Buffy the Vampire Slayer Normal Again

abril 22, 2022 Publicar un comentario

"I know y'all're afraid. I know the earth feels similar a difficult identify, sometimes. Merely you've got people who love you. Your dad and I, we accept all the religion in the globe in y'all. We'll e'er be with you. Yous have got a world of strength in your centre. I know you do. You lot just have to discover information technology over again. Believe in yourself."

—Joyce Summers

"For the final half dozen years, she's been in an undifferentiated type of schizophrenia."

Directed by Rick Rosenthal

Written by Diego Gutierrez, Rebecca Kirshner, & Steven Southward De Knight

Buffy searches newly rented houses for the Trio'due south hideout. The iii discover her on surveillance equipment but she gets too close. While they hide in the basement, Andrew calls on a demon which attacks Buffy and starts a fight. The demon grabs Buffy and stabs her with a needle-like part of its torso.

In a mental hospital, Buffy cries out as she's held past two orderlies and stabbed with a needle. Exterior the Trio's firm, Buffy wakes up confused and alone and walks home.

Willow prepares to talk to Tara simply sees her give her female person friend a quick kiss; Willow leaves, wounded. Tara notices her leave but it's too late to catch her. At the Doublemeat Palace, Buffy works like a zombie whilst having brief flashes to the hospital where the doctor tells her information technology'south time for the drugs. Willow and Buffy talk virtually Xander's disappearing human activity and Willow'south effort to talk to Tara. Xander surprises the girls past showing up at the house. He wonders about Anya and how to rebuild his human relationship with her. The girls tell him that Anya left town a few days ago and that everything volition be fine in time.

Buffy runs into Spike at the cemetery and they talk most the events at the wedding that didn't happen. A confrontation begins between Spike and Xander and as Willow tries to break it upward, Buffy becomes weak and collapses. Xander manages a one punch to Spike who focuses on Buffy. At the mental hospital, a doc tells Buffy that she'southward been hallucincating for the by six years and everything she knows nearly Sunnydale is fake. She'due south shaken and confused, especially when both of her parents walk in before Buffy falls dorsum into Sunnydale earth.

Willow and Xander get Buffy habitation and she tells them nearly the mental hospital and what the doctor said. While Willow organises a programme to research, Buffy returns to the hospital where the doc explains to her parents that she's been catatonic from schizophernia for the past half-dozen years and her life equally a Slayer has been elaborately created.

