22: “The Wish” (BTVS S3E09)

[00:00:00] You know what I've been asking myself a lot this last week? Why me? Why do I get impaled? Why do I get bitten by snakes? Why do I fall for incredible losers? And you know, I think I've finally figured it out. What my problem is? It's... Buffy Summers.

[00:00:33] That's when all my trouble started. When she moved here. You okay? Oh, I just pulled some stitches last night. Know why? Surprise! It was Buffy's fault. Oh hey! It's garbage girl. I love the look last night, Cor. Dupster sheets for the duct. Yeah. Here.

[00:00:51] I think you need this more than I do right now. Yeah, I can use some luck. Even a stick with pointy sharp bits. That Buffy wasn't... I swear! She's pain. But Xander, he's a better loser. Don't you wish?

[00:01:16] I never would have looked twice at Xander if Buffy hadn't made him marginally cooler by hanging with him. Really? Yeah, I swear. I wish Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale. Done! Hello, everybody. Welcome to Still Slaying, a Buffyverse podcast. I'm Penny. And I'm Jim. And I'm Cara.

[00:02:00] This episode we're going to be discussing Season 3 Episode 9, The Wish, directed by David Greenwalt and written by Marty Noxon. The original air date for this one is December 8th of 1998. And this episode had an audience of 4.2 million households for its original airing. Not too shabby.

[00:02:23] You may have noticed that Jim is back with us again. We did a back-to-back with him after Lovers Walk. And now we're going to talk about The Wish, which is many people's favorite or one of their favorite episodes.

[00:02:37] I would be tempted to say, oh, this is one of my all-time favorite episodes, except that I say that about so many episodes. And I was recently just sort of skimming over the episodes that are coming in Season 4 and Season 5.

[00:02:53] And I remembered some just absolutely bonkers things that are coming, like Kinda Blue. And then Checkpoint in Season 5 and, I mean, The Body. And then, you know, there's like The Musical and Tabula Rossa. So it's like, ah, I don't want to say best overall episode.

[00:03:15] But it's pretty high up there for a little while. It's in my top 15. I can say that, I think. Maybe. Yeah, it's hard, right? It's really, really hard. Top 20. I don't know. So this is the weird thing for me. I almost got into this in our pre-gaming.

[00:03:31] So the first time I watched it, I felt the same way. And last week, so those of you that are listening that heard me say, next week's is going to be in my top five too.

[00:03:38] When I first watched this like three weeks ago, loved it the same way I always loved it. For some reason when I watched it yesterday, there were things that started to annoy me. So this is, I don't know where. Well, we'll get into that.

[00:03:50] I don't think it's a bad annoying. I think it's, I think it for our discussion, it's a typical. There's things about this episode that just started driving me a little bonkers, but. That's good. But I still love the episode.

[00:04:02] It just after watching last week's episode and maybe just because we went so in detail at how amazing that episode was, it just didn't hold water to it to me. So maybe that's part of the reason.

[00:04:13] And you just, I mean, there are so many better episodes to come. I think season four has a bunch of good episodes. I think season five obviously has maybe the best episode, in my opinion. But and then we have lots of season finales that hang up there too

[00:04:26] that we haven't even talked about. So this is, I don't know, maybe it's top 15, maybe it's top 20, maybe it's not. I don't know. Yeah, it's hard to say. It's also as it's not an episode that moves the plot forward.

[00:04:41] It's very entertaining and there are definitely things in this episode that come up later. But you could miss it and it would be fine in terms of understanding season three so far. I also wanted to thank our listeners for being patient with us.

[00:04:57] We are recording a little late. And what I posted on Facebook was that sometimes life gets in the way. I realize that could have sounded like something dire happened. But thankfully it wasn't something dire. Jim, do you want to tell us what happened to you?

[00:05:13] So I live in two states. It's very complex, but I do a lot of traveling between Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and I'll just say this. I stopped to get dinner on my way from Pennsylvania to North Carolina

[00:05:26] and an 80 year old who was texting, which I find very interesting, found her way into my car. Not like breaking into my car, but running into my car caused a little bit of damage. But of course, when it's super late on a Friday night and there's a weekend,

[00:05:44] that can be, you know, trying to find some place that's going to take in someone, you know, with someone from the north. Thankfully, I have North Carolina license plates. But anyways, I ended up in this town in Bluefield, West Virginia.

[00:05:57] And all I can tell you is, you know, sometimes you'll walk into a town and you can tell immediately that you're not you're not in the same rhythm as the town. And all I can say is a nice way of putting it. I everything just, I don't know.

[00:06:16] It sort of felt like. I'm not I'm not nothing happened like what happened in the delivery. It's so I'm not trying to make that comparison. But I will tell you, I felt like I was in another world from what I'm used to.

[00:06:29] And it was one of those moments where every place that I would walk in, I would get silent stairs as I would walk in. And I felt it was just the strangest place that I've ever been in. And not that's overstating it.

[00:06:43] One of the strangest places that I accidentally was in. I will say this to the people. And I can't remember the name of it and I apologize. But to the people at the garage that took over my car.

[00:06:55] Hey, they came in on a Saturday and on a Sunday and fixed my car and got me out of there. So props to them for taking good care of me. But I pretty sure they were just trying to get me the hell out of there. That's nice. Yeah.

[00:07:09] There are so many great like science fiction short stories and and films where somebody has car trouble and gets stuck in a town and the town gives them a weird vibe. And then it turns out that at night, everyone is a troll. Like frog. Oh yeah. Yes.

[00:07:27] We'll see. And that's what that's what like I did not leave. It got dark. I did not leave my no. But there was no Wi-Fi and the TV. It was a tube TV. Oh, it. Oh, my God. Tube TV. It was a tube TV. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

[00:07:42] I have not seen one of those in quite a while. Well, I didn't have a car and they I so I'm walking. I it literally was one of those. So if I was thirsty, it was a it was one of those outdoor motels

[00:07:55] more like it than a hotel. Yeah. So to get anywhere, you had to go outside and I. Nope. If I didn't have if I needed a monster. You know, listen, y'all, if you're from Bluefield, West Virginia, everybody seemed wonderfully nice. I I'm not trying to say anything.

[00:08:13] So anyways, but it was creepy there. That's all I'm going to say about that. So this delayed gym being able to record with us and we decided to be late rather than miss out on Jim's enthusiastic and wonderful presence.

[00:08:28] And we're really just mostly glad that he got home safely. For sure. Amen. Yeah, Cara did a bunch of driving this weekend. Also, I'm yes, I like maybe put 20 miles on my car. But you guys Texas, it's Texas is too big.

[00:08:47] Yeah, she was drive for days and you're still in town. You went to town over and it took eight hours. It felt like a universe over. I'll tell you that. New England is full of these little teeny tiny states.

[00:09:02] And there is a thing that happens to me all the time when I'm going to Providence, Rhode Island, is that I miss the exit and I'm like, oh, I'm in Connecticut. They're so close that you just that's just like, oops, I went into another state.

[00:09:19] I'll just turn around. There's a stretch that I'm this part of this drive on I-10. It's like a maybe 400 something mile stretch where there are three towns along the way that you can really stop at and the speed limits 80 miles an hour.

[00:09:37] And it's just ridiculous because one is it flat and straight? Yes, for the most part. And then there are curves and that's why there are more wrecks than you might think there just because of how little there is to look at. It's a very monotonous drive.

[00:09:56] So I had my own personal sing-along to Taylor Swift that kept me awake. But it's a it's a rough drive. But I was sitting there thinking about it, about how how many states I could have driven through if I was in the Northeast

[00:10:13] and how many different cities I could have stopped in instead of just like planes of Texas. Who's special? So special. Should we get into it and talk about December, 1998? What a time. What a time. So the number one song in the United States during this time

[00:10:40] when the episode was airing was I'm Your Angel by R Kelly and Celine Dion. And I remember that song every time I read that. I'm just like, I wonder what Celine Dion thinks about that collaboration now. What a weird pairing that is.

[00:10:55] I'm going to have to play that song later because I can't even imagine those two together. It's it's interesting. I just pretend it's not R Kelly and then I don't feel bad listening to it. The number one song in the UK.

[00:11:09] It is still believed by Cher going strong. I think it's going to be that way for a little while. I kept clicking to go forward and it was Cher. I saw on the internet today a little clip of Cher on like some talk show

[00:11:28] and she says, yeah, my mom asked me when I was going to settle down and marry some rich man. Yes, mom, I am rich. I love that quote. I have that on a pillow in my office. It's like needlepoint. It's such a good one. Legend.

[00:11:46] I don't know if I've actually seen that interview. I might need to look that up now. Oh, man. Good old Cher. The US box office at this point in time, we are still loving our movies about insects.

[00:12:00] A Bugs Life is number one followed by ants at number two. That's so weird. Two movies, most about ants. Yeah, because I did like a Bugs Life when I was 11. The main character was an ant, right? In a Bugs Life.

[00:12:15] Yeah, I think it's an ant in both movies. And then the grasshoppers are the evil ones in a Bugs Life. I remember that. And then ants, I think correct. I just have Sylvester Stallone playing in the back of my head. Was he in that? I have no idea.

[00:12:29] I feel like I my kids weren't born yet. So this is pre my kids, but I feel like I feel like Sylvester Stallone was an ants. It's Woody Allen. Yes. Sharon Stone, Sylvester Stallone, Jean Hackman, Jan, Jane Curtin, Dan Ackroyd, Danny Glover, Jennifer Lopez, Christopher Walken.

[00:12:51] Good Lord. And who do I remember from that? Sylvester Stallone. Sly. He does have a very distinct voice. That's true. All right. On this day in a hard edged 11 hour session, Republican members grilled President Bill Clinton's lawyer and witnesses

[00:13:12] to on Tuesday, the day Buffy comes out as the White House opened a spirited defense against the House Judiciary Committee's move to impeach the president. So the Bill Clinton scandal going strong. Oh, yeah. There was a massacre that took place in Algeria.

[00:13:28] And I don't know if this is the name of the town, the Tajina massacre. I believe it's the town. Yeah, I do. Yeah. And it resulted in the loss of 81 lives at the hands of armed groups as the Algerian Civil War continues.

[00:13:42] In other news, AT&T Corp announced that it was buying IBM's data networking business for five billion dollars cash, which is cash. A lot of money, but sounds really cheap knowing now what that data business would be worth.

[00:13:58] Fair. The first female ice hockey game in Olympic history was played. Finland beat Sweden six to zero. During the week of December 6, 1998, on December 6, 1998, Goodall Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela, kicking off a very tumultuous period in Venezuelan history under his rule until 2012. Straight to jail. Yeah.

[00:14:27] December 11, 1998, historic step toward removing Bill Clinton as president. The House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment on that Friday, accusing him of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair. And on December 12, 1998, after weeks of partisan wrangling,

[00:14:47] the House Judiciary Committee Saturday completed its impeachment case against President Bill Clinton, approving a fourth and final article of impeachment and rejecting a democratic proposal to censure the president instead. They came in on a Saturday. That's how bad they wanted to get that done.

[00:15:05] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Which I guess in hindsight, I just can't. I'll just leave that there. I'm not going to. Yeah, we could have a whole episode about the impeachment process of Bill Clinton. I just. This is not a lawyer podcast, despite

[00:15:22] or a history podcast, even though we're all tempted. It's 90s nostalgia, not depressing history. OK. So let's get into it. This episode, like I said, is often ranked among people's favorite episodes, and we get a new character in Anya or

[00:15:45] on Yonka, and it is very cordelia centric, at least the first half. I just love me some dark willow. So it's always been an episode I enjoy watching. And what do you guys think? What were your first thoughts, Jim? Start us up. OK, so.

[00:16:04] First off, any time you get into any sort of alternate universe I'm going to love it. I I've always loved so this alternate universe we get to see. We do get to see dark willow, but. We talked last week about how frumpy she's been made up to be.

[00:16:23] This is not that willow. And if if if if Miss Hannigan got a chance to like breathe a little bit in that scene with Spike last week, this week she got to breathe a whole lot more because she turned on the sex appeal.

[00:16:38] She they gave her clothing that definitely doesn't fit in with the with the willow clothing of the past. No. So so yeah, I mean, look, this was definitely a cordy slash really, really, this was a I mean, it really kind of turned into just kind of the alternate.

[00:16:58] Really, it wasn't an Anya episode, even though we get introduced to her. It really just turned into this. Here's what could happen if and and I loved it. But I will tell you something. The thing that struck me at the end of watching it for a third time

[00:17:12] for this show is that Buffy not being. In it until she was in it, really. It really hit me a different way this time. And yeah, I you feel them. You feel the absence, right? Yes. Hey, there's not enough.

[00:17:30] Listen, we take I think I think I think she gets taken for granted in this show because she sometimes is playing as weird as it sounds. She's kind of the straight person in this.

[00:17:41] She's kind of the fulcrum for everybody else to kind of get to be who they are. So these other characters get to stand out, including Giles. I think I think like Giles gets to play off of her,

[00:17:52] which I think makes all of us love Giles, including in this episode. But I her not being there was just a whole different dynamic. And and I as I started paying more and more attention to it, I was like, oh, I miss Buffy. I miss so anyways.

[00:18:08] And I think that's narratively intentional to have you miss Buffy to drive the point home. Yes. That that without her. The these people wouldn't have come together. They wouldn't gel the way that they have their personalities wouldn't sparkle. It's not just that the town would fall to vampires.

