44: “Fear, Itself” (BTVS S4E4)

[00:00:00] Hey Slay fans, this is Penny and I am coming to you from the future having just edited this episode. And I just wanted to let you know that we had some pretty annoying technical problems. You will hear some sound issues. There's some echo at points and a couple of other things. And we're really sorry we're working on it. We'll try to get this fixed for next time. Keep slaying!

[00:00:30] Hmm. Pumpkins to dry! I don't know, I was going for ferocious scary but it's coming out more dryly sardonic. It does appear to be mocking you with its eye holes. Yet its nose hole seems sad and full of self-loathing. What do you think, Buff? I was just thinking about the life of a pumpkin. Grow up in the sun, happily entwined with others.

[00:00:59] Then someone comes along, cuts you open and rips your guts out. Okay! And on that happy note...

[00:01:10] Hello everybody! Welcome to Still Slaying, a Buffy-verse podcast. I'm Penny.

[00:01:38] And I'm Kara. For this episode, we're going to be discussing Season 4, Episode 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer titled Fear Itself. Written by David Fury and directed by Tucker Gates. This episode originally aired on October 26, 1999 to an audience of 4.1 million households. Dang. Nice numbers.

[00:02:03] Some alternative titles in other languages for this episode were Fear the Whole Picture in Finnish, The Demon of Halloween in French, Fear Yourself in Hungarian, and Fear Became a Reality in Japanese. That one's very straightforward. Yeah.

[00:02:29] I feel like The Demon of Halloween a little bit gives away... A little bit. A little bit, but not in an important way. Who cares? I think the German one was like The Demon of Fear. Yeah. Or something like that. And I was like, well, that's pretty much... Spoiler. Yeah. The episode. I guess fear itself doesn't translate because it's a play on the JFK speech. Right. We have nothing to fear, but... Oh, was that not JFK? Yeah. FDR. FDR.

[00:02:59] Woo! Yeah. American history, Penny. That's fair. Well, JFK was asked not what you could do for your... You know. Yeah. Similar... Similar... Catchy sound bites. Importance. Yeah. I'm just conflating my historical presidents. That's okay. Yeah. Let's stay with the historical presidents and not talk about any other presidents. That sounds good to me. Speaking of history...

[00:03:25] The number one song during this time was Smooth by Santana featuring Rob Thomas in the US, which I think we talked about this before. I freaking love that song still. Yeah. It's a great song. It really holds up. Catchy. Fun fact, my dad smoked a joint with a member of Santana's band back... Way back when, when they were in concert in Houston, because he was a security guard. Nice.

[00:03:55] And I was like, that's kind of fun. I don't think he would love me telling that story, but he's not going to hear this. So it's all good. And then in the UK, the number one song was Flying Without Wings by Westlife. A little boy band action over there. I have no memory of that. Me neither. At the time, the best-selling books for fiction, it's still Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling.

[00:04:23] And it's also still Tiz by Frank McCourt for nonfiction. And both of these books have a stronghold on the New York Times bestsellers list for quite a while. So we'll see what comes along and unseats those. In the US box office, number one this week was Fight Club. Number two was The Best Man. And number three was Double Jeopardy. Man, Double Jeopardy stuck around for a long time. Yeah, it really did. It's pretty good.

[00:04:53] God, Fight Club. Talk about a cultural moment. Oh, yeah. Every white man in America was like, I identify with Brad Pitt and his abs. And his abs. I remember watching that over the summer, the year later in what the summer of 2000, I guess, with my best friend. And now going back and watching it, I was like, yeah, we shouldn't really have been watching

[00:05:21] that between sixth and seventh grade. Yeah, it's pretty adult. It was not great. I remember just obviously Brad Pitt and the scene where he's like, I am Jack's da da da and ends up hurling himself off the little tricycle he's riding around on. That's all I remember from that movie. Oh, that's really funny. It's got a lot of great social commentary in it. Actually. But I feel like a lot of people took the wrong message from it. Like. Oh, yeah.

[00:05:50] Instead of it being like toxic masculinity is killing men who participate in it. The message they took was beating each other up is cool. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's like when guys on dating profiles have fight club as their favorite book. I always like, did you actually read it? And if you read it, did you actually understand it? Yeah. You know, it's satire, right? Like this is not. It's not meant to be aspirational.

[00:06:20] The main character has a severe mental illness. Like severe. Just a teeny bit. I've read the book more recently than I obviously saw the movie. I should probably watch the movie again as an adult and see how I feel about it. I mean, it's a very well made movie. It has a lot of like gorgeous cinematography. The acting is excellent.

[00:06:46] But I do think that a lot of people just took completely the wrong message from it. And that's unfortunate. Very. Let's get into some more history. On October 25th, Pat Buchanan switches to the Reform Party to seek the 2000 presidential nomination due to poor ratings in the crowded Republican race, which included candidates George W. Bush and John McCain. Some very familiar names.

[00:07:16] On October 27th, the New York Yankees beat Atlanta in four to one in game four of the World Series at Yankee Stadium to sweep the Braves and retain their World Series title. The MVP award goes to iconic Yankees closer Mariano Rivera. I remember this living in New York City. And the Yankees were like this unbeatable super team at that time. And this is like peak Yankees.

[00:07:45] Everybody was a Yankees fan. And I made the mistake of wearing my Red Sox hat on the subway. Oh, God. Especially during like late 90s, early 2000s. Yankees. That must have been. Yeah. The whole subway car yelled at me until I took it off. Oh, God. That sounds about right.

[00:08:03] Also on October 27th, gunmen opened fire in the Armenian parliament, killing Prime Minister Vazgin Sargazian, Parliament Chairman Karen Demircian, and six other members. On October 28th, the gunmen surrender and release around 40 hostages. That's intense. That's intense. I do not remember that.

[00:08:29] And I must have been really busy to have not paid attention to that. Because this was a time in my life when I was an obsessive New York Times reader. I would read the paper pretty much cover to cover every day. Yeah. But if I was really, really busy, maybe it was like a week where I missed. And Armenian news probably wasn't as big in the news cycle as some of these other things.

[00:08:52] On October 29th, the deadliest Indian Ocean tropical super cyclone in history hits Odisha, India, leading to a death toll of 9,885 with a wind speed of 300 miles per hour. Terrifying. That is terrifying. 300 miles per hour. That's like an airplane speed. Mm-hmm. Holy crap. Yep. No, thank you. Not good. Fun.

[00:09:22] Yeah. All right. Well, on that cheerful note about death and destruction in the late 90s, let's get into some Halloween-y fun. Yay! Kara has written on the agenda one of my favorite moments from the episode, so we'll just start there.

[00:09:40] Which is Buffy in her gloom and depression post Parker says about pumpkins, I was just thinking about the life of a pumpkin, grow up in the sun, happily entwined with others, and then someone comes along, cuts you open and rips your guts out. I love that so much. She's so bummed. She's so bummed. She's so sad. Aww. She doesn't even carve her pumpkin. No.

[00:10:06] I do love how after she leaves, Xander's like, does anybody else want to smack that guy? Like, yes. Collectively, yes. Does anyone else want to smack that guy? Yeah. Good. I like that he is like, I don't know, like, I love Xander in season four, honestly. He's growing, and he's protective of Buffy, and he's not possessive of Buffy anymore.

[00:10:36] Obviously, he has Anya to focus on now. But I like season four Xander. He's grown up. I really agree with you. I think Xander's summer of being, like, alone and working at the strip club and everything, I think was good for his personal growth to not have his security blanket of Willow with him all the time.

[00:11:00] And to see men being ogled instead of him objectifying women all the time, maybe that was also a little bit of a growing experience for him. It probably helped. The whole thing going on with Anya, it's weird. It's a male fantasy to have a beautiful woman just like really throw herself at you like this. But he's handling it really well. Yeah, he actually is. Like, he's kind to her. He's honest and direct with her.

[00:11:30] And it's, and at no point is he like, creepy with her. He's not like, hey, I've had sex with you. Like, it's just, he's being kind of a gentleman about it, which is surprising because he was never gentlemanly to Cordelia really. No, no, he was, gosh, we've talked about that plenty. Yeah. But he was horrid in that situation. And I get it.

[00:11:55] Like, he was young, he was stupid, and he was getting female attention pretty much for the first time. And I'm sure that was very enticing. He handled it poorly, but he does grow and learn from that, which is nice. I give him a little grace because he was 17. Yeah.

[00:12:17] And, you know, at 17, if a beautiful, popular person likes you, and you have an opportunity to date them and make out with them and all that stuff, like you go for it whether or not you're really into them anyway. Because you're like, I don't know how all this stuff works. And this is a, you know, this is an opportunity and I'm going to take it. And eventually it doesn't work out because he's an idiot, but he's an idiot in a way that youth makes you an idiot.

[00:12:46] So, I'm willing to like let all that go to a certain extent. As long as he, I wish he would never again objectify Buffy, but. I know. Unfortunately. Yeah. He is that JW stand-in, so I guess that's just too much to ask for going forward. Exactly. I loved how the pumpkin carving scene opens with the camera through the eye of the jack-o-lantern.

[00:13:15] It's just kind of a cheeky little camera move. And then they have a sort of typical Scooby gang, like witty dialogue about pumpkins and the pumpkins' facial expressions and everything. It's just a, it's such a classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer scene. You get a little bit of everything. You get like the silly dialogue. You get a little bit of the ongoing story. You get the whole Fantasia phantasm thing.

[00:13:41] It's all wrapped up in one little bow, and I'm there for it. It's a great opening. It is really nice to see them hanging out together as a whole, too, and not on, you know, the college campus. They're doing something else. They're having fun. And obviously, you know, we've talked about this before.

[00:14:03] Halloween episodes of Buffy are typically pretty iconic and very well-loved by the cast. And I think both of us kind of, it's not a secret that we really enjoy the Halloween episodes. So anytime I see that cold open, I am already so amped for what's going to happen going forward. Yeah. It's just, oh, they're all so sweet. And they're all friends. Yeah. And they're all protective of Buffy.

[00:14:32] And I'm just like, yeah, let's go smack Parker. Yeah. Stupid. Great. Stupid Parker. We then go back to campus. First, Buffy, like, clocks some poor kid who jumps out at her in a Halloween mask. And he says, what's wrong with you, lady? Which is hilarious because she's like the same age as that guy. But whatever. And she's like, that's what I would like to know.

[00:15:01] And it's just, I know that it's not everyone's favorite part of season four that Buffy goes through this crisis of confidence. But I think it gives really nice richness to who she is as a person that the confidence that she has as a slayer doesn't necessarily translate into confidence in other areas of her life.

[00:15:23] And I think a lot of people tend to assume that somebody who is really beautiful or extremely smart or really good at a sport, that they are therefore confident in all the areas of their life. And it's simply not true. And even though we can see that Buffy has every reason in the world to be confident, that doesn't matter. Like, it's all internal.

[00:15:47] We've all been there with a friend or somebody we're close to where you see them in an entirely different way than they see themselves. And I think it's very realistic to the time period that she's in in her life, that kind of crisis of confidence where you're trying to figure out who you are and what you're good at.

[00:16:10] And that is one thing this show has always been good at, is portraying these struggles, like human struggles, in a very realistic way. Even if you're, you know, you've got a little supernatural on the side. Yeah. Superpowers don't exempt you from growth and emotions and real life and obstacles and road bumps and all those things that everybody encounters.

[00:16:38] All they do is make certain parts of your life easier and other parts of your life harder, right? Like, having superpowers means that if Buffy encounters, you know, a particularly difficult jar that needs opening, no problem. Right? She's got super strength and super speed. But, you know, none of those things help when you're dealing with manipulative boys or, you know, a professor who yells at you because you miss class.

