13: BTVS Season 2 is a Wrap!

[00:00:00] Hmm?

[00:00:01] Ah!

[00:00:02] Hmm.

[00:00:03] Fun gets bigger! of the show has said that season two, quote, exceeded his expectations and stated, I think the Angelus arc really let the audience know that we were interested in change, that we were interested in shaking things up as much as possible and interested in just making things as grown up and complex as we could get away with. As it grew and the more we thought about it,

[00:01:41] the bigger it got until it became

[00:01:43] a really complex adult kind of show.

[00:01:47] That's definitely true. demands that his pain be eternal as ours is. Why do I have children? If this girl gives him one minute of happiness, it is one minute too much. You got a lot to learn about, man, kiddo. Although I guess you proved that last night. You don't want a killer. Do you? You want to hurt her.

[00:03:01] Just like you hurt me.

[00:03:03] You're a fool.

[00:03:05] No weapon forged can stop me.

[00:03:08] That was then. Never stops. Do you think I chose to be like this? Do you have any idea how lonely it is? How dangerous? I would love to be upstairs watching TV or gossiping about boys or... God even studying! But I have to save the world again. Bottom line is, even if you see him coming, you're not ready for the big moments.

[00:04:23] No one asks for their life to change, not really. Neither of them saw coming. Angel experiences one moment of true happiness and loses his soul. After the Romanian curse takes effect and jealous Angel's original vampire form wreaks havoc on the town of Sunnydale and the Scooby Gang. And jealous's reign of terror continues until a heartbroken Buffy is forced to send

[00:05:40] freshly resold Angel to a hell dimension to save the world.

[00:05:45] Again.

[00:05:46] Again. actually kills Jenny in front of that window. And then again, when Giles finds her, there's just so much about passion. And the voiceover at the beginning and the end is so moving. But coming part two, as my second one, because it's just a phenomenal episode, and phases, because I really enjoy the watching Willow

[00:07:01] and Oz sort of stumble through dating and where we're working.

[00:07:06] That is a great episode.

[00:07:08] I love it.

[00:07:08] I really do. You know, a little bit of Ripper come out when Giles is confronting Ethan Rain. I love the introduction of him. I love, you know, Xander getting his little moment as a soldier. Just that whole episode makes me happy. My second favorite episode was Innocence.

[00:08:20] Oh, even though it just...

[00:08:23] I mean, it's painful.

[00:08:25] It is so painful. being able to restore Angel's soul. There are funny moments, there are powerful moments. There's obviously that heart-wrenching moment at the end with Buffy having to send Angel to a hell dimension. And the joys and spike moments are just so hard to beat.

[00:09:41] Oh yeah. And my honorable mentions were passion

[00:09:44] because of course that is a fantastic episode.

[00:09:47] It just makes me really, it's very funny. I think one of my favorite quotes later came from that episode. Oh, excellent. We'll talk about that again. All right. Now, what about, I think I could guess at least one of your least favorite episodes. Everyone can guess.

[00:11:03] Yeah. What did you have for those?

[00:11:05] It's bad eggs. And the rest of them, like, even if I don't love them, now that I'm getting excited, I feel like I'm like, see, I'm starting to say like more when I start to get going. But killed by death, while it's not one of my favorites, it definitely feels like a season one episode, like I think it was originally meant to be.

[00:12:22] But even that one's kind of fun with the bad parts.

[00:12:27] But I thought it would be. with a 9.2 rating out of 10. It was like, yeah, those are pretty much the big three. And then the bottom three episodes, the lowest ranked episode is, of course, bad eggs with... It's old. And it still has a 6.6 out of 10 rating. So, you know, above average, but it's just bad.

[00:13:43] And then episode 20, that with my least favorite episode in season three. Hmm. We'll get there. Yeah. Clearly you do not understand. No, I was like, you do not appreciate this appropriately. I had to go with Angelus snapping Mrs. Callender's neck.

