Season 5
Episode 3
THE REPLACEMENT: Why not take all of me?
By Spring
Summers – 03-Feb-04
- Replacing what hurts – Self construction - Killing yourself softly – Replacing Passion – Death – Xander
– Buffy – Spicy extras for
James Marsters fans -
The
Replacement starts out with Xander, Anya, Riley, and
Buffy awkwardly trying to watch a Kung Fu movie, while Xander’s parents (the
Harrises) have a loud and drunken argument upstairs:
XANDER: “Ah. I
guess the folks are back. (Everyone hears the nasty
argument begin.) No, no, I was
wrong. Just
incompetent burglars. Yeah. Maybe it’s definitely time to start looking
for a new place. Something
a little nicer. Buffy, you’ve
been to Hell. They have one bedrooms, right?”
Xander has
replaced his parents’ identities with that of burglars. And he suggests an apartment in Hell as a
substitute for the Harris basement. For
Xander, the idea of burglars and Hell hurts less than the current reality.
So Xander tries to ignore the fuss upstairs, and he tries to
replace the truth with less messy and hurtful images. Buffy, always a contender in the Blind-Eye Finals, tries to help Xander by distracting him and asking
him about
ANGEL
(in Season 2’s Passions): “It hurts sometimes, more than we can
bear. If we could live without passion,
maybe we'd know some kind of peace. But we would be
hollow - empty rooms, shuttered and dank.
Without passion, we'd be truly dead.”
So Xander deadens himself as needed. This episode is about people engaging in the
selective internal business of self-construction. They decide which parts to build up, and
which to ignore; which rooms to open for busy habitation, and which to leave
locked – all shuttered and dank. All dead.
We see images of
Xander’s construction site, and hear his boss put him in charge of “interior
carpentry.” There are also repeated
images of, and references to, individual spaces and compartmentalization: Giles’ apartment, Anya’s apartment, Xander’s
basement and his new apartment, Buffy’s room, the bedroom of Xander’s new
place, and Spike’s crypt.
And we also see
images of shared space - specifically hallways, those corridors of interaction,
those dangerous, high traffic lanes that get you from
one room to another.
With the image of
a literally split-in-two-Xander leading the way, The Replacement takes a look at what we
are made of – and whether we are “truly dead,” or more accurately, truly alive,
unless we are wholly alive (“The two halves can’t exist without each
other”).
The spaces inside
us are furnished with:
Our inherent
characteristics – i.e.,
what is provided when we move in:
·
Energy
and connections for basic functioning and communication: “Phone and electricity are hooked up.”
·
That
piece that is all our own: “There’s a
private balcony.”
·
Extras
– luxuries like talents - unique to each:
“Oh there’s a microwave!”
“There’s . . . a ceiling fan.”
·
And a
place for what accumulates over time:
“There’s . . . closet space.”
And then, there
is what you put in that closet. There is what accumulates, sometimes
unbidden, over time. It’s your history,
like what’s in the History book Buffy is so very engrossed in, at the start of
the episode, or like the listing from Xander (at the
end of the episode), about the basement apartment he is leaving behind: “At
first, it’s just a place. Then you start to make
memories. Then you’re like”:
·
“That’s
where Spike slept.”
·
“That’s
where Anya and I drowned that Saparvo Demon.”
·
“Oh! And right there, that’s where I got my heart
ripped out.”
Our interior
spaces are also packed with what we actively and deliberately choose ourselves - like a scavenged lamp, or comic book
collection, or Babylon-5 commemorative plates.
To live his life fully, to be fully Xander,
he must not ‘be hollow,” with “empty rooms, shuttered and dank.” He must furnish all the rooms, give them all
their due. He must access and acknowledge
each and every part of himself. Deaden
one part of yourself, and you deaden the whole:
BUFFY
(to Giles): “So the same goes for the
Xanders. We lose one, we lose them
both.”
BUFFY
(later, to Riley): “We’d better get
there soon. If Xander kills himself,
he’s dead. You know what I mean.”
Yes, Buffy, I’m
thinking Riley knows exactly what you mean. When you deaden a part of yourself – maybe
your heart, because you once got your heart torn out – you might as well be
dead. Re-read the latter quote, above,
understanding that it is in response to these words, from Riley:
RILEY: “I gotta have it all. I’m talking toes, elbows, the whole bad
ice-skating movie obsession, everything.
