Act Three
41PPP) "Um, not to downplay my own slaying abilities, which in some circles are considered formidable..." WILLOW THE SLAYER: The first time Willow slayed a vampire was in What's My Line II (see 22Dx4), and over the past summer, she and the other Scoobies took over Buffy's job for her. See 35C.
41QQQ) "Look, if you're feeling any demonophobia..." WORDINESS: Believe it or not, "demonophobia" actually is the word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, for "fear of demons."
41RRR) "That's true." FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: Doug Petrie adds here in parentheses, "Not true," implying that he did indeed intend it so that Giles saw Willow and Xander making out.--"Revelations" by Doug Petrie, available through Pocketbooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season Three, Volume 2
41SSS) "The emotional Marathon Man?" POP CULTURE TIME: Marathon Man is a hit 1976 film, starring Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier, based on the book by William Goldman. imdb.com describes the plot as follows: "A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his globe trotting brother, his European girlfriend and a Nazi war criminal in hiding. Includes one of the most agonizing torture scenes ever portrayed. 'Is it safe?' You'll never see your dentist the same way again."
41TTT) "But lately, and please don't judge me on this, but I want you to be the first to know that, that...there's a demon behind you." COMMUNICATION: This episode does have a latent theme about the failure of certain characters to communicate, and the negative results that occur. Had Buffy told her friends about Angel, the events of this episode would have been very different, and by extension the ripple effects for the entire season. For example, Faith may not have stopped trusting Buffy. Without having Buffy to identify with, it might even be possible that Willow might have ended the flirtation with Xander sooner. Certainly, had Willow decided to communicate with Buffy here, instead of lying about the test booklet (see 41VVV), the events of the rest of the season might have turned out very differently. (The effects of this failure to communicate will occur in the next episode, Lovers' Walk--see 42Dx4) Likewise, had Buffy and Faith communicated at the end of the episode, had Buffy not allowed Faith to get away with not talking to her about how she was feeling, the events of the season might have turned out very differently (see 41Rx4). For more on the failure to communicate, see 41Bx4.
41UUU) She grabs the ax, pulls it from its sheath and swings it around as Lagos straightens back up. In one stroke Lagos is suddenly headless. FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: Doug Petrie is clear that in this scene, he is intentionally contrasting Buffy and Faith's fighting styles, and how Buffy remains the superior Slayer. At the start of this battle, he notes that Buffy "tries taking him [Lagos] on, Faith-style. Slugs him hard. Again. Again. He just keeps coming." This gung-ho, ultraviolent style is of course exactly how Faith was beaten earlier in the episode (see 41PP). Buffy, however, has the advantage of a more calm, creative mind than Faith's. Once she realizes that she's not going to beat him with brute force, she doesn't tire herself out as Faith did, but seizes the opportunity to steal his battle axe. As Petrie describes it, "No one's more surprised than Lagos when Buffy CUTS HIS HEAD OFF."--"Revelations" by Doug Petrie, available through Pocketbooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season Three, Volume 2
41VVV) "I opened my SAT test booklet five minutes early." EVIL TEST: When students take the S.A.T.s, they are strictly forbidden to open the examination booklet until the moderator said it is allowed. Anyone caught doing it beforehand could be instantly disqualified, because all students are supposed to have the same amount of time in which to answer the questions, and opening the booklet early is considered an unfair advantage over other students.
41WWW) Faith and Xander barge in... FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: Doug Petrie makes it clear that "Xander and Faith stride in, stepping in synch." This is very important, because it shows how equal each of the characters' determination at this point is to kill Angel, both for their different reasons, but both revolving around the concept that they were feel left out or lied to by Buffy.--"Revelations" by Doug Petrie, available through Pocketbooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season Three, Volume 2
41XXX) "I call crossbow." PRIVATE HARRIS: Xander has a determination and angry confidence here that we rarely see from him.
