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Post by Clare on Sept 21, 2008 18:28:11 GMT -5
1.12 Prophecy Girl - Episode #012
Season One finale - Buffy defeats the Master and goes to the Prom
Review (also post a score out of 10) and discuss this episode.
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Post by cyclica on Sept 26, 2008 7:14:25 GMT -5
A great episode that builds up to a big finish to the season. Theres not much to say that hasn't been mentioned already. But I would like to mention that I loved cordelia coming to the rescue, and driving throught the school.  I give it a high 7 out of 10. |
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Post by partcynic on Sept 24, 2009 9:44:04 GMT -5
1x12 “Prophecy Girl”
Episode Rating = 9
Every time I see season one, I’m always taken aback by the sudden surge in quality and depth the show experiences with “Prophecy Girl”, which is the true parent of all it would go on to become. Now twelve years old, the episode is still a masterwork, and is as gripping and powerful upon re-watching as it was when I saw it for the first time. Stuffed with plot, incredible character development (for almost every single key player) and a decent amount of humour, “Prophecy Girl” is the moment where “Buffy” rose and announced that it wasn’t just going to be a fluffy, disposable romp, and remains both my favourite episode of S1, and one of my top ten of the series.
What I Liked about “Prophecy Girl”:
- The cinematography of the first Buffy scene is spot-on. I love how we’re silently shown her lying before a grinning vamp, before she flips back up, draws a stake and has her own opportunity to smile. It captures everything the series was originally about in the space of twenty seconds.
- This is the very first episode to show that being a Slayer would bring its fair share of pain and suffering (sure, Buffy mentioned this in “Welcome to the Hellmouth”, but showing and telling are two different things) – and in being willing to portray this story, the series truly matures.
- The library scene with Buffy, Angel and Giles is one of the most profound and beautiful in the show’s run. The way her initial, girlish glee at seeing Angel is demolished by the news she overhears (and in such a horrible way) is powerful, and the silent hold on her face before the act break was the perfect editorial/directing decision. Her consequent reaction to her imminent death is perhaps the most heartbreaking “Buffy” moment ever, and completely pulls the viewer in to its huge emotional territory. Sarah Michelle Gellar also does some of her finest acting, and her delivery on the lines where she asks how she’s going to die and wonders if it’ll hurt is quite the tearjerker – and if that doesn’t finish you off, the classic “Giles, I’m sixteen years old. …I don’t want to die” will. I also loved the metaphor of her tearing the cross from her neck (and later putting it back on) as symbolism of her rejection/acceptance of her destiny.
- Further Buffy goodness comes from her interaction with Joyce. I wouldn’t say that I was a particular fan of the latter, but the writing here made her feel likeable and caring (the story of how she met Hank was especially charming). Coming after the library moment, it was a nice salve, and it was very thoughtful of Joyce to buy Buffy that prom dress (which SMG was beautiful in. She’s always been an attractive woman, but she looked her best – and healthiest – in S1). I also appreciated how Buffy’s first reaction was asking if they could afford it, showing her selflessness and consideration for others.
- Buffy’s gradual re-embracement of her Slayer duties comes organically, with her talk with Willow being the defining moment. There’s also some bittersweet humour when she goes to the library and punches Giles down; asking Jenny to “think of something cool… and tell him I said it.” Her willingness to sacrifice her own life to protect others cements her position as a real hero, and her banter with the Master in the underground cavern is quite funny.
- It was clever how the prophecy proved correct, but via an unpredictable method. This establishes the way the show would approach these kinds of concepts, and it’s certainly a good one.
- Giles is continuing to impress as a character, loosening some of his fuddy-duddy constraints and gaining lots of depth in the process. His reaction to learning the content of the prophecy is a watershed moment, and his willingness to face the Master in Buffy's place (even if it means dying) shows how much he’s come to value her both as a person and a daughter-figure. He’s also excellent in rallying the troops later in the episode, and it was awesome to see him take an axe to the Hellmouth monster.
