With The Yoko Factor, Season 4 of Buffy limps into it's two-part finale.
And no, I don't really consider Restless the season finale.
More of a comic book annual...but we'll get into that.
The Yoko Factor and Primeval manifest all of season 4's strengths and weaknesses,
respectively.
If we were to cluster Season 4's successes and failures they break neatly between the
gang and the Initiative.
Yoko Factor deals with one and Primeval deals with the other.
Both are hilarious and when the gang is together everything feels like it's clicking.
When we're dealing with the Initiative it can feel a bit perfunctory at times..
It was a challenging season to make and it has been a challenging one to talk to about.
Let's bring it to a close.
The episode opens on a character we've met once and one we've never met before discussing
the fallout from Riley's mutiny.
This plot-necessary meeting is the result of the arc having been derailed though, we'll
get into that.
General: "Quite frankly, I don't think [Riley] was ever the soldier you all thought
he was.
Boy thinks to much."
Here we bring out the out the thematic sledgehammer.
Confusingly the general calls Buffy 'just a girl.'
Which...makes no sense.
Buffy beat up Riley's team.
She was at the briefing for a mission.
It was suggested that the entire initiative knew who she was.
Adam and Spike are figuring out their plan of attack on the Slayer.
Spike points out that the Slayer's power lies in her friends.
"Take them away from her."
Post-Sanctuary Buffy returns from LA looking regretful.
Xander brings Riley a spare pair of hammer pants and an overshare about Buffy's personal
life.
X: One moment's happiness.
It's his trigger.
And you know what makes him happiest?
I'll give you a hint.
It's not creme brulee.
R: Sex...with Buffy.
X: She kind of left that part out right.
*siiiiiiigh
Xander makes a show here of not realizing Riley didn't know about the sex.
But boy is this conversation fraught with problems.
First of all there is a moment when it's clear Riley doesn't have the whole story.
X: "What do you mean?"
And Xander barrels on ahead.
Second problem is Buffy hasn't given Riley any cause to not trust her.
I mean...the bosses at his job created an evil monster while drugging him that killed
his metaphor mommy and he continued to work for them for seven more episodes.
On the other hand a once in a lifetime girl that has given him no real reason not to trust
her goes and visits an ex to warn them about crazy ragin Slayer on the loose?
Oh now he has trust issues.
At Casa De Giles we get what after Where the Wild Things Are might seem like gratuitous
super sexy smouldery Giles singing - were it not for the chosen song.
Free Bird...
Spike interrupts.
Offers up Adam info and manipulates Giles' insecurity that has been building up all season.
Giles drinks.
Tara and Willow went in on a mutual pet, Miss Kitty Fantastico.
DEADPAN Freud: Willow is playing with Tara's....Kitten...get it?
(It's a vagina metaphor.)
"You cannot have more catnip.
You have a catnip problem."
...hunh.
Hammer Riley stops by Buffy's.
He's patched into the Initiative's frequency so they can't track him.
Which made me wonder why Walsh and Company never bothered to bug Buffy's dorm, given
the threat that she represented.
Spike's attempt to Yoko Xander consists of him sharing gossip that Xander might've
been joining the military?
Xander bites immediately.
"I'm very useful.
I have skills and strategems.
Help me out."
"He's a viking in the sack."
This bit doesn't REALLY work for me.
I get it.
Spike's be all you can be bit plays on the idea that Xander hasn't figured out who
wants to be, sure.
But Xander buys that Willow and Buffy were gossiping about him joining the military and
laughing at him while IN FRONT of Spike?
Let alone that, of all the Scoobies who would probably not believe a single thing that falls
of Spike's stupid sexy mouth I kinda feel like it would've been Xander.
Minor point.
Moving on.
"Don't shoot."
Says Forrest while pointing a space laser at her.
Forrest and Buffy argue over which one of them Riley is best with [SUBTEXT BUGLE] before
Adam steps in and kills him.
Spike brings gibberish disks to Willow and a drunk Giles and Spike continues to twist
the knife.
21:46: You're not exactly the Wiz these days either.
Your mates said you weren't playing with computers so much.
Into the new thing."
This is a direct distillation of the Magic vs Technology Feminine vs Masculine idea they've
been building all season.
Riley hears of a hostile tearing up a squad and goes to help.
And that's when he stumbles on…
"You must be Angel."
Silly though the two of them are being...I love this scene.
The hyper-masculine boyfriend off is dumb and silly and I think the scene is embraced
as such.
Much of it is even shot from penis angle.
Low looking up.
Wood fights an epic battle against watery milk and the two of them end up at Buffy's
front door.
The fun, boyfriend's behaving like idiots stuff though definitely throws off the tone
you'd think should be there now, since Forrest is dead.
I'd ACTUALLY forgotten that had happened until this cut-in to remind us.
Be honest.
You forgot about it for a second too right?
Buffy and Angel apologize to each other.
No, I don't think it fixes Sanctuary but it needed to happen.
Buffy and Riley have a bit of a complicated scene with a couple points I want to hit on.
First of all there is the unspoken notion that sometimes jealousy just happens, even
in a healthy relationship.
R: Sometimes things just happen between exes.
And the other is Riley's inability to take responsibility for his own feelings and behave
like an adult.
