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Buffyverse Post
Aug. 27th, 2015 05:29 pmFor me, the moment I became a Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan was Becoming, specifically Part 2. Part 1 is great too, and has arguably the most unexpected and draining cliffhanger in the series history, (now what?) but Part 2 was epic for me in a way television never had been before. Buffy sending Angel to Hell even after realizing he got his soul back kills me every time, as does the Sarah MacLachlan song. As the Mutant Enemy monster says "Oooh, I need a hug."
It is outrageous to me that whenever people do a "Best of" list for Buffy, Becoming almost never makes it. As great as Hush, The Body, The Gift, and Once More With Feeling are, NONE of them moved me the way Becoming did. It is the quintessential Buffyverse episode. Frankly, I think it is one of the finest pieces of television ever produced.
Do you know what scene I love? Where Buffy disgustedly tells her mother to go have another drink and Joyce smashes her glass and says "Don't you DARE talk to me that way!" It was SO unexpected, because if the exact same scene had happened on 90210, the mom would have said with a dazed look on her face "I think that's a good idea." It would have been played for laughs. Instead you realize Joyce is RIGHT, and that Buffy is the kind of person who always thinks she's better than somebody else. But she shouldn't get away with that with her own mother. She DOESN'T have any right to speak to her that way, and for a show that always showed adults as malevolent in the first three seasons, it's really cool that the show subverted that dynamic in that moment. It was the last thing I expected to happen, which is why it was so great.
I love both parts of Becoming. It does NOT get the props it deserves from Buffy fandom. It put the show on the map, but the "fans" seem to prefer the gimmick episodes. But nothing touches Becoming.
It is outrageous to me that whenever people do a "Best of" list for Buffy, Becoming almost never makes it. As great as Hush, The Body, The Gift, and Once More With Feeling are, NONE of them moved me the way Becoming did. It is the quintessential Buffyverse episode. Frankly, I think it is one of the finest pieces of television ever produced.
Do you know what scene I love? Where Buffy disgustedly tells her mother to go have another drink and Joyce smashes her glass and says "Don't you DARE talk to me that way!" It was SO unexpected, because if the exact same scene had happened on 90210, the mom would have said with a dazed look on her face "I think that's a good idea." It would have been played for laughs. Instead you realize Joyce is RIGHT, and that Buffy is the kind of person who always thinks she's better than somebody else. But she shouldn't get away with that with her own mother. She DOESN'T have any right to speak to her that way, and for a show that always showed adults as malevolent in the first three seasons, it's really cool that the show subverted that dynamic in that moment. It was the last thing I expected to happen, which is why it was so great.
I love both parts of Becoming. It does NOT get the props it deserves from Buffy fandom. It put the show on the map, but the "fans" seem to prefer the gimmick episodes. But nothing touches Becoming.
