5.19 Tough Love

[Clare]

5.19 Tough Love - Episode #097
As Buffy tries to control a rebelling Dawn, Glory pursues Tara - with tragic consequences.

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

[cyclica]

The ending creeped me out. Willow was talking about how she doesn't mind looking after her now mentally disabled lover, and buffy says 'I know how you feel' and looks at dawn, who smiles and seems oblivious to whats just been said. That whole scene was just weird.

As for the rest of the episode...

Dawn was annoying, refusing to do any schoolwork. Anya and giles were annoying, claiming anya was born in america, which makes no sense unless she was a native american, which she's not. This episode doesn't get good until the glory sucks out tara's mind, leading to the first appearance of 'dark willow'.

I give this ep a low 6, the hand crushing scene and the willow taking revenge scene were good enough to bump it up from a 5.

Fun buffy fact- the professor buffy talks to was played by the same actor who will play archduke sebassis on angel.

[partcynic]

5x19 “Tough Love”

Episode Rating = 4

Few “Buffy” episodes embody the concept of ‘good half/bad half’ more than “Tough Love”, the third mixed-quality offering from Rebecca Rand Kirshner. Despite starting with the same brand of directionless sludge that has marred so many S5 eps, it eventually transforms into something that’s quite gripping, with much-needed story progression and bits of interesting character conflict. Unfortunately, even the good stuff isn’t done as well as it would have been two seasons ago, but it remains that “Tough Love” is genuinely compelling in places, and a good transitional point for the Key/Glory arc.

What I Liked about “Tough Love”:

- The second half of the episode is among the best of the season. It’s excellently paced and has an unprecedented level of action and movement (for this year), with the highly memorable Willow/Glory battle and lots of arc progression.

- Like in the last episode, it’s fantastic to see Glory being truly evil, and I could feel Tara’s fear on the bench. Glory snapping her hand and taunting her with the knowledge of what it’s like to be brain-sucked was harrowing, and it made Tara’s refusal to give in all the more powerful. I don’t think her sacrifice ever got proper acknowledgment on the show, when it was honestly more deserving of praise than the credit Spike got for resisting.

- Anya is funny in the hospital scene, both with her comment on communism and “You can sleep with me! ... That came out a lot more lesbian than it sounded in my head”. It was also nice to see her showing sympathy for Willow in her own, unique way, akin to her lines to Buffy in “The Body”.

- After her horrid behaviour early in the episode, Dawn’s chat with Spike in the cave was a refreshing salve. The two characters have a great dynamic, and it was pleasing to see Dawn demonstrate some self-awareness and compassion for others. I just wish she could have kept this level of emotional maturity later on.

- Giles’ three little scenes are decent, and Tony Head did a good job. I particularly liked the tiny hint of Ripper we got (offscreen, natch) when he threatened Slook.

- The ending has some genuine emotion as Willow vows to take care of Tara, and Glory’s sudden appearance is a worthwhile shock. It’s about time that she learned the truth about the Key, and it’s good that the arc is now approaching its conclusion.

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

- The scene with Glory bathing was funny (especially her blindfolded minions), but I’m fed up with her material being basic repetitions of the same idea. How many times do we need to see her plotting to get the Key? It didn’t help matters that there was a near-identical sequence of events in the previous episode, nor that she could have done what she did here ten episodes ago.

- Hurting Tara to push Willow over the edge was a decent story decision, but also a maddeningly predictable one. I think that with a little rewriting, this episode would have been superior, and had way more substance and character development. Let’s say that we keep the original idea from “Hush” that Tara was far more magically powerful/learned than Willow, and instead of trying to figure out exactly who the Key is, Glory decides to hurt/pressure Buffy by going after her best friend. Willow gets brain-sucked (a huge shock for both the audience and the Scoobs), and Tara’s grief overrides her sense of right and wrong (a la Giles in “Passion”). As Buffy and Tara aren’t particularly close, there’d be a believable reason for Buffy to assume that a ‘do don’t that’ talk would put Tara off seeking vengeance, but she presses ahead anyway. Tara then fights Glory (doing something substantial for the first time in the show, and having the viewers see her in a whole new light), and Buffy arrives to save her. The final scene would then play out as normal, with Buffy understanding that Tara/Willow are the real deal and Tara/Buffy getting closer(which would be set-up for her telling Tara about Spike in S6). With only those minor changes, this story could have had much more impact, and it’s a shame that the writers went down the obvious route instead.