[00:18:30] It's also like these individual people don't get to be their best versions of themselves because Buffy brings that out in them. And and, you know, in the opening scene, you know, the hilarious nerf, nerf, nerf, demon killing scene, they talk about faith and Buffy says,

[00:18:50] you know, slaying is a hard gig. Too much alone time. Is it healthy? And then it altered it. Buffy, dark Buffy is like, I don't play well with others. And what happens to her? She dies like it. It couldn't be a more clear message that like the teamwork

[00:19:09] and the support of the Scoobies is what makes Buffy a successful slayer in a way that no other slayer. But the alternate to that is without her, they're not cohesive either. Like she holds them together. Yeah. Like it's just it's really kind of fast.

[00:19:26] OK, I'm going to start to love this show again. So you're going to save me. It's going to move back up. See, the fascination of having the pool of the two, the group and her. And they and Giles is is wonderfully what he again, very

[00:19:39] there are parts of this episode that were strictly Giles. I love Giles, by the way, he's Vanda. Anyways, say that about everybody. But also his birthday today. Anthony Stewart. Yeah, that's fun. But I just love the dynamic of just having none of it feeling co-sic.

[00:19:56] And maybe that's what I was feeling today and why it started sliding down my rankings. But I I digress. Let's talk about Dark Giles, because one thing I really enjoyed about about Dark Giles is that he wasn't in his tweet. He was wearing like regular person clothes.

[00:20:21] He wasn't all posh. And then in. Yeah, he was scruffy and he was a little bit absent minded. Like he was sort of flaky when people were talking to him and and definitely like pretty depressed in his apartment. There were all kinds of pill bottles next to a.

[00:20:39] Yes. Crystal decanter of liquor. And I was like, what's in those bottles? Right. Is that like Xanax? Is it is it Valium? What was the late 90s? Like prescription drug of choice? I think Valium over Xanax. Benzos would have been uppers or down.

[00:20:57] He seems like a downers person. Definitely in this episode for sure. Yeah. Yeah, he was he was he was depressed and angry. You know, he got so angry at that other watcher on the phone about Cleveland, which is it's hilarious for me to think about

[00:21:15] Cleveland as an alternate location for Buffy because it's just like Cleveland, like would they go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? And look, look, look, this is Cleveland is my hometown. So careful now I was I was no, no, it's OK.

[00:21:30] But I was like, oh, Buffy's in Cleveland. Yay. Yeah. But just a side note. She really got to Sunnydale fast. That's all I'm going to say about that. Yeah, I know. Yeah. OK, let's talk about it. OK, I love the way she's introduced in the alternate universe

[00:21:53] with Giles on the ground and, you know, struggling for his life, almost certainly about to get killed or captured. And we just see like suddenly vampires go flying. And then these like heavy boots and cargo pants come into into the scene

[00:22:09] and and, you know, she throws another body and then and then Giles does the pan up. You know, he looks up at her because he's lying on the ground and she's like, want to tell me what I'm doing here? All attitude. She's wearing like drab colors.

[00:22:25] She's got these like military looking cargo pants on. Cargo pants, functional tank top. Her hair is in this like, you know, very business like braid. Like that's not going to get caught on something when she's slaying. Right. That's like she's ready to fight.

[00:22:41] She's got this scar on her face that goes across her lips. And it was such an interesting choice to put the scar on her lips because it is unavoidable. There's no way to mask that or cover that. That scar is always visible, right?

[00:22:56] Like if she had a scar on like her eyebrow or the side of her face or something, it could be sort of downplay. You have a scar across your mouth. That's everyone's going to it's the first thing they're going to see about you.

[00:23:09] And and it it gave her this. This look of. Of battle weariness and she, you know, her attitude was poor. She was unfriendly and hostile and but still sassy. I loved when he was like, oh, we have to destroy the power center. And she's like great.

[00:23:32] So funny. I was like, there's there's the puffy. We know she's funny. But mostly she was like grim when she went to the bronze to look for the master and there were like human beings in cages. She just like walked around and was like, mm hmm.

[00:23:46] Yep, I see what was happening here. Like it there was no moment of compassion. Like the Buffy we know would have tried to save those people. But she was like on a mission and it was all about killing the master. Super jaded, super super jaded.

[00:24:03] I also I can't go too far without nerding out as an English major a little bit about this one. So that one line where on Yonka says I had no idea her wish would be so exciting, brave new world

[00:24:23] referencing, you know, of course we think of brave new world by Aldous Huxley back in 1932. I think that one was written. But I also immediately jumped to the origin of the phrase brave new world, which is thought to be, you know, from Shakespeare's The Tempest

[00:24:42] with the character Miranda saying it. And it's this kind of like sweet little moment of naive a day where she has spent this majority of her life isolated from society. And she's introduced to all of these people and social interactions and she has this real excitement

[00:25:05] for being exposed to more of humanity. And of course, as that place goes on. Her innocent outlook kind of starts to diminish as most people do once you are out in the real world, just like a brave new world and poor Cordelia

[00:25:26] thinking that this world without Buffy would solve all of her problems and slowly coming to realize that she has not in fact wished them into this utopia. But instead, what does she call it? Bizarre world. It's just this horrible dystopian place where she really, you know,

[00:25:50] sees the true value of Buffy. But I mean, the fashion alone. Yes. Although I do love Harmony and all of her little minions and I guess there's still the core like sort of the core. Yeah, yeah. Hockey and black little outfits were pretty chic.

[00:26:09] I like to. And you know, Cordelia is in this come bite me outfit in bright blue. But it also, you know, and I don't know how intentional it is either, but I could not stop thinking about it's a wonderful life. While watching this episode. Yeah, and definitely Cordelia.

[00:26:31] It's just it also drives me crazy. I will say just to get one little thorn out of the way. Harmony tells Cordelia that Xander and Willow are dead. Xander approaches her looking extra pale

[00:26:45] and it takes her way too long to put together that he and Willow are vampires now. She's like, I'm dead. I was like, Kordie. Come on. Think about think it through. Like you'll get there. Yeah, you could do it, especially when Willow shows up in the outfit.

[00:27:05] She should be like, oh, y'all are vampires, because she even mentions it. She's like, what's with you and the leather? And it's like, think it through. She's just more focused on the fact that they are still together together this world. And that would be horrible.

[00:27:23] Like I can see why she takes she takes a beat. She also has a lovely little racist moment as she's trying to find her car. That one. Oh, yeah, she's racist to the gardener groundskeeper.

[00:27:36] So did you guys have a thought as to why they aren't allowed to drive? Because if they want them to be home before dark, wouldn't that be the fastest way to get all of them? They probably have a lot of restrictions on them

[00:27:52] because they don't want them having the freedom to, you know, skip out on curfew. Right? So it's like everybody get on the bus at the end of school and go home. Yes, that's true. Like there's not room for them to like, you know, mess around. Yeah.

[00:28:09] I mean, what a depressing way to have high school with like seriously my thought no evening activities. Like what is the rest of the world like then? If all of these people are so content to stay living in Sunnydale

[00:28:24] when it's like this and these vampires are basically running the show, like what's the next town over looking like? What's looking like? It's unclear whether everyone's been killed or people have moved away in that one scene where the classroom only has like four kids. Yeah.

[00:28:42] And what did they have? They said the next day was the monthly memorial service, so there was no class. Yeah. It's like, damn, you think Sunnydale has death count is high now, but apparently they've just wiped out that entire generation practically.

[00:29:00] And yeah, I got a I got a wonder at the parents who haven't left town or sent their kids away. Like just how negligent or unloving are you as a parent? Or are you in on it? Are you part of the corrupt demon feeding society here in Sunnydale?

[00:29:17] And you just willingly let your kids be sacrificed to it. That's nice. I mean, you never know. That would fit a long time with this whole brave new world aspect too. Yeah. Really, really sad. Gosh, I do love the return of the master though.

[00:29:33] I still see him as either Niedermeyer in Animal House or the master. Like there's sometimes they blend together, but it's just I love watching him in this. And I did enjoy the master as a villain and I like that we see him pop up, you know, a couple

[00:29:52] more times. But I just wish we would have seen, I don't know, maybe Jesse, a little callback from season one. I don't know, maybe Jesse with Buffy not being there, never got killed by the master, got killed some other way.

[00:30:09] There's so many what ifs that you could go down in this universe. I'm assuming Kendra is alive and well. And never was called. Yep. And Faith. She's not a slayer. Most likely. I wonder how that's going. So those are, you know, some positive.

[00:30:24] The lack of faith, the lack of faith in this episode, she obviously had to have something else going on to not be in this episode because she really would have fit well in this episode.

[00:30:35] Maybe it just was because Giles was so sad because he was supposed, he was, you know, he was embedded there as a librarian to eventually be Buffy's watcher. And clearly that never happened. And he just, you know, had a saddle sweater on and

[00:30:52] was part of the white hats I think their group was called. Yeah. I did love that Larry stepping in and Oz. And girl named Nancy who we've never seen before, which again, like it would have been a

[00:31:05] perfect spot for Faith or any numerous females that have been part of the. Except Faith lives in Massachusetts. So why would she have come to Sunday? That's a good point. She's not a slayer. So Nancy is going to show up in another episode. She goes to Sunnydale High.

[00:31:24] Oh yeah. We'll see her in a few in a few weeks. But I enjoyed the white hats as well. I thought that yes, of course Oz would end up being a white hat. I think it would have been really fun if Devon had been there too.

[00:31:39] Oh, that would have been nice. Because Devon is such a dumbass. I really enjoyed seeing him try to deal with, you know, weapons and perimeters and Jonathan. Jonathan, yeah. I would have loved that.

[00:31:51] I feel so every time they, you know, in the opening scene where they're making fun of Cordelia and they part and tell her that, you know, basically she should date Jonathan now. And he's with that big, it's not a big gulp.

[00:32:08] They had to change it, whatever it is actually in the episode, but it's a big gulp. It's almost as big as he is. He just looks up that poor guy. They're just like, leave Jonathan alone. Spoiler alert. They're so mean to him.

[00:32:24] And he just sits there sipping on his drink the whole time. So mean to him. Drinking is huge. It was called a huge glug, by the way. There you go. Not a big gulp. Nice. The huge glug. That's hilarious. Oh my God. Such terrible friends to Cordelia.

[00:32:42] They're not really her friends. They're horrible, horrible girls. But it just. I don't know. And I feel bad for Cordelia. You know, I feel bad for Oz. Oz was clearly, clearly very hurt. But I think we've also discussed and established how Willow really did get

[00:33:00] swept up with Xander and does seem to truly love and care about and value Oz. Whereas Xander just kind of, yeah, like, all right. Well, no more of that anymore. And then that scene at the beginning, the Nerf demon scene where he's basically

[00:33:19] venting about how it's kind of their fault that they walked in on them and they didn't even knock. And obviously he's kidding. But I don't really think he's 100% joking. He is frustrated that they got caught. It's replacing the guilt. He's not feeling that bad. He's defensive and.

[00:33:41] He's not thinking about it from her perspective at all. And I'm just like Xander says it best when she says. Your logic does not resemble our logic. Yeah, I did like how she playfully called him out because that's just painful.

[00:34:00] I love how she is loving and honest at the same time, like her mother, right? Like she didn't say that to Xander in a way that was like, I'm not friends with you anymore. I don't love you. It's like, you're wrong about this thing. Like.

[00:34:16] And she's still his friend. She still treats him the way she treats Xander. She's that constant in his life. She's not going anywhere the same way that mom treats a spike. But I but she never lets him.

[00:34:31] She's the friend who never lets you go go past where you're supposed to go in her presence. She always cabashes it always. And she's done it two or three times in the past couple of weeks. I definitely I love that.

[00:34:43] I part of my angst with this episode was Xander really throughout the whole thing. Again, I go back and forth with him, but he was really in the normal Xander parts of this episode. He was just the worst of the worst.

[00:34:57] The whole the scene in the bronze work, he was touching her hand and she's like, stop it. Like just stop it. Well, that's what friends do. Yeah, they touch digits. Like, no, dumbass. They don't touch digits. Like don't touch any digits. Don't just stop.

[00:35:13] And she says like first of all, she said stop. That should be the end of the conversation. Secondly, you should know better. You know that she wants to get Oz back. Cordelia is right there. She's right. He wants to hurt Cordelia. Oh, that fake and the fake laughing.

[00:35:31] Which I didn't think was I think they did that because they wanted it to be funny. That was not funny. Like I was like, oh, it was sad. Yeah, it was really painful. It was really, really sad.

[00:35:39] And also Cordelia is 10 times better at that game than Xander is when she has who is it? What's his name? I'm drawing a blank check to see if something's in her teeth. John Lee. Yes.

[00:35:53] And she's maneuvering her head in a way that it looks like they're kissing from afar. And when she's laughing at the bronze, she looks like she's actually enjoying herself and having fun. And Xander looks childish and pathetic. Yeah. And it's just so cringy. Yeah.

[00:36:15] I don't want to shit too much on Xander, but this is not a good Xander episode. No. And I got to say, I like Nicholas Brendan most of the time. I think he's a pretty good actor.

[00:36:27] He's not as good as some of the other people on the show, but he delivers the humor really well. But Dark Xander, I find not that interesting at all. It's like, yeah, whatever. He served his purpose. It's fine. But Dark Willow was like a lightning bolt. Chef's chef.

[00:36:44] She was so interesting and sexy and scary and funny. She was everything. You know, you just almost, you almost described her the same way I described Spike in the last episode, which is funny because there was a little bit of that there. And I just, I swagger. Yeah.

