Buffy The Vampire Slayer, "Tough Love" Review (5x19)

Brief Synopsis: “While Buffy tries to control a motherless Dawn and bring their lives back to some form of normalcy, Tara is captured by Glory, who is desperately trying to discover the identity of The Key.”


"Intervention" (5x18) quick link here                                                                                                                              "Spiral" (5x20) quick link here

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Time and time again this season, “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” has blown away my expectations. If we’re looking solely at my ‘final scores’, this season is currently second to only season three for consistency. Sure, season two has a stronger arc overall with a more memorable villain, but it also has episodes like “Inca Mummy Girl”, “Reptile Boy”, “Bad Eggs”, and “Go Fish” to contend with, while season five hasn’t had a single bad episode. We’ve had some average ones like “Shadow” and “Listening To Fear”, but they offered up enough memorable moments and character development to be considered pretty decent overall. Also, when you think about an entire season arc, can another season of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” compare to this one? It’s literally an entire season arc! From the first scene of “Buffy vs. Dracula”, with Buffy ‘hunting’, to the last scene of the season, with Buffy sacrificing herself to save the world, everything contained within this season is one giant story. More than that, some elements of this story - such as Buffy growing into her leadership role and realising that being the Slayer isn’t a burden all the time – bring Buffy’s first five seasons full-circle. Honestly, as much as I adore some of season six and seven, I would have been okay with “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” ending with “The Gift” from a storytelling point of view. Buffy arrives in Sunnydale as a young teenage girl, desperate to escape her responsibilities and destiny as the Slayer. By “The Gift”, Buffy has embraced this role, grown into a leader, and realises that her love for her friends, family, and the world is her gift and she sacrifices herself to save them...in a depressing sort of way it’s the perfect ending. However, I want a musical episode, Dark Willow, and “Conversations With Dead People”, so I’m glad the show continued.

“Tough Love” is just what this episode is all about. A part of the reason for this title is that Buffy has to give Dawn tough love in order to keep her by her side. With Joyce gone and Buffy distracted, Dawn is rebelling. She’s skipping school, arguing, and generally being an angsty teenager. However, the episode title goes deeper than that. “Tough Love” means the sacrifices that one has to make for the people we love. Buffy sacrifices her education in order to be around more for Dawn, while Willow sacrifices everything in order to try to get retribution and vengeance against Glory for brain-sucking Tara. Plus, Willow is willing to sacrifice her social life and future in order to look after a brain damaged Tara. Ugh, so many feels already.

The episode opens with Buffy dropping out of college in order to be there to support Dawn and to give herself time to settle into her new role of surrogate mother for Dawn. While this may not seem like a huge moment, it is. Buffy is losing yet another one of her ties to a normal, human life. For years and years Buffy has been struggling to find the line between Buffy Summers the girl and Buffy Summers the Slayer, but no matter how hard she tries, it always seems that she’s forced into being more Slayer than normal girl. Buffy tells her professor that she intends to rejoin the college in the next semester, which transpires in the next season’s “Life Serial”. By that time, Buffy is battling depression and has recently been torn back from her afterlife, so she has little motivation for college anymore and quickly leaves again. Buffy is simply doing what she has to here in order to survive. She’s stuck with being the Slayer, she’s stuck with looking after Dawn, but she isn’t stuck with the responsibility of college. Therefore, when it comes to a choice, the answer is relatively straightforward.

While Buffy is changing her future for Dawn’s benefit, Dawn is skipping school and getting into trouble...what a shock. Principal Stevens explains to Buffy that if Buffy isn’t capable of getting Dawn to go to school, Buffy may be stripped of the title as Dawn’s legal guardian and Dawn will either go into foster care or to live with her father...wherever that jackass is currently hiding. In a move that makes me giddy with happiness, Buffy’s first port of call is to turn to Giles for advice on the situation. Giles’ advice is that Buffy needs to put her foot down with Dawn. In a telling moment, Buffy asks Giles if he can put his foot down instead because he’s better at it than she is. This is a very important moment for the next season, when Giles decides to leave Sunnydale and Buffy behind him in order to give Buffy a chance to grow as an adult without the stabilising wheels. A lot of people despise Giles’ decision to leave, but it makes a great deal of sense if you study the ending of this season and the beginning of the next one. He probably should have waited a little while longer before leaving, but his reasoning for doing so makes perfect sense. It’s yet another example of, you guessed it, tough love.

