4.05 Beer Bad

[Clare]

4.05 Beer Bad - Episode #061
Buffy drowns her post-Parker blues with ale - but ends up becoming decidedly primitive.

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

[cyclica]

I never thought it was 'bad', but it never stood out in my mind either. Just a filler ep. So I give it a 5.

Notice how xander was really looking forward to potentially comforting some troubled girl (lighting her cigarette), but as soon as buffy starts acting weird and some girl really does want to talk to xander, he shows her a 'no smoking' sign then devotes all his attention to buffy. Maybe xander still hasn't gotten over his crush yet.

[partcynic]

4x05 “Beer Bad”

Episode Rating = 4

While my opinion on most “Buffy” eps has been consistent ever since I first saw them, “Beer Bad” is one of those for which I’ve had a change of heart over the years. After initially loathing it with a fiery passion (in fact, this and “Living Conditions” almost made me stop watching in early S4), I’ve steadily warmed to this episode, and although I’d still put it in the bottom five of the season, it’s not as bad as is usually made out. Interestingly, its strengths are best observed when compared with “Living Conditions” (which, for some reason, doesn’t get half the venom this does) – and while that ep was the kind of witless, plotless and development-free pabulum that could have come from any bad sitcom, “Beer Bad” actually has a theme, a story and progression for several important characters, thus earning its place in the show’s run. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s brilliant or particularly well done, but I’d still rather watch this than quite a lot of stuff from seasons five through seven.

What I Liked about “Beer Bad”:

- I always think of this episode as being rather heavy on Buffy moping about Parker, but while there is a bit of it early on, it’s nowhere near as omnipresent as I remember. Perhaps it was overkill to have it feature prominently in this ep and “Fear, Itself”, but it makes sense for the Buffy character, both in terms of her approach to relationships and her stubbornness when it comes to forgiving/moving on. Her dream at the start was a humorous way of letting us into her mind, and having the episode end with her getting what she wanted and turning it down (in a way...) gave the story a nice, cyclical structure.

- Thanks to the power of hindsight, I appreciate Xander-heavy episodes more now, and this one was a decent way of exploring the conflicts he’s been experiencing; both due to the decentralisation and fracturing that’s occurred in the gang, and his personal sense of ‘not at college’ inferiority. That said, I would have liked it if more time had been devoted to showing how his experience in the bar had altered his perspective, but what we got was fine. In typical late S3 form, the character was funny (the fake ID; “nothing can defeat the penis”; being overwhelmed at work; holding up the no-smoking sign; taking a huge tip from the cavemen; “you’re a bad, bad man”; “Giles, don’t make cave-Slayer angry”) and sympathetic, and you do get the impression that he’s really trying to work out where he belongs.

- The theme of this episode is basic pop-psychology (being totally controlled by your base desires – as unleashed by the caveman-beer – is dangerous), but I loved that it avoided the generic ‘alcohol is bad’ teen cliché, and in fact satirised it by having Buffy’s big revelation about beer being “[it’s] foamy!”

- I like the digs this episode made at parts of university culture and the arrogance that can accompany it. The guys Buffy ‘beer-friended’ were exactly the type of pretentious twits you often see around, and it was satisfying to watch them get their comeuppance.

- The steady transformation Buffy and the guys go through is fairly funny, though the only caveperson I was consistently interested in was the Slayer herself. Still, the ‘you stupid’ exchange was entertaining, as was Buffy’s fascination with the TV (and later, the jukebox). Once the full metamorphoses came, Buffy really took off – Sarah Michelle Gellar seems to be having a blast, and it’s great fun to watch her, no matter how lowbrow most of the material is (though I did really like that Buffy’s heroic instinct was preserved even when her higher mental functioning was taken).

- The cameos for Walsh and Riley are good, particularly the latter. In keeping with his early persona, Riley seems to be a likeable and intelligent guy, and it’s interesting how his early behaviour around Buffy is more like a protective big brother than a potential romantic interest.