[00:16:22] Oh, that was like number two for me.

[00:16:25] Yeah. It's such a beautiful shot. She's got this like morning light on her face. And when she closes her eyes, you're like, is she giving up? What's happening? And then it's just the zen strength of Buffy. It's so beautiful. Just like the surprise. And she waxed Angela's in the face, which is also really satisfying.

[00:17:40] That is super satisfying.

[00:17:42] We probably should have that as a category,

[00:17:45] most satisfying moment. crappy episode, Spike makes it better. Like it's just always the best. I did say my honorable mention is Oz. Yeah. Just even though we didn't get a ton of him in this season, every Oz moment is pretty fantastic. And his dry humor and how, you know,

[00:19:01] kind of just sweet and lovely he is with Willow

[00:19:05] makes me happy.

[00:19:06] I love me.

[00:19:07] Yeah. thrilled to see on screen. And who do I have like a visceral negative reaction to when I see them on screen? And so I went with Principal Snyder just because that little man infuriates me. Like, I do love to hate him. That's why I didn't choose him.

[00:20:21] Cause I knew he kind of makes scenes better

[00:20:24] when he's in them.

[00:20:25] Like he sucks, but like gonna go with Cordelia. She starts at the beginning of season 2 as being like barely tolerating the Scooby Gang and only because she knows a lot like the Hellmouth and stuff. And by the end of the season, you know, she's

[00:21:43] like a full member of the group. She's starting to show in witchcraft. I think that kind of gives her a strength that we definitely see going forward in the series. But I just, I love what they did with Willow's character this season. I don't think she, you know, sometimes I think when they give a character a boyfriend,

[00:23:01] it can become too much about that love interest.

[00:23:04] And with Willow, I don't think they fell into that trap. that Willow is working on getting this spell right and restoring Angel's soul is not for any, selfless reason, it's because he hates Angel and wants him to die. Yeah, he's jealous and possessive and irrational when it comes to Angel.

[00:24:20] Oh yeah.

[00:24:21] And even how when he's kind of confessing his love into a caricature almost I don't love, but I just feel like there was so much potential there. It was fascinating to me the first time really watching through this that you know Buffy dies for a split second and now we have this second slayer walking around and I remember being really excited to see how

[00:25:42] they used her and how that went and I just, maybe that's also because I know what's to come with her, but mainly Kendra. I just did not love- Yeah, wasted opportunity.

[00:27:00] Yeah.

[00:27:01] I'm excited about this next category.

[00:27:04] So for favorite and least favorite monster

[00:28:03] another missed opportunity, that would have been freaking fantastic. It could still happen.

[00:28:04] I'm going to put that out in the universe.

[00:28:07] I know so many people would love that.

[00:28:10] So I, I went with Ted because I just love John Ritter so much.

[00:28:20] We were talking about it on the podcast for one cut of the dead that I did with I just remember being floored by that when thinking that Buffy had killed a person, I was like, oh shit, like this is, this kid actually have some real world locations. And then my honorable mention was Oz as the werewolf in faces. Oh yeah, cause, oh, I love him.

[00:29:41] And Jordy, I guess, even though Jordy was off screen,

[00:29:44] his little cousin who ended up biting him because gosh, he's just so compelling. And I don't know what it is about British villains in particular. I, you know, if it's my, you know, a little bit of an anglophile aspect coming through, I just love, love, love.

[00:31:02] Well, the politeness is hilarious.

[00:31:04] Yeah, right? Gosh, like they're outside of the school. What are they doing in the grocery store? Like biogrosseries probably? Like, and trying to imagine, you know, your teacher is someone who has adult interests and a romantic life and all of these things. And a history that's, that's a tough one.

[00:32:22] That's weird.

[00:32:24] I do love Ethan.

[00:32:25] Who was your pick?

