2.07 Lie to Me

[Clare]

2.07 Lie to Me - Episode #019
Buffy's childhood crush comes to Sunnydale - to become a vampire

Review (also post a score out of 10) and discuss this episode.

[cyclica]

I gave this one a 4. It was pretty good but I've never been a big fan of the overly dark emotional episodes, and ford wasn't likeable either as a good guy or a bad guy.

I must admit though I did enjoy this episode more after rewatching it recently. It was scary the way those kids wanted to be vampires so much (first appearance of anne, who'll stick around till the final episode of angel). And I loved the final scene where giles lies to buffy, and then she calls him a liar. Although it could have done without ford coming back, why did spike turn him if he said earlier he wouldn't?

[partcynic]

2x07 “Lie To Me”

Episode Rating = 6

One of “Buffy”’s strongest points was always how its universe was able to accommodate horror, humour, and drama, and the “Reptile Boy”-“Halloween”-“Lie To Me” sequence is a great example of this. Each of the three stories has its own unique tone and style of storytelling, yet they all feel like they belong to the same series. The more dramatic member of the trio, “Lie To Me” is a typical ‘Joss functioning at 75%’ episode, meaning that it’s well-written and enjoyable with an intelligent theme, but lacks the little spark that characterises his best work. Still, this story remains a worthwhile one, featuring solid development for Buffy and interesting backstory for the season’s main villains.

What I Liked about “Lie To Me”:

- The episode’s theme of truth and deception is an interesting one, and carried well through the web of half-truths and misinformation that gets passed from character to character. While it’s overstated in places (the terms “truth”, “lie” and “trust” are used a bit too much), it comes to a meaningful end, making some of the so-so moments worth sitting through.

- After the siring comment in “School Hard”, it was nice for the show to divulge further information regarding the connections between Spike, Drusilla and Angel. The initial conversation between the two was nice and tense (and Dru’s comment about it being “just the beginning” a cool foreshadow), and Angel’s later talk with Buffy was fascinating. I actually felt for Dru upon hearing what he’d done to her, and her insanity was given a believable reason. I also liked the tension between Buffy and Angel, and the notion that while she may love him, trusting him is a very different thing.

- Ford was respectable for a one-episode character, despite my usual dislike of the ‘oh, here’s my former best friend, who I liked so much I never even mentioned him once before’ plot device. He was a pretty simplistic individual, but I bought into Buffy’s side of the friendship, and he served his purpose in acting as a mechanism for her personal development. The revelation that he wanted to become a vampire to prevent his imminent death was good (if clichéd), and I liked the emotional struggle between he and Buffy; especially her final statement that although she felt sorry for him, she wouldn’t let him harm innocents in the process.

- I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about the Sunset Club (although the introduction of Chanterelle/Lily/Anne is great), but I like it as a mocking send-up of the kind of people who really are obsessed with vampires. In the era of “Twilight” and the idolisation of pathetic non-vamps, it takes on special meaning, and I laughed at both the Angel clothes mix-up, and Buffy telling ‘Diego’ how dorky his outfit was.

- As always, the Giles and Jenny material is funny, flirtatious and awesome – I love the concept of her taking him to see Monster Trucks, and I wish we could have seen his reaction upon learning what they’d be doing.

- The bit with the blonde vampire stealing the book from Giles’ office is nice set-up for the events of “What’s My Line?”

- A little thing, but the vampires look great under the blue light at the Sunset Club - it really enhanced their demonic appearances.

- The music is this episode is particularly lovely, especially the mournful string theme that plays when Buffy confronts Ford at the Sunset Club, and then as she and Giles stand at his graveside. It does a great job of capturing the emotions in its specific scenes.

- The final scene between Giles and Buffy is beautifully penned and very real, and adds a whole point to the episode’s rating. I loved how the writing was able to express Buffy’s confusion regarding her changing relationships without being melodramatic, and how calmly she dusted vampire Ford afterwards. The closing “lie to me” chat was also wonderful, and becomes more powerful knowing what will happen later in the season.