Willow doesn’t understand why Buffy has to be so harsh and strict with Dawn, but Willow doesn’t have all the facts. She doesn’t know that Dawn might be taken away. The problem with this scenario is that Dawn is a teenager. Not only that, but a teenager who has recently lost her mother and discovered that she’s a six-month-old ball of green energy known as ‘The Key’. If Buffy restricts her too much, she’ll rebel, which is exactly what happens in the next season. Dawn doesn’t want Buffy to take over Joyce’s role as her mother, but Dawn isn’t old enough to realise that she needs someone to not only take care of her, but to guide her and keep her in line. Buffy tells Dawn that if Dawn doesn’t start going to school and making better choices, she might get taken away. God, how heartbreaking is that scene? In addition to losing their mother and all the drama involving Glory and The Key, Buffy and Dawn now have to worry about Dawn being taken away because she’s skipping school. Can Buffy ever catch a break? When it’s not the supernatural world and her slaying responsibilities pressing down on her, it’s real life problems like this one. Buffy and Dawn are clearly, visibly struggling to cope since Joyce’s death, but it’s only been about a month! Cut the ladies some slack!

Another point of note about the Buffy-Dawn situation is that Buffy realises it’s not just Dawn that needs to grow up and be more responsible, she does too. She has her teenage sister to look after now. She has to be a sister, a mother, and a father to Dawn. This is the same person that was sneaking into her bedroom window just three years earlier! Buffy has had to grow up so fast. It’s not surprise at all that it takes Buffy the better part of eighteen months to really settle into her role as protector of not just the world, but of Dawn as well. It’s worth mentioning again that Buffy asked for none of this. She didn’t ask to be the Slayer, she was chosen. It was forced upon her. She didn’t ask for her mother to die and that she’d be left to look after Dawn, it was forced upon her. Buffy is doing the best she can in the situation that she’s been forced into and she’s starting to crack under the pressure. Buffy cracking under the pressure will be addressed in a much more literal sense in two episodes time (“The Weight Of The World”).

Also, I’m dedicating a special paragraph to Willow’s adorable methods of helping Dawn with her homework...human triangles and calling Xander ‘obtuse’. Teaching: you’re doing it right.

Anya: “I’ve recently come to realise there’s more to me than just being human. I’m also an American.”
Giles: “I suppose you are, in a matter of speaking. You were born here. Your mortal self.”
Anya: “That’s right, foreigner.”
--------------------------
Anya: “Look at them, perusing the shelves, undressing the merchandise with their eyeballs...all ogle, no cash. It’s not just annoying, it’s un-American.”
Giles: “Yes, appalling. Almost as if they no longer think money can buy happiness.”
Anya: “Totally un-American. You know what else is un-American? French people.”
Willow: “You don’t say.”

On the other side of the coin to all this drama and heartache is the most stable, normal, loving relationship in the history of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” or “Angel”, Willow and Tara. Seriously, what other couple can boast a solid almost two years together before any major problems? The only ones that come close are Willow-Oz and Xander-Anya. Willow and Tara have a conversation about Buffy’s strict treatment of Dawn, and it quickly leads to Willow and Tara’s first real argument ever. Firstly, we have Willow’s problem, which is that she feels her opinion surrounding Joyce’s death and Buffy’s actions is unimportant because she’s never lost her mother. Tara has, Willow hasn’t, so Willow feels as though Tara slightly talks down to her about the situation because Willow can’t relate to what Buffy is going through. It’s a valid point to raise, but I don’t think it’s a major problem.

Tara’s two concerns are a much, much larger problem, and one of them will be the thorn in the side of their relationship right up until Tara’s death in the next season. Tara is scared of Willow’s quickly expanding powers as a witch and the fact that she’s over-reliant on magic. Tara tries to say that it ‘impresses’ her, but her Freudian slip lands on ‘frightens’, not ‘impresses’. It’s funny, when I first watched “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, I didn’t realise how powerful Willow was becoming and how quickly she was gaining this power. Once you’ve seen season six, this all makes sense, but at this time, I wasn’t convinced that Tara’s fears were legitimate...until later in this episode. Willow is messing with magic that is not only advanced, but that’s also dangerous. Look at the spell that Willow and Tara performed in “Blood Ties”. The spell was so powerful that it gave Willow headaches and nose bleeds for days afterwards. This scares Tara. However, a section of this fear is rooted in something else. Tara’s real fear is that she’s just a phase in Willow’s life, that Willow’s lesbian tendencies will fade and she’ll go back to liking boys. While I can empathise with Tara’s situation, what has Willow ever done to make Tara feel this way? Willow is completely out by this point! She’s told her parents, she’s told her friends, and she displays her lesbian relationship with Tara proudly. I feel this particular problem is more insecurity on Tara’s part than behaviour on Willow’s part. The magic aspect of their argument makes much more sense than this one. Willow has only ever loved one woman: Tara. Willow went through the awkward, painful process of coming out because of her love for Tara. Why would Tara think that it’s a phase? Is this because Tara’s family lied to her for years about her being part demon, so she has trouble trusting in people? That could certainly play a part. Willow storms out of their apartment and sarcastically tells Tara to have fun at the fair.