- There was lots of movement on the Willow front here, and all of it was worthwhile. Veruca getting a proper introduction was important, and the episode clearly both showed Oz’s attraction to her and Willow’s concerned response without making the characters appear inconsiderate (in his case) or neurotic (in hers). Away from that relationship material, I also loved Willow’s behaviour with Buffy – she was firm but caring, and her brief misunderstanding (“...and then group sex?”) was very funny. Best of all was her chat with Parker in the coffee shop, which boasted her awesome “how gullible do you think I am?” retort after he had the audacity to give her his ‘sympathetic connections’ speech, and is a solid example of how she’s maturing into a more self-assured and savvy person.

What I Disliked about “Beer Bad”:

- In the first Xander scene, he either needed to be wearing a long-sleeved shirt, or to have make-up applied to Nick Brendon’s (visible) arm tattoo.

- I always got the impression that Parker was older than Buffy (Riley appearing to know his full modus operandi lends credence to this, as does the interaction they have in “The Initiative”), so why’s he a student in an intro to psychology course aimed at freshmen?

- It’s plausible that Xander could get a job at the uni, but I would have liked it to have some proper consequences. I get that he wouldn’t necessarily stay there knowing what the manager’s done (and continues to do?), but it feels like a contrivance to have this bar pop up in one episode and then disappear forever.

- The students are surprisingly quick to assume Xander’s a townie (and thus supposedly an idiot), when for all they know, he could be a fellow student working there to pay tuition fees.

- A lot of the humour is dumb. I wouldn’t have minded if less time was spent with the cavemen and more devoted to Buffy (who was actually funny), Xander (properly developing him) or Giles (giving him a legitimate reason to feature in the story). As it stands, the ep is too heavy on minor repetitions of the same joke, and the fact that a lot of the dialogue consists of basic statements spoken without grammar means it gets old fast.

- I liked Giles here, but it pains me to see one of my favourite characters being obviously shoehorned in scripts where he doesn’t belong.

- If the campus bar has been there a while (and the manager presumably serving tampered-with beer), shouldn’t we have had some prior caveman chaos occur?

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

I feel exactly the same. Since I came around regarding “Beer Bad”, I’ve thought of it as simple but harmless fun; albeit with a few strong moments of development to offset the silliness. While I understand strongly disliking or hating this story (after all, that’s how I felt about it at one point), I also think that there’s a significant number of eps that are far more ‘deserving’ of such scrutiny, and that this one takes too much flak for poorly-substantiated reasons (as does S4 as a whole). Therefore, I’m scoring this episode as a below average – but still entertaining – four out of ten.

[cyclica]

This ep starts out with buffy daydreaming about rescuing parker from a vampire. I love how we get a little insight into her mind like this, and I think xander's rock star daydream in s1 is the only other time we get to see inside someone's mind like this (not counting the weight of the world). Then we snap back to reality, and professor walsh is talking about the ID, and asks "what do we do when we can't have what we want?" Cut back to buffy daydreaming about an open-shirted parker with flowers. I love the writing on this show.

^ Actually looking back that opening was probably the best part of the whole episode.

The rest of the ep is one big anti-beer message. It's one of those metaphor episodes where something supernatural represents something people might deal with in the real world, and in this case the ep is about beer, which represents... beer. How clever. It's also very 'mundane', in the sense that there's no supernatural elements until halfway through the episode, and no threat (or giles for that matter) until the ep has about 15 mins left.

There's a minor subplot about willow being concerned that oz has taken an interest in veruca, which is an adequate setup for the next episode. I wasn't especially interested, but this subplot didn't take up enough time for me to get bored of it. There's also a cameo from riley, who by the way will be appearing in every episode from this point on, until he leaves in 'into the woods'.