[00:37:02] Yes. She just every scene she was in, she took it. She took it by the Gahones and just ran with it. And almost like she's been waiting for it. And what I liked about this, and again, we'll talk,

[00:37:16] I'm sure in the spoilers about her, about Dark Willow, but this is a whole different, this is a whole different Dark Willow, right? Like this is a whole different thing. Like her with Angel in this episode. Again, Angel and Giles have this strange parallel of like,

[00:37:33] I'm supposed to be here for Buffy, but there's no Buffy. They know about Buffy, but there's no Buffy. They were kind of the same character without Buffy, which made them depressed and sad. And then you had Willow kind of fitting in the scenes, taunting both of them.

[00:37:47] The scene where- You're in a big cave. Yeah. Yeah. In one of the most- Puppy. Puppy. It's just- Oh, what? Yeah. I was like, and again, I had forgotten. I'm like, who is the puppy? Who is that laying on the floor? And I'm like, oh, that's Angel.

[00:38:04] Because there was a small part of me that thought it was gonna be Spike. But it wasn't. Like, and I knew it wasn't. I knew it wasn't. But yeah, so I just- But I had completely forgotten how little Kordi ends up being in this episode. That was-

[00:38:21] When that happened, I was like, oh, I remember. I know what's gonna happen in this episode now because I was like, what the- Yeah, that was a scene. And they just Kordi- Anyways. Yeah, that was fast. She did not last very long. Which was again,

[00:38:37] again that isolationist point of what happens to this team when she- She had to die first almost. I mean, she's the one who broke the team up essentially. Can you imagine what was going through her head? She has wished herself into this Buffy-less universe in Sunnydale.

[00:38:55] And she is being killed by Willow and Xander. Which simultaneously and like, kind of sexually- 100%. While Giles is forced to watch. Yeah, that was- Which is so dark. Would you say, you're a watcher. Watch this. Watch this. I was like, ah! No. Yeah. It's so- This episode overall,

[00:39:19] I mean when you really start to think about it, is incredibly depressing. It's nice and ha-ha because we get out of it. And you know, we move on. But it is so sad to actually sit there and think about- And you know, Buffy doesn't really mention her mom

[00:39:39] if she's that hardened, you know, was Joyce killed? Were her parents still together? Did they both die? Did they still get divorced? Just thinking about all of the things that could have happened that we don't see that led her to develop this, you know, hardened exterior.

[00:40:00] Because she's even more far gone than faith is when we first see faith. And I just- I cannot imagine. There's something about her that makes me pretty sure her mother is dead at this point. Yeah. There's just- There's no love left in her.

[00:40:17] The light's gone from her eyes. And that is a huge testament to Sarah Michelle Geller's acting. Because the way she plays it, it really does seem like an entirely different person. I feel like she does not get enough credit for her acting.

[00:40:34] She also is not that good at slaying. When she goes into the factory, the fact that she doesn't take out the master with that first crossbow bolt is like embarrassing for her. Like she should have been more strategic. She should have made that shot.

[00:40:54] She should have at least had some kind of plan with Angel. Like she just created chaos where lots of people got killed. So I'm gonna- I'm gonna millennial out for a second because this really truly reminds me of Harry Potter in that Harry, you know, Harry's strength,

[00:41:19] something that Voldemort didn't have was his ability to love, his human connections with people, people he cared about. And Buffy, we see that contrast with her and Faith. Buffy has her family. She has her- You know, her real family, her biological family with her mom and her dad.

[00:41:40] And she has her chosen family with the Scoobies and Giles. And that gives you something to fight for. And that's a strength of hers that we see time and time again. Her human connections and her relationships with other people give her strength. And this Buffy,

[00:42:00] who just seems to be out there killing vampires almost in- You know, it's- There's a lot of assembly line inferences, I guess you could make in this episode because of the literal assembly line you see. And then Buffy is just like, kill it. I kill vampires.

[00:42:21] I see vampires. I kill vampires. I stab people- Like I stab demons in the heart. Seems to work. Like she is just going about her business and getting things done. And I think that's one of the biggest differences in Buffy from Cleveland that never came out to Sunnydale.

[00:42:38] And Buffy, as we know her, is that she just doesn't have that fight in her because she doesn't have her people. And the creativity and the compassion and the way that she creates alliances with her ability to be compassionate, the Cleveland Buffy, the dark Buffy,

[00:43:00] she doesn't even want to have any alliances. Like- No. She, you know, when Angel, her one ally, is killed in front of her, she doesn't even blink. She just walks through his dust. Which is crazy to see. It's so weird.

[00:43:18] But it's also like the reason that she loses because she doesn't- Like you said, she doesn't have her connections. And those connections support her literally sometimes in the fighting and in the research and in the preparation and the weapons and strategy.

[00:43:35] But they also infuse her with other points of view, new ideas, a reason to fight, creative ways of approaching things. There's just- There's all this other aspects of Buffy that are sort of dead when she doesn't have her friends. That Buffy was a shadow.

[00:43:54] When she says Slaying's not a solitary gig in this episode, it's just- And it's something- Her fight is never the friendship fight. She- That's the part of her life that she keeps her grounded, that she misses having more time doing. She misses her friendships.

[00:44:12] She misses spending time with her family. She misses getting a chance to maybe go to college and build those relationships. She misses all of that. And I think one of the intrinsic battles of this series is that battle of her having a life while she's still alive.

[00:44:27] Having a life while having this calling that she can't get away from, that there's always that constant pull of one of her friends maybe trying to get her away from it. And we get to see that there's none- The deadness that you were talking about?

[00:44:44] You get to see that so much in this episode with her once she enters the fray. There's none of that. It's literally kill the thing in front of me to kill the thing in front of me because I'm going to get that guy to kill him

[00:44:55] so I can get the hell out of here and I guess go back to Cleveland. And then kill some other things. Yeah, like there's no bond- It's a sad existence. When she first talks to Angel, you get that little flicker of, oh, she knows, oh no, no. Yeah.

[00:45:14] We're going to, she's going to be here sarcastic, a little bit sarcastic with him. And off they go, no connection at all. He was just a vehicle to get to the bronze. That's all he was. It was, it was heartbreaking to see. It was again, Sarah Michelle Gallard.

[00:45:31] She's so cold. Oh yeah. Yeah, she's so good. So she, again I think, I get so caught up and you know, Angel is my favorite character and spikes my neck. But the thing about this episode that I didn't like was we didn't get Buffy.

[00:45:45] I mean we got Buffy but we didn't get Buffy. So- We didn't get enough Buffy. I enjoy the scene between her and Giles for a lot of reasons. Yeah. But you know Giles says- Why not just put a stake through her heart? She's not a vampire.

[00:45:59] Well, you'd be surprised how many things I don't kill. I don't want to kill her this summer. I want it to reverse whatever effect she's had on this world. You take an awful lot on faith here, Jeeves. Giles. Kill the bad fairy.

[00:46:18] Destroy the bad fairy's power center, whatever. And all the troubles go away. Yeah, well I'm sure it's not that simple but- World is what it is. We fight, we die. Wishing doesn't change that. I have to believe in a better world. Go ahead.

[00:46:34] I have to live in this one. It's that I have to live in this one. In this world she doesn't even have time to consider a life. No. It's only darkness and fighting. I again am thinking a lot about the fifth season of Fargo and Juno Temple's character.

[00:46:57] And I had posted at one point on Facebook, like I think that Juno Temple's character Dot Lion would have made a great slayer because she's resourceful and creative and brave and scrappy. But also because like Buffy she has love in her heart

[00:47:17] and a reason and a desire to spread that love and to love other people. And this Buffy without love is so depressing. She's a side character. Yeah. Yes, yes. Don't you think though, and as you were saying that, isn't the this version of Buffy in this alternate universe,

[00:47:40] isn't that more what the watchers other than Giles want? Yeah. I mean that's what Kendra was except not as dark. Right? She was like I follow the rules. I don't talk to boys. I don't have any friends. I don't live with my family anymore.

[00:47:56] And you know if Kendra went through some stuff, this is how she would be if you know after a couple of years like Buffy's been a slayer for a couple of years and that's where this path leads you. And most slayers die before they even turn 18.

[00:48:12] So the Watchers Council has set up slaying. Like they made these rules and they've like guided all these slayers to not have a life and not have connections and not have love and to just be focused on the fight. And clearly it's the wrong way to go.

[00:48:27] Most of their slayers die right away. I mean on paper, on paper it makes sense. It makes sense on paper. Focus. You don't want to have connection because A, then you know you can't have someone held over your head. You can't. And you won't be distracted. Correct. Yeah.

[00:48:43] So and you can see faith is on this path, the same path. The things that saves her is she sees Buffy and craves what Buffy has. And I think for a while this season so far,

[00:48:58] she's sort of skirted along the line with Buffy almost wanting to be Buffy. I think that the yeah, the episode revelations up until that point, I think she was like, oh my god, I can join this group. Yeah. And this could be my family.

[00:49:17] And then when they had the meeting without her and she is like, I'm not her friend. And then she had that big fight with Buffy where Buffy beat the crap out of her face. She was like, oh, see, I was wrong. You can never have a family.

[00:49:33] I'm never going to have a connection with anyone. People suck. And now she's on her guard with the group. That's why she's not around. Yeah. She's like off doing her own thing because she felt betrayed by that and it ruined her idea of connecting with them.

[00:49:50] Well, and it's like that trauma thing. Yeah, it's a trauma response. Black and white thinking. She is isolating now. It's that defensive isolation that many people do. And I think we talked about it when we talked about the introduction of faith

[00:50:09] is that is one of her trauma responses, that hyper independence. And she let herself just for a moment, like, let her guard down and have hope that she was going to be accepted into their gang.

[00:50:25] And now it's like she's gone and not looking back because she doesn't want to get hurt again. And one thing I guess this is not entirely spoilery, but we do get an indication when we are introduced to Kendra that she had been training

[00:50:42] to be a slayer before she ever got the call. So there's at least something out in the universe indicating that there could be a way of knowing who is in that lineage, who is down the slayer line. And I just,

[00:51:02] I could see that being more helpful than when you have a situation like Buffy or Faith. If you are raised your whole life in anticipation of this and you're trained to fight as opposed to you are all the sudden a normal teenage girl and then bam

[00:51:19] You get yanked out of that life. Like you now have a calling and find out vampires are real and are responsible for patrolling and protecting who knows cities, regions just that's so much crushing weight that if you don't have someone to fall back on

[00:51:41] then what do you do? I would assume and they all die before they turn 18. I mean it's it's awful. It's not a long lived position and I have this thing about how much I hate the Watchers Council. I hate them. I hate their policies.

[00:51:59] I hate the way they run things. I hate the way they treat Buffy. We haven't spent very much time with them yet, but we will as the series goes on. But even to this point we know that they withhold information from the slayer, right?

[00:52:14] She never knows the whole story and they exploit these young women without any seeming compensation, right? Oh yeah. Buffy should be getting paid. Giles gets paid. They don't have the respect to reach out to Buffy's parents. Like when they called her when she was 15, right?

[00:52:43] Like at no point did the Watchers Council think maybe we should tell her parents about this. Like it's freaking criminal. Even Muggleborns get a visit from Dumbledore or other Hogwarts officials when they go to Hogwarts to explain this new world that they're entering into and it's just

[00:53:06] the freaking Watchers Council is we could do a whole episode on. Same with Jedi. Yes. Sort of rings of like the Jedi Council. Yeah. The dark side. I never understood the whole like you shouldn't have any attachments. Yeah. Like that's a great way to create a psychopath. Yeah.

[00:53:24] Give them lots of power and then make sure they don't love anyone. Like what? Oh yeah. Although side note when Anakin does fall in love with somebody he does it does impact him a bit. But yeah. That's a whole different that's a whole different. That went badly. Yeah.

[00:53:46] Well in fairness he wasn't told the whole story either. He was told lies so. That is true. Yeah he was manipulated into that. Oh gosh. All right there is a Star Wars podcast on the podcast good network for people who want to

[00:53:59] get really into all the Jedi talk. So I suggest you go check that out especially when Andor season two comes out that's going to be fantastic. They're great. Good. They're so good. I love Andor so far.

[00:54:13] I bought myself a Mon Mothma action figure and I'm in love with her. Anyway have we talked about all the dark versions of characters? No but we really should talk about we haven't talked about Anya at all. We really need to talk about her right now.

[00:54:30] Oh yeah let's get into Anya. Anya. I love the introduction of Anya via harmony right. Her father bought a utility or something. It's just such a like shallow vapid rich girl way to talk about someone. Harmony is such a pure character. I love harmony. Love harmony. Oh yeah.

[00:54:52] And Anya. Especially Harmony later on. Anya presents as just you know a pretty girl who's probably wealthy. She's got nice clothes but she's doesn't she's not ostentatious. She's not like you know over the top like in that scene Cordelia is wearing a red leather head

[00:55:12] to toe outfit right. She is dressed. Which is fire when she pulls up and gets out of the car in that outfit. I was just like get it get it Cordelia. But I was also like this is not a high school student. Of course not.

[00:55:28] She is a grown ass woman walking into that school. And I'm sorry I'm sorry but the reaction that she got. I get it. It's a TV show. Oh no no no I'm sorry that is not the reaction she was going to be getting if she was walking down.

[00:55:44] Listen listen that was yeah that was that outfit was hot and all of those guys would have been like falling at her feet. So good but no she does not look like a high school student.

