RESTLESS: These dreams
Loneliness
– Individual viewpoints – Communication
– Hopes & fears – Foreshadowing
– The Cheese Man – Conclusion -
Spicy extras for James Marsters fans -
Restless: You bet.
It made me antsy, just thinking about trying to analyze this
much-analyzed fan-favorite. I haven’t
read much of the analysis that’s out there, and I’ve avoided it completely ever
since I started doing these analyses for the S3 site. I avoided it not because I have anything against being inspired
by, or directly referencing, another writer’s essay, but in the hope that fresh
eyes could squeeze a fresh drop of juice out of an episode that’s been pretty
well squeezed dry. I don’t know if I
can succeed, but a girl can dream, can’t she?
So I’m gonna close my eyes, and start:
XANDER: “Well, we’ve got plenty of vids. And I’m putting in a preemptive bid for Apocalypse
Now, huh?”
BUFFY: “Did you get anything less Heart of
Darknessy?”
–Joss Whedon, Restless, 2000
We live as we
dream: Alone. – Joseph Conrad, Heart of
Darkness, 1899
In the previous
episode, Primeval, Buffy, Giles, Willow & Xander put aside their
insecurities and resentments, but their dreams in Restless reveal that
those internal demons have not been truly exorcized. Yes, the gang literally joined together to defeat Adam. But in this episode, they each fight their
lingering demons alone.
We all feel it,
all the time, no matter who we are. It
may be a barely perceptible background vibration during a time of joy and
sharing, or it may be an overwhelming pounding in times of despair. But we hear it, always: “You are alone.”
There is a private
place beneath the ribs, forever hollow, a place that no amount sex or sharing
or shouting can ever allow another to touch, or even see. In this episode, everyone visits that empty
place in his or her dreams. Images of
isolation and loneliness permeate all the dreams:
·
WILLOW looks
out from the safety of her nest with Tara, and sees a very desolate, empty place. Later, in “drama class” though she is
surrounded by others, she feels scared and alone. Even Tara, her one refuge, her only connection, tells her: “If they find you, they’ll punish you. I can’t help you with that.” Then she stands in front of the class to
give a book-report, and even Tara, Oz, Xander, and Buffy provide no
comfort. She’s very much by herself –
and she is suddenly attacked by the First Slayer. She is ignored by everyone, and left to die alone.
And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion.
- Joseph Conrad, Heart
of Darkness, 1899
·
Images of
isolation continue, as XANDER clearly feels like an outsider in his dream. He is constantly behind the others, catching
up: Joyce tells him “they all left a
while ago,” and Giles tells him, “the others have gone on ahead.” He visits Giles apartment to sound the alarm
about The First Slayer, but he is completely ignored. Then he kneels alone in the light as Snyder castigates him. He too will die alone, when The First Slayer
attacks him, in his parent’s dingy basement.
And the perceptive Xander also dreams of Buffy’s Chosen-One loneliness,
as he imagines her in a “pretty big sandbox,” where “you can’t protect
yourself.” We see the barren desert
stretch out for miles behind Buffy.
·
GILES pushes
everyone away, telling Buffy he hasn’t got any treats, and talking about her as
his “business.” He leaves Olivia crying
by an empty baby carriage, and tells Spike, who has been offering him friendly
advice: “I still think Buffy should
have killed you.” He concludes his
talk, with Willow and a seriously wounded Xander, by expressing concern for the
couch: “Try not to bleed on my couch; I
just had it steam cleaned.” And we see
him counting solely on his “enormous squishy frontal lobes” (“I can defeat you
with my intellect”) to protect him from the First Slayer. It doesn’t work too well though, and he’s
all by his lonesome as she begins to slice through his forehead.
·
BUFFY’s dream
also incorporates many lonely images:
Joyce, with only a mouse for companionship, living behind a wall; Riley,
walking off and leaving Buffy all alone; Buffy, standing by herself in a
seemingly endless and arid desert; and The First Slayer describing herself
(through Tara) as “Absolute . . . alone.”