- In keeping with his excellent original persona, Xander is both funny and cool. His nervous anticipation about asking Buffy out feels real, and the scene with the two of them on the bench hits all the right emotional buttons (plus, his quip about Willow liking girls/Buffy is amusing knowing what will happen in the future). He’s admittedly nasty when he’s rejected (though it’s totally understandable here), but his determination to save Buffy pulls him through, with his talk with Angel being one his finest moments.
- Not to be outmatched, Willow gets treated with some fantastic material. Her starry-eyed willingness to listen to Xander’s ‘date rehearsal’ at the beginning is cute, and she really shows her backbone and self-respect when she turns him down later. It meant a lot for her to refuse the offer (considering her feelings for him), and reveals that while she may be sweet and naïve, she isn’t clueless. Discovering the bodies later was also a crucial moment, as it allowed her to be a first-hand witness to the more disturbing sides of monster hunting (something she’s not really been exposed to before, despite all of her experience), and her tearful conversation with Buffy is one of the major scenes in which she grows up.
- After the events of “Out of Mind, Out of Sight”, Cordelia is being incorporated into the gang in a believable way. Now knowing her real personality, you can start to question if the nastiness she displayed towards the gang was due to actually disliking them, or whether it was just because they were a ‘weird’, socially-isolated group and thus easy targets for her to snipe at. Her behaviour here (and looking back, earlier in the season) seems to point to the second explanation, and it’s interesting to see how comparatively friendly she is to Willow in their brief moments together. I also loved the scene where she drove down the school corridor, and her biting the vampire’s hand and telling him “see how you like it!” made me laugh.
- Buffy’s final fight against the Master is solid, with some great lines (“you have fruit-punch mouth”) and the triumphant climax where she flips him through the skylight onto the makeshift table-stake. The denouement (“We saved the world, I say we party”) is suitably heart-warming, and Angel’s dialogue about her dress was a clever continuation of the comments that other characters had made – in all, a top-notch ending.
What I Disliked about “Prophecy Girl”:
- I’m glad that this is the last episode that the show’s first composer worked on. The incidental music here wasn’t terrible, but parts of it needed to be given a big toning down. It was fine for the backing to the Master’s melodramatic monologue to be cheesy, but the obnoxious blasts when he bit Buffy detracted from the power of the scene. Reprising the theme tune during Buffy’s post-revival power-walk was also a bit much.
- The Anointed’s role is a letdown after the plot build-up he was given, but since the character was lame, that’s not much of an issue.
- How does Xander know where Angel lives? Did Angel give the gang (or at least Giles) the information after he rescued them from Marcie’s trap and delivered the Codex?
- They tried their best, but the CPR scene could have done with some work. It’s understandable that you won’t be able to do it perfectly (since performing CPR on a conscious, healthy person is dangerous), but parts of it look fake – and not in the ‘inexperienced person desperately trying to save a friend’ way, either.
- A little more explanation on what happened with Buffy and the Master would have been cool. They implied that some kind of power transference took place (which is plausible), but a concrete reason for Buffy (1) knowing where he’d gone and (2) being newly immune to his hypnotic abilities would have been appreciated.
- The gang manages to stave off the vamps from the library too easily considering the big difference in numbers between the two groups. It’s also fortunate that they all disappear as soon as the Master dies and the Hellmouth closes (I get that they've lost their leader and don't want to fight an angry Slayer, but still…)
Do I like this episode more or less than the last time I watched it?
Given that this is the longest and most detailed S1 review I’ve written, I think it’s safe to say that I still love this episode, and I’ve now grown even fonder of it. “Prophecy Girl” contains absolutely everything that made “Buffy” a fantastic series, and is one of its true classics. As such, I have no qualms about rewarding it with a top-tier score of nine out of ten.
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Post by cyclica on Sept 25, 2009 10:19:34 GMT -5
This was the big buffy vs the master episode that we've been waiting for all season. Too bad the actual fight wasn't especially epic, but that's ok, because everything leading up to it was great. This whole episode was an emotional rollercoaster, with many of the best scenes being emotion-driven.
The scene with buffy discovering she is going to die was very well done, and you can't help but feel scared right along with her. It's a classic scene, but for me the scene that the most emotional impact was the one soon after, when willow finds the room full of bodies, and we see her traumatized, telling buffy 'It's not our world anymore, it's theirs'. That moment always gives me a little chill.