[00:17:06] Like, all those things, superpowers doesn't get you out of any of that stuff. No. And poor Buffy. And it's, she's trying to find that purpose, that feeling of purpose again. And I love how, you know, when she's talking about Halloween, she doesn't have any big plans. She's sure Giles is going to want her to patrol. Because, obviously, that whole fiasco back in season two with Ethan. Yeah. Was not great.

[00:17:34] And I love, that is one of my favorite Giles moments when Buffy pops over and he opens the door in a sombrero right after she mentions how much he hates Halloween. Yeah. It's just like, no, no. The sombrero they chose with the fringe, the way that it's constantly in movement, it's just like, the fringe is moving all the time. And Buffy is all of us when she's like, can you take that thing up?

[00:18:00] Like, I can't concentrate looking at you because it's just like fringy, fringy movement all the time. So funny. And he's adorable. He's adorable in his sombrero and poncho. So, and I don't know if it's cultural appropriation or not. Probably, technically, yes. Yeah. I mean, I would assume these days it would not be great because he's wearing it as a costume. Right.

[00:18:29] You know, as opposed to an effort to appreciate the culture, it seems. It's a little bit more, I don't know, and farcical is not necessarily the right word, I guess. But yeah, it's, it's not the worst version of cultural appropriation I've ever seen, but it's. Right. Like, he's not, he's not in blackface dressed as, I don't know, Snoop Dogg or something like that. Like, thank goodness. Yeah.

[00:18:59] And he's in Southern California where there are lots of Mexican people. So is he just embracing the culture around him? Although we never see Mexican people on the show. On the show, which is weird. It's so weird in Southern California. I'm clinging to my headcanon where people of color go to Sunnydale and are like, no. Yeah, they sense it. They're like, we're not messing with this shit. This is some white people. Gactor? I'm out of here. That seems like some very realistic headcanon. I like that.

[00:19:28] I'm clinging to it because the lack of diversity on this show is its biggest flaw. I love that he's got that Frankenstein monster and that he goes, it's alive. Because of course that comes up later when that skeleton is alive. It's such a cleverly written episode. And obviously most of Buffy episodes are. But I really do enjoy a lot of David Fury episodes because I think he just is so good at weaving everything together. And little callbacks.

[00:19:57] Even within the episode and within the series. And they're not like spotlit. It's not like a worst written show would be, it's alive. And then later they'd be like, oh, it's just like Giles' Frankenstein monster. Like they would point it out. Or they'd say the same thing. Yeah. Oh, geez. Yeah. It's subtle. You don't have to notice it to enjoy the episode. But if you've watched the episode 87 times or however many times I've watched it, it brings a little extra joy.

[00:20:26] And it's like I am charmed by Giles' joy of Halloween as much as Giles is charmed with the joys of Halloween. Like he is just so precious in this episode. And he's embracing it. And poor Buffy is like, I can't catch a break. Yeah. Like there's nothing for me to do. Like you don't have anything. Like I want a monster to fight so that I can get out of my head a little bit. Yeah.

[00:20:54] And even when she does get a monster to fight, it's just like, okay, well. Oh, it's a mean monster. And move on. First she has to deal with the monster being like, you're going to be abandoned. You're going to be alone. Like it's a mean, mean monster. It is a really intense episode in a lot of respects.

[00:21:14] Because obviously, well, one, it kind of reminds me of Ghostbusters when they're not, you know, they're not supposed to be thinking of things that scare them. Oh, yeah. And then. And it's just the marshmallow. Like. Yeah. All of those. Like that's a fun little, I don't know if that's intentional or not, but I enjoyed it.

[00:21:34] But when you think about it, the notion of a monster that makes your like internalized worst fears come to life is terrifying. Yeah. And we see each of them kind of dealing with it throughout the episode.

[00:21:54] Like, especially with Xander, who we've already seen in this season that he's got this fear of kind of being, you know, ignored or left behind by his friends and his peers. And poor Anya points that out after being led in by Uncle Rory.

[00:22:14] She points out that Xander doesn't have anything really in common with Willow and Oz and Buffy because, you know, they go to college and they don't live with their parents. And you can see that it kind of gets to him. Yeah. And watching that fear manifest in the frat house, I just feel so bad for him. Like, he.

[00:22:39] He has a moment of foreshadowing when he and Oz are dropping off the sound system and the frat guy and Oz have a conversation about Xander right in front of him. And he's like, I'm standing right here. Come on, guys. They all have foreshadowing moments. You know, Buffy, obviously, she's got a big fear of abandonment. She has several conversations throughout the episode where we see this issue.

[00:23:07] She's got sort of the classic daddy issues, right? Like, she has that conversation with Joyce where Joyce is like, your dad loves spending time with you. And Buffy says, not enough, apparently. And there's a whole conversation in that one sentence. And Joyce 100% understands where Buffy's coming from. And, again, I love Joyce. I love Joyce so much. She's such a good mom because she doesn't say to Buffy, oh, your father didn't abandon you. Oh, it shouldn't hurt. Stop hurting. Stop being upset by that. Right.

[00:23:37] She sort of shifts into, I identify with what you're going through and don't wall yourself off from people. It's really good advice. It's like, yes, there are people in your life who have disappointed you. And that sucks. And it makes it hard to trust again. But you have to or you're going to be dead inside. And it's really good advice. And it's gentle. It's realistic. Joyce opens up to Buffy, is a little vulnerable with her. It's a gorgeous conversation.

[00:24:07] That's nice. It's good to see Joyce, too. Yeah. We see her a lot less with Buffy off at school. Yeah. So it's nice seeing her on screen. Well, and then Willow. We get to see, you know, Willow's fears of kind of her magic and not being able to control it. I also think there's an element of Willow being concerned about Oz leaving her. And the seeds for that have already been planted.

[00:24:35] In a mini, teeny, tiny spoiler, we start to see a little bit more of those seeds in the next episode. And when she's, you know, she can't find Oz and she's saying, like, don't leave me. And it starts to echo. Yeah. She's like, I imagine that being, you know, her inside of her head. Like, just this persistent thought of, like, please don't leave me. Please don't leave me. She has a lot of her self-esteem tied up in Oz. Yes.

[00:25:04] And how very much Oz loves her. And how the way that Oz pursued her, right, their whole romance starting in season two, all through season three. Oz is very consistent. He's like, I like you. I want to be with you. I'm willing to wait until you're ready. I'm not going anywhere. I am loyal. I am good. And any tiny bit of pulling away that he does sends her into an insecurity spiral.

[00:25:36] Oh, yeah. And she's also, you know, she's getting more and more advanced with her magic. And she and Buffy have a good conversation about it. You know, maybe I can handle it. I'll know when I've reached my limit. Famous last words. And then Oz comes in. I know what it's like to have power you can't control. And every time I start to wolf out, I touch something. Deep. Dark. It's not fun.

[00:26:07] Of course, his fear of kind of letting the inner wolf take over and not being able to control that, which is all sorts of interesting in general as a metaphor for like the monster within. Right. Especially with, you know, I think people with anger issues. I could see that. And Oz just feeling like he does not have control over what he does.

[00:26:35] Because he's such a stand-up guy. He's so thoughtful and careful in his real life as, you know, as a person. And the thought of a monster being unleashed that you have no control of clearly is something that terrifies him. Yeah. And we rarely get to hear him speak about it. I feel like the werewolf is a metaphor for so many human qualities, right?

[00:27:03] Like severe mental illness. Right. Like lust. Like anger. Like alcoholism or addiction. These are all things that people experience day-to-day, everyday people with no magic in their lives. Experience these things that are a part of them that they, that in order to control them, they have to go to great lengths, right?

[00:27:28] Oz literally locks himself in a cage once a month to keep himself from hurting the people around him. Any people, even people he doesn't know. He doesn't want to hurt anybody because he's a, he's a responsible person, but he has this monster. And that's the same thing you could say of somebody who has an addiction, right? That they have a monster in them and that they have to go to great lengths and exhibit extreme discipline in order to keep that monster from getting out and hurting other people.

[00:27:56] Same thing if you're bipolar or schizophrenic. Like you have to take all kinds of medications and have this really strict routine in order to maintain a normal life. And it is hard. And I don't know that the rest of the Scooby gang really hears him. I think they take Oz a little bit for granted that like, oh, Oz, he's so dependable. He's so loyal. He's so good. He would never hurt anybody. Look at how he locks himself in a cage when he turns into a wolf.

[00:28:24] And he reveals real vulnerability in that moment. I think that's the longest conversation that we've ever heard come out of Oz's mouth. Yeah. And he says it, you know, to explain to Willow why he's concerned about her. But it really should have prompted the rest of them to be like, Oz, do you want to talk about it? Like, let's talk about this wolf thing. Yeah, it's like, please check up on him. Yeah. Like, ask him questions.

[00:28:51] And I get that, you know, it's not necessarily, it's a TV show. I understand that Buffy's the main character. But it was nice to see, you know, the notion that they're all already a little bit emotionally isolated from each other and divided. Which allows, you know, this demon to divide and conquer even more effectively with them.

[00:29:18] He's just playing on the insecurities that are already there. And I like that moment with Willow when Buffy's kind of, you know, trying to tell her not to meddle with magic. And Willow's like, you think you get to be the boss of me? You get to tell me what to do? And Buffy's like, yeah. And Willow has that moment. She's like, I'm not your sidekick. And it's like, oh, we all thought you were. Yeah. It's like, oh, is that not what you are?

[00:29:47] But it makes sense that that would be a very real insecurity and issue that she has in their friendship. Because all of them kind of take second to Buffy. Yeah. Which to a certain extent, it makes sense. She's the slayer. And in this episode, though, there are no vampires present. So it seems like a good time for that insecurity and concern to kind of come out with Willow.

[00:30:15] She is wanting to have, you know, some of her own power to be able to exert some of her own control over the situation. And that's a very realistic thing, I think, in friendships in general, where you have one person that might be, you know, seen as the more successful one, the more attractive one, the more, you know, whatever in any way. And it's natural that Willow would have those thoughts. And we don't see them very often.

[00:30:43] Willow usually does a pretty good job of kind of taking a step back. And I like that we get to see that that is something that bugs her a little. Yeah. I think it's only natural. That she's always a side character in Buffy's The Main Character. And, you know, Buffy feels loneliness in a different way. First of all, because of the rejection from Parker. And then, you know, she's the fifth wheel at this party with her friends. I've been the fifth wheel so many times.

[00:31:13] It's really a bummer. And she often feels isolated by her role as the Slayer. From the outside, it may look like, oh, you're the superhero. That's so cool. But she talks about it often. It's lonely. And she feels the pressure of it constantly. And she doesn't feel like she has anyone to share it with. Even when she had Faith around, Faith was sort of, before she turned evil, Faith was more casual, right?

[00:31:42] And so Buffy always felt like she had to be the responsible one still. She didn't have, like, a full partner. And I think part of the deep love she had for Angel was that he had more of an ability to understand what was going on in her life, how isolated she felt with her powers, than anyone else. Absolutely. Well, and it's funny you make that point. I think that that is exactly why she chose to dress up as Little Red Riding Hood.

[00:32:12] You know, like, Little Red Riding Hood is this innocent figure. This, you know, this girl. First of all, it's a little girl in the stories. She's normal, going to grandma's house. Like, doesn't have, you know, the weight of being the protector and saving the world on her shoulders, which is exactly what Buffy wants.