The main story though is seen from xander's point of view, and it's good to get a xander episode every now and then, even if it doesn't have the character building moments like in 'b, b & b', 'the zeppo' or 'the replacement'. And like all xander eps this one's a comedy, or at least I think it was supposed to be, though it doesn't seem any funnier than the average ep. Though I did enjoy the 'rough day' running gag, and xander shouting 'Nothing can defeat the penis!'

So xander becomes a barman, and gets picked on by some bullies... including kal penn! White house politician, 'harold and kumar' star, 'house' actor kal penn! And he does little more than sit in the background, making grunting sounds. At least when he appeared in 'that vision thing' he had a cool death scene.

Buffy and the bullies drink the beer, and slowly become stupider. I must admit, I did enjoy some cave-buffy moments, like when she steals someone's sandwich, and how she learned her lesson at the end that beer is... foamy.

I can't say I can make much sense of the plot though. So the barman uses scientific lab equipment to make a magic beer, to get 'revenge' on the college kids who've been annoying him for the past 30 years.
- Why is he only starting to take revenge now? Why is he not watching what happens to the kids when they revert to cavemen, why is he taking no interest in it?
- What kind of bizarro revenge involves making the people you don't like stronger and angrier, not to mention make them never want to buy your beer again when they return to normal?
- Why can't he just do a spell to make them stupider, and not make them cavemen, or at least cut off the beer once they start being a threat to others?
- Out of everyone in the bar, why were only buffy and the bullies affected? Are they the only ones who like beer?
- Why is it they seem to be changing gradually, then one of them suddenly changes, becoming hairier and with a neanderthal-like face? And why do the others watching suddenly become lucid upon watching the guy change, as if they were returning to normal... then they became cavemen too?
- Why would the barman suddenly confess to xander everything he's done? He doesn't seem the least bit worried that xander might stop him.
- Should he even be talking about warlocks anyway? Has sunnydale become a town where you assume everyone you meet knows about the supernatural and won't think you're mad when you mention your brother is a warlock?
- At one point a guy runs one of the cavebullies over, and gets out of his car, only to run away when he sees them acting threatening. Did it not occur to him that it would be faster to get back in the car and drive away, rather than run?
- Why did the cavebullies kidnap two girls, and not molest them? Not that I want to see any molestation, but they ep made a big deal about how the cavemen/the id acts on the pleasure principle. The girls were kidnapped for one reason, and it seems strange that they would be plonked down and mostly forgotten about.
- It's also very convenient that they would suddenly wake up just as the plot required them to escape a fire by climbing out of a window.
- And was I the only one who found it strange that the recuperating girls and cavemen would be grouped with each other and left alone together?

And then there's the parker subplot. Buffy is still hung up on him, so willow tracks him down and gets revenge by... letting him tell his side of the story, only to reveal at the end she hasn't fallen for his manipulation. Hah, sure showed him! Was that her plan going in, to waste his time?

Did the parker subplot have to be dragged out this long? Not that I had a big dislike for it, I just wasn't especially interested in parker, or his subplot. Though I did enjoy the symmetry of his apologizing at the end just like in the daydream at the start, and the closure that came when buffy whacked him with a stick. Not that that really made sense, I mean she didn't want revenge before, all she wanted was for them to be back together, so what made cavebuffy change her mind? Why do none of the pleasure principle/drunk kids on the show want sex?

Upon rewatching, I've found a few more flaws that I've noticed before, but my feelings toward this ep haven't changed. I think as a comedy episode it fails in comparison with other comedy eps, the plot is full of holes, and the overall message is blunt. Is beer really that bad? They even drink it in later episodes without consequence!

However, it's still an entertaining episode, there was an average amount of comedy, metaphors are always appreciated no matter how obvious (or wrong), and cave buffy was always fun to watch.

Six!

[cyclica]

Eep, I forgot to leave comments.

Apr 17, 2010 10:02:57 GMT -5 partcynic said:

Her dream at the start was a humorous way of letting us into her mind, and having the episode end with her getting what she wanted and turning it down (in a way...) gave the story a nice, cyclical structure.