[00:55:55] This is one of those episodes in particular where she's like no no you're grown. That's that outfit that's not that outfit in particular that is a that is a grown woman's outfit.

[00:56:05] That is a grown woman's outfit that is a woman who is going to like I love it. I don't know a chic nightclub or something that is not a high school girl but anyway

[00:56:14] Anya I was trying really hard to remember what it was like to watch this episode when I didn't know that Anya was on Yonka. Scared the shit out of me. Oh god. Turns and she's so scary. Yeah I will never forget that.

[00:56:30] I think I had a nightmare after this episode from her like Dawn and her face getting all veiny. Oh I it's like a flash bulb memory it affected me a lot when I was like 11. I wish Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale.

[00:56:52] She was like a good fairy a scary veiny good fairy. She's not a good fairy Cordelia. No no I love that line because Cordelia is just in that moment she's so focused on her own pain

[00:57:24] still that I mean you can tell at a glance that this is not a better world than she's wished herself into but she's like a scary veiny good fairy. I'm like I would be freaking out. It's like read the room.

[00:57:39] Is they pan across the school and there's like papers like wafting across and yeah like dead leaves everywhere and like nobody's there it's like empty and she's like a world without Buffy. I'm right girl.

[00:57:55] That's just I do love too that you know she sees the amulet the necklace that Anya is wearing and thinks it's Prada and I'm Gucci that's Gucci because it does look like Gucci. That's right and then she says most people can't tell Prada from Payless that's what

[00:58:16] is but it does look like a Gucci necklace and I spent I did have a little tangent going on Etsy to see if I could find a replica amulet. It's really beautiful so pretty and it got destroyed in this episode but I love

[00:58:33] that that is what you know Anya Anyanka has adjusted as time has gone on to how to relate to these scorned women and so she bonds with Cordy over luxury goods. She starts with fashion and then moves on to men and it's funny because in my memory

[00:58:54] of the episode I forgot that there's like a cup there's like time that passes that Anya is friends with Cordelia for a couple of days before the wish happens like I had sort

[00:59:05] of forgotten about that like the scene of them at the bronze and everything and Anya is doing a great job of blending in and looking like a typical like teenage girl and hanging out with

[00:59:18] the other well I mean she also doesn't really look like a teenager but true she um Yeah I had just forgotten that she spends time getting closer and closer to Cordy until she gets

[00:59:32] that that wish. I do remember the first time watching it that I was like hey that's Brandon's girlfriend from 90210 but I don't remember my reaction to the reveal of her being evil. I guess you should always assume any new character is either about to die or

[00:59:50] is some kind of monster either or show yeah yeah I had no name. Yeah yeah I just had no idea that she was going to be a regular eventually on the on the on the series like they even play or they

[01:00:05] started yeah yeah well that seems so kind of run in run it they just keep running into these characters did she date Brandon? I thought it was Steve maybe it was both. No she definitely dated

[01:00:18] Brandon yeah I thought it was Steve's the blonde one yeah I thought they dated it. No she definitely dated Brandon she was um she was like a type A she was on the college paper with him like

[01:00:30] you know at first they didn't get along and they fought but then you know I think she ends up with Steve though doesn't she no I think you're confusing her with Kathleen Robertson who has a

[01:00:42] kind of similar look and she dated the Steve character uh I can't believe I'm remembering 90210 as well. That was one of those shows that I caught here and there but definitely never went all the way through.

[01:00:58] I had a group of friends in college that we 90210 was on Wednesday nights and we had a regular Wednesday make your own pizza bobbily you know those bobbling pizza crusts we would have bobbly

[01:01:12] in 90210 night and we would watch nice we would make pizza and then we would all watch 90210 together and you know we would keep up with Melrose Place just because of the ads that would play during 90210 we didn't actually watch Melrose Place and the irons ironing character

[01:01:27] Steve looks so so much like this good friend of ours named Aaron and it became kind of like a drinking game that whenever irons ironing was on the was on the screen we would all go it's Aaron

[01:01:40] it's totally Aaron it's dumb but it was fun and I have therefore really warm fuzzy feelings about 90210 even though it's a fairly stupid show. I mean look come on that's that's our Gen X show right

[01:01:56] I mean come on come on. I am enjoying very much the uh Shenandoah already podcast by the way I mentioned it before because she had Sarah Michelle Geller on but it's it's really great

[01:02:06] she's having all these people on that she's worked with and they're talking about their projects and she just released the second half of her interview with Kevin Smith and they're talking all about mall rats and like all the production history around mall rats and it's

[01:02:20] it's really it's feeding my 90s indie movie lover heart to listen to it. And I love that she's found a voice she hasn't had one for a long time and I think a lot of people assumed that she didn't

[01:02:33] have a lot of friends in Hollywood and it turns out oops maybe the narrative doesn't quite fit the actual picture which I I'm really happy that she has found this avenue and a lot of these people

[01:02:45] I we're really going off on a tangent here but I love I love the podcast very very much and and I just it's one of those things like if we had a recommendation for a non-podcastica thing that

[01:02:58] would be a great one because she's um especially at this stage of her life I think uh this has been a great thing for her yeah but she's in a truth telling phase of her life and she is just

[01:03:12] she's just not like willing to bullshit anymore. I always really liked Shenandoah already and I was sad when they wrote her off of Charmed and I always wanted her to do more. I mean we'll be

[01:03:26] covering Heather's on this podcast in a couple of weeks so we can have a lot of Shenandoah love when that happens because Heather's and Shenandoah iconic speaking of love yeah I cringe so hard

[01:03:44] whenever Willow licks Angel like I cannot imagine how they got through some of the scenes in this episode with how different everything is and then on top of that just I don't know there's so many

[01:04:05] scenes that make you stop and go oh my god like Oz killing Willow and Buffy not even flinching when Angel's killed and the master killing Buffy and fulfilling the prophecy again just a little bit

[01:04:21] later this time. And the look when he kills Buffy the dead look on her face? Yes it's like she'd given up almost like just kind of yeah okay so we talk about Twilight a lot but there's a scene in

[01:04:37] Twilight there's a battle scene in Twilight in the final movie where this one character when these the vampires are running at him to kill him he just goes Christopher Hyerdahl and he just

[01:04:50] like stands there and he says finally is that Kaius or is that a different one? Yeah that's is Kaius the one played by Jamie Campbell Bauer? I can't remember it's one of the three

[01:05:03] Volturi vampires anyway and it's paper thin. It's one of my favorite moments in that in that whole movie because he's just like I've been alive for like 9,000 years it's time just take me

[01:05:16] and that's kind of what the look was on Buffy's face like finally this this horrible life that I live that is so dark and horrible is over. Like ugh it's just it's so depressing. It's really

[01:05:29] they do a great job. There are some very light entertaining moments but overall when you really sit back and think about it it's it's a lot and how integral Buffy is to the Scoobies and how

[01:05:45] you know they influence her life for the better and it's just it makes me really happy when we get to see them back together. Yeah but but I mean it all goes I mean so it's a really quick

[01:05:58] domino right like everything they finally sort of working together but not really and then we go through that Angel saves Buffy but dies well it happens then Buffy I think right after that kills

[01:06:09] Xander followed really quickly by Oz killing Willow and then we get that juxtaposition of Giles versus the Amulet while Buffy and the Master are walking together and it's beautifully edited with like progressively shorter and shorter clips to build the tension and the music. You're praying that he

[01:06:30] gets that amulet first praying because I just every time yeah every time you're watched I watched it I'm like please get there first I don't want to ooh I saw it dang it. Yeah yeah and yeah

[01:06:44] you think that he's gonna save Buffy's life yeah and he doesn't he does it it is dark and I mean and look and I know we're in the serious talk but the I just I missed I forgot how much I missed the

[01:06:59] the red stains around the master's mouth oh yeah for punch mouth. The free punch mouth. I um but I I just um I loved that that as it got to that peak the scenes where we just watched the

[01:07:15] Scooby Gang just completely crumble apart so the last person standing is Giles which I guess makes sense it makes me a little bit happy but it escalates so quickly yeah oh yeah it's the music too

[01:07:29] so creepy with the vocalization kind of reminds me there's a lot of that kind of vocalization in the yellow jacket score that is likely in the background and it's always real creepy I like it

[01:07:41] it is a very powerful end scene yeah and I'm so glad that Giles was able to reverse it ugh I just I don't know and then he had the faith to do it right like this depressed

[01:08:00] you know drug abusing alcohol using sweater wearing Giles had the wherewithal to take that huge risk he could have written Cordelia off completely coming in there yelling and talking about Buffy

[01:08:15] he didn't have to follow up on that but I think that also goes to show how I mean how good his instincts are and how inherently you know talented he is in this arena and being a watcher

[01:08:30] and thank god for Giles because that would have been real bleak yeah they got stuck that way I love him sort of they all died so yeah well I all that but I loved sort of watching Giles Jeeves

[01:08:48] come out of this come out of that fog as he notes that oh yeah you know I still sort of have the watcher in me and I do love his development I loved we talked about Willow already but

[01:09:04] there were just little parts of this that you go way back to the beginning like Cordelia really does continue kind of the shine we get to see her kind of juxtaposed her trying to be strong versus all of the negative to the point where we get that goofy

[01:09:23] kind of I wish all of this was going away but I we've got to talk about this alternate universe like yeah this this this motif that that why I love this episode maybe a little more

[01:09:36] yesterday than I did today but why I love this is I from from jump I think probably the first like from my memory the first great alternate universe episode of any tv show maybe to this

[01:09:47] day for me is mirror mirror from Star Trek where we get this dark oh this dark version with the Beards yes where you have Kirk is this like psychopath and Spock is like his henchmen murderer

[01:10:00] but still has his common sense they play again I I guess every time and they all wear sparkly belts yeah they sparkly belts and Kirk has that like vest on to like show off his like 60s muscles and

[01:10:14] um 60s muscles you know basically his dad bod but in the 60s he looked like Hercules I guess I don't know yeah uh but Ahora was a little sexier and Sulu had the scar on his face they're definitely

[01:10:31] this was definitely listen it's it's obvious that JW loves Star Trek because a lot of the motifs from Star Trek you're getting to see play and I think I think the wish holds up I I don't you

[01:10:43] know I've not looked at any rankings of of alternate reality episodes but this is what you do with an alternate reality episode right like you have an opportunity in this alternate reality to do all

[01:10:54] the things because they are so much fun yeah and and at the end of the day because it's it's not a commitment so just play and have fun and do go as crazy as possible so let's make

[01:11:06] a scene community there's uh yeah an amazing episode of community where they have several different timelines yeah and there's the darkest timeline I kept thinking like this is the darkest timeline and I just wanted Donald Glover to like walk in with pizza and be like what happened

[01:11:25] that's fantastic it would have been appropriate totally would have fit oh there are listeners if you haven't watched community I oh I feel sad for you it's it's really

[01:11:36] fun but I I I love that I love that they did it and they they it's not that there wasn't fun in this episode you know they there's some fun I the the Buffy there's definitely some humor the

[01:11:50] little quote about Buffy's name um that name is striking fear into nobody oh yeah that was that was funny weird thing girl kept talking about Buffy gotta get Buffy here isn't it what they call

[01:12:06] the slayer Buffy ooh scary someone has to talk to her people that name is striking fear in nobody's hearts oh man they you know they picked the name Buffy because it was the least aggressive

[01:12:26] scary intimidating name that they could think of yeah for their for the character it was meant to be just as soft and unthreatening as possible yeah and I love that they they dived into that

[01:12:39] here and um I love that they gave Willow the sex appeal in this episode they allowed Allison Hannigan an opportunity to kind of spread her wings and you know I know that they probably had

[01:12:51] this tracked out well for spoilers later I'll just save it for there but I again I think this is one of those series where the leadership past not only JW but everybody else that we've talked about

[01:13:04] gets to maybe throw some things against the wall some of these characters so that they can maybe enhance future future episodes because to me the started off a courty episode got rid of

[01:13:14] her and it turned into just this mishmash of here let's have this person do this and that person do that and and I just absolutely that's the part of this that I love I love that all all the

[01:13:28] constraints are taken off we we killed the whole entire scooby gang except for Giles uh and and we can again in a series that's heading in a certain place in season three that ended where it

[01:13:40] ended uh with with um last week's episode with lovers walk we get this very much a standalone episode but again and all their stand-alones that does have impact in future episodes you

[01:13:54] know we got a brand new character that obviously has a major part going forward but they really again I think this holds up in anybody's top 10 alternate universe uh episodes I absolutely love

[01:14:08] it I love by the way if you ever um have watched the show Sherlock there's an I there's an ironic alternate universe episode where because Sherlock of course is in you know present day their alternate

[01:14:21] universe episode is when they're the Sherlock they go to the original Sherlock time yeah yeah I don't remember that um it was it was a I feel like it was a special it wasn't it was almost

[01:14:34] like uh the doctor whose special episode oh it wasn't part of the regular season maybe I think it was like a two-hour episode and I think it was the hounds of the vascular bills I can't remember

[01:14:42] for sure but um it was absolutely fabulous where I gotta look for that we get to see Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock is one of the greatest performances on tv this millennium it's fantastic

[01:14:54] brilliant yeah I mean it rocketed him in the stardom it's the reason we all know his name I love that people can say like bumblebee come quiet and everyone's like you mean

[01:15:05] Benedict Cumberbatch yeah yeah gosh I will say too you know we did kind of touch on the beginning of the episode how Xander is downplaying the breakup and being defensive about it and wanting

