Homecoming

Homecoming
Written and Directed by David Greenwalt

Original Airdate: November 3, 1998

Plot: When Cordy pushes Buffy too far in her quest to becoming homecoming queen, Buffy enters the contest as well, dividing the loyalties of the Scooby gang. Meanwhile, Mr. Trick hosts SlayerFest 98 to rid himself of the two slayers in Sunnydale.

Review

Warning: If SPOILERS will make you declare a SlayerFest on me, please turn back now. There are major SPOILERS just ahead.

In short: It was fun, but I'll have to wait and see.

For me, watching "Homecoming" last night was like having chips and salsa at a restaurant. It's a good warm up for a great meal to come. Don't get me wrong--I really did like "Homecoming" but at this point I feel like I stopped the meal with only the chips and salsa and I'm feeling a bit disatisfied. I want more.

Because if anything "Homecoming" was a warm-up for what is surely to come in the rest of season three. We've had a few balls in the air all season long--such as Angel's return, Buffy's return to school, and the whole Mr. Trick coming to town issue. But in "Homecoming" we see Joss and company ante up to the table and while we can see a few more of the cards that will come into play this year, I have a feeling thta he's guarding a lot more closer to his vest.

Oh, to be pyschic. :-)

The biggest thing that bugged me about "Homecoming" was how many great plotlines we had going and how none of them got the screen time it needed or cried out for.

Let me start at the beginning. We have Buffy getting dumped by Scott, which I guess we could see coming a bit, but really did drop out of the blue. Not that I ever really thought Scott and Buffy had a lot of chemistry, but at times when they kissed it was like watching bricks collide. No passion between them at all. But when she told Angel she was seeing someone new, I figured a few scenes later Scott would break up with her. Imagine me surprise when it happened in the next scene. And while this was interesting, I wanted to see a bit more fall out. Getting dumped is never easy and I'd like to have seen Buffy deal with a bit more. I understand that her getting dumped like that and missing pictures meant that she would want to find a way to be noticed by running for queen, but if we'd just seen her maybe being a bit depressed about it, I'd have been happier.

I only hope this doesn't because a Sam and Diane type of deal where it's on again, off again. If it's over between she and Scott, leave it that way.

Of course, one evil thought that crossed my mind is who will Scott hang out with now? His two best friends died two weeks ago and he dumped Buffy. I'm not saying he doesn't have other friends, but his track record isn't looking so good....

Then, we had Buffy's continuing efforts to prove she belongs at Sunnydale. Personally, I felt that the idea of her favorite teacher not knowing who she was interesting enough to devote a lot more screen time than we got here. It was over and done with too quickly and I hoped for more. Maybe we'll see it come up again...

And at long last, we got our first glimpse of the mayor. And while this didn't answer a lot of questions, I don't think it was supposed to. I don't know about any of you, but he seemed a bit disappointed when he actually appeared on screen. I wondered if afor a while they weren't going to have him on screen, but not show his face to prolong the mystery. I am glad they decided against doing this, but I am going to have to reserve judgement on the mayor and his cronies for a few more weeks until I see how this all pans out.

But again, this plotline did bring up a few questions in my mind.

Has the mayor known Buffy is the Slayer this long? If so, has he taken action before now to stop her? He seems to be allying himself with Trick, which means he might be against Buffy. If so, does that mean he's been responsible for brining certain demons to town? On the other hand, if he is on Buffy's side then why is he allying himself with Trick? Will he double cross him? And why create an alliance there when he didn't create one with Spike and Dru?

Next up we had Xander finally "waking up and smelling the hotty." This plotline was quite well done from beginning to end. It was nice because so much was left unresolved and we get to see how it will develop. I loved the scenes at the dance with Xander and Willow refusing to make eye contact. Brendon and Hannigan were able to say a great deal without uttering a word. It was really, really well done and I can only hope that they continue a forward momvent with this plot instead of having them pine for each other.

Of course, you've got to wonder how this might affect Cordy since she is able to admit to herself that she loves Xander. I will be extremely interested to see how this grows and develops. At first, I was annoyed last night with Cordy's portrayal, but as I think about it more, it makes more sense. Namely because Cordy was back and forth so much from old Cordy to the new one I think we still see her struggling to fit itno the two worlds she inhabits. And seeing her conversation with Buffy was nicely done in the cabin.

And, of course, Cordy grabbing the spatula as a weapon and then actaully using it was one of the best, laugh out loud moments all year long.

But what we really came to see was the race for homecoming queen. And I can't really fault the story too much because it allowed some great character moments to come up. We see again the common theme of Buffy being not too happy with her life as the Chosen one and supposedly having her whole future mapped out for her and having to fit into a set of stereotypes. That was nicely done.

Also, seeing Cordy's obession with winning was good. The lengths both of them went to in order to win were nicely done. I can honestly say that I liked Cordy a lot more here than I have the rest of the season. I think we should keep seeing her grow but yet still be in a state of flux about her role.

The only part I didn't like was seeing the "surprise ending" which wasn't really that shocking. I figured in the end neither Cordy nor Buffy would win. But the ending was far too pat for me. I had hoped for more, but I'm not really sure what. At that point, it had built up to a point that I think I'd have been disappointed no matter what happened.

But as I said before since it gave us some good character moments, I can overlook that a bit.

The plotline I felt got the short end of the stick was the SlayerFest 98. I was interested in the plot and enjoyed what screen time we had, but I felt like it got the short end of the stick with all the other stuff going on. It was nice to see the Gorch brother back and the rest of the monsters seemed interesting. But I would have cared about them more if we got more time with them. They were just standard cliches and that got old as time went by. I honestly hoped for more here.

And as before, this plot brought up an interesting question for me. Does Mr. Trick consider Buffy more of a threat than Faith? I only offer this because it seemed Buffy is more controlled than Faith is. She is less ruled by her emotions and may, therefore, be a more lethal opponent for him. So, if he takes her out first, does he think it will be easier to take Faith out because she'll be in such a state of emotion? Whereas if he kills Faith first, it just ticks Buffy off and she uses that anger to defeat him? Just a few thoughts I had when thinking about this plotline.

Of course, this whole episode brought up a lot of issues. I think we'll have to wait and see how it all pans out in the upcoming weeks.

So, that's about it for now, except a few small things....

--The corsages as the homing devices was a bit too obvious to me.

--Angel's scene was a complete waste. Why did we have to see it? I know, those of you Angel fans out there will scream at me, but I didn't see the point with all the other stuff going on...

--What was that song that played while Buffy and Cordy are campainging? I liked it, but once again we didn't get to know who it was in the closing. Grr, argh!

Well, that's about it for now. I think this episode may jump a few notches in my rating once I see how the events brought up here begin to pan out as the season goes on. It was fun, but I am left with too many questions....

My rating: 7.0 (out of 10.0)

Next up: The adults in town are acting likes kids....

"Your brain isn't even connected to your mouth, is it?"

--Buffy