Mark Watches ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’: S05E15 – I Was Made To Love You

In the fifteenth episode of the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, nope. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Buffy.

“It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

I’ve spent the last ten minutes with my face on a table. I am still crying, and I don’t care that this is affecting me so much. My mother is going to be 68 this year, and she’s survived two rounds of lung cancer. And one day, I am going to have to deal with the fact that she will go the way of my father, and I don’t want to do that.

I don’t want this episode. I don’t want to see another one. I don’t want to have to cope with this, and I don’t want to watch this show knowing that Joyce Summers is gone.

I know this is an important episode aside from that. Warren isn’t going to be a single-episode character, given that Spike has now contracted him to build a Buffy robot, which is one of the creepiest things this show has ever done. I mean, this story was unsettling enough already with its focus on April, a highly realistic robot built to fall in love with Warren. “I Was Made To Love You” is a long rumination on Buffy’s constant desire to be in a relationship, ending with her deciding to take care of herself and learn to be alone rather than go on a date with Ben. (PS: I  just realized the implications of Ben/Glory sharing a body. I think? This episode seems to suggest pretty heavily that there’s two bodies, not one, but that at any moment, they can just switch. I think? So wait, where does Glory’s body go when she becomes Ben? Do they switch places?) It’s also a miniature study of the other two main relationships on Buffy: Tara/Willow and Xander/Anya. We see how Tara and Anya react to their partners finding April attractive. We watch how accepting Anya is of Xander being best friends with Buffy. And Xander proves to be an incredible best friend, for the record, and of all the Scoobies, I am most proud of how much he’s changed over the course of the show.

All of these things are lovely, important, and intellectually stimulating. I don’t want to ignore or deny that. But I am distraught. I am most upset because I’ve seen something I cannot unsee: Joyce’s lifeless body, laying unnaturally on the couch, her mouth open, her daughter staring at her with growing horror, saying, “Mommy?” like a goddamn child, and it reduces me to a fucking mess.

I am a fucking mess, and I don’t have a problem admitting it. This episode just made the biggest fear I have in my life – losing my mother – a reality.

Just… fuck. This is the darkest timeline, and I want it to be taken back, and I want Joyce to be fine, and I want her to go on her next date with Brian, and I want her to show off her newest dress to her daughters. I want to hear more about the gallery. I want to see Joyce give Buffy that disapproving look she uses so frequently. I want to see her awkwardly joke with Giles.

I want so many things, and I am going to get none of them. Fuck this.

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