[00:32:36] We hear over and over again how much she wishes she could have normal, like, high school experiences, normal life experiences. And it's just so fitting that she ends up dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood and has to confront a wolf. Yeah. In a number of forms later on in the night. Also, Xander's line, when he walks up to her and he's like, what do you have in the basket, little girl?

[00:33:04] I know he was trying to be creepy, but it still made my skin roll. Yeah, there I have it. And I... Hey, Red. What you got in the basket, little girl? Weapons. Oh. Weapons. That's perfect. The weapons line kills me. It's so... She's so dry and matter-of-fact about it. Weapons. And the look on Xander's face is like, oh, I was trying to play and you're not playing. Yep.

[00:33:34] She's like, okay, never mind. Yeah. Never mind. I've always enjoyed the Little Red Riding Hood story. I have been Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween, like, four or five times. Nice. In college, I did, of course, because I'm a white girl and it was the 90s, Little Red Riding Ho instead of Little Red Riding Hood. So I could dress slutty because that was the whole point of Halloween in college was to dress slutty. Yeah. That's true.

[00:34:02] But I've always liked the Little Red Riding Hood story. I like the versions of it where the woodsman doesn't save her, but she saves herself and the grandmother. Yes. It's been used in so many of my favorite, like, science fiction shows. There's Little Red Riding Hood shows up in Charmed. It shows up in Supernatural. Like, it's an iconic story. There's that amazing novelty song, the Little Red Riding Hood song.

[00:34:29] I can't remember now who sings it, but it's so funny and fun. And I've always liked that song. Um, when Buffy dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, I ended up being Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween that year as well. Nice. I think I was Little Red Riding Hood this year. We were probably wearing very different things. Yeah, you were much younger than me. Yeah. I, my mom made me this little hood that had like a tie on.

[00:34:58] And I remember being absolutely obsessed with that thing. We should try to find pictures. I still have my, my Little Red Riding Hood cape. That's awesome. It's, um, red satin. And it was made for me by a law school friend. It was so wild. So it was a few days before Halloween. And I was talking to this friend of mine and, and I said like, yeah, I want to go out this weekend, but I don't have a costume together. And it's just, I'm really stressed. Whatever was going on in my life.

[00:35:28] And, and she was like, well, what would you dress as if you did dress up? And I was like, I don't know. Maybe Little Red Riding Hood. And, and then I didn't think anything of it. And the next day I was studying in the library and she called me on my brand new cell phone. Woohoo. I had a cell phone. And, uh, I don't know. She's like, where are you? And I was like, oh, I'm in the library. And she's like, all right, stay there. I'm going to find you. And she showed up and she pulls the bat, this cape out of her backpack. And it was very dramatic because it was like shiny, bright red satin cape.

[00:35:57] And she pulls it out of her backpack, like a magician pulling scarves, you know, and she unfurls it. And she's like, I made this for you last night. And I was like, what? And it's beautiful. That's awesome. It's lined. It has this like decorative closure at the neck. It's gorgeous. Oh my God. Uh, and I was like, oh my God. And she's like, now you can go out for Halloween. And I was like, I can't believe you did that. Just, you just went home and sewed this. And she's like, yeah, like no big deal.

[00:36:26] It was really, really sweet. And I feel bad now that I've lost touch with her. She's a lovely person. And, uh, so I went out as Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween that year, which was really fun. And I still have the cape. I put the cape on a kid one time for a photo shoot and, uh, it looked amazing on her. It photographed beautifully, uh, because of the way it reflected light as satin.

[00:36:51] I also really enjoyed, uh, Willow's, uh, Joan of Arc costume and the look of the chain mail. It looked really, really cool. And then of course, Oz with the, hello, my name is God name tag is such classic Oz. It's hilarious. And it allowed for that great moment later in the episode when he turns the spooky soundtrack off and somebody says, Oh, thank the Lord. Oh yeah. Oh, you're welcome. That was so good.

[00:37:20] I was just like, Oh, Oz. So I was like, Oh, that's cute. That's a little double. Thank you. Uh, you're welcome. That's really, that's really adorable. So they never explicitly say it, but I assume that the magic spell needed werewolf blood specifically to be activated. Like it was just this perfect storm of events. Or some sort of supernatural creature. Yeah. Perhaps, because I was like, well, if Xander had blood, would it have worked?

[00:37:50] Right. We don't know, but it was Oz. Just their luck. So werewolf happened to be setting things up. And also, did you, I don't know, this was probably a little young for your time, but when I saw, um, that one frat guy, I forgot his name already. It's in our trivia, but he played the black power ranger. Oh, that's funny.

[00:38:14] I completely forgot he was in this episode and I shrieked because I was obsessed with the power rangers when I was like seven, eight, and he was one of my favorites. And now thinking about it, the fact that the black man was the black power ranger and the Asian woman was the yellow power ranger is not great. Not great. But I really enjoyed him. It was nice to see him in something else. I got really happy.

[00:38:42] Yeah, I think I'm a little too old for power rangers. That checks out. Cause it was, I've seen it, obviously. I know what it is, but I never was like a power, I always thought I was like, this might be even too campy for me. Yeah. I think when I was six or so, I was the pink ranger for Halloween. So it was around that time. Yeah. Really cute. When it was popular. But God, these frat guys.

[00:39:09] The worst one, of course, is the one who has all the ways to like get women and that Halloween and every holiday except Arbor Day is about getting women and getting laid. And he's such a stereotypical frat guy. And at first I was like, ugh, this is so 90s, this guy. And we're just accepting him like that. And then I was like, oh no, he dies. Yeah. Like he gets punished. Yeah. He breaks his neck. He falls down the stairs. It's all good.

[00:39:38] I think he might be the only person that we see actually die in this episode. It's unclear if any of the other party guests are dead. It looks like the one woman who's dressed as like a princess or something is dead. And then she opens her eyes and I'm like, is she a zombie or is she not dead? Who knows? We never really find out. It's fine. I think that chainsaw moment for Giles lives rent free in the heads of women and I assume

[00:40:05] some men all over the world who have seen it because we so rarely get to see Giles be a man of action, right? He's usually the book man. And it reminds me a lot of the scene in season two after Jenny is killed when he, you know, attacks Angel or Angelus and Spike and Drusilla with that like, torch and, and he's so, you know, man of action, man of business. That's great.

[00:40:32] And he gets more and more little action moments in season three. And then here we are in season four. We're going to get to see more and more as we progress through the seasons. And he just gets sexier and sexier. It's true. Well, and he gets to save the day. Like it's good to see him get to save the day. I do love when Anya goes over to his apartment to get his help. And she says, you know, she tells him about the window closing up and he's like, well, where are Buffy and the others?

[00:41:01] And she's like, well, they're trapped too, but we have to save Xander. Yeah. She's a very one track mind. It's like, come on, man. Focus. Yeah. And that's pretty. She's pretty one track about saving Xander to the exclusion of everyone else. But she knew enough to go to Giles. Which is helpful. Yeah. And I love that her, you know, obviously she's afraid of buddies. We get that. But she is also terrified of losing Xander.

[00:41:30] That comes out very clearly in this episode. Those are real feelings. We knew she had real feelings, but before it was kind of played on humorously. And now it's like, no, no, she truly cares about him. Like this is a very scary prospect to her to lose him. And I just.

[00:41:51] Oh, that moment between Anya and Xander in his basement is so full of visceral sexual tension. When he asks her on the date and she, you know, steps into his sort of personal space and tilts her head in that very beguiling way. And it's like, are we dating? It. It's such a simple moment, but. It's so full of emotion.

[00:42:20] And there's something really subtle that she's doing with the tilt of her head and her body language that just tells you that. Her feelings for Xander have grown and they are real and she wants something real with him. And it's. It's palpable. Excellent acting. Yeah. It's really good. It's. It's just. It makes me want to like giggle and kick my feet. Yeah. They're precious. Kiss her. Kiss her. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:49] And it's, it's nice. Like Xander needs to be with somebody like Anya who is not, you know, they talk, they talk a lot about her being a replacement for Cordelia in the sense of that kind of blunt, like brutally honest character with, you know, some humor as a relief. But with it, Anya's intentions are different. She is not saying any of this stuff to make a point. She just doesn't know any better.

[00:43:17] That's just how she communicates. And it is very good for Xander to have someone who is that blunt and direct because he needs someone who is going to call him out sometimes.

[00:43:58] Yeah. And she wants, like, and wanting to be with him. And I think that he can stop being insecure for long enough to actually, like, notice and be. There's no game. Reciprocate. Yeah. she's not playing games with him and i think that helps him be as kind of open and direct with her

[00:44:22] to like and he's he's patient with her when when she walks in on him you know this time he's not really naked but he's pulling his pants up and he kind of lets her know like hey you know you gotta stop just walking in like you gotta learn how to knock and they have a good open line of communication and i think that's something that's very important for him and i just i'm excited to see their

[00:44:50] relationship as it goes on it's been a few years since i've re-watched and it'll be nice to see how things develop with them and i need more anya and giles yes i love anya and giles together they have great chemistry and her directness works really well with his dryness in that he never is put off by it he's sort of every now and then he'll give her sort of an eye roll look but he's sort of like

[00:45:19] yeah she's just really direct that's fine like he's kind of at this point after three years of being buffy's watcher he's he's accepted the like teen speak and the pop culture references and the all that stuff he's he's he rolls with it and i think he secretly likes it and it keeps him young to be around her and not like the stuffy watcher's council that he used to spend all his time with

[00:45:47] freaking watcher's council he's better off he is i hate the watcher's council i uh i really enjoy anya's costume too because it is in no way revealing or sexy like there are lots of versions of dressing as a bunny on halloween that are very sexy right there's the whole playboy bunny

[00:46:13] thing but anya doesn't go in that direction and it's it's hilarious she's so cute and she it's because she is genuinely terrified of them like to her that costume is appropriately scary for halloween which makes it 10 times better but she does look adorable just because emma caulfield is adorable

[00:46:38] yeah she's an extremely pretty person and also very cute like those two things are related but not exactly the same and she's both things she's very endearing she's another example like spike of an actor who was hired for like two episode role and then they just liked her so much that they wrote her into

[00:47:02] season four she was never supposed to make it past the second willow evil willow episode the the whip not the wish was the first one and the second one is called i can't remember but the one where dark willow comes into our world after that we weren't supposed to see that character again and but she was so good that they were like oh we can we can roll with this so glad they kept her around

[00:47:31] yeah she's great she adds a really nice flavor to the scooby gang and emma caulfield is wonderful and from what i've heard about her in real life she's also wonderful and uh sarah michelle geller when she talks about her in interviews is always like oh emma is like my biggest cheerleader she's always helping me and she's always makes me feel good about myself and uh i'm like oh i want to know emma

[00:47:58] caulfield in real life she sounds lovely oh gosh bonus points too because that costume looks so comfortable oh to me it just looks hot that's true if it's cold outside not yeah in southern california maybe not but if you went to school at like cornell maybe yeah then it would be a good halloween

[00:48:19] costume to choose from but i took my niece and nephew to like a this like farm theme park one time and they have characters roaming around and there was a giant bunny rabbit kind of like anya's bunny rabbit and my niece who was maybe three at the time would not go anywhere near the rabbit she was terrified of the rabbit and she would be like a penny a penny we walk it this way like she would just like pull me

[00:48:48] away from the rabbit we had to take huge detours because the rabbit was spending a lot of time in the sort of center area of the park and we would like walk all the way around buildings to get away from the rabbit and it's so funny she's got good instincts it's like that thing's not natural that's not normal something's wrong with that i don't want to go near it well i was like look a rabbit and she was like oh no no no no she's like uh-uh not doing it well that rabbit

