Season 5
Episode 19
TOUGH LOVE: Cool Hand Buffy
by Spring Summers –
- Challenging authority – Suicide - Establishment of the self – Distinguishing
reality - The power to change - Willow
and Spike - Spicy extras for James Marsters fans -
BUFFY (right before punching
Glory): “They used to bow down to gods. Things change.”
Oh, Buffy. Things do change. You’re not your mother’s child anymore;
you’re suddenly your sister’s mother.
You’ve crossed over – or rather, been pushed over – the line, from
Dependent to Head-of-Household. It’s not
just Giles, as he literally pushes Buffy forward, who is administering tough
love. It’s also the world, our external
environment, which ruthlessly manhandles us all toward adulthood: Responsibility. Accountability. Duty.
Sacrifice. Wisdom. Strength:
BUFFY: “Early to bed, early to rise, balanced
breakfast, hospital corners. It’s a new
beginning.”
Over and over, we
are shown examples of authority and established processes: Buffy’s professor must sign forms for her
withdrawal from the University; Ben is expected to come to work on time; Dawn
must attend school or civil authorities will intervene; Dawn has homework; The
minions receive “assignments” from Glory; Policy dictates that Tara must spend
the night at the hospital; Willow has instructions for giving Tara her
medications. These are the outside
forces that bear down upon us, shaping us, in part, as we grow toward
adulthood. Our internal drives and
proclivities and talents complete the picture.
Our internal selves interface – clash and combine – with external forces
to determine our ever-evolving shape.
Notice the reference to a famous quote in Warner Brother’s 1967 Paul
Newman movie, Cool Hand Luke:
PRISON
GUARD CAPTAIN (to the convicts): “What we've got here is failure to
communicate. Some men you
just can't reach.”
GLORY
(to her minions): “So I think what we
have here is a failure to do your frickin’ jobs, pardon my French.”
Luke is the
quintessential symbol of rebellion against established authority, but he’s a
flawed hero – destructive, a rebel without a clear cause, a misfit, spitting in
the face of authority. He curses God
much as
Season 5 opened
with Dracula telling Buffy that she needed to discover who she was, to become
who she was meant to be. Buffy
concurred. And Tough Love is all about Buffy discovering and becoming – a messy
process that involves knowing when to listen and learn and follow the doctor’s
instructions, and knowing when to spit in his eye:
BUFFY
(about going after Glory): “This is not
the time.”
The specter of Luke,
continual references to the passage (and limited amounts) of time, and Buffy’s
own mention of suicide, seem to foreshadow Buffy’s season ending decision to
stop the painful process of becoming. (BUFFY, to Spike: “I told
·
SPIKE: “Hey, chin up, platelet. Don’t get scared. Maybe Glory doesn’t want to kill you. Maybe it’s something –" DAWN: “Worse?”
·
GLORY
(to
There’s death, and there’s learning to live
in the world as it is. As babies, we have no independent sense of
self; at first, we cannot even distinguish between ourselves and our
surroundings. This is a state of utter
dependence and self-centeredness: A baby
recognizes only its own urgent needs; the needs of others are
non-existent. A baby believes the world
to be a part of himself; an adult understands that he is part of the
world. As we grow, we begin to develop a
sense of self. As we begin to identify
and value our own distinctive outlines, we can begin to recognize and value the
unique existence of others. Without an
independent sense of self, we are monsters of selfishness. When we establish independent identities we
are able to consider acts of generosity - we are able to begin truly to be of
service to others. It is only after we
know and accept ourselves that we are able to move (albeit forever imperfectly
and incompletely), not toward martyrdom, but toward the more cheerful and
voluntary altruism of sainthood.
Buffy is not yet
upon that path – listen to both Ben and Buffy wallow in the martyrdom:
BEN
(to Glory): “This is so unfair. You’re taking everything away from me. Everything I’ve worked for, I earned, I care
about. These are my choices. This is my life, and you’re ruining
it.”
BUFFY (to
Ben and Buffy are
feeling (understandably) angry, resentful, helpless, and overwhelmed. They both use words to try to mold reality
to their liking:
·
BEN: “No, no, not here. I’m Ben, I’m Ben, I’m Ben.”
·
BUFFY: “Me, the grown-up. The authority figure. The strong guiding hand and the stompy foot
that is me.”
