Season 4

Episode 12

A NEW MAN: How does this grab ya?

Spring Summers 01-Jun-03

-Entanglements/Spike & Giles - Surprises – Friends and Enemies – Killing – Defining ourselves – Seeing and knowing - Isolation – Buffy & Giles – Spicy extras for James Marsters fans -

Oh, the things we do to one another – the way we entangle ourselves, get all twisted up in each other as we struggle for contact and independence at the same time – it’s pathetic, isn’t it? It’s never right, it’s never enough, so we advance on each other, we retreat, we tease, we engage in earnest, we shock, we bore, we crowd each other, we abandon each other, we love, we hate, we give birth, we kill. We can’t get enough of each other, we can’t feel alive without each other, we always want more and then more and then more – and we want nothing to do with one another; we seek out isolation always, like dying elephants resolved to leave the herd.

This episode gets to me in a way I don’t clearly understand. I just feel gotten - by them all, but especially by Giles and Spike.

Giles: “You understand me?”

Spike: “Of course I understand you.”

Of course he does. And what a relief for Giles. It’s not just that Spike is a fellow displaced countryman who feels more at home in his affable adopted country. This is our first hint of the mirror-imaging that will become more fully apparent in Season 5, when we meet William. Giles is a former British bad boy who refined his accent and his manners and tries to hide his bad-boy past. Spike is a former British good-boy who roughened his accent and his manners and tries to hide his good-boy past. It’s why they hate each other; it’s why they are attracted to one another. It’s the reason that Giles is horrified that Spike knew about Riley before he did; it’s the reason Giles is able to ask him for help. It’s the reason that Spike makes fun of Giles; it’s the reason that he helps Giles with an almost amused affection. And, in the Citroen, as Giles feels freer and freer to release his inner demon, look at who begins to reveal his inner angel? Spike! (“How ya feeling, mate?”) They transform each other, unconsciously switching roles during their temporary contact. (Spike, to Giles, about giving in to the rage: “I can’t do it, do it for me.”)

But it’s not just Spike & Giles who make adjustments - like Spike trying to change gears in that ancient Citroen (“I’m doing my best!”) - trying clumsily to meet the ever-changing needs and demands of their partners and surroundings. Willow tells Buffy that her relationship with Riley has changed Buffy: “You should always have a new boyfriend. You’re so much fun right now.” But it’s not all good news: Buffy tells Willow that when she’s around Riley, she holds back. His presence affects her, causes her to act differently and pretend to be less than she is. (Note that during this conversation, Willow has lied to Buffy about being with Tara the night before – another form of pretense.)

They are all getting into each other’s business, provoking change and actions and reactions in each other. They try to connect by talking about themselves or seeking out similarities and occasions for contact. They try to disconnect by lying or holding back, and by snarling about dissimilarities and having better things to do.

There are several references to the world and the earth – for example:

• Willow: “. . .so aren’t we late?”
  Giles: “Of course, if I hadn’t had to search the globe for our Miss Summers . . .”

• Buffy: “I’m spending today with Riley.”

Willow: “Oh yeah. I forgot. That’s what you always do on the days when the earth rotates.”

And we are reminded that we are all hurling through space together, our destinies intertwined at a level well beyond our control. So - positive or negative, wanted or unwanted - Giles, Riley, Buffy, Spike, Ethan, Xander, Anya, Willow, and Tara make contact, and have profound effects on each other.

We open with Riley & Buffy literally tangled up on the bed. A sexual encounter is certainly a way to connect, but sex is not the only method for entry into, and impact on, the life of another:

SURPRISE: We can shake each other up with surprises. This episode features continual references to expectations – e.g., the word “sure” is used countless times - listen to one example from Maggie Walsh, after Buffy has told her that Slayer methods are effective: “Oh, I’m quite sure of that. Just as I’m sure that we can learn much from each other. I’m working on getting you clearance to come into The Initiative. I’m sure you’ll find the results of our operation most impressive.” But what we learn, from listening to Buffy and the others make their confident predictions, is that expectations do not create reality. We cannot control others; they will impact our lives in unexpected ways. Some examples among many:

• As they make out on Buffy’s dorm room bed, Buffy tells Riley that Willow won’t be back for hours. So Riley moves a hand up under Buffy’s shirt. SURPRISE!! Willow barges in to tell them about a demon in the rec room. They prepare to fight. But SURPRISE!! It’s a Buffy birthday bash.
• Xander (to Spike, about packing up to leave his apt): “You own nothing. This shouldn’t be taking so long.”

Spike (picking up a radio): “Hang on. Let a fella get organized.”

Xander (surprised): “That’s my radio.”

Spike: “And you’re what? Shocked and disappointed? I’m evil.

