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Review
2003-03-26 at 6:34 p.m.
Mmm...I'm gonna try a review.
Yes, you heard me. A review.
Of the great and wonderful Buffy episode I watched today. Non-viewers beware, you'll get lost in a minute.
--------------------------
Lies My Parents Told Me
Written by: David Fury and Drew Goddard
The teaser started with fresh little snippits of the Previouslies, as it almost always does. (ah, one consistency on the Hellmouth. Just once, they should put the Previously at the END of the episode. That�ll show us) Giles is still speaking, even though he hasn't been part of the cast all season, and therefore, it should be the person who took the duty of being the "And" member, Willow. But no matter, the recaps that will never be enough for those who are new to the show fly by.
Shot of Spike tackling Giles. He doesn�t seem to understand that it was only logical that they take out Spike�s chip. Duh Giles. Next, Buffy defends Spike�s honor by assuring us once again that he HAS a SOUL. Next, Wood stakes a vamp by using the most ridiculous technique I�ve ever seen on the show. It�s almost close to Xander dancing. Oh yeah, review�heh. Next is Buffy asking how Wood knows about Slayers, he admits his mommy was one. Cut to flashback of Billy Idol Spike snapping the Original Nikki�s neck. Then Wood asks how Buffy knows Spike, though in his head he continues to call him �The man with six fingers on his right hand� Oops. Wrong media. Buffy states that it�s simply a you fight my vamps, I�ll fight yours relationship. Then cut to Billy Idol Spike taking the Original Nikki�s coat. He walks down the hall, Wood asks about it, and glowers at him. Which, in fact, is his only job nowadays.
Ok, actual show time! Not Showtime, because that was a quite a ways back... and I don't remember a thing about it, so I don't even know why it was mentioned here. Anyway�New York City, 1977. Billy Idol Spike and the Other Nikki duking it out. Billy Idol Spike continues to talk throughout the entire battle, as he is prone to do, and he wears his safety pins with pride and quite a bit of cockiness. Yay. They talk, they battle, he gets *this* close to killing her when� bam, little kiddypoo comes out of nowhere and kicks Spike�s head off. Kidding! He just knocks over a trash can, and distracts our bleached hero. I mean villain. Spike trips, rolls, and gets a stake thrown with amazing accuracy towards his heart. But no matter. He catches it before it has ever had a chance. He smirks, and says a few leaving words, ending with, �Love the coat� and hops down a the side of a building (ouch?), smirking and raising his piercing filled eyebrow all the while. Swoon, sigh. What? Evil is sexy.
Nikki checks on her kid, who is named Robin, (dun dun DUN, oh wait�we already knew that. Never mind) and tells him to shoo. �Cause she�s got a punk rocker vamp to chase after and give her coat to.
Cut to the Alleyway. Oh ya know, THE Alleyway. The only Alleyway that exists in Sunnydale. Yeah, that one. Hey, cool! Wood's fighting a vampire! And hey, Spike's fighting a vampire! And wouldja lookit that, Buffy's fighting one too! Amazing! Wood fares pretty well with his, then cut to Spike, who's faring much better with his. But Buffy tops both them boys with her neat and rather pointless flip thing she does. Ah well, back to Spike. He slams the vamp against a wall, then grabs a shovel (which is yet again a fun and long item that he can spin around whilst smirking) and cuts the vamp's head off (off-camera, because apparently they still can't afford to show all dustings.) Buffy�s still fighting her vamp. Geez it takes her forever these days. Wood�s getting his butt kicked. And Buffy motions for Spike to help. He takes his time, though. Why rush, ya know?
Wood's about to get bitten, when *POOF* the vamp dusts. There is Spike, holding his shovel. Amazing timing buddy! It's almost like these things are scripted out! Anyway, Spike the Hero helps Wood the Should-Be-Grateful. But he's not. He just glowers and holds onto his stake so hard he bleeds. Sidenote: That guy must eat a LOT of Campbell�s Chunky Soup. Don�t know what I mean? He has that gross, lumpy blood that Giles had when his head got all Hannibal-ed in Restless. He says something about waiting for his moment.