Words are
presented throughout the episode as essential, but incomplete, conveyors of
information between external and internal realities. (XANDER:
“Man, words cannot express how much I hate this place.”) But words aren’t enough to keep Ben in his
male-form, or to turn Buffy’s foot into a stompy one. We’ve got to feel, touch, smell, act, push,
and pull. We’ve got to jump in there,
and mix it up. In Fool for Love:
SPIKE
(to Buffy): “Lesson the Second: Ask the
right questions.”
But Buffy hasn’t
quite made her way to adulthood, and the fact that she continues to try to
cling to the ideal, black-and-white world of childhood is seen in the fact that
she hasn’t quite learned Lesson the Second:
·
BUFFY: “What about all those times I asked you how
school was, and you said fine?”
DAWN: “Well, it was. You didn’t ask me if I was in it when it was
fine.”
·
DAWN: “Where would I go?” BUFFY:
“I don’t know. Dad, maybe. Or foster care. I didn’t really want to ask.”
She didn’t ask the right question,
because she didn’t really
want to know the right answer. But
becoming an adult involves comes to terms with reality. This process – the process of distinguishing
others and our surroundings as we define ourselves – is represented in the
episode by the images of authority and rebellion, but also by repeated comments
about what is inside and what is outside:
·
ANYA: “They would if they were patriotic.” XANDER:
“OK. I’m going in. Patriotic?”
·
BUFFY: “I’m all dropped out.” XANDER:
“Welcome to the real world.
·
PRINCIPAL: “Dawn, why don’t you wait outside for
a few minutes?”
·
DAWN
(to Buffy): “The monks put grades K
through eight in my head. Can’t
we just wait and see if they drop nine in there too?”
·
GLORY
(to
·
GLORY
(to
·
ANYA
(to
And we are
repeatedly reminded of how challenging it can be, to express ourselves clearly,
and to clearly understand others. We are
reminded of how easy it can be, to have a failure to communicate. Below are a few examples, among many in this
episode, of instances of people misunderstanding each other, or lying to each
other:
·
BUFFY: “You lied to me?” DAWN:
“I didn’t lie, exactly.”
·
PRINCIPAL: “I think we both know that Dawn is a lot more
than just a kid.” Buffy and Dawn
misunderstand, and look worried that the Principal might know something – but
no: “She’s a talented young girl, with a
sharp mind, when she puts the effort in.”
·
BUFFY
(misunderstanding the situation): “What’s
this, I thought I told you to do your homework.” DAWN:
“I was.” BUFFY: “Please don’t lie to me.” (And how about
·
·
·
GILES: “Are you all right?”
·
GILES
(about
Note how frequently the still maturing and
often self-absorbed Willow fails to communicate. But Glory is the prime example of a monster
of selfishness, and her utter dependence on others is not a coincidental
attending characteristic. She is
completely unable to understand others, and her boundaries are so ill-defined
that she literally sucks the selfhood of others to sustain her existence. We are reminded of Adam in this episode:
Adam: He
was so entirely self-contained that he didn’t even eat. His power source was wholly internal. He believed that this world was his to
conquer. He was completely unable to
understand the benefit of connecting to anything external to himself, of
sharing the power. He was ultimately
defeated by the combined, synchronous effort of Buffy, Giles and The
Scoobies. He could never understand the
source of their power.
Glory:
She is so dependent on others that her very existence is stolen from
Ben, and she can continue existing only by literally sucking her strength from
others. Her power source is wholly
external (“Mmm – vitamins!”) She
believes herself entirely out of place in this world. And the mode of her defeat is being
foreshadowed in the comparison between her and Adam: She will be defeated by the singular
self-sacrifice of Giles, and then Buffy.
But what do Adam
and Glory have in common? They place no independent value on the existence of
others – the external exists only to serve.
They exhibit no consideration for others; they are absolutely
self-absorbed. Self-absorption and rabid
selfishness: it’s monstrous, it’s Evil.
It’s the big bad, the BIG bad, whether it is based on a superiority
complex born of a sense of absolute independence and power, or a inferiority
complex born of a sense of absolute dependence and powerlessness.
Unlike Adam or
Glory, our heroes, imperfect as they may be, are allowing their insides out,
and their outsides in. They are growing
and changing. We hear many references to
individual choices and preferences, but we also note that everyone is providing
each other with help and support (like a bra).
