Buffy season 10 no 19
Sep. 23rd, 2015 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightThis is the Giles gets re-aged just for a day issue.
Spoilery thoughts behind cut.
This issue read as mostly filler to me. Not entirely, because one scene is a meeting between Buffy, Dawn and their deadbeat dad, Hank, which I thought was quite good.
As far as I can see, it's there to contrast Hank's treatment of Buffy with Giles's.
In brief, Hank is getting remarried. His wife to be, Paige, has two children of her own, younger than Buffy and Dawn. Paige has encouraged Hank to see more of Buffy and Dawn (it wasn't even his own idea to call them and invite them out for lunch, it seems), but she doesn't want Buffy at the wedding, because she's seen her on TV, knows what she does, and thinks she's too dangerous to have near her kids. Dawn, on the other hand, is welcome to come to the wedding.
As might be expected, Dawn is furious on Buffy's behalf and tells Hank she doesn't want to see him any more. Later, she tells Buffy that after Joyce died, Buffy was pretty much her parents. Buffy responds that she's glad Dawn didn't tell her that at the time, as she would have been scared stiff.
Both scenes are well written, I think, but I can't believe that Buffy didn't know she was in loco parentis to Dawn, from that painful scene in Forever where she's folding tea towels onwards. Also, that Buffy can't help agreeing with Hank that she's too dangerous to risk being near Paige's kids - while it might well be something Buffy would think since she has a tendency to blame herself for stuff (she cites the people she feels have died because of her - Anya, Tara, Jenny Calendar, Giles (seemingly forgetting that Angel was responsible for the last two, and that Anya made her own choices in Chosen)) - strikes me as very anvil-ly. Part of the whole Buffy longing for a normal life even though she's made a choice not to try and have one/mortal+immortal relationships don't work schtick that Gage has going this season.
As for the Giles stuff, it all seemed a bit pointless to me. He gets aged up, has sex with Olivia, then finds no one else needs him to be an adult. They know what they're doing and can just get on with it. In the end, the only real purpose Adult!Giles serves is so that Buffy can cry all over him at the end (because of what Hank said) and tell him he's her real father, which Giles is clearly very pleased about.
Nice, I guess, though at odds with the show, where Giles - though he did have fatherly feelings towards Buffy - always tried not to give in to them too much because he wanted her to stand on her own two feet etc etc. Still, I suppose you could say that now that she clearly can stand on her own two feet and doesn't need him to be her dad, it's okay for him to be it.
For a day, anyway. He'll be a kid again the next day (which makes him having sex with Olivia everso slightly icky, given that it seems they both know that's what's going to happen), and the whole exercise rather pointless.
Spike is absent throughout 'on a police case.' Nice to know he's off doing something positive.
There's a funny answer to a letter on the letters page, not liking Spuffy and wanting Bangel instead.
'If there's one thing I've learned in my short tenure as the Buffy editor,' says Jim Gibbons, who is apparently leaving too, 'it's that there's no way to make every fan happy- especially when it comes to Buffy's romantic life. So, in the interest of being fair to Bangel and Spuffy fans alike...I'm getting Buffy back together with Riley so you can all be equally mad together.'
He then spoils it by saying he's not actually going to do that. Shame.
So, ostensibly a Giles issue, but rather dull in that respect. The Buffy/Dawn/Hank stuff is far more interesting.
I do wonder if there's a connection between Willow's job with Theo Daniels' start-up and Hank returning to the US because he wants to get in on a tech startup. It seems a bit of a coincidence.
On the other hand, I hope this is the last we've seen of Hank. Dull character in the show - his best use was in Nightmares in season 1 - and dull in the comic.
A bit meh! really. But not awful.
Spoilery thoughts behind cut.
This issue read as mostly filler to me. Not entirely, because one scene is a meeting between Buffy, Dawn and their deadbeat dad, Hank, which I thought was quite good.
As far as I can see, it's there to contrast Hank's treatment of Buffy with Giles's.
In brief, Hank is getting remarried. His wife to be, Paige, has two children of her own, younger than Buffy and Dawn. Paige has encouraged Hank to see more of Buffy and Dawn (it wasn't even his own idea to call them and invite them out for lunch, it seems), but she doesn't want Buffy at the wedding, because she's seen her on TV, knows what she does, and thinks she's too dangerous to have near her kids. Dawn, on the other hand, is welcome to come to the wedding.
As might be expected, Dawn is furious on Buffy's behalf and tells Hank she doesn't want to see him any more. Later, she tells Buffy that after Joyce died, Buffy was pretty much her parents. Buffy responds that she's glad Dawn didn't tell her that at the time, as she would have been scared stiff.
Both scenes are well written, I think, but I can't believe that Buffy didn't know she was in loco parentis to Dawn, from that painful scene in Forever where she's folding tea towels onwards. Also, that Buffy can't help agreeing with Hank that she's too dangerous to risk being near Paige's kids - while it might well be something Buffy would think since she has a tendency to blame herself for stuff (she cites the people she feels have died because of her - Anya, Tara, Jenny Calendar, Giles (seemingly forgetting that Angel was responsible for the last two, and that Anya made her own choices in Chosen)) - strikes me as very anvil-ly. Part of the whole Buffy longing for a normal life even though she's made a choice not to try and have one/mortal+immortal relationships don't work schtick that Gage has going this season.
As for the Giles stuff, it all seemed a bit pointless to me. He gets aged up, has sex with Olivia, then finds no one else needs him to be an adult. They know what they're doing and can just get on with it. In the end, the only real purpose Adult!Giles serves is so that Buffy can cry all over him at the end (because of what Hank said) and tell him he's her real father, which Giles is clearly very pleased about.
Nice, I guess, though at odds with the show, where Giles - though he did have fatherly feelings towards Buffy - always tried not to give in to them too much because he wanted her to stand on her own two feet etc etc. Still, I suppose you could say that now that she clearly can stand on her own two feet and doesn't need him to be her dad, it's okay for him to be it.
For a day, anyway. He'll be a kid again the next day (which makes him having sex with Olivia everso slightly icky, given that it seems they both know that's what's going to happen), and the whole exercise rather pointless.
Spike is absent throughout 'on a police case.' Nice to know he's off doing something positive.
There's a funny answer to a letter on the letters page, not liking Spuffy and wanting Bangel instead.
'If there's one thing I've learned in my short tenure as the Buffy editor,' says Jim Gibbons, who is apparently leaving too, 'it's that there's no way to make every fan happy- especially when it comes to Buffy's romantic life. So, in the interest of being fair to Bangel and Spuffy fans alike...I'm getting Buffy back together with Riley so you can all be equally mad together.'
He then spoils it by saying he's not actually going to do that. Shame.
So, ostensibly a Giles issue, but rather dull in that respect. The Buffy/Dawn/Hank stuff is far more interesting.
I do wonder if there's a connection between Willow's job with Theo Daniels' start-up and Hank returning to the US because he wants to get in on a tech startup. It seems a bit of a coincidence.
On the other hand, I hope this is the last we've seen of Hank. Dull character in the show - his best use was in Nightmares in season 1 - and dull in the comic.
A bit meh! really. But not awful.