposed to find funny and laugh at.

And to add insult to injury, despite their efforts rather than because of them, the head is delivered to L.A. on schedule; despite all their blustering, they fail to confront the Immortal in any way, shape, or form; they’re offered advice on their love-unlives in the glib platitudenizing of…Andrew; and they never even see Buffy plainly, much less find closure for their rival relationships with her. Despite Andrew’s claim that she loves them both, she’s clearly not thinking of them at all. They don’t matter.


The B Story

The B story also has very little meaning but it has emotional resonances up the wazoo.

Fred, newly deprived of most of her powers, feels the loss keenly. She’s lost her immediate sense of living things: she no longer “hears the green” of plants. She feels, not rescued from “going Chernobyl” but diminished to merely human scale. Disarmed, defeated, and despairing.

Then that human scale walks in oblivious happiness out of the elevator: Fred’s mom and dad, dropping in for a surprise visit on the way to Hawaii. As Wesley braces himself for the agonizing task of informing them of Fred’s fate…Fred walks in. Or at least a decent facsimile of her.

It’s a fine bit of acting from Amy Acker: the same actress who played Fred, playing Illyria playing Fred and not quite getting it right. The Texas accent is a bit too broad, the perky chirpiness overdone. Not “off” enough to alarm Fred’s parents but enough to make Trish comment uncertainly that Fred seems “different, somehow.” It would never occur to either Trish or Roger that it isn’t Fred at all. If it looks like Fred, talks like Fred, and claims to be Fred, why would they imagine otherwise?

Only Wesley knows the imposture, and it’s agonizing. What is he to do? Try to convince the naïve Burkles of the truth, so they can either assume he’s crazy or be devastated as Wesley is? To what purpose would he even try to shatter the illusion? How can he claim that Fred is dead when she’s plainly there before them? One assumes freshly-shaven Wes would desire nothing more than to share the Burkles’ delusion. But he can’t. And therein lies his agony.

Why does Illyria do it? The first reason she gives, that she finds Wes’ grief so annoying that she didn’t want to compound it with the Burkles’, doesn’t seem enough. It also seems to be an experiment…but what, precisely, is she investigating? Whether Wes will denounce her for a fraud? Whether Wes, like the Burkles, will see what he wants to see, given his love for Fred and his wary acceptance of Illyria, since she’s all of Fred that’s left? She tells Wes, “You loved this [Fred’s physical appearance], and part of you still does. I can feel it in you. I...wish to explore it further." Hmmm. Romance, with a mouthful of Petrie dish?

One thing this otherwise inconclusive B tale demonstrates is how extensive Fred’s memories are within Illyria. Drawing on those memories (and a bit of appearance presto-changeo), Illyria can present a simulacrum of Fred good enough to fool her parents and good enough to excoriate Wesley, who’s simultaneously fascinated and appalled. It’s so close that the distance to actual Fred is miniscule; yet that distance is a gulf beyond any measuring.

This signifies, all right. But what it signifies, and whether that significance is apt to have consequences--whether, in other words, it will matter--is left completely unclear.


Summing up

I could torture this overstuffed cupcake of an episode by theorizing that it’s about accepting inferior substitutes: Buffy, for her two remarkable lovers; Spike, for his coat; the Burkles for Fred. And apparently only Wesley feels the sadness of accepting such watered-down goods, and with scathing sincerity refuses them. I could…but it would be wrong.

Say good night, Gracie.

Nan Dibble
5/9/04
Acknowledgement: As always, I am indebted for the gladly shared insights, wit, and general snarkiness of my fellow S’cubies: the members of the Soulful Spike Society.


MISCELLANEOUS    


Memorable lines:

Descriptions of the Immortal: “The foulest evil that hell ever vomited forth”; “Son of a bitch!”; “That cheeky bastard!” “A giant, a titan straddling good and evil serving no master but his own considerable desires. And spiritual! Did you know he spent 150 years in a Tibetan monastery? Which I guess explains all the desire”; “He's my arch-nemesis”; “…the vilest wretch this side of Mount Everest. Which, I am told, he has climbed...several times”; “He is a wild card. A wolf removed from the pack. A stallion without the, uh, bridle”: “He's more of an inspiration. A spiritual guide. Have you read his book? It's a life changer.”


Angel: We don’t want to be rushing into this thing half-cocked.
Gunn: As opposed to the full cock that’s been working so well for us?
Angel: You got something you want to say?
Gunn: Just don’t want to lose another baby with the bathwater…boss. (Immediate reference is to unborn child, last week; but indirectly, it also references Connor, a baby/child/son Angel in some senses discarded--at least put away from him.)

Gunn: Spike, this is a delicate matter that needs to be handled with a lot of finesse. (To Angel) And why the hell are we talking to him?

Gunn: [He] died on a business trip to Italy. We need to go there, retrieve his body, and return it to his family in the next (looks at watch, grimaces)--ooh-- 26 hours.
Spike: Or what: he gets deader?
Gunn: No, he stays dead. They die, they pupate, they live again. But only if the proper rituals are performed by the immediate family.

Angel: Pack your bags!
Spike: I don’t even speak the language!
Angel: We’ll get you a book.
Spike (to Gunn): Yeah, how do you say “wank off” in Italian?

Spike (in a tone of utter boredom): All right, what is it this time: ubervamps, demon gods, devil robots?
Angel: It’s Buffy.

Spike: What happened? What happened?
Angel (grimly): The Immortal.
Gunn: The who?
Spike: The foulest evil that hell ever vomited forth.*
Harmony: Worse than you?

Angel (holding up tiny airplane whiskey bottle): Huh. Really can't get drunk off these things.
Spike: Not us anyway. Vampire constitution, not always a plus. How'd you know?
Angel: Drank a lot of 'em and I still don't like you.

Darla: Oh, darling. It was just fornication." She chuckles, "Really great fornication."
William/Spike: She's glowing.
Angelus: She isn't.
Darla (coyly): Little bit!

Angel (to Immortal’s thugs, armed with crossbows): Go ahead, take your best shot. I'll snatch your little wee sticks out of the air and spend the next fortnight shoving 'em slowly up your arse.
Spike: Can you really do that?
Angel: The arrow thing? I don’t know--never tried.

Angelus: He mocks us at every turn."
William/Spike: The man has no sense of indecency. You remember Frankfurt? He hatches the Rathruhn egg personally and then just decides to give those nuns safe passage.
Angelus: Those were my nuns!
William: Yeah, nuns are your thing. Everybody knows that. They respect it. They respect us. (Not in this ep, frowsy buddy.)
Angelus: We're the reason men fear the night. It’s not over. This will never be over!
…..
Spike: It’s over. Just like that.

Trish Burkle: Girl reaches a certain age, she earned the right to make her own decisions. (Who is this about--Fred, or Buffy?)

Angel: Oh yeah, here it comes. The part where you run off alone and play the big hero so Buffy'll take you back. Well, newsflash, Blondie Bear: never gonna happen."
Spike: Look, I know I don't have a shot with her, all right? Probably never did but I still care about her and I'm not gonna let her end up with a jerk like the Immortal, or you.
Angel: Ours is a forever love!
Spike: I had a relationship with her, too.
Angel: Okay, sleeping together is not a relationship.
Spike: It is if you do it enough times.

Spike (of the Immortal): Every time he shows up I either lose my girl, get beaten by an angry mob, or get thrown in prison for tax evasion. (off Angel’s look) It’s a long story.


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