Tough Love

Tough Love
Written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner
Directed by David Grossman

Original Airdate: May 1, 2001

Plot: Buffy deals with school issues following her mother's death--both for herself and Dawn--and struggles with her new role as Dawn's guardian. Tara and Willow's first fight has disastrous consequences when Tara falls into the hands of Glory....

Review

Warning: I would recommend you complete all of your school assignments before reading this review. There are major SPOILERS just ahead for the latest episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Tough Love."

In short: I love it when episode titles take on new meaning during the course of an episode....

I have to admit that over the course of season five, I've not been overly impressed by Rebecca Rand Kirshner's first two offerings. Both of them were good scripts, but there weren't exactly spectacular. And having not ever seen an episode of Freeks and Geeks (the show Ms. Kershner joined the staff of Buffy from), I didn't have any previous works to compare her current work to. (Unlike Tim Minear on Angel who I know from watching Lois and Clark and X-Files) And so, a large part of me was really waiting, wondering just what it was about Ms. Krishna that so impressed Joss and company and to get her the writing assignment of Buffy.

Please don't get me wrong here. Her first two scripts showed glimmers of hope. In baseball terms, I'd say she got some solid base hits there--maybe even a double.

"Tough Love" showed for the first time just how good Ms. Krishner can be. It's not a home run, but I'd say it was a stand-up triple with a couple of runs batted in.

OK, enough with the baseball analogies.

There was so much about "Tough Love" that worked for me. It had two solid, integral components that tied together well and as I said in my summary, it had a title that took on shades of new meaning as the episode progressed.

Obviously, at first, I assumed the title was meant to refer to the fact that Dawn was going to require tough love from Buffy. We've seen Dawn's tendency since Joyce passed away to disregard any authority. Indeed, the whole Dawn's rebellion plotline began way back when she found out she was the key. The whole storyline with her has taken quite an interesting turn as we've seen her figure--I'm not real, so why bother in a number of different ways. There was Dawn's cutting herself, her stealing from Anya and now, we find, her skipping school, figuring that the Monks would place the knowledge in her brain if she survived (a really clever line and thought BTW).

And I liked seeing Buffy get to be on the other side of the fence for a chance. How many times did we see scenes with her in Principle Synder's office, facing the exact same issues. And it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that Joyce faced similar concerns that Buffy is now facing--namely having a daughter who has wonderful potential (we've seen that when Buffy has the time to put into her studies, she does well at it) but isn't living up to it, at least in the eyes of the school professionals. Indeed, seeing Buffy now being forced into the role of the parent and the "heavy" in the Summers house was very interesting.

I really liked seeing Buffy having concerns about caring for Dawn and turning to Giles for help. The scenes with Giles worked extremely well. I liked the fact that they weren't willing to take the easy out and just have Giles offer to care for Dawn and be the authority figure. Instead, we saw Giles forcing Buffy to step into her role as an adult and Dawn's guardian. But in that, he was still supportive. He didn't dismiss her out of hand, but lead her to realize that the responsibility is hers and she has to face it. Of course, I had a feeling early on that the school had made some threat about taking Dawn away if Buffy didn't get her back on track (this was one of the early themes of Party of Five--the idea of keeping the family together.) And to see Buffy finally lose it with Dawn at the dining room table was a nicely done scene.

And, of course, I originally assumed that when Buffy told Dawn that if she would be taken away, that it was a reference to Glory and her minions taking Dawn because she is the Key. It was only after a second, I realize that the school had threatened to legally take Dawn away from her.

I also liked how this storyline worked as the catalyst for the other storyline.

I've just finished reading a novel called, "The Sparrow" that details the story of humanity's first contact with an alien race in Alpha Centauri. An expedition is sent and the novel details how small decisions and little things eventually add up to a disaster on the mission. (If you've not read the novel, I highly recommend it...it's got some great characters and some challenging ideas). In a lot of ways, I felt the same way about Tough Love. We got to see how a chain of events was started by small things--decisions made in the best of intentions, but that lead to disastrous results.

Of course, I'm referring to the plotline of Willow and Tara.

