Klytaimnestra's Review of "Get It Done"

by Klytaimnestra

"Don't know about you, but a tussle like that ... 's good for the soul."

You don't say. This episode should have been titled "Spike gets his snark back". And there was great rejoicing!

***

"You are the Hellmouth's last guardian."

If this season is formed of revisitations of the highlights of the last six years, "Get it Done" replays "Primeval" and "Restless", "Intervention," and possibly a trace of "Normal Again", with some changes of cast. (Where was Giles? I can't help but ask.) Overall I thought it was truly excellent, and the climax, a return to the feminist principles informing Buffy since the beginning, was really phenomenal. Reminded me of what I occasionally forget - why I love this show.

Random notes, then I'll try for some connected thoughts.

Continuity hole:

What the hell is Spike's duster doing in a box the basement of Sunnydale High? When last seen it was in Buffy's house. I'm sure one could fanwank it but why should we have to? Shocking, especially since it actually matters.

Anya:

Well, it's true that she's no friend of Buffy's, nor Buffy of hers. Getting a little tired of her offering sex more or less at random, and very much appreciate whoever it was called her "I-can't-get-no-storyline Anya". Anya's storyline (and not just Anya's) has always been sexual. But especially for her, she has been, when human, defined around whom she's diddling. After courageously telling Xander she has to go it alone now, at the end of "Selfless", she's backsliding, reacting badly to his apparent willingness to let her do just that, with jealousy, unhappiness, and an immediate desire to hook up with someone else. Spike by preference. Deeply embarrassing scenes for me - I always cringe at the sight of open and unwanted female sexual desire, very likely flashbacks to asking someone to dance and being turned down in grade 10 or something. Or just a conditioned response to a culture that still trains us that women's sexual desire is disgusting, disruptive, disfiguring, and renders the woman paradoxically undesirable. Say you want it = get ugly. Where have I learned this? But to continue, I mean, my personal emotional response to Anya aside. She has got to learn that her plot does not need to involve a sex partner.

And I say this while remaining, though rather tentatively at this point, a GAnya shipper. There is no way this Anya could possibly interest any man of even moderate self-awareness and discernment, let alone one like Giles. But I am hoping they will write her back out of this pothole on her road to self-respect, something she has zero of right now.

At least they did address a serious problem - what IS she doing there? Besides, that is, getting rescued. Interesting that Xander turned on her too. (By claiming the sarcasm role for himself, leaving her with nothing at all.) In fact her sarcasm is better than Xander's, but it's true, you only need one.

(Meanwhile, where is Giles? I ask. Peevishly. Tell us you've sent him to Hong Kong, but tell us SOMEthing.)

Kennedy:

Well, thank heavens, that story line seems to be about over, at least I sure hope so. Suddenly she discovers that being a very powerful wiccan's bitch isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm-the-girlfriend-of-the-most-powerful-person-in-this-room-so-you-want-some ?-Huh?-You-want-some? Kennedy is feeling a little bruised. Makes me feel all warm inside. Also makes me think that maybe we weren't supposed to like her; because it's beginning to look like what she really liked best about Willow was the power.

In fact, holy cow. Kennedy = First's next stooge? Wanting power is really all it takes.

Andrew:

Very funny. Haha. But HE'S the brains of the operation? Where, I am beginning to be really upset about this, the !~@#!! is Giles? (And while we're at it, when DID Dawn get that good at Sumerian? I know, it started looking like English - uh, when?)

Willow:

Willow had to call up the Dark Side but she didn't lose herself. She may have lost Kennedy, though I count that a gain of course. Guess Kennedy can't love her the way she really is. But I can tell you who does. The I'll-talk-to-you-in-the-morning scene is not as predictive of the end of the W/K relationship as are the positions at the end of the spell. Kennedy is not beside Willow - she's beside, uh, Dawn, I think, but standing by herself. Xander is standing behind Willow, supporting her, hands on her shoulders. When it comes right down to it, who can Willow count on? Not Kennedy. Who was admitted into the inner circle, for the portal-opening, pretty much as a test; and failed it.

