I'm Martha Fucking Stewart

I'm currently enjoying a lovely chilled glass of water infused with rosemary.  This is a little trick I picked up from a. . . little trick in Chicago.  This young architect gentleman and I got to know each other over a glass of the same beverage.  It's simple.  Throw a couple fresh sprigs of rosemary into a (I use Britta) pitcher of water in the fridge.  Enjoy.

All Things Buffy

Yikes.  I started this post at the beginning of August and have abandoned it until now.  Here we go. . .

I've been meaning to write a Buffy The Vampire Slayer post for a very long time. I recently started rewatching the series, and I'm still in love with it. I didn't religiously watch it when it originally aired, but I caught episodes here and there. Then a few years ago, I watched the two episodes that aired every day on TNT, and LOVED it. I remembered some of it, but I finally caught up on it. At that point, season seven wasn't syndicated yet, so I had to get those DVDs, and I burned through them quickly. I imagine it would be difficult for someone to get into it now having never seen it. The first season is rough. The first two seasons are rough, really. The first season is just an intro to everything Slayer. The plot is whatever and the monster of the week format is fine as an introduction to the series. The story with Angel is compelling and interesting enough to keep the viewers watching. Of course the last episode is great with Buffy facing off against the Master and Cordelia becoming more of a Scooby.

The second series really picks up, and you start to get a better idea of the tone of the show. You get glimpses of its potential, but I still don't think it really found its voice yet. Spike is around this season, and he's always a treat, but he's completely evil at this point, and a little two-dimensional. The introduction of the second slayer as a result of Buffy's two-minute death in the first series is fun. The best part about Kendra (definitely NOT that terrible made-up accent) is that she named her stake Mr. Pointy. Buffy fucks Angel, Angel loses his soul, Buffy has to kill him, blah blah blah. I'll admit there was some great drama from Angelus' attitude toward Buffy and the subsequent running him through with a sword.

Season three is when Buffy really starts to shine. There are some hilarious episodes like "Band Candy," "The Wish," and "Zeppo" that hit the comedic stride that I feel the show is known for. This is of course balanced with some great drama in the form of the new slayer in Sunnydale, Faith. Bitch is crazy. At first we think she's crazy in a good way, but it turns out she's damaged goods and doesn't know how to deal with life. She kind of becomes evil, and a bitch loves to kill (even a human! The lovely and talented Jack Plotnick of Girls Will Be Girls future fame no less!). In the end, Buffy has to nut up and stab a cunt with her own knife. Sometimes you just have to cut somebody.

The fourth season is important to me for a few reasons. The first is that everyone's look improves. Buffy was always cute, but she really starts to get beautiful. Willow moves from super nerd to nerd chic, which is nice. She finally starts in on some full-fledged witching, making her more of a standout. She realizes her dykeyness and starts "doing spells" with Tara. Ugh. Tara. She was likable sometimes, but mostly annoying at first, with her stammering and shyness. Season four was also special because Anya became a regular cast member. She is THE BEST. She's hilarious without meaning to be, and watching her try to adapt to human ways is amazing. I miss her. But more about that later. Spike's neutering by the Initiative really serves to put the show on another level. Seeing him as a quasi-good guy is rewarding, and the playful interactions with gang are fantastically written.

Season five is when the show really becomes Buffy for me. I think this might be because the first season I bought on DVD was this one, resulting in many viewings. Spike becomes integrated with the Scooby gang, sort of kind of earning their trust.  To some extent.  This is of course the season that starts out with (well the Dracula episode which was really funny and called back to in the comic) Buffy's previously non-existant sister appearing.  Yeah, big WTF there.  Dawn sucked SO HARDCORE at first.  Well, she always sucks, but she gets less annoying further into the series.  The Big Bad this season is a fun departure from scary beasts in the form of a pretty blonde goddess shunned from her hell dimension.  And of course, there is the "The Body."  This is the amazing episode where (spoiler alert, too late) Buffy's mother dies.  There's no music in the episode, and it is quite intense.  It just hurts to watch.  I love uncomfortable things like that.  The speech that always gets to me the most comes from Anya:

But I don't understand! I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's, there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore! It's stupid! It's mortal and stupid! And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well Joyce will never have any more fruit punch, ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why.

The season ends with Buffy sacrificing herself to save her sister.  I suppose that could have been an end to the series, but I'm glad it wasn't because the next season was my favorite.

