"Bring On The Night" (Buffy) SPOILERS

Date: 12/18/2002
From: Informant

Good, interesting episode. Some things I want to mention... there's probably more, but I'm not stopping to think so this is all off the top of my head.

1. Giles. For those who didn't spot it, I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but that was not Giles. He never touched anything (other than to sit, which the First can do), he never hugged Buffy or anyone else, he didn't carry the books himself, he didn't help Buffy out of the hole. He wasn't acting like Giles. I hope Giles isn't really dead, but it is either that, or he died some time before and I didn't remember it. I don't think he was the First though. Which brings me to...

2. The First Good. If there is a first evil, there must be a first good. Possibly what Giles was. It's what made it snow in "Amends". And possibly why they've made it a point
to show a Christmas-time episode this year.
In "Conversations With Dead People", Buffy said that the jury was still out on God. If He exists and all. Perhaps we're about to find out? (or at least the Buffy-verse version
of God)

3. Willow. Can't use magic against the First. Woohoo! I hope this sticks. Everyone says she's needed for the big fight, so they naturally assume it's her magic. But I really
want it to be for her mind. Save the world without magic and show everyone what her real power is.
Plus, I have to say I like the Willow-isms they've given her this year. She's acting more like her old self and I like it.

4. Slutty the potential vampire slayer. Hitting on Willow. Willow looked a little freaked out. Now, there could be a lot of reasons. Not ready to move on from Tara. Not sure of
her sexuality. Or (I should hope) she's just freaked out that a girl Dawn's age or younger just hit on her. That's how old Slayers are when they're called right? Very few live
to see 18.

5. Xander lost weight.

6. Anya rules.

7. Aside from the bleeding and bruises and stuff, Buffy looked really good in the last scene. Don't know why.

8. Dru. I wish we could see the real one again. But this was better than nothing. You can tell when it's the First pretending though. With Spike and Dru both.

9. Joyce. On my trip, I decided that the Joyce that Dawn saw was real. Only because the First can't destroy a house on it's own (I may be slow, but I catch on eventually).
So either Joyce or something else. So was it the same one Buffy saw? I think so.

10. Uber-vamp is tough. But imagine if Willow used the sunlight spell she and Tara were working on in season 5. She can't use magic against the First, but this isn't the
First, right? Or... maybe a sunlamp. Cordy would have thought of that one in her day. Sigh.

Bring on the Day...

Date: 12/18/2002
From: ThomasMalthus

...when BT is gone from this board for good!

...when there are more Espenson, Goddard or Espenson/Goddard scripts about. The first half had a lot of energy and pop, the second half dragged and was overwrought. Methinks I know which part was written by Doug Petrie and which by Marti Noxon.

Anyway, to respond to your itemized review (that's very reply-friendly BTW)...

1. I don't think Giles is dead. Joss wouldn't kill him this late in the game. It's possible that he's in the hospital or hiding in England for some reason, possibly to keep a back-up plan in case there's another big explosion, although if that's the case, why gather the Slayers-in-Training in Sunnydale? 'Twas cool to see him again though.

2. Hmm. Somehow, I don't think Joss will go for a big, clearly defined First Good. I think the atheist in him has a problem with it. It'd be nice to see, but I have my doubts.

3. I don't think it'll stick totally. It may be too dangerous for Will to use magic when it's all on the line, but there was a reason the First Evil wanted her to stop using magic. Sure, eventually she (it?) made that into a reason to kill herself, but I don't think the FE does anything without purpose (except possibly drowning Spike, what's up with that?).

4. Willow's freak out had to do with the unexpectedness of it and the fact that she hasn't even considered dating again yet. I don't think she's as sexually confused as you'd like her to be. I think she's right on the money on the 'too-soon-to-start-dating' thing. Xander hasn't had a date since Anya, nor Buffy since Spike and there was no death in either case.

5. It's hard for me to gauge, but if he did good for him.

6. Yep.

7. Her appearance reminded me of how she looked in The Body. It's possible that SMG looks better without make-up.

8. Dru's presence was weird. Was the fact that she kept calling him Daddy (a name she normally reserves for Angel) supposed to reference that he now has a soul? Or did Noxon/Petrie get our souled vampires mixed up again?

9. Yeah, Joyce as not-the-First intrigues me. I'm curious to see whether or not Buffy will play into the First's hands somehow near Apocalypse-time, forcing her friends to all side against her.

10. Uber-vamp is boring. Get a magic sword or a flame-thrower or something and kill him already. Buffy was stupid to fight him with no weapons, but the Ubervamp was equally stupid to knock her out but not kill her. Generally I didn't like that part. And what's with Noxon and that set from "Into the Woods"? Did she get married there or something?

ThomasMalthus

Giles the friendly ghost...

Date: 12/19/2002
From: SL4ever

BT is way too haunting!!! >:-#

Another great episode in what is really a fantastic season!! :-P

The numbering idea is a good one so I'll do it too.