There’s no part of you I’m not in love with.”
And to that, to those
amazing words, to that unrestricted freefall of a final phrase, to that
most beautiful dive off the highest of the high boards – to that declaration of
boundless love - Buffy responds with a small smile and that comment about
Xander. Buffy’s heart chamber is locked
tight. As Riley tells Xander after
Xander has been blasted by Toth’s firing rod:
“That had to hurt.” Yeee-ouch.
Yep - Riley smacks
the cement pretty hard. No warm water in
the Buffy-pool. No cold water,
even. It’s all hollow, all empty, like a
sucking chest wound.
There are so many,
many, images of, and references to, pain in this episode. There is Insecure-Xander clumsily hurting
himself over and over. Giles mentions he
might curse his own hands off, right before he is shoved painfully, by Toth,
into a pile of boxes. Anya complains
that her arm hurts. Insecure-Xander gets smacked in the face by someone exiting a
Port-a-Potty (and he’s reminded to wear his hard hat). And that’s just to name a few.
So let’s pause a
moment to re-examine Xander’s words on leaving his basement: “That’s where I got my heart ripped
out.” After he says that, Xander
adds: “I really hate this place.” Xander is moving out. As he dreamed in Restless, he’s gotta be “with the moving forward.” He’s attempting to leave behind the place
where he got his heart ripped out.
We’ll see how that all works out for Xander as the
series progresses. It’s not going to be
perfect – you can’t really leave it all behind, ignore it, and pretend it’s not
there. But at least Xander is not Buffy. He doesn’t have his nose constantly buried in
his History book, with only Riley’s large hands and images of violent fighting
to occasionally distract him from the rip-roaring pain in his chest cavity.
Because we don’t just have many references
to pain in this episode, we also have many references to a very
specific incidence of pain for Buffy:
Angel’s murder of Jenny Calendar in the High School hallway. I quoted Passion
earlier because Passion – the
episode in which Angel killed Jenny - is both obliquely and overtly referred to
over and over in The Replacement:
THIS EP: Buffy reads a History Book.
PASSION: Angel
is referred to, by Joyce, as Buffy’s “History tutor.”
THIS EP: Giles, the new magic shop owner, is attacked
by Toth while setting up the Magic Shop.
He has a box, with the words “Charms, Orbs & Misc
Curses” written on it. As Toth
approaches, the first thing Giles pulls out, and comments on, is a rabbit’s
foot.
PASSION: Jenny visits the magic shop owner to buy an
orb of Thesula. He comments on how he
sells many rabbits’ feet to his superstitious customers.
THIS EP: Giles swings a wooden statue at Toth.
PASSION: Giles swings a wooden torch, in an almost
identical manner, at Angel.
THIS EP: Toth is entirely focused on The Slayer.
PASSION: Angel is entirely focused on Buffy.
THIS EP: XANDER (to Giles): “So you bought the Magic Shop, and you were
attacked before it opened. Who’s up for
a swinging chorus of the ‘We told you so’ symphony?” And later, again XANDER
(confident-Xander): “Do we really have
to figure out what it is? Let’s just go
kill it.”
PASSION: XANDER (to
THIS EP: When Giles mentions Toth’s “olfactory”
presence, Xander jokingly pretends he believes Giles is referring to the “Old
Factory,” adding that he hates that place.
Xander is referring to “The Factory,” where Spike and Angel and Dru once
lived.
PASSION: Spike and Angel and Dru are living in The
Factory, and the big fight and confrontation between Giles, Buffy
and Angel takes place there. It’s where
Buffy has her heart finally and totally torn out. Because souled and soulless Angel? Like confident and insecure Xander, they’re
both real. They’re both Angel. Kill one half, the other half dies. It is in The Factory that Buffy finally knows
this, and resolves to kill him. Note
that Xander uses the same words for his basement as he uses for The
Factory: “I hate that place.” As must Buffy – she must hate the place where
she had her heart ripped out.