Clearly
distinctive viewpoints are presented, reinforcing the
images of separateness. We spend time
inside everyone’s individual shell, and peer out the tiny porthole to The World
According to Willow (or Xander, or Giles, or Buffy). We learn, in their dreams, a bit about the distinctive ways the
individual Scoobies view others and the outside world.
I don’t like to work. No man does. But I like what is in work – the chance to find yourself. Your own reality, for yourself, not for others – what no other man can ever know.
- Joseph Conrad, Heart
of Darkness, 1899
·
In Willow’s
world, RILEY, it seems, is a rather one-dimensional good guy – a bit of a
doofus, but (as Cowboy Guy) a good guy, through and through. In Buffy’s world he’s more fleshed out, and
– reflecting Buffy’s view of The Initiative, and underlying fears about RILEY -
much scarier. He’s planning world
domination, but his methods are confusing, questionable and mostly, they sound
very ineffective. “Boy’s games,” I
think, is what Joss calls them in the DVD commentary. Note that when Buffy has smeared mud on her face, and RILEY comes
face-to-face with her Slayerhood, he leaves her “on her own.” The message: Buffy is worried that RILEY ultimately will not accept her
Slayerhood, and everything it means.
·
TARA is a
safe-haven to Willow; she is someone who provides love and comfort without
making many demands. We see something
else here, in the image of Willow writing on her back: Relating directly to her feeling of safety,
Willow sees herself as the active agent, the one in control of the
relationship. In Xander’s dream, TARA
is present only as Willow’s companion, and she’s a sex object in the
dream. But then, in Xander’s dreams,
who isn’t? In Buffy’s dream, TARA is
benevolent but has no real identity of her own. She speaks for others.
Buffy does not really know TARA, and even tells her “You’re not in my
dream.” TARA is barely in Buffy’s
world, and she certainly doesn’t belong in the world of Buffy’s dreams, a world
part of she still often clings to – the one in which she and Willow and Xander
continue forever as they were in High School.
·
SPIKE is part
of a threesome in Xander’s world, a threesome made up curiously of Giles, Spike
and Buffy. He exists in the bright
sunlight, and Xander makes comments suggesting SPIKE is taking his place as
Giles’ son. Again, Xander’s dreams
reveal him as quite perceptive underneath it all. Even if his consciousness would never allow for the possibility,
the observant Xander has, at some level, been the first to see a connection
between Spike and Buffy (SPIKE: “I got
the stuff.” XANDER, to Buffy: “No one can protect you from . . . some
stuff.”). He even seems to be
conceding, to SPIKE, the spot he once coveted by Buffy’s side (“I was into
that, for awhile”). And he sees right
through to SPIKE’s childlike core – SPIKE is on a swing, and he is harmless and
seeking approval, not vengeance or violence, in Xander’s dream. Giles’ dream also reveals an understanding
that SPIKE is putting on a front, a tough-guy act. He calls SPIKE a sideshow freak, and clearly has a feeling that
SPIKE is different from your garden-variety vampire. Giles also identifies with SPIKE, who surely subconsciously
reminds him of the Ripper-half he’d rather forget (and that Buffy “should have
killed”). Note that Giles sees SPIKE as
a showman very shortly before he himself reveals his own desire for show-biz,
by singing on stage.
·
JOYCE shows
up in Xander’s dream, and in Buffy’s dream.
Xander clearly sees Joyce very differently than Buffy does - it seems
that Joyce isn’t that much of a mom-figure to Xander. He’s growing up, and his reaction to Joyce is shifting: She’s becoming primarily a woman – a
beautiful, desirable woman. “I’d like
you,” he says to her. Buffy is growing
up as well, but what it means for her is a distancing between her and her
mother. JOYCE is living behind the
walls – suggesting both that she provides support and that she is removed from
Buffy. The scene reminds me very
strongly of JOYCE in SchoolHard, talking
to Buffy through the ax-holes in a classroom door. And JOYCE mentions lemonade to Buffy, again reminding me of SchoolHard. But Buffy made the lemonade, that time – and that time, her mom
saved her from Spike (“No one lays a finger on my little girl!”). This time, JOYCE makes the lemonade, and Buffy
listens with concern, but ultimately abandons JOYCE to her fate. So who’s gonna save her from Spike’s
fingers? And what does this suggest
about the way Buffy sees her mother and their relationship? Like most children in their first few years
of independence, Buffy is concentrating on her own world, and taking Mom for
granted, I suspect.
