Back to the beginning...

[butterfly]

A lot of what they're doing this year is taking what they've done before and put a twist on it. Not just what they did in Year One, but also things from season 2-6.

More than that, there's a distance in this year... they're not high-schoolers anymore yet "everyone's all about the high-school".

Back to the beginning... with young girls learning how to fight. With being told they have to be alone, while seeing that togetherness is what kept Buffy alive, seeing that she has a friendly relationship with some demons. "Do as I say, not as I do" never works.

Back to the beginning... with a souled vampire. Only this vampire chose to get a soul. This vampire saw what he was capable of and wanted to change.

Back to the beginning... with vampires and love spells and a shifty Principal. Only this time around, Xander is the Giles about the love spell. Buffy is the Giles for the vampires. Willow is the Giles with the dark side. Giles was the gang's primary model of a grown-up. Joyce as well, but Joyce wasn't as... effective?

Buffy can't always save people... only this time, instead of not being able to save a personal friend, it's a girl that she doesn't know at the start of the episode.

Buffy and Xander are friends. He goes over for 'video night' and pizza. He calls the Summer's place "our house". She talks to him on the phone while she's at work and trusts him as her backup. She may not want his input about Spike, but she's never wanted his input about the guys she's dated.

Willow... Willow is still a little distant. She doesn't talk to Xander and her conversations with Buffy are less than satisfying. But as we've just found out, she's still in denial about Tara. Buffy couldn't tell that something bigger than classes were up when they talked on the phone in Selfless. Willow has been doing a lot of cover-up this year. She's still hiding.

We're still dealing with the fall-out from last year. Spike's entire character at the moment stems from him deciding that he wanted to be better... wanted to be unable of hurting Buffy again. Buffy is slowly getting back to being Buffy sans self-hate. Willow is still dealing (or not dealing) with Tara's death and Amy was still one bitter chick from her years as a rat. Xander is trying to get over the Anya thing and the just the normal guy thing. He still hasn't dealt with his family issues. Dawn is... Dawn is a teenager.

Comments

[silviakundera.livejournal.com]

Ooooo.... Nice. I think you're very right.

Re:

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

*preens*

Yes, well, I am amazingly brilliant.

[jic]

I'm partly amused and partly confused by the lack of response from Xander when Anya refered to him and Andrew as a pair of geeks.

More amused that she did it that that he didn't respond. But still, most people wouldn't just let that slide. Especially from an ex-girlfriend.

And Giles! With the people we don't know well enough to be taking such liberties!!