People define themselves in part by their associations. There are many mentions of groups and
families: Japanese, French, American,
Foreigners, The World Cultures Fair, The Campus Police, Lesbians, Vampires,
sisters. And everyone defines
themselves in part by their external experiences:
·
The
minions can’t understand bathing because they’ve never done it.
·
·
Spike
can understand a thing or two about evil.
·
And so, by being
in the world, they become part of the whole.
There are many apologies and condolences issued in the episode – I could
make a list of the times the word “sorry” is used, but it would take too
long. And there many instances of the
mention of blame and responsibility, as Buffy explains to her professor about
dropping out, as she explains her recent challenges to Dawn’s principal, as Ben
tries to explain himself to his supervisor, and as Dawn tells Spike (and then
Buffy) about her fears that she is at fault for all the terrible happenings.
In all this, our
characters are acknowledging that the world impacts them, and that they impact
the world – and that it matters.
Things change. People can effect
change, and People can be changed.
People become strong and independent not only so that they might better
survive alone if need be, but also to better find their place in the world, to
better serve their community. In Spike’s
failed attempt to reach out and stroke Dawn’s hair, we see it: The need, even for our Evil Soulless Thing,
to commune with others. Even Glory finds
the truth in
BUFFY: “Dawn needs an authority
figure. A strong guiding hand. She’ll listen to you.”
GILES: “Just like you always have.”
BUFFY: “I listen.
I do!”
We listen, we learn. We speak, we
teach. We help. We hurt.
We give. We take. We ask.
We answer. We support. We betray.
We exert power, authority, influence - and we concede to the same. We love.
We are loved. We nudge and we are
nudged toward growth – or we coerce others, or we are coerced ourselves,
perhaps by genteel former librarians who pop and crack a few of our joints, or
by sisters who offer us gold stars – into action, into change. In short, we live in the world.
To live is to grow
older. To live is to change. To live successfully is to know how
and when to effect change in others, and how and when to allow change in
ourselves.
Things change.
It’s quite a
trick, to know the difference between the legitimate use, and the illegitimate
abuse, of power: One brings deserved and
positive results; the other reaps only rebellion and negative
consequences. One is about achieving a
nobler end; the other is purely about payback.
Notice that Glory’s discovery of Dawn’s Keyhood is a direct consequence
of
It’s all about
love – the things you do for love, and the things love does for you. Tough
Love continues this season’s – this series’ – exploration of the ambiguity
of love and hate, and of good and evil.
I notice in particular Spike’s understanding of Willow, his surprising
definition of himself as “not good” but “OK” (in contrast to last week’s
Spike-dictated words from the Buffybot:
“evil” and “sinister”), his gentleness with Dawn, and his suddenly
subtle and helpful declarations of love for Buffy. And I wonder about the impact of last week’s
genuine Buffy-kiss. I wonder about the
effect of the love of a good woman, upon a bad man.
Spike is not a man
of course; he’s a monster. He’s a
thing. But, as Buffy notes in this
episode, things change.
Spicy extras for James Marsters fans:
·
Not
enough Spike. But he does looks sexy in
this episode, despite the bruising. The
hair is all curly again, and you gotta love that.
·
That
scene with Dawn – the way Spike is reaching out to touch her, and pulling back,
the way he tries to reassure her and love her without giving himself away –
really nicely done by both James and Michelle.
Her innocent sincerity, her guileless trust in him, is impacting him far
beyond what any “begging in general,” or promises of gold stars, or threats of
foster care, or the application of painful force, could ever accomplish with
anyone.
·
Notice
how Glory’s minion, whose loyalty is based on fear, betrays his master as soon
as Giles hurts him – while both Spike last week, and
·
And,
as we learn in this episode, Buffy really likes poetry. She really does. She thinks she’ll only have time for a short
poem. Like William, Buffy is going to
die while “the inks are still wet.” But
she – and William, in his fashion – will be getting a second chance at
composition.
***
Discuss this
analysis: http://scubiefan.proboards18.com/index.cgi?board=analyses
Return to the
Spikecentricity listing: http://www.soulfulspike.com/reviews.htm
Return to the
Soulful Spike Society homepage: http://www.soulfulspike.com/indexholder.htm
Join the S’cubie
General Gabbery: http://scubiefan.proboards18.com/index.cgi