·
ANYA is in
Xander’s dream, and in Giles’, and in Buffy’s.
She is featured most prominently in Xander’s dream, just as she is in
Xander’s life. ANYA expresses a desire
to return to vengeance, revealing Xander’s fears about ANYA’s past and what it
might mean about her present and future.
His dream of ANYA casually giving him permission to be with Willow and
Tara is very unrealistic - and the ease with which he leaves her to follow the
other girls does not suggest a heavy commitment to ANYA, on Xander’s part. Giles seems to perceive ANYA as an oddity,
an annoying someone in the background, someone he must tolerate with insincere
expressions of support to Xander:
“She’s doing quite well,” he says, about ANYA’s horrible joke-telling
technique. ANYA also appears briefly in
Buffy’s dream, as someone who is trying to get Buffy’s attention and help, but
whom Buffy believes she can safely ignore.
·
THE WORLD in
general is viewed very differently by each dreamer. To Willow, THE WORLD is a scary, uncomfortable place. She can’t find the right costume or role to
fit in to THE WORLD; she can’t seem to adjust herself properly. To Xander, it’s . . . well, full of sex,
sex, sex, sex, and more sex (I’m surprised we didn’t see him gazing longingly
at linoleum in this dream). And he’s
having a hard time finding the right niche for himself – he seems to feel a
harsh and possibly hopeless journey awaits him. He can’t seem to properly adjust THE WORLD. To Giles, THE WORLD is a place where he is a
responsible adult, a place where he should be able to control his life and
surroundings. But he can’t control
things completely - time is slipping away.
To Buffy, THE WORLD is a place she loves and lives in, but it’s also a
scary, lonely place, and a palpably mysterious one.
Our
characters strive to communicate, despite – or maybe because of – the heavy
sense of isolation and detachment they feel.
The lesson of Season 4 is not forgotten in the Season’s last
episode: Connect to the world. You gotta. There are many images relating to communication, to the social,
and spiritual need to reach out and touch someone - to (as Professor Walsh says
in Buffy’s dream in the opening sequence of Hush),
experience that moment when the idea is “total - when it blossoms in your mind and connects to everything.” Here are some examples, among many, of
images of communication and connection, or the clear lack thereof:
·
Riley is
being honorably discharged in return for his valuable silence.
·
Willow is
literally writing her love onto Tara’s back, by inking what I understand is a
Sapphic love poem onto her skin.
·
Willow is
feeling powerless in her dream, in part because no one will listen to her. She is not being understood.
·
Xander is
feeling powerless in his dream, in part because no one will talk to him in a
way he can understand (Anya and Giles literally speak to him in a foreign
language).
·
Giles’
microphone goes dead just as he seems ready to add something important to the
exposition he is singing.
·
Buffy seems
to lose her voice and can’t make herself heard when she tries to talk to Riley
and “Adam” about fighting escaped demons.
·
The First
Slayer has no speech, at first, and her lack of speech, as compared to Buffy,
suggests a corresponding lack of power in her world.
·
Note that
despite the solitary nature of the dreams, and all the desolate images, the
dreams are actually connected: By The
Cheese Man, The First Slayer, and by Xander’s sucking chest wound, which
survives from Xander’s dream, into Giles’ dream.
In communication,
in interaction with others and the world, in connectivity, there is power. It is only through communication and love
and connection that one becomes –if I may refer to Anya’s joke - a man with a
duck on his head, as opposed to a man attached to duck’s ass.
But
it’s scary, coming out of that shell and taking control. Touching others. Being touched. Committing
yourself. Growing up. I’ve found that my dreams reflect my hopes
and fears, and we see that in our characters’ dreams. We get a look at what’s inside:
·
WILLOW: Well, you don’t have to be an analytical
genius to figure out that Willow has high hopes for her relationship with Tara,
but she is afraid of everyone – including Tara - realizing that she’s still the
scared, ineffectual, insignificant and (most of all), inadequate little nerd
she believed herself to be in High School.
