This Oscar season has been wild. Between Andrea Riseborough’s controversial nomination, All Quiet on the Western Front bursting onto the scene at the BAFTAs, and whatever’s going on in the Best Supporting Actress category, almost anything could happen tonight. The only thing we know for sure is that, against all odds, a weird little sci-fi comedy with butt plug jokes is going to sweep.
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We’re a little late with this one, but year-end posts are still fair game anytime before February (right?). This was a great year of reading for both of us – we both went overboard on Honorable Mentions and still had trouble choosing! Here are the best books we read in 2022:
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I’ve never been able to write an Emmys post before! Usually, my tastes don’t align with the Emmys, and I haven’t seen most of the shows, but I did pretty well this year. I’ve seen all of the nominated dramas, except for Better Call Saul–if you read this blog, you know how much I hate all things Breaking Bad. I did especially well with limited series: thanks to a nasty bout of COVID, I binged every single docudrama miniseries of note this year, even the ones that weren’t nominated but should have been. (We’ll get to that.)
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Janes (a True Stan) and Nerdy Spice (a New Fan) are watching all of Buffy together and comparing notes. Warning: May contain spoilers for later episodes.
OK, so as I’ve mentioned before, this was one of two Buffy episodes I’d seen before this rewatch. I had heard it was So Amazing and I watched it and was like, “eh.” The jokes weren’t that funny to me, the singing seemed awkward, and the much-vaunted final scene seemed more like two people chewing each other’s tongues than a hot kiss. (Don’t @ me, I’m just reporting how I felt back then!) After seeing this and “Hush,” I never considered watching Buffy again until this blog.
However, I had a feeling this time around I was going to be way more into it. Not just because what originally seemed to be a random kiss at the end has now been transformed into the Spike/Buffy consummation I’ve been dying for, but because I’ve changed a lot as a viewer. Buffy’s humor seemed too silly to me because I took myself too seriously; now I appreciate it much more. So let’s get to it and see if I’ve grown up enough to enjoy this episode!
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Janes (a True Stan) and Nerdy Spice (a New Fan) are watching all of Buffy together and comparing notes. Warning: May contain spoilers for later episodes.
Episode 1 “Bargaining, Part I”
Buffy is dead, and in her place, the Scoobies are attempting to slay vampires as a gang, including Spike, the newly restored Tara, and even BuffyBot. (Janes explained this to me: apparently no new Slayer was called during this death because each Slayer only spawns (so to speak) one new Slayer, and Buffy’s first death already led to Faith being called, so this slightly more real death doesn’t cause any new Slayers. I feel like this is not made clear enough in canon.)
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Janes (a True Stan) and Nerdy Spice (a New Fan) are watching all of Buffy together and comparing notes.
Warning: May contain spoilers for later episodes.
Season 5, Episode 16 “The Body”
“The Body” feels less like an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and more like a short film about grief. There are no gods in this one, no big battles, no Slayer quips, and aside from a quick, perfunctory vampire at the end, almost no supernatural elements at all. There’s just a body.
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As is tradition for, well, all book blogs ever, we compiled a list of the best books we each read in 2021.
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Janes (a True Stan) and Nerdy Spice (a New Fan) are watching all of Buffy together and comparing notes.
Warning: May contain spoilers for later episodes.
Season 5, Episode 10 “Into the Woods”
For once, a little good news. After anxiously waiting for Buffy’s mom to get out of surgery, the doctor-with-no-bedside manner tells them that the procedure was a “complete success.” They’ve removed the tumor, and Joyce should make a full recovery. Yay!
But of course, this is a Joss Whedon show, so good news must be counterbalanced with bad news. Now that the crisis is over, Buffy and Riley get time and energy to focus on their relationship, and it’s in trouble–in Riley’s mind, at least. They have a well-deserved romantic night together, complete with slow-dancing and sex–and for the record, Buffy seems super into it! She matches him gaze for gaze and tells him everything is “perfect.” But then he expresses admiration that she “never even cried” during the whole ordeal with her mother, and she admits that she “cried so hard she thought she’d never be able to stop.” So she’s opening up about her feelings, but he’s all upset because… she didn’t cry right in front of him, I guess? Those are super specific parameters for what it means to be emotionally available in a relationship!
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Janes (a True Stan) and Nerdy Spice (a New Fan) are watching all of Buffy together and comparing notes. Warning: May contain spoilers for later episodes.
Season 5, Episode 4 “Out of My Mind”
Buffy is patrolling on a particularly vampire-heavy night, staking vamp after vamp, but just as she’s getting into a rhythm, Riley tackles the vampire she’s fighting. “What are you doing here?” he asks, stupidly. “My job??” she says, clearly annoyed. Another vamp shows up, and before Buffy can fight him, Spike jumps in! “Why do I even bother to show up?” Buffy mutters. Hee.
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Normally, around this time of year, I would be lodging many complaints about who was nominated at the Oscars: too white, too male, too many white male biopics. But this is not a normal year in any sense. Most of the traditional Oscar bait was pushed off until we can see it in theaters again, which means that most of the nominees are more indie, and, in my opinion, more deserving than usual. Stories that usually wouldn’t gain traction with the Academy–movies made by and about women, biopics about lesser-known and more radical pockets of history, smaller stories about fringe subcultures and the lives of American immigrants–are now set to sweep the Oscars on Sunday night.
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Adversion 