Buffy kicking a person out of their own home +

[Btvs fan]

OK so there's often lots of posts about Buffy being kicked out her own home but what is often not remarked on is that the very next episode, she is doing the exact same thing to a stranger amd what's more the show plays it for laughs "Got any tab"

It just seems such a surreal tone by the writers that we as an audience are meant to feel sympathy for Buffy at what happens to her but come the next episode we are meant to laugh at her doing it to some random bystander.

Does anyone have an explanation or is it simply saying we have to identify with Buffy come what may no matter what ?

 

[November]

Hurt people hurt people.

And what is tab?

 

[thetopher]

Protagonist-centered morality tends to plague a lot of long-running shows eventually. Basically; 'its bad if it done to/ happens to me and mine but its totally okay when I do it'.

The show had occasionally sacrificed character for plot and in the latter seasons indulged in sacrificing character for theme but this is one instance where it does it for a throwaway joke.

I don't believe that true!Buffy would strip somebody of their weapon and home in the middle of an apocalypse just because she was feeling bummed out. I could see her raiding an abandoned home's fridge and talking to herself about its contents and that would've been fine. I could see her still managing to be heroic and empathetic towards a stranger, giving him solid info and advice and telling him to leave town; showing that she's still a good person at her lowest.
But that's not what we got.

 

[Taake]

I never thought we were supposed to agree with Buffy there, more that it was to show how lost and lonely she felt, how far from the usual Buffy that she was in the moment.

Hence the need for a reminder from Spike.

 

[Btvs fan]

I never thought we were supposed to agree with Buffy there, more that it was to show how lost and lonely she felt, how far from the usual Buffy that she was in the moment.

Hence the need for a reminder from Spike.

I could (almost) agree if it wasnt for the fact the scene was literally played for laughs. It's hard to feel how lost and alone she's meant to be when we are literally chuckling at how she kicked a guy out there own home and is then moaning at what he does/does not have in the refrigerator

 

[Taake]

I could (almost) agree if it wasnt for the fact the scene was literally played for laughs. It's hard to feel how lost and alone she's meant to be when we are literally chuckling at how she kicked a guy out there own home and is then moaning at what he does/does not have in the refrigerator

I mean, as far as I remember it, that was a very low-energy/defeated ”got any tab?”

Maybe people did chuckle at that, I didn’t. I just saw it as a standard Buffy quip, not moaning or complaining, just an attempt at bleak humor, stressing that Buffy needs something, anything, to go right that night.

Just the way I remember that scene nothing was chuckle-worthy or played for laughs, I felt we were supposed to see that she was at a low-ebb and pretty fatalistic, in a way that wasn’t normal for her. It is like she’s given up on her identity of being the hero/Slayer.

If Spike hadn’t come, Buffy would just have been laying there in a depressive slump. We need to see her completely give up, in order to have that great turn around and see her get back up and believe in herself again.

I would say it is a poor attempt at re-creating the ”Me” scene from the end of season 2.

So yeah, clearly there are other interpretations but I never thought this was laughable or something we were supposed to cheer her on while doing. It is the opposite really.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

So yeah, clearly there are other interpretations but I never thought this was laughable or something we were supposed to cheer her on while doing. It is the opposite really.

Especially when you couple that scene and the previous scene -- with her giving ultimatums to her friends and all. It was supposed to be look how far she has fallen.

I, of course, had a different take on the scenes but that's just me.

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

I took it as a political "take, that!" Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Cohen]

I also remember the scene as a more "why are you here, there is an apocalypse?". Literally earlier that day, the entire town was evacuating. It was also more of a "you need to leave if you want to survive, and btw I'm going to crash here" kind of scenario. Not just kicking someone out for kicks and giggles.

Honestly, she probably saved his life.. because two days later his house would have been in the crater and he would either die of severe blunt force trauma from the house caving in or suffocation from no air buried in the crater.

 

[Bop]

Literally earlier that day, the entire town was evacuating.

I don't get why they had that scene and then after that, they show The Bronze being open and active and establish that there's likely a lot of people still hiding in their homes by having Buffy find one and kick them out. Season 7 just isn't the tightest season.

There's nothing to say that the guy left town because Buffy kicked him out he probably just found another house to crash in like she did, that's if he didn't get killed on the way there.

 

[Cohen]

I don't get why they had that scene and then after that, they show The Bronze being open and active and establish that there's likely a lot of people still hiding in their homes by having Buffy find one and kick them out. Season 7 just isn't the tightest season.

There's nothing to say that the guy left town because Buffy kicked him out he probably just found another house to crash in like she did, that's if he didn't get killed on the way there.

