Buffy The Vampire Slayer, "Life Serial" Review (6x05)

Brief Synopsis: “Buffy decides that in order to pay her mounting bills and take care of Dawn she must go back to college and find herself a job. These new ventures are made much more difficult when ‘The Trio’ decide to test the Slayer with a series of challenges to determine the extent of her abilities.”


"Flooded" (6x04) quick link here                                                                                                                       "All The Way" (6x06) quick link here

Two quick notes before we get started...

1) This review will almost definitely contain spoilers for episodes after this one.

2) If you enjoy my reviews, please subscribe to the blog! Over on the right-hand side there's a little box that says "Follow Shangel's Reviews by Email!". If you put your Email address in there and click "Submit", then confirm your subscription, you will get each review sent straight to your inbox! No junk mail, no bullshit, just my reviews.

With that being said, let’s get started, shall we?



Jeez, season six is depressing! Let’s have a little look at the entire season thus far, shall we? Buffy was dead, everyone was miserable, Giles left Sunnydale, Buffy was resurrected, Buffy was disoriented and attempted suicide, a demon haunted and possessed the Scoobies, Buffy confided to Spike that she was In Heaven, and now Buffy’s battling financial issues (and couldn’t even get a loan after saving the loan agent’s life!), and everyone is awkward and conflicted...swell. However, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THIS SEASON SHOULD BE! It’s horrible to watch the Scoobies suffer, especially Buffy with her current circumstances, but it would be a disservice to “The Gift” if Buffy was magically okay. What the sixth season of the show is offering us is great storytelling. Buffy was torn out of Heaven! Buffy was dragged out of the afterlife she’d earned! Buffy was forced to punch and claw her way out of her own coffin back into a life she was ready to leave behind! She shouldn’t be happy and well adjusted for a long time and nor is she. It’s not until the season finale that Buffy sorts her head out. That’s nine months later. Far too many shows create a huge, dramatic, game-changing moment and then resolve the issue within two or three episodes in the next season because they want the audience to go back to the comfortable status quo that they love. It makes sense to give the audience what they want to a certain extent, but it’s at the expense of character development and long-term, overarching stories more often than not.

Season six of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” is the most realistic look at depression and the most realistic look at that juvenile-to-adult stage of people’s lives that I’ve ever encountered. This is because most shows don’t have the guts to take their leading characters and make them dislikeable or have them making highly questionable decisions over a long-term period. How many times does Buffy fuck up this season? How many times does Willow? Xander? Dawn? It’s a very risky move to do this, but in this instance everything turned out perfectly. When you think of “The Gift”, when you think of death being Buffy’s gift and her journey over the first five seasons, season six needed to be dark and depressing for Buffy Summers. Like most people in real life, the darkest years of Buffy’s journey are the years when she’s forced into growing up the most. While this season is incredibly draining and makes you want to curl up in a ball and sob for 22 episodes, it’s also extremely satisfying and refreshing. Even semi-comedic and feel-good episodes like “Once More With Feeling” and “Tabula Rasa” are shrouded in misery towards the end. This season never lets up on the heartache and nor do I think it should...and this segues perfectly into “Life Serial”. On the surface, one could deem “Life Serial” to be a comedic episode and to a certain extent it is. However, there are a few more harrowing details to the episode if you look for them. The first of which is Buffy giving up so easily and resorting to alcohol to try to numb her pain. She’s trying to mask the trauma, the stress, and the agony, instead of actively dealing with it. Second of which is The Trio, who don’t give the slightest of shits as to what their tests are doing to Buffy, they only care that they’re having fun and feeling powerful. Ultimately, what makes this episode work is the perfect blend of comedy and dark undertones. 

The episode opens with Buffy returning to Sunnydale after meeting Angel off-screen (curse you, UPN and The WB!). When Dawn inquires as to how the rendezvous went, Buffy swiftly brushes her off and changes the subject, which is very telling behaviour. This transitions to Giles asking Buffy about her life plans now that she’s back and Buffy also tries to brush this aside as well, but Giles won’t allow it. He’s trying to determine whether or not Buffy is going to take control of her life and make a plan of action because it would help reassure him that Buffy isn’t completely broken after her resurrection. He’s searching for some spark of motivation or positivity from Buffy and he’s not finding it. When Buffy tries to talk about her plans to pay the bills, Giles emphatically tells Buffy that he means plans with her life. What’s the next step for her? Buffy doesn’t know how to answer this and even when forced into doing so, she can’t commit to anything without seeking approval from Giles...