[00:32:27] I put't know, I'll have to see how I feel rewatching,

[00:33:40] but Angelus might be my favorite overarching villain

[00:33:44] of the series just I'm excited for that. And I don't know if we need to ask, who was your least favorite?

[00:35:03] Bad eggs!

[00:35:04] Everything about bad eggs. younger. I was like, Oh, gross. Okay. Yeah, that's really disgusting. He had to be in there for an honorable mention. Oh gosh. So our next category, I have to give some credit over to Walking Dead cast and Jason and Karen originally with podcasta for this one. So we've got vampire kill of the

[00:36:23] season taking inspiration for their zombie kill of the week

[00:37:21] It's creative. And also because like her connection to ice skating

[00:37:25] is this like girly gentle.

[00:37:28] She's wearing like a pastel fuzzy sweater

[00:37:32] and the music that's playing is very romantic.

[00:37:34] And then she's like,

[00:37:36] Slice.

[00:37:36] And it's so badass.

[00:37:38] I love it.

[00:37:39] Nice little contrast there.

[00:37:42] I do love that.

[00:37:44] I think I went with her double kill you know her little quips when she's fighting. Absalom is like spewing all of this crap at her. And she goes, so are you gonna kill me? Or are we just making small talk? And that's when she ends up picking up the torch. And I was like, oh, that's good. That's so cheesy Buffy.

[00:39:00] So that those two kind of went together for me.

[00:39:03] She's so funny.

[00:39:05] I chose for my best Buffy is, with there. There are a few in this season. Yeah, but I went with Jenny's death because it's hard. It was the first time a main character died or like, you know, like a named like multi-episode character and you know that may be common in these post-Game of Thrones days but when she was on, main characters did not get killed. It was shocking. Not at all. Oh yeah. Um, next category. This was also hard to pick, but best girl power moment of the season. All right. So I decided not to even look at any Buffy moments because the whole show is Buffy girl power power. So I decided it was Willow taking charge on Halloween.

[00:42:50] go for it. I had, gosh, I had such a hard time. I really enjoyed Joyce kind of finally stepping up and defending Buffy to Ted. Oh, yeah. Even though I wasn't thrilled with her behavior

[00:42:59] before in terms of dealing with Ted, but I do think it's important to moment. Classic moment, Buffy wielding a rocket launcher. So our next two categories are kind of related. So first up we've got Stila Slay. So favorite kind of 90sism, 90 slang or reference from the season.

[00:44:21] And then the category after that's so bad when I was in fifth grade and some of these things were definitely not appropriate for a fifth grader, but I wanted to look like Buppy, really, really bad.

[00:45:43] The hairstyle kind of the cringiest, most outdated line for you or moment?

[00:47:01] Sanders.

[00:47:03] Whole personality.

[00:47:04] No.

[00:47:05] Sanders gay panic. kind of a missed opportunity with Gunther. But anyway. Yeah. Um, I, that was the main one that stuck out to me as well. The other one was, it just makes me cringe in, um, passion when Spike is still in his wheelchair and, and jealous makes that comment, like, don't worry, roller boy.

[00:48:21] Like, I've got everything under control.

[00:48:23] Like his whole, you know, the exchange with Willow's Eskimo costume in Inca Mummy Girl. Even though it is horrible cultural appropriation,

[00:49:43] it's an amazing costume.

[00:49:45] It looks beautiful and it think that's in in surprise episode 13. Yeah, and it's just it's so awful and it's too big on her head and it's just not cute and I hate that they do this to her. They put her in some pretty horrible hats throughout the love his little tweed elbow patches. He just, you know, he's a very presentable looking guy. I like his style. And I do have to say, as I was trying to, you know, come up with favorite outfits

[00:52:22] and who was best dressed and worst dressed,

[00:52:25] I was doing some research.

[00:52:27] And I came across this Instagram account Oh, also in bewitched bothered and be well-grated. Yeah, which is sexy. And she also is like sexy as hell, regardless of the fact that she is, you know, bewitched at the moment into trying to seduce Xander, but she looked fantastic. Yeah. That was a great outfit. And then a lot of white coats.