[01:15:25] to put blame everywhere but on himself and Willow but I love Oz and his emotional maturity again at work in this episode because Willow of course wants to talk to him and he basically

[01:15:42] tells her you know I said I needed space like I'm sorry this is hard for you but I told you what I need so I can't help feeling like the reason you want to talk is so you can feel

[01:15:53] better and I love how he just this is the one of the best quotes and any I clipped this audio and I titled it Oz being mature yes Oz wait please just what I did when I think that I hurt you

[01:16:11] yeah you said all this stuff Friday right but I want to make it up to you I mean I mean if you let me I want to try just you can leave me alone I need to figure things out

[01:16:30] but maybe if we talk about it we could look I'm sorry this is hard for you but I told you what I need so I can't help feeling like the reason you want to talk is so you can feel better about yourself

[01:16:48] this is not my problem again they should show Oz behavior in like teenage like sex ed classes like here's how you navigate relationships this is the mature way to respond it's the

[01:17:13] the irony that you know he has he has this you know running theme throughout the series about Oz being kind of a man of few words and not really being that chatty but he has the best communication

[01:17:29] skills out of all of them and the way he expresses that to her and it's not harsh or cruel but it's direct and blunt at the same time just like uh Oz yeah and it's true fantastic it's wonderful

[01:17:49] he and Xander it's just the polar opposites yeah watching his reaction and how he's handling all of this Xander is behaving more like you would expect someone to behave if they were the ones

[01:18:02] who had gotten cheated on if they were the ones who had been betrayed or wronged it's not a pretty look to turn around and blame the person you cheated on for touching you like that goes right

[01:18:16] up there with the apologies that are like i'm sorry that you're hurt that yeah like that you got offended by something i'm sorry you took it that way yeah even if he was jesting like that's

[01:18:28] no you you've caused this you've caused this so you don't get that's not something you get to joke about especially with the person who you were with when you caused this it's not okay

[01:18:41] like it's not okay yeah so willow and and he are friends and i can respect that their desire to maintain the friendship but there's a way that you can go about doing that and she says it she says

[01:18:56] it to him she says it like you know i need to be strong willow there's that one quote that she has that's really nice and she's doing the things she needs to do uh and still finding a way to

[01:19:09] respect zander's friendship and i know that's probably maybe that's a boundary that's about us yeah and it's clear and it's understandable and she gives the reason for it you know she wants to

[01:19:23] prove to us that she puts him first and the only way she can do that is by making her body off limits to zander and any and and and i do feel like you know i do feel like that the process for her

[01:19:39] would include not maintaining a friendship with zander if that was something that os needed her to do the thing about os is and i think we all know this is that he's not telling her she

[01:19:51] needs to do anything other than leave him alone uh he needs to he needs to find his space he needs to find out what he wants and what he desires and that has nothing to do with willow

[01:20:05] right now it has everything he's like just leave me alone he doesn't say i want you to never speak to zander again yeah or you know you you need to prove yourself to me none of that he's like i

[01:20:17] want to think let me think which i love and and i i i love that they are portraying os the way that they are and seth green does a great job with that of course he's still part of the white hats i love

[01:20:35] that willow is now realizing her mistake and doing the right thing i really wish zander in this season would have gotten his opportunity to not be a douche yeah instead they seem to be doubling down so yeah it's frustrating because i

[01:21:01] and i know that zander does get to take some paths down the road but uh it's just it's and i guess you have to you know it's a tv show but in a tv show that has enough thanks

[01:21:10] in it i don't know that they need to be playing it the way that they are um they've already caused i mean cordelia doesn't need zander to continue being who he is to be who she is right now she was

[01:21:23] hurt and this is how hurt people react i mean granted you generally don't have somebody with an amulet that's going to change the entire town um but but uh but uh but uh but yeah i think that

[01:21:37] all the other stuff is normal yeah i yeah i feel it and i feel like they don't need zander to be who he is right now for all of this other stuff to be happening they've set all the other stuff

[01:21:48] into motion now let zander maybe let zander maybe he can he can he can be sad and funny without being sad or grow he could grow yes but apparently he's gonna grow into a bigger douche

[01:22:03] he is the part of the show that ages the worst yeah there are moments like you pointed out earlier of like bits of racism and throwaway homophobia and things like that that are that are around the

[01:22:15] edges but zander is one of the core characters and he like constantly is doing things that in today's world like many people would be like not okay you know what i mean like he would get called

[01:22:29] out constantly for this behavior if he was a teenager today and i it's it's interesting to watch the show 25 years later because i think the female characters hold up beautifully yep and it's

[01:22:46] really zander i mean giles holds up fine but uh he doesn't really get to be like a real real person until like next season yeah well it's funny this is a small tangent you talk about zander

[01:23:00] not tangent on this i know but this weekend my parents and i watched 10 things i hate about you and i haven't that movie i have not seen it in way too long it is fantastic and it came out in

[01:23:16] 1999 so it was being filmed in 98 when this show when buffy was airing this season and the way that they portray julia styles character cat and the stuff that she says which i remember back then was supposed to be like so edgy and out there and she's just like

[01:23:39] makes a comment about how they're reading a bunch of white male authors in english and brings up she's like what about the principle yeah and he's just like get out of here and i was like

[01:23:50] okay so this is different but it it struck me how normalized that is now like the stuff that she says and the way she behaves is more often than not what i would expect to see from younger

[01:24:08] women and zander it's like the exact opposite it's it's just he's regressive yeah and he does we know he grows we talked about it he does have some growth as the series goes on but these first few

[01:24:25] seasons are just painful i try to remind myself that he has an incredibly horrific home life yes and that he is deeply insecure and has never received love from anyone except willow yeah

[01:24:40] and so he's he also is probably has PTSD right i give faith all kinds of grace for hers yeah so i should really give some disander the problem is like that he keeps doing things that aren't just

[01:24:57] like insecure but like they affect other people possessive of the women in his life and that it's like it's so hard to forgive him for it well and i think i think if if his background would be more

[01:25:11] in the forefront maybe this storyline would make more sense but it's not they do keep it kind of on the download yeah it's definitely teeny bits and pieces yeah so i and maybe you know and maybe

[01:25:27] you know he's making choices based on that background but it's not you know faith we know right up front like this is who she is uh we know really all of their stories to some extent

[01:25:41] i guess i guess not all of their stories but i think for the most part we know why people are acting the way that they're acting uh zander it's just seems so out of the blue all the time

[01:25:51] and this is this has been a universal you know and this isn't anything new i remember you know when i was initially watching the series you know my wife and i dislike the character very much i mean i

[01:26:02] have moment you know he's funny and and just looking at it as a tv show like you know you can look at it in the bare minimum of funny but he's trying to be you know he's trying to

[01:26:12] be the chandler of this series and and he but he's not he's not he's not he's not he's sarcastic but he doesn't have that same rhythm in that same care you know i think that if speaking of problematic

[01:26:25] characters though chandler well yeah yeah friends yeah that's so much homophobia oh oh yeah it's so painful if if we thought if we thought that zander was doing things with the root of caring i think through this whole thing and maybe maybe it speaks to

[01:26:48] alice and hannigan as an actress i firmly believe through this whole entire thing that part of who she is part of who she is specifically with zander because they've been she has wanted to be with him

[01:27:03] her whole life it she's wanted it to be she's played that so well that innocence that she finds us but that parallel of finding us and then all of the sudden the person that she's desired

[01:27:21] it almost like opens that door up for her she plays that very real and zander has the same story it's the same exact story but he doesn't play it real it plays as a facsimile of and not to quote

[01:27:36] any famous politicians of like how you talk in a locker room yeah and it's it's not really how most you know i mean i've been in a locker room my whole life and not many of my friends talk

[01:27:47] i'm not saying that none of them do right but um well none of my friends from back then i would i mean obviously people like take a path in their life but he's a very much a facsimile of that and

[01:27:58] it very much frustrates me because i think if they played it right he could be funny and quirky and there could be care in his being angry that look i i've loved willow my whole life

[01:28:16] i don't know how to stop loving willow even though i found this amazing person like you can play that that makes sense and you can play that i mean especially as a teenager but i just don't think

[01:28:29] i just he doesn't pull it off it comes across that that he discovers that he's loved willow all along it comes across as opportunistic i need i need to have you and i need to have you and jealous

[01:28:43] if i can have yeah yeah and oh buffy i need to have you too and well i think what what really bothers me with zander is that while yes i do believe 100 he truly cares about both willow

[01:29:02] and buffy as friends the sexual possessiveness seems to be at the forefront of that like it takes it reminds me of you know why a lot of people the word or the phrase friend zone drives

[01:29:19] you crazy because where you know you'll think that oh i have this great friendship with this guy we're getting along and then you find out that he's been waiting yes he was just wanting to sleep

[01:29:33] with you the whole time and then gets angry that that doesn't happen and then you don't actually have a friend and there's this you know sense of betrayal that comes along with it it's like so

[01:29:46] you just didn't want to be my friend like and that's that's how i feel about zander is that there's always this other underlying motive where he got definitely jealous when he saw

[01:30:00] buffy kissing angel and went along with faith to kill him yes he was concerned and he had valid reasons which we talked about but there was that underlying jealousy there and that is what

[01:30:10] always rubs me the wrong way with him yeah and there doesn't there's not growth it seems to be regression and and that's what and and his character in this episode from the real world version of

[01:30:25] him to the i'm gonna stand outside the prison and watch you with ew like yeah it just um he makes several comments that just really like willow comes off as the sexy spiky female like siren

[01:30:45] lusty hungry and she and and i again i don't know if that and again this is my powerful sheet but as a vampire she looks powerful and when they when zand when zander turns vampire

[01:30:58] like i was expecting to i was like oh oh yeah he doesn't look good yeah and i was like no that doesn't look good at all and and again this just could be my bias but i i actually and now of

[01:31:09] course i actually think i like zander more than most people which i'm i everyone's like yeah it's off jim but i i i do like but this episode it just all sort of culminated for me

[01:31:23] gosh that scene in the bronze it just him touching her on the hand and her her saying no and him fighting like what are you what are you talking about we've been friends forever

[01:31:35] gosh what you just said kara is so like dead on the the friend who isn't really a friend the friend who is sexually possessive as it's just that's a motif that stands and maybe if

[01:31:50] they'd have thrown into that but that that of course doesn't really fit in the the scooby gang kind of motif but there are so many ways they could have gone yeah well and maybe i blame joss weeden

[01:32:01] i'm just gonna put that out there i don't know how accurate that is but i'm gonna choose to play well there's definitely some data that would suggest that there's some truth to that yeah oh gosh but it's just it's zander as years like as the seasons go on

[01:32:17] there are moments with him that i love and i think when you're podcasting about something you look at it through an even narrower lens a finer lens so i have to stop myself every time from

[01:32:35] just like typing out all these angry thoughts about zander so i'm like he is a teenage boy he is being depict he is a teenage boy i cannot spend the entire time over analyzing everything

[01:32:47] that he does but it's a pattern now where you just can't ignore it it continues to be frustrating well that's the thing i mean listen i was a teenage boy and was i an idiot many many many

[01:33:01] times but there was there was i think the balance of being an idiot with being us there there are these balances that you have where you you maybe when you veer off the track you either

[01:33:17] have somebody it's part of your own scooby gang who writes the ship or you just have that that moral code where you wait what am i doing this is not uh and it doesn't seem like he's got a code at all

[01:33:30] his code is mine mine mine mine mine not to quote the the seagulls from finding nemo but it he very much never you get glimpses of it but you up to this point you don't get to see it and

[01:33:46] and it could be there and i think he's good enough an actor because i think i think they're questionable i think alexand hannigan in the first couple of seasons like there are moments

[01:33:54] where you think to yourself is she a good actress and and as they give her more you got to see like yeah like last week and this week she has these moments where you're like yeah

[01:34:04] she could really be a star of the show she could be a main character buffy's not in an episode she could be a really good character and in this episode she shows everybody she could be

[01:34:15] spiked she could be the dark version and i i'm just penny i'm just trying to segue to your dark version of the characters part that we were about to talk about because this is fun yeah

[01:34:32] so good do you see it so it's gotta be at least somewhat intentional for willow and zander to kind of play off the whole spike in drusilla vibe but willow definitely seems to embody spike

[01:34:49] much more so than zander does and i just i don't know i feel like she overpowers him in every single scene that they're in together where spike and drusilla play off of each other

[01:35:07] and you know they both both of them have theatrical backgrounds and i think that comes through tenfold in their scenes and alice and hannigan when she gets to be mean or evil is even

[01:35:21] in all roles that she plays i think of lily on how i met your mother when she has those kind of evil moments alice and hannigan thrives with those types of scenes and it is so much fun to watch

[01:35:36] it's intoxicating almost like with spike coming on screen in the last episode it it is like i think penny use a like a bolt of lightning it's just energizing to see

[01:35:49] and her whole you know back and forth with angel as the puppy and toying with him is just oh toy with child when they come in to the bronze and they uh you know they go over to talk to the

[01:36:08] master and the master is like oh do either of you want to eat this woman i don't she's looking at me or whatever oh i forgot about that the look on willow's face of like this lust for the kill

[01:36:22] but also like a little bit of a playfulness to it is amazing it's it's one of those moments where i'm like she's so much of a better actor than nick less friend and like she's just the face

[01:36:35] acting alone is perfect he's so good and and the the level of acting that we get to see the progression you can see that these actors are finding themselves through this series

[01:36:53] um you know buffy in this episode gets to be you know that dark version of herself and we get to see her you you know penny you've mentioned this multiple times about the light that comes out