Howl! Check that theme and them credits!
******
Ooh...commercials. Oh right...back to the recap.
Mmm... Principally fun. Not. Wood�s peeking through the window, with his bandaged hand (and nobody bothered to ask how he hurt his hand like that?) and he and Buffy are talking in the office about the semi-normalcy of the High School since they solved the Seal Dilemma. No no, not seals. The Seal of Byzantium�no wait. The Seal of Dyzazter. I don�t know. Seal of Dyzazter works for me though. The seals thing would be a rather funny dilemma though.
Seals: Arf Arf!
Spike: Bloody hell! These seals are sodding everywhere! And they're arfing all over everything!
Buffy: Shut up Spike! We need to get to work in this battle. *turns to SiT's* You know what you need to do. Some of us might not make it through this, but this is a necessary step in our fight against the First. Follow me. I am the leader, and you answer to m-
Spike: For the love of GOD, Buffy, will you shut your gob and help me get this seal?
Seals: Arf Arf
*back to "reality"* Right then. They call the dilemma easy, and things are getting kinda mushy as he says she reminds him of his mother. Well, duh. She was a Slayer, Buffy�s a Slayer�come on, Wood. You�d think a principal of a school would have a little more sense. Oh well.
Giles bursts in, right after somebody says things are ok, and says it's a serious emergency. Suddenly it's hit me. That's his only line this season!
Anyway, he makes a to-everyone-but-him-funny about the library being nothing but computers, no books!
He meets Wood, and blurts out to the wide open door, leading to a hallway full of students who they�re sure had nothing better to do than sit around listening to the adults, that Wood hunts demons. Wood closes the door and continues to listen as he sits at his desk and allows his face to relax from smiling to his normal, glowering position. Giles goes on and on about inevitable war, and then back to the library topic. Buffy must pull him back on track.
Then he gets all serious again at Buffy about Spike. She shoulda just let him wander around in Giles�-Brain-Land. Any why is that whenever somebody mentions Spike when he�s not present, SOMEBODY goes, �Spike?� Yes, people. Spike. How many other Spikes are there on the show? How many have there EVER been? Not counting the First as Spike. It�s not that hard to understand the word either. I mean, how many other things sound like Spike anyway? Pike, Like, Strike, Tyke, Bike�well, ok. But none of those are names on THIS Buffy!
Back to the scene, Giles continues to whine about Spike. But he reveals that though Spike has a trigger, he�s found a way to deactivate it, but with the chip gone he's a big danger... Buffy's only (and still good) argument is that he HAS a SOUL! And that means he'll feel HORRIBLE about killing all those people the trigger will inevitably make him kill!
Heehee, I love Spike. But the trigger is indeed a danger. Wood gets confused as they talk about the chip, soul, trigger, and Spike in general, but once he realizes that they are still talking about Spike, he continues to glower at nothingness. They go through a large jumble of point salad, and end up right back where they started. Giles serious, Buffy caring less, and Wood glowering and still confused about what he's missed these past seven years.
They talk about the song�Buffy calls Giles old, and then change scenes.
*****
Cut to the basement, where we have Xander chaining Spike up (teehee), and making some comment about missing the chains. Careful there, Xander, or Spike'll figure out what you've been doing in his bed. Without his chains.
Giles approaches Spike, who's none too happy about being the subject of this experiment for safety. He asks how they plan to deactivate the trigger.
Giles pulls out a weird shaped rock, and pretty much says they need to shove a rock in his brain. Spike slangs away that idea, but Giles continues to say that this must happen, and Spike asks how they plan to get the huge honkin' rock in his head.
Willow proceeds to walk out, magic book in hand, and makes a funny about not being able to pronounce magic words right. Yeah! She might accidentally set Spike on fire and kill him! Ha Ha! Isn't that hilARIOUS?