Adult Fear: Losing your child to madness.
All Only a Dream: Information technology's suggested that the entire series is Buffy's hallucination and she's living in a mental institution and has ability fantasies of saving the world with her imaginary friends. The ending leaves room for interpretation as to which being (Buffy's life equally a vampire slayer, or her life as a mental patient) is really All Merely a Dream. Joss Whedon has outright stated that either 1 is a definite possibility.
Alternating Reality Episode: Buffy, nether the effects of a demon's venom, flashes between the normal Buffyverse, and an alternate universe where she had spent the last seven years catatonic in an insane asylum in Los Angeles, where they have been trying to treat her for her insane delusions almost fighting vampires. The episode makes no attempt whatever to clarify which, if either, of Buffy's perceived realities are the existent thing.
Cryptic Situation: Buffy is injected with a toxicant that makes her hallucinate... or is it the other style around? According to a psychiatrist, who may or may non be a real person, she is in fact getting better — she has been sick all along, and now she'southward finally waking up from years of catatonic schizophrenia. So, the whole series is either This Is Reality or a mad All Just a Dream with a dash of The Schizophrenia Conspiracy. In the end, Buffy chooses her life in Sunnydale over her life in the mental institution, simply the ending leaves it ambiguous whether or not the world she settled for is the existent ane. Word of God doesn't help, either — executive producer and writer Marti Noxon says the mental ward was a hallucination, but Joss Whedon has said that either interpretation is just every bit legitimate as the other.
And You Were There: Buffy imagines her managing director at the Doublemeat Palace is a md in the mental hospital.
Female Doctor: Come on, it's time for your drugs.
[Flash back to the Double Meat Palace.]
Buffy: (confused) What?
Lorraine: I said, if I didn't know any better, I'd recollect you were on drugs.
Buffy: (confused) Okay. Good.
Anywhere but Their Lips: Willow is working herself up to ask ex-girlfriend Tara out for java and lesbian beloved when she sees her greet-and-kiss some other girl. From her viewpoint it'south difficult to run into how intimate the buss was, but she runs off anyway.
Badass Decay (In-Universe)
Fasten: It might explicate some things, this all being just in that encephalon of hers. Yeah, whips up some bit in my head, brand me soft, autumn in honey with her. And so, plough me into her soddin' Sex activity Slave.
Basement-Dweller: The Trio, though this time information technology's considering they're hiding from Buffy in an empty firm.
Bond I-Liner:
Xander: I altered his reality!
Spring and Duct-Taped: Willow and Dawn get this from a crazed Buffy.
Break Them by Talking: Fasten delivers this lecture to Buffy. Becomes a "Nice Job Breaking It, Anti-Hero" moment when information technology causes Buffy to pour away her antidote.
Continuity Nod: Buffy looks at a family unit photo of her parents with herself equally a child — the same child actress used in Season v's "The Weight of the Earth."
Cuckoo Nest: A perfect example. The episode ends leaving open up the possibility that the entire series was in fact the hallucination of an insane Buffy Summers.
- Notably, instead of Buffy being encouraged to impale herself, she was encouraged to kill all her friends, and came very close to doing so. They got over it astonishingly quickly, though. Stuff like that happens in Sunnydale.
- The clarification of the episode on the DVD case suggests that it was an alternate reality in which they actually are hallucinations, but they're perfectly existent in their reality. Give-and-take of Joss, even so, seems to propose that he finds it perfectly acceptable if fans conclude that the entire series was the fevered dream of a schizophrenic Buffy.
Cutting Back to Reality: Several times during the episode, there's a cutting between Buffy's hallucination and reality — just which cuts are that and which are the other style around are left to the audience to determine.
Description Cutting: Willow says that Xander has help finding the demon; cut to Xander and Spike stalking through the forest. The doctor's clarification of this years Large Bad as "just three pathetic little men who like playing with toys" to the Trio in their lair.
Despair Speech:
Buffy: (very quietly) I feel so lost.

Willow: I know. You're confused. It's, it's that crazy juice inside you.

Buffy: It's more than that. (Willow frowning) Even earlier the demon ... I've been so detached.

Willow: Nosotros've ... all been kind of slumming.

