OTH: Buffy the Vampire Slayer- "Selfless" / "Him"
No Buffy for you. Leave quickly now.
Season 7, Episode 5
Aired October 22, 2002
Directed by David Solomon
Written by Drew Godard
Synopsis: Willow is registering back at Sunnydale U, and when she’s at campus, she sees Anya walk out of one of the school’s fraternities. Anya says that she just saw her new boyfriend, but when Willow sees blood on her wrists, she knows something is up. Willow enters the fraternity and sees blood sprayed all over the walls. When she hears a girl crying “I take it back” in the nearest closet, she opens it and meets someone who tells her what happened- her boyfriend, one of the frat boys, lied about them hosting a party and instead brought her over to dump and humiliate her in front of all of them, as they laughed through her tears. The girl bitterly wished that they would know what it’s like to have their hearts ripped out, when Anya appears and calls for a spider demon to do so. Willow sees the demon and pushes it away, recalling a bit of her turn at the end of last season in the process. She calls Buffy and informs her of the spider demon at the fraternity, intentionally leaving out who was responsible, as Willow heads to Anya’s and tries to reason with her to no avail. Buffy and Xander arrive to check out the damage and see a boy whose heart is missing from his chest next to some black soot. As they inspect the scene, the spider arrives and Buffy maims it easily. The two return to Buffy’s house to look into who or what called the spider up, but Willow is sitting there and tells them. Xander is furious that Willow kept Anya’s involvement from him, but there’s a reason why, as Buffy realizes that she has to kill her. Xander’s anger switches from Willow to Buffy, as he can’t believe how easily she’s willing to jump to this conclusion. Buffy confesses that she’s thought this over before and knows that he has as well, but there’s no other way to keep her in line. Xander calls her out on this, bringing up that she spared Spike from a similar fate despite committing worse damage overall, and her reminder that Spike is powerless against them is heard on deaf cries. She has to remind Xander and Willow that she killed Angel, the love of her life, for the greater good, and she would do it again. Xander refuses to listen and races to find her before Buffy does, while Willow stays home. Instead, she takes the talisman D’Hoffryn offered her and calls him up, not to take up his offer of becoming a vengeance demon but to talk about her friend. Xander finds Anya at the frat house, and while she’s not interested, he tries to protect her from Buffy, who arrives with sword in hand to slice her open. Anya puts up a good fight against the Slayer, but even with Xander’s intervention, she eventually slices right through the vengeance demon’s chest. After a quick flashback, Anya pulls the sword out and prepares to fight for more, warning Buffy that it’ll take a lot to kill her. Their fight is interrupted again, not by Xander but this time by D’Hoffryn, who informs Anya of his meeting with Willow, and wanting to know, straightforwardly, what she wants, when she reveals that she wants out. As we’ve seen Anya wince at her actions during the episode, this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, and her boss agrees as long as she’s willing to pay the price- the blood of a vengeance demon for the lives of the slaughtered. Anya offers her life, prepared for the ultimate sacrifice, until D’Hoffryn pulls one last trick up his sleeve and call up Halfrek, only to burn her alive. The deed is done and Anya no longer has her powers. As she’s horrified to see her friend turn to ashes, Anya wishes that she died instead, but he insists that there will be plenty of time for that, as from beneath them, it devours. Buffy goes to check on the frat boys while Xander and Anya walk out. Anya expresses dread at not having a self to fall back on, as she no longer has vengeance, the prospect of marriage, or even a business to intend to. All Xander can say is that she shouldn’t be a dope as the two head off in opposite directions.
In flashbacks to ancient Sweden, we see Aud suspect her husband, Olaf of cheating on her with a bar maid. As her suspicions prove true, she gets revenge by conjuring up a spell to turn Olaf into a troll. This pleases D’Hoffryn, who christens Aud into Anyanka and offers her a role to promise vengeance to scorn women. This continues over the centuries, but we get one glimmer into her period of near-domestic bliss when we cut back to 2001, when Anya sings about how excited she is to become Mrs. Harris (“I’ll Be Mrs.”).
If Buffy’s seventh season is meant to be about redemption, Spike isn’t the only one whose soul needs saving. Willow and Anya also have crimes to answer for, and while we touched on Willow’s a little bit in “Same Time, Same Place”, the almost-Mrs. Harris hasn’t had much focus since the season started.
Although we aren’t quite done with Willow yet, as a bit of the incredible power she could barely control in the back end of season 6 briefly returns here. She’s able to push it back this time and has Buffy take care of the spider, instead of causing greater damage by doing it herself, and she later rebuffs D’Hoffyrn’s offer to become a vengeance demon. Recovery is a long and arduous process, but Willow appears sincere in her hope to go through with it.
With “Selfless”, we see more of Anya than we ever have before, going back to her millennia-spanning start as a vengeance demon all the way up to her recent return to the field, and throughout, a different side of Anyanka emerges- an empty one. She’s quite good at vengeance and enjoyed it during her heyday (which was basically up until her first appearance in season 3), but it’s all she had, as anything not related to work didn’t interest or satisfy her, and it’s easy to see why. Whether she identified as Aud or Anya, she never fit in with her contemporaries, being too literal and earnest to truly belong.
