CONSEQUENCES; thoughts and reviews

[Saturn 5]

Consequences
The Good;
Hugely powerful ep, the dream sequence, Angel reaching out to Faith, the fight at the docks, the shock ending, as powerful as Buffy has ever been.
The Bad;
It's truly heartrending to watch Faith's fall from grace. One question though, where does Wes get his thugs from? They'd have been rather useful in the past.

Best line;
Buffy; "Cordelia is a friend"
Cordy; "Let's not exaggerate"
Wheldon Cliches;

Character death;
Bye-bye Mr Trick, who didn't follow his own advice about getting an Uzi.
Shot;

Tied up;
Angel in chains and Faith chained up twice. Buffy entangled at the dockside

Knocked out;
Faith, Angel, Wes and possibly Xander
Women good/men bad;
Not this time
Jeez!;
Horrible to watch both Buffy and Xander almost strangled
Kinky dinky;
Faith and Xander forget the safety word (a BDSM term). Faith tries eroto-asphyxia and refers to Xander as her boy toy (just a minor point but how gorgeous does she look at this point, like she's off to the ball or something?). Buffy in her dream sequence indulges in some wet T-shirt action. First meeting of Wes and Cordy (historic although neither realise it). Faith refers to Cordy as jail-bait suggesting she is under 18.
Calling Captain Subtext;
Willow sobbing in the toilets (how many of us did that in high school?) that Xander has lost his virginity to Faith rather than her. Buffy states that the guys Faith sleeps with are a 'big joke to her', implying that she's not that into guys? Buffy starts to make the effort to be more friendly to Will, you could say she's choosing her femme girlfriend over her butch?
Guantanamo Bay;
The Watcher's council once again show their ruthless side. Although the Mayor controls the police his influence seems to be not total.
Scoobies to the ER;
Xander must have some fingermarks on his neck with Buffy and Angel also bearing some bumps as does Wes
Where's Dawn?
Must be used to cops at the Summer's house by now? Joyce seems to wait up for Buffy to come home

Questions and observations;
Good ep but hard to watch, it's all so sad. We do however now start the run of the final eps of season 3 which set the standard for TV generally. Faith seems to feel genuine regret for what she's done but can't come to terms with it. She doesn't go evil right away, she saves Buffy, she could have just snapped Xander's neck but she doesn't. She's happy that the Mayor and deputy Mayor were dirty, alleviates her guilt. Apparently Slayers have killed before and the council takes them back for rehabilitation. But really they don't have much alternative, up until now there's only one Slayer. Does the Mayor want rid of the Slayers or not? Who's going to control the supernatural threat for him otherwise? To judge by the way the SDPD go straight to the Slayers and talk about wooden weapons the Slayers are an open secret in SD.
Terrible commentary, directors commentaries always seem to want to talk about camera speeds and lenses. More writers and actors please!
Marks out of 10, 6/10 powerful but not that much fun to watch

[buffyfan21]

Great episode, horrible commentary. I usually enjoy the commentaries, but this is of the few that a shutter to listen to. No offense meant to James Contner, he is an awesome director, but in this commentary he just drones on in a very monotonous sort of way. Not really enough to hold my interest (which is sad given the awesomeness of this episode), but perfect if I am having trouble sleeping (Sorry, I know that's mean)! I agree that more writers/actors should do commentaries (Shame the actors didn't get on it until S7, though), though I do enjoy David Solomon's commentaries.

As far as Buffy saying that guys are kind of a joke to Faith, I think what this means is that Faith basically uses guys for a thrill and then discards them (as evident with Xander), but I can definitely see the subtext here. Willow crying in the bathroom stall just kills me. This shows that even though she has moved on and as with Oz, there is still a part of her that longs to be with Xander at this point.

[Saturn 5]

Yeah awful commentary, directors always want to talk about their cameras, we need actors and writers

[gumgnome]

I disagree with you on the commentary point. It's not character based like those done by the writers, buit Michael Gershman's commentary is a nice change of pace, letting us into the film-making process. Directors are the ones who remember how diffcult it was to get the shot done (as Gershman explains for the opening dream sequence in this episode) which probably impacts the actors' performances - e.g. from the commentary on "Grave" we learn that the final Xander/Willow moment was done in piercing cold winds. One thing I dislike about Gershman is that he deviates from "Consequences" and starts talking about "Fool for Love" (presumably he'd just been shooting it?) but even there, we learn the camera techniques required to set up a moving subway scene in good detail - something that budding film-makers will really appreciate.
On the contrary, the actors' commentaries that I've seen (just Danny Strong and Tom Lenk on "Conversations with Dead People") made me think they should stick to their day jobs. Danny Strong just came across as immensely self-absorbed and uninteresting.

[Saturn 5]

Actually thought Danny was pretty funny. But actors are normally self-absorbed