Even though Willow has come a long way, she continues to harbor those
fears in her heart.
·
XANDER:
Again, no microscope needed.
Xander wants to be “with the moving forward,” and he hopes – per Joss -
not just for sex (conquistador) but also for love (comfortador). As he looks toward the ice-cream truck and
says he has “other stuff going on,” we get a sense that he is hoping things
will work out with Anya. But he is
afraid that he is lacking and lagging.
Everyone is ahead of him.
Everyone is ignoring him, or putting him down. And worst of all, he can’t get out of his parent’s basement. He doesn’t want to be like his father
(“that’s not the way out”). But he’s most
definitely afraid there is no way to escape that fate, to escape being a
“loser,” being a “Harris” (being back in the basement, no matter what).
·
GILES: Oh Giles.
He really needs to listen to his Spike.
“You gotta make up your mind, Rupert.
What are you wasting your time for?”
Look at the images: Timepieces,
Olivia crying, an empty baby carriage, a singing gig that doesn’t work out, a
reliance on his intellect alone that proves disastrous . . . Giles is worried
he’s wasting his life. He’s a grown man
living with children, and he has none of his own children. The only woman in his life is thousands of
miles away. He’s loveless and he lives
in his mind and in his books. He hopes
for more (“I have a gig myself, you know”) but he’s afraid that it is too late.
The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress; and Kurtz's life was running swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time . . .
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness,
1899
·
BUFFY: She starts out her dream telling Anya to
leave her alone, she’s “really not in charge,” and she “needs her beauty
sleep.” It reminds me very much of
Season 2, High School Buffy, in Halloween,
wishing she could be a girl whose “job”
was “being beautiful.” But alas, that
is not Buffy’s job, and she can’t stay in High School forever. Even in her dreams, eventually, she has to
face her Slayerhood. And she seems
afraid that her Chosen One status makes her a killer, will cause Riley to leave
her, and also will leave her completely alone:
“I’m never gonna find them here.”
But she ultimately resists The First Slayer’s notion that “we are
alone!” telling her: “I talk. I shop.
I sneeze. I’m gonna be a fireman
when the floods roll back.” Underneath
her very real fears, we see that Buffy is building resources beyond her
Slayerhood – she has hope that her ability to live in the world will give her
options. If the floods roll back, she
can always be a fireman, after all.
So the thought of the future fills them
with hope, and with fear.
But what does this episode tell us about each character’s future? There is certainly some foreshadowing in
place:
Willow’s dream,
with all its images of her dependency on Tara and her inner insecurities, and
her words: “I’m very seldom naughty,”
surely foreshadow her Season 6 descent into darkness. We see the underlying reasons for her vulnerability; we see why
she eventually gives in to the evil that lurks in hearts of all men.
I’ve read (sorry,
I have no idea where – somewhere, some time ago) the suggestion that since
Xander hears both Joyce and Tara speak without moving their mouths, and both
Joyce and Tara are slated for death, this is meant to foreshadow their
deaths. I can cook up an argument from
there, that this is indeed how the dead speak to us – without mouths (because
they do continue to speak to us, in our heads and hearts).
Xander’s dream
images of Spike are loaded with foreshadowing.
Spike is wearing the suit he will wear in Season 6’s Tabula Rasa. He swings, like a carefree child, on a swing
set with the fatherly Giles. There they
are: Two Englishmen, like mad dogs, out
in the midday sun.
In Tabula Rasa,
for a few short hours, Spike will indeed feel innocent and human again, and
like a son to Giles. We will also see
“a shark with feet,” “and on land!” in the same episode.
And Giles
instructing Spike in the art of being a Watcher surely foreshadows Giles’
Season 6 departure, which basically abandons Buffy to Spike’s care. Spike, for all intents and purposes, becomes
Buffy’s Watcher in Season 6. He’s her
only confidant and her main man and he watches her back. He’s a Watcher, only he’s a Watcher for an
adult Buffy. So there’s the sex, and
the straight-talk, and the no-coddling when push comes to shove. Watch the first episode of Season 1, when
Giles comes up behind Buffy at The Bronze, and tells her that she’s different
and mentions her friends downstairs.