Ohhhh good point. I tend to block out that whole Bronze scene because that whole episode makes no sense. The problem with season 7 was it tried to be both serial and episodic, but most of the episodes didn't really have a point and leaned way more into soapy drama. It started off so strong with the first 7 episodes. But the First reveal in CWDP really stunted them because the whole season centered around that and trying to make this grand battle happen, instead of truly going back to the beginning, like the season was set out to do. I usually watch 7x01-7x07, 7x10-7x12, 7x15, 7x17-18, 7x22 Like a third of the season is really bad filler, including Empty Places.

 

[Faded90]

I could (almost) agree if it wasnt for the fact the scene was literally played for laughs. It's hard to feel how lost and alone she's meant to be when we are literally chuckling at how she kicked a guy out there own home and is then moaning at what he does/does not have in the refrigerator

The show does this multiple times though. Glib dialogue is basically Joss’ signature trademark. A but like Buffy throwing out a casual ‘I’m about to be raped’ joke in Go Fish. There’s many many occasions in the show where they sacrifice a bit of character stuff because there’s a one liner just kind of sitting there and they want to say it. A bit like Xander making a ‘Spike’s really hot’ joke in Intervention, Xander would never be so casual about a grieving Buffy sleeping with Spike but there’s a joke there so they go the joke route instead.

I wouldn’t say the ‘got any tab?’ moment is something that’s supposed to have us LOLing though. It’s not that funny even if we take it as stated. The entire scene like the other poster said is a sad, lonely and lost Buffy at absolute rock bottom. The Tab line is just a throwaway to add a tiny bit of levity right as the scene cuts away

 

[thetopher]

I think the puzzlement also comes from Spike's 'how dare you!' regarding the Scoobies actions contrasted with his 'aw, poor Buffy' when she's done the exact same, only worse.
I just don't think the writers of these episodes thought through how it looked from an objective perspective. It wasn't 'okay' that Buffy did it, but it wasn't remarked on in the negative either. Gives the impression of being emotionally manipulative, mostly because of lot of the writing this season- especially in the latter episodes- is massively contrived when it comes to character interactions/reactions.

Basically it seems like they wanted the Buffy/Spike scene in 'Touched', so they worked backwards from there to Empty Places, then LMPTM, right on back through Get It Done and Never Leave Me.
Examining it that way makes a lot of the characterizations pretty naked in their intentions, and not remotely organic.

Maybe that's why some people go harder on it.

 

[Btvs fan]

I think the puzzlement also comes from Spike's 'how dare you!' regarding the Scoobies actions contrasted with his 'aw, poor Buffy' when she's done the exact same, only worse.
I just don't think the writers of these episodes thought through how it looked from an objective perspective. It wasn't 'okay' that Buffy did it, but it wasn't remarked on in the negative either. Gives the impression of being emotionally manipulative, mostly because of lot of the writing this season- especially in the latter episodes- is massively contrived when it comes to character interactions/reactions.

Basically it seems like they wanted the Buffy/Spike scene in 'Touched', so they worked backwards from there to Empty Places, then LMPTM, right on back through Get It Done and Never Leave Me.
Examining it that way makes a lot of the characterizations pretty naked in their intentions, and not remotely organic.

Maybe that's why some people go harder on it.

I agree that it felt contrived but then I felt that way about most of Season 7 and its writing. The writers didn't care or simply weren't aware. Hell Chosen has a montage of Buffy talking about giving a choice for the empowerment spell while showing a load of girls who literally weren't given a choice !

 

[thetopher]

I agree that it felt contrived but then I felt that way about most of Season 7 and its writing. The writers didn't care or simply weren't aware.

But really I think the idea of Buffy being the only one to believe in Spike so later he can be the only one who believes in Buffy is the central thru-line of the season; the thing that so many things revolve around; Spike's trigger, Buffy's command style, etc.

Thinking about it, the Potentials are kinda treated as an after-thought right from the off, until right at the very end with the empowerment spell they suddenly become relevant to the plot.

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

Yeah, Chosen has an evil priest played by a man with a southern accent. It's not a very subtle last couple of episodes. Buffy is always anti-gun, which is fair, you can't solve your problems with guns, unless they are related to self defense. Joss advocates gun control. As Joss would say, sometimes a foot is a foot.

The good writers had clearly moved on, Joss wasn't willing to invest the time needed to develop his themes. The theme is power, but it doesn't say how to acquire or manage power, or even what to do with power. It's almost like watching a relic of another age.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

Yeah, Chosen has an evil priest played by a man with a southern accent. It's not a very subtle last couple of episodes. Buffy is always anti-gun, which is fair, you can't solve your problems with guns, unless they are related to self defense. Joss advocates gun control. As Joss would say, sometimes a foot is a foot.