[00:49:17] does not look real obviously like she's not scary as a buddy but this episode itself if i watch it at night it freaks me out like especially that you know when xander's freaking out about how nobody can see him and then you see that decapitated head with the eyeball coming out that's like i can see you but that is genuinely unnerving and when the girl is reaching her hand and you know the whole trip

[00:49:45] like it's grapes but they feel like eyeballs and then she pulls out actual actual eyeballs eyeballs like that that is incredibly unnerving and then i can't help but think about what would manifest for me like what fear would come out if i were in a haunted house and how would that manifest and i don't think i ever want to find out yeah i don't either because i'm pretty sure it would

[00:50:10] be clowns oh gosh and then they'd all just hit on you yeah and that'd be really creepy i think it'd be gross the thing that freaks me out that like spiders when that spider came alive yeah and started crawling it makes me shudder thinking about it i'd be okay with the bats maybe not if they're all flying

[00:50:31] at me but like okay they can hang out up there but bees or yeah spiders i would be done for and the buffy gets the classic horror right she's in the basement and the arms break out of the ground and

[00:50:48] i think my fear in the haunted house would manifest itself as it problems that i would have to solve myself forever it would just be like a non-stop set of computer error messages and i'd be like nah i

[00:51:17] can't fix it that sounds about but i would need to fix it like that's how it that would be like my nightmare yeah like realistically my fear would probably be along the lines of finding my friends and family dead or something like that and not being able to do anything because i think i'm at that point in my life where i'm constantly worried about my parents as they're getting older and you know i

[00:51:41] don't have any real desire to start any sort of family of my own so viewing you know my existing family and my friends i see as my family so i think that would probably be what comes out and then if it were creatures it would definitely be spiders or bees okay one of my favorite moments of the episode is when the scoobies are like meeting up and they're heading to the frat and it's intercut

[00:52:09] with scenes of complete chaos at the frat and they're all like quiet they're outside at night they see the the army guys go by right buffy's like oh nice costumes very stealthy and then and then they're walking up those guys could be yeah and then inside the frat house is just like screaming flashing lights the camera is whirling around so you you feel chaotic and it goes back

[00:52:36] and forth it's so well done i love the intercutting of it people are screaming there's the that one uh woman who's wearing like a cultural appropriation hula girl outfit oh yeah and uh the princess who looks dead and people seem to not be able to find a door out of the room so they're like running in all directions just terrifying yeah and the camera is moving so much that like

[00:53:02] there's moments where it's blurry and there's moments where there's little light trails of the whole effect of it is so great yeah and and it's like ah and then quiet quiet uh i love that and then when the gang comes in the house they it's it's like just the haunted house music and an empty room and they're like where is everybody and i'm like how is this demon like what is the power this demon

[00:53:26] has that they can't hear all that chaos screaming yeah upstairs that's amazing they sound pretty the attic yeah the way that the stairs disappear and reappear and like that guy had fallen down the stairs but apparently his body's not right there anymore and it's just it's a really effective haunted house the way it divides them and they can't get back to each other it's it's all really

[00:53:51] creepy and and i'm impressed by gacknar yeah i guess is what i'm saying little guy lots of power in a little package uh yeah let's go buffy finds blood at at one point early on when they get to the house and she's like this is real blood and i'm like is it actually real blood like or is that the demon putting fake blood there that looks like real blood because like the bats were rubber and then they

[00:54:18] were real and then they were rubber again maybe it was fake blood they placed throughout the house yeah and at one point xander says it's all in my head but these things are real like he said like they can actually kill you like oh yeah that that i love that moment he's like you know if we close you think he's gonna say like you know if we close our eyes and say it's a dream like you think we'll be able to think it's like it's not real and then he goes it'll stab us to death because these things

[00:54:46] are real yeah that little quick subverting of expectations is done so well in this episode it's such a buffy the vampire slayer moment and there's such a so many good lines dialogue yeah there's lots of little funny bits there's like you know where xander realizes people can't hear him and buffy's like where is xander this is so typical and he's like typical what are you talking about and when he's

[00:55:12] trying to explain like does anybody hear that noise and he doesn't quite realize that buffy can't hear him and he's like it's like a hissing sound and buffy's it's like a and makes a noise and he goes i thought the word hissing kind of covered that nicely like he's just over there losing it like does nobody pay attention to me and they and that the that buffy it buffy and willow like get into a

[00:55:36] full argument in the middle of a crisis just shows like sort of their youth and the way that fear like anger short circuits your prefrontal cortex when you're in a state of heightened fear the primal parts of your brain take over and you can't say to yourself like this is not the time to have this argument like let's be rational because the the irrational part overpowers and floods your brain

[00:56:05] with you know with um what's the word i want uh adrenaline and and these other things where you literally can't make yourself be rational until you can calm down i also thought that the way that willow's spell went wrong was hilarious it reminded me a lot of um the spider-man no way home and the way that dr strange's spell goes wrong in that because she didn't do the pre-work she wasn't ready she

[00:56:35] jumped into the spell without thinking through all of her intentions and if your intentions are not right when you enter into doing magic if you don't have everything set in your head ahead of time this is what happens is you make changes midway and the spell gets confused and stuff goes wrong and it's i mean this is magic it's not real but in real life this is true also you should know where

[00:56:59] you're trying to get to before you start a complicated action or you could end up close to the end make it a mess because you weren't aligned toward your goal well we're starting to see some some flaws with willow that could come back and bite her in the future and it's very nicely done in this episode i mean all of them we see their insecurities and we see some of their flaws start to come out

[00:57:27] yeah and she's a rusher right willow rushes she's overconfident because she's insecure she relies on her intelligence a little too much without always doing the homework that she should be doing because she's like i can figure it out i'm smarter than everybody and it's like you still need to do some of the prep work and and she's angry at buffy for doubting her and so she just like sort of doubles

[00:57:57] down and rushes more into the spell well and she's angry at buffy for doubting her because of her own like that fear that self-doubt that's playing in too and that's gosh that's such a dangerous position to be in when you have any sort of power to yield and wield not yield brain but you know with

[00:58:22] certain politicians or anybody in a position of power where you are so determined to show that you are the smartest you do have the most power it's really dangerous to not be able to say you know what i don't really know what i'm doing in this moment i don't really know what's best and if you power through because you don't want that to be seen as weakness then you're setting

[00:58:49] yourself up for failure and you're setting up those around you for failure and now for willow to willow buffy in that moment does a little everybody should just do what i say because i'm always the boss and she's a little mean about it to willow right she's like come on some of your spells just don't turn out like what are you doing it it was the worst thing to say to her well and it

[00:59:13] makes me wonder too how much of the fear demon had in terms of influence on them so were some of their thoughts coming out that maybe they wouldn't be saying otherwise did it have an extent like an effect to the extent that they stopped censoring themselves around each other and so all of the insecurities all the doubts are coming out in addition to their own fears manifesting because

[00:59:42] poor zander like zander was having a rough go at it oz was having a rough time when he's usually very composed like that scene of him sitting in the bathtub by himself kind of rocking like you're not going to change you're not going to change that i don't know why but that just hit me i felt so bad for him and and it makes you think you know he's so stoic and he always has you know a brave face

[01:00:08] but i really wish we got to see a bit more of his vulnerabilities like you were talking about and the struggles that he has as a werewolf because it's clearly something that gets to him and it's a shame that we didn't get to explore that more it he's such an interesting character i really wish that there had ever been an oz spinoff i would have loved to have spent time with him

[01:00:34] away from the rest of the scoobies having his own adventures and um i'm probably never going to get anything like that but maybe someone will do a comic book version that that would be good this narrative device of something that manifests your deepest fears is used in a lot of like tv shows and it it's a it's an effective and fascinating and i think sort of infinitely usable narrative

[01:01:04] device i've seen it several times on supernatural it happened on charm a bunch of times it's in agents of shield and it always allows the writers to force characters to admit things they haven't admitted to each other before it's it's such a good device for revealing secrets and bringing things into the light of day

[01:01:33] that you may not want in the light of day i have like a bottomless enjoyment of fears manifesting themselves even though i don't want to experience it myself yeah it's fascinating to watch well it's even kind of reminiscent of you know buffy season one nightmares where it's a little bit more literal

[01:01:56] like you know things that people are afraid of like clowns are manifested in you know their real life while they're awake instead of when they're asleep but it's it's a it's one of those tropes that we see over and over again that i don't mind because it's a really great writing tool where they're showing us rather than explicitly telling us these essential things about our you know our characters and buffy is

[01:02:25] i mean the writers are really great at that yeah god i love the halloween episodes they're just so good and if anybody doesn't enjoy this episode i do want to know and i'm also talking to you sam because penny said that this may not have been your favorite and i'm fascinated we'll have to talk about that but anybody else anybody else out there that doesn't like this episode i'm curious

[01:02:49] because i always you know i feel like you and i have pretty similar tastes in a lot of the episodes i know we differ on some aspects but it's always interesting to hear other perspectives yeah it's it's interesting too i i have a little bit of a blind spot about buffy as a series as a whole because

[01:03:13] i love it so much it's hard for me to criticize it sometimes and i try to be honest when i see something that needs to be criticized like the lack of diversity i i call it out but i know that there are probably things that i'm not seeing because i'm blinded by my overall affection yeah so that's how i feel about telling me what they see yeah i try i try to recognize she has flaws yeah but you know

[01:03:39] it's true when you love something when it's and buffy is a good comfort show so if it's something especially that gives you comfort it's hard to dig in and look at it through a critical lens yeah i think we do a pretty good job but i bet there's like glaring flaws that we never talk about that people out in podcast listening land are like i can't believe they didn't enter this

[01:04:03] like yelling at their phone if you're like me and you listen in the car you're constantly trying to interject into our conversation yep yeah that's that's how i i am with a lot of podcasts i can't i'm like hey what about and then i'm like oh they can't hear me uh it's just uh if the conversational flow is really really flowing i i forget that it's not happening in the room with me and i

[01:04:30] i'll try to join and then i feel really silly those are my favorite kinds of podcasts when you feel like you're sitting around like at a coffee shop or something with your friends yeah talking about the show it's like oh they can't tell that i'm yelling right now and trying to get them to bring up this one specific point i'm also curious listeners if you'd care to share to let us know like how and

[01:04:56] where do you listen like are you a commuter do you listen in your car or like on the subway do you listen while you're like cleaning the house do you listen at the gym do you listen when you go for walks i'm just curious very curious if you'd care to share like let us know because i i am a big car listener and i got into podcasts in the first place because i had a long stressful commute with like bad

[01:05:19] traffic and music wasn't getting it done audiobooks weren't quite right but i found that the conversational tone of podcasts kept my interest when i was driving in a way that other things didn't and so that's how i started listening to podcasts and that's how i ended up eventually here and i also listen a lot when i go

[01:05:43] for walks oh yeah i every now and then um i'll snap a picture of the beach and send it to whoever's podcast i'm listening to and be like thanks for coming to the beach with me i like that yeah mine is most my commute commute is like six minutes long so i don't have a lot of listening time in the car which i'm not complaining about that that is a perk but i love listening while i'm cleaning or if i'm

[01:06:11] doing something that's fairly mindless at work that doesn't require all of my brain power it's nice to have podcasts in the background you guys have been with me on planes a ton because i hate flying but i will not stop doing it so i need to listen to something that's comforting yeah i like going places i just don't like traveling yeah i like being in airports i don't know why i hate airports