[00:53:41] I sometimes wonder how big the coat closet is until Spike leaves the house, right? She's past manners.

[00:55:00] She's like nice to him. I'm going to play it again. It's really funny.

[00:55:04] So do you live here in town? one, it's just, it was so hard to pick. But another Zander one, when Willow, they're talking about Buffy and how they're kind of worried about her. And Willow's like, I mean, why else would she be acting like such a B.I.T.C.H.? And Giles kind of like, Willow, I think we're a little too old to be used to play doctor all the time and everybody just kind of looks Around and Sanders like no like she's being literal like we played doctor. Yeah She's just like why how did you play doctor? I was like, oh god. Oh, it's precious the innocence But there's just too many we can have a whole episode on favor clothes

[00:57:44] Yeah, we are sure

[00:57:46] and

[00:57:48] then is currently sitting at a 92% fresh rating with a 96% audience score. So that's a pretty solid rating. And to give you guys an idea of how that compares with the last season we covered and the next season we covered, season one has a 97% fresh rating from critics

[00:59:01] with an audience score of 86%.

[00:59:04] And the 86% made more sense to me. Probably my second or third favorite season of the show. Yeah. And I'll see if that holds up once we've really dived, like deep-dived into all the other seasons. But it really is where the show just kind of takes off and changes for the better.

[01:00:22] And the rest of the show is impacted by the season and Angel.

[01:00:28] That Angel spin off. on the future of the characters. And I really appreciate that. There's nothing more frustrating to me in the Harry Potter books and movies than like, around like book five, I'm like, go to Dumbledore and tell him what's happening. They never learn that they can do that. Years and years and years, they're still acting like they're 11 years old

[01:01:41] and it drives me bananas.

[01:01:42] Like the necessity of the plot seems to bleed through

[01:02:48] Intelligent funny sad so sad so so so sad it has you know great production values for the late 90s And the acting is is consistently very very good

[01:02:54] So yeah, it's lays all over the place. I

[01:02:57] agree

[01:02:59] 100%

[01:03:00] it's just you know sometimes it's surprising to me how well it does still hold up yeah show and

[01:04:05] takes off, Anthony Head. I mean, there's just, there's so many great performances.

[01:04:07] Charisma Carpenter, like, I want to hate that character, right?

[01:04:11] She's like the witchy popular girl, but I love her.

[01:04:14] And it would have been so easy for them to do that, to just keep

[01:04:19] her this kind of two dimensional mean girl who antagonizes the Giles discovering Jenny. Oh, that's hard-breaking. That's amazing. Gosh, that is such an intense scene. Season highlights are everything spike, fair, Willow and Oz, Rocket Launcher and the music in the episodes. Worse, Villan is the anointed one because he had zero purpose. Yeah.

[01:05:41] Zero villainous charisma, either.

[01:05:44] Just one feel in it.

[01:05:45] She said it should have been called.

[01:05:47] He should have been have only have one. This is episodes are Halloween killed by death and becoming one and two. Not a massive fan of when she was bad, but I still always rewatch it. Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of that episode either. It's uncomfortable to watch Buffy being a jerk, but. Right. Yeah.

[01:07:00] Season highlights, meeting Spike and Drew,

[01:07:03] the introduction of Oz,

[01:07:05] the wannabe vampires in their costumes and lie to me. And he definitely enjoyed it. I don't have any specifics back for him. I may offer a few more episodes with him over when he's home over winter break because he did enjoy it. So that might be good. But I wanted to say that part of the reason why I wanted to watch it with him is he's a linguistics major. And one of the things my husband and I have always enjoyed about the Buffyverse is it has its own,

[01:08:24] they have their own in-universe slang.