I love stories that go 'full circle' like that.

Apr 17, 2010 10:02:57 GMT -5 partcynic said:

- Thanks to the power of hindsight, I appreciate Xander-heavy episodes more now, and this one was a decent way of exploring the conflicts he’s been experiencing; both due to the decentralisation and fracturing that’s occurred in the gang, and his personal sense of ‘not at college’ inferiority. That said, I would have liked it if more time had been devoted to showing how his experience in the bar had altered his perspective, but what we got was fine.

Agreed.

The ep started out with xander finding his place and dealing with bullies, but by the end all he was doing was trying to help buffy, and his own personal story faded away.

Apr 17, 2010 10:02:57 GMT -5 partcynic said:

...but I loved that it avoided the generic ‘alcohol is bad’ teen cliché, and in fact satirised it by having Buffy’s big revelation about beer being “[it’s] foamy!”

I thought the whole message of beer bad was that beer was bad.

The only part of the ep that went against this was the 'foamy' line, and I always saw that as just a joke. The message about alcahol being bad was pretty clear to me.

Apr 17, 2010 10:02:57 GMT -5 partcynic said:

(though I did really like that Buffy’s heroic instinct was preserved even when her higher mental functioning was taken).

Agreed, and in a way it's almost a set-up for the revelation in 'restless' that there really were caveslayers.

Apr 17, 2010 10:02:57 GMT -5 partcynic said:

Best of all was her chat with Parker in the coffee shop, which boasted her awesome “how gullible do you think I am?” retort after he had the audacity to give her his ‘sympathetic connections’ speech, and is a solid example of how she’s maturing into a more self-assured and savvy person.

This is another point I'd disagree on. Her retort after letting parker go on and on seemed to me to be nothing more than a cheap shock for the audience, who might be worried that willow was about to be manipulated like buffy was. She was angry when she confronted parker, and really she should have just said what she came to say and left, and not sat around and let him waste her time, just so she could give him a little shock at the end.

Apr 17, 2010 10:02:57 GMT -5 partcynic said:

- A lot of the humour is dumb. I wouldn’t have minded if less time was spent with the cavemen and more devoted to Buffy (who was actually funny), Xander (properly developing him) or Giles (giving him a legitimate reason to feature in the story).

- I liked Giles here, but it pains me to see one of my favourite characters being obviously shoehorned in scripts where he doesn’t belong.

I agree. He was almost literally added at the last minute, and he added nothing to the story.

Apr 17, 2010 10:02:57 GMT -5 partcynic said:

- If the campus bar has been there a while (and the manager presumably serving tampered-with beer), shouldn’t we have had some prior caveman chaos occur?

Yup.

[partcynic]

^ I agree with most of your own review (especially about the plot being a mess), so I'll say that now instead of extensively quoting from it.

I thought the whole message of beer bad was that beer was bad.

The only part of the ep that went against this was the 'foamy' line, and I always saw that as just a joke. The message about alcahol being bad was pretty clear to me.

I agree that that's the take-home message, but I appreciated that the writers were smart enough to subvert it a little (and as you said, they dropped the idea right after). Watch this back to back with "Wrecked", which takes the same idea and plays it out in full after-school special manner, and you can see the difference.

This is another point I'd disagree on. Her retort after letting parker go on and on seemed to me to be nothing more than a cheap shock for the audience, who might be worried that willow was about to be manipulated like buffy was. She was angry when she confronted parker, and really she should have just said what she came to say and left, and not sat around and let him waste her time, just so she could give him a little shock at the end.

But that was the actual point of the development. A year or two ago, Willow probably would have fallen for it, and the ep played with her (and the audience's assumptions about her) nicely. And at the start, she may have actually been willing to hear him out and find out why he did what he did, only to find that he really is just a sleaze. There's nothing wrong with her being willing to listen to another perspective on what happened.