Buffy: “Oh, life plans. Umm...well...I have no idea. I guess, well, I left school, you know, when Mom got sick, but I always figured I’d go back and then she...umm, so I was thinking about re-enrolling, but I missed the registration cut-off...busy being dead and all.”
Willow: “Well, if it’s too late for late registration and too early for early, you can always come to classes with Tara and me?”
Tara: “Right. You can audit for the rest of the semester until registration.”
Buffy: “...Audit. I guess I could do that...yeah, that sounds like a good plan. What do you think, Giles?”

Watch Giles’ face after Buffy looks to him for guidance. He looks so dejected and conflicted. On the one hand, he wants to coddle and help his surrogate daughter and support her the best he can. On the other hand, he knows that if Buffy is ever going to survive this ordeal, she needs to learn to stand on her own two feet and make her own decisions. Simply, Buffy has to be an adult for a while without supervision and stabilising wheels. All of these moments add to Giles’ decision to leave Sunnydale again at the conclusion of “Tabula Rasa”. Also, notice that Willow is overly cheery and helpful in this scene. I believe that this is because she’s trying to prove to Giles that Buffy is okay after her argument with him in the last episode (“Flooded”), where Giles scolded Willow for being immature and dangerous, before calling her a “rank, arrogant amateur”. Historically, Buffy going to Giles for guidance or help was expected and a completely normal thing to do and it still is to some degree, but Giles knows that Buffy has to take control of her life to heal. With her mother gone and a house and younger sister to look after – plus that pesky depression – Buffy has to take charge of her life and grab the bull by the horns. Problems start to arise after Giles leaves because he doesn’t realise just how difficult it is for Buffy to take control of her life and face her depression and trauma, which makes sense. How many of us have had problems that took years to resolve? Whether it was depression, self-harming, self-destructive behaviour patterns, addiction, or something else? Often it takes months or years to break these cycles and heal...why should Buffy be any different? Especially when you consider that she was in Heaven and happy, only for it to be stolen away from her when her friends brought her back to Earth inside her coffin.

Let’s take a moment to talk about The Trio. The last episode, “Flooded”, was their introduction to the Buffyverse as a team, but this is their crowning episode. Between Jane Espenson (and David Fury)’s always top notch dialogue and the brutally accurate portrayals by Danny, Tom, and Adam, The Trio come across as startlingly realistic nerds who are incredibly bored. They’re very passionate about sci-fi and the entertainment genre, they bicker about everything, and they talk condescendingly to each other almost exclusively. For example, take the scene where Andrew has painted the Death Star onto the side of their black van. You would think that they’d want to remain inconspicuous while tracking the Slayer and not draw attention to themselves, but Andrew is more interested in making their van look badass...which it does, to be fair. Almost immediately, Andrew and Jonathan start arguing over the design of the Death Star. Andrew wasn’t content to just paint a Death Star, he wanted the never finished “Return Of The Jedi” version. Now, I’m a self-confessed nerd. I love sci-fi, I love comics, I’m very passionate about television (have you noticed?), I frequently attend conventions, and I fit easily into the geek culture that’s rife throughout the world at the moment. It’s never been cooler or more socially accepted to be a geek or a nerd. It was only a decade ago that I was being bullied at school for dressing a certain way and liking certain things that everybody seems to be doing now. Watching The Trio bicker about the best James Bond actor or argue over the Death Star is so accurate to real life and conversations that I’ve had with my friends that I feel as though the show should pay me royalties. However, their behaviour quickly transitions to something darker when they start experimenting on Buffy. The Trio are bored. They want excitement, adventure, power, control, and respect...at all costs. So what if they’re messing with Buffy and ruining her chances of an education or a career? Jonathan in particular was surprising because he’s always liked and respected Buffy. He presented her with the ‘Class Protector’ award in “The Prom”! Now here he is trying to damage her life. Buffy is nothing more than a fantasy and an object to them. She’s a ball of lust and desire in human form, merely an entity to study and observe. They don’t care that she desperately needs money or motivation in life and the ‘not caring’ aspect of this is what’s disturbing. How far are they willing to go in their quest for power and excitement? When will this turn to rape and murder?