• Sitting alone in a crypt, a dejected Giles gives up on waiting for a demon-prince to rise. He tells the walls about his expectations: “Nothing’s going to happen.” Then he leaves. Ethan Rayne immediately comes out of hiding to talk to the closed crypt door: “I wouldn’t say that at all. In fact, Ripper old mate, I’d say something interesting is about to hap –“ SURPRISE!! Giles surprises Ethan (and the viewers!) by returning.
• Riley tells Buffy not to hold back during their fight, and seems confident he can hold his own. SURPRISE!! Buffy knocks him off his feet, sending him hurling backward through the air.
• Giles expects to “feel like hell” the morning after his drinking binge with Ethan. But as he descends the stairs in his apartment, he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and SURPRISE!! In the episode’s most dramatic and central demonstration of how others can impact our lives, Ethan has turned Giles into a demon!! (Of course, Ethan brings out Giles’ dark side every time he’s in town.)

FRIENDS & ENEMIES – It is not only through shock or surprise that people affect one another. They act as friends and provide comfort and help and/or they act as enemies and provide irritation and harm. There are many examples of people working together and asking for and receiving help from one another:

• Anya gives Spike advice about moving, and tries to give him Xander’s lamp. (Xander, about Anya’s assertion that the gift is traditional: “That’s among friends. With bitter enemies, we don’t give them my lamp.)
• Giles enlists Willow & Xander to help him fight a demon-prince he expects will rise that night.
• Tara and Willow work together to try to float a rose, and pluck its petals. (Willow: “Our minds must be perfectly attuned to work together as a single delicate instrument.”)
• Spike & Giles, and (independently) Buffy & Riley, work together to find Ethan Rayne.
• We hear several references to calling 911.

And there are comments and examples of people acting as enemies, and harming one another:

• Spike steals Xander’s radio.
• Buffy & The Scoobies believe that a demon has kidnapped Giles and stolen his car.
• Buffy tells Willow she “dented” Riley during their mock fight.
• Xander says he may have left a “saucer shaped bruise” on Demon-Giles.
• Ethan’s dark energy negatively interferes with Willow & Tara’s spell.
• In the episodes funniest scene, Giles scares the living daylights out of a screaming Maggie Walsh.
• The commandos chase Giles & Spike in order to capture them.

KILLING: Of course, the ultimate method of negatively affecting another is to kill them. We have the power not only to affect another’s life, causing them joy or pain, but also to end that life. That fact is mentioned over and over in this episode. Second to the image of what Ethan has done to Giles, the continuous reference to killing symbolizes the enormous power one person can yield over another’s life and future:

• Willow (after Buffy, stake in hand, learns the demon in the rec room is really a surprise party): “Guess you won’t be killing anything tonight, after all.”
• Walsh (to Buffy, about demons): “Agent Finn here has killed or captured – how many is it?”
• Spike (upon first seeing Demon-Giles): “What do I spy with my little eye? A demon. That would be – oh right – the things I can kill.”
• Giles (in enlisting Spike’s help with Ethan): “He must undo this, and then he needs a . . . good being killed . . . you help me, I don’t kill you.”
• Buffy (about the Fyarl Demon): “How do I kill it?”
• Giles (telling Spike he feels like killing): “Like snapping necks until everyone is dead.”
• Ethan (to Demon-Giles): “No, no! Don’t kill me. I can’t undo you if you kill me!”
• Ethan (to Buffy): “I’m human. You can’t kill me. What’s a Slayer gonna do to me?”

DEFINING OURSELVES: Others affect our definition of ourselves, and our self-image. Over and over, we listen to the characters define and evaluate themselves by comparing themselves to others. There are a few examples involving others, but in A New Man, Giles is the king in this arena:

• He is twice defined as Buffy’s “high school librarian.”
• He is offended when he believes Buffy is implying he doesn’t measure up to Professor Walsh.
• He feels neglected and insulted when he finds out that Spike learned about Riley’s commando status before he did.
• Giles calls himself “twice the man” Maggie Walsh is, and bemoans the way demons ignore him, but are “pissing themselves with fear” over Walsh and her “nancy-ninja boys.”

SEE ME, KNOW ME: There are many references to how well people know each other. In Giles and Walsh’s acerbic encounter, for example, they both claim to “know” Buffy. Connecting with others is not just a matter of impacting them, but also of allowing oneself to be impacted, to become vulnerable by being seen and known. Everyone is sharing information about their own experiences as they strain to be seen, to share their own vision of themselves, to find and communicate their own uniqueness, to be truly known, and so, to be truly touched:

• Giles begins to tell a story about his time in “public school” in England.
• Spike, after pointing out that he’s EEEVUL, says about Xander’s living space: “I’ve known corpses with a fresher smell. In fact, I’ve been one.”
• Buffy fills Riley in on her slaying highlights, commenting on the importance of her long experience.
• Giles tells Xander about Buffy’s absence: “I’ve vanquished a few demons in my day without her.”
• Ethan comments to Giles: “We are a couple of old mystics” and later “We’re just a couple of sorcerers.”

