Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Jonathan was a classmate, saved by Buffy when he wanted to commit suicide in the clocktower of Sunnydale High. Riley slept with Faith whilst she was in Buffy's body and Adam's still running around Sunnydale.
When Buffy and the gang feel like a simple vampire nest will be too much of a problem, they turn to the only person who knows how to help... Jonathan. Yes, that Jonathan. Something's happened to Sunnydale and Jonathan is now a superstar, plastered over everyone's walls, the subject of their collages and their master tactician for just about everything. However, the gang soon start to realise that this version of reality isn't quite right and that Jonathan may have been responsible for augmenting a new world that places him at the heart of it.
The episode is such a hilarious takedown of the male power fantasies lived out in stories such as Batman, Star Wars or The Matrix (starring Jonathan, of course) where the seemingly ordinary guy gets to do the coolest things by night and become a, you guessed it, superstar. Jonathan can sing, dance, play the trumpet, fight, solve crimes, inspire couples to go off and have sex, all kinds of things frankly. Danny Strong, so solid throughout his appearances so far in the series, clearly has a ball playing this combination of all awesome characters ever, striding through the episode with tongue firmly-in-cheek.
Superstar offers a kind of utopian vision that earlier Bizarro episode The Wish couldn't. In that episode, we find out what happened if Buffy never came to Sunnydale; here, it's what Sunnydale would be like if someone better came along. Like inserting himself into the credits, he insinuates himself into everyone's life, particularly Buffy's, attempting to solve problems like her relationship with Riley. The episode thrives on this new world, mining comedy from the audience's familiarity with Jonathan and his effect on everyone around it.
It helps that the show wholeheartedly commits to it too. Jane Espenson's screenplay plays up just about everything she can get her hands of, from situating Jonathan in a Wayne Mansion kind of deal to bringing out the Scoobies' insecurities through their relationship to him. Christophe Beck gets to go crazy with the Bond referencing, the score full of big, bold brass, guitar riffs and power motifs whenever Jonathan gets to do something awesome. It easily could've gone too far the other way (Jonathan's face is literally everywhere in the episode), but Espenson brings a pathos to it that keeps Superstar earthbound, especially when everything returns to normal and Jonathan has to face up to what he's done.
Jonathan is the stereotypical nerd of the Buffyverse and the episode finds him living out his ultimate fantasies. And yet, there is always a cost in a kind of Dorian Gray type deal; the ugliness of Jonathan's work manifests itself in the form of a vicious demon that the gang has to defeat. He also struggles with other people getting hurt at his expense, something which he still balks at even when conspiring as part of The Trio, showing his conscience is still there. He even experiences the hollowness of the experience; this superstardom hasn't been earned but wrought by magic. And that never ends well.
The final fight is a work of comedy referencing genius too; anyone who's seen Danny Kaye in The Court Jester will recognise Strong's comedic performance as ever strike by the monster gives him strength and prowess and against it sends him scurrying to hide again. It's a tonne of fun, this episode, and it works to demonstrate the cost of magic, an increasingly important theme. It also gives us a look at Jonathan's increasing ability with magic, something which will return when he hooks up with Warren and Andrew to become Buffy's self-declared nemeses.
Quote of the Week:
Giles: [After Xander accidentally sets a book on fire with a spell]: Xander, don't speak Latin in front of the books.
Let's Get Trivial: The last three cut scenes in the opening credits with Jonathan striding forth, coat billowing behind him, is a perfect Angel mock.
Demonology 101: This is the first time we see an instance of thaumogenesis in the grisly, beardy demon. Thaumogenesis is the creation of a new being, a resultant process of an augmentation spell. There is always a price to pay to balance the effects of the spell. This will happen again in both Buffy and Angel.
Sunnydale Who's Who: Brad Kane provides Jonathan's singing voice. He previously played Tucker Wells in The Prom and is also known as the singing voice for Aladdin. A Whole New World indeed.
- Becky
You can read Becky's look at previous episode, Who Are You, here.