Wood:

Kept getting interjected for no huge reason except to keep his storyline active with the occasional poke. And as a catalyst for two things: we are shown Buffy trusting him with every possible detail of the "operation". (We're supposed to believe that Buffy's instincts are firing on all cylinders now, but I have to say I'm dubious about that one.) And the first time I see Spike's snark come back in this episode is when he's facing down Robin Wood. If Wood is going to be used as a catalyst for Buffy to remember feeeeellllinngggs and Spike to remember how really good a good fight feels - hey, reason enough to insert him in the story, and I forgive you, Joss.

Giles:

Conspicuous by his absence. At least we didn't see Anya poisoning any chance of a future relationship by hitting on him out of desperation.

And now the important characters: Spike and Buffy.

I've heard an argument for a "two-protagonist" interpretation of Buffy this season, ever since the final shot last year was of Spike regaining his soul. I wasn't really buying into it until this episode. But the cuts back and forth between Buffy's fight and Spike's gave them equal importance. And Spike's got his snark, his duster, his black t-shirt, his cigarettes, and - at long last - his rocks back. Without, apparently, losing his soul. The very thing I've been hoping for all this time has actually happened - we can actually HAVE old Spike back, but ensouled. Buffy's equal. At last.

And I don't know what the general reaction has been (haven't read anyone else's yet) but I just loved Buffy's speech. Buffy, Bitch On Wheels - that's my girl! Her comments on Chloe ("anyone want to speak a few words? Then I will. She was an idiot. Anyone else wants to be an idiot, there's space beside her and Annabelle.") And she goes on. Anya, what ARE you doing here? Besides getting rescued. Willow has no power at all, if she won't use it. You're all waiting on me. Well stop. And then - and this was the high point, if the most painful - she tells Spike to take a cell phone - "so if I need anyone to weep or get whaled on I'll know who to call". And she actually tells him she liked him better before he turned into a wimp, and that she wants the one who tried to kill her back. This is all entirely and utterly unfair - he did it for her, as he points out - and entirely and utterly necessary. How pleased she must have been to see that flash of anger in his eyes! Old Spike is still there, and just needed a spur.

She told them what she needed from them, and then removed herself from the scene so her troops could finally marshal themselves - Dawn, research girl; Willow, wicca; Spike, high-grade muscle. Who LOVES his work. And they all come through. Buffy the Bitch is exactly what she needed to be. And because she lashes them to it, they rise to the occasion and become what they can be. Including, bless her for this, Spike.

Delighted to see the Slayer dream and Slayer dream-journeys again. Which brings me to the highlight of the episode. We finally find out what the source of the Slayer power is, and yes, it turns out to be demonic. My first reaction was to be a bit disappointed that after all these years that story-line was getting closed down in one five-minute vision. But the point isn't the revelation, but Buffy's reaction to it.

Her reaction was brilliantly courageous. NO, I will not become less human than I am. You raped that girl and you're not going to do it to me. Men, making a girl do the dirty work for them yet again. But you're just men.

And with perfect timing, she rips out the chains - because she's more than "just a man" - and uses them as weapons against her would-be rapists. At this point I was sitting bolt upright shouting - well, saying softly, don't want to wake the kids - YES! YES! YES!

Because the Slayer was a virgin sacrifice by the first three members of the Council of Watchers. The Slayer line was made by men, for men, in and on the body of a teenage girl just entering sexual maturity. And it was made by demonic rape. Instead of sex, of love, of motherhood, of a place in society, she was raped into a short and violent existence and a painful death, at the service of others - of men, since that point was underlined in the episode.

It's not that hard to manipulate and outright force a teenage female with no power at all, let alone special Slayer powers, into doing what you need her to do. But they never counted on having to deal with an adult Slayer - their tools weren't supposed to live that long.

Buffy's not a virgin anymore. She's not a teenage girl either. She's been a Slayer for years already. And she'll choose whom she serves and how. As should we all.

Possibly all-time favourite line: "It's always the staff."

***

Two final thoughts, to come back to the first two lines I quoted:

"You're the last guardian of the Hellmouth".

Hm. Okay, this has got to be the last season then. And I think they're all gonna die. (I keep saying that, I know.)

"Don't know about you, but a tussle like that ... 's good for the soul."

Duster. Cigarettes. Swagger. Snark. Brawling. Joie de vivre. Hm. You know, I think there's a very good chance Buffy's going to get laid again before the end of the season after all.

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Klytaimnestra