In complete contrast to The Trio’s enthusiasm and giddy joy, Buffy is feeling lost, out of place, directionless, and depressed. Let’s not forget, Buffy has been the Slayer since she was fifteen. She’s never had to live an ordinary life. She’s never had to worry about bills, expenses, or having a regular job. Her life has revolved around protecting Sunnydale and the world from vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness. Therefore, Buffy has limited work skills. She can’t put “slayed vampires professionally for six years” on her résumé and it’s the only job she’s had. As we discovered in “Flooded”, Buffy is damn near broke and needs money flowing in to pay her bills and keep Dawn in clothes and, you know, alive. So how is Buffy supposed to accomplish this task? What else is she good at? Buffy has two things working for her: super-strength and friends that have their own business. These are the two job ventures that Buffy experiments with in this episode. Before both of those, we have Buffy’s attempt at returning to college. Even before The Trio started messing with her, she was lost. When you’ve been out of the education loop for a while, it can be daunting and time consuming to get back into the swing of things. I took four years out between finishing college and starting my degree (a period of my life I’ve labelled “the depression era”) and when I started my first university module, it took a good few months to get used to education again. When you couple this with The Trio (Warren’s test) making time go wonky for Buffy, you can understand why she’s not keen to return to college again. Buffy’s not mentally stable enough right now to deal with college.

Buffy (about Giles): “Well, he implied that maybe it was stress related. Like I was imagining it or something. I don’t know...maybe, I guess, I could have been blacking out, but there was this thing on my sweater, you know? And then it just blew away or went ‘poof’. Maybe it was lint. Maybe it was evil lint.”
Xander: “Okay, first tip of the day. When I introduce you to Tony the foreman, you might wanna leave out stuff about blacking out and evil lint.”

After failing to reconnect with education, Xander offers Buffy an opportunity to work with him at his construction firm. Within seconds it becomes apparent that Buffy doesn’t belong there either. Not because of the work. In fact, Buffy excels at the work. She’s stronger and faster than anybody else there. It’s because of the misogynistic, sexist assholes that Xander works with. I could feel my rage boiling over when they told Buffy to try not to break a nail. However, they quickly shut up when she lifted heavier beams than them by herself and out-worked them all. Boom! Take that, asshats. Everything was going surprisingly well for Buffy at this job until Andrew’s test kicked in and demons attacked Buffy at the construction site. Buffy was forced into pushing one of her colleagues out of the way and she was fired because of it (the demon bodies dissolved). Poor Buffy...it never goes well when her regular life and supernatural life collide. Gotta be honest, those demons were pretty lame.

Vince: “Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I know is you were losing it or something...that time of the month, huh?”
Buffy: “What?! You were huddled in the corner! Crying! Like a baby!”
--------------------------------------------
Buffy: “I didn’t imagine this, Xander.”
Xander: “I know. I believe you. In fact, I’m starting to think between this attack and the school thing that somebody’s messing with you.”

Apparently it’s better to defend your ego and get somebody fired than it is to openly admit to huddling in a corner and crying. That “time of the month” comment really pissed me off too. What I do like about the above exchange is that Xander instantly believes Buffy and supports her. As usual, Xander takes Buffy’s side. In season two, Angelus coined Xander as Buffy’s “white knight” and it couldn’t be truer. Xander is Buffy’s most loyal friend and he always has been for the most part. He went down into the sewers in “The Harvest”, risking his health and life, to protect Buffy and he’s been doing it ever since.