There was resolution to the xander-loves-buffy arc, though with so much more important stuff going on it's hard to feel too bad for him. Still I liked how he went to angel, someone he hates, in order to save buffy. It really shows how much he cares for her. There were plenty of other good moments too, like giles wanting to fight in buffy's place, knowing he may be killed, and buffy punching him to stop him (and her great line "when he wakes up... think of something cool, tell him I said it"), and the later scene where the master tells buffy it was her coming which set him free. I also loved how buffy put on a prom dress, and everyones reaction to it (apparantley the last scene with angel saying he liked it and buffy saying it was a hit with everyone was an adlib by both actors... though it didn't really make sense because buffy never heard the master compliment the dress, seeing as how she had just died). There were other little things to notice too like how buffy symbolically gave up her faith by ripping off her crusifix, then put it back on again when she decided to become the slayer again. And I loved all the 'apocalypse stuff' like blood coming from taps, the earthquake that ripped apart the library, and jenny's mention of other things like cats giving birth to snakes. I wish we could have seen more stuff like that (which is an issue I also had with 'apocalypse nowish', where we heard about all this cool stuff happening offscreen which I would have loved to have seen).
In terms of action scenes I loved it when willow and jenny are surrounded by what looks like every vampire in town, and get rescued by (new scooby-member) cordelia, who drives her car through the school, smashing through walls as she goes. That was one of my all time favourite action scenes in the show. However like I said above, the fight scenes between buffy and the master didn't go on long enough (it felt like she spent less time fighting him that she did against luke or darla, or in fact almost any villain in s1). And those hellmouth little-shop-of-horrors demons looked pretty bad.
There were a few other things I had a problem with-
- Why did the vampires try to come to the hellmouth? What were they going to do once they arrived?
- Where did they all go once the master was killed and the hellmouth was closed? They could have stayed and, given how many of them there were, they might have succeeded in defeating the gang.
- Why did the hellmouth close anyway? Surely once the master escaped and it opened, there was no reason for it to close again.
- I think I've mentioned this before somewhere but, after buffy is revived, why does she say she feels stronger? Surely she'd be weaker?
- Joyce hides buffy's prom dress inside her own wardrobe? Does she assume buffy never looks in her wardrobe?
- If xander is so unpopular, how can he tell some guy to leave and the guy just obliges?
- The prophecy said the slayer will not know the annointed, but she knew who he was as soon as she met him.
- How did xander know where to find angel? Even buffy doesn't know where he lives.
- Hearing the buffy theme song during the actual show was a bit weird. I'm glad they didn't do that again.
These nitpicks are all ignorable however, and overall I find this episode to be one of the best of season 1. Being an end-of-season episode I don't usually watch it much unless I'm watching the whole season, but this is definitely an ep I'll watch again. It's not the most action-packed or the most humorous, but as emotional episodes go, it's one of the best. I give it a high 7.
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Post by cyclica on Sept 25, 2009 10:41:59 GMT -5
- The cinematography of the first Buffy scene is spot-on. I love how we’re silently shown her lying before a grinning vamp, before she flips back up, draws a stake and has her own opportunity to smile. It captures everything the series was originally about in the space of twenty seconds. It was definitely one of the best openings to the show, but for me it was the start of 'the gift' that captured the show perfectly, and the start of this episode, while still a great scene, feels like an inferior version in comparison. -- A little more explanation on what happened with Buffy and the Master would have been cool. They implied that some kind of power transference took place (which is plausible), but a concrete reason for Buffy (1) knowing where he’d gone and (2) being newly immune to his hypnotic abilities would have been appreciated. I assume that, even if buffy didn't know where the master went, she would have gone back to the library anyway (because, well where else would she go?) and just happened to see him on the roof. Or maybe she followed where the vampires were going. As for being immune to hypnosis, well it could be because she's the slayer. Or maybe you can't hypnotise someone if they know they are about to be hypnotised (and are able to put up a mental block), it only works if someone is caught by surprise (like kendra later on). |
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Post by partcynic on Sept 25, 2009 13:16:17 GMT -5