THIS EP: Xander refers to the Charlie Brown Christmas Special and does the Snoopy Dance for
PASSION: We learn from
And here are a few
smaller things I also noticed: In this
episode, Buffy calls Toth “Rod boy,” Giles mentions that he thought his front
door was locked when it wasn’t, Xander mentions a fire and fire trucks to
So there ya
go. At the end of The Replacement Riley knows, and Xander knows, and we all know,
that Buffy isn’t in love with Riley. You
wonder why she isn’t?
In between the lines of this episode, we are being told exactly
why: Because she won’t allow herself to
even find out if she could be in love with him. Look in her history book. When it comes to romantic love, her heart is
a locked and empty room. It hurts too
much to open it for business again. Like
Xander with his burglars, Buffy has replaced her risky, blind, wild, and
passionate love for Angel with her cautious, clear-eyed, solid, and sensible
feelings for Riley. He’s The Replacement
- The Replacement that hurts less.
But, to quote
Season 2 Angel again:
“Passion. It
lies in all of us. Sleeping,
waiting. And though unwanted,
unbidden – it will stir. Open its jaws,
and howl.”
So . . . maybe
Buffy is not going to be able to keep passion at bay forever. As Spike says in this episode, while
caressing the face of the Buffy-mannequin whose head he has just violently,
passionately kicked off: “Oh,
Slayer. One of these
days.” One of these days, though
unwanted, unbidden, Buffy’s passion will stir.
It will open its jaws, and it will howl loud enough to bring a house -
and then a whole town - down, down, down.
One of these days.
But for now, Buffy
moves along, half-dead, committing a partial suicide which will become
full-blown at Season’s end. She is
ignoring passion, just as Xander ignores his parents, just as the Scoobies
ignore Anya & Xander as they fight (very similarly!) within hearing of the
apartment manager.
Death: It’s at Buffy’s heels in Season 5. Episode 1 - Dracula comes to town, planning
to seduce, and then kill, and then turn, The Slayer. Episode 2 -Harmony is out to kill The
Slayer. Episode 3 - Toth is focused on
killing The Slayer.
Death: That’s not Joyce’s “two teenage girls in the
house” headache. That’s Death. And Spike, dead-man walking, clad in black
from head-to-toe, starts his truly obsessive behavior toward Buffy with the
construction of the mannequin, in this episode.
It’s his Buffy-replacement, for now.
Spike – Death - has picked up her scent.
Death has begun stalking Buffy in earnest.
Death: It stalks us all. This episode’s heavy emphasis on death, and
the way the ep begins with Toth and his cauldron, makes me think of
Shakespeare’s Macbeth
(“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble”).
Life's
but a walking shadow, a poor player
That
struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And
then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told
by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
But Macbeth is
broken-hearted over his wife’s death, and he is excusing all sorts of behavior
with the fatalism he expresses above.
Confident-Xander doesn’t see life and death the same way:
CONFIDENT-XANDER
(to Anya): “You haven’t been hurt like
this since you became human. Maybe it’s
finally hitting you, what being human means . . . you were gonna live for
thousands of years, and now you’re gonna age and die. That must be terrifying . . . and we can get
through it together.”
Maybe it is
finally hitting her, what being human means.
It means dying. It means, as Anya
says to Xander about the apartment, “taking a tour of beautiful things I can’t
have.” But you can rent those beautiful
things, Anya, for a little while. You
can go out on the private balcony and enjoy the view, you can spend time in
your own cozily furnished rooms, you can invite others over, and you can brave
the hallway to visit the rooms of others, and take chance on a welcoming smile. You can open your mind and heart, and you can
love, and you can live your life fully.
To live
successfully as Xander, Our-Xander
must have it all – the strengths and the weaknesses, the clumsiness and the
cool. The episode is full of mention and
images of focus and distraction, and of what people “own,” underlining the fact
that it is all spread before us, and we choose what to focus on, what to be
distracted by, what to hang on to, what to let go of, what chances to take, and
what risks to avoid - what space to occupy.
Our choices define who and what we were, are, and will become.
Xander
is split in two in this episode, into Dawn’s Xander, the Xander who “went
undercover to defeat Dracula,” and into Harmony’s Xander, the loser who was
Dracula’s “lapdog.”
Insecure-Xander is much scruffier and clumsier and suicidally
apprehensive than Our-Xander, the one and only Xander, the one we’ve come to know. Confident-Xander is much neater, adroit, and
self-assured than Our-Xander. When
But notice: Confident Xander gets the apartment, gets the
girl, and gets the promotion because of Our-Xander’s previous efforts. Confident Xander earned none of those things
on his own . . . Our-Xander did it all.