41YYY) "It's not Angel's style." SEEING CLEARLY: To give Xander credit, he does recognize that this attack on Giles was probably not the act of Angelus, which shows that he is not completely blinded by his anger or jealousy at this point. Faith however acts despite the fact that there is definitely reasonable doubt as to Angel's guilt. This leap before she looks approach will get her into immense trouble in the near future. Of course, Xander's doubts as to Angel's guilt do not keep him from denying them when he confronts Buffy. See 41ZZZ.
41ZZZ) "Your boyfriend's not as cured as you thought." LINKAGE: Xander's words here show impeccable character consistency with his words to Buffy at the end of Becoming II (see 34TTT). He perhaps partly hopes that Buffy will come to kill Angel herself (again). He soon relents from this stance, however when he admits to Buffy that he didn't believe Faith's conclusion himself. He was however the one to feed the information about Angel to her in the first place, and Buffy and Willow are rightly angered at him.
41Ax4) "Gwen Post." TWO FACED: Notice how the normally stiff and rigid Mrs. Post introduces herself here by the nickname, "Gwen," in order to present herself to Angel as more innocent and friendly, before she swoops in for the kill, so to speak.
Act Four
41Bx4) "You wanna bet?" FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: "What we have here is a failure to communicate. Then we have violence."--"Revelations" by Doug Petrie, available through Pocketbooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season Three, Volume 2
ANGEL AND FAITH: And thus starts one of the most fascinating relationships in the Buffyverse.
FAITH AND GWEN: Note how despite herself, Faith has come to care about Gwendolyn, although her main reason for attacking Angel so vehemently is probably not so much for Gwen herself but for what she represents: another female Watcher of hers who is in danger of being brutally killed by a vampire. She couldn't save the last one, so she's determined to save this one (see 37Nx4).
41Cx4) "You're confused, Twinkie." SPONGEY GOODNESS: "At the mansion Faith comes up with a new nickname for Buffy, 'Twinkie,' indicating she's soft. It's also the snack food Xander taught Ampata to stuff in her face in Inca Mummy Girl (see 16XX and 16YY)." The other time the word was mentioned on the show was in Out of Mind, Out of Sight, when Cordy referred to the "Twinkie Defense" (see 11J).--Cactus Watcher, Fri, 02/13/04 at 18:39:01, with additions by Rob
41Dx4) "Let me clear you up. Vampire. Slayer. Dead vampire." SLAYING IN BLACK AND WHITE: See 2LL and 7T.
41Ex4) Faith does a full spinning hook kick to Buffy's face. SLAYER VS. SLAYER: The first time Buffy and Faith almost fought was in Faith, Hope and Trick (see 37WWW). Here there first fight eerily foreshadows the events of the second half of the season, most particularly their Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader-esque battle in Graduation Day.
FROM
THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: Petrie
describes the fight between the two Slayers as "fast, brutal, and balletic."--"Revelations"
by Doug Petrie, available through Pocketbooks, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire
Slayer: The Script Book, Season Three, Volume 2
41Fx4)
Faith grabs him by the shirt and throws him into a lamppost. BETRAYAL:
Note how Faith so casually attacks Xander, even though he had been
on her side before. This foreshadows her shifting loyalties and how easily she
will attack before thinking. It is very telling that she doesn't only attack
Buffy here, but her friends as well. She is creating a situation where she truly
will be on her own.
41Gx4) ...Gwendolyn ignores them and rejoices in her newfound power. She turns to face the Slayers and extends the glove toward them. CHANGES: "What I like about Mrs. Post's ‘transformation’ is that there's no visible change in her. No demon-morphing or even eye-color change; she still looks like a normal Englishwoman in a proper skirt & blouse...w/a big, ugly, powerful glove engulfing one hand."--anom, Mon, 2/16/04 at 23:14:11
41Hx4) "There's nothing you can do to me now." BACKSTORY: "A rather interesting choice of words, which makes one wonder about Gwendolyn’s past and never examined motivation."--KdS, Fri, 02/20/04 at 09:41:40
41Ix4) It flies like a spinning blade at Gwendolyn and slices cleanly through her upper arm, severing it and the glove from her body. BUFFYVERSE METAPHYSICS: Note how Petrie is able to have Buffy defeat the Bad and remove the glove from Gwendolyn without breaking his own rules, similar to how Tolkien was able to destroy the One Ring without breaking his rule that no owner of the Ring would ever willingly give it up. Gollum's falling into the the cracks of Mt. Doom, due to being overcome with rapture for finally regaining the Ring, parallels Gwendolyn's joy over her claiming the Glove leading to her ruination.