I liked how a series of small comments lead to issues that lurked under the surface being drawn out in to the light of day. Willow and Tara's argument was nicely done and entirely believable. It wasn't the screaming angst type of argument that I see so often advertised on other shows, but instead was two people who love each other having a conflict. (Indeed as a friend of mine who is married once said, "We always love each other, we may not always like each other, but we always love each other.") I think that is what happened with Tara and Willow. Each side had legitimate issues and they talked about them. And there was an utter sense of coldness to Allyson Hannigans' delivery that sent chills through me in ways that a shouting match never could have done. The controlled anger that Hannigan gave Willow and the desperation of Tara at realizing everything she said kept digging the hole deeper and it looked like there was no good way to get out of it were a nice point and counter point. Both Hannigan and Amber Benson are to be commended for the nicely done fight scene.

The fight leads to both sides going separate ways--and Tara falling into Glory's hands.

I've enjoyed Clare Kramer's performances all year. She does a nice job being sinister. She is compellingly watchable in certain scenes though. The scene with Tara on the bench was utterly chilling--simply because Tara was in a public place but she was trapped. She couldn't scream out for the help she so desperately needed. At least until Willow showed up and tried to save her.

I'll admit a big part of me hoped Tara would escape unscathed. And that Willow's spell would work to save her. But a small part of me realized that it couldn't happen. And it opens some interesting questions for the long-term series--one is that will Tara ever return to normal? Another is one that came out of an old Doctor Who storyline. Basically, the villain invents a machine that sucks the evil out of a person's mind. Anyway, a person is subjected to it and all the evil is sucked out of him and he then becomes "innocent" Anyway, over the course of the story, we find out that he can counteract the machine and shut it down because he has no evil left in him. And watching Tara's fate at the hands of Glory, I wonder if Tara might now become some way to cancel out Glory's powers and if that would be of use to the Scooby gang in the weeks to come.

But I liked that the string of events didn't end there. Instead, we saw even further proof that actions taken out of good intentions can lead to horrific consequences. I loved seeing Willow's rage at Glory and her lashing out at Buffy about when exactly the best time to fight Glory would be. And I liked seeing Willow go to the Magic Box and prepare to take on Glory herself. And, at first, we saw she did some damage to Glory--or at least hurt her. I have a feeling things are being set-up for the final three episodes here and I hope that Willow's powers are part of the solution to stopping Glory.

Of course, all of these decisions, led to the ultimate horrifying consequence--Glory finding out who the Key was.

A part of me wondered at the events of the final few moments. I wondered if Glory allowed Tara to go and let Buffy and Willow go for her layer in order to follow them back to the Key. I assume Glory might feel that Tara in her state might reveal who the Key is (indeed, I wondered if Glory might not get that information just by feeding off Tara's mind). Which is why I a large part of me is a bit more willing to buy Glory's letting Buffy and Willow run out of the room as the battle concluded. (And if I were Glory, I'd get better minions...these guys are just about useless in a fight).

Of course, there has been a lot of stuff set-up for the final three episodes. Now that Glory knows who the Key, what will she do? And the biggest question--Glory is right there...how will Buffy keep her from getting the Key. I can't imagine Glory wouldn't try and take Dawn right then. After all, her minions aren't the best labor in the world...

Well, I guess that's about it for now, except for a few random observations...

--Anya's patriotism was nicely done.

--I love the give and take between Spike and Dawn. James Marsters and Michelle Trachtenberg have such a nice reporte. It's almost big-brotherly in a scary, vampire sort of way.

--I loved how Spike made Buffy realize that Willow would go to extreme measures to go after Glory. Even if she said she was OK.

--Where is Hank Summers?!? Surely somebody can get in contact with him. If he does know of Joyce's death and still hasn't bothered to call....well, I won't say what I'd call him...this is a family review.

Well, that's about it for now. All in all, "Tough Love" was a solid episode. It had all the elements of the best of Buffy and it did them all well.

My rating: 9.0 (out of 10.0)

Next up: A road-trip to protect the Key.....

"People used to burn witches..."

"And people used to worship gods...::fighting:::: times change."

--Glory & Buffy.