{"id":809,"date":"2011-12-30T10:00:30","date_gmt":"2011-12-30T18:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=809"},"modified":"2011-12-25T15:35:11","modified_gmt":"2011-12-25T23:35:11","slug":"mark-watches-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-s02e02-some-assembly-required","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2011\/12\/mark-watches-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-s02e02-some-assembly-required\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’: S02E02 – Some Assembly Required"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the second episode of the second season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer<\/em>, the group faces a possible entity stealing corpses, and then are shocked (and grossed out) by what it turns out to be. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Buffy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Okay, this is a real strong start to season two; back-to-back, these two episodes are a sign of how many things have changed since season one and how many more risks the show is willing to take. Even though this is just the fourteenth episode of this show ever<\/em>, we see that the writers are willing to throw in far more character development, that the fighting on the show is a lot more brutal and intense, and that the network will allow them to get away with more morbid ideas. I mean, at heart, this is a story about corpse desecration and the creation of a mutated woman against her will. Well\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.their<\/em> will. That’s probably more accurate. Oh god, this really is like the grossest idea for an episode yet, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

I don’t think this is the best<\/em> episode of Buffy <\/em>yet, but I really think this could have turned out to be an utter disaster if a few things weren’t handled so well. It’s a constant theme and an outspoken judgment on the part of the characters, but I was glad that the script outright said that what Chris and Eric were doing was gross. And not just physically gross, but the idea was gross as well. It’s about how men fail to view women as anything more than parts, and that fear is all over the plot. In fact, that’s specifically used to trick us in the end if you think about it. Obviously, Eric was played to be the sexist douche right from the beginning, so we naturally follow the plot to believe that he is creating some sort of homage to Dr. Frankenstein, only for unbelievably selfish and inappropriate reasons. (And, thankfully, the show ultimately doesn’t try to romanticize this at all. The whole thing is disgusting, but I’ll get to that once we get there.)<\/p>\n

The very notion of a “dream girl” is what we’re meant<\/em> to assume about whatever it is that these two students were trying to pull off. It’s nice that no one, especially Willow, really wants to jump to conclusions about why<\/em> this is necessarily happening. Of course, the writing avoids the specifics of this, and by the end of “Some Assembly Required,” I was kind of glad we didn’t find out about that sort of stuff. I didn’t really want to see<\/em> the body of various parts, and I didn’t want Daryl to spell out what he was going to do with the creation. When it comes down to it, though, I just want my characters to be layered, to have reasons and motivations for things even if I don’t really like what those are. Obviously, Willow was closer to Chris than anyone else, but she’s the only one who was willing to give the situation a bit more of an examination before deciding whether Chris was as disgusting as Eric. At first, I thought the subplot with Daryl, his grieving mother, and Chris was merely meant to add some more subtext to his character, and even before the big reveal, I still enjoyed it a whole lot. It’s true that I didn’t think Chris seemed like the kind of guy to do a thing like this; it was more of Eric’s thing.<\/p>\n

But that’s one of the things that really drives this episode, bringing it out of the realms of the mediocre. I was completely freaked out when Daryl steps into the light in Chris’s lab. It changed everything<\/em> I’d seen at that point and added a whole new motivation for Chris’s behavior. He and Eric were not<\/em> building a sex slave or the perfect girl; they were making a companion for the recently-revived (and rather icky-looking) Daryl. Like I said earlier, even with this plot twist, the show doesn’t really enter the territory of romanticizing this. It’s still a reprehensible thing to do. A great example of how this is treated is during the conversation that Buffy and Angel have in the cemetery at the very end. When she tries to say that Chris was just doing something for his brother, Angel very firmly states that he clearly went to far. It is<\/em> depressing that Daryl’s surviving family could not properly cope with his loss, and “Some Assembly Required” showed us the contrasting responses from Chris and Mrs. Epps. One was passive in her grief, and Chris was more active in it. When it comes down to it, neither one of them could accept it.<\/p>\n

Even with this plotting taking up most of the screentime, this episode also deals with various relationships, personal feelings, and a whole lot of adorable. I like Giles and you cannot take that away from me<\/em>. Do I want to see him with Jenny Calendar? Who doesn’t?<\/em> He’s such an intelligent man, and it makes me laugh to see him trip up over the most basic communication skills. Still, everything with him and Jenny is just so naturally adorable, and for a show that generally focuses more on how things can be fucked up, it’s really nice to see the positive side of things, to see these two interact in this way with Jenny always a step ahead of Giles. The end of the episode also sees a huge leap forward for Angel and Buffy as well; could they actually<\/em> get along for enough time to be NORMAL TO ONE ANOTHER? ONLY TIME WILL TELL<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And to be fair, we do get some <\/em>frustration here. God, Xander and Willow are just so close<\/em>. Well, I should say that Willow is close to something, but Xander is foolishly oblivious to what’s going here at all. Do you continue to wonder why you aren’t getting dates, Xander? Because the person you are probably best compatible with IS STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU<\/em>. OH GOD. He’s so clueless, isn’t he?<\/p>\n

But let’s just talk about the best thing here: Cordelia Chase. I was certain that there was the potential <\/em>for her to be an interesting character, but until the last two episodes of season one, she was a one-note performance. There wasn’t much to her because the writers only gave her a variation of the same theme: she was self-centered and annoying. Yet this is why I’m enjoying her run since this change in “Out of Mind, Out of Sight”: the writers did not ignore this personification when giving her depth. She’s still<\/em> the popular girl, quick to insult, and generally interested in framing things around her entire existence. That<\/em> is a smart choice for this show because I’d call bullshit if she suddenly became nice, altruistic, and well-meaning.<\/p>\n

That still means I am going to fawn over her because she’s so goddamn interesting to me. She sort of<\/em> wants to be involved with what the trio and Giles are doing, but routinely chooses instead to keep up with her normal life. At the same time, she really is<\/em> starting to be nice! She’s (somewhat) nice to Willow when asking for help with her science project, and she’s definitely appreciative of Xander in the end, though he hilariously dismisses her instead. Oh god, can she start slaying vampires soon? I WOULD LOVE THAT.<\/p>\n

All said, this is a good episode of Buffy<\/em>. Not great, but entertaining and thought-provoking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"