41Jx4) Another bolt of lightning strikes through the skylight, and not having a target this time, hits Gwendolyn in the chest... CAUSE OF DEATH: "Another dead human on Buffy’s list, although there was no way for her to know that cutting the Glove of Gwendolyn would kill her."--KdS, Fri, 02/20/04 at 09:41:40 See 6OO.
41Kx4) "Boy, do I don't know." LANGUAGE PLAY: What a brilliant play on double negatives!
41Lx4) "Oddly enough, your boyfriend. Again." LINKAGE: The "again" refers back to the start of the episode, when Buffy's friends were discussing her fictional boyfriend, and she walked in on them, asked the same question, and received a similar response from Willow. This time, however, the existence of the boyfriend has been confirmed.
41Mx4) "...I leaned towards the postal." ...ALWAYS RINGS TWICE: See 34VV.
41Nx4) "She was, uh, kicked out by the council a couple of years ago for misuses of dark power. They swear there was a memo." THE ELUSIVE WATCHERS' COUNCIL: "After the Kendra fiasco the previous year, another example of the Council putting its side at risk by failure to communicate. This is one of the most textbook ways in which an information-handling organisation can go wrong, by coming to view information as a source of prestige and power to be jealously guarded in its own right rather than a resource and tool."--KdS, Fri, 02/20/04 at 09:41:40
41Ox4) "Police officers. My name's Friday, this is..." POP CULTURE TIME: "Dragnet, a seminal US police drama series on radio and TV, starring Jack Webb as the steadfast, incorruptible and ideal police detective Joe Friday. The use of the clip here is an ironic comment on an episode where virtually everyone is keeping secrets and allowing their personal feelings to cloud their judgement."--KdS, Fri, 02/20/04 at 09:41:40
"Friday's most famous quote is 'Just the facts, ma'am,' said to many a distraught witness who was (understandably) getting sidetracked into her personal feelings when what the detective needed to hear was facts that would help him solve the crime. Facts were hard to come by in this episode, mostly due to deliberate concealment (not usually the case on Dragnet)."--anom, Fri, 02/20/04 at 12:40:59
41Px4) "Yeah, it's real Spartan." FROM SPART: It's especially telling that, despite the revelation that Gwendolyn was evil, Faith retains the words she learned from her.
41Qx4) "*I'm* on my side, and that's enough." HOUSE OF CARDS: "It is this episode where Faith really slides into misanthropy, in a manner which can be understood given that virtually everyone – Buffy, Xander, Gwendolyn – has lied to or manipulated her (not to mention the Xander/Willow infidelity, which isn't exposed in this ep but adds to the theme). From now on we see a steadily increasing distance between her and the other Scoobies, until Buffy’s eventual attempt to build bridges with her again is cut off by the Finch disaster."--KdS, Fri, 02/20/04 at 09:41:40
41Rx4) "Nothing." LACK OF COMMUNICATION: See 41TTT.
LINKAGE: This scene will be deliberately reflected in the first season Angel episode, Sanctuary:
He turns and starts to leave.
Faith: "Angel."
Angel turns back: "Yeah"
We flash from Angel's face to a short scene of Faith attacking Angel all out with a butcher knife, cut to a shot of
Faith's face, lying on the bed, then back on Angel.
Faith: "Nothing."
Angel leaves.
It would be interesting to wonder if "in the Revelations scene, Faith...[might be] having a psychotic flash just like in the Sanctuary scene, imagining herself killing Buffy."--Rook, Fri, 02/13/04 at 17:28:15