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Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Angel and Buffy are undergoing a bit of a rough patch after Angel pretends to lose his soul to get Faith to confess and ends up getting a bit too close in the process. Faith is now working full time for the Mayor and everyone knows the Ascension is on the way, but not what that is.
Even in a run as strong as the latter half of the third season, Earshot stands out for a number of reasons; for a start, it's an excellent standalone episode. On re-watching it, it struck me that this is the most Buffyish of Buffy episodes, packing in everything that makes it so astute and subversive. After tangling with two demons, Buffy gets bled on, giving her a nasty little rash on her hand and telepathy. Obviously. Initially useful, revealing that someone in the school is going to kill everyone, the new gift soon turns against Buffy and starts driving her mad. Whilst Angel goes about putting together a cure with Giles, the gang try to work out who is about to go on a murder spree.
For most of the early seasons' run, the monster as metaphors forms the background for the majority of episodes. Earshot subverts that slightly by making it a bit more literal; the monsters are the high school residents themselves and their thoughts and actions. The lack of empathy amongst the students for those around them is something apparent right from the moment Buffy begins hearing things, even amongst her friends. Jonathan wants to kill himself because no one notices him and he feels invisible. Buffy acquires her powers just in time to hear his cry for help and find him in time to save him and that insight also allows her to feel everyone's pain as acutely as she feels her own.
That scene in the clock tower, one of two written by Joss Whedon for Earshot, is one of the most powerful scenes that Buffy has ever produced, playing on those feelings of isolation to allow for the audience to empathise with Jonathan, even though at first we suspect him of being the wanna mass murderer. High school shootings in America are still a tricky topic to approach and Earshot aired only a few months after the Columbine massacre (it had been delayed from its original broadcast due to those events), meaning the potential subject matter was particularly sensitive. Even though it transpired to be a suicide attempt, something else that Buffy has tackled before, the episode handles both very carefully to produce something that isn't at all exploitative. Buffy once again saves someone from the monster, but here, it's simply by listening to someone who feels invisible.
Of course, the person actually planning the school attacks is a part of the institution itself in the crazy lunch lady attempting to poison everyone. And you can kind of understand where she's coming from about high schoolers being awful, even if everyone who thinks that doesn't resort to rat poison to make a point. It's also another way in which Earshot subverts the usual Buffy formula. It is a human perpetrating the crime with the demon acting more as a catalyst for the episode's events rather than its root cause. Human suffering is at the heart of Buffy; it's what makes it so relatable despite it coming with all the genre trappings of vampires, werewolves and other things with sharp, pointy teeth.
As I started with the end, it's only fitting that I go back to the beginning because the cold open forms the final piece of the ultimate Buffy episode. It recalls the very first scene of Welcome to the Hellmouth when Darla goes from being the scared blonde to the monster in a simple turn of the head, kicking off Buffy's horror subversions. The opening scenes finds Buffy on the run from two mouthless demons, pulling a classic horror film run and stumble in order to lure them into a trap. It's one of the episode's many comedic moments (something I've not gone into too much detail about it here) and just reminds us that Buffy's anything but conventional a lot of the time.
Ultimately though, Earshot is a plea for better communication, through which the majority of the episode's problems would have been solved. This is shown in Buffy's scene with Angel when she realises that she can't hear what he's thinking and is forced to say out loud how she feels, prompting him to return in kind. By the end of the episode, their relationship is back on track because she gets the answer she was looking for (and he fed a demon heart too her. Romance, people). If someone had noticed Jonathan feeling the way he did before he wanted to kill himself and took the time to find out what the matter was, it would never have got to that stage.
Although Earshot may not be in my top ten of episodes of all time (that's a tough list to crack), it's probably the episode I would show to someone to convince them of Buffy's merits and calling cards. Everything about it is meticulously constructed and pretty much perfect, not to mention heartwrenchingly relatable.
Quote of the Week:
Buffy - [to Jonathan]: My life happens on occasion to suck beyond the telling of it. Sometimes more than I can handle. And it’s not just mine. Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they’re too busy with their own. The beautiful ones. The popular ones. The guys that pick on you. Everyone. If you could hear what they were feeling. The loneliness. The confusion. It looks quiet down there. It’s not. It’s deafening.