Buffy’s final stop on her tour of confusion and struggling is a morning working at The Magic Box with Anya and Giles. Even before the mummy hand loop, Buffy was bored to death (again...again) and wishing to be anywhere else in the world. As I mentioned before, Buffy’s not used to the mundane, 9-to-5 schedule of life that a lot of people are. She’s used to fighting, sudden attacks, patrolling, and a fast-paced lifestyle. The repetitive nature of retail and the way in which time drags on for her (again, before the spell) is torture for Buffy. After a few hours of this misery, Jonathan performs his spell using his ‘magic bone’ (which Warren keeps touching). Buffy is forced into a continuous loop with a customer looking for a mummy hand. Until Buffy can satisfy the customer, she’ll continue to live the endless cycle of conversation. This proceeds to give us an absolutely hilarious video montage of Buffy trying and trying to break out of this loop. My personal favourites are Buffy breaking down in tears and her yelling “you like slug, go with slug! She’s not gonna sleep with you anyway!” to a customer looking for a candle. After finally breaking the loop by offering to get a mummy hand shipped to the woman wherever she wants, Buffy quits her job at The Magic Box...can’t say I blame her. Notice that she’s not fired, she actively chooses to quit. Is this a metaphor for Buffy quitting her attempts to sort her life out? Like her entire life since returning, this day has been Hell for Buffy. Look how easily Buffy gives up on The Magic Box. Like Jonathan’s spell, Buffy is stuck in a loop. An endless cycle of misery, heartache, and despair. Of self-destructive behaviour and giving up on trying to be stable. This ends up becoming Buffy’s overall thought process for the remainder of the season.

At the end of her rope and at a loss for how to move forwards, Buffy turns to the only other person she knows who’s as miserable and confused as she is...Spike. As I’ve mentioned before, Buffy and Spike’s friendship since Buffy’s resurrection has been a breath (ironic) of fresh air. Spike and Buffy understand each other on a much deeper level now because they’ve both shared such similar experiences. Spike doesn’t ask Buffy important questions or probe her for information. He supports her, understands her needs, and gives her advice. Buffy is trying to escape her life and Spike is the only person she knows who will allow her to do this. Again, this becomes a recurring theme for most of this season. Unlike the first five seasons, where Buffy drinking always had negative repercussions, Buffy gets pissed in Spike’s crypt and all that comes from it is a hilarious post-shot face from Buffy. Spike tells Buffy that she isn’t the type of girl to work a regular job, to clock in and out, and blend into regular everyday life. She’s a creature of darkness like him. She gets off on the fighting and the violence. Spike has been telling her this exact thing for over a year now, only this time it’s much easier to see that it’s true. Hell, Faith told Buffy as much in season three! Faith told Buffy that Slayers are built for fighting. It makes them hungry and horny. Buffy couldn’t rest over the summer between seasons four and five because she wanted to be out patrolling and ‘hunting’. Spike reiterating this point to Buffy is completely intentional because for the first time ever Buffy’s going to experiment with the darkness inside of her. She’s going to make questionable decisions, screw a soulless vampire, and try to numb the pain inside of her with alcohol. 

 

 
Spike: “You’re a creature of darkness, like me. Try on my world. See how good it feels.”
Buffy: “...Are there drinks in your world?”
------------------------------------------------
Buffy: “You play for kittens?!”
Spike: “So, who’s gonna advance me a tiny tabby, get me started? Come on, someone’s gotta stake me.”
Buffy: “I’ll do it!...What, you thought I was just gonna let that lay there?”

OH EM GEE! THE DEBUT OF CLEM! I LOVE THAT LOOSE-SKINNED BASTARD!

See how easily Buffy accepts Spike’s invitation to join his world? Historically, Buffy would have told him to go screw himself (slightly more politely I’d imagine), but this time around Buffy is content so long as there is alcohol. If nothing else, Buffy’s response tells us just how far she’s fallen since her resurrection. At the present moment, Buffy just wants to numb her pain with alcohol. To shut her thoughts out and the world surrounding her. However, as time rolls along, Buffy falls deeper and deeper into Spike’s dark world. She lies to her friends, has sex at The Bronze, and spends most of her free time skulking in the shadows with Spike. Spike is the only person she can stand to be around because he’s the only person she can be herself around right now. She can be miserable and depressed and he doesn’t worry. She doesn’t have to fake smiles or pretend that she was rescued from Hell. Spike’s the only one that can relate to her plight and he’s the only one that knows the truth about where she was. The problem is that there’s no easy solution to Buffy’s problems. Buffy needs a lot of time to process what she’s been through and she has a lot that she needs to resolve inside her own mind. Finding the will to live again should be and is a long-term process for her.