[01:06:39] well it helps when i have a bloody mary once i have my bloody mary then i'm good and then that that would help it makes me feel i i say this as i'm about to turn 37 it makes me feel like a grown-up when i'm traveling by myself i don't know what it is but i just i like romanticizing the travel aspect of it mainly because i'm so scared of flying so any little bit that i can make

[01:07:06] myself feel like fancy how i could do it and having a bloody mary and listening to a podcast helps that's awesome oh goodness i did want to there was one more thing that i wanted to talk about in terms of you know the title of the episode and the overall theme is you know speaking of fears um

[01:07:28] the title of fear itself being you know implying that the fear you have about something is usually much greater than the reality and yeah when you know that anxiety of you know anxiety of flying and then i'll make it through a flight i'm like okay that was okay or being anxious about you know a particularly difficult case that i'm going to trial on and that fear of failure that is worse

[01:07:57] for the most part than okay if i start jury selection i start to relax as soon as i get into it i relax and i think that's an interesting thing for the show to explore because of how much nightmare fuel they have to deal with yeah and season four especially there are some of the most terrifying creatures that they end up coming up against and there's one in particular i won't spoil it

[01:08:25] but just the gentleman yeah very terrifying you know like it's it's an interesting thing to be brought up in this episode and kind of does set the tone for the rest of the season especially when you think about you know we've talked about buffy's kind of crisis of confidence and this fear like am i you know is this all i am is the slayer all i'm good for like am i really that great of a slayer like

[01:08:50] that type of thing i just i don't know i just really love how clever these writers are with we also talked earlier in this episode about how fear can run amok when you aren't busy right but once you start taking action like once you start jury selection muscle memory adrenaline you know having

[01:09:18] actual action that you're taking towards a goal can really alleviate fear because a lot of fear is anticipation so once you're actually doing the thing it's usually not as bad as you built it up to be in your head and it's a good lesson for all of us sometimes that the way to deal with anxiety is not to retreat it's to act absolutely i have always had like you know like a procrastination

[01:09:48] problem or maybe it's adhd executive functioning i don't know i'm not really diagnosed but i have observed of myself that once i take the first step toward accomplishing whatever the thing is that i'm afraid of or avoiding even if it's not a scary thing i'm just avoiding it like cleaning my house once i take the first step i'm like oh this isn't that bad it's a helpful way to approach things is

[01:10:17] just what i i call etfo eliminate the first obstacle i like and i give myself a promise that if i do the first step and i still don't want to do the thing i'm allowed to quit as long as i do the first step so for example if it's doing the dishes the first step is emptying the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them away and then if i don't want to do the ones in the sink i'm allowed

[01:10:42] to stop but usually by the time i've emptied the dishes i'm like i'm on a roll i'll just finish this this isn't that big of a deal and it's it's the starting but for me to get myself to start i have to promise myself i'm allowed to quit that that's a good point because if i have expectations whether and you know i'm adhd to the max executive dysfunction is a huge issue and the minute somebody

[01:11:07] tells me i have to do something or i feel like i have to do something i don't want to do it like don't tell me what to do so i might have to try that that trick of allowing myself to quit and it's funny too you know we talk about the fear and the anticipation being much greater in this episode that also manifests with the little demon as giles pointed out you know points to buffy the illustration of it

[01:11:35] she's like i don't want to fight that thing and then it turns out that he looked a lot worse than he actually was yeah once once it was in the light and you could really see the thing you were so afraid of not that big of a deal so funny i love when um when xander is kind of taunting oh yeah

[01:12:00] wait i have it i have it i think this is gackner big overture little show the dark lord of nightmares

[01:12:12] the bringer of terror he he's so cute who's a little fear demon come on who's a little fear demon don't i bring the terror why can he hurt me no it's just tacky be that as it may

[01:12:37] buffy when it comes to slaying size doesn't matter they're all going to abandon you you know yeah yeah i love that don't such a great moment the fear demon it's tacky it's so good i like how xander like it's like oh like is it gonna hurt me like that's what he thinks giles like no oh

[01:13:07] oh tacky it's also one of the only episodes that ends on a punchline because you know they're back at giles's and buffy has this great moment this is much better there's no problem that cannot be solved by chocolate buffy's love of chocolate is well established and and then you know giles is like oh i should have read the caption and she's like why what does it say and then here it is

[01:13:33] bloody hell the inscription what's the matter i should have translated inscription under the illustration of gregman what's it say actual size so it's like a four inch demon the picture could fit actual size in a book i it and then she just she just sort of shrugs and closes the book and that's the end of the episode and it's such a nice

[01:14:01] light ending and it's so funny and they're all so happy hanging out at giles's like eating candy it's really i want to hang out sweet i want to hang out at giles's with the scoobies me too that sounds nice he's got a great record collection we've already established that there's a hidden tv yeah brilliant he usually keeps good liquor in the house that's true so that's all good he has a

[01:14:28] problem with locking the door but if buffy's there i feel pretty safe that's true like when anya goes over there the door's just wide open while she's talking to him i'm like somebody close the door i guess not giles but you know what's out there yeah i don't understand and you live in california i guess like sunnydales it doesn't seem like it's that small town where you wouldn't have to worry

[01:14:53] about locking your doors even small towns i've lived in small towns you should lock your doors because you never know if it's not like you know big city type crime there's also there's like small town crime in the form of bored stoned teenagers but there's also stuff like bears

[01:15:14] yep that's true like my ex-husband's family they live in a small town nearby and i was astonished when i went over there for the first time and they were talking about how they never locked their door even at night i was like what what are you talking about i was like you're not that far away from a big town like what are you doing yeah we always locked our doors in new hampshire but wildlife would

[01:15:43] sometimes get into the house anyway oh my gosh and it's funny now because i've i've been a city liver for like 30 years but as a as a teenager and a preteen the number of times that i had to like figure out how to get wildlife out of the house without being bitten by it it was many there were many times that would i mean it was usually like squirrels or something it it was never a bear

[01:16:11] it was a raccoon one time um they're so cute but can be rabid yes and and their claws are no joke yeah you don't want to get scratched up by a wild raccoon you just you just don't no thanks no thank you one last thing i did want to say about the episode is that it's an excellent example of

[01:16:37] camp and how buffy the show embraces camp and uses it really well i mean they use they the college kids have the tropiest of college kid halloween costumes and the haunted house every haunted house trope right cobwebs spiders bats skeleton creepy noises decapitated head grapes as eyeballs like all

[01:17:04] that stuff has been done before and instead of avoiding it this show embraces it and and heightens it and makes it campy and fun and i really enjoy that kind of can't like they're so good at it yeah it's really it's really a lot of fun i i love campy i i just i can't get enough of it i think it's

[01:17:27] hilarious i've been re-watching supernatural lately there's 15 seasons so there's a lot of supernatural to watch a lot and that show also does a really good job of embracing tropes and camp sometimes and and just dialing it all the way up when they when they have a funny episode they just go all in

[01:17:51] and they they just point the camera at exactly the tropiest part and make you love it anyway and it's it's excellent that's what i'll do with the rest of my day is watch some of the funniest supernatural episodes because with buffy i'm still trying to resist going forward at all but i i'm not gonna lie i did watch some of the halloween episodes this past halloween just for fun because i was like we'll

[01:18:17] forget those by the time we get to them yeah later in this i mean it's hard it's it is really hard to avoid spoilers and i know that we're not always successful at it but um it's also really hard to avoid watching ahead and one of the ways i do it is by being like no you're watching supernatural right now and just like steering myself away from watching ahead on buffy because the desire that i have had

[01:18:42] lately to skip ahead in angel yeah has been strong i'm like oh i want to see fred i know it gets so good yeah so uh i'm trying to be patient and supernatural is really helping i love me some sam and dean and castiel and i'm in season seven now so they've introduced garth and garth is a lot of

[01:19:07] fun i do love garth garth is great that's the you know season six was a little rough there are some good episodes in that season and then i feel like season seven kind of picks up a little bit better but yeah i'm gonna have to watch supernatural today my aura ring told me that my readiness score

[01:19:28] was like 59 and i needed to rest so i'm gonna listen to it and just watch tv awesome i support this decision in my comfy pjs let's move into some not so poppy cultural references especially this first one xander says people prepare to have your spines tingled and your gooses bumped by the terrifying

[01:19:56] fantasia fantasia fantasia fantasm it was supposed to be phantasm fantasia is a 1940 animated disney musical featuring mickey mouse as a sorcerer's apprentice who gets into some magic he can't control the musical has eight different segments with different classical opera and ballet songs it is the segment to the tune of the dance of the hours from which oz is referenced to hippos in

[01:20:19] tutus stems i actually think fantasia is a lot scarier than than people realize but phantasm on the other hand is a 1979 low budget horror film about two brothers and an ice cream salesman investigating strange going on goings on at the local cemetery something about flying spheres puncturing skulls and shrinking things to half their normal size for sure i have not actually seen phantasm me neither

[01:20:47] but i always i know i've seen the the poster or whatever just various times either on the internet and it always makes me think of this buffy episode because i think it's the only time i've ever really heard it referenced also how dated is that going to the video store and for a vhs copy of a movie yep like oh man i used to love going to blockbuster on friday night

[01:21:14] um this one is a little bit more dated just a little bit of an older reference uh caesar was a roman emperor obviously whose friends conspired to assassinate him in 44 bc and indeed did so on march 15th the eyes of march and we hear willow reference and call oz brutus when he

[01:21:38] expresses concerns just like buffy did about her magic and brutus of course was along with cassius one of the main conspirators who betrayed caesar so a little dramatic i think for willow to throw out a brutus yeah but brutus references are rampant in pop culture oh yeah the shakespeare play has the line

[01:22:00] et tu brutus uh and et tu has become just sort of a shorthand for you've betrayed me it's it's i think most people don't even realize that it comes from shakespeare that makes my head hurt oh like come on it's so important i just think of also mean girls gretchen wieners she's like crashing out it's like we

[01:22:25] should totally just stab caesar yeah uh in giles's apartment he says it's alive about his frankenstein monster doll that is hanging from the ceiling this quote is originally from the 1931 movie frankenstein with boris carloff as the monster the phrase does not appear in the book by mary shelley i just want

[01:22:50] to have an aside about mary shelley who is often talked about as writing frankenstein as an expression of her relationship with percy blaze shelley and jules verne is often credited as being the inventor of science fiction but clearly mary shelley was writing science fiction but as a woman it's it's like oh she was talking about her romance but like frankenstein is an excellent if you've never read

[01:23:17] frankenstein read it it's such a good book it's also short it's a quick read but that is science fiction and she should get credit for it yep freaking sexism crap anyway oz i love this part uh when he's at the frat house setting up his sound equipment and he says me casio as su casio of course casio is an electronics manufacturer that makes things such as calculators watches

[01:23:45] and various electronic musical instruments i believe i had a casio watch and keyboard growing up and the phrase referenced is mi casa su casa which is spanish for my house is your house and of course leave it to oz to make a clever little pun like that yeah that's sort of classic buffy dialogue there yeah xander says to oz sensing a disturbance in the force master this is another star wars reference

[01:24:14] oz is apparently as in tune with his sound system as a jedi master is with the force so much star wars but that makes sense that 100 checks out with this group let's see and then of course as we discussed earlier buffy is dressed as little red riding hood the main character of the fairy tale of the same name the story is at least as old as the very early 19th century it has been told and written in many

[01:24:43] different languages with many different versions authors include the brothers grim and charles perrault though each version varies the blasic blasic the basic plot has red riding hood off to visit her grandmother she runs across a wolf who asks her what she has in her basket and she tells him where she's going and he ultimately beats her there when she gets there he has locked up her grandmother in the