Even when she was stripped away of her power and connected with the first human male she found desirable in centuries, Anya was never quite her own person. While she was able to carve a place for herself in the Scoobies, she was always seen as Xander’s partner first, former vengeance demon second, and Anya at a distant third. When Buffy, Dawn or Willow try to talk to her outside of Xander’s company, these are the first subjects to come up. Similarly, while the Magic Box gave her employment and responsibility, she never truly owned it, as she only shares the title to Giles. What does she have to claim as her own?
“Selfless” is a title with a duel meaning, as on one hand, it reflects the action Anya needs to make when her return to vengeance doesn’t fill her with the purpose and pride that it once did, and it also suggests that now that she returns to human form, once and for all, she has no self to claim to. No fiancé to connect her to the human world, no job to wake up for every morning, no mystical abilities to call upon. This is square one, but she’s been here before. Give her credit.
“Selfless” is Drew Godard’s first script for the series, who will become a regular for the last season and a big name in the industry. Godard states that while it was his idea to pitch an Anya episode, Whedon came up with the bones of the episode as the two went to dinner. It’s also a light episode for half the cast, only allowing for one scene each for Dawn and Spike, while the crew only had three days to work with Gellar before her wedding (I think the scene where she sees Spike in the basement was done in her “wedding hair”). I think he did a terrific job.
Season 6, Episode 7
Aired November 5, 2002
Directed by Michael Gershman
Written by Draw Z. Greenberg
Synopsis: Buffy insists on Spike moving into Xander’s apartment (which may we remind you, isn’t the nice one he got for Anya back in season 5) so he can avoid whatever is making him act crazy in the school’s basement, although little do they know who he’s talking to when they can’t see. After settling him in, we return to life at the new Sunnydale High, where Buffy and Dawn are hanging out at the bleachers during lunch to chat, with Dawn expressing her concern that Spike could return to his old ways. Buffy can tell that the return of his soul is genuine and has helped him, but also swears that she isn’t in love with him, if just concerned. Dawn scoffs at the idea of love until she catches her eye on the school’s quarterback, RJ. She’s feeling more than just a crush on him and tries to squeeze her way into his circle. When she hears that one of the cheerleaders has twisted their ankle and can’t perform, Dawn enters tryouts and delivers a chant announcing her crush, all while landing on her face. Humiliated, Dawn won’t leave her room despite Buffy and Xander’s best attempts, and when they try to call this a crush, she snaps, calling it true love, even though she just noticed the boy yesterday. The next day, Dawn overhears that another member of the team, O’Donnell, has taken his position behind his back. Dawn gets to the bottom of this by politely pushing O’Donnell down the stairs, and claims her innocence when quizzed by Principal Wood, who believes her. RJ appreciates her enthusiasm all the same and asks her to hang out that night. As it turns out, there’s still only one place to really hang out at in Sunnydale, so when Buffy, Xander and Willow are enjoying their evening, they take a look at RJ dancing with a crop-top wearing Dawn. Since she told Buffy that she was going to study at the library, big sister is furious and grabs little sis by the arm. After a little bit of berating, Dawn walks out into the alley, when a jealous ex of RJ’s attacks her. Buffy has to come out to stop the catfight, which ends with the other girl kicking Buffy in the shin after calling her a bitch. The next day, RJ goes into the principal’s office for having other girls do his homework for him, and Buffy takes the opportunity to drill him. However, she soon becomes smitten and has to stop herself from coming onto him when another faculty member walks in. That evening, Buffy tells Dawn about (part of) her meeting with RJ, giving her the tip that he doesn’t like pushy girls, suggesting that she backs off a step. Perfect for Buffy to shoot her shot with RJ again the next day, as she calls him into an empty classroom so the two can get acquainted. Dawn ignores Buffy’s advice and peeks into RJ’s classroom, only to find him MIA. She starts sulking around the school until she just so happens to glance into the room where he and Buffy are making out, and she runs away tearstriken. Xander (who FYI is still working on the school’s construction) catches Dawn and asks what’s wrong. Dawn doesn’t say exactly, but she implies that something is up with her sister and RJ, so he goes inside the school and sees Buffy sitting on top of the student (on his chest, fully dressed) and takes her home. It’s time for a Scooby gang meeting, featuring Anya for the first time (as D’Hoffryn has sent a hit on) in a while as Buffy and Dawn keep arguing about RJ. The other three are convinced that RJ has a love spell similar to the one Xander used back in season 2 (good times), so after the Summers sisters excuse themselves, Willow does some digging on RJ and discover that his older brother, Lance, used to bully Xander back at the old Sunnydale High. Thinking he has an in, Xander drags Spike over from his apartment to Lance’s house, which happens to also be RJ’s, as he still lives with his mother. Lance is appreciative to have company, but Xander’s only interested in business and learns that RJ’s letterman jacket has been handed down from the family and has always been a lady magnet. Before they return to the Summers house, RJ comes by and asks for Buffy, and is shooed away by Willow and Anya. The thing is, they immediately become smitten, even though Anya can’t recall his name and even though Willow’s a lesbian. Yes, really. Buffy and Dawn come down and are furious to discover that they have competition with their supposed friends, and now each one is off to come up with their own way to entice RJ. Willow’s involves a spell that will turn him into a girl so she can love him in peace, which Xander and Spike stop right away as she’s the only one home. Their next stop is the school, as Buffy’s plan is to kill Principal Wood, who RJ has mentioned disdain towards. Spike grabs the rocket launcher out of her hand as they try to reason with her, while Willow sets up a human tracking spell to find Dawn, who’s lying in the middle of a joint railroad track, waiting for the 7 o’clock to run through her. They drive over to the her exact location, where Buffy chases to catch one of the two oncoming trains, jumps right on top of it and rolls down to pick her sister up before the next one comes for her. Buffy, seemingly over the spell, asks Dawn what was she thinking, when Dawn reveals her plan to have RJ remember her as the girl who sacrificed her life for him. Buffy calls bullshit, saying that no man is worth dying for, even someone as devilishly handsome as RJ. But this stops as Willow’s tracking spell allows Xander and Spike to find RJ and grab his letterman jacket. With this, the spell is broken and the women go back to their normal lives. But what did Anya almost do to prove her love to RJ? Well, she really didn’t want us to hear about some robbery on the news.
