Part of me loves this episode, and part of me doesn't. There's obviously a lot of funny dialogue, and anybody who's had a roommate can relate to some of the more obvious 'issues' Buffy had with Kathy (the noise, the food, the obsessive rules and charts), but I always felt that the joke just got tired after a while. That fatigue definitely hit by the time the Scoobies tied Buffy up, thinking she had lost her mind. It was one of those completely out-of-character moments that Buffy rarely did, with characters doing something to service the story, rather than the story being modified to fit the characters.
Sarah Michelle Gellar is a great comedic actress. Her twitchy-eye movements were great, her chemistry with Dagney Kerr a lot of fun. It's strange that Gellar never parlayed her skills into film, or at least managed to sustain a film career. Maybe she is the raging nightmare she's rumored to be? But she's ridiculously funny here, from her mild frustrations at the beginning to her open passive aggression, and finally her all-out hatred. There were a lot of levels to her performance this week (even more than usual), and I liked it a lot.
One weird moment was the part where Oz joins Buffy on patrol. I think this was their first scene alone together, and you could kind of tell why it hasn't been done before. The dialogue felt a little awkward. Thinking about it, Oz with anybody but Willow feels a little awkward. There have been a couple of moments where he's been alone with Xander that were fine, but even then Oz seemed a little distant, like he doesn't want to actually be there. Hmm.
Living Conditions has a ton of memorable lines ("Nobody deserves mime, Buffy"; "Toenails? - evil toenails"), but the story becomes slightly monotonous around act three. The show did at least state that Buffy's insanity was caused by her soul being gradually sucked out, but practically everybody acted weirdly here. Meh. Fun, but lightweight. C+
Credits
Guest stars Dagney Kerr (Kathy Newman); Adam Kaufman (Parker Abrams)
Writer Marti Noxon Director David Grossman
Oddly enough, I think I would have prefered it if Kathy wasn't actually a demon. It felt a lot like Ted in that sense, with Buffy being driven up the wall by a new person in her life that just had to be demonic/robotic, despite everyone in both episodes not being able to see it. I like both episodes, though.
ReplyDeleteI do love how they used this episode to make Willow and Buffy roommates this year (and that ending is pretty great).
Really great reviews, as usual.
-tvfan332
Thanks so much for reading!
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you wrote. Both Living Conditions and Ted spent so long with Buffy determined to prove her enemies were demonic that it felt a little flat to have that turn out to be true. With that in mind, though, I liked that demon-Kathy was still sort of lame and annoying. Ted being a homicidal robot didn't work for me at all.