Buffy and Willow aren’t the only characters that are having to sacrifice in this episode. Due to sharing a body with Glory, Ben is fired from his job because he’s been no-showing at work and has been impossible to get a hold of. Much like Buffy and her slaying responsibilities, Ben didn’t ask for this. He didn’t ask for Glory to share his body with him. It was forced upon him. Not only does he wake up in dresses and in weird places with no idea of how he got there, but now he’s lost his career and the only thing that he’s ever really cared about because of Glory. The Ben-Glory relationship and dynamic is explored in much more detail in “The Weight Of The World”, so I’ll talk about this more then.

After the blunder that her monks made with identifying The Key in the last episode (“Intervention”), Glory is taking it upon herself to discover The Key’s identity. In the last episode, the monks saw that the Buffybot (who they thought was actually Buffy) treated Spike as precious, so they obviously thought that he was The Key. The instant they presented Spike in front of Glory, she could smell that he was a vampire and is therefore too impure to be The Key. She orders her monks to watch the Scoobies and tell her which of the Scoobies seems like the newest part of the group. This leads her to assuming that Tara is The Key. Glory tracks Tara down at the fair and wackiness ensues...

Glory thinking that Tara is The Key might be the most frightening moment of the season thus far. Tara is the most adorable Scooby. She doesn’t possess Willow’s magical power or Buffy’s super-strength, she doesn’t raise her voice or talk down to people, she just supports everyone and loves everyone. She’s the mother of the gang. Glory is easily the biggest threat that the Scoobies have ever faced, which is what makes this moment all the more frightening. When Glory tells Tara that if Tara screams or runs, she’ll kill everyone, she means it.  She’s capable of killing everyone at the fair and nobody has the power to stop her. She makes this point all the more clear by crushing Tara’s hand so hard that it bleeds profusely. Tara is powerless to stop Glory in anything that Glory wants to do. Glory licks the blood from Tara’s hand and realises that Tara isn’t The Key...does this mean that Dawn’s blood tastes different than normal humans? What a deeply disturbing thought. Does that mean it would smell different to Oz as well? WHY AM I THINKING ABOUT THESE THINGS?! When Glory starts to wiggle her fingers into Tara’s brain, I was so sure that Willow was going to get there in time and somehow stop Glory long enough for them to escape. I was wrong. Willow was too late. Tara’s brain has been sucked by Glory and every semblance of the person that she was before is now gone forever. Willow can never apologise for the argument or put Tara’s fears to rest about her turning straight again. She can never reassure Tara that she has her magic under control. Tara is gone.

Doctor: “Is she your sister?”
Willow: “She’s my everything.”

I think I’ve just been punched in the feels. My feels hurt. Willow reassures Buffy that she will not go after Glory, before quickly going after Glory. Meanwhile, Buffy takes Dawn to Spike’s crypt in case Glory is still on the war path. It’s great continuity that after the events of “Intervention”, Buffy trusts Spike around Dawn. When Spike didn’t give up Dawn’s identity to Glory, he earned Buffy’s trust a little. Remember, it was only five episodes ago that Buffy was shutting Spike out her house and her life forever. She’s learning to accept and appreciate Spike, regardless of the fact that he doesn’t have a soul. Spike’s an anomaly. He always has been. He was completely and utterly selfless in the last episode and he’s shown Buffy that he can do ‘good’ things.  Spike yet again proves that he’s the most perceptive character on the show when he tells Buffy that if it were him, he’d go after Glory. Remember after Oz left when everyone thought that Willow was slowly healing, but Spike knew that Willow was holding on by a thread? Remember when Angel and Buffy were playing at being ‘just friends’, but Spike saw straight through the charade? Spike knew here that Willow was going to go after Glory. If he didn’t tell Buffy this, Buffy would have been too late to save Willow and she’d have lost another friend. Plus, when Spike tells Buffy that if it had happened to someone he loved, he’d have gone after Glory, it was oddly beautiful, wasn’t it? The way he looks at Buffy in this moment is captivating. 

While Buffy runs off to find Willow, Spike also has some words of wisdom for Dawn...

Dawn: “Your bruises, your limp...that’s all me too. I’m like a lightning rod for pain and hurt and everyone around me suffers and dies. I...this stupid Key must be something so horrible to cause so much pain and evil.”
Spike: “Rot.”
Dawn: “What do you know?”
Spike: “I’m a vampire, I know something about evil. You’re not evil.”
Dawn: “Maybe I’m not evil. But I don’t think I can be good.”
Spike: “Well, I’m not good, and I’m alright.”