1) Another good idea was the one about the First Good! That makes a lot of sense. I agree with you that this is probably what Joyce is. Notice that Joyce handed the book to Buffy? Was that just a dream or can the FG handle objects and touch people? I don't think, however, that the Giles we saw last night is the First Good any more than I think he is the First Evil. Much more on that below.

2) One of the people I saw this with last night made a good observation that hadn't occurred to me. The last time Buffy had a hard time with vampires more than a single ep stand alone villian was way back in season two! Maaaaybe season three if you count Trick (Trip? What was his name?) but really Angelus, Dru, and Spike were the last really strong, threatening vampires she's had to deal with and had any chance of losing against. Despite this being "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" the Big Bads and even Little Bads have been everything but vampires the last 3-4 four seasons. This was doubtless intentional after the vampire heavy first couple seasons. But now that we're wrapping things up and going back to the beginning, we finally have a multi episode vampire that has any chance of kicking Buffy's ASS. It's nice to be back. :-P

So much as I hate to disagree with TM, I found the Ubervamp exciting. It's also interesting to have Buffy fight someone she can't talk shit to. I think she's gotten a little big in her bitches over the years. Her arrogance took a blow last night. I do agree on one thing TM said, though. What the >:-# is UP with her not taking a weapon? How hard would it be to bring an ax? She knows a stake doesn't work so she decides just to use her hands and feet???? :-/

3) You're right, Willow has been phemnomial. As she always is. I know what you're saying about her magic, but I disagree. I think last night was Joss doing the same thing he did in Season 1 by putting the Master behind bars (so to speak). He did that because if the Master was free he'd either kill Buffy right away or get fought off. If he kills her the series is over, and if she fights him off he must not be all that bad so there goes the suspense. This is the same thing. We KNOW how powerful Willow is. So the quesion becomes, why doesn't she just comes along with Buffy and blow up Ubervamp? What we saw last night was the answer, The First has made her scared to use her magic. I assume she'll get over this fear at the end of the season and be very helpful.

4) Speaking of that thing that came out of her mouth, anyone else watching Angel this year? If not, that thing looked a LOT like Angel's Big Bad. It might be a coincidence or I could be mistaken but when I saw the imagine it sure reminded me of the Angel beastie. I don't know what it means because Joss has always been clear about having no crossover eps. But it sure looked like it.

5) And finally, about Giles the Friendly Ghost and possible more proof of Joss' genius. An interesting thing happened on the way to this episode. Several weeks ago a spoiler came out about this ep which read as follows:

"I have information from two separate sources which could point to 'The First' masquerading as Giles. It's not as clear as, "The First is imitating Giles". What both sources have passed along, is that ASH filmed at least two scenes where he was instructed not to touch anyone or anything."

And this, supposedly a direct quote from the script for "Bring on the Night."

From the ep. 10 script:
"Note: It is VERY important that Giles not touch or be touched by anything. He can walk and talk-- but he can't fiddle or cuddle or caress. Got it?"

Since I try to remain spoilerfree I only stumbled across this. But I actually appreciated the heads up in this case so I could be watching and see how obvious it was. I was very surprised to discover last night that it wasn't obvious at all. I watched it with three other people and after the ep was over I asked them if any of them had noticed anything unusual about Giles. They're all sharp people and none of them had. It was very subtle. Too subtle for the writers to be setting something up just from what we saw on screen.

There are also practical considerations. The only way drama and horror in general and this kind of show in particular work is if all the normal day to day stuff is as realistic as possible. In fiction, something like cell phones working in the middle of a desert make it harder to believe aliens.

Practically speaking, it is impossible for Giles to be a ghost. If you and I and five other people spend over 24 hours together in a house, there is no WAY I could get by with not touching anyone or moving any object. People are going up and down stairs, they are crowding into a room, they are pulling back chairs, they are using the bathroom and closing the door behind them, they are getting handed drinks and food. They are sleeping somewhere which means pillows and blankets being moved. To say nothing of Giles removing his coat. Wherever he put it, someone would have to interact with it, brush against it, move it to a coat rack, sit on the chair it was laying on, open a closet door to put it in or take it out (especially since he can't do that himself). If he doesn't remove the coat he looks highly suspicious. But if he was a ghost then of course he would have no real coat for anyone to handle.

Not to mention failing to smell something, his aftershave, his lunch, whatever. We saw 22 (or so) carefully selected minutes of the more than 24 HOURS Giles spent with them in the ep last night. There is NO WAY he spent that much time with that many people in that small of a house and they not discover he was a ghost. This leaves out the fact that he almost had to have ridden over with the three girls on a cramped plane for a 12 hour flight, and the cab ride to Buffy's house.

I can hear it now, "it's just a TV show!" True, but Joss Whedon would never make this huge a blunder. He is much too savvy for that. If he really wanted Giles to be a ghost he would have had Giles arrive separately and not stay in the house with everyone else. It would have been very easy to write it that way.