[01:25:09] closet or eaten her depending on the story version which i think is the one that i remember the best and dressed up in her grandmother's clothes to trick red riding hood in an attempt to eat her as well and little red riding hood apparently doesn't know what a human looks like because she's like grandma you have big teeth and doesn't recognize that it's a wolf xander when he explains his halloween costume says

[01:25:39] bond james bond james bond is in a tuxedo james bond aka agent 007 is the main character in a string of secret agent movies who often introduced himself the way xander did the character who has been played by such actors as sean connery and most recently daniel craig but also um roger moore who i met one time

[01:26:00] pierce brosnan timothy dalton and um george lezenby i always forget that one uh he's a notoriously suave sophisticated and very popular with the ladies secret agent character this is not the first time bond has been referenced i love i love xander it was like well last time we turned into what we were dressed up as

[01:26:27] so just in case i'm gonna meet james bond oh excuse me and willow says i'm joan of arc i figured we had a lot in common being almost burned at the stake and having a close relationship with god uh joan arc of course was a patron saint of france who as a teenager quite successfully led french troops in a battle against the english and the english eventually captured her tried her for witchcraft and heresy

[01:26:56] she believed that god spoke to her through the voices of saints and burned her at the stake when she was 19 years old uh this is also reminiscent of willow's experience in the gingerbread episode from last season which is excellent and of course willow in saying that she is close to god she's not of course saying that god is speaking to her but oz her boyfriend dressed as god for

[01:27:21] halloween so it's a nice little well-rounded joke there willow says about the military camouflage dressed guys what are they supposed to be which is dumb because obviously like you see a bunch of guys dressed as soldiers they're soldiers but oz guesses nato nato is the north atlantic treaty

[01:27:46] organization a military alliance established in 1949 its aim is to safeguard member nations from attack originally from the threat of soviet aggression with the end of the cold war nato members agreed to use to the use of its forces as peacekeepers in countries outside the alliance now this is in the news a lot lately because a certain current president has often threatened to withdraw us from nato

[01:28:12] and i don't think that's a great idea but he doesn't listen to me and uh yeah the way nato works and like any alliance really is that if one member is attacked all the other members of the alliance help to defend that member buffy also references abbot and costello says if i were abbot and costello this would be fairly traumatic as they're walking through

[01:28:38] the frat house at first um this would seem to be a reference to the numerous monster movies with abbot and costello with abbot and costello such as abbot and costello meet frankenstein made by the comedy duo in the late 1940s and 50s xander has also referenced abbot and costello before

[01:29:01] in go fish this brings us to trivia and of course we kind of already touched on this but the episode title fear itself is a reference to the famous quote by franklin d roosevelt the only thing we have to fear is fear itself and fdr of course was the 32nd president of the united states

[01:29:26] and now we know that we don't even have to fear fear because we can just squash it like a little bug it's interesting this episode would have been a great opportunity for them to bring in the famous bit from dune there's this chant that the beny jesuit have about fear fear is the mind killer

[01:29:50] and it basically says face your fear let it run its course and then you'll see it pass and you can turn around and see it behind you uh they could have used that but they went roosevelt i can't really blame them roosevelt's in the public domain giles and anya's halloween costumes a mexican and a bunny

[01:30:12] from fear itself were so popular with fans that they were made into action figures by claiborne moore they're so cool cara has the bunny one and i'm a little jealous i need i need the giles one i need to find my bunny one too we'll have to post i need a giles action figure in general it'll go really nicely with my herschel from walking dead oh this is nice two little patriarchs

[01:30:40] oh i like it um let's see uh we also addressed this but walter emmanuel jones who played edward the frat guy who painted the pentagram or the symbol that brings what is it gacknar yeah gacknar why is that so hard for me to remember forward uh he starred as the black power ranger in the mighty morphe

[01:31:03] power rangers he also starred alongside charisma carpenter in malibu shores and has been in love and a bullet and american gun i don't think i've got about malibu shores i know that was a very short-lived series yeah yep yep yep the frat house in this episode is the rosenheim mansion in los angeles california the mansion was built in 1908 and was the same house used for the first and eighth

[01:31:31] seasons of american horror story the first season of that show is so good and disturbing i've never watched and never watched it it's a lot it's it's a lot there are some that are well we could talk about that but uh next the gaelic summoning spell that was used to bring gacknar forward uh if you translate it it's actually text about a new bus lane opening in dublin ireland oh that's my favorite

[01:32:01] trivia awesome the old book referenced by the frat guys of alpha delta for drawing the seal of gacknar is a real book of occult reference which will be used many other times in the show covering five seasons while the book is full of genuine old occult drawings the ones seen on the show such as the seal of gacknar are fictitious and were added into the book for use on the show that seems wise

[01:32:24] not to put actual occult images for people to copy on tv this is the seventh and final time that there are no vampires featured in an episode the other episodes include witch the pack i robot you jane the puppet show inca mummy girl and living conditions which we recently covered from now on

[01:32:51] even though there aren't necessarily many evil vampires to fight that we see we've always got spike who is a regular feature on the show and we could not be more excited we love spike when anya arrives at the frat house just after she sees the girl in the window she walks by a set of

[01:33:14] stairs and the number 1120 is visible on them anya stated this as her age in season three i wonder if that's intentional or coincidence i am pretty sure i know your answer already but does it still slay absolutely i freaking love this episode all the halloween episodes are great

[01:33:42] and this might might be my favorite one i think it definitely slays it has even less like problematic dialogue than most episodes like even xander doesn't really say anything offensive the whole episode the tropes are all hilarious the you know even the special effects aren't all that

[01:34:09] dated like the monsters look scary it it all works for me slay slay slay all right let's get into some news we have just a little bit of news this week i actually i i saw this organically pop up on my tiktok because i follow charisma carpenter and there have been a couple of news articles that have talked

[01:34:38] about this because on her tiktok uh charisma carpenter addresses an unpopular take on her character and we've linked to the people article covering this and they've noted that on thursday january 16th uh charisma carpenter the actress 54 shared on tiktok her response to a fan's theory that cordelia chase was a better friend to buffy summers than the scooby gang throughout the supernatural drama

[01:35:08] series and she said oh this is such an unpopular take uh this is going to cause some controversy you really think so you really think cordelia was a better friend to buffy than the scoobies and she seemed to completely dismiss the idea and she told everyone you know immediately you've got to tell me all the ways that you can prove that cordy was a better friend to buffy than her scooby gang and she

[01:35:32] said also was cordy a scooby a reluctant scooby a scooby nonetheless give it to me in the comments i need to know and i thought this was really interesting because you know we talked about the ways that cordelia came around and was there for buffy especially early on and some of the comments i was like huh one person said growing up is realizing this is absolutely true cordy saw buffy

[01:36:00] as buffy first and the slayer second the scooby saw her as the slayer and then as buffy and they always turned on b when things went wrong and we can talk about that in the spoiler section that's relevant to this episode and somebody else said having recently re-watched cordy and tara were better friends than willow and xander and somebody else said what is that a hundred thousand percent she

[01:36:27] was honest and upfront with her and never turned her down she always gave her real advice and by season two she was a full-on scooby and i wanted to get your thoughts on this because i have never thought about her being a better friend per se and i don't think that's true like i think willow is a great friend first of all cordelia has moved away and is no longer in buffy's life for the rest of the show

[01:36:53] so we can only look at the first three seasons and in the first three seasons yes there are definitely times when cordelia is supportive she's honest she's direct but willow is always there for buffy and willow has her back in so many cases there have been so many times when buffy needed a friend and

[01:37:19] willow found a gentle way to be honest with her and direct when when buffy was going through the breakup with angel when when buff when angel turned bad all those times willow was really there for her cordy was there for her in moments when they were thrown together and she happened to be in the room she kind of had to be or she would have been a terrible person like but she was not particularly

[01:37:45] nice about it usually and if you have tiktok go and take a look at this comment section on this video because i felt like i was crazy yeah i don't i don't agree and i think the fact that charisma carpenter doesn't agree tells us a lot because of everyone she is the one who knows cordy the best

[01:38:09] and also has spent the most time finding the good in cordy right as an actor you have to find a way to love your character and and so she she has looked at cordy from all these different angles finding the best in her and apparently at no time did she think well cordy's just the best friend like she's she's not she's kind of a loner like even when she has her like mean girl friends in high school she doesn't

[01:38:38] feel that close to them she's like their leader but she's she's so far removed from them like she actually has you know the intelligence the empathy it's there yeah whether or not she implements it all the time it's there but yeah i thought that was a very interesting i was shocked to see so many people agreeing in her comments and i was just like huh no like yes it's refreshing that she's direct

[01:39:07] but i think willow is very direct with her in a way that you know considers buffy's feelings at the same time which a friend yeah would do but as for whether or not cordy is a scooby she was definitely kind of scooby adjacent she was a scooby she she was at the table even after she and xander broke up she was like i mean it was because she had a crush on wesley but she was there she was in the

[01:39:34] conversations she did research i like that but i love that cordelia cordelia gosh charisma well it will still you know engage with fans about her character i just love her i thought it was really nice that she kind of opened up the conversation on that topic she's like back it up yeah that's awesome i'm excited um next week we're going to be covering uh beer bad which is a buffy

[01:40:03] episode but then the week after that the angel episode that we're covering is a heavy cordy episode and i'm really excited about it it's gonna be it's gonna be a really fun one to cover hey i'm really thirsty how about you do you want to want to go to the bronze and get a drink i am parched all right maybe we'll find some of our listeners there and they could tell us what they

[01:40:27] think about this episode bronze things things of bronze we heard from mark who said one of my favorite halloween episodes i don't know if he means favorite buffy halloween episode or like halloween episodes of all tv shows i loved that it puts the group in a fierce state and have to figure it out within this frat house plus the funny moments with anya showing up as a bunny because she is scared of them seeing

[01:40:55] giles dress up for halloween decorate and celebrate the holiday for once the end reveal of the demon was so hilarious plus the actual size referenced in the book obviously we agree with you mark oh that's funny anman says i love this episode so creepy and used lots of horror tropes but my favorite parts were buffy and joyce talking i love all their chats and how we see their relationship

[01:41:21] deepened and of course giles with the chainsaw hot with multiple exclamation explanation exclamation marks my brain's done but we agree with you anman yes we do always uh we heard from our good buddy becky who is going to be on the episode not next but the one after that hello friends omg a video store

[01:41:48] i feel old does anyone else i love xander's wanting to smack parker he deserves a good punch in the face i'm enjoying xander's growth this season and he looks hot in that suit it's true a lot of men tuxedos do wonderful things for men uh as a person who suffered a lot of heartbreak from rejection back in my younger years i really relate to buffy in this episode willow's comment about knowing she'll know

[01:42:17] when she reaches her limit regarding magic hits differently when you know what happens to her later on also wine coolers ick yeah i never was a fan of wine coolers they're gross it's interesting doing this re-watch and seeing all the times willow was warned by her friends about her use of magic i never gave it much thought before but it makes a ton of sense now my new mantra when i have to step

[01:42:42] away from the crap happening in this country is i'm taking a holiday from dealing happily vacationing in the land of not coping buffy's face when she sees giles in his costume is hilarious and i love how confident and happy he is wearing it so cute how into halloween he gets ah the frat boy mentality everything is about getting laid to each their own but i never cared much for the sorority or frat

[01:43:10] social groups the one guy who mentioned chicks loving thinking their hand is in a bowl of eyeballs had zero idea of what a girl wants yeah peppermint schnapps one night was enough never again i want to know more details about that becky oh my god that's how i feel about uh tequila um i love the conversation between anya and zander anya's directness is refreshing i only said that because i thought it's what

