Guest Starring:           Danny Strong:     (Jonathan)           Adam Busch :     (Warren)           Tom Lenk:     (Andrew)           Amy Hathaway:     (Blonde Woman)           Nichole Hiltz:     (Woman)           James C Leary:     (Clem)           Garrett Brawith:     (Frank)

19. Seeing Red.           Buffy foils the three geeks' big plan, but Warren decides that he's had enough of playing fair.           Great quotes:           Willow and Tara are back together, but not for long... Girl: "He said he loved me." Anya: "Well gee then he must have meant it!" Andrew: "Warren's the boss, he's Picard and you're [Jonathan] Deanna Troi! Get used to it Betazoid." Anya: "They [guys] say 'I love you' and you think it's true. They say 'Oh Anya, I wanna be with you for the rest of my life' and you believe them. You believe they feel the same way about you because that's the way love's supposed to be right?" Girl: "Who's Anya?" Anya: "And then you get all excited with the tingly anticipation, but wait! Not so fast! There's the apocalypse and the back-from-the-grave and the blah blah blah blah and by the time you're finally standing there in that beautifully expensive white dress you've dreamed about ever since you became human, he gets all heebie-jeebie and decides 'you know, I'd rather just go steady'." Spike: "Trust is for old marrieds Buffy. Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes." Buffy: "Until there's nothing left. Love like that doesn't last."     Fantastic moments:           Buffy finally thinks, after destroying the magical orbs Warren has used to make himself invincible, that she has the geek trio cornered. Warren pulls another fast one though by escaping with a jetpack. Buffy gives a dejected sigh "Oh come on!" The episode's ending is hugely powerful. Warren - the ultimate mysoginist - cannot handle being beaten by a girl, even if she is the slayer. He comes to Buffy's house with a gun and shoots her in the shoulder; Warren shoots Buffy and Tara. a stray bullet goes through the window and strikes Tara through the chest. As she falls to the ground she makes a breathlessly banal comment about the fact that her splattered blood has dirtied Willow's shirt. As Xander cradles Buffy in the garden and calls for help Willow falls to her knees at Tara's side and whimpers her name. As she looks to the heavens, the burning red fire of Hades crackles in her eyes... The episode is half way through its running time when Spike comes into the Summers' house and attempts to rape Buffy in her bathroom. This is a scene shot from two angles, a high view in the bathroom that shows us the cramped confines of the room and an extremely close-up handheld camera that heightens the shock of the moment. This is one of the rare moments when - for just a short time - Buffy appears helpless, unable to stop Spike from doing what he's trying to do for a long time before she finally throws him across the bathroom. Afterwards it is clear that she is badly bruised and has been crying after the experience. Bloody hell; never thought we'd ever see Buffy in a state like that. Buffy finally gets to kick the crap out of Warren. He is winning the fight: "Say goodnight bitch!"; Buffy then smashes his power-orbs and the tables are turned. She pulls a roundhouse kick on his face: "Goodnight bitch!" You go girl!     Duff Bits:           If these orbs were that powerful and were so easy to get, then why hasn't someone else already done what the geeks do? The whole 'buzz-saw thing' at the geeks' place is really really stupid and totally pointless. This week's BtVS guest director is Oliver Stone. Or at least that's what I would have thought given the ludicrous physics that the bullet that killed Tara must have undergone in order to strike her in the chest. "Back, and to the left..."     Dean's comments:           Nooo! So the soap continues. 'Seeing Red' is a disjointed episode in the sense that it is rather soppy and yet punctuated with brilliant set pieces. Anya's monologue, Spike's attempted rape of Buffy and Tara's shooting are all spectacular for different reasons, be it comedy, horror or dramatic tension respectively. Again with the sex though; the episode opens with Willow and Tara waking up in bed together and asking "When did morning happen?" Dawn even tells them that she'll go and watch TV in the basement where "... I cant hear anything!" Twice in the series Buffy has described guns as being 'not useful' (in 'Flooded' and 'As You Were'), thus there could be no more soulless a way to die in the mystical heroic world of BtVS than to be shot by the cold-metal tedium of an all too Human handgun. This is the fate that was reserved for Tara, in this episode where Amber Benson is acknowledged in the opening credits for the first and last time. The decision of the production team to kill Tara is one that almost makes no sense. This is a character who was slowly growing into one of the best on the show. Tara's break up with Willow had given Amber Benson the opportunity to explore the character in more detail as opposed to merely as an adjunct to Willow. Since Giles' departure, Tara had become the Scoobies' conscious, Dawn's best parent and Buffy's shoulder-to-cry-on. On the surface, Tara's death seems like nothing more than a plot device to persuade Willow to go all evil. Looking at it in more detail though, her death fits in well with the season's arc. Killed in such a pointless and unheroic manner, her death This can't be good... encapsulates the idea that the struggle to simply live is the biggest struggle we all face. There have been some suggestions that Tara's death is a case of guarded homophobia on the part of the BtVS production team. Clearly people making these suggestions weren't watching their portrayal of the last two season's worth of Tara and Willow's relationship.           8/10

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