And compare it to Spike coming up behind Buffy at The Bronze, in Dead
Things. Subtract the sex (I
wouldn’t normally suggest such a thing, but try it). And I think you’ll agree the similarities are quite
deliberate. I’ve read all sorts of
speculation about this aspect of Xander’s dream, including suggestions that
Spike will someday actually become a Watcher, or that he is literally related
to Giles or to another Watcher line.
But I disagree with it all. This
foreshadowing played itself out completely in Season 6.
OK. You can add the sex back in now.
Xander’s dream
foreshadows the sexual relationship between Spike and Buffy as well – Buffy is
like a daughter to Giles, and now, in Xander’s dream Spike is like a son (From Something
Blue, SPIKE, to Giles: “It’s almost
like you’re my Father-in-Law, isn’t it?”).
Xander “was into that for awhile,” and he reacts a bit pointedly to
Buffy calling him “brother”, but he accepts it over all. He’s “got other stuff going on.” The whole thing suggests to me that Spike
will be stepping into the role of Buffy’s lover.
Yep. When Spike becomes Buffy’s Watcher, he
definitely “puts his back into it,” just as Giles advises him to do in this
dream.
Giles says
something else to Spike here: “A
Watcher scoffs at gravity.” My first
thought is that this refers to Spike’s slow ascent from the darkness &
depth of his evil and soulless state, to the light & height of his souled
and effulgent state at series end.
Certainly, Spike’s stint as Buffy’s “Watcher” will lead him to making
that climb, to scoffing at gravity – a real force to be reckoned with, but one
that Spike overcomes after all. I’ve
read two other interesting interpretations (again, I’ve no idea where I read
them):
Xander’s flight
from Anya and the altar, and his reasons for it, are also foreshadowed in his
dream - in his evident fears of turning out like his horrible father. And it is also foreshadowed, I think, in Mr
Harris’ comment: “The line ends here,
with us.” That his father should say
such at thing to him, in Xander’s dream, suggests to me that Xander is afraid
of marriage, and of continuing the Harris line – that part of him feels it
would be better if he represented the end of it all. Xander’s internal demon is on display. Notice how Xander calls Anya “his demon,” and how he lets her do
the driving.
GILES’ DREAM
Giles’ Season 6
decision that he must leave Buffy and get on with his life is surely
foreshadowed in this dream. When he
first comes back to her in Season 6, they have this exchange:
GILES: “I can’t lie to you, Buffy . . . leaving
Sunnydale was difficult. And coming
back was . . .
BUFFY: I’m guessing the word is ‘inconvenient’?”
GILES: “No.
Bewildering.”
This dialogue
follows Giles describing how he had settled back into life in England. And his words to Buffy suggest that, as
happy as he must have been to hear of her return, he is bewildered to be suddenly
pulled back, like Michael Corleone, into “the business.” He’s right back where he was, with the same
prospects and future before him. After
Buffy’s death, he had months to adjust to whatever new doors had opened for
him. And surely, he saw the silver
lining, i.e., the possibility of now being freer to build himself a life - with
Olivia or by pursuing his interest in music, or both. And eventually, in Season 6, Rupert is going to “make up his
mind” and head back to England.
And finally, the
image of Spike in the Jesus pose is another bit of foreshadowing for Spike, our
unlikely martyr to be.
TARA and THE
CLOCK: The alarm clock says 7:30. Per Joss’s commentary, this refers back to
Buffy’s end-of-Season-3 Faith dream, in which Faith mentions “counting down
from 7-3-oh.” Joss confirms that this
is about the number of days in the two years until Buffy’s death at the end of
Season 5. Tara tells Buffy the clock is
“completely wrong,” and it is. It
should be counting down from 3-6-5 by now.
BE BACK BEFORE
DAWN: Those are Tara’s words to Buffy,
and the little sis foreshadowing is plain.