What I found to be a mixed bag about “Lie To Me”:

- The characterisation of Willow is a bit hit-and-miss. Some of her material is great (“so that’s what that song’s about?”; hiding her bra when Angel enters her bedroom; and her theorising about sore thumbs), but other parts felt like Joss was trying too hard to make her sound cute (her over-the-top inability to lie in the school scene when she encounters Buffy and Ford).

- Buffy (and Giles in particular) are remarkably unsuspicious on learning that Ford knows her secret identity. I get Buffy being naïve and willing to trust an old friend, but Giles should have been more concerned about a potential privacy leak.

- For a story that’s primarily concerned with drama and character development, there was some nice humour, but I think more would have helped. In parts, the tone got a little too dingy (and slow-paced), and there wasn’t always enough emotional impact to make it interesting.

What I Disliked about “Lie To Me”:

- How exactly was Ford’s big gambit going to pay off? It seems that he was banking on Buffy discovering what he was up to, finding out where he was, and getting there before the vamps did – and few of his prior actions seemed engineered to have that effect. In fact, if it weren’t for Angel, Buffy would probably have never found out what was going on. What would have happened then? Would he have met her at nine (as planned) and taken her back to the vampires? The plot is too clever for its own good here.

- What was the specific nature of the relationship between Ford and the other Sunset Club members? Did the society meet before, or was it all a new thing that Ford spearheaded in his plan? And if most of the visitors were teenagers (okay – some would be in their early twenties), mightn’t some of them have recognised Willow, Xander or Buffy from school?

- The big leap Buffy does to get to Drusilla is poorly done - she shouldn’t be able to cycle-kick her way through the air while leaping upwards. She can scale heights with enough effort (a la the fence jump in “The Harvest”), but what was portrayed here was too much.

- It was a necessary evil to get the final scene, but Buffy was certainly able to arrange Ford’s burial and headstone quickly (it seems in less than twenty-four hours). Or are people who work in the Sunnydale ‘death industry’ really that efficient?

Do I like this episode more or less than the last time I watched it?

I’ve seen most of the first three seasons so much that my opinions are set in stone, and I still find “Lie To Me” to be a good, above-average episode that could nevertheless have benefited from some minor punching-up and extra humour. Despite its flaws, the narrative is important in establishing a theme of conflict that will eventually dominate S2, and manages to progress the seasonal arc within the context of a one-off story, as well as giving Buffy and Angel some major (and needed) growth. As such, I’m sticking with my prior rating of six out of ten.

[cyclica]

I found I've enjoyed this episode a little more upon rewatching. On one hand there's very little humour in this one (angel meeting a guy dressing exactly like him after saying these kids don't know how vamps dress was the only funny moment in the whole episode), very little action (and it's all run-of-the-mill buffy fight a vampire action) and ford came across as both a little annoying and kinda boring.

But the last few minutes make up for that. It was an interesting idea having buffy face a sympathetic villain, she doesn't know whether to hate him or feel sorry for him and in the end learns that she is still learning, and that that is all a part of growing up. The conversation between buffy and giles has become one of my favourite conversations in the seven years of the show, and having buffy jokingly call giles a liar after asking him to lie to her was the perfect ending.

Spike and dru were great as always, and their last scene with ford was possibly spike as his most menacing. Giles and jenny continued to have some good relationship related scenes, and the rest of the scoobies were adequate.

Overall this episode was ok. The central theme and the ending are what make this episode worth watching though, because the first half hour or so was pretty dull. I'm bumping this one up to a low 5.

Again the nitpicks are pretty minor-
- How does angel know where willow lives?
- How does ford know where spike lives?
- Why does angel look so pale when he's in willow's bedroom? I suppose the in-universe explanation is that he's a vampire, and vampires are pale, but the make-up used on the actor is different and I wanna know why.