But let’s pick up the other side of this tale – it’s about isolation as well as entanglement, about selfish behavior and the withholding of self as much as helpfulness and sharing, about communication failures as much as breakthroughs. Struggle as we might to impact others, to see and be seen, we are far from consistently successful. We watch people separate themselves from the crowd, seeking privacy and uniqueness as much as they seek social interaction and belonging.

We see the way a lack of communication and understanding is causing distance to form between Buffy & Riley (Buffy is holding back, and therefore not sharing something about herself that is very important to her). We suspect that Willow is hiding something about her relationship with Tara, causing a gulf to begin to form between her and Buffy. Spike puts literal distance between himself and the others by moving out – much like Giles in the earlier birthday party scene, he is shown in the role of a distinct outsider.

But again, it is Giles who best demonstrates the concept of isolation. At the birthday party, he plainly feels out of place. His efforts to communicate with the younger set fall flat. He is displaced not just due to his age, but also due to his unemployed status. He is feeling undervalued, unneeded and alone.

Then, like Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s Metamorphosis, he awakens one morning to find himself transformed. The subtext has become text; Giles is actually unable to communicate with Xander or any of his fellow human beings. He is completely isolated and alone – no one can see or hear who he really is. The dark place into which he was already sinking prior to becoming a demon now begins to exert an inexorable pull.

Images of selfishness also counter the images of sharing, helpfulness and teamwork. Anya interrupts Giles because she wants to eat; Giles wants to thrash Ethan because it will “improve his day.” He comments that it won’t be bad for “both of them,” as Ethan suggests, but only for Ethan. Ethan later counters this by mentioning that drinking with Giles is much more fun – for him, at least. Spike makes it clear he’s willing to help Giles – but only for money. And like Giles wanting to improve his day at Ethan’s expense, Spike (with a kind of endearing naiveté), seeks to improve the deal at Giles’ expense (upping the ante from $100 to $200 to a whopping $300).

College girl Buffy’s climb toward adulthood is also addressed in this episode. It is her birthday, and Giles comments how hard it is to believe she is 19 already. She reminds Giles that most of her birthdays have been no fun. Since her last birthday involved Giles shooting her full of muscle relaxant and plotting to leave her trapped with a maniacal vampire, this reference isn’t a particularly comfortable one for Giles.

Giles’ role as Buffy’s father-like guide and guardian is rapidly becoming obsolete, and the growing distance between them is seen in the fact that Buffy hasn’t told Giles about her “new man,” Riley, or about the commandos – and of course, in her interest in learning from Maggie Walsh. During his caustic conversation with Walsh, Giles reveals his own blindness in regard to Buffy’s growth - he refers to Buffy as a “girl,” while Walsh makes a point of referring to her as a “woman.” And Giles’ philosophy in regard to Buffy still sounds suspiciously like The Watcher’s Council’s theory of the year before: “I think it’s best if we let a young person find their own strengths. If you lead a child by the hand, then they’ll never find their own footing.”

Buffy battles Demon-Giles without knowing it’s him and, significantly, bests him. Yet at the very end, despite the gap that has grown between them since the high school’s demise, Buffy looks into Giles’ eyes, and she sees him. Her need for Giles is fading, but she still knows him, and she knows him as her parent – listen to the way she describes how she recognized him: “Your eyes. You’re the only person in the world that could look that annoyed with me.”

She not only sees him, but she spares him and she saves him, forcing Ethan to undo the spell. She is no longer dependent on Giles, and her lack of communication with him suggests an active, if unconscious, attempt to cut the apron strings that bind. But she loves him just the same. And in the end, it is always love that most successfully breaks down barriers, that relieves the deepest loneliness, that impacts others most profoundly, that overcomes the worst of communication breakdowns - that saves the day.

Spicy extras for James Marsters fans

• Great scene between Spike, Xander and Anya as Spike moves out of the basement. There’s the usual laugh-out-loud Nick/James chemistry, but Emma Caulfield also adds a great touch with her very funny portrayal of Anya’s casual acceptance of Spike, and any outrageous thing he might do or say.
• What do I spy with my little eye? It’s Spike, with that favorite tool of Ebulgeometrics Chairs everywhere: A measuring tape!! I watch this scene closely, but I see no useful shots of the tape dangling anywhere, with tic marks showing to allow for measurement. Still, a scene with Spike and measuring tape just makes me smile.
• And talk about affecting others . . . gotta love the scene in which Spike seduces information out of that waitress (Riley, in contrast, get his information from a database). Spike’s voice, the non-stop eye contact with the waitress, his word-choice, the body language, his looks, that smile . . . before I realize it, I have told the TV screen everything I know about Ethan’s whereabouts, my home address and phone number, and the combination to my boss’s safe.

• We cut from a scene where a furious Buffy is beating on Demon Giles, screaming, “What did you do to him? What did you do?!” - to a shot of Spike. Why? Just something to think about.

· I love every shot of Spike in that awful little car. James and Tony Head do a great job with the dialogue. When Spike asks Demon-Giles, “What was that? Did you growl?” his tone is exactly like my sons asking each other “Did you fart?” Men. Forever in the fourth grade. J