Warren: “Connery is Bond. He had style.”
Jonathan: “Yeah, but Roger Moore was funny.”
Warren: “‘Moonraker’? The gondola turns into a hovercraft? It’s retarded. Besides, the guy had, like, no edge.”
Andrew: “Dalton had edge. In ‘License To Kill’ he was a rogue agent. That’s edgy. And he was amazing in ‘The Living Daylights’.”
Jonathan: “Yeah, which was written for Roger Moore, not Timothy Dalton!”
Warren: “Okay, this is stupid! We’re wasting time. End of discussion...I mean, there’s a shot of, like, pigeons doing double-takes when the gondola blasted by! ‘Moonraker’ is inexcusable! Connery is the only actor of the bunch.”
Andrew: “Timothy Dalton should get an Oscar and beat Sean Connery over the head with it!”
Warren: “Okay, that’s it.”
*Warren and Andrew start fighting...badly*

Your next major villains after Glory, folks. Kinda pale in comparison from a threat standpoint, don’t they?...Or do they? The Trio tested the Slayer in this episode and they had a victory of sorts. They have new information about her, her strengths, her weaknesses, reflex and speed data, they have surveillance cameras setup around her...they’re slowly, very slowly, becoming a mild threat to her. This episode saw a transition from bored, uninspired nerds to the start of being credible villains. Well, only Warren is ever really credible, but you know what I mean. Plus, more important than anything else in this episode, The Trio have received the best gift of all...FREE CABLE PORN! WOOHOO! Although, it’s pretty weird that they’re all watching it together.

 
Moving away from The Trio’s budding erections and on to Buffy’s financial woes, a short-term solution presents itself through the ever-amazing father-figure in her life, Giles...

Giles: “It’s for you.”
Buffy: “A cheque?...This is too much. I can’t take it.”
Giles: “Well, tear it up then.”
Buffy: “No! I was just being polite. I’m taking the money. This is...this is great. This is more than great. I don’t really know how to say this, but it’s a little like having my Mom back.”
Giles: “In this scenario, I am your mother?”
Buffy: “Wanna be my shiftless absentee father?”
Giles: “Is there some sort of rakish uncle?”
Buffy: “I’m just saying...thank you. So much. I’m gonna show this to Dawn. She loves it when things get easy. I just wanna tell you that, umm, this makes me feel safe. Knowing you’re always gonna be here.”
*Giles gives Buffy a smile as she leaves the room, but it turns to a worried frown as she turns her back*

Let’s talk about how amazing Giles is. Giles is everything that Buffy’s biological father isn’t...loving, caring, supportive, proud, responsible. I cannot over-emphasise how much love I have for Giles in this moment. It’s funny that Giles, Spike, and Dawn, the only three characters that had nothing to do with Buffy’s resurrection, are the ones that are being the most supportive to Buffy. I still think that those freeloaders, Willow and Tara, should pay rent as well. Giles’ worried frown as Buffy turns her back on him is telling. It’s sowing the seeds of Giles’ second departure at the conclusion of “Tabula Rasa”. Giles has realised in this moment that Buffy will never heal while he remains in Sunnydale because she won’t have to. He loves her too much to see her suffer, so he’ll always come through and fix everything for her. He’ll sort through her bills, get her out of financial trouble, and keep her from having to confront the horrors inside her own mind that she needs to confront to ever be happy and healthy again. As Quentin once told him, he has a father’s love for his Slayer and because of this fatherly affection, he’ll never allow Buffy to be hurt, which means he’ll inadvertently never allow Buffy to heal. Giles knows that Buffy needs to stand on her own two feet and take control of her life. She needs to be able to handle adult responsibilities by herself, especially after everything she’s been through recently. Buffy needs to find her power and strength again and she’ll never do that when she has Giles to rely upon whenever she needs to. Again I must say, HOW AMAZINGLY IS THE SUBTLE, LONG-TERM STORYTELLING HANDLED ON THIS SHOW?! The first couple of seasons of the show were great, but the one thing that was missing from them was smaller, more subtle character arcs and stories. Seasons five and six in particular have been amazing at this type of storytelling. It’s a very rare art form.


Quote Of The Episode

Jonathan: “I need you to hold hands.”

Andrew: “With each other?”

Warren: “You know what homophobia really means about you, don’t you?”

*Warren picks up a bone off the floor and points it at Andrew*

Jonathan: “Stop touching my magic bone!”

*Warren and Andrew burst into hysterical laughter*

FINAL SCORE: 7/10

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

If you've enjoyed this review, please use the conveniently placed buttons just below to share it on Blogger, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, or email it to a friend! It is greatly appreciated!