episodes we never mention
POSTED BY: sashasrm
UPDATED: Wednesday, August 2, 2006 19:10
VIEWED: 8389
PAGE 3 of 3
Oh, the Initiative was a great episode. Spike not being able to bite Willow. "Maybe you could wait a little while and try again?" And the cat fight in slo-mo was great!
Season six is still my favorite year.
NY/NJ/CT Browncoats: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/firefly_nyc
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Ok, perhaps it's nt a completely overlooked episode (Amends), but I always felt like it never quite gets the credit it deserves...
Bonus points for the introduction of The First.
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I see that "Anne" is listed above. In keeping with the spirit of things that are never mentioned, I'll add a little something about a character from this episode who is largely forgotten.
Lily's boyfriend. Remember him? I bet you had to take a moment and think there. His name was Ricky. People forget all about him. If you recall, he was in a diner scene early in the episode and then he vanishes. A few days later buffy discovers Ricky aged to just under 80 years old and that he commited suicide.
Well here's a little something about Ricky. Last year FX was playing this episode and I was sitting in front of a TV with the sound turned down playing a board game (puerto rico) with friends and listening to the Metalica album "black" (the last good CD they turned out I have always contended). The song Unforgiven came on right at the moment Buffy discovered Ricky's elderly body and then it hit me like a train. That song could be renamed "Ricky's Lament". Here are the lyrics pasted from a lyrics website
New blood joins this earth
and quickly he's subdued
through constant pained disgrace
the young boy learns their rules
with time the child draws in
this whipping boy done wrong
deprived of all his thoughts
the young man struggles on and on he's known
a vow unto his own
that never from this day
his will they'll take away.
They dedicate their lives
to running all of his
he tries to please them all
this bitter man he is
throughout his life, a slave
he battles constantly
this fight he cannot win
a tired man they see no longer cares
the old man then prepares
to die regretfully
that old man here is me
This song almost perfectly describes the horror of being enslaved as a teen, having your identity stripped away, and worked as a slave until you are to elderly to toil any longer.
The line "The young boy learns their rules" melds perfectly with the sequence where the demons line up the slaves and ask them the Q "Who are you?" with the answer "I'm no one" You can also see how at the end of the first stanza Ricky most likely swore that he'd hold the memory of Lily in his mind as a way of keeping his sense of self and not allowing them to strip him of his will. But as you get into stanza 2, the hopelessness of the situation sinks in. Decade after decade rolls by and eventually all is forgotten beyond the slavery and toil. Then one day with his will and body broken and his memorys erased by years of trauma & tyranny, the demon overlords see that he is worthless and he is expelled back into LA. And when I heard the song end with "The old man then prepares, to die regretfully. That old man here is me" I could almost see the elderly Ricky saying these things to himself before he consuming the drain cleaner that kills him.
It was a shocking parallel to the buffy episode to hear that song. And I've never listened to it the same way since.
Do not fear me. Ours is a peaceful race, and we must live in harmony.
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