5.18 Intervention

[Clare]

5.18 Intervention - Episode #096
While Buffy goes on a vision quest to learn more about being the Slayer, Spike receives his Buffy-bot, leading Glory to believe he's the Key.

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

[cyclica]

I'm giving this episode a 7. Intervention was at times very funny (the hokey pokey; how was your money? Fine!) and the buffybot herself was hilarious. Ther was also a great scene at the end where buffy pretends to be the robot, and tells spike that what he did for he was real.

Theres only one real problem with this episode though and it's something I couldn't ignore- the gang can't tell buffy apart from a robot! Even if they thought her out-of-character behaviour was due to the quest, they should still have been more concerned. When spike was captured it was night time, but the gang didn't go to buffy's house till morning. In all that time, no one noticed that the effects of the quest hadn't worn off? She would have been using robot-speak that whole time, and the gang didn't even decide to confront her about it until later when the real buffy showed up.

[partcynic]

5x18 “Intervention”

Episode Rating = 7

Going over this season, it’s strange to think that we had an unimpressive mid-section followed by a near-chronological sequence of three of the year’s best eps – though I guess you could say that those were the compensation for wading through the likes of “Into the Woods” and “Blood Ties”. Jane Espenson has been only writer (besides Joss) to be consistently good this season, and “Intervention” adds to the strong material she’s provided. Finally pushing the Glory/Key arc into its home stretch, it features a respectable amount of comedy and emotion, with important developments for Buffy and Spike and the most significant contribution to the year’s theme since “Fool For Love”.

What I Liked about “Intervention”:

- I loved the entirety of the Buffy ‘vision quest’ plot. It didn’t have the superficial appeal of the comedic Buffybot story, but it had far more depth, and Buffy’s concerns about effective Slayerhood requiring the loss of her humanity were believable after the traumas she’d experienced. Her chat with Giles was nicely emotional, and Dawn urging her to take the quest opportunity was a much-welcomed bit of maturity. The trip to the desert nodded back beautifully to “Restless”, and I felt like I was being drawn in to a vast, underlying story. Besides being attractively shot, the sequences had some high-quality humour (Giles and the hokey-pokey), and provided both meaning and foreshadowing in the superb conversation between Buffy and the First Slayer/spirit guide.

- Narrative-wise, I can understand why the writers have had Glory take a long time to act (with her level of power, she could kill every character in the space of an episode), but it’s still problematic that she’s spent so long sitting around and doing nothing. This episode remedied that, and we got to see a level of cruelty and spite she hadn’t demonstrated before. Having her taunt and torture Spike was great in helping her feel like a viable threat, and Spike’s retorts were excellent in pointing out what a sad excuse for a ‘god’ she’s been (so far).

- Spike resisting Glory’s torture was interesting in that it wasn’t about him suddenly becoming a good Samaritan, but rather that his love for Buffy had overpowered his fundamentally evil nature. I still have a lot of issues with how the Spuffy arc is being handled, but the resistance scene (and then the brilliant closer with Buffy faking him out) were well-written, and made him a complex and intriguing character.

What I found to be a mixed bag about “Intervention”:

- The Buffy-bot results in some great comedy (asking Anya how her money is; “you’re recently gay!”; “Angel’s lame. His hair goes straight up, and he’s bloody stupid”; “Guy-les”), but it’s ridiculous that the Scoobs believe she’s the real thing. I guess you could handwave the cemetery scene as being the lingering result of the desert trance, but even that’s a real stretch, especially when the gang encountered April not too long ago (and the Buffy-bot has the exact same speech patterns, which Willow and Anya had previously described as ‘weird’). However, I’ll give the writers the benefit of the doubt here – I think that because “I Was Made to Love You” aired in February 2001 and this one didn’t hit screens until the end of April that year, they assumed that two months had passed in the show, when there are actually only two-odd weeks separating them in the series’ timeframe.

- Although the writers did have Buffy vocalise the disgust the audience should have felt at Spike’s Buffy-bot, I was uneasy at how the scenario was played for comedy. Granted, “I Was Made to Love You” did the same thing, but Warren was presented as a misogynistic sleaze while April received all of the sympathy. Knowing the mixed messages the show has been sending about Spike/Buffy (having stalking be a joke in “Shadow”/”Listening to Fear”; the massively problematic stuff in “Crush”), I don’t like having Spike’s actions portrayed as acceptable (though he earned credit for his reasons for not talking to Glory).

What I Disliked about “Intervention”:

- If you listen closely to Glory’s early speech about Buffy and the Key, you have to ask why she’s only acting now. Nothing in the content of her talk/thought process comes as the unique result of learning that the Key is human – she’s known since “No Place Like Home” that it and Buffy are connected, and she could have ordered her minions to closely watch the Scoobs twelve episodes ago. This is a sizable flaw for the arc, as her reasons for finally stepping up and doing something are poorly defined.

- How do Glory’s mooks get around without being seen? This has been a recurring problem, from Jinx’s constant appearances at the hospital to the frequent peeking in this episode and “Tough Love”. They could at least put their hoods up to disguise their blatantly non-human faces.

- Tara’s comment about Buffy being ‘crazy’ for sleeping with Spike was supposed to be funny, but it was just out of character.

- As we’re always told about how much of a badass Spike is supposed to be (and indeed, was back in S2), it would be cool if he still evidenced some of this behaviour. If the guy can hold his own against Slayers, he shouldn’t be overpowered by five lightweight minions, let alone restrained by a single one (when he’s being brought to Glory).

- I’ve no interest in the commencement of the ‘Dawn thieving’ sub-plot. It’s better knowing that it won’t pop up again this season, but it was such a weak, go-nowhere story that I don’t like being reminded of it.

- Buffy and Xander’s arrival at Glory’s apartment is a bit contrived. The characters seem to find the place only because it’s what the plot requires at that moment.

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

I liked the Buffy material more, and also had extra appreciation for Spike’s refusal to tell Glory about the Key. However, I found the Buffy-bot stuff more troublesome, and the humour it provided didn’t excuse some of the Scooby characterisation flaws. Fortunately, the things I liked were so good that they alleviated some of the problems, and I’d say that “Intervention” is worth a low seven out of ten on my scale – especially given that it’s the second-to-last episode to feature a truly interesting and meaningful theme. As a result, my score is staying the same.