We’ve done this before. I mentioned above how “Him” resembles and references the second season’s “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”, an episode that I found entertaining with Xander’s desire to woo the ladies of Sunnydale get out of hand, but this isn’t the kind of story you want to return to multiple times. It especially doesn’t help that Buffy’s take on people’s actions when they’re under spells is questionable. It doesn’t count! They were possessed, so move on. Even the time that Xander almost raped Buffy, or when Joyce and Giles fuck on the hood of a police car. Twice.
Or if, you know, Buffy hooks up with an underaged student, or Willow plans to commit non-consensual gender reassignment surgery. Fun, right?
I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t have fun with “Him”, which is still gifted with a highly talented cast who gives it their all. It should be no surprise that Gellar’s refusal to compromise over RJ is hysterical, or that Trachtenberg does a terrific job pulling off teenage angst over feelings she can’t control. This should all go without saying, as even Buffy’s biggest detractors seldom go for the cast.
The problem is that “Him” feels lazy and distracting when we have bigger fish to fry this season, and my problem is less that it’s “filler” and more that this is an obvious retread that doesn’t offer much beyond a solid speech that no man is worth killing yourself for. While this is a strong point, one worth exploring after everything Buffy’s been through with Spike, I know that the show can do better.
And aside from the aforementioned speech, we have a moment where it does. I like the opening dialogue between Buffy and Dawn, where the two pour their hearts out over boys. The thing that stands out most to me is that Dawn equates Xander walking out on Anya as almost as soulless of an action as Spike nearly raping Buffy, which is a stretch, but shows how the characters think. Dawn is still new to dating and heartache, a bit juvenile, and her ability to compare two different kinds of humiliation is interesting if lopsided. And it doesn’t register to Buffy, who still appears willing to give Spike the benefit of the doubt. Their relationship has always been messy, and remains so here.
Otherwise, “Him” is hardly the show at its best, on any level.
Watcher’s Guidebook:
Anya was given the human name of Aud due to research Drew Godard did when he found a viking king named Olaf who was married to a woman with the same name, known for her sense of humor and resourceful balance of money. That is SO Anya!
According to the commentary, Godard asked for his credit in the opening to appear in a special place… which ended up being a shot of Willow’s ass. Uh, okay.
Hitting a troll with fruits and various meats doesn’t seem to be a great strategy, but if it works.
I don’t want to know what else counts as water cooler vengeance.
The best part of Anya’s musical bit? You hear a bit of the mustard guy’s number.
Kali Rocha, who played Halfrek, flew into New York to film her scenes for both “Lessons” and this episode at the same time.
Okay, but who doesn’t love seeing Dawn wearing Buffy’s cheerleading outfit from “Witch”?
“Anna Nicole Smith thinks you look tacky” couldn’t be a more 2002 line.
ngl, I would love to see Willow use magic to turn RJ into a girl.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles: Remember how Fred was a PHD candidate for physics? In “Supersymmetry”, her thesis is published and she’s offered the chance to speak at a prestigious seminar hosted by her professor. Well, it just so happens that this professor has it out for Fred, as well as other students of his that he worries will steal his thunder, as he sent them into Pylea to avoid such from happening. Because who says that Sunnydale is the only SoCal city where these kinds of shenanigans happen? This is an okay episode, one that I appreciate being light on Connor, because fuck him. And with “Spin the Bottle”, we have something like a refresh of “Tabula Rasa” from Buffy’s six season, setting the Angel crew back to their high school selves to deal with Cordelia’s memory loss. The only way they can return to their normal selves is to kill a vampire, and uh-oh, who’s a vampire in this crew? This is an increasingly rare Whedon job, written and directed, but it’s not one of his better efforts, even if it’s fun to return to Wesley’s bumbling self from Buffy’s third season.
Next Week: A couple of familiar faces return to Sunnydale, and then Spike may be back to his old ways. What?