7.18 Dirty Girls

[Clare]

7.18 Dirty Girls - Episode #140
The First’s right-hand man, Caleb, arrives in town. Buffy leads her troops to take him on, but the battle ends with several deaths and Xander severely injured. Meanwhile, Faith returns to Sunnydale and strikes a rapport with Spike.

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

[partcynic]

7x18 “Dirty Girls”

Episode Rating = 4

Sandwiched between two of the series’ worst editions, “Dirty Girls” is a momentary reprieve from badness that also manages to be one of S7’s best arc shows. For the first time since the First story began, we had an arc episode that significantly progressed the plot, and did so with humour, drama and action. By the time it finished, things had truly changed, and there’s some satisfying schadenfreude to be had in watching General Buffy’s ridiculous plan blow up in her face (so sad that the show’s main character has become one of its least likeable people). That said, there’s still a lot to question here, and it’s hard to get excited when you know that the shot in the arm the arrivals of Faith and Caleb provide will have worn off one minute into “Empty Places”.

What I Liked about “Dirty Girls”:

- In contrast to most of the year, this ep is well-paced and has lots of movement. No scenes overran, and the majority felt like they deserved to be there – and the characters that had been time-suckers (Andrew, Wood, most of the potentials) were thankfully kept to a minimum. This coupled with the wittier-than-average (for S7) dialogue is a big plus, and these factors go a long way to making this ep enjoyable.

- In terms of plot development and theme, Caleb doesn’t work, but I’m still glad he was there. Having a corporeal foe gave the story something to focus on, and he was alternately amusing (asking about the choice wine at the Last Supper) and creepy (reliving his past murders).

- Faith was the heart of this episode, and every scene she had was good. The dynamic between she and the other Scoobs was believable, and I loved seeing her readjust to Sunnydale and Buffy/Spike (“Are you the bad Slayer now? Am I the good Slayer?”) There were lots of neat continuity references, and they were used to enrich her story (nodding back to “Who Are You?” with Spike) as opposed to being forced in. The character was consistently funny and real, and she had great chemistry with Spike. If anything, she fits far better with him than Buffy, to the extent that it was a shame when ‘B’ made her appearance. The contrast between she and Faith/Spike was very telling – they’re so much cooler than she is, and could easily oust her from her own series.

- Xander’s dream was silly (and felt tacked on to increase the episode’s running time), but it was also believable and funny. The character got some of his better S7 material here, and while I definitely didn’t need any further speeches, his talk to the potentials about Buffy seemed genuine and heartfelt. Rewatching the mock-training session he gives, it’s also darkly humorous for him to suggest people “go for the eyes”, and it was actually surprising when Caleb attacked him – if only because he’s escaped unscathed so many times that he’s starting to feel sacrosanct.

- Amanda continues to be the most likeable and endearing of the SITs. Unlike so many of the prominent S7 characters, I would be happy to spend more time with her.

- The ending with Caleb’s voiceover and Buffy surveying her fallen troops was fairly chilling – if I hadn’t learnt that it paid to be cynical at this point in the series, I might have even been anticipating the next episode.

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

- Caleb’s sudden introduction was strange. On one hand, it’s good to know that the writers realised there was something wrong with the First arc and thus decided to create a new threat, but it’s clear that this is an author’s saving throw. If the First has had Caleb as an ally for quite some time, why didn’t it bring him in from the start (or the show at least give us some foreshadowing as to his existence)? If he’s invulnerable and powerful enough to knock Buffy out with a single punch (when not even Glory could do that), why go to all the effort of raising the Turok-han? There are a lot of holes here that should have been dealt with, and it’s unfortunate that they weren’t.

- The big fight could have been done better. The gang fares too well against the Bringers in the first half, but that was made up for by having Xander blinded and a semi-known character killed (always good to show the consequences of bad decisions). However, I didn’t really buy Caleb’s super-strength, and he overwhelmed both Buffy and Spike too easily. The main body of the battle also felt disjointed – rather than being a cohesive group fight, it felt like several smaller struggles that just happened to occur in the same area.

What I Disliked about “Dirty Girls”:

- Enough with the repetitions of ‘this is war’ and “[Spike] has a soul now”. They’re popping up in every episode in some way, shape or form, and are getting very annoying.

- It’s too coincidental that the people in the vehicle behind Caleb and Shannon just happen to be Willow and Faith.

- Xander has a bunch of potentials staying at his apartment? While it makes sense that the Summers house can only hold so many people, how’s he supposed to protect the girls from a potential Bringer attack?

- The symbolism with Caleb is obvious and unimaginative. There are ways to express a pro-woman message without resorting to having the villain be a devout, religious-fundamentalist misogynist, and the clear-cut separation of good and blatant bad is more fitting to S1 than S7. It’s not that I didn’t like Caleb’s scenes, but it was almost as though they were written to tick a series of ‘this guy’s really evil’ boxes, and the very basic theme is not what I’d have wanted to a show of “Buffy”’s former quality to go out on.

- Knowing (from later eps) why the First/Caleb are now at the vineyard, I have to ask why they even camped out there in the first place. If they feared Buffy getting her hands on the scythe-thing, it might have been smarter not to 1) lead her right to it, and 2) perform a mass excavation that would make it easier for her to obtain once she learnt of its existence.

- Willow wasn’t used particularly well. She’s okay at the start (though a bit too friendly with Faith, given all the bad blood between them), but the writer’s decision to have her stay at the hospital (and then the Summers house) smacked of not knowing what to do with her. Ever since the Dark Willow arc and what felt like her transformation into the most powerful being in the world, the show has had to keep coming up with reasons for her not to use magic, and that suggests that the story’s ramifications weren’t thought out at all.

- Seeing that we already got an extended previously-on section documenting Faith’s past, we didn’t need Andrew going over things again. What’s more, it didn’t make sense – Andrew never even met Faith, so how does he know her life story? I can’t see any of the Scoobs taking the time to sit down with him and discuss it.

- Giles’ metamorphosis into a cantankerous curmudgeon has been one of the big mistakes of the season, and he’s now a hollow, out-of-character shell. It was unfortunate that the fallout from “Lies My Parents Told Me” had to be dealt with here, and worse still that it was done via Giles and Buffy sniping at each other.

- Buffy’s plan of ‘go in all guns blazing against a foe we’ve never met, at a place we’ve never been, for a reward that may not exist’ is way beneath her. While she has come up with some not-so-good ideas before (including variations on what she does here), in the prior incidents she acted alone, and didn’t knowingly endanger other people’s lives. Even if she’s under stress, she should know better – taking the potentials against Caleb now would have been a lot like her taking Dawn to fight Glory, and she was once perceptive enough to know that.

- In the vineyard, why do the characters stand around and listen to Caleb talk? How about using that time to attack instead? And perhaps the gang could wield weapons more powerful than spiked clubs – couldn’t Buffy break out the troll hammer, or that rocket launcher she had in “Him”?

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

I like it a bit more, but am keeping my old grade of four out of ten. As a S7 arc ep, “Dirty Girls” can only go so far, as arcs need to be good throughout in order to have lasting impact – and there are so many problems with the narrative of the First, there’s nothing that could save it at this juncture. Still, it remains that this ep is second only to “Chosen” in terms of that particular story, and it deserves credit for being written with actual competence.