As someone born in the early 90s - i’ve been chasing shows that feel like that… as one does 😂
okay… binged season 1 in a day. Obsessed with Angel.
Started season 2 & really struggling with Buffy’s attitude this first episode. Help me make sense of it - is it her yearning for angel? is it like Giles said “trauma” from The Master situation?
i just don’t believe she would do that weird seductive/mating dance with xander knowing willow loves him. Buffy is kinder than that, right?
also xander saying “if they hurt willow, ill kill you” was so hot - still an Angel girl - but that was hot.
With all due respect, no you're not. Nobody's heart is ever ready for what it will go through with this show. I say that as a fellow first-timer who binged the whole show recently. And I was born in the 50s!
Oh, and I'm also an advocate of watching Buffy to the end first, then moving on to Angel. The two shows are just so different.
Buffy’s behaviour has basically nothing to do with Angel. She experienced her own death and has spent the whole summer unable to talk about it. She’s massively traumatised.
That’s the great thing about the show - the things that happen have real consequences for the characters that shape them long-term. Season 2 was where I realised Buffy was a cut above a lot of shows I’d watched in that regard.
And if you love Angel, you HAVE to watch the spin-off when you get to the end of Season 3. I’m an advocate for watching the spin-off and the rest of Buffy concurrently, but a lot of people watch it after finishing Buffy.
4
u/jospangelTry not to bleed on my couch I just had it steam cleaned12h ago
I agree - Angel is a must watch! Although I am more into watching one show through and then the other - exception for crossover episodes.
Either way, you are in for one helluva ride. This will be different from any show you've ever seen. Buffy affected modern television in loads of ways from blending genres to making dialogue pop.
Be careful of spoilers here, and keep coming back to tell us the ways in which you love the show.
Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents. I recommend watching Angel after you finish Buffy. The two shows tones are wildly different and it's very jarring to go from one to the other. Also if you finish Buffy first you will be way less spoiled vs if you were to switch to watching Angel. The crossover episodes have a few major spoilers if you watch angel before completely Buffy
Exactly! I find it's a much smoother and fulfilling experience watching start to finish of each show individually. When I'm watching Buffy I just want to see the next episode of Buffy! I get the same feeling when I'm watching Angel
Buffy is suffering from PTSD after nearly dying (well, technically speaking, she did die, just briefly) and is trying to cope with it. PTSD manifests in many different ways. Buffy perceives the world differently than usual; she sees the Master in all her friends—even in Giles. That is why she pushes Angel away and then deliberately hurts the feelings of everyone around her. In fact, had Giles been present during the scene at The Bronze, she would have hurt his feelings too. The same applies to Cordelia. To her, everyone around her is a potential Master—and therefore an enemy—who simply hasn't revealed their true nature yet. Perhaps she believes that if she insults them deeply enough, they will show their true selves? I don't know.
Wait… I love this explanation! it makes perfect sense that she sees the master in all the people she cares about! and i keep forgetting she’s 16 so the trauma of dying paired with the responsibility of being the slayer would weigh on even the most adult of us!
1
u/jospangelTry not to bleed on my couch I just had it steam cleaned12h ago
As you can see, there are many head canons as to why, but Buffy is reacting to having died. Major PTSD ther.
That’s a good explanation too! Buffy picturing Giles attacking her and actually being the Master wearing Giles’ face was always one of the more opaque dreams to me. It was clearly not “just comedy and nonsense” like the Cheese man, this was important, but because Buffy never explains what she was thinking there’s no analysis. I like the possibility that it’s not just her subconscious teen insecurities, but her Slayer dreams conveying the ethos of the First Slayer, warning her “no friends! Just kill!” And “they’ll all abandon you! They’ll all betray you! They’ll all be become monsters because they hunt monsters, they do it for you, and you’re just a killer!”
Maybe she doesn’t have a dream about Angel trying to kill her
because she already knows about his dark side, the demon he revealed to her, so she’s already been “warned”. The person she’s supposed to be closest to is her Watcher, the ONLY one, so Giles turning on her, secretly working with her enemies, or being sired, would be a much more devastating blow than Willow or Xander. They’re powerless, they don’t train her, they don’t have connections in the underworld and the occult, they don’t know much about the capabilities of the Slayer and demons. Almost as bad (strategically speaking) would be Giles dying or abandoning her, leaving her and her friends to fend for themselves and Buffy in charge before she’s ready [foreshadowing of the Cruciamentum, Giles going back to England, and conspiring to kill Spike when Spike has the assassination trigger, forms of betrayal in Buffy’s eyes, even though Giles does his best to make it up to her and she to forgive him].
Willow and Xander sitting around ignoring Buffy dying in front of them doesn’t represent their real behaviour and tendencies, but it represents Buffy feeling like she has to save herself (and can’t) and how they can’t literally betray her to the enemy or physically harm her (barring the influence of a spell), so it would be an emotional betrayal, should they leave her or get too angry with her to want her friendship anymore. She feels like she has to test them to see how much she can get away with before they’ll snap and reveal they can’t be THAT great friends i.e. they’re not perfect and have SOME limits. Please keep in mind that I’m a major Scooby defender who usually understands and loves explaining why they do certain things, even if I don’t always agree with them 😌.
