Buffy The Vampire Slayer - S03E13|♡Uncut Reaction &Review ♡

I’ve no idea what I thought of the episode, first time watching. It’s been so long and so many viewings since then. I know I liked it because I liked every one of them – even the two or three I’d now say were bad – being so surprised at how good tv could be. I appreciate your enjoyment even though you didn’t “get” the apocalypse part. The thing that stands out to me now is how funny that “serious” storyline is, since they go all out making fun of themselves. It’s even greater comedy than the obvious comedy (according to the music cues) of Xander’s story. A very bold move on the writer’s part. I don’t think, from here on out, that Xander is ever again the asshole that he can sometimes be, early on. This episode was a watershed for his character.

I love Xander, not sure why I always had a soft spot for him. He’s usually very brave (sometimes stupidly so) and the first one to join in on a fight. A lot of people focus on his screw ups where they don’t with a lot of the other characters for some reason.

This is the third time Xander saves the world.

One of the few episodes where I don't feel like punching Xander.

I am not a fan of this episode. I appreciate what they were going for, and everything, but Xander is my least favorite character. This is one I skip every time I watched the show again. It's kind of enjoyable to watch reactions to it though to see how they view the episode.

I think the way to look at this episode is that it’s not only Xander-centric, we’re seeing everything the way Xander sees it. So everyone and everything is just slightly different than the way we usually see it. Xander sees Buffy and Angel’s relationship as full of drama; Willow is a little more quirky than usual, etc.

A lot of people did not like the concept of the episode- putting complete focus on Xander and making the scoobies' apocalypse the b story line. Some people found themselves more interested in what the rest of the gang was doing, frustratingly so. But I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

It was very much over the top- everything non-Xander. They took things out of context with the rest of the scoobies, and they made us see what people who haven't watched the show would see and would make them roll their eye at. Like how much our parents acted when those of us who watched it as kids watched it at home.

I just enjoy everything about your reactions.

Top tier episode imo. Not only a clever examination of Xander's fragile masculinity and the world he inhabits, but a hilarious takedown of the tropes that the show uses.

When I first saw this one, I hated it, but it's because I didn't really get it. It took a few rewatches for me to really understand what they were trying to do. The key thing to understand here is that the show deliberately put the usual A-Plot (the apocalypse) in the background, and the B-Plot (the Xander stuff) in the forfront, which gave the show a chance to make fun of itself. The apocalypse looked over the top and ridiculous, and the stuff with Angel and Buffy looked overly melodramatic because it was supposed to. That was the entire point, it was poking fun at itself. They also did that though because the apocalypse wasn't the point of the episode. The point was Xander's arc, him becoming comfortable with himself and learning that he didn't have to find the essence of cool--he already had it inside himself. That's why at the end, he didn't tell the gang what happened and he just walked away from Cordy. He realized he didn't have to prove himself. The essence of heroine is not helping others or saving the world for glory or notoriety, but doing it because it's right. Now that I get this episode, I love it.