Let's Get Trivial: Anthony Head added in the bit where he walks into the tree at the end of the episode to make the scene funnier. It worked.
Demonology 101: Buffy worrying about having a tail is an in-joke because Joss Whedon hated tails on demons, thinking they always looked unrealistic.
- Becky
You can read Becky's review of Enemies here.
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Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy and Angel's relationship is intensifying, Cordelia and Xander's is also yet still very closet based and Buffy's having difficulty hiding her identity from her mum.
Bad Eggs finds the gang each looking after eggs as part of their sexual health education, learning about the responsibility of having their own offspring. Only these eggs are offspring of something a whole lot nastier than a chicken as the Bezoar Mother takes over Sunnydale High one student at a time. Buffy sets out to deal with the problem, but also has to contend with two vampire brothers, Lyle and Tector Gorch, who have set their sights on a showdown with the Slayer.
Bad Eggs is another one of those episodes, like last week's Ted, which I had written off long ago and simply never went back to. It's still one of the lesser outings for the Scooby Gang but there's a lot to like about it as well. The script has plenty of laugh out loud moments; there's Giles' reaction to the eggs, Buffy's incredulity at becoming a single mother and Xander and Cordelia's sparring to name but a few. It's also notable for its quieter moments, particularly the scene between Buffy and Joyce at the beginning of the episode in which the latter bemoans her daughter for not taking responsibility and despairing when Buffy quips about saving the world from vampires. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kristine Sutherland have such a wonderful chemistry that any scene in which its just the two of them is welcome and it's refreshing to still be in the 'Joyce doesn't know' section of the series.
So then to the rest of the episode; when I watched it as a wee 'un, I simply didn't have the science fiction knowledge that this episode requires; it's packed full of references (as you'd expect from a Whedon-penned script) with Alien and Invasion of the Body Snatchers being the most notable. Later in the same year, Robert Rodriguez' The Faculty would hit cinemas which tackles a similar parasite in a high school premise that Bad Eggs does and it would be remiss of me not to compare the two.
The Faculty remains one of my favourite teen horror/sci-fi combinations and the film and Buffy share a fair amount of the same DNA. The Faculty features a group of misfits (amongst them Buffy alum Clea DuVall as well as Elijah Wood and Josh Hartnett) who realise their school is being overrun by alien parasites and attempt to kill the queen before their world is lost. Remarkably similar then to Buffy's own tale, but actually a whole lot better. Given more room to breathe, the concept is allowed to affect each character in turn whilst a lot of Buffy's supporting cast are relegated to minor spots in the episode; Angel, Willow and Cordelia in particular. The Faculty is also more knowing with its references and with Kevin Williamson on screenplay duties, it crafts darkly witty take on the bodysnatcher sub-genre.
The film also benefits from a bigger budget and the reveal of the queen is rather impressive, remaining so to this date, despite the 16 years which have passed (oh dear God). However, for Bad Eggs, it's an episode which betrays its budget, particularly in the school basement scene. The styrofoam pieces of concrete and the one eye representing the Mother Bezoar look really cheap whilst the bezoars themselves manage to get away with looking rubbery through sheer ick factor. That said, the scene in which the bezoar first releases itself and wraps its tendrils around Buffy is really creepy and the confrontation in the bathroom channels the post-chestbursting moment from Alien particularly well.
If you haven't seen The Faculty, I heartily recommend it (if you hadn't guessed) but in the meantime, Bad Eggs is no bad substitute. A better episode than I gave it credit for previously, it's more notable for its quippy dialogue and quieter moments than it is for this instalment's feature creature.
Quote of the Week: Xander - 'Can I just say geeeurgggh?"
Buffy - "I see your geeeurgggh and raise you a nnnyaaaargh"
Inventive Kill: Xander inadvertently boils his Bezoar alive by attempting to cheat his assignment.
Demonology 101: Lyle Gorch will be back in the third season episode Homecoming.
- Becky
You can read Becky's look at Ted here.
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