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Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Nothing "just happens." - Buffy Summers
Episode 6.13, "Dead Things"
Written by Steven S DeKnight
Directed by James A. Contner
You know, after five and a half seasons, I don't think I've ever been as enraged by anyone's behavior as much as in this episode. Past villains have been ghoulish (The Master), or terrifying (Angelus), or even funny (the Mayor), but somehow they've also been entertaining. None has been so not funny, so hateful, so downright wrong as the villain in "Dead Things." Ironically, he's human.
Since they were introduced, the Nerdy Trio have been fun to watch - their dialog is fresh and funny, the actors capture the characters perfectly, and the ridicule of their priorities and taste would be almost painful if it weren't so hilarious. Part of the amusement has been with the triviality of their goals - these are guys smart enough to have invented time-stopping technology and invisibility rays, and yet they're acting like naughty schoolboys, trying (and abjectly failing) to sneak peaks at naked women and talking as though life were a comic book.
Except life is not a comic book. It's one thing to laugh when the goals are so unrealistic that there's no chance that these idiots would actually hurt anyone. But like I said, they've proven to be pretty powerful idiots, and somehow all the talk of love-slaves and cerebral dampeners, all the "we can have anyone we want" -- somehow it became sinister. And then when Warren turned his justifiably disgusted ex-girlfriend Katrina into a "Yes Master"-ing puppet - did anyone else think rohipnal?
The other two were almost as bad. "I sure could have used one of these in high school." One of "these"? They're still looking at Katrina like she's a thing, not a person, but is it possible for anyone to be in such complete denial? I was already pretty angry when Warren took her into a back room. When she accepted his slobbering kisses, and repeatedly confessed that she was wrong to have left him, I started feeling really, really angry. When he ordered her to get on her knees I almost threw a small appliance at the TV screen. This. Is not. Funny.
Of course it's not. Katrina snaps out of it, kicks Warrant back into the main room where Andrew and Jonathan are playing with their light sabers, and finally somebody says it out loud: "This is not some fantasy, it's not a game, you freaks! It's rape!" The word seems to horrify Jonathan and Andrew enough to bring them back to reality - but it doesn't faze Warren. The other two might be waking up from their fantasy, but Warren is damned if he'll let go of his, and he brutally smashes a bottle over her head, killing her.
Which brings us to Buffy - remember her? The star of the show? Warren sealed his image as a sociopath by seizing on the murder as an opportunity to get the slayer out of his way. He uses "it" (Katrina's body) to make Buffy think she killed someone. It might be a dirty trick, but it's cool to watch. There have been so many fight scenes on this show over the years that it takes something really innovative to make one stand out, and the time-shifting confusion of Buffy's fight in the park did the trick. It's a credit to director James Contner that the scene worked so well.
Finding the body, Buffy assumes that she is at fault for the death. Which led to the biggest surprise of the night - an honest-to-God theme! To what degree are we responsible for our actions? And to what degree do extenuating circumstances get us off the hook? Buffy wants to turn herself in to the police for homicide, but both Spike and Dawn violently disagree. Dawn is the immature child who sees only how it will affect her - she believes that Buffy is running away from her responsibility, from life, and most importantly, from the sister who needs her. "You don't want to be here with me, you didn't want to come back... You want to go away again!" It's a completely self-centered reaction, but the accusation has more than a grain of truth in it.
Spike, on the other hand, doesn't try to diagnose Buffy's motives, he just takes matters into his own hands (disposes of the body) and tries to argue that in the balance Buffy has saved more people than she's hurt. For him, it's not about a person's life but about the numbers. It's a practical attitude, but in his case stems from a lack of humanity or real remorse. He doesn't understand her horror over an individual death, because, as a particularly violent scene with him reveals, she's more horrified by her relationship with Spike than anything else. Maybe Dawn was right.
Meanwhile, it never occurs to Warren to take responsibility for anything. He won't even take the blame for driving away his girlfriend, and when he kills her he's only interested in avoiding the cops. Andrew at first wants to turn himself in, but only out of fear. Once he thinks he's gotten away with it, he crosses the line from immature geek to real bad guy: "We really got away with murder. That's... kinda cool." As for Jonathan - well, the verdict is still out.
As much as I'm mining this episode for different takes on the idea of accountability, it was also notable for several key scenes with Spike. He has been pushing Buffy into more and more sexually adventurous behavior - from fun with handcuffs (the actual bondage scene was cut from the episode) to the infamous public shagging scene at the Bronze. I can't mention that scene without comment - I've been complaining for a while about gratuitous and unnecessarily graphic sex scenes in the past couple episodes. But as disturbing as the scenes in this episode were, they worked, because we got quality performances from everyone involved - for once, Spike wasn't mouthing bad romance novel come-ons. You really understood that this was a demon trying to seduce her into joining him, permanently, in the darkness. "You belong in the shadows, like me."
At the last minute, Buffy discovers Warren's connection to the dead girl and decides that this proves that Warren was actually behind her death. It's not a very logical conclusion, but at least it moves the plot along. Besides, getting Buffy out of trouble with the cops doesn't get her out of trouble. Early in the hour she had enlisted Tara to find out why Spike could hit her - what was it about her that was "wrong." She had been using the idea that her attraction to Spike was just a symptom of something that was broken, that could presumably be fixed - and when Tara tells her that there's nothing really wrong with her, Buffy's world falls apart. She has nothing and no one to blame her actions on but herself.
And then - the episode ends! I was so angered by the beginning that I wanted to break the TV set, but at the end I wanted more, more, more. Lot's of people are going to remember this episode for the scene in the Bronze, but for me the two most memorable scenes were with Jonathan and Tara. Danny Strong turned in a wonderful performance as an overage boy who finally woke up to reality and realized that he was in big trouble. He's disgusted with himself, he's bitterly sarcastic with the others ("The night's young - there's gotta be some more girls we can kill."), and the look on his face at the end tells us everything and nothing: he knows he's got to get away from Warren, but will he? Tara, on the other hand, was able to be the non-judgmental listener and counselor that Buffy so desperately needed. Someone she can confide in without worrying about the consequences. It's a role that was hinted at in last season's "The Body" with less success; this time, however, it worked perfectly.
A few complaints - if Buffy figured out that the Nerds were involved when she heard Katrina's name, why didn't she recognize the body immediately and save herself a lot of grief? Xander and Anya were again pushed into the sidelines with barely anything to do. And Dawn - I am starting to dislike this girl more and more. The writers continue to treat her selfishness as though it the justified response of a neglected child. Well, she's not neglected and she's not a child, she's just acting like one. "I didn't think you'd care. You're never home. " Yeah, that's Buffy. Partying every night at the DoubleMeat palace, not caring one bit about Dawn.
So - was it a good episode? The good scenes certainly outnumbered any bad moments, and there were some scenes that blew me away. Danny Strong delivered one of the best non-Giles performances of the year. But more than any other episode this season, this one managed to really explore an underlying theme instead of knocking us over the head with an obvious message. In other words, after it was done entertaining me, it made me think.
Episode rating: 8 out of 10
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