When She Was Bad
Written and Directed by Joss Whedon
Original Airdate: September 15, 1997
Plot: The first episode of season two finds
Buffy returning to Sunnydale after spending some time with her dad in L.A.
Upon her return to the Hellmouth, she learns that the vampires, led by the Annointed One
are laying plans to revive the Master. Buffy is forced to confront her fears about the possible
return of the Master as well as her feelings of anger and hatred toward him.
Review
Warning: If seeing SPOILER information for the second season premiere of Buffy will put
you in a bad mood, then I suggest you embrace your inner Joan Collins and turn back now. There
are major SPOILERS ahead for When She Was Bad...
In short: A strong start.
Season premieres are a curious beast. They not only have to satisfy long time fans of the series, but
they also have to serve as a lure of sorts to bring in new viewers. It's a delicate balance and there are a lot
of shows out there that can't walk the line very well.
Buffy has shown it's one of the few shows that can.
Don't get me wrong here. I am not going to say When She Was Bad was perfect by any stretch. But it did some
things remarkably well.
One of the major things it did well was it really wrapped up season one in a nice, effective coda. After all
the major trauma of the season finale last year, including Buffy's death and resurrection at Xander's hands, you
have to wonder if these events didn't have just the slightest effect on our favorite slayer. And it's nice to
see that they did. Seeing Buffy try to alienate her friends and the rest of the Slayer gang, thinking she can
carry the load of being the slayer on her shoulder was a nicely done touch. I will admit that there were times
in the episode that I wanted to reach into the TV and slap her and say, "Wake up! Get over yourself!" but I didn't. :-)
That might have hurt.
A few such scenes that stuck out were Buffy's dance with Xander and her alienation of Angel. Several lines struck a
nerve and really made Buffy wholly unlikable in the storyline, such as "Don't you wish I would?" and "What did you expect to
just pine away all summer for you?" They were remarkably effective and made me wonder if at times Joss had decided to go
back to his original plan of having SMG play Cordy and Charima play Buffy. At times it seemed that way.
And I've got to admit that I loved the confronation between Cordy and Buffy. Cordy's line about embracing her inner
Joan Collins was probably one of the best scenes in the whole show. I like the way we had a bit of carryover of Cordy's
warming a bit toward the Scooby gang that we saw last year. Not that she's ready to open up to them wholeheartedly just
yet and admit that she could possible be friends with any of them, but it was nice. I also think it's interesting how
Cordy didn't really care about Giles and Willow being treated like dirt, but seemed concered and took to the defense when
it was Xander and Angel. Is Joss setting up some kind of weird Buffy, Cordy, Angel triangle? I hope not, unless it's done
really well. And even then, I'm not sure I'm in favor of it.
What I am in favor of is Sarah Michelle Gellar getting an Emmy nod for this performance. In a perfect world, I'd
be the only Emmy voter and while it would be a hard choice on who gets it--her or Gillian Anderson, I'd have to say she'd at
least get a nod. Why?
Because, quite honestly, she really showed some great acting here. It's hard to take a character who we all love and
make her thorougly unlikable. But yet in all of her moments of being a bitch, SMG made Buffy symapathetic. The one scene that
really struck me for this was in her bedroom with Angel. After basically telling him to leave and that she's over him completely,
we see her sigh and her body slump a bit, dispondently. You really get the idea of what's going on inside Buffy at that point--
a need to feel totally independent and keep her friends out of danger. Not to let anyone close for fear of losing them or
hurting them. That's a lot to have happening in just one short scene and SMG does it with flair.
And then, when she realizes what she's done, faced her fear at the end and then cries on Angel, it's wonderful. It's very
similar to the ending of His Girl Friday or one of my favorite X-Files eps, Irrestible. In that moment the
strong female character has triumphed over adversity and cries, realizing what has been done. The fears have been
confronted and faced down and tears of joy, sorrow, and anger are what come out. It's a moving scene and extremely well written and
directed by Joss.
But, SMG isn't the only one to praise. There is a lot of interesting stuff going on. First, we have the almost kiss by
Willow and Xander, Priniple Synder's discsussion with Giles, the possibility of a date, perhaps even a relationship between
Giles and Jenny, and much more introduced. It feels like Joss is using the season premiere as a lot of set up for stuff that will come
later in the season. Which is why when I get to my rating for this ep, it may be a bit lower than expected based on the glowing
praise I've heaped on it so far. I am going to reserve judgement too far until I see if and how these threads are developed this season.
My rating could go up or down based on what is to come this year...
About the only thing that really bugged me a great deal was how little time was given to the Master's possible resuurection
subplot. I felt that while we saw the definite impact on the story, I'd like to have seen a bit more of this. Also, there is
clearly a power vacuum brewing now that he's gone. Now what? What do the vamps do? Will another vampire or vampires step into the
leadership role? Or will Angel take a part in making them less horrible? (I, for one, hope not, having seen what happens
when a good villain is toned down or made less invincible on Star Trek: The Next Generation with the Borg) It's going to be interesting to
see. I will admit I loved the Annointed Ones last line, "I hate that girl." That one really got a chuckle out of me.
So, all in all, a nice season opener. As I said before, I am reserving a lot of judgement until I see how the rest of
season two plays out. But it's a strong note to start on and shows that Buffy clearly intends to build on its strengths from
last season. I have high hopes for season two...
Final score: 7.5 (out of 10.0)
Next up: A new evil comes to Sunnydale...and targets Cordy.
"Did you miss me?"
--Buffy
Review Copyright 1998 by Michael T. Hickerson. All Rights Reserved.
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