There are many mentions of evaluations – self-evaluations (like Giles
deciding he didn’t do too badly against Toth) or evaluation by others (like
Xander’s credit-check), emphasizing the roles our self-images, and the opinion
of others, play in the construction of the self.
Of course,
Xander’s credit-check also takes us back to the history theme: past mistakes can impact tomorrow’s
possibilities. For Xander, it’s the sins
of the father, and his fears of being like his father, than restrict and
constrict his heart. Confident Xander, free
of that fear, is heartwarmingly sweet and loving to Anya. He isn’t 100% ready to commit, but he loves
her and he’s open to letting that love grow into the best it can be. Insecure-Xander doesn’t even think of Anya
until he is worrying about himself. He
is all about his own needs - and one of those needs is Anya. Our-Xander is a combination of those
things: He’s both the man who knows how
to love Anya, and the boy who desperately needs her
love, but is afraid to truly love her in return.
Comparisons are being drawn between Xander &
Anya and
Buffy & Riley, and the compare-contrast mode becomes
overt in the final scene, when Riley tells Xander that Anya “digs the whole
package.” Xander has mentioned his envy
of Riley, but we see that it is Riley who has better reason to envy Xander:
RILEY
(about Buffy): “When I’m with her, it’s
like I’m split in two. Half of me is just on fire, going crazy if I’m not touching her. The other half is so still and peaceful, just
perfectly content. Just knows: this is the one. (Riley gives a small smile, and then glances
at Xander.) But she doesn’t love me.”
Oh, wow. Oh, Riley.
Xander stares at Riley in wonder, trying to process this
information. But neither Xander, nor we
Viewers, have much time to absorb the quiet but startling words we’ve just
heard. Because here comes
Buffy:
BUFFY
(to Riley): “Got something else for me
to carry?”
Nah,
Buffy. Riley’s not about giving you more things to
carry. He asks you to help him pack up
instead. He’s not about being a burden. And with your help, he’ll be packing it all
in, very soon.
GILES
(to
Candles and
pretense: We saw Angel set that up for
Giles, in Passion, didn’t we? Candles and pretense: A candle and a rose on each stair – but it
was all a cruel, cruel joke. There was
nothing but a dead thing at the top of the stairs.
Candles and
pretense: Riley loves Buffy, but he
wants real love and romance, and a heart as alive and open to love as his
own. He wants someone who’s on fire,
going crazy if she’s not touching him.
He wants a woman filled with passion, waiting for him at the top of the
stairs. Riley wants that woman to be
Buffy. So letting go will take a little
more time, and a little more pain.
Note that when
Buffy expresses concern about Riley wanting Buffy-Buffy (Buffy with The Slayer
removed), we learn that Riley understands it’s all Buffy. As Kendra told her so long ago, and as Riley
repeats to her here, being The Slayer isn’t just a job: “Being The Slayer is part of who you are. You keep thinking I don’t get that.” But it seems to be Buffy herself that doesn’t
get that.
It’s part of who
she is, but Buffy’s a long way from knowing and loving, from accepting, her
Slayer-half, here in early Season 5. But
accept it she will – one of these days.
Spicy extras for James Marsters fans
·
Spike
is looking fine, as always. I love his
look in Season 5. He looks great in the
tight T-shirt and jeans, as he backs off to kick that mannequin. Despite the fact that we know about Spike’s
chip, James manages to give the blonde vamp a very dangerous air. He seems a real and present danger to Buffy,
even if we are not sure how he’s going to make his move.
·
Spike
is still consciously hoping to destroy Buffy, and he still gleefully displays
the Season 4 “Can’t any of you at least try to remember I hate you all!”
attitude. He knocks the block off the
Buffy mannequin, and earlier, he tells Toth to kick
Buffy’s ass. But Toth
breaks the lamp Spike was trying to take back to his crypt, instead. Evil sabotages Spike’s plans for a little
light.
·
Spike
hasn’t admitted to himself, as yet, any possible positive feelings for
Buffy. But it’s in Spike’s voice and
hand as he talks to the mannequin and strokes her face: Something more is going on here.