The good writers had clearly moved on, Joss wasn't willing to invest the time needed to develop his themes. The theme is power, but it doesn't say how to acquire or manage power, or even what to do with power. It's almost like watching a relic of another age.

We had one English professor in the engineering course who was sentenced to teach engineers because he was an Ayn Rand devotee and that didn't go over too well in the socialist and Marxist English faculty. One of his favourite expressions was "scratch a socialist and you'll find a mediaevalist". The Marxist governments of the world never figured out how to manage power and the people who want it and that is why in the hundred years of communism from 1917 to 2017, communist governments had killed 106 million of their own citizens.

 

[Btvs fan]

But really I think the idea of Buffy being the only one to believe in Spike so later he can be the only one who believes in Buffy is the central thru-line of the season; the thing that so many things revolve around; Spike's trigger, Buffy's command style, etc.

Thinking about it, the Potentials are kinda treated as an after-thought right from the off, until right at the very end with the empowerment spell they suddenly become relevant to the plot.

The whole Spike thing is strange since Whedon then introduces a Love Triangle in End of Days (the series Penultimate episode) with Angel (that Bit&*)then drops it Chosen making it rather pointless. You could drop that whole sub plot and it literally takes away nothing fron the Finale

He even says on the DVD Commentary he wasn't going to have them kiss on screen because of the AR and he didn't want it to be like Cheers yet in the very next scene when Buffy goes down to Spike he says if you want to think they had Sex you can. Like Dude you can't say in 1 breath you don't want Cheers but then in the next imply that they had sex.

But then (according to David Fury DVD Commentary, the reason Joss gave was that Spike was a guy and he needed sex) Joss had Spike all but force himself on Harmony in Angel S5 Destiny. Why would a character who literally got a soul over his horror at AR do that with a Soul ? Then there is the fact he's meant to be in Love with Buffy (he can't last a plane trip) and even Fury (very anti Spuffy) thought it was disrespectful

 

[Faded90]

The whole Spike thing is strange since Whedon then introduces a Love Triangle in End of Days (the series Penultimate episode) with Angel (that Bit&*)then drops it Chosen making it rather pointless. You could drop that whole sub plot and it literally takes away nothing fron the Finale

He even says on the DVD Commentary he wasn't going to have them kiss on screen because of the AR and he didn't want it to be like Cheers yet in the very next scene when Buffy goes down to Spike he says if you want to think they had Sex you can. Like Dude you can't say in 1 breath you don't want Cheers but then in the next imply that they had sex.

But then (according to David Fury DVD Commentary, the reason Joss gave was that Spike was a guy and he needed sex) Joss had Spike all but force himself on Harmony in Angel S5 Destiny. Why would a character who literally got a soul over his horror at AR do that with a Soul ? Then there is the fact he's meant to be in Love with Buffy (he can't last a plane trip) and even Fury (very anti Spuffy) thought it was disrespectful

I always took the whole point of the Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Spike scenes discussing Angel was to show there wasn’t a ‘love triangle’ though. The whole point is that Buffy isn’t going to choose between the two of them because they aren’t her only choices - she can choose herself and move forward with her life as she doesn’t even know what she wants from life yet, which is understandable as she’s only 22. This is then reinforced in The Girl in Question, Angel and Spike regarding her as ‘their girl’ and the show again reiterating she doesn’t belong to either of them. She’s doing her own thing that actually doesn’t involve them at all. Obviously some shippers froth at the mouth at this as they think Buffy SHOULD be choosing which hot vampire wins her but the show quite rightly states that isn’t the case.

Yeah this definitely highlights Joss’ douchiness and ‘man has needs so what else is he supposed to do?’ attitude but I don’t think it’s totally beyond Spike’s character. Spike got his soul entirely because of Buffy, that’s what Spike has done his entire existance. Bent his self and even personality around what he believes the object of his obsession will want but he shows very little self reflection beyond the woman in his life. The scene with Harmony shows he actually hasn’t learnt a whole lot about his own actions beyond the object of his obsession

 

[Bop]

But then (according to David Fury DVD Commentary, the reason Joss gave was that Spike was a guy and he needed sex) Joss had Spike all but force himself on Harmony in Angel S5 Destiny. Why would a character who literally got a soul over his horror at AR do that with a Soul ? Then there is the fact he's meant to be in Love with Buffy (he can't last a plane trip) and even Fury (very anti Spuffy) thought it was disrespectful

Ew. Joss should wonder how he's still alive if guys just *need* sex so much.

Also Spike started calling Fred the same nickname he gave Buffy 🙄 yeah the spuffies would melt when he'd call Buffy 'pet' but he's using the same lines on Fred. 'Pet' is a common nickname in England and here it might not mean much but Spike didn't use it like that.