Buffy and Angel Rewatch part 54

B7.05 Selfless
When a show has as many 'old' characters as this one does, its always fun to explore their previous history's. Anya's was a lot of fun, which was a good thing as it evened out the tragedy of the main part of the episode. The flashbacks covered the defining points in Anya's life plus some fun little extra bits as well; I liked her part in the Russian Revolution, seeing that she wasn't always such a capitalist and of course her 'Mrs' song which is just wonderful.
In the present day Buffy took a very quick decision to kill Anya, and the Scoobies were even quicker to fight about it. The argument seemed a touch forced, dredging up the past, but considering its the final season, its little surprise that they are doing that. Anya's granted wish was particularly gruesome though, so in some ways I do understand why she felt she had to kill Anya. The ultimate act of vengeance was D'Hoffryn taking Hallie's life rather than Anya's. It was a neat little trick to get round killing Anya, but it was a very cruel thing to inflict upon Anya. (9/10)

A4.05 Supersymmetry
I'm not sure there was really a need to go back to Fred being sent to Pylea and the ret-con of how she was sent there didn't really make sense, which weakened the episode a little. It was good to get a Fred centric episode though and there were some good moments like Angel being thrilled about being talked about in the 'chatty rooms', the contrast between the Cordy/Connor storyline and Fred's and the interaction between Wes and Fred. It also well served the purpose of cracking Gunn and Fred's relationship which for the first time for me, wasn't that annoying in this episode. You do have to feel sorry for Gunn that the very thing he hoped would hold his relationship together (killing the professor for her) was actually the thing that killed it. As for the Cordy and Connor stuff, icky as it may be, its understandable that Connor would be drawn to Cordy; he's a hormonal teenage boy and for him, Cordy was never really his mother, surrogate or no. (7.5/10)

A4.06 Spin the Bottle
This episode is obviously comparable to Buffy's Tabula Rasa, but they were different enough to both be enjoyable. Whereas Buffy's didn't have that much impact on the overall season, this episode was pivotal with Lorne's spell finally restoring Cordy's memories and awakening the bast within. The framing device used was a neat one, it always nice to have Lorne front and centre and he made for a good if mysterious narrator. The episode is a lot of fun as the characters do remember who they are so have distinct personalities and its so much fun to see them all revert to the characters they were either when we first saw them (Cordy, Wes, Gunn and to an extent Fred) or who we have seen them be before (Angel, in flashbacks). A lot of the jokes made in the episode as well hark back to teenage years which was funny and fit the episode well. Cordy and Wes are especially fun as they make a lot of links back to Sunnydale and the mythology that started the whole show. I also liked hearing Wesley with his old accent, his hybrid one at the beginning of the episode was odd and a bit distracting. (9.5/10)

B7.06 Him
I expected to hate this episode this time round, but it was actually quite funny in places. The story was a frivolous, filler one, though it did let us have a look at Dawn's first big high school crush albeit at a fastforward pace. The episode very much felt like old school Buffy, the similarities with Xander's own tale of women falling in love with him in season 2's 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered' were noted, though oddly through use of flashback, which felt a little bit out of place. The four split screen technique to show all the girls also was a little odd but was used with better effect. Its funny that Buffy had a fringe in the episode, its a small thing but she hasn't had one since season 1/2 and she looked a lot like she did in those seasons, along with her behaviour and seduction technique in this episode which again was mirrored in 'Bewitched...'. The episode did drag on a bit especially to begin with, but mostly it was a nice episode. (7.5/10)