Despite that, she casts the spell and the rock turns into a worm, which, as Giles explains, will crawl into Spike�s head through his EYE. Gross?
Spike comments that with all the things people are placing in his head, there's barely room for his brain. Giles assures it doesn't take up much space. Spike glares. Sexual tension you could cut. with. a. KNIFE. No, really. Giles is so desperate these days... I mean, who knows who he'll go after next? Is anybody safe? Well, maybe Xander. (Speaking of which...where's my Andrew dosage? He only had one line this episode!)
Teehee. Right, the rock. It jumps onto Spike�s face and proceeds to go into Spike's eye, and gives him a really bad headache. Buffy rushes to his side, (aww) but he's lost for a while, remembering a time when he was human. With bad hair. Very bad hair. And a sick mother.
He�s spewing yet more poems of his love for Cecily, not Addams, but Underwood! Why'd they change her name? Who knows the mind that is of Joss? Also, William�s voice is deeper than the last time we saw him. But of course, this was prior that party, so maybe he sucked some helium that night.
His mother praises him, and then tells him to go find a woman. He shrugs it off, and continues to mother his mother. How sweet. And almost worrisome. But we know he turns out not gay, so it's ok.
Mum coughs up some blood, and it's icky. William sits with her, and she sings a song. Not any song... no...THAT song. Yeah you know the song. Yeah, she belts out with an old timey rendition of She Hates Me.
Kidding! She sings Early One Morning, and things seem fine. Until Spike goes insane at the memory.
Yep. Not cutesy, *makes blubbery noise with lips*, insane. Snarl, wanna kill everyone, insane. He swings around in his chains, making very odd snarls, or very strange screams. Either way, that was not James providing the voices. It was just�odd. He continues to thrash, and he flips over his cot thingy, which hits Dawn in the head, but we later find out it simply scratched her a bit.
The thing pops back out of Spike�s eye, and he looks around, confused, but remembers and looks annoyed and suddenly wishes he would be left alone. Wood just glowers until the commercials save us from his never-tiring gaze. What is UP with Buffy and broody men??
******
These commercials weren�t as interesting.
Spike sits on the ground, asking to be unchained, insisting that he�s calm, and that he�s de-triggered.
Giles asks about the song, and Spike promises he doesn�t know much about it, �cept that his mom would sing it when he was a baby. He tries to shoo them off by insisting they check on, oddly enough, Dawnie. Since when does Spike call her Dawnie?
He musta Slanged himself out earlier, when he used every phrase he knew in about five minutes. It was impressive, but apparently it took its toll on him.
Cut to Willow helping Dawnie, er�Dawn. Andrew, SiT's, well Rona and Kennedy at least, and Xander are up there as well. Even though Xander�s just standing there�uh oh. He looks like he�s glaring. What�s goin� on with everyone today?
The phone rings, and Andrew moves to pick it up (we don�t hear it, but you know he said his, �Summer�s residence, this is Andrew speaking� routine, teehee). While he answers, Rona mentions that they�ve trained with Spike, and she�s amazed that his trigger�s still active. Didn�t Buffy KNOW? I mean, come on! Anya, with a hat so horrible� for the sake of space, I�m not even going down that path� anyway, she makes some comment about Spike having a Get Out Of Jail Free card with Buffy� which he so doesn�t. He�s still in chains after all. (Nudge nudge, wink wink)
Andrew tells Willow that some guy named Fred is on the phone for her, and he sounds kinda girly. He makes a quick glance to the side, thinkin� �Hey�I should go to LA. Meet this�Fred.�
Back to the basement, Giles is trying to pry the truth out of Spike. Buffy gets fed up and moves to unchain him, but Giles whines cause Spike isn�t cooperating. Wah wah. Wood moves into the conversation, once again attempting to summarize their entire conversation into one sentence, but when he fails horribly�guess what he does? He glowers.
