Normal Again

POSTED BY: Gorramreavers
UPDATED: Monday, May 9, 2005 21:40
VIEWED: 10435
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GORRAMREAVERS

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 9:05 PM

Did anyone else have a really hard time with this episode? I was going thru my S6 DVD's fairly quickly and got to this episode (after Hells Bells that I loved) and remembered that the last time I watched it (the only time) I got so removed from the Buffyverse that I didnt watch for a month. What do you guys think?

"..it is my very favorite gun."

BATMARLOWE

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 9:13 PM

I'm not a big season 6 fan so we may not see eye-to-eye on this episode. I thought it was one of the better ones from season 6. It wrapped up a little too quickly (it's awfully convenient that Tara shows up when she does) but other than that I thought it went into interesting territory. I liked the last shot especially. So no, no problems here.

GROUNDED

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 11:25 PM

It was one of the least horrific S6 episodes, as I recall.

STARPILOTGRAINGER

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 1:37 AM

I thought it wasn't bad, liked the playing with the idea that maybe it really always was a delusion.

Star Pilot Grainger
"Remember, the enemy's gate is down."
LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/newnumber6 (real)
http://www.livejournal.com/users/alternaljournal (fictional)
Unreachable Star: http://www.unreachablestar.net - Comics & SF News/Reviews/Opinions

EMBERS

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 2:19 AM

I found this episode REALLY difficult
partly because I had a sister who was in and out of mental hospitals,
so the imagry seemed very intense to me...

and I had a huge problem with the ending...
the way they left it that Buffy sank back into her psychosis
and her parents looked on in dispair

how heavy was that?
and does it negate everything in the show
(the way Dorothy waking from her coma negates The Wizard of Oz?)?
I definitely felt a bit like I was being jerked around....

STARPILOTGRAINGER

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 3:00 AM

I thought it was more of a nudge-nudge, wink wink type ending, that it _could_ have been a delusion, but I think it's pretty clear it wasn't - for one things, we only saw things in the mental hospital from Buffy's perspective, but we see things in Buffy's world from an omniscient perspective, and we see things that Buffy herself doesn't know.

Star Pilot Grainger
"Remember, the enemy's gate is down."
LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/newnumber6 (real)
http://www.livejournal.com/users/alternaljournal (fictional)
Unreachable Star: http://www.unreachablestar.net - Comics & SF News/Reviews/Opinions

DROCCULARI

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 4:52 AM

There are probably SPOILERS HERE.

This episode annoyed the hell out of me when I first saw it and it is still unsettling. Where’s the insight in pointing out that, in the “real world,” a girl who fervently believes she is a mystical warrior singled out from all other girls would, in fact, be insane? No kidding. It seemed a slap in the face to suggest we fans didn’t know this was a fantasy. We’d spent the last six years knowingly suspending just that disbelief in order to enjoy the incredible stories the writers were spinning out. There just had to be something more interesting going on.

The key to the episode, at least for me, is that the spell to reveal the other reality is cast by playing a didgeridoo. So maybe this has to do with something like the Australian Aborigine Dreamtime. Not in a deep schollarly way, but at least in a not superficial story telling way. The Wikipedia article on Dreamtime says in part:

The Dreamtime is the era before the Earth was created, and a time when everything was spirit and not physical. The Dreamtime still exists and can be accessed for spiritual purposes. Through the Dreamtime, it is possible to commune with spirits and decipher the meanings of omens and the causes of illness and other misfortune.

It was Buffy’s Mom, her ancestor, who gave her the insight she needed to choose her reality, the one where she could save her friends.

So, maybe there is another world where a tragic catatonic girl is cut off from reality, but in the Buffievirse, that’s the Dreamtime. It works for me.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 5:49 AM

I have mixed feelings about season 6. As a whole I think it fits in poorly with the story of Buffy. It is an irritating interruption departing from the fantastic story of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and attempting instead to show Buffy the manic depressive. On the other hand there was some exceptional writing in season 6 and this episode is one such example. The strength of this story is in the juxtaposition of the two worlds Buffy is presented as being between, one in which she is a catatonic mental patient and another in which she is the slayer. Although the story seems to suggest, mostly from the ending, that Buffy is actually a mental patient, the real answer lies in the doctor’s depiction of her presumed imaginary Slayer World as being one that is desirable. That is that her catatonia is driven by a need to seek shelter and a delusional narcissism in an imaginary world, and this may have been a plausible argument had it appeared in another season, but not this one. If Buffy seeks shelter and self-acknowledgement, why not return to a world in which her mother still lives, her parents are happily married and love her, and she is not burdened with the responsibly of being the slayer. Instead she chooses a world in which her mother is dead, she and her friends are suffering from problems both personal and external, and she finds no self-acknowledgement in being the slayer, but rather is driven to a manic depression presumptively as a result.

BLACKSHAMROCK5

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 3:43 PM

The only deep thoughts that I have is that I really liked this episode espescially compared to the rest of the season.

Shamrock

GORRAMREAVERS

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 4:49 PM

Thanks for the great responses. To me it did 'negate everything in the show' because when your into a fantasy type show like Buffy, it helps to lose yourself in the fantasy. I felt like I was ripped out of the Buffy mythos (right word?) and it took me a while to even try to get back into it.

I think the idea was brilliant and even the episode was good...I just had a hard time with it as a fan. Perhaps the fact (like others have stated) that it was during the hell of season 6 where every single character was having serious problems, made it harder to take. Might have gone smother if it was between say Pangs and Something Blue (funny ones).

"..it is my very favorite gun."

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