[01:43:39] she wanted to hear then she gets upset because he took her at her word it's a funny scene but so accurate at how many issues happen in relationships because of poor communication i love buffy and riley their chemistry is great and their flirting seems so natural and so adorable interesting yeah i didn't take that scene as being very flirty but it was sort of human connectiony yes i thought he was very

[01:44:04] considerate of her which was nice yeah joyce summers is a national treasure i always enjoy her scenes great call back to ted i am definitely a member of the joyce summers fan club and i'm right there with you anya dressed as a bunny remains one of the best moments in show history i have a sticker of her in the bunny costume on one of my yetis bring me joy brings me joy every time i see it she also sent me

[01:44:33] one of those stickers awesome giles sitting in his costume eating all the candy is 100 me and he sure looked hot busting in the frat with that chainsaw this seems to be a universal thing yeah omg the tiny demon moment was hilarious and giles showing buffy the inscription which reads actual size under the photo brilliant favorite quotes oz about fantasia maybe it's because of all the horrific things

[01:45:00] we've seen but hippos wearing tutus just doesn't unnerve me the way they used to when the gang sees the initiative what are they supposed to be oz nato what a fun episode awesome sets fun costumes and cool special effects for 1999 anyway everyone getting separated and each having to face their own horrors or fears than coming together in the end to beat the big i'm sorry tiny bad perfect mix of creepy and

[01:45:26] funny this is what buffy is all about grr arg that's true this is a great episode that kind of epitomizes the fun things about buffy yeah this would be a good introductory episode for someone who hasn't watched the show before you don't really need to know the history it's just better when you do let's see next up is from jolene she said hey so glad you're back i've missed you all series four

[01:45:53] not my favorite series but there's still some great episodes hush a new man and living conditions restless fear itself and something blue are probably my favorites from this one good list i've also got a real soft spot for beer bad which i know a lot of people don't like i just think it's really funny sorry i've not emailed in before now but i've been manic with work and then christmas and then i was ill and now i'm back in work after christmas and it's been just as manic oh we

[01:46:22] certainly understand that jolene i'm glad glad you're feeling better um this email is going to be long because you're getting my thoughts on all the episodes i missed too sorry don't apologize starting off with the freshman hello pedro pascal i wish he'd stuck around a bit longer he was my favorite in game of thrones obviously until the mountain happened but that's for another podcast poor buffy

[01:46:48] being the one who's struggling while willow is thriving i feel really bad for xander in this episode too he obviously had all these hopes for traveling but was stopped at the first hurdle he does save the day again though by giving buffy that confidence boost that she needs for the whole episode what would buffy do you're my hero sunday would have been such a great villain to keep around i love the idea of her being a slayer who was turned into a vampire i think she and spike would have been such a great

[01:47:17] pairing yeah that would have been interesting uh other notable points spoiler i can't wait until the mom gets until mom gets the bill for these books i hope it's a funny aneurism ouch uh giles having a private life no because you're very old and it's gross that was a good line it's not gross to me nope not anymore i remember being very confused why joyce would want to sleep with giles when i was 12

[01:47:44] now i get it um living conditions this episode is actually hilarious apart from that bloody share song i remember when that came out over here and it was literally on once an hour on the radio i think it's one of those that's funnier as you get older because you can appreciate being that annoyed by the most ridiculous things and just by people in general oz has the best one-liners in it in this episode

[01:48:08] nobody deserves a mime buffy one thing i don't get about this one is why aren't willow and buffy roommates from the start i know it obviously adds to the storyline but is it a different process in america most colleges i think you can choose your roommate if yeah if you know someone and you want to be roommates i think they they let you do that maybe buffy and willow just wanted the roommate

[01:48:33] experience with people they didn't know turns out yuck uh parker just are yeah yep it is a bit of a toss-up though until we find out that kathy is a demon and buffy was right between who is the most unreasonable in this episode deciding between naming individual eggs and collecting toenails

[01:48:54] is a close call then moving on to in the harsh light of day again parker just fuck i was never a massive fan of her niece in series three but i absolutely love her return as a vampire she's so unintentionally funny spoiler i love her even more when she comes back with her minions not keen on what they do with spike in this episode though the episodes when he's with harmony are the only time i don't

[01:49:23] really like him i know she's annoying but we've seen that even as a vampire he's capable of loving someone drusilla and then obviously the later episodes that i won't spoil so the way he is with harmony is just plain abusive it's true it's very yeah he's really mean to her spike and now to fear itself this one is or this is one of my favorite episodes of series four i do love the halloween

[01:49:50] episodes there's so many little moments in this one that make me laugh plus the concept of being sealed in the house having to face up to your worst fears is actually quite frightening and i think it's really clever how they link what happens to each character to their worst fears xander's being left behind and not being part of their lives anymore always makes me feel sad for him the ending is one of my favorite moments in all of buffy as well don't taunt the fear demon it's tacky it would have been

[01:50:19] good though if they'd kept him and got him a little cage to live next to amy the rat oh my gosh that's some great fan fiction that annoying little voice that would be very special um oz being worried about willow and the magic is a nice bit of foreshadowing of what's to come plus spoiler uh this is definitely

[01:50:46] a spoiler so hit a few seconds ahead you're 30 seconds ahead button if you don't want to hear spoilers uh he eventually leaves because he can't control his power that's interesting sort of put it yeah so she really should be listening to him oz's costume choice is excellent can you imagine how great that would have been as a series two halloween costume yeah what would have happened if oz would have turned into god

[01:51:15] he'd be the only person i would trust i know that's true oh man uh she says i really like anya in this one too she's still a bit of an outsider but she does try her best to rescue them well xander and his nicely shaped body obviously her rabbit costume is brilliant and it's a nice little touch where xander has earlier spoken to her about knocking

[01:51:39] and then when she gets to giles she checks herself and knocks oh yeah that's true i didn't notice that either oh she's listening to xander he's a xander but it's cute he's imparting knowledge he's helping her learn how to be human yeah good catch jolene uh she says speaking of giles

[01:52:01] sombrero giles is my favorite giles he always seems so happy to be in costume spoiler he loves his magic wizard costume too oh yeah that is so cute uh coming in a close second is chainsaw giles we're going to have to create a door non-magic solutions and buffy are always nice to see anyway i have taken up enough of your time hopefully i'm now back on track i've not started re-watching angel just yet

[01:52:30] but i've got a week off in a few weeks half term hurrah so i'm going to binge it then have a great week everyone thanks jolene we've missed you we're so glad to have you back and angel is going to be worth your time when you re-watch it i have been really surprised by how much i'm enjoying it we heard from coffee and vodka who says greetings sigil sundering slayers he is a real fan of the

[01:52:58] alliteration uh not much to say an episode of setups surrounding a fraternity's failed best laid plans to get laid an almost cute haunted house tale and a nice break between old and upcoming breakups new relationships and willow's witchy story arc a couple shows back i wondered how the fight and damage in buffy's room could be explained away after this frat house full of corpses i retract

[01:53:23] my wondering the cops of sunnydale must have turned so many blind eyes it's a wonder they weren't all accompanied by seeing eye dogs well we know that the police of sunnydale are deeply the police of sunnydale are deeply stupid best moments oz's god reveal anya's costume and the first appearance of giles's chainsaw 3.5 little dread riding hoods small fears and hairy situations out of five peace and take

[01:53:52] care coffee and vodka nice all right we have a couple of voicemails yay i'll play steve first hello still slaying this is steve and this is going to be for uh buffy the vampire slayer season what are we on now for fear itself really giles previously on you got to remind us of parker the jerk and the halloween music with coming in with xander holding a knife to the pumpkin puppy with the life of a

[01:54:21] pumpkin speech yes xander everybody wants to smack parker for bailing on the buff oh oz worrying about willow getting too close with magic and him with the werewolf thing yeah oh but still being supportive hillbaker no matter what giles in a sombrero oh the reference to uncle rory who we never meet oh i'm so i just love the xander and anya relationship and i just hate where it goes but

[01:54:48] you know these are the moments i really like the whole oh it's date light qualities oh and oz's blood goes on the symbol and something weird happens rubber spider comes to life oh sad mention of buffy's father who hadn't seen in quite a while and i don't remember when we see him again it's later right but that's probably for spoiler section on the mention of ted the homicidal robot by joyce

[01:55:13] oh willow is jonah vark i remember this gag with oz and his costume oh the lobster in the present i don't know what that has to do with anything arguing other love for each other i love it oz's costume god technically speaking buffy's a fifth wheel which actually is rather useful if you're a truck driver and of course as typical halloween on btvs the haunted house is going wild oh and buffy's found real

[01:55:37] blood and things are starting to get even worse that's xander it's always something else oh and anya in the bunny suit because that's what's scary okay the door is gone and the window just bricked itself up uh and anya saw everything oh and the skeleton just attacked buffy and nobody can see xander i do not like buffy and willow arguing the so's your face comment come on interesting how their fears are starting to manifest themselves and realize their fears are different than back in season one

[01:56:05] when that kid was making everybody's fears become real xander is afraid of not being seen willow doesn't want to be alone oz is afraid of turning into a werewolf etc oh and willow's magic is getting out of control too giles with a chainsaw we're gonna have to create a door not a magical door a literal created door okay buffy made it to the go room and it seems that everyone else has too well except xander not yet hey we got xander's there now too somebody smell for someone called gachnar

[01:56:36] destroying the sign of gachnar and buffy smash will not do that tiny demon he just steps on him actual size all right on to next week and it looks like next week is beer bad which is another good

[01:56:51] episode me casio is su casio hello still slaying friends hello listeners nothing happens on halloween in sunnydale i find it hard to believe and now here's my own made up polish title translation for

[01:57:18] this amazing episode chainsaw surprise i can think of one similar episode the nightmares from season one but it was not a halloween special as far as i know fear itself is my favorite right next to halloween from season two of course there is so much brilliance i would be here for an hour marveling over it

[01:57:41] but then you saw it you know it looks like the writers knew a thing or two about psychology they showed us that fear is more than just being afraid of spooky things and that there is a difference between coping with anxiety symptoms and facing the real threats that might stab us in the back if we lose focus as zander pointed out separating the actual threat from fear shows us that fear itself

[01:58:09] mostly outweighs the threats especially when the threats are subjective or when anxiety creeps in the scene with us changing despite the moon seems like a classic panic attack fear finds its fuel by tapping into our ability to ruminate about the past and obsess about the future our future decisions are influenced

[01:58:33] by our personal experiences of the past it's a simple pattern how can we remain social if our latest partner turned out to be a homicidal robot fear is subjective some people are afraid of bunnies others fear objects that have holes in them some are afraid of open spaces while others dread foreigners and toilets fear is conservative

[01:59:00] as in we fear change and we want to conserve our values by building walls around ourselves polish word for canned food is conserva the word itself implies restraint due to worrying add a conservative amount of spices or else your meal will be ruined the fear is different than jalapeno that thing liberally because there is nothing to be afraid of

[01:59:27] the fears deepen the more we try to shut ourselves away from reality bigotry hatred and phobias come from fear and fear only but the more steps we take to familiarize ourselves with our surroundings the more open more free and less afraid we are fear isn't all bad fear isn't all bad it paralyzes us yes but also serves as a safety tool

[01:59:53] being afraid of heights is our security system it's our brain telling us get down from there right now this is the approximation of my own inner voice of course it seems counterproductive when our palms sweat and our limbs shake while we are already at height it would be much safer to be grippy and confident but the brain is going to do its thing

