I know that season six Buffy is old news for most of you who care, but I just finished watching it the other night. (Spoilers ahead for season six, but don't you dare spoil season seven in the comments!) What to make of season six? In many ways, it was weak; occasionally a character would say or do something out of character, which didn't happen in the first five seasons at all. The show is tight, but this season it got looser. The characters seemed plot-driven for the first time. Why did Giles leave for most of the season? Buffy had been gaining maturity and independence in season five, but she had to appear less willing to take responsibility in season six in order to motivate Giles' leaving. And "back from the dead" didn't sufficiently motivate her unwillingness to take responsibility, not in the same way it motivated her affair with Spike. When Giles returns in the last episode, he says he never should have left. Well, duh! (I understand that Tony Head wanted to go home to England, which is why the actor was absent for half of the season, but the show has a responsibility to its characters' motivations, not to its actors'; i.e. the show has internal responsibility.) [Incidentally, "well, duh" is a scholarly phrase; the two responses one must fight in motivating a thesis are "well, duh" and "so what?"]
There's a paper to be written about season six, and its title is "After Enlightenment, the Laundry." That's a Buddhist saying: enlightenment isn't a "peak" experience, nor a goal to be sought; life continues off the meditation cushion, after zazen, after the retreat. After losing the self, the self falls back to earth with a thud. Buffy struggled with that experience all season: having sacrificed herself to save the world and attaining heaven, she was pulled back into the world. Not hell, just the world. "Life isn't bliss. Life is just this; it's just living."
Spike gets it. That's why Buffy's fucking Spike makes sense. Not only does Spike know what it is to claw one's way out of a coffin, but he also knows how it feels to be condemned to life on earth. At the same time, he loves the earth: "We like to talk big. Vampires do. 'I'm going to destroy the world.' That's just tough guy talk.... The truth is, I like this world. You've got dog racing...Manchester United. And you've got people. Billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It's all right here." (Becoming, part 2) That's one thing he has to offer Buffy: a perverse lesson in love. Love the world in its pain and nonsense, its deaths and demons, its entropy. When things fall apart, love the world enough to save it.
Like Xander. Xander's "superpower" has always been his heart and his capacity to love. It saved Buffy's life. It helped save the world from Adam. It saved Anya. (Is it plausible that he abandoned her? I don't think so. Even in his fear ... because his love has always won out.) Yet I'm uncomfortable with the last episode of season six. For the first time, a Buffy episode carried a profoundly Christian message. Wicca became Satanism. (The show has always taken liberties in its portrayal of Wicca, but Wicca overwhelmingly served as a symbol of women's power and love for each other. Since when is Satan part of the Buffyverse?) The world was saved from destruction - from a woman bent on vengeance, from a Jewish witch - by the unconditional love of a poor carpenter. And in the episode's last scene, a demon seeking redemption receives his soul. At the micro-level of the characters, the action makes sense: Willow's power and grief, Xander's fearless love, and Spike's quest for humanity. But at the macro-level, at the level of symbols, the overt Christianity, and its attendant hostility toward other religions, unsettles me. Buffy's strength, from the point of view of this moral philosopher, has been the way it creates an unconventional yet recognizable moral universe, acknowledging the complexity and mess of human (and other) relationships, and never succumbing to moralism or easy answers. It doesn't take its moral direction lazily, from dominant cultural norms and narrative. It's a show with moral imagination. But season six's last episode lost touch with that imagination.
Posted by Cleis at August 17, 2004 11:44 AMCan you believe I've never seen an episode of Buffy?
Posted by: Emily at August 17, 2004 11:23 PMActually, season 6 is my favorite. I take your point about the obviousness of the Christian iconography in the last episode, and I also found the magic = drug addiction thing completely irritating and condescending, especially as magic = feminism / lesbianism was already so well established. But the overall mood of that season, the darkness, the sense of things falling apart for what seem like silly or inexplicable reasons, the "normalness" of the villains (the trio of nerdy misogynist guys, Willow's struggle to come to terms with the side of her that isn't sweet and goofy), I loved that. A lot of the things "evil" Willow says are true and, I think, meant to be heard that way.
I think what I like about season 6 is that I find the form reflects the content: things are a little shaky, a little uneven. Sort of how life feels at major transition parts, no?
Posted by: bitchphd at August 18, 2004 09:35 AMI totally agree. I sensed the sharks circling (http://www.jumptheshark.com/), but didn't know why, I just couldn't put my finger on it. Here's hoping season 7 shapes up.
Coincidentally, season 3 of Angel, which corresponds to season 6 of Buffy, also is starting to suffer. I'm still going to get season 4 when it comes out, but I hope it gets back on it's proverbial tracks too.
Posted by: Vik at August 18, 2004 11:38 AMThe characters seemed plot-driven for the first time. Why did Giles leave for most of the season?
I thought he whole "Now Buffy needs time to grow up and be herself and not have me hanging around" thing was transparently wrong. Coming back from the dead was pretty traumatic, and it's the kind of thing that makes you need a Giles figure around.
The world was saved from destruction - from a woman bent on vengeance, from a Jewish witch - by the unconditional love of a poor carpenter.
Yikes! I never thought of it that way.
Here's hoping season 7 shapes up.
*looks down at his feet, swallows hard*
Posted by: Ethical Werewolf at August 18, 2004 11:57 PMYour analysis is right on! I would only add that Xander saved Willow too (at the end of season 2).
Oh and I disagree with Vik. I hated season 1 of Angel. Season 2 was better and I am loving season 3. But then, Angel never had the internal consistency and vigor that Buffy does (or at least did in the first five seasons).