Buffy: Every day I endeavor to ... snap out of it. Effigy out why I'one thousand similar that.
Discreet Drink Disposal: Willow asks Fasten to make sure Buffy drinks the mug of yummy antitoxin goodness, merely Spike gets into an argument with Buffy and leaves, giving her a chance to pour it away.
Downer Catastrophe: Depends on which reality the viewer interprets to exist real. In the Sunnydale universe, Buffy overcomes her delusions and saves her friends. Buffy in the asylum, however, goes into permanent catatonia, to the devastation of her parents.
Dramatically Missing the Point: Buffy tells Spike, "Y'all're not function of my earth" considering vampires aren't real. Bold she'due south referring to him no longer existence her boyfriend, Fasten goes off on a rant instead of ensuring Buffy takes her medicine.
Easily Forgiven: Buffy nearly kills her friends and little sister because the physician in her (possible) hallucination says she needs to get rid of them to go back to normal. She changes her mind at the final 2nd, kills the demon she was about to feed them to, and begs their forgiveness. They give it almost immediately.
Education Through Pyrotechnics: Willow mentions that her previous attempts at making the antidote "went blast twice" before she got it right.
Elseworlds: If you believe the theory that the mental ward was actually a Parallel Universe.
The Catastrophe Changes Everything: The Trio tries to convince Buffy that her life equally a vampire slayer is delusional, and she is really a patient in a mental hospital. The episode ends on Buffy in the Mental Institution going catatonic. (Joss Whedon claimed this episode was ambiguous, and the show snaps back in the next episode.)
Foreshadowing: For "Entropy" — Spike threatens to tell the Scoobies about their matter if Buffy doesn't do and then.
Frying Pan of Doom: Buffy hits Xander with one, then drags him to the basement where he and Willow and Dawn tin can be eaten past the Monster of the Calendar week.
Grouping Hug: Xander gets a hug threesome when he returns abode.
Hell-Aptitude for Leather: Buffy changes into the Blackness Leather Jacket Of Ass-Boot while searching for the Trio, but non the Red Leather Pants of Death — she'southward not quite her former self nevertheless.
Homoerotic Subtext:
- The Argumentative Sexual Tension between Xander and Spike is lampshaded in a Deleted Scene where James Marsters gives Nicholas Brendon a mock kiss right subsequently calling him a "pathetic poof" in their graveyard fight.
- Buffy is once again fed upward with work.
Buffy: I could wrestle naked in grease for a living and still be cleaner than after a shift at the Doublemeat.
A House Divided: The Trio are starting to fray.
I Just Desire to Exist Normal: Part of the reason Buffy most chooses the other reality (if that's what information technology is); she'd get dorsum to existence a normal girl with no demons to fight, no trauma, and parents that are neither absent nor dead.
"I Know Y'all're in There Somewhere" Fight: Dawn tries this, but Buffy is too far gone by that stage.
Leaning on the Quaternary Wall: Plenty of this.
Doctor: Buffy, you used to create these k villains to boxing confronting, and now what is information technology? Merely ordinary students yous went to high school with. No gods or monsters ... just three pathetic little men who similar playing with toys.
"Go out Your Quest" Test: Buffy gets poisoned by a demon, and suddenly finds herself in a mental institution, with her worried parents (both live and together) hoping that she might come out of her prolonged psychosis. She'southward told that beingness a Slayer and everything that'due south been involved (including all her friends) was but a prolonged hallucination, and all she has to do to come dorsum to reality is let go of information technology...past killing her friends in the hallucination. In the end, she decided to be an unhappy hero who MIGHT be in a hallucination, versus being a happy person of no outcome in what besides might exist a hallucination.
Lotus-Eater Car: Played With. Unremarkably, finding oneself in a mental establishment is non anyone'south idea of "paradise" — only it might also be, in dissimilarity to what all Buffy had to contend with at that bespeak in the series. Dawn fifty-fifty accuses Buffy of non caring most her — when it's revealed that Buffy'south parents are all the same together and alive, only Dawn doesn't exist. To be certain, the institution seems similar a decent enough place — albeit with the doctors being a bit amoral and unprofessional (They practically encourage Buffy to kill her friends).
Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: For most of the episode, information technology seems equally if the mental institution is a hallucination brought on past the demon's venom...until the final scene, where institutionalized Buffy lapses into permanent catatonia. It'south ambiguous whether or not Sunnydale or the mental hospital are the real world, and Joss Whedon deliberately designed the episode and so that information technology could be one or the other.
Mind Screw: Buffy is poisoned by a hallucinogen-producing demon and is torn betwixt two realities: being a Slayer and existence an insane girl in an asylum, with parents who love her and are trying to make her sane again with the help of a psychiatrist. But and then, when the episode ends, information technology does then with an image of Buffy in her normal-crazy-girl reality, not equally Slayer Girl, leaving you with the impression that the unabridged show, including the later seasons, are all a product of an insane daughter'south overactive imagination unless you bear in mind that Buffy hasn't taken the antidote yet equally of the final scene and this moment could just represent her choosing not to respond to the hallucinations. Joss Whedon said he considers the series to be actually happening, simply put that in but for fun, and if people want they can consider the whole series to be the delusions of Buffy. Which would also make the entire Angel series role of that hallucination, too.
The Nicknamer: Xander calls Spike "Willie Wannabite", and Buffy "Sane Daughter" — right earlier she clonks him with a frying pan.
No Mere Windmill: Buffy reveals that her parents had her sent to a mental clinic for two weeks after she first told them virtually seeing vampires.
OOC Is Serious Business: When Anya doesn't open The Magic Box for a long fourth dimension afterward Xander left her, he is genuinely scared.
Or Was It a Dream?: Since the concluding thing we encounter is the insane aviary where Buffy had spent much of the episode "hallucinating" that she was a patient, accompanied by a medico pronouncing that she'due south lapsed back into catatonia, it'due south left to the viewer whether the previous vi seasons were real, or a psychotic hallucination. Bear in mind, however, that Buffy has notwithstanding not however taken the antitoxin as of this final scene. And that no real-life psychiatrist would think it was a good thought to encourage a mental patient to kill their imaginary friends. Joss Whedon personally believes that the events of the series are real.
Out-of-Genre Experience: The scene where Psycho!Buffy stalks her sister through their home is reminiscent of a Slasher Movie.
Person as Verb: Jonathan says he's "going Jack Torrence" cooped upwardly in the basement.
Psycho Psychologist: A competent therapist in real life would most certainly not encourage a patient to kill their imaginary friends, which serves as a large indication that the asylum reality is a hallucination caused by the demon's venom.
Retcon: Buffy is revealed to have been briefly institutionalized when she kickoff learned about vampires, which makes Joyce's Weirdness Censor in the first couple of seasons rather implausible. The common fan explanation is that this is role of the timeline that was altered past Dawn'southward creation. Some other possibility is that information technology'due south just a side effect of the demon's venom, since information technology'south never referenced again after this episode and Dawn never confirmed in the story. The non-canon (only canonically plausible) comic interquels that encompass the fourth dimension betwixt The Moving-picture show and Season ane show she really was institutionalized.
Rousing Spoken communication: Joyce gives 1 to Buffy, that ironically has the opposite consequence of what she intended. The fact that her Sunnydale being is then full of emotional traumas and problems for her and her friends, compared to the asylum where she has no Slayer responsibilities, Joyce is still alive and her parents are still together, convinces Buffy that Sunnydale must be the existent earth and she needs to summon the force to confront it again.
Maxim Too Much: Spike vents near how his Badass Decay led to Buffy using him equally a sexual practice toy. Fortunately Xander thinks it'south simply some stupid Spike fantasy. Between this and what he walked in on in "Gone", Xander may exist in deprival.
Schrödinger'southward Butterfly: Is Buffy the Slayer dreaming she'due south insane? Is she insane dreaming she'south the Slayer? Are both true? GOD DAMN YOU JOSS.
Shout-Out: When the Trio are planning a heist Andrew says, "I still think nosotros need eight more guys" and Warren replies, "I should never take allow you see that motion picture."
Shout-Out to Shakespeare: Xander quotes Marking Antony'south eulogy in Julius Caesar.
Boom Cut: From the demon injecting Buffy to Buffy existence injected in the mental infirmary.
Staircase Tumble: Tara's Big Damn Heroes moment is stopped by Buffy tripping her upwards from beneath the staircase.
Summon Magic: How Andrew summons the demon — past playing some kind of large flute.
Surrogate Soliloquy: Willow rehearsing request Tara out.
Willow: "Hello, Tara. Would you like to go out with me for coffee, food, kisses and gay love?"
Teens Are Short: Buffy notes that she should be taller than her 'lilliputian' sister.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Spike and Xander capturing the demon.
Testosterone Poisoning: Fasten and Xander work out their frustrations over their contempo human relationship erect-ups on each other.
That Came Out Incorrect:
Buffy: Some kind of gross, waxy demon-matter poked me.