[02:00:19] until we gain skills and confidence that's where exposure therapy or practice comes in it's like sharpening a tool and we all know using a sharp tool is actually safer than using a dull one

[02:00:31] speaking of sharp tools i think giles breaking through the building with a chainsaw serves as a fitting metaphor for therapy all scoobies had their own unique fears to overcome as we all do but it can turn into an impossible task without that kind of external help and finally there is some comfort in knowing that more often than not the future challenges we've read about turn out to be grotesque shriveled squeaky monsters with skin issues

[02:01:01] waving their tiny hands around while making empty threads and spewing self-aggrandizing declarations through their sphincter-like mouth openings squish oh my gosh that's funny current day figure and obsessed with size oddly yeah

[02:01:42] that was nice title sort of soothed and calmed while i was listening so it's very relaxing chainsaw surprise would be a really good band oh that would be good

[02:02:10] i like it oh my gosh hey guys it's annwin here and this is feedback for angel in the dark

[02:02:32] this is one of my favorite episodes of angel i love it it's only just started uh the show but like episode three getting into it you kind of know the characters even though we obviously know them from before but it's kind of got a bit of everything

[02:02:46] and do it from the other one who is in the other one who reminds us on the other one who has called earlier kind of in between and i thought it was very cute as a smackdown with spike and angel which is always fun to watch you've got angel in his maroon shirt and then angel with his maroon shirt all flapping open when he's chained up being tortured by the vampire dr green from er and oh it's just so good the other one that's great as well as an

[02:03:16] It has one of my favourite lines from all of the series of Buffy and Angel. Spike says, she's cute when she's hurting, talking about Buffy. And then Angel says, she's cuter when she's kicking your ass. And I just love that so much. Looking forward to all of the rest of the episodes of all the season. So much goodness to look forward to. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye. That is a great line. It really is. She's cuter when she's kicking your ass. She's like, you tell Angel. Yeah.

[02:03:47] Spike is so evil in that episode. Like, it's just pure, concentrated, evil Spike. But he gets in his own way constantly. And that is also pure Spike. Right? Where he's like, he overtrusts his minion. And he has a plan, but he rushes. And that's how come Angel gets to beat him up. Like, one of the reasons Spike is such a lovable villain is that he is so human.

[02:04:16] At the same time as being evil. And he also has this sense of fun about his evil that just makes him for, makes for good TV. Yeah. He doesn't want to just, like, he talks about it. He doesn't want to destroy the world. He just wants to have fun, basically. He just wants to wreak havoc. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that if he didn't enjoy eating people, that part of vampirism wouldn't even appeal to him. Yeah. He'd be like, I just eat the people because I'm having- He needs food. I need food and I make it fun.

[02:04:45] But, like, if what vampire- Like, killing isn't the point for him. It's the fun. He- That's true. Spike is not sadistic. Not really. Not really. And jealous sadistic as all get out. Diabolical. Yep. Yeah. Very different vibes. Horrible, horrible person, vampire villain. All right. That's the end of the main section of the podcast.

[02:05:11] And you should stay tuned for the Watcher's Diaries at the end if you want to hear us get into some spoilers. And if you'd like to join the conversation, you can find all of our contact information at podcastica.com and in the show notes for each episode. Also at podcastica.com, you'll find links to our social media pages and all of our other shows.

[02:05:32] I will say right now, it's been a particularly stressful couple of weeks, personally, and I needed something comfy. So I actually went back and listened to Strange Indeed's coverage of Great British Bake Off, which I missed when it was originally airing. So that was a really nice, you know, kind of comforting podcast to listen to.

[02:06:00] And, you know, Strange Indeed, if you guys haven't listened to them, they usually cover more, you know, kind of the horror shows or shows with some aspect of horror in them. Obviously, like Stranger Things, you know, Haunting of Hill House, things like that. So it's really fun to listen to them talk about Great British Bake Off. They've got, they enjoy it and they have a lot of fun with it. So it's a lot of fun to listen to them. That's a great one.

[02:06:30] I have been obsessed with Squid Game cast and it is about to come to an end. They're going to record on the finale in the next couple of days and I'm going to be really sad when it's over. I can't wait to binge those. Yeah. Coming up pretty soon, we'll be getting back into Yellow Jackets, Yellow Jackets Season 3. Yay! So I will be part of the coverage for Yellow Jackets along with Wendy and Daphne and then later in the season, Jason.

[02:07:00] And I'm getting excited about Season 3. They've dropped a couple of trailers. The trailers look amazing. It looks really, really good. And I am about to do my rewatch of Season 2 to get ready for it. And, uh... You know, just something nice and light in time for Valentine's Day. Just some, you know, traumatized teenagers resorting to cannibalism in the woods. It's slight.

[02:07:30] There's some romance. I'm pretty sure we see a heart or two in the show. So, you know. Yeah. Give me a try. Yeah. Death, mutilation, trauma. Casual things. It's really good. It's good stuff. God, I love that show. Um... And, of course, if you like what we do, please give us a five-star rating. If you feel so inclined, a review or a like, follow, and subscribe. We always appreciate it.

[02:07:56] And tune in next time when we'll be covering Buffy Season 4, Episode 5, Beer Bad. Thanks, everyone. And... What? That's your, uh... Scary costume? Bunnies frighten me. All right. That's the end of the non-spoiler section. And if you want to avoid spoilers, you should stop listening right now. Giving you a few seconds to stop.

[02:08:26] In case you're in your car or something. You have to get your phone out of your pocket. All right. Now I'm going to assume that those people are done stopping and it's on to the Watcher's 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 and tell. Yeah. Yeah. That's too bad. That stuff is private. Also, Giles keeps them in his office in his personal files. Most importantly, it would be wrong. Ah.

[02:08:56] First of all, huge foreshadowing of Willow's future problems with magic and Oz's future problems with being a werewolf. It's so funny because it's such a sort of small scene. They're in the cafeteria and it gets overshadowed by the Parker of it all. But having watched the series several times now, they might as well be like, stay tuned for problems with Willow's magic. Like, it's such a shout out.

[02:09:25] They've broadcast it so much. It is like very heavy handed, but it is a huge plot point in the series going forward. So, you know, it's nice to see the early, you know, seeds sown for that type of thing. And it's just, it's so painful. I keep thinking about Oz leaving, coming up, and stupid Veruca.

[02:09:53] And I'm not excited about it in the slightest, but I know it's necessary. And I am excited eventually for Willow and Tara. I love Tara. I think she's too good for Willow. But we will get there. Yeah. Tara is a fantastic addition to the show. She brings a very different energy. I just want to hug her. Yeah. Like, I feel like she would be just a great friend.

[02:10:22] Yeah. She does go on to be eventually a major part of the Scooby group and a really good friend to Buffy when she needs one in season six. And a little bit of a mother figure for Dawn when Buffy can't really step up. So it'll be great to get to Tara.

[02:10:44] As painful as, you know, the whole disappearance and abandonment by Oz is to watch Willow go through. But speaking of abandonment, when Gaknar tells Buffy that all of her friends will abandon her, obviously that's something that she is a bit of afraid. She's afraid of. She's afraid of being isolated from them and kind of standing out.

[02:11:10] And at the end of season seven, I get so angry every time I watch that episode when they kick her out of the house. Oh, yeah. Like. It's her house. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, come on. But she has, there's an issue. She has that issue where her friends are kind of not there for her in a few key moments that. I mean, it comes up in a big way at the end of this season when Spike uses their natural, you know,

[02:11:38] insecurities and internal group dynamics to drive a wedge into the Scooby gang. And he does it masterfully and, and they all fall for it. And it's painful to see them fall apart because, you know, you count on the Scooby gang to be there for Buffy. But they do have a tendency to, and this is, I think, a human tendency. The person who is sort of in charge when things go wrong gets the blame,

[02:12:07] even if the things going wrong were completely outside of their control. Like, people turn on them really quickly. Being in charge of stressful situations comes with all of these demands for perfection. And, and you become a lightning rod for people's complaints. It's unfair. There are, I mean, there are times when the leadership has messed up and telling them you messed up is the right thing to do.

[02:12:33] But there are times when bad things come from outside and, like, take everybody by surprise. And people turn to the leader and they're like, why didn't you know there was going to be a tornado? Or whatever the thing is. And it's really unfair. And Buffy gets that sometimes where people are like, yeah, Buffy, you should have been ready for this. And it's like, none of us were ready for it. And then sometimes they get mad at her for, like, you think you're always the boss. And she's like, I am always the boss. Like, I mean, there's a, a, a theme that goes through literature.

[02:13:03] Heavy is the head that wears the crown. And this is a huge theme in one of my other favorite shows, The Hundred. Because Clark is always in the situation where she's in charge. Everyone turns to her to make the decisions and then gets mad at her for making decisions. And Buffy's the same. She's always the one who has to make the really hard choices. And then people are upset with her. But it's like, you didn't want to be the one making the choices. Like, it's, it's a conundrum.

[02:13:32] And I don't think that people in, in leadership positions should be, you know, like immune from criticism. But it's important to remember that they're also people. Give them some grace. They're not infallible. They're not psychic. Like, that, that, that definitely comes up over and over again in this show. On a lighter note, I love, this is the first time we hear about Anya's fear of bunnies. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[02:14:01] And this show makes hay out of that for years to come. There are so many bunny jokes coming. So many. And her and Giles and their friendship. And I can't wait until we see them open their magic shop. Yeah. And work together. It's just, it's a really fun pairing that, you know, with, without it happening. I don't know if it was missing from the show.

[02:14:31] I don't know if I would ever sit there and think, I wish we got to see more Giles and Anya together. Yeah. But the fact that they put them together, the two actors have fantastic comedic timing and chemistry with one another. They play off each other so well. And I can't wait until we get to Tabula Rasa. Oh, I love Tabula Rasa. Like, I'm Anya. It's just, oh, it's so good. So much fun to come. Yeah. That's season six.

[02:14:59] So we got a ways to go before we get to Tabula Rasa. But it is another one of my all-time favorite episodes. It's so funny. But it's also poignant. Oh, it's so good. We see the soldiers from the initiative. They think they're just people in their Halloween costumes. But we know that there's a secret military unit under Sunnydale hunting demons. And I'm kind of excited to get there in the show. Yeah.

[02:15:27] It's an interesting approach. Like, I think watching through the first time, I did not love the initiative. I remember being irritated by it to a certain extent. I also didn't love Riley. I mean, I liked him as a character. So I'll be curious to see how I feel on this rewatch. It's been a very long time since I've watched this storyline. I find the older I get, the more I like Riley.

[02:15:57] And it helps also knowing that he isn't going to be here forever. So you can enjoy him for who he is while he's here, knowing that he's not going to be on the show forever. Because he's a little boring. Yeah. 12-year-old me was just like, who the heck is this guy? He's so nice and boring. And I was like, where's Angel? Yeah. But that was so intentional. He's like an anti-Angel.

[02:16:26] Which, as an adult, Buffy needs that. Riley helps her grow in so many ways. Because it's a fairly healthy relationship, especially at first. It gets a little weird towards the end. But yeah, it'll be fun to watch it through adult eyes this time around. I think we've done the damage we came here to do.

[02:16:51] So I'm going to call it Executive Decision and say that is the complete end of our show. Everybody who has made it this far with us, thank you for listening. Hopefully I've edited it so you don't know how many technical problems we had. But we had a lot of technical problems recording this. So we're a little frazzled. And hopefully next week we'll go more smoothly. Until next time, I have been Penny. And I'm Kara. Keep slaying!