As in…
B: Have ever given you any reason to think that you can't trust me?
Then why the crazy?
R: Because I'm so in love with you I can't think straight.
This is stupid nonsense.
The correct answer was, you're right.
I'm being an ass.
I'm sorry woman of my dreams.
I will do better in future.
Riley's answer, was romantic code for I can't be held responsible for my actions
because you're so amazing.
So it's on you.
I hate it.
I hate it so much.
And, worse, the music endorses how romantic his comment is supposed to be.
There are two telling details in the scene though.
Only one of the two men ask about Buffy's injury.
And Riley says he loves her and Buffy does not say it back.
Oh and btw Forrest is dead.
SO?
Tacos?
The powder keg that Spike spent the episode lighting explodes.
Riley shows up in Adam's den.
And the first of the two-parter is in the books.
As ever, it's difficult to say too much about a plotty two-parter before the second
episode so there will be more in the next.
I really like the Yoko Factor as it mostly Scooby-centric and cleverly ties together
a number of threads by way of a manipulative Spike.
Until this episode, I never really realized had been so fabulously setup to play the role
of Adam's Wormtongue throughout the season.
The behavior modification chip was a form of operant conditioning, Walsh's specialty.
"You will inevitably break free again to savage the land."
Lo and behold Spike came to understand the destruction he could sow using just manipulation
in Doom:
"She's the Slayer.
You're her groupies."
Repeatedly, the gang makes the mistake of believing that since he can't kill anymore
he is no longer dangerous.
"Can't any of you remember that I'm EVIL."
The initiative Clockwork Orange'd Spike, but throughout the writer's have been telling
us that a leash doesn't change a person's essential nature.
The only thing that can do that is the person itself.
And the gang drifting apart a bit has been a common theme in the season.
Xander's fear of being useless to the group has explicit since The Zeppo
"It's my thing."
"Is this a penis metaphor.
Early on in Fear, Itself, that manifested as literal invisibility.
And Spike spent plenty of time in the Xand-man's basement to gain first hand knowledge of how
he was feeling.
The scene still feels a little awkward to me as the jump to Willow and Buffy were talking
about Xander joining the military was a bit of a stretch.
I get that it might've been a reference to Halloween but I think there was a cleaner
way of writing it as most of Spike's other manipulations are grounded and straightforward
but Xander hasn't mentioned signing up for the army once in the ensuing episodes.
In The Harsh Light of Day Buffy's fear of love leading to inevitable loss and isolation
(which started with Angel) was exacerbated by her experience with Parker.
And who was front and center to prod her fresh wound?
Spike: "So you let Parker take a poke eh?"
And in Fear, Itself Buffy finds herself alone and isolated with nothing but the monsters.
"They all ran away from you.
They always will.
Open your heart to someone and…"
In Pangs the Scoobies house was similarly divided against itself.
In A New Man, Giles ' feelings of lack of purpose which had been played for a few mid-life
crisis laughs manifested as him actually being a monster outside of the group.
With a little help from Ethan Rain of course.
"I refuse to become a monster just because I look like one.
Oh stop the car."
Spike had a front row seat for that one before using his knowledge on Giles here.
The show's association of magic and technology with feminine and masculine worked as a way
of foreshadowing Willow's insecurity with her burgeoning sexuality.
In Fear, Itself neither Buffy nor Oz have a lot of faith in Willow's magical abilities
which manifests for her as a spell that spins out of control.
Later in the series magic became the metaphor for actual intimacy between Tara and Willow.
Here Spike suggests that her relationship with Tara is the reason for her having grown
away from tech (metaphorically, the masculine) and why the gang has less faith in her.
As I mentioned in The I in Team, Spike is a manipulator, not a truth teller.
He is certainly perceptive but the words that come out of his mouth cater to his own ends,
always.
And not necessarily the truth.
But boy is he fun to watch.
And that's all the good stuff going on.
The unambiguous (and unfun) mirror to it all is the Initiative.
"The family is breaking apart."
But I think the season has been trying to say that the Initiative is a family in an
arbitrary sense.
Identity and association not born out of love from within but imposed upon its members by
society from the outside.
Colonel Von Not Walsh refers to the soldiers as boys:
"Boy thinks too much."
"These are good boys."
Walsh from Hush: Riley...be a good boy.
The theme here is that free thought is a necessity of adulthood and institutionalized identity
robs us of that.
In that shot from The I in Team which I love, with Buffy in a sea of Mao-Suits she is the
only one who again and again raises her hand and questions Walsh's conclusions.
As I said at the beginning, it's a solid episode as it's mostly focused on characters
we already love and care about.
Watching Spike do his thing is a ton of fun.
The episode is absolutely hilarious.
Wow.
I get why the demons fall inline with you.
You're like Tony Robbins.
If he was a big scary Frankenstein looking...you're exactly like Tony Robbins.
Drunk Giles is a joy.
And I enjoy a lot of the structure to this one.
The editing is terrific, including the way the conversations layer into each other.
*OPENING "She's just a girl."
"No I'm telling you she's a lot more than that."
Season 4 has struggled mightily with it's arc.
Much of it due to cast departures but there have been some other underlying problems which
I'll get into with the next episode.
But the one thing the season has never lacked for, and The Yoko Factor has loads of it,
is charm.
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