Back to a flashback! Dru and Freshly Killed William are dancing around, Dru says something about daffodils and viscera being in his lovely household. He promises they won�t stay there for long, but she insists they give it a �proper� g�bye. Grruff. Heehee. She�s saucy. Saucy? Saucy?? Oh poor William. One day he learns�but it isn�t today.
They get smoochy and such on the couch, and he does his tongue smirk, which he picked up quicker than his use of British Slang, but that�s ok. I love them both equally. He promises the world will be theirs� they�ll be the scourges of Europe. The three of them.
As insane as Dru is, she picks up on the fact that he said three. Now, either he forgot Angelus or Darla, or he was adding someone into the Spike and Dru mix. She questions it. He wants to take his mother with them. Heehee. She tries to make sure he means to eat her.
Mum walks out, worried sick (ha ha) about her dear William. Drusilla introduces herself as the other that gave birth to her son. Confusing, eh? He drops about fifty kabillion analogies of what he�s become until he finally drops the bomb on his mom that he�s a vampire. And a bit drunk. But he continues to try and persuade her that she too can no longer be sick, or hurt. And he bites her.
Cut back to Spike and Buffy in the basement. Willow comes down, and informs her that she�s gotta to LA for a while. Let�s not tell Buffy that her ex honey is evil again, and that she needs to go re-soul him. Again. Cause that doesn�t go over well.
Willow leaves, with hardly a goodbye, and what�s weird is that she�s already left LA before she left Sunnydale. Never mind. Not goin� there.
Buffy goes back to unchain Spike, who�s still having unpleasant memories. Buffy and Spike go upstairs, leaving Wood and Giles in the basement. Wood spreads the love, er�hatred of Spike, and convinces him by using clever methods of sympathy and battle strategies to help him destroy Spike.
Now, not to interrupt myself again, but� if they had just left Spike and Buffy alone in the basement for a while� Spike would�ve opened up to her. Talking! Perverts� and this whole episode could�ve been spared thirty minutes of whining and glowering from our favorite Mommy�s Boy. But oh well. They didn�t, he didn�t, and it wasn�t. So on with the idiocy of Wood and Giles.
Giles takes Buffy out to the cemetery and she reveals that she left Spike at Wood�s. How dense can one person be? I mean�ARGH. I wanna yell at the TV a lot. In fact, I did. But it didn�t listen.
Giles once again gets serious at Buffy, and tells her that she needs to look at the Big Picture. She informs him that she�s giving speeches right and left, even to the poor poor Repair Man. God bless his forever tortured soul. He tells her that if she�s going to play General, she needs to make hard decisions.
Back to Spike and Wood, who are going to Wood�s garage. His place to unwind. Let his hair down. The lights flicker on, and HOLY CRAP the walls are filled with crosses. Hey, Wood just did a Faith move. Compare and contrast the following scenes:
Bad Girls:
Buffy: But what about the assignment?
Faith: *turns around* Tell ya what, *points with both fingers* You do the homework, and I�ll copy yours.
Lies:
Spike: A bit much, innit?
Wood: Oh come on Spike. It�s the Hellmouth, you can never be too careful. Just uh, stay away from the walls, and *points with both fingers* you�ll be fine.
No wonder I don�t like him. Wood, not Spike.
Wood glowers as Spike asks him about his �story�. He won�t answer, but he tries to make Spike talk. Wood continues to tap away on his I-Mac, which, I�m now positive is an evil computer, no matter how cool they look. Wood finally gives Spike the, �You kill my mutha, prepare to die� speech, and pushes play.
�Early one morning just as the sun was rising,
I heard a young maid sing in the valley below,
Oh don�t deceive me, oh never leave me,
How could you use a poor maiden so.?�
And Spike, firstly looking confused, vamps and snarls at Wood. Who, you guessed it, glowers at him.