[01:37:08] of her when she in the the way she can use her face to showcase love or to showcase um uh how you know that naivete or that that sadness that she feels you can see it like oozing out of

[01:37:24] her face and then for her to in this episode turns it off her introduction is this episode are the sounds right the beating up sounds and the dustings you hear and then you can up and

[01:37:36] you see her she's got you know you talk about and i know there's going to be a point where we talk about fashion but she's got cargo pants i mean literally the worst yep green cargo pants

[01:37:48] she just looks like a machine her hair you know at first i'm like oh my gosh she's got short hair but it you know is all tied up in that you know she doesn't want anyone to be able to grab her hair

[01:37:57] and and and dead not a bit of that light that we get to see like combat ready yeah yeah the complete opposite of what we see when we see her staring at angel whether it's staring an angel in love or

[01:38:11] staring an angel and i'm saying goodbye to you there's every emotion flying zero emotion in this episode literally the think about that what you just described with way back when is it when we see

[01:38:28] becoming part one and two where you see little teen buffy licking a lollipop with a pink fluffy jacket on the steps at school yeah so for her to have gone from that yeah to this dark

[01:38:43] buffy yeah and the way sarah michelle galler nails them both so perfectly is just crazy but it's it's truly in the eyes and the facial expressions and her voice tone everything she controls her

[01:39:01] face muscles i don't know how she does it to like seriously soften and harden her face that way i mean i'm sure they help with makeup but it's it's something that she's doing and it's it's it's beautiful

[01:39:17] and i when when you know we listen to you know other people from podcastica who maybe don't watch the show there's a natural inclination i think to believe it's a 90210 and of course there are aspects of that and this is not knocking 90210 because it's service purpose

[01:39:35] and there was great acting in that here and there as well i'm just saying that and maybe we're bias i mean i i'm just i'm just saying that yeah possible that we're biased because we love this

[01:39:45] show but i really i i've not watched you know now i'm watching every episode even the ones i'm not recording i'm watching two or three times because what i'm noticing is the little bits

[01:39:57] that you miss if yeah you can just watch it on the surface and go yes this was a show for you know millennials in the 90s to watch or shows for gen X who are still trying to cling on to that

[01:40:08] you know that teenager angsty self of ours but it's not that it is it's deeper than that it yeah whoever you want to give credit to whether it's jw or whether it's the crew that eventually

[01:40:21] molds this on there is a rod and barryness to this where you're you can you're trying to do more without letting the viewer know that you're doing it and that's what makes this and you

[01:40:35] and what they found on purpose or by accident i kind of think on purpose because we get to every great actor that we see bleed into the show we get to see takeoff in later seasons

[01:40:45] they weren't supposed to this happens four or five times yeah it's it's and this is kudos to all the and i think that's why i think we can get frustrated with zander everybody else is growing

[01:40:56] yeah and i think when i was whining a little bit about us i he's already grown up right like he's already who he's gonna be like well and that's not totally true but

[01:41:07] he has a flip sometimes he seems to be stagnant to be whereas all of these other dynamic characters are growing and i think zander i'm not trying gosh y'all don't come after me don't

[01:41:22] but there is a similar there's a similar like zander's on the floor in os is on the roof but sometimes i get static yeah they're both static characters i now that does not stay the same

[01:41:32] but that's why i think being frustrated with zander's okay uh and and listen os gives us his monologue every week and his monologue is always uh yeah yeah be like os be like os by the way

[01:41:46] side note happy birthday to seth green who just turned yeah just a few days ago it was a fellow gen Xer by the way which still shocks the heck out of me just turn 50 years old he is seth green

[01:42:00] is 50 years old that's right and joining him there uh alexis denis off was there and who yeah he is oh alexand handigan was there i think sarah michelle geller was in those pictures

[01:42:15] too i saw a bunch of birthday pictures okay yeah there was just yeah he's 50 i take that swallow that can't hardly wait the other day that is what i still associate seth green with man how is he

[01:42:27] cover that on the podcast one day that's a great one but that's that is man they're all aging very well they are they are sorry i i i just tangented i saw a recent picture of charisma carpenter

[01:42:43] recently and i was like that is not her real skin she does not look 50 no she looks like she's 25 and still in high school sorry yeah she barely looks older than she does on the show yeah

[01:43:00] it's a it's amazing she's amazing well especially when you're so used to seeing these people kind of frozen in time in this you know in this show that we rewatch and rewatch you get used to how they look

[01:43:16] but they all look so they all look so they all look good yeah good like i just saw a borianna's interview where he looks very similar to what he used to look like i i um i just saw you know charisma

[01:43:29] carpenter marsters is one of the older cast members and he's starting to look a little bit his age but the minute he blondes his hair like he's got brown hair now the minute he blondes his hair he

[01:43:39] doesn't look too far off from spike and he like sucks in his cheeks and you're like oh there is like there is it's funny um david borianna's is more uh booth silly booth to me than than angel just because

[01:43:56] in the last several years i've watched goons a bunch of times and i hadn't watched angel again so i'm wondering if that'll flip again once we start watching angel well and i get more angel in my

[01:44:08] head i keep saying angel is my favorite character none of that is based on like i he is not top 10 to me in the buffy in the buffy side of things we don't get to see his range of character until

[01:44:20] oh yeah he gets a lot more interesting when he's on his own show until we really do spoilers by the way sorry i can't go back track yeah he might live through this season i'm just saying it doesn't

[01:44:30] really matter on buffy people die and come back yeah well yeah sure it's like supernatural which by the way has a great couple of great alternate unit universe episodes oh yes i like

[01:44:40] the one when they go to the world with no magic and they are actors and they have to yes tend to be actors in a world with no magic it's one of the funniest episodes of tv i've ever seen

[01:44:55] what is that one called it's not fanfiction but fanfiction is also fantastic yeah i like the one also where they go to a um a supernatural convention oh my gosh that one's so good all right

[01:45:10] show we're not okay i think i think we have thoroughly dissected the wish and i am cognizant the french mistake i'm sorry the french mistake of course there that's what it is i just i was

[01:45:27] gonna drive me crazy all right i'm gonna segue us over into talking about trivia our first piece of trivia is that the vampire dusting effect has gone through a little bit of of growth over the three seasons and at this point it starts to feature the vampire skeleton

[01:45:50] as they turn to dust shaman's he just did an excellent touch it really just drives home the dusting of the vampire it's it's beautiful um i'm gonna do my trivia in a second but the fact that

[01:46:04] we did not talk about the human tap machine oh yeah i don't get it they're like we're gonna be we're gonna we're gonna create this wonderful way that we don't have to we don't have to be actual

[01:46:20] vampires anymore we don't have to go on the hunt and i'm we've got this conveyor belt and i was like yeah like that you still have to go get people and you're just it's not what it seems like

[01:46:33] you're just making more work for yourself and would it stay as fresh like i feel like well that's why keep them alive for the freshness well but then but do you have to be there to get it immediately

[01:46:44] like i guess so you know because it's not like she was on ice yeah she was alive she but they tazered her that i guess that scene was just so disgusting i

[01:46:56] guess like ew ew and all the people in the cages are watching and it's like that's gonna happen to you next it's gross it's pretty gross that was one of the cheerleaders from bring it on also yes it was

[01:47:07] yeah yeah wasn't she the cordette she yeah she's a cordette yeah okay okay sorry i didn't i rumor has it i tangent now and then but i cannot believe we didn't talk about the tap anyways um

[01:47:20] the exp the exposition about enyanka gosh i love that name so much and you know i on you obviously but enyanka is just a beautiful name was changed in this episode her exposition was changed

[01:47:32] giles original story of her rena's follows enyanka raised a demon to ruin her unfaithful lover the demon did her bidding but then cursed her and turned her into a sort of patron saint for scorned

[01:47:45] women apparently the cry of a wrong woman is like the sirens call to enyanka so a slight change from the story that you get uh which i don't know i don't know that i don't know that i like one

[01:48:01] the true story of what ultimately happens or that story more or less but but yeah because they do talk about yeah they both talk about the patron saint um of i like the the description of a cry of

[01:48:16] a wrong woman is like a sirens call yeah i do like that imagery that conjures up is fun all right next bit of trivia is that this is the very first mention in the buffy verse of cleveland ohio

[01:48:32] as another cleveland rocks rocks as another hell mouth and center of demon activity look i love my i love my town but in 1998 okay if anybody's listening to this that knows i'm from

[01:48:50] cleveland i mean come on like 98 certainly cleveland could be described a bit as it's not anymore but hell mouth probably wasn't a stretch i i sorry two one six i'm sorry i love you guys

[01:49:06] so the initial plan for they call it wish verse buffy but dark buffy was that she was going to be decked out in even more military style clothing with an alert and even larger cross which is hard

[01:49:17] to believe because that cross is gigantic uh the writers must have thought it would look silly so they went with a grittier harder version of buffy's normal dress sense i like that choice really good

[01:49:28] decision we didn't need the like flavor flavor version of of yeah like buffy's cross didn't need to be like huge yeah i mean that thing was like three inches it was huge so i feel like

[01:49:42] it's not very consistent how crosses work in the buffy verse because the way like when that cross was near angel he like you know reacted freaked out but in regular universe buffy and angel were

[01:49:59] pretty close multiple times and he never seemed phased by the cross around her neck there is one episode where her cross burns him yeah on they're like making out and the cross has burned a little

[01:50:11] cross mark in his skin i think the thing in this universe is that he wasn't ready for it so he flinched yeah yeah not that it's a bigger deal than it is in the regular universe i think that now when

[01:50:23] he sees buffy he knows that there's going to be a cross necklace his his love for her with crosses has been one of those things that i wish i could not pay attention to as i've been rewatching it

[01:50:35] yeah i agree with you i'm like why does it have to be christian okay okay we have sort of been skirting around the subject already but it is time to ask does it still slay

[01:50:51] kara you first i think it does still slay it's one of the more enjoyable episodes in the buffy verse to me you know the more that we talk about it i don't know if it's in my top 15 but

[01:51:09] it's just it's one of those that i always think fondly back on and it's just fun to watch the beginnings spoilery of evil willow and see what would have been because i think that's something

[01:51:25] that i think about very frequently is alternate universes and if one decision had been different what kind of path would that have opened up so it's fun to see that kind of come to life

[01:51:40] in a show that i love so i think it still slays for sure jim what do you think yeah i mean i can mince around at the beginning about how much less i like this episode it's still a great episode

[01:51:53] like i said all if you do alternate universe alternate universe alternate reality well it always comes out as a great episode and you get you get to see new versions of characters that you

[01:52:05] absolutely love if you do it right and you know like for me if you know if i'm a show runner and i get this evil version of willow as a as a vampire you know i'd be like you know maybe

[01:52:17] someday i'll bring this character back yeah that's just what i would say but i digress so yeah does it still slay it absolutely positively still slays in i there will be an episode or two

[01:52:30] where i don't say that i think i think but we're not close to we're not close to those yet we're not well i think what's hard with this one is that there are so many other

[01:52:41] buffy alternate universe episodes that are amazing yes that that's what i compare it with in my head yeah so we have not gotten to yet hey let's head on over to the bronze and have a near beer since we're teenagers

[01:53:03] and uh see what some of our listeners thought of the episode bronze things things of bronze so first up some of our facebook feedback from karen she said i believe this is the one with

[01:53:19] willow saying for now used by my husband at least once a week it is indeed i didn't get to do this when we were doing the discussion so board now i love my sound clips so doady from main writes in and

[01:53:36] says this episode is a nice twist on the it's a wonderful life miracle but in this case it's not buffy who gets to see what sunny dale would be like without her but cordelia be careful what you

[01:53:47] wish for that's for sure next up is from abby who says without question an all-time favorite of mine i think because i have a thing for alternate universes i love dark willow oh yeah and poor

[01:54:03] tortural tortured angel hot hot hot in all caps without that shirt literally he was being burned so you know it works uh i even loved army barbie buffy i like that yeah that look is pretty cool

[01:54:18] actually if she just changed it a little bit it would be pretty hip for the 90s cargo pants were way in you guys they're coming back yeah and doc martins yeah they're coming back martins were fun

[01:54:32] heavy yeah jollene says this is definitely in my top five episodes probably top three i could probably write a 3000 word assignment about this one but these are my most notable events i love how it builds up to the wish with everything that happens to cordelia harmony being horrible

[01:54:52] to her john lee saying he'll only see her if it's kept quiet oh yeah we didn't talk about that that is really hurtful and humiliating the incident outside the bronze that's when she gets

[01:55:04] thrown in the garbage first time i saw this episode i assumed the wish was going to be something happening to zander so it blew my mind when i realized what was happening and then well mind-blowing emoji cordelia's slow realization when she sees how bad sunny dale is without

[01:55:19] buffy is played out so well as is her horror at zander and willow one still being together in bizarro land and then two being vampires didn't expect her to die but as the saying goes be careful

[01:55:31] what you wish for buffy being so battle weary and like faith is very strange to see but also shows us how she would have turned out without the support network she's got in sunny dale

[01:55:42] also didn't expect her to die and in such a graphic way it still shocks me that scene her exchange with angel about is this a get in my pants thing makes me laugh but i've never been able

[01:55:53] to figure out if he remembers the old world or if he recognizes buffy from when he was stalking mc stockerson at her high school i'm pretty sure it's the stocking thing yeah and now that you've

[01:56:05] said stalking mc stockerson i'm gonna keep using that yeah was very glad willows puppy wasn't an actual puppy yeah true that's a good point that would have been because would not have tolerated that