(Oh I can't stop myself now) I agree with bitchphd re: form and content. (Because I love Buffy so much) I am willing to buy this argument that the structure of the sixth season is meant to reflect its content (and ultimately Buffy's struggle). After all I really think that the whole show is about just Buffy (see "Normal Again", season 6).
Posted by: navigatordave at August 19, 2004 04:49 PMCleis,
I laughed out loud at your analysis of the finale: a poor carpenter saving the world from an evil woman with his love. Ha! Slap on forehead, I too missed this symbolism. In the immortal words of Homer (Simpson that is), Doh!
I will always have a special place in my heart for season six because it was the first I saw of Buffy, and it blew me away. I think your criticisms are interesting, particularly about the destabilization of the internal moral code created and perpetuated in the Buffyverse. I'm with you in saying to the writers stick to your own internal logic, folks. But, I think that maybe what you like about the show -- the way the show doesn't conform to easy moralism -- is exactly what I like about this season. This season was the most emotionally risky exactly BECAUSE it disrupted its OWN internal easy moralism.
While other seasons were heart-wrenching, and tragic (Surprise, Becoming - S.2, The Body, S.5), always we had the certainty that Buffy herself would triumph -- because, after all, she's Buffy, right? Buffy = good. Demons = Bad. This season really challenged this equation, with Buffy doing "bad" things, and a demon (Spike) doing "good things." (At least some of the time -- violent attempted rape notwithstanding...) Sometimes the show's disruption of its own moral center did result in some strange and stupid inconsitencies (the Xander/Anya fiasco, Giles' departure),but I think it was a really gutsy move on the part of the show to ask the audience to become uncomfortable with the characters -- to challenge the sense of who was good and who was bad in the show. As Buffy struggled with herself and her place in the strange screwed up space that is (or isn't) reality, the show asked the audience to watch its favorite hero make many questionable and problematic choices -- in questsionable and problematic situations where there were no "good" solutions. No longer was it so clear to Buffy that something shouldn't be done "because it is wrong," or conversely should be done because it is right. There was no such black and white in this season, it was all gray.
This then complicates the experience the viewer has in watching. We American television audiences like our heros easy, good, and smart about the decisions they make. Further, we like our villians to be evil. Again, this season complicated that. The villains were either three bumbling childish misogyists - with grandiose dreams of wealth and power (GWB, anyone?) Or Willow -- the lesbian we LOVE as the epitome of goodness. These complications left us viewers shaken, but yet pushed us in ways that the previous seasons just didn't -- it challenged our notions of morality while disrupting its own.
Anyway, that's my take on it. :)
cheers,
worien
Worien,
Hmmm.... Very interesting and compellingly argued. I am not sure that I am convinced. I agree that season 6 is dark and confusing in a way that the previous seasons were not. As I have argued before, I believe that Buffy essentially and in all seasons (with the possible exception of the first) complicates the whole good/evil thing. So, for instance, I am thinking about When She Was Bad and Phases (S2) or Bad Girls and Consequences (S3) or New Moon Rising (S4) or The Gift (S5). In all of these, Buffy challenged us viewers and its characters to see beyond traditional conceptions of good and evil (as well as Buffy's conceptions of good and evil). In some, prejudice is the currency. In others, it is simply an issue of being human and having to make tough choices. I am thinking specifically of Giles' decision to murder Ben at the end of S5 when I consider the latter.
The thing about season 6 is that some of the episodes miss their mark, as Cleis suggests, when it comes to character motivations and actions. Whereas, the first five seasons trafficed in nuance and subtlety, the sixth season spells out almost everything without room for turn of phrase or shade of meaning. As Cleis brilliantly describes, the symbolism is heavy handed, not nearly as precise and a little tacky (read: Christian).
I also think that with the exception of the Spike/Buffy story arch and perhaps some of the Willow story arch, season six showed little new emotional reach for the characters that we had not seen before. For instance, the whole Giles needs to leave so Buffy can grow thing. I know that Head had to leave the show for a while (and I respect his commitment to his family), but, I was like, Buffy's already become responsible. Wasn't that the whole point of the second to last and last episodes of season 5 (or more generally, wasn't that the point of season 5)? So they run us through the Buffy's got to get responsible thing again. And then there is Xander. Poor Nicky. Man, he got the short end of the stick as far as the script and character development was concerned. After arguably the most unusual Buffy episode ever, The Zeppo, and then the cool character development for him in season 4 and the begining of season 5, why do we have to run through the whole "I don't have a place in the Buffy team" mumbo-jumbo that we hear over and over in the last couple episodes of season 6.
I have to say though that there were some great lines in season 6. My fav: "Buckle up, Rupert. Because I'm about to go pro." (Black Witch Willow, Grave).
Don't get me wrong: I love season 6. With eps like Tabula Rasa, Once More with Feeling and Normal Again, season 6 ensures in presence in good that is Buffy.
Posted by: navigatordave at August 21, 2004 02:17 PM"Poor Nicky" is right. Not just for the "no place on the team" stuff, but because the wedding destroyed years of Xander Harris character development. Over the years, we saw him become a wise adult with control over his emotions and a mature perspective on life. I remember this scene, shortly before the wedding -- "our wedding is not our marriage," which I think he thinks of before Anya says it. is very good advice -- to the wedding day, where he gets completely derailed by issues he should've thought through by the time he proposed to her. (Sure, that demon gave him weird visions, but I still think the adult Xander would remember what this decision meant for his life, go back to the plan he'd concocted in his rational moments, and get himself married.)
Posted by: Neil Sinhababu at August 23, 2004 04:16 AMYou guys rock. Such excellent commentary. And I would like to say for the record, too, that I love season 6, despite its flaws.
Posted by: Cleis at August 23, 2004 07:03 PM