Now, before I let you know that commercials came next, let me applaud whoever worked that vamping out scene, because despite the fact I knew the vampage was coming, it wasn�t because of the normal, �Hey, look, the screen�s all wonky, they�re about to change into vamp-face� bit. It was because of the song, but the screen looked normal. That was a creepy and very well-done effect. (applause)
Yeah, commercial time now.
*****
William time again.
Mummy�s awake, and playing her music box of that evil, evil song. She�s acting oddly already.
He offers a night of feasting, and dancing, all the fun she could stand. But she simply wishes to leave him. She mocks his poetry, which is truly no longer a fair blow, because he�s not really William anymore, but oh well. What do fledgling mothers know?
Back to Wood and Spike, he whacks him across the face with his dorky armwear. What the heck was that stuff? I mean, yeah, I understand the whole silver knuckles thing, but�what�s up with THAT stuff? It looks ridiculous.
Flashback again. Mum�s speaking about being a vampire. And she says she sees everything. And now she loves to be cruel. And rather gross, as well. �Since the day you slithered from me like a parasite�?? Horrible horrible imagery at play there.
Back to Wood, still beating Spike, who�s fighting back, but half if not third-heartedly.
Wood puts him against a wall, and burns his face against a cross. Ouchie.
Mum�s still at it, talking about him not pursuing women, because he�d rather make his house-bound mom listen to his poetry. He finally tells her that he�s not that anymore. Whoever that was. But she assures him he will be. Which, in a sense, he still is a sentimental fool. But, he�s much more interesting than other vampires in that sense.
Wood kicks Spike across the room. I mean, I�d put up a fight about a human not being able to kick a vamp that far, but I know, in my heart, that he�s about to stand up, and kick Wood�s shiny black butt. And his head. Please. Any day now. Yeah, Spike. Let him punch you a few times, but then�
Aw crap, back to the cemetery. Buffy�s about to stake a vampire, but Giles tells her not to yet. They talk more about decisions. She admits that now, she�d let Dawn die to save the world. She gets blindsided by Richard the vampire, but she struggles and fights, while answering Giles about her speeches.
If she doesn�t like them so much�why does she keep saying them? Never mind.
Giles begins to hint yet again at the fact that Spike is a danger, and she lets him live. Why don�t they get it?
Oh yay, back to Wood and Spike. Wood takes off his dorky armwear, and takes a moment to put his blue shirt back on. That�s one of the most unneeded bits I�ve ever seen. Ok, fight fight fight, but hold on, I have to put my shirt on before I stake you.
Anyway, he makes the lowest blow ever, as he removes Spike�s duster from his limp and beaten body. Throwing it to the side, he grabs a stake, made from a cross (OUCH?) and moves over Spike.
Back to William, whose mum is stalking him, talking about him scampering and crying to his trollop. She brings into play the most disgusting thing I�ve ever heard on this show. Ever.
She begins to insinuate that he wanted her in a sexual way. And that�s putting it lightly. Mum�s turn rather obscene, dear William. Please finish her off. He denies it vehemently, and insists that he only wanted to make her well, because he did love her, but certainly not like that. She continues to press him, but he pushes her away, and she makes to cane him, but he grabs the cane, snaps it� and looks at his mum with the next to stupidest teeth, (First place belonging to Bianca the Buck-Toothed Vamp from Sleeper. No, that is not her real name. No, I don�t know what her real name is. Bugger off.) and he mutters, �I�m sorry�
He really did say, �I�m sorry,� because Wood hears it too, and looks confused for a moment.
Back to flashback, William stakes his dear ol� mum.
Back to the present, Wood is about to stake dear ol� Spike, but he reaches up automatically and grabs him, knocking him back, and standing up, feeling freshly motivated to kick Wood�s butt, (and there was much rejoicing, �yaaay�!)
Wood glowers and asks if he thinks �Sorry� will make it all ok. Spike simply replies that he wasn�t talking to him. Dumb Wood.