[01:08:26] They're sort of a way people talk So what else did I want to say? Love Oz, I mean, he's just, he's so the best character in this season. And just the way he rolls with everything, I just love that. And Spike is definitely, you know, my favorite villain

[01:09:42] in anything everywhere because he's so much fun.

[01:09:46] And he's so, on the one side, but you know, he just, Spike just loves what he does and it's just really thoughtful about it. And it just makes him just so much fun to watch and I just enjoy it in general. So hopefully by the time any episode at any time. You can record a voice note on your phone and email that to us at stillslangfeedback at gmail.com.

[01:12:23] We love the feedback.

[01:12:24] Love it.

[01:12:26] It's always fun. Gone farther in Bucky the Vampire Slayer as well. But stay tuned for the Watch Your Diaries portion of the show if you want to hear the spoilery discussion about what we're most looking forward to in season three. And if you would like to join the conversation like Becky and Karen and Jolene did,

[01:13:42] you can find all our contact information at podcastica.com It's been really fun and we already talked about a little bit about cast of us is doing a walking dead Rewatch that has been really fun to listen to if you're a walking dead fan. I think you would really enjoy it it's it's pretty funny coverage and We're all zombie lovers over there on walking dead. That is super fun. I

[01:15:02] Was gonna plug a

[01:15:05] brand new show from idea. It's pretty silly. If you like what you hear, hit like, hit follow, subscribe, five-star ratings, maybe write a review, send in some feedback. There's all kinds of ways to interact with us. And I will say if you do enjoy the show, no pressure, but those five-star ratings are really

[01:16:21] helpful. It helps kind of, you know, dealing with sending poor Angel to a hell dimension,

[01:17:41] while her friends are having to fend for themselves

[01:17:44] back in Sunnydale without her.

[01:17:46] And then after months of being away, who is looking for ways to sort of capitalize on the supernatural. Yeah. He likes the order in the drive-through. I don't remember, but I remember. You just took coach or Diet Coke. Yeah, and then he eats the drive-through worker. He just grabs him, drags him through the window. He's delightful.

[01:19:01] He's such an like operator.

[01:19:04] He's like this kind of friends, and Faith comes into town and she's got none of that. And it really allows Buffy to see like what she might have been like if things had gone a little bit of a different way. I think it helps her for sure appreciate what she does have.

[01:20:25] It's such an interesting juxtaposition be involved in more of the stories. And it is so satisfying to see her mix up with all this supernatural stuff and how she copes with it and copes with trying to guide Buffy through this, you know, no parent is prepared for this. This isn't in the books.

[01:21:41] There's no like Dr. Spock, how to raise your Slayer baby.

[01:21:44] Like she's faced with a really difficult parental challenge But I have to say, some of the ones I'm looking forward to the most are probably, oh gosh, the wish and doppelganger land. Yes. Are awesome. And gingerbread might be one of my favorite episodes of the series as well. So I just, I can't wait.

[01:23:00] That's a big Joyce episode.

[01:23:02] Gingerbread.

[01:23:02] Oh, yeah.

[01:23:03] That's it.

[01:23:03] I love the helpless.

[01:24:02] is the lack of spike. Yeah.

[01:24:03] Like there's only one spike episode.

[01:24:06] Yeah, which fine.

[01:24:08] Like we get brand new characters,

[01:24:10] we get a lot of development and other villains introduced,

[01:24:14] but I just, I miss him.

[01:24:17] I miss him when he's not around.

[01:24:19] And I would really like for there to be more spike

[01:24:22] and faith interaction.

[01:24:25] We don't, I don't being the big bad in season two

[01:25:42] versus the mayor in season three,

[01:25:45] I think it gives this whole season this is a little creepy, but good, good, go for it. It's definitely not boring. Really good stuff. And then there's also some fun other stuff like Wesley is hilarious. Oh, Wesley. I love Wesley. I can't wait. I can't wait to talk about him and Cordelia. Yeah, there's great Cordelia stuff in season three

[01:27:01] that gets really funny.