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3.9 The Wish

Giles: "Yes, I am aware that there's a great deal of demonic activity in Cleveland."

I was not thrilled when I saw the teaser for this episode last week because I absolutely hate takeoffs of (1) "It's a Wonderful Life" and (2) "A Christmas Carol" and this one looked very much like the former. That's what I thought we were getting -- but I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. What we got was a truly cool parallel universe "Mirror Mirror" type episode that had me going right until the end. Of course, we knew we'd return to the "real" Buffyverse, but this episode still took me places that surprised me.

The beginning was rather cool, and (going with the mirror metaphor) reflected back to the first year of the show, when Cordelia was too cool to have anything to do with the Slayerettes, and Buffy hung out with just Xander and Willow all the time. But there was a strong difference from the way they were two years ago; they have all three lost at love in a big way. At least Xander and Willow have realized what a mistake they made, three weeks later than the rest of us have. I actually felt some pangs during that Oz/Willow scene by the lockers.

Cordelia certainly has the motivation to wish ill of her former friends; she has gotten impaled, has lost her boyfriend and her popularity, and has literally and figuratively landed on the garbage heap. But I was impressed that the plot didn't go that way at all; that scene with Cordelia burning photos of the gang at the beginning was a great fake-out. It made us think that Cordelia would be vicious and vengeful enough to invoke spirits against them, when in fact all she did is make a perfectly natural comment to someone she thought was a friend.

Loved Buffy in grungies, literally spit polishing her boots. Loved Xander and Willow basically doing Spike and Dru. But what made my toes curl was Willow, in that outfit, licking Angel's cheek. Wow. And Willow and Xander feeding on Cordy, while caressing each other. Wow again. Pretty sexy. Or am I twisted? What a turn on.

The bloodsucking assembly line bothered me (I don't know why; grue doesn't usually, not on this show). But what bothered me more was watching Angel being tortured. And dying. And even worse -- Oz killing Willow! By the end, I wasn't at all surprised at having the Master kill Buffy. It was inevitable.

I really thought that this episode would leave me cold, but instead it hit all of my buttons and showed us a totally black version of Sunnydale. As if Sunnydale isn't black enough. This season of BtVS has been terrific. Does a good show always hit its stride during its third year? Maybe not, but BtVS certainly has.

Quotes:

Xander: "And they burst in, rescuing us, without even knocking? I mean, this is really all their fault."
Buffy: "Your logic does not resemble our Earth logic."

Cordelia: "But Harmony..."
Anya: "Oh, she follows me around. If that girl had an original thought, her head would explode."

Cordelia: "She was, like, a good fairy. A scary, veiny good fairy."

Oz: "So Cordelia wished for something? Well, if it was a long, healthy life, she should get her money back."

Looks like we're getting that takeoff of "A Christmas Carol" next week, with poor, long-suffering, and terminally cute Angel in the Scrooge role. Let's hope they do as well with it as they did with this one.

Let's give this one a four out of four just for Alyson Hannigan's evil Willow. Wow again.

Billie





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