Wood tries an attack, but Spike blocks it effectively. Spike continues to say that he doesn�t give a piss about Nikki, and he has a point. She was a Slayer, he was a vampire. That�s how it worked. He then kicks Wood so hard he does the neat flippy thing in the air.
Wood continues to whine about his mom while throwing desperate punches at Spike, wishing that they held the power his mind had. But, thank God they didn�t, because he was staring flaming, acidic, poisoned stakes and crosses at Spike. And, we can�t have that, now can we?
Spike blocks each punch with nonchalant ease, wondering how it�s his fault that Wood was pulled into this. Spike begins to tell Wood exactly what he�s feeling, but suddenly it sounds evil because it�s coming from the mouth of the enemy. Spike makes a really cool move where he grabs Wood�s foot, as he tried to make a kick from the ground, and flies him up against his cross-ridden wall, very high, and very far. Think Glory kicking Spike out of his chains, only a teensy bit less. Spike�s pissed off, and tired of Wood. And so am I, so good job Spike.
Spike shares an almost tender dialogue with Wood, where he tries to explain how he understands about what he feels. He tells him the story of him and his mother, but he explains that Wood actually had the opposite effect on Spike!
See, when he had all those flashbacks, he finally pieced back together that he had a mom that loved him, and when he killed her, it wasn�t her that said all those things to him. So he de-triggered Spike. Wood�s plan backfired! Ha ha!
He even turns the song back on, and is fine. After spilling his guts for Wood, he decides it�s Wood�s turn. He leans in, vamped out, against his neck and�
He commercials the heck out of Wood. No, oops, I mean, commercial break.
******
Back with Buffy and Giles at the cemetery. Giles tries to piss Buffy off by reminding her of all the evils Spike has done to her. She simply reminds him that Spike HAS a SOUL!
Geez, how many times does she have to inflect her voice that way until they get it??
Giles still walks back and forth, trying to make Buffy mad again, but he lets slip that The First can take advantage of him anyway. Buffy realizes that he is indeed stalling her, and keeping her from Spike.
She runs off, and cut to Spike walking out of Wood�s garage, duster in hand.
He puts on the duster, and Buffy runs up behind him, asking what happened. He opens the door, revealing Wood all beat up and sagging against the wall. He tells her that he let him live, �cause he killed his mother, but that if he EVER tries to do this again, he�ll kill him.
Buffy gives a look at Spike as he walks out, and storms into the garage, helping Wood up and looking in amazement at the place. Deck the wall with loads of crosses, tra lalalala, lala la la! Wood�s an idiot who�s gonna get it, tra lalalala lala la la.
She explains that she lost her mother too, so she understands some. Wood insists that he MURDERED her, but she pretty much tells him to get over it. She�s going to fight a war, and they need help.
Wood tries to convince her that Spike�s still evil, but she doesn�t listen.
She tells him that if he tries anything again, Spike�ll kill him. But more so, she�ll let him.
She walks off. Wood glowers. With a black eye. Ok, both eyes are black, but I meant the bruised type. He got the fall-offy eye this time. Take THAT.
Scene shift! Dawn�s asleep in bed, bandage on her forehead, and Buffy�s reaching out to comfort the not-comfort-needing Dawn. She walks out of the room, and runs into Giles, who begins as if he thought Spike was dead.
Buffy quickly corrects him in his mistaken thinking, but Giles still holds quick to his �Spike is EVIL!� theory, and begins to spew yet another lesson for Buffy to learn.
She stops him in his tracks, shaking her head and grabbing the door, telling him she has in fact, learned everything from him she�ll need to know.
Slam.
Thank god. Now he can leave. He�s not dead, I�m glad about that, but GOD he needs to leave. He�s killing what little happiness is on the show nowadays. Yeesh.
He and Anya can pack up and leave, �cause I�m all for a Ganya relationship, I just want them both gone.
I loved them both, but their times have past�and them old fogies should just pack it up and make room for sweet and cute stuff. That we so desperately need. NOW please.
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