5x15 “I Was Made to Love You”Episode Rating = 7
As much as I’m enjoying S5, I’ve got to be honest and say that quality-wise, it’s all over the place. Thanks to the shift to chapters-in-a-book writing and season-long arcs, “Buffy” has been losing some of the tautness and focus that once made it so brilliant. The show worked best when it was able to juggle both strong standalone stories and an interesting arc, but S5 has blurred the lines to the point that eps now bleed into each other, standalone stories are overly simplistic, and character development is replaced by character happenings. After an especially so-so mid-section, it’s a massive breath of fresh air for the year to come up with “I Was Made to Love You”, an ep in the classic era style that’s one of the last great metaphor pieces the show produced. With a meaningful theme that’s ably expressed by its plot; character insight and development; humour; and emotion, this is one of the few great eps from S5, and in my top five of the year overall.
What I Liked about “I Was Made To Love You”:- The opening scene does a fine job of establishing the plot and theme. Buffy’s frustration about Spike and fears of not being able to have a successful relationship developed naturally from what we’d seen before, and her comment about “[my] remarkable self-involvement” is one of the most insightful things she’s said about herself. In addition to these qualities, the scenes also had humour (puffy Xander) and a nice amount of emotion (Xander’s convo with Buffy, followed by his great line about today being the day she’d choose to hug him).
- I really like April’s introduction – there’s some mystery as to who she is and why she’s in Sunnydale, and it’s unknown whether she’ll be friend or foe.
- The two brief scenes with Joyce are excellent. The first (with her showing her daughters her new dress) was genuinely charming, and the group felt like a real family unit. The moment when she returned from her date was also great – teasing Buffy was one of the funniest things she’d ever done, and it’s nice that the last time we saw her alive, she was happy.
- The brief Anya/Tara scene was novel – both characters have a lot of untapped potential, and it’s interesting to see them interact with each other. I liked how we were given indications of Anya’s technological and financial skills, and Tara’s line about poor spelling on the Internet was funny.
- It’s fun to see the gang chilling at a party, and lots of moments were good-natured and gently humorous. Buffy’s interest in Ben and getting his phone number was a nice mini-development, and at the time, it was intriguing to think that she could unknowingly end up dating Glory. I also liked the brief shots of Warren and Katrina we were given, as well as April picking up Spike and hurling him through the window.
- Plot-wise, it’s great that the story avoids copying “Ted” and has the gang instantly discern April’s robot nature. I also appreciated Dawn’s reference to him in the Magic Box scene (cute, since she was never actually there).
- As horrible as he would turn out to be, Warren is an intriguing character. His misogyny is obvious from the way he treats April (and Katrina), but there’s also some slight sympathy for the loneliness that supposedly led to him building her. After “Crush” and its disturbing, anti-feminist message, it was fantastic to see a strong indictment of the way in which women are dehumanised and sexually exploited, and I loved how Buffy didn’t hold back her disgust with Warren.
- The comparisons between Warren/April and Buffy/Riley are neat, and although Warren is by far the bigger offender, there are legitimate parallels between he and Buffy in how they treated their former partners as conveniences.
- Considering that she’s only a one-shot character, April is highly memorable and sympathetic, especially in the playground scenes. I truly felt for her when she was rejected and desperately professed her love for Warren, and her chat with Buffy on the swings is wonderfully written. There’s a lot of emotion in the dialogue, and I admired Buffy’s respect for April’s feelings, to the point where she even lied in order to make her feel better. It’s especially harrowing how April’s words echo the sentiments of many abused women, and actress Shonda Farr did a brilliant job portraying her power-down and ‘death’.
- Buffy grew nicely as a result of her interactions with April, and it was fantastic for her to realise that she had to make peace with herself before entering another relationship. In fact, this was probably the best bit of development since “The Replacement” back at the start of the season.
What I found to be a mixed bag about “I Was Made To Love You”:- Spike’s scenes were fine, but it felt as though they’d been tacked on. I know that his crush needed to be mentioned/dealt with after what happened last episode, but his stuff pulled me out of the more interesting story with April.
- The humour here is passable, but I think the scenario could have been mined for better jokes. There seemed to be a lot of repetition of the ‘someone comments on April’s attractiveness and gets funny looks from the others’ gag, and other, should-have-been-humorous moments (such as Buffy’s “uh, duh” response to Warren telling her about April) were curiously flat.
- The closing scene with Buffy finding Joyce’s body is beautifully filmed and acted, but I don’t think it was an appropriate ending for this particular story. Having watched Jane Espenson’s commentary and learned that it was originally going to conclude with Spike placing his Buffybot order, I have to say that I’d have preferred it for things to be kept that way – the episode would have felt like a contained whole, instead of being a standalone story with the next show’s teaser arbitrarily grafted onto its end.
What I Disliked about “I Was Made To Love You”:- The ‘previously on’ was overlong, and showed things that weren’t necessary for comprehension of the story (like Dawn learning she’s the Key, when Dawn was hardly featured and nothing happened to progress the Glory arc).
- This episode is a particular victim of the season’s cinematography curse. A multitude of interior scenes look yellow and grainy, with the worst offender being the Buffy/Xander chat that leads to Buffy ‘dumping’ Ben (especially in contrast to how crisp and colourful the preceding Buffy/April scene looked). This may only be cosmetic, but it hurts the quality of the show when everyone looks like they have severe jaundice – and if you’re wondering how I always used to do so well on the picture games, you now know that any screencap where the characters appear sickly is likely to be from S5.
- A few pacing tune-ups would have helped the first half of the episode flow more smoothly. The spring break party stuff dragged a bit, and could have had some material excised without any loss of substance or impact.
Do I like this episode more or less than the last time I watched it?I like this episode more, if only because it felt so rewarding to receive a substantial standalone after so many slight episodes. That said, I’m not changing my score from the last time I rated this, as “I Was Made to Love You” is very good as opposed to excellent, and is more in line with eps like “Fear Itself” and “Anne” than the show’s absolute gems. Still, that’s no criticism, and I’m more than happy to grade this a seven out of ten – being only the third time I’ve awarded a S5 episode a score in the 7-10 bracket. It’s great that we were able to get one last ep in the classic mould, and it’s a fitting denouement to the lighthearted writing style that would vanish in the wake of Joyce’s death.
Buffy dating glory? They really missed an opportunity there. 