[01:56:20] very well uh love the white hats it's great seeing larry back and i love that this is how they included os he hadn't been turned to although a werewolf vampire hybrid would have been interesting

[01:56:32] jiles's response to on yonka at the end always gets me how do you know the other world is any better than this because it has to be the light relief at the end with cordelia saying

[01:56:42] wish after wish after wish about zander and willow and ania is just stood there saying done done done laugh cry emoji spoiler i'm so glad they kept ania in the show i've always wondered did they

[01:56:55] intend to keep her for so long or was the original plan just so they had someone who can tell them about the mayor's plan and then they realized how good the character was so they kept her we will

[01:57:05] talk about that a little bit in the spoilers section right yep uh favorite quote from this one os cordelia you wished for something if it was a long healthy life she should get her money back

[01:57:16] that was a good line good good oz moment oh man next up is becky she said hello all thoughts on season three episode nine i remember this episode but not having watched it in a long time i'd

[01:57:30] forgotten a lot of what happened made it more fun to watch because some of it was like watching for the first time i had totally forgotten about cordie dying an angel being in this episode

[01:57:43] good for willow setting boundaries with sandor yes ma'am cordelia was killing it in the revenge outfits she looked amazing her laugh after she realized she got her wish was great i can remember spending a night or two in my teenage years cutting people out of pictures

[01:58:01] hello that's true that was a nice little fake out too because i when i remember first seeing the episode i thought it was going to be more of a witchcraft spell yeah i thought she was gonna be

[01:58:11] five yeah cursing zander or something because she was burning a little more vengeful then she says the set designers did a great job making sunny dale look like a deserted wasteland really sold the doom and gloom of the episode the teacher rushing to get out of class

[01:58:31] made me chuckle that was funny i love how allison delivers board now she once again did a phenomenal job excellent as the bad girl she's a great actress i was a bit concerned where they

[01:58:45] were going with the play with the puppy thing thank goodness willow grabbed keys and not something else on the master oh yeah you yeah that was special giles is even sexier in the alternate

[01:58:59] universe why didn't he use that axe to get out of the cage before kory was killed cool giles is who eventually saves the day in this one nice to see him be the hero i don't know if that

[01:59:10] axe would have done much good honestly um so it gave me a chuckle when jiles was talking to buffy and flexing his watcher skills and she looks at him blankly and says great the scar on

[01:59:25] sarah michelle galler was super cool and edgy her actions and movements were very faith-like i wonder if she took any pointers from alyza i laughed out loud when angel asked her what the

[01:59:37] plan was and she hands him a steak and says don't fall on this her delivery was so good it was well shot and great editing of the slow motion scenes the music was powerful and added

[01:59:50] to the intensity of what was happening on screen i thought the who killed who was fitting zander killing angel buffy killing zander and os killing willow and both willow and zander killing hordelia oh yeah those were definitely intentional choices for sure um her favorite quotes zander talking

[02:00:12] about trying to reach cordelia i've left a few messages 60 or 70 geez zander that is electronic harassment um cordelia trying to explain their world changed it was better i mean the clothes alone

[02:00:28] that was a great line when willow climbs on angel that's right puppy willow's gonna make you bark oh so disturbing something like creepy and mildly sexual about it and i i can't um everything

[02:00:43] cordy was wishing for at the end of the episode hilarious this was such a great episode i'm always a fan of alternate universe episodes and this one did not disappoint everyone dying was a surprise

[02:00:56] classic lesson of the grass isn't always greener on the other side it was brutal to see our beloved characters die but it made for an excellent episode have a great week gher arg

[02:01:10] gher arg arg be awesome thank you so much that's great feedback and we have a couple of voicemails i'll play steve first the low stills land this is steve and this is one of the all-time best

[02:01:26] buffy the vampire's lair uh episodes the wish oh look at that we begin with no previously on and we have a daytime bite oh it's so sad seeing cordelia this way and answering machines

[02:01:42] oh that's so bad showing her jonathan and then all of them laughing at her oh oh i get choked up at this uh aws and willow scene oh he just needs time come on just time and on you're picking up picking up right up with

[02:02:01] harmonies i can't talk today her strength of character saying that she had original thought in her head it would be lonely or whatever she just said it's so pathetic both of them at the

[02:02:10] bronze trying to act like they've moved on i love how willow willow really wants to make it up with aws and uh zander i don't know i just i think the way this is written is that they don't

[02:02:22] that he and cordelia are never ever getting back together and of course cordelia comes out of the trash right in front of harmony and her friends oh and there's the wish or uh the word

[02:02:34] wish mic drop but ania even face it definitely needs the moisturizer so i think we need to keep an eye on this cordy is still wearing the necklace that ania gave her when she said the wish

[02:02:45] and i'm sure i was like most people i didn't even pick up on the fact that he asked her to winter brush and they do a monthly memorial to what happened to the harvest

[02:02:59] cordelia just hasn't picked up on it yet that she is in a disturbing alternate reality and the first time we hear bored now from the willow vamp oh yeah and the white hats in

[02:03:12] os's van oh yeah i forgot that sunday night has basically turned into a vampire's playground oh and the master's back yeah i don't remember noticing i did this time though noticing all the former actors names in the credits when we when this episode started and they just drain

[02:03:31] cordelia's blood killing her and just drop her to the floor she still had the necklace on too oh i see giles takes the necklace off her now alison hannigan must have had so much fun

[02:03:42] playing this character of the vamp willow i just you can just tell she's just enjoying it so much you creepy vamp zander i just want to watch you go okay not gonna lie the little scar on her lip

[02:03:56] buffy badass slayer is kind of sexy watch your muscles oh that's right angel did see her before she came to sunday dale this is getting my pants thing anianca throat lossage okay now

[02:04:13] on anianca the demon has the necklace back on her oh did zander steak angel or where did that come from and buffy steaks zander os steaks willow and the master did break buffy's neck again before

[02:04:29] giles smashes the necklace but now the necklaces smashed so it all changes i mean and now we have the end of the episode oh that's the end thanks steve that was that an intentional taylor swift

[02:04:44] reference i think that was definitely an intentional taylor swift reference and he's right they are never ever ever getting back together our other voicemail is from sam hey it's sam i'm so excited

[02:05:00] you guys are on the wish episode it's one of my favorites i think 13 year old me really got onto the apocalyptic dystopian future alternate reality bus with this episode i was remember being just

[02:05:16] riveted by it like the the whole concept of it of what would the world look like if humanity was taken down a couple of notches on the evolutionary food chain and it's just so cool

[02:05:29] like this is probably influenced me to become interested in the walking dead and i am legend or the fx series based on the book the strain of it has a similar plot of vampiric creatures taking

[02:05:42] over the world and it was just so interesting and just to see how we adapt to it and how we work and it was just really cool to see and of course os would have been one of the good guys one

[02:05:54] of the white hats i mean i like i like that that's not even in question and it was just really interesting to sort of follow the flow of that and have cordelia b r into it and alison hanigan

[02:06:06] and nicolas brendan you could totally tell that they enjoyed playing the evil versions of their characters as vampires i honestly preferred this version of zander i guess the polarization of some of his most obnoxious traits as humans zander just seemed more entertaining for me of

[02:06:25] like yeah he's a bad guy i don't know maybe that's just an insight into my psyche of like oh this is actually a more interesting character for me and you can totally tell that they were behind the

[02:06:36] scenes trying to figure out do we want to make zander be the gay character or will it be the gay character and there's like little queer coding into the characters as vampires and maybe

[02:06:46] that allowed them to play with that a little bit more like zander's caressing the guy who is tied down to the pool table and and is you know rubbing the jail cell while willow is on top of

[02:07:00] angel so it was like this is interesting there's like these little sort of character moments where like he looks turned on when willow is like can i go play with the puppy and it was just really

[02:07:11] interesting to sort of obviously 13 year old me to not understand that but seeing it now as an adult i'm like oh this is so interesting like buffy would be a great what if series like even if they did

[02:07:22] like an animated version it'd be so interesting and um yeah just seeing all this play out was so interesting and the dynamics and i think it's because of the jw stuff that i know now of him

[02:07:35] torturing charisma carpenter on set and just the allegory is a sexual assault like of course you would have two women say like why is cordelia wearing that she should know but like ooh like and then

[02:07:49] the angel being tortured like everything just sort of had a sexual assault undertone to it that was a little rough for me to watch or like oof i don't know it's not good and then of course

[02:07:59] ania ania i was so excited she's one of my favorite characters so i can't wait to hear what you guys have to say about all of it and how do you think the storyline would have gone if they'd created

[02:08:11] zander as a gay character like who do you think he would have had a relationship with oh that's such a good question that is a good question i also do not think they would have handled

[02:08:24] i don't know i just feel like it would not hold up as well if they had approached it with zander know that nicolas brendan is the actor who could have pulled that off

[02:08:39] yeah they would have had to do a lot of you know all of that bluster and sexual possessiveness was overcompensation yeah and unwrap a lot of that stuff i think in terms of relationships there

[02:08:57] probably would have had to be a new character yeah for him the way that you know willow eventually gets a new character as a girlfriend but i mean maybe they could have had him hook up with larry

[02:09:12] i would i would have been on board with it being larry because i don't know if they handled it the right way yeah it's all about the writing yeah i could see that but it also it is interesting we

[02:09:28] didn't talk about that during our discussion the kind of undertones of victim blaming but there is definitely some of that here with you know cordelia what she's wearing and you absolutely know if

[02:09:42] she got bit out and about it would have been a parallel to her and she was just like that and then she knows better she was asking but like that type of parallel that is it's a good point and

[02:09:55] that definitely comes up a couple more times in the series but that is an interesting question about xander i just i don't know if i have as much faith in nicolas friendin yeah and carrying out

[02:10:12] something a bit more sensitive like that at the time that i do for allison hannigan because she obviously she just absolutely killed it and i don't know that would have been a very

[02:10:26] tricky thing to do with his character as being the comic relief skewing away from making it you know seem like you're making light of yeah sexuality he might have gone into caricature i also think

[02:10:43] that at the time in the late 90s there were a lot of um not a lot there were starting to be gay men on tv but having a lesbian on tv was fresh yeah well and even i think it was like a marketing thing

[02:11:06] oh yeah like willing grace came came out in started in 1998 and part of the i mean part of the reason why that show was accepted is because will was more straight passing and they were able

[02:11:22] to play off of this whole will they won't they with willing grace intentionally throughout that entire series that would not go well today it was important at the time and it was a it was an

[02:11:36] important way for sort of the zeitgeist to transition into accepting gay characters but that always kind of bothered me that that they even played around with it at all oh yeah i can't

[02:11:48] remember if it was a i don't know it may have been one of those i love the 90s shows or it could have been a podcast episode i listened to where they were discussing that and the struggles the

[02:12:02] writers had where the network was seriously pressuring them so can they just get together just once or you know can we you know make it a little more up in the air if wills bisexual and

[02:12:18] they were just like no he's not that's not the point of the show yep and it was this huge struggle so and you know we mentioned chandler uh earlier on and i would worry that if they had gone that

[02:12:33] route with sander it would like you said penny go a little too far into possible caricature yeah but you know i think that there is a version of the comic book where xander is gay though

[02:12:50] one of the many different comic book versions out there it's the one where it's like present day and buffy and gang are teenagers again there's i have i don't like that particular comic as much i

[02:13:04] haven't i haven't read past the first couple of episodes of it because it's it's not as good as some of the other ones that i really like there's one yeah that i really like it's

[02:13:13] buffy the last slayer where it's like 40 years in the future and she's the last slayer alive and it's it's dark that sounds fun i enjoy that one a lot she's like you know she's like 60 and she meets up with spike and he's like i still think you're hot

[02:13:33] that checks out yeah that's fantastic she's like oh look at me i'm all wrinkly now and you're the same age and he's like you still caught to me like it's just it's really cute it's really

[02:13:44] it makes you love spike you're like oh that's fun all right that is the end of the main section of the podcast stay tuned for watchers diaries if you want to hear the spoilery stuff and things

[02:13:57] that we're going to talk about there thanks if you're watching if you're walking deadpan you get that joke and if you're not then sorry yep if you'd like to join the conversation you can find all of our contact information at podcastica.com or find us on facebook

[02:14:17] at facebook.com slash podcastica or instagram at stillslayingcast you can also follow our still slayingcast facebook page and you can send email or a recorded voice message to stillslayingfeedback at gmail.com and also you'll find all this information again at podcastica.com and also links to

[02:14:41] various social media pages and all the very many other podcastica shows and i want to take this opportunity to plug a show that i think is underappreciated and that is extraordinary

[02:14:56] the first season is already out there it's on hulu in the us and it's on disney plus if you're outside the u.s it is one of the funniest shows i have ever seen and if you are a bufy fan and one

[02:15:11] of the things you like about bufy is the campiness and the way they externalize internal problems by making them supernatural extraordinary does this but it's extremely funny it is also not a

[02:15:28] kid's show even though it kind of looks like it might be because it's all like bright and colorful and cheerful it is very raunchy and it's it's half hour episodes there's eight episodes in the first

[02:15:39] season so it's not a huge commitment season two comes out march 6th and uh greg and i podcasted about the first season we had a blast we fell in love with the characters

[02:15:50] we're very excited to be podcasting for season two and i just hope more people will discover the show because i think it is some of the best writing that's going on right now in tv