I think it makes sense - remember, Willow complemented the dress at the end of her "their world, not ours" talk. Also, Buffy died from drowning, not being bitten. It's possible that the Master's comment was the last thing she heard before losing consciousness and falling into the water. In fact, I think her last gasp follows his line, suggesting that she blacked out afterwards. Didn't the prophecy say that the vampires were supposed to be the Master's army? Since they've been serving him all season, it would make sense that they'd go to both he and the Hellmouth. She wasn't hiding it. She'd just bought it as a gift for Buffy (most likely that day) and left the dress where she'd obviously find and be pleasantly surprised by it. Xander isn't really unpopular, though - he's just a bit of a dork. The only people in school who seem to actively dislike him are Larry and Cordelia. It's also possible that the guy he told to get lost was even lower on the social ladder, akin to Jonathon. You can see that as either an error, or the show doing its usual prophecy subversion, since 'knowing' and 'recognising' are two different things. Since Buffy never met the Anointed at any point before, she didn't know him - but could recognise him once she was told that he'd be a child. Agreed. It was jarring to have it pop up like that, not to mention cheesy. It would have been nice if they'd used either of those explanations (which work and make sense) - but I find it weird that they fobbed us off by having her say "I just know". But if she was, she wouldn't have been hypnotised the first time around (nor Kendra in "Becoming"). That's more probable, but they made it seem like it was specifically tied to what happened with the Master (and her saying she felt stronger, as you pointed out in your review). |
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Post by cyclica on Sept 25, 2009 15:52:53 GMT -5
I think it makes sense - remember, Willow complemented the dress at the end of her "their world, not ours" talk. Also, Buffy died from drowning, not being bitten. It's possible that the Master's comment was the last thing she heard before losing consciousness and falling into the water. In fact, I think her last gasp follows his line, suggesting that she blacked out afterwards. I always thought that she lost consciousness as she was bitten, which is why she fell to the floor, but what you said makes sense too. Didn't the prophecy say that the vampires were supposed to be the Master's army? Since they've been serving him all season, it would make sense that they'd go to both he and the Hellmouth. When did the prophecy say that? I thought the only vamps who served the master were his elite group, and aside from the kid they were all killed off by this point. And that the other vampires in town either didn't work for him or maybe hadn't even heard of him (recently turned perhaps). |
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Post by partcynic on Sept 25, 2009 16:20:34 GMT -5
From the library scene where Giles is reading the prophecy/book and talking to Jenny:
"Well, let's think about this, then. The vampires have been gathering, they know he's coming, they will be his army."
I always thought that the majority of S1 vamps were members of the Order of Aurelius. The show kind of backs this up with the quiet summer the other Scoobs had post "Prophecy Girl", and in "When She Was Bad" I think Giles says that without the Master to lead them, the vamps have retreated.
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Post by cyclica on Sept 25, 2009 17:30:54 GMT -5
From the library scene where Giles is reading the prophecy/book and talking to Jenny: "Well, let's think about this, then. The vampires have been gathering, they know he's coming, they will be his army." I guess I missed that bit.  I always thought that the majority of S1 vamps were members of the Order of Aurelius. I assumed they were all just regular vampires unless we were specifically told otherwise. The show kind of backs this up with the quiet summer the other Scoobs had post "Prophecy Girl", and in "When She Was Bad" I think Giles says that without the Master to lead them, the vamps have retreated. Ok, but that makes no sense. I'm not buying that all those vampires were in hiding or whatever until buffy returned. Even if we assume that it took a few months (or however much time had passed between PG and WSWB) for the annointed one to form his new gang, there still should have been vampires out killing and feeding on their own. And if they were all members of the elite, powerful order of aurelius, then that's all the more reason to assume they can survive on their own. But that's more of a problem of the next episode than this one. Btw, will we be reviewing s2? |
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Post by partcynic on Sept 25, 2009 17:50:42 GMT -5
^ You're right that it's more a problem for WSWB. I'm not sure about S2 for the moment. I could commit to doing 12 eps okay, but 22 might be hard for me - at least until a couple of weeks have passed and I have more free time. I'll be willing to proceed with it later, though. I'd also like to see the rest of Clare's reviews, so we can give her some time to catch up. |
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