Buffy never explains why she treated everyone like they did something to her she needed to punish them for. She’s not just impulsively lashing out from PTSD (something I’d understand), she’s calculatedly alienating everyone who cares about her for the crime of… caring about her. She’s even cold to and about Giles (when Willow asks her “have you seen Giles yet?” Buffy pulls a face and says “why? I’ll see him tomorrow”) the man who tried to die in her place and she had to knock unconscious to stop him. She kind of says she’s sorry when she and Giles are talking the day after her big catharsis but Xander and Willow seem to have mutually agreed not to make her suffer more and earn her way back into their good graces, so they move on like today is the real first day of school.
Basically, you have to blame a lot on Buffy’s reaction to her parents’ divorce, the secrecy around Slaying makes her clam up about things she doesn’t need to keep to herself, she thinks she needs to be strong and handle everything even when she has people eager to help her, she took off on vacation before she was ready to talk about her death with her friends and Giles, it’s the ‘90s and people associated “real” trauma with like being in a war or being sexually assaulted, etc…
The head canon some people have to explain Buffy’s actions are that she decided locking people out of her life would keep them safe. She’s wrong, of course: the only reason she’s alive is because Angel (at Xander’s crossbow point insistence) and Xander came to save her, Giles gives her the space and time to be a normal girl as much as he can, Willow helps her with school and friendship too, Cordelia is starting to pitch in and back off her bullying (a little), and so on. Pushing away the people who care about her until they leave will just confirm what she “knows” based on the friends that dropped her back in LA when she was “a troublemaker” and her parents split up: everyone doesn’t REALLY care about my problems, they have their own shit to deal with, I’ll do them a favour and be the bitch who was too good for them.
You’ll find in the series that Willow is insecure about this, that after a lifetime of bullying she’s worried Buffy will abandon her for someone copper because Willow really is the embarrassing dork everyone says she is. Xander has similar issues but he’s more inclined to express anger - if you’ve picked up on anything about his home life, he doesn’t have any good role models and nurturing from his abusive, neglectful, alcoholic parents. So MAYBE Buffy, by shutting down her emotions, is metaphorically cutting off her friends by cutting off the parts of herself she thinks is holding her back from being the best Slayer, the distractions, the joy, the pain, the fun, the hope for a future. All the characters represent a part of Buffy and reflect what she’s thinking or doesn’t want to think/realize/acknowledge, so she’s thinning out her world and focussing on what she believes matters most. Thads why she’s not shying away from getting back into training and slaying, that’s what she thinks she needs to improve, and everything else is making it harder, making her long for a normal life.
She must acknowledge she needs Giles for training and research, so she doesn’t have a specific “fuck off” plan for him. But the growing warmth and sweetness between them is something she won’t allow, she’s backing away from them becoming actual friends and she doesn’t want ANOTHER Watcher dying for her and caring about it. Merrick from the movie is NEVER mentioned by name in the show, so, again, this is head canon that this is on her mind. Uh, have you seen the movie? Think of it as taking place in an alternate universe, there’s a Joss Whedon-written comic called “Origin” that melds the basic plot of the movie with the show’s canon (so it’s set in 1996 instead of 1992, Buffy is a Freshman instead of a senior, there’s nothing about reincarnation, etc).
Giles says about Buffy that she has “issues.” That’s an excellent way to put it. She died, came back to life, barely beat the Master, and then kind of fell apart because she realized that, yeah. She died!
It’s a hard thing to realize at such a young age that any encounter with vamps or demons can end up like this. Awful for her. She acts out, embarrasses herself, beats the shit out of the Master’s bones, and gets through it. Be patient with her.
I'm trying to remember that dance specifically but I'm just thinking about the way we danced in the late 90s early 2000s. Kids were grinding at middle school dances right in front of teachers and no one said anything.
I echo what everyone else has already said about PTSD but I just want to add, I think you’re also seeing that PTSD manifest in anger.
Buffy is straight up pissed off. Pissed off that she was Called, that she’s the only one who has to carry the burden, that she has to still deal with this crap after literally dying. You’ll see all the conflicting emotions Buffy experiences as the Slayer throughout the series.
Enjoy your first watch, newbie. And enjoy the Buffy/Angel story arc - it’s….quite a ride!
yes this! I think this is the first really big tone shift for her character that it was jarring at how stark of a difference from season 1 to first episode of season 2. but totally can see all the pent up anger and everything everyone else has pointed out!
also…
Just finished season 2, ep6 and kicking my feet with giddiness over angel/buffy story
really struggling with Buffy’s attitude this first episode. Help me make sense of it
She literally died vs the Master at the end of S1. It messed her up. You even see a glimpse of it right at the end, when she's staring so intently at his remains. She's traumatized by it, and acting out.
Also... oof. S2 is going to hit you hard. Have fun! 😈
22
u/Pretty-Hunt1587 14h ago
I love after almost thirty years this show is still pulling new fans. You're in for a hell of a ride.