Buffy became a sensation at a time when Hollywood once again began paying attention to the young buck, filling movie theaters with teen movie after teen movie, all generally involving some high school hijinks, a Shakespearean metaphor of some kind, and Freddie Prinze Jr. Buffy easily folded into that era because it was funny, had knowing humor, had a star destined for the big-screen (at least for a little while) and threw teenage characters into an unusual, dangerous world of monsters and vampires. Homecoming, one of my favorite episodes, balances those teen movie aspects so well with routine Buffy violence, the first half a cake-walk in breezy, light-hearted high school comedy all about homecoming queens and school politics. Man, this episode is fun.Cordelia, often underused this season, is awesome here. She still has that character growth that she has been granted over the last year or so, but at heart she's once again that kind of vapid and ruthless high school goddess, desperate to become homecoming queen and get her hands on the tiara. At the same time, we have Buffy 'unleashing the prom queen within', attempting to be normal again and reclaiming her glory days of worshipped high school cheerleader. Their campaign scenes are hilarious, from Buffy's pause button-worthy board chart detailing the competition, to the various attempts to win over all the school cliques ("I've been doing the Vulcan mind grip since I was four!") And the scene featuring all the cast getting their yearbook photos taken was adorable, and totally on point.
There's also a character reasoning for all the funny, with Buffy desperate to be ordinary once more. She's trying to date the most normal guy around, she's trying to not allow Angel's return to completely distract her, she's studying hard, and she wants to be known as having achieved something that didn't involve saving the world or killing horrible demons. She just wants to be a girl again.
We also finally met the Mayor, a total nutcase with a fondness for absolute cleanliness. He's clearly evil. Then there's the charismatic Mr. Trick, one of the funnest villains the show has ever created. The idea of Slayerfest '98 was awesome, with a motley crue of various underground bad guys hunting down the slayers in a game of death and hunting. It all just worked so well, an indictment of David Greenwalt's impressive creativity.
The only sore point to Homecoming is the sudden appearance of Willow and Xander making out and being secretly into each other. I don't know if I had been missing the signs, but am I the only one to feel this was so casually dropped in that it becomes almost ridiculous? Maybe I'm just projecting my own feelings onto the story, those feelings generally summed up with a rapid 'ew!' These two are like siblings, seeing them being all makey-outey together is pretty damn hurl-worthy, and I don't know if I ever really bought it, either. Meh.
Homecoming is the first episode this season that truly utilizes every member of its cast, creating a funny, entertaining and undeniably kick-ass hour. And Giles is even funny now! I loved his joke about something terrible happening that needs everybody's attention. Heh. This episode is genius, and any script that allows the forever unheralded spatula a moment in the spotlight warrants heavy praise. A
Credits
Guest stars K. Todd Freeman (Mr. Trick); Jeremy Ratchford (Lyle Gorch); Fab Filippo (Scott Hope); Ian Abercrombie (Old Man); Harry Groener (Mayor Richard Wilkins III); Eliza Dushku (Faith)
Writer David Greenwalt Director David Greenwalt
I thought Xander & Willow went really well together! True, later in the series they have a more sibling-like relationship. But at this point, I thought the story worked well!
ReplyDeleteI also liked the Xander / Willow relationship. It’s pretty clear that Willow always had a thing for Xander, and I sometimes got the impression that the only reason that he didn’t reciprocate was because he was holding out for someone ‘cooler’ or ‘sexier’ (not, of course, to take anything away from the incredibly cool and sexy Alyson Hannigan). I think once they both had their settled relationships with ‘in’ people, and the status thing wasn’t so very important, it was kind of inevitable that they’d end up together.
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