This is where I need to rewatch again, but I'll go from memory for now.  I took a break to watch HIMYM, 70 episodes of Bleach, and new episodes of current shows.  The gang brings Buffy back to life, but she has trouble adjusting to being back in the world.  Seems they pulled a bitch out of heaven.  Oops!  The reveal is so memorable in the amazing musical episode "Once More With Feeling."  The introduction of The Trio of nerds is fun and cute.  There are some really fun episodes like "Gone" where Buffy gets a cute haircut that no one can see because ZOMG! the Trio made her invisible.  It's cute.  "Doublemeat Palace" remains one of my favorites as well.  Willow and Tara break up because Willow becomes addicted to magic and does a ton of stupid shit, blah blah blah.  Just as they're about to get back together, one of the Trio comes barging into Buffy's backyard, shoots Buffy, and a stray bullet kills Tara.  That is a SAD fucking scene.  Lesbian Witch goes all Dark Willow and wants some revenge.  Then she wants to end everyone's suffering by destroying the world.  Natch.

The final season changes the game when all the potential slayers the team can get are brought to Sunnydale after it's found that they're being murdered.  Oh yeah, at the end of Six, Spike loved Buffy so much that he tried to rape her.  You know how that goes.  It turns out that he went through some crazy trials and had his soul restored, thinking Buffy could love him once he had it.  Aww.  He's back, but he's insane for a while.  The First Evil serves as the Big Bad this time around, and it's an appropriately epic touch for the final season.  The cutest of the Trio, Andrew, returns in a capacity to help the slayers, and he is fantastically nerdy.  The Hellmouth is opening, and an ancient breed of bad ass vampires are on the loose.  They are pretty much invincible at first, but once they manage to kill one, they are treated as hardly worse than regular vamps.  This is a glaring inconsistency that Joss Whedon admits in the commentary, but it had to happen I think.  They pull off a coup in the end, and Willow performs a spell to give all potential slayers in the world the powers of a full slayer.  It's a pretty inspiring scene, and it's very Girl Power.  In the end, Anya is killed (sad dot com slash ME), the Hellmouth is closed, and Sunnydale is destroyed.  It's a great end to a great show.

But that's not where the story ends.  It continued in Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8, a monthly serialized comic.  I was worried about this one, but it turns out the comic is great!  Mostly.  There are seven volumes so far, with the most recent having just been released this week.  There's a new BB in town, and his name is, get this:  TWILIGHT.  Granted, this was planned well before the Twilight series was mainstream and had tweens creaming their jeans over Robert Pattinson (which btw, I was creaming my jeans over him long before Twilight.  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, anyone?).  Still, it's unfortunate.  Moving on.  The stories are fun and well written, with appropriate artwork.  The Slayers are all gathered in Scotland with Buffy as their leader.  Shit is going down, Dawn is a giant, then a centaurette, then a rag doll, and Willow seems to have more power than ever.  We discover some interesting secrets, and see some familiar faces along the way.  Being in graphic novel form, the stories have license to do more outrageous things would be prohibitively expensive, which is so fun.  I have to say though, having just finished the most recent trade paperback collection, it was a little disappointing.  Maybe not so much disappointing as WTF?  Angel returns and Buffy gains superhero powers, and the whole reasoning behind everything is just so. . . stupid.  There, I said it.  Fucking stupid.  I still enjoyed it, but DAMN.  It's over, and I'm looking forward to moving onto the next arc.  We know at some point that our resident lesbian Wicca goes Dark Willow again, and it's mentioned many times since Buffy gets sucked into the future for a hot minute.  Hopefully the story of how that happens will be epic.  Thanks to Fray, an older pre-season eight comic collection about a slayer hundreds of years in the future, we know that magic doesn't really exist in the future, but Willow is very much alive and very much magical.  Buffy kills her :(

Which brings me to the motion comic.  Available on iTunes since July, it's exactly what it sounds like.  They started at the beginning, and they're now on the third volume.  The medium really adds a fun dimension to season eight.  I do wish the original actors would have voiced their characters, but the ones present are acceptable.  Each episode is one issue of the comic, and they are released weekly.  I watch them on my iPad, and they are crisp, sleek, and gorgeous.

I hesitate to even mention this, but there is a BTVS videogame.  I believe it was for PS2, and it looked awful.  I don't have it, and I think it might taint Buffy for me to play it.