Xander: And when y'all say poke...

Buffy: In the arm.
Thou-Yard Stare
Buffy: (vacantly) I'k okay, Dawn.
Dawn: The, uh, yard-g stare actually helps sell that.
Through the Optics of Madness: A demon stabs Buffy with a weapon that is a function of it. Said weapon is also poisonous and causes bright hallucination. Buffy believes she is in an asylum being treated for her delusion that she is the Slayer. After 6 years of watching the show, we the audience automatically presume that the Sunnydale scenes are real and the asylum scenes are delusion until the final reveal, which has 1 final "hallucination" that she's gone catatonic to cast doubt in the viewer's mind.
Tranquillizer Dart: The anti-Oz rifle makes a reappearance. Instant Sedation is averted — the Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik demon takes several darts, plus Xander and Spike bashing away at it, before it's subdued.
Twisted Echo Cutting
Willow: Dawnie, yous tin help me research. Nosotros'll hop on-line, check all the—

[Boom Cut to Buffy in the asylum. A doctor is talking to Buffy's parents.]

Doctor: —possibilities for a full recovery, just we have to proceed charily.
The Unpronounceable
Fasten: Oh, assurance! You didn't say the thing was a Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik.

Xander: That's 'cause I can't say Glarma— (demon hits him).
Written-In Absence: Xander asks if anyone has seen Anya at the start of the episode. The others reply she took off after the wedding.