[02:16:03] nice that's that's a good like that's a good pitch i feel like people should definitely jump all in on that one um i have just been re-listening to better call sol episodes

[02:16:18] um it's so much fun um i've been doing that i've been listening to some of the first few episodes of the cobra kai cast uh i did a zed head episode a couple weeks back with jason and mark

[02:16:36] and jason was talking about um the last season the next season coming up of cobra kai and that season sounded really interesting to me and i didn't know how i felt about all the other

[02:16:48] ones so i decided i would just listen to their coverage up to the current season and so far so good it's really entertaining so that's great that's like i don't want to fear the walking dead

[02:17:01] anymore i just listened to the podcast coverage of it because the show is so horrible but jason and lucy are hilarious when they talk about how much they hate it

[02:17:09] yeah that's a patreon only podcast if you want to listen to it you guys have to pledge the patreon and if you like what we do hit like follow and subscribe give us a five star rating if you feel

[02:17:23] like it and next time we will be covering season three episode ten amends thanks everyone and i wish that zander harris never again knows the touch of a woman done i wish that willow wakes

[02:17:39] up tomorrow covered in monkey hair done all right that is the end of the non-spoiler part of the podcast if you want to avoid spoilers you should stop listening now give you a couple of seconds

[02:17:57] to turn off your listening thing okay now it's all spoilers all the time on to the watchers diaries it's too bad we can't sneak a look at the watcher diaries i'm sure it's full of fun facts to know

[02:18:08] and tell yeah that's too bad that stuff is private also jiles keeps them in his office in his personal files most importantly it would be real seriously all right dark willow die willow

[02:18:27] love it every time i feel like i almost have ptsd a little from that board now and when she flays warren alive like i cannot hear that without then picturing what happens immediately after

[02:18:45] it is so disgusting it's so gross but so evil and like alison hannigan in season you know in this season as we have already seen glimpses of her being dark willow it's the same character like she just intuitively knows what to do with this type of material and

[02:19:13] god she just it's like she's acting circles around poor nicolas brindan at this point and board now becomes this you know like favorite line and i've seen it on t-shirts and mugs and

[02:19:31] you know there's like it's a thing that people say and i have said it when i'm like at a bad party or something i'll be like board now you know i've never then gone on to like murder someone but

[02:19:46] it is something that and then other buffy fans immediately recognize it right so if you say it and another buffy fan is in the room they're like yeah board now like it just it's

[02:19:57] it's iconic and it's it didn't have to be such a great line like if she hadn't delivered it the way she did it wouldn't be memorable and it wouldn't have come back the way that it does in future episodes

[02:20:12] oh i cannot wait and look i don't know when they had plotted out season six i don't know when it like struck them to do that it maybe they had it planned but obviously when they get a glimpse of willow

[02:20:28] as as dark willow and we get to see i mean this character comes back eventually this season in doppelgang land and we get to actually see that episode willow versus not willow versus but we get to see willow and willow interact with each other and that's where

[02:20:48] when i when you when you talk about mirror mirror the best part of that show is when you get to see these characters interact with their darker selves and to get to see that actually come to

[02:20:59] fruition and you get to see you get to see her play both sides of it yeah it's just really my god i love those scenes that's when she first she's like i think i might be a little gay like in the

[02:21:13] other universe and they were planning on making the choice of having either zando zando zander zandals great name or willow be gay i love that scene when um when she's like that's me as a vampire

[02:21:29] i'm so evil and skanky yeah kind of gay and then bupky goes willow the personality as a vampire has nothing to do with who you are in your regular life and angels like actually yeah okay sure

[02:21:41] yeah i'm so clear that he's like well that's actually part of your true personality in there willow but uh i'm not gonna and we see it we see it with her witchcraft practice we saw it and you know the

[02:21:58] last episode how she was gosh gonna basically be equivalent of drugging zander without telling him and we see it power yeah oh yeah in gender bread power coming up like i thought of gingerbread a lot

[02:22:15] throughout this episode one because you know joice brings up in the gingerbread episode which i think is not next week but the next one after that that we cover joice brings up how you know does

[02:22:30] whether buffy really makes a difference being the slayer and how much good she does being the slayer and it's just it's so much more infuriating with that episode right after pretty much we have seen this one and we know how ridiculous and hopeless sunny dale would be without

[02:22:53] buffy in it and it just oh it tries to be crazy but i love the way they plan that out because we know that they sat there with storyboards and their great at continuity and the whole season and yeah

[02:23:08] i'm plotting out different character beats i'm excited to cover gingerbread that is a really that episode delivers a lot of different things that are really fun not the least of which is awes and zander falling through the ceiling tiles after everything is finished it's like one of my

[02:23:27] favorite moments ever but he's like did i did i get him and it's this giant post stick anyway i love that we'll get there we'll get there we'll get there but yeah dark willow dark willow

[02:23:41] dark willow is is the gift that keeps on giving i already mentioned that nancy is going to show up again in earshot that was one of the other big spoilers and one of my all-time actually top

[02:23:54] favorite episodes is helpless which we're going to cover in a few weeks and that episode i always think of as sort of like a counterpart or a companion to this one of like buffy without

[02:24:08] giles or giles without buffy and then buffy without without giles and also you know he didn't he said she didn't respect him and he couldn't you know after the revelations thing and then

[02:24:21] anyway helpless is coming up and i feel like we're gonna have to refer back a lot to dark giles when we get there was was gingerbread the episode where joice asks buffy if her being

[02:24:36] a slayer actually makes a difference yeah and i only i only i only mentioned that because this is the episode reactive yeah but i this is the episode that shows us that she does make a difference

[02:24:48] which i think is kind of ironic i when you were talking about gingerbread it just struck a chord i was like yeah that that's where mom actually ponders the question does she make a difference

[02:24:59] where we know how much of a difference that she makes but i move i can't wait to meet new it's gonna be so great uh so yeah the reason that you know they had to break up zander and

[02:25:13] cordelia i think because not just because she's gonna move over to the series the angel series but also because they ultimately don't make sense she's way too good for him yeah but they also

[02:25:28] i think that they brought on yonka in here with an actor who could go on to be a major character you know that not a throwaway actor because they needed another like girlfriend for zander

[02:25:44] yeah and that's who onya ends up being and so they were like we need someone who's like a little bit like cordelia but not cordelia who can step into that position i toyed with there are

[02:25:57] a couple of little bits of spoilery spoiler-ish trivia when it comes to the character of onya and gosh she's just she's so funny and the irony being one of the original actresses who they

[02:26:16] had initially cast as onya and offered her the role turned it down because onya was only supposed to have two episodes it wasn't some you know ongoing storyline but the actress who plays

[02:26:34] onya is just so talented and wonderful in the claw field that she convinced them just like james marster did to keep around she was hilarious they kept bringing her back and then ultimately she was a series regular on the show so things worked out that's another

[02:26:55] thing with this show i feel like there are lots of actor that they cast that i could not find they keep that so close i've always wanted to find out who was the original willow and i know

[02:27:07] they they don't they don't like to tell no and i just you know i think piece of trivia listeners if you didn't know that uh alston hannigan was not in the first version of the pilot

[02:27:18] they re-shot a whole bunch of it when they recast the willow part i don't know what was wrong with the first willow but it apparently she was just not right well in riff regan riff regan was her

[02:27:29] name i've never heard of that person interesting me neither if you if you um look her up she has played she definitely has been like a character actor in some things but it was riff re she did the

[02:27:44] the first pilot which was a shorter it was like almost a sitcom length she was actually the name just stood out to me right i saw this earlier this week it's i never knew that until

[02:27:55] this week so see i i find these random things and that's that's my value to the show but i i she uh she's been it i can't remember what she's been in but she has been in some things that we've

[02:28:09] seen oh i'm looking right now she was on rosa and she was on blossom sisters murder in new hampshire the pamela smart story sorry that one i lived in new hampshire when that was happening so for me

[02:28:25] that the pamela smart story is like like massive nostalgia like i knew a bunch of kids that went to that high school like dang uh if you don't know the pamela smart story google

[02:28:40] google it it's worth it i went through i realized i had a couple of tiny notes left that i didn't mention um somebody i mean multiple people in this writer's room obviously are well versed in

[02:28:57] shakespeare because the merchant of venice comes up multiple times throughout the series with just straight quotes from it and in this one it's the master saying to zander when he's asking basically

[02:29:12] you know like what the news is and he says no what news on the realto which is word for word from the merchant of venice i knew that was a reference that i didn't know what it was a

[02:29:24] reference to that's fantastic but it also makes sense that the master would be the one quoting shakespeare since he's been around for centuries and centuries and centuries but i'm now i'm gonna have to keep an eye out now for more shakespeare because there's subtle ones they

[02:29:42] slip in we get more master uh the wish verse continues and the funny thing about it too and and like the harvest actually happens in the wish verse because he's on the surface now

[02:29:58] which well yeah he broke out of the hill mouth and yeah yeah so um there's an episode actually more of the master in some there's gonna be some flashbacks of when he created darla

[02:30:11] oh yeah on angel that's fun yeah i love the flashback is amazing i like the way he moves he has a a way of his shoulders don't go up and down when he's walking so it looks like he's floating he's gliding

[02:30:30] yeah yeah what was he in other than meadermeyer is all at meadermeyer and the master what else he was in listen you just look him up and he was in a twisted sister video

[02:30:49] interesting yeah i think he was meadermeyer in it though that's fantastic yeah so look that up because that's worth a watch but yeah that's the video actually he's in two twisted twisted sister videos well that'll be my next youtube search it's absolutely hilarious hilarious is meadermeyer

[02:31:12] so the fact that the two roles i associate him with are this and meadermeyer are pretty fantastic he's got he's got range even though i guess they're not really that different

[02:31:28] oh goodness i can't i he was in other stuff i just can't think of what it is off the top of my head uh i love it all right let's see what other spoilery i don't think there is anything else

[02:31:41] super huge oh yeah i did think it was funny um i can't remember where i saw this one brought up but how this is the first and only time really we get any sort of reference to bright colors attracting

[02:32:00] vampires are standing out and i'm assuming it would just be obvious that you aren't one of them if you're wearing bright colors but i saw some myth that seems like the kind of thing that people

[02:32:12] would say like correlation is not necessarily yeah people causation but it did maybe think of spike finding willow particularly biteable in her pink frilly sweater that we saw last episode that he references in season four i was like well maybe spike appreciates the bright colors

[02:32:38] you know he's attracting i mean i'm sure some vampires do and some don't i mean you know right i would assume it would just make it very clear that you were not one of them well look

[02:32:50] listen if if it was me and i was the master what i would do is i'd get a conveyor belt and a tap system and then the color the color wouldn't matter because i because then

[02:33:03] well i mean i i do i do like the motif that these vampires want to take it up a notch you know what we're we want to be more we want to be more shakespeare here we don't want to be we don't

[02:33:18] want to go out we want to be the anti spike which is not true like i think the whole point of being a vampire is being aggressive and you know a predator and and he's like you know

[02:33:31] we don't want to be predators we just want to get you put you in a cage and then use you as a as a top system go steal from blood banks yeah i i i don't mean i guess this is more efficient

[02:33:44] they're curating their own well maybe the fact that they get a wine glass and swirl it around and the blood is all kind of sticking and concealing that was some of those tubes were not going into

[02:33:57] places where there was just blood yeah there would be all kinds of other stuff you know like i'm sorry okay this isn't i'm sorry this isn't really spoilery but you know i i don't know that's when

[02:34:11] we start to get too real about things like the fact that a steak sometimes doesn't have to be in their heart yeah like a steak to the heart not necessarily always the case yeah i'm pretty sure

[02:34:27] that arrow that hit um angel in this episode wasn't in the heart but yeah it was more it was more sort of like a kind of above the stomach i don't know yeah yeah yeah well so i will like in this this

[02:34:44] isn't really spoilery either although i do like that in in continuity we don't see angel in this episode in the current day he's listening to buffy he's he's staying away from her i do like that yeah

[02:34:59] that doesn't continue obviously but um they are sticking to continuity in ways that shows don't usually do that yeah this is true this was one of the first shows that you know after the x files

[02:35:16] that had season arcs you know genre shows used to be more monster of the week and and so buffy having these like long series like season stories was at the time kind of groundbreaking

[02:35:36] yeah and to be able to do it like the x files you can have a monster of the week and they do that like this would have been one of those kind of standalone episodes but they do it they do it

[02:35:48] in a way that you can also continue the arc and that happens in every episode of of of buffy throughout the seven seasons we get to see these cute little standalone episodes and while

[02:36:01] still continuing or starting new arcs you can you can almost listen last week's episode really wasn't that but it really kind of was we got that one episode injunction of spike but that standalone

[02:36:14] spike episode we get all these like little fingertips that go out and we got that again we got that again in this episode and there aren't many episodes x files through its strength

[02:36:25] strong years does that very well as well it keeps that main storyline going through the whole thing until the writers lost sight of what they were doing I don't I'm not saying that doesn't happen in

[02:36:38] buffy but it ends at the right time and they definitely through the ebbs and the flows like I'd argue that some of the best episodes were in the later two seasons there's some really good

[02:36:50] season six episodes obviously yeah speaking of dark low but and there's really really good she does say board now and doppelganger too doppelganger line too just yeah four or five times

[02:37:04] it comes up and I know it comes up in that so all right I'm calling it that's the complete end of the show thank you everybody for listening and until next time I'm Penny and I'm Cara

[02:37:21] and I'm completely lost in my notes hold on we're just doing the oh yeah and I'm Jim keep playing