- The special effects during the Willow/Glory confrontation are hit and miss. Parts look great (bag of knives; the sand snake), but others range from poorly executed (shattering mirror) to laughably bad (Willow floating in midair).

What I Disliked about “Tough Love”:

- The first half of the episode (everything before Glory and Tara on the bench) sucked. The Dawn/Buffy ‘plot’ wasn’t interesting or engaging, and was played in generic soap-opera fashion. Nothing meaningful came from it, and there wasn’t any character development either. If anything, Buffy appeared to have regressed. In “Intervention”, it seemed that she had realised that approaching Dawn with honesty was a better choice than being a stern authoritarian, but there’s no evidence of that here. It’s highly annoying to think that her rigidity with Dawn is going to drag on until the end of “Grave”, and I can’t say that it provides much of an incentive to watch S6.

- Dawn was awful during her dining room chat with Buffy. The writers don’t seem to realise that they can have her express disagreement with her sister without having her throw fits, and that’s irritating. When the obnoxious runt slammed her textbook shut, I was hoping that Buffy would give her a good “Forever”-style slap – a red flag when a basic requirement of the arc is that Dawn be likeable/sympathetic.

- Willow’s behaviour regarding Buffy/Dawn really bothered me. She had no right to get touchy when she was interfering in a situation she knew nothing about – and instead of whining that Tara knew how to deal with things and she didn’t, perhaps she should just be grateful that she actually has her mother.

- As much as I like Willow/Tara, their argument was horribly written. In general, their relationship has been underexplored, and it was about time that some of their potential issues got brought up. However, instead of being cohesive and believable, the argument lurched from topic to topic, failing to do any of them justice and featuring really flimsy transitions. Its only real effect was making Willow look like a selfish, spoiled brat, and I’m not sure if that was the intention.

- The ‘emotional’ music is abysmal. The stuff that played over the montage felt like it was cribbed from a ‘Writing Sad Music 101’ textbook, and was cloying and blatantly manipulative. The other pieces weren’t quite as sickly, but still detracted from their respective scenes instead of enhancing them.

- Some of Glory’s dialogue is bad. What possessed Rebecca Rand Kirshner to have her say the line “Keys are worth a very lot”?

- Buffy’s behaviour in the post-brain-suck hospital scene was problematic. I’m not sure if it was the writing or SMG’s acting, but it gave the impression of Buffy viewing what had happened to Tara as an embarrassing inconvenience. She showed no signs of upset or sympathy regarding what had happened, and that left a bad taste in my mouth.

- With the emphasis being on Buffy/Dawn/Spike this season, the inter-Scoob relationships have had little exploration, and I thought it was sad to see how the Buffy/Willow friendship has rotted away. When Willow expressed her desire to get vengeance, Buffy didn’t even try to understand or relate to her feelings, and even though her statements about an attack being a suicide strike were right, she shouldn’t have assumed Willow would see things that way. It was ridiculous that she needed to have things explained to her by Spike (instead of showing a basic understanding of her supposed best friend’s personality), as was her inability to comprehend Willow’s anger until she thought of the same thing happening to Dawn.

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

I feel the same. The first half of “Tough Love” is a soap opera mess on par with the worst offenders of the season, but the second is among the best paced and action-filled (despite its predictability and iffy characterisation). The disparate quality means I can’t give this ep a ‘good’ rating (5-10), but it also eliminates the lowest grades (0-2), giving me a very narrow band to choose from. As a result, I’ve decided to stick with my prior score of four out of ten, though I would happily mark “Tough Love” higher if they ditched the Buffy material and made the minor re-writes I suggested earlier.