Firstly, how amazing is Michelle Trachtenberg in this scene? Everything that Dawn loves is being stripped away from her in a matter of months. She discovers that she’s not real, her mother dies, Tara has been brain-sucked, Willow is missing, and soon her sister passes away too. When you think about Dawn’s kleptomania and dramatic outbursts in the next season, think about this moment. Think about all she’s lost in such a short space of time. Think about the fact that she’s sixteen years old. She’s allowed to be angsty and troubled, she’s been through an absolute shitstorm of negativity and heartache. Dawn is blaming herself for everything that Glory does because she’s the Key that Glory is searching for. Spike’s cuts and bruises are there because he refused to tell Glory that Dawn was The Key. Tara is brain damaged and mentally gone forever because she refused to give up that Dawn is The Key. Of course this isn’t Dawn’s fault, but she’s suffering from survivor’s guilt. She blames herself because she’s safe, while the people around her are all suffering and dying. Spike does his best to comfort Dawn and he actually does a very good job of this, but nothing anyone says right now will reassure Dawn that it’s not all her fault.

Then, we reach the most startling, powerful, jaw-dropping scene of the episode. A scene that has been brewing since season two’s “Becoming Part Two”. We finally get to see all of Willow’s magical powers and ability. We get to see Willow channel all of her rage, all of her hatred, all of her frustrations, and turn them into powerful magic against Glory...and damn it is the result something special! I was just sat there with my jaw on the floor, trying to comprehend what I was watching. Willow, our little dungaree-wearing, fuzzy sweater-wearing, adorable Willow, is throwing knifes at Glory without using her hands. She’s shattering glass and causing some form of lightning strike. She’s materialising snakes out of nowhere to attack Glory. Not only is this a very satisfying moment after what Glory did to Tara, but it shows that Tara’s fears earlier in the episode were justified. Willow is growing very powerful, very fast, and she’s using magic in ways that it’s not intended to be used. She’s using magic to benefit herself and she’s using it as a means of revenge. This is almost a direct prelude to Dark Willow in the next season. In season six, Warren kills Tara, so Willow goes on the war path and uses magic to kill Warren. This is exactly what she’s trying to do here! The magic that Willow is using here isn’t pencil-floating magic or magic to create sunlight for Buffy to use while patrolling, this is dark, powerful magic. Her eyes have turned jet black while she’s channelling this magic and she starts levitating across the room! Holy fucking shit! Did Buffy really think that Willow wasn’t going to go after Glory? What if it was Dawn, Buffy? What if it had been Joyce? Equally as surprising as watching Willow levitate and use powerful magic is that it actually starts working. Willow hurts Glory. It doesn’t last long and it’s nothing severe, but Willow is the first person that we’ve ever witnessed so much as dent Glory. However, Willow’s dark power starts to fade fast and Glory gets the upper hand on the fight pretty quickly. Just as Glory is about to stab Willow, Buffy arrives and makes the save. She holds Glory back just long enough for Willow and herself to escape. While this particular battle is done, this is only the beginning of Willow’s battle with magic addiction and using magic to alter her life and the people around her in any way that she sees fit. Gone is the quiet, shy sidekick, and in her place is a powerful, commanding, albeit selfish, version of Willow.

Just when I thought this episode was winding down and that the drama was over, Glory breaks apart a section of the wall in Willow and Tara’s dorm room and tells Buffy that this isn’t over. Another fight is about to break out when Tara looks at Dawn and exclaims...

Tara: “Look at that! The light, it’s so pure...such pure green energy. It’s so beautiful.”

Glory realises that Dawn is The Key and the episode fades to black. Holy shit, talk about a cliffhanger! Just when everything was getting cute, just when Willow was willing to give up everything to look after Tara, the love of her life, regardless of the condition of Tara’s brain. Just when Willow had accepted the tough situation she’d been placed in because of her love for Tara, just when Buffy had accepted the tough situation she’d been placed in because of her love for Dawn, everything falls apart even more! Glory has been unstoppable thus far and she now knows that Dawn is The Key. This season is about to get very, very intense.


Quote Of The Episode

Xander: “Whatever you choose, you’ve got my support. Just think of me as...as your...you know, I’m searching for supportive things and I’m coming up all bras. So, something slightly more manly, think of me as that.”

FINAL SCORE: 7/10

What are your thoughts on "Tough Love"? Did you enjoy this episode? Dislike it? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments section below!

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