So if the Giles we saw last night wasn't the First, what was the point of those specific instructions, then? Before I say that, lemme mention this. I was curious so I went to half a dozen different message boards last night right after the ep aired. Mere minutes after the ep was over people all over the place were saying "Giles didn't touch anything! Giles didn't touch anything!" Not a single one I read mentioned a spoiler to that effect has been floating around the past three weeks. All of them acted like they'd noticed it themselves, despite the fact it was very low key. Okay, I'm sure a couple paranoid people noticed this themselves, though they'd have no reason to be looking for it. (the swinging ax makes you wonder but I have to go back to how impossible it would be to pull off not being able to touch anything in that small crowded house.)

So again, what was the point of all this??? Quite simply, I believe Joss Whedon, always a creative trailblazer, has done it again! He is hip. He's well aware of the online community. He knows that the Buffy spoiler websites get thousands of hits a day. He knows that people can find out almost anything about an upcoming ep weeks before it airs. But where other TV show producers cry about spoilers and even lie to people, I believe that Joss has conceived of a way to use spoilers to his advantage. As written and televised, Giles being dead never gets off the runway as a point of discussion among fans. Sure, a couple people would have noticed, but DOZENS of people were mentioning it right after the ep aired! Only with the spoiler making people look for it and immediately post about it after the ep does this become an issue. Without the spoiler the writers would have had to do a lot more to foster this suspicion and waste valuable screen time better used in other ways.

I believe this Giles not touching anything spoiler was used to get spoiler readers to watch carefully to see if Giles touched anything and then run to message boards talking about him not doing so. Then all the hundreds of thousands of internet active spoiler free fans see these messages, run back to rewatch the ep, go "Wow! He didn't touch anyone!" and then tell all their friends. The spoiler to come revealing whether Giles is or isn't dead won't affect the huge number of spoil free fans, who will remain talking about this until an ep airs that clears it up.

I could easily be wrong, but it is my belief that spoiler sites have became part of the story in some small way through Joss' genius. I think spoilers are one more weapon he has added to the arsenal that he uses to entertain, generate discussion, and muddy the waters. To say nothing of allowing him to spend a lot less time developing small side mysteries than he'd otherwise have to. If I'm right, he truly is a visionary.

Hey, whatever happened to Pike?

Eh...didn't like it much

Date: 12/19/2002
From: Recall317

There's always one of us.

Can't say I cared for this ep much at all, and that says a lot considering it had both Giles and Drucilla. It felt like a sixth season soap opera ep that moves the arc along, but really doesn't do anything until the last minute or two where something big happens in order to bring me back the following week. As a stand alone ep, it doesn't hold together.

I know some of you really like the soap opera style, but I really enjoyed the 2nd and 3rd season style a lot more. The arc was always in play, but each individual episode operated on its own as well. You could watch any one of those eps without needing an 8 minute "Previously on Buffy..." for the episode in question to have any relevence.

Did I notice anything wrong about Giles during the ep? Nope. I did find it curious that he had wandered away from the hole and that they didn't show how he defeated his axe-wielding assailant. But is he a ghost? Not by any reasonable stretch of the imagination. Like SL4ever said, you can't put a ghost in such close contact for prolonged periods without somebody noticing. I know the Scoobies aren't exactly a crack squad, but they're not stupid either. For me this goes back to the old wrong vs right Arturo argument: whatever the exec producer intended, the action on screen makes it impossible to play out.

So either Joss Whedon is a genius using the internet as subterfuge, or Joss is barely involved and the rest of the crew made a mistake.

I hope there's a better reason why one of the slayerettes bolted other than cowardice, otherwise it's a plot contrivance on par of the Breeder for getting Buffy separated from the group. And as for not taking a serious weapon? Mindless stupidty or excessively poor writing to justify said contrivance. I mean, would it have been so hard for Ubervamo to just knock the ax away from her? And don't give me the sleep deprived excuse. When you're gearing up for a war, you remember the weapons.

Geez, as I write this post I'm finding I'm sliding away from merely "didn't care for it" to "Strongly dislike." Oh well, I still really like Buffy in general and this season. And Xander was funny as always with some great cultural references. Anya and Dawn had some fun moments too. The new slayers? Eh, let 'em get killed. I can do without them.

Point of note: I read in TV Guide that ratings for Buffy were way down. Is this really a backlash to the killing of Tara, a recurring character no less? Or a reaction to last season in general? I think this season has been really good and should have recaptured those who had said they weren't going to watch again. What's going on?

R317

not going to respond to everything but..

Date: 12/19/2002
From: JLBanker

I am in agreement with the theory that they made Giles not touch anything to throw us off and make us think he is something he isn't. Much like how they screwed with us (in a good way... hmm does that sound bad... wasn't ment to sound bad... anyway...) in season 5 where we weren't sure if Dawn was good or bad. I am going to believe it is Giles until they tell me otherwise.

I wish they would hurry up reveal what the Principal has to do with all of this. I so want him to be a good guy.

JLBanker

Wah!

Date: 12/19/2002
From: Informant

I just types up a huge-ass reply, and then mucked it all up and lost it. I'll try to post one later. Sigh

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