TARA AND HER
MENTION OF WHAT’S TO COME: We begin, in
this episode and particularly in Buffy’s dream, to get an inkling of what we’ll
learn definitively in Season 7 - Buffy’s power is rooted in darkness:
They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar.
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness,
1899
ROXANNE: There are two of you - one that kills, and
one that loves.
- Apocalypse Now, 1979
Screenplay
by: Francis Ford Coppola
Michael Herr
John Milius
SPIKE (to
Buffy): Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day.
-
Doug Petrie, Fool for Love, 2000
All of this not
only foreshadows Season 7’s revelations about the nature of The Slayer’s power,
but also Buffy’s Season 5 worries about losing her humanity, and her Season 6
dance with the “demon” inside, and her eventual acceptance of that demon.
Buffy’s defeat of
The First Slayer results from her dream-self’s ultimate refusal to buy into The
First Slayer’s dismal, narrow, and lonely view of Slayerhood. This foreshadows Buffy’s Season 7 (series
finale) choice to be the most different kind of Slayer imaginable: She will take Slayerhood from the darkness
into the light, from its origins as means of subjugation to a powerful means by
which to acquire strength and freedom, and from its solitary nature into a
widely-shared force.
And finally, we come to that subject without which no analysis of Restless can
be complete: The Cheese Man! Joss tells us, in the DVD commentary, that
The Cheese Man is the one thing in the episode that truly has no particular
meaning. But then he adds that The
Cheese Man represents the truly absurd and unrelated element that one often
finds in dreams. So . . . The Cheese
Man does, in his very meaninglessness, have meaning.
And you know,
Buffy does like cheese. So it makes
sense that dreams connected to Buffy would make a little space for the
cheese. And of course cheese slices won’t
protect her – they’re just cheese. But
she likes cheese. No, she’s not going
to be lead around or lured by cheese like some lab rat in a white cell, and
she’s not going to fall head-over-heels for the first guy who offers her cheese
at a party. She’s gonna eat the cheese,
not vice-versa. Ah. The power of Buffy.
OK
S’cubies – you still awake? Congratulations!! You’ve made it to the end of this analysis, and of my Season 4
analyses in general. I’m done with this
one, even though I could write fifty times as much about Restless. We could look at every line, and every
image, and, I’m convinced, find something therein, to expand and expound
upon.
But, I’m guessing
there isn’t a line or an image from this episode that hasn’t been
infinitesimally dissected somewhere.
I’ve barely mentioned the BtVS character I most love to hate: Principal Snyder. I didn’t go into the male/female relationship images and issues,
or Willow birth canalish journey through the red folds of the curtains (look,
there’s Tara!), or the way Xander will break through a wall after Joyce’s
death. Nothing has been said about how
Willow is dream-killed by having the spirit sucked out of her, while
Xander dies by having his heart torn out, and Giles has his head
split open. There’s been no real
analysis of the many deliberate parallels to Heart of Darkness, and
Apocalypse Now. And I
didn’t write about the incessant and consistent images of the passage of time
(Willow’s early, Xander’s late, Giles finds a pocket watch, The First Slayer is
after everyone – or wait, is she BEFORE everyone?) and how that relates to the
overall message that it’s all about the journey:
TARA (to
Willow): “The play’s already
started. That’s not the point.”
But still, I’m
done. Ta, ta, Season 4! That was a really fun ride – and that is
the point, right? You gotta have fun on
the ride.
·
I enjoyed
watching black-and-white Spike make his many poses. Joss mentions, in his DVD commentary, that James really “cracked
him up” doing those overly dramatic poses.
·
Spike looks
good in a nerdy suit in the blazing sunlight, and he looks good in a black
leather coat, in the black-and-white shadows of the crypt. I am wondering if he might look good in a
burlap sack in a potato field. Lemme
think. Yes. I think so. Also, I am
thinking he would look good even in a wine barrel with shoulder straps, in a
dingy cellar. Or in grimy rags, in a
dirty alleyway. Or in nothing at all,
in my bedroom. Hey - a S’cubie can
dream, can’t she?