![]() Cheer to R.J. |
Written by: Drew Z. Greenberg.
R.J... Thad Luckinbill. Summary: Spike gets out of the high school basement and moves to Xander's spare room. Dawn experiences her first love when she sees R.J, a popular football player at her school, but when Dawn pushes his biggest competition down stairs Buffy starts to suspect something is wrong. But when she faces R.J to give him a piece of her mind, she falls under his spell as well. The gang starts to suspect that it's a love spell messing with both Buffy's and Dawn's heads, but when Xander and Spike are checking up a lead, Willow and Anya fall for R.J as well. Finally the women all try to find a way to prove who loves him the most.
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![]() Return of season6-Dawn.
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Quotes:
Xander: You're gonna live in that small room over there. I know it looks like a closet, but it's a room now. You're not gonna touch my food. I take the first shower in the morning, and if I use up all the hot water, that's your tough noogies. (to Buffy) And I hate this plan. (to Spike) Are you keeping up, or do you need some kind of English-to-ConstantPainInMyAss translation?
Spike: I'll go. This can't work.
Buffy: (to Dawn) That's not the point. I don't want a new cheerleading outfit.
Xander: It's the jacket. It's true. Something about the big letter on the chest makes girls get all swoony and crushy. I saw it all the time in school. And you couldn't just pin any old felt letter to your coat and get play... (catches himself) not that I tried.
Xander: Well, Spike definitely seems a little more cogent, less (plays with his lower lip to make a sound) bl-bl-bl-bl-bl. I'm just saying... once you get back the soul, doesn't that mean you start, like, picking up your own wet towels off the floor?
Buffy: (to Dawn) So, do you have plans later, or are you just gonna go down to the docks and wait for the fleet to come in?
Dawn: It's not a crush! Stop. You're not supposed to do this.
Anya: Crazy little lust puppies, aren't they?
Anya: (to R.J) No Buffy for you. Leave quickly now.
Willow: But you don't even know him!
Anya: Willow thinks she's in love with my boyfriend, R.J.
Anya: Well, you're gonna have to do better than that— I'd kill for him.
Xander: What the hell are you doing?
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Episodes concentrating on Dawn have never really worked well for me. I just don't care about her enough to watch what idiotic things she does for a whole 41 minutes. But Dawn hasn't been all that annoying to me this season, it really is a miracle that I don't mind seeing her on my tv screen even though she hasn't brought much anything into the story, but the fact that I can stand her, almost like her, is the reason why I hate to see her turn back into the same character that she was during the past two seasons. She had developed a lot from the whiny me-me-me person she was during the 5th and 6th season so that's the reason why I hate to see her turn back into the selfish close-minded whiner she was up until Lessons. It was nice to see Buffy spending time with Dawn even if it was made just to clarify that she is not going to continue her “relationship” with Spike. Dawn asks her if she loves him and her answer is a solid “No”, there is no hesitation like there never has been, but she adds “I feel for him”, which I completely understand. She has always known that she doesn't love him and she has said it many times, but in Dead Things when Spike asked if she even liked him she answered “Sometimes”, she did have a sexual relationship with him, despite the nature of it, it is understandable that she has some sort of feelings for him, it just isn't love and she knows it. I think it's both good and bad that Dawn isn't willing to give a person a benefit of a doubt just because she/he has a soul, she has gotten over her opinion that a chip is the same thing as a soul which is good in my book, but now she doesn't see that a soul does make a difference even if it means the choice to do evil like Warren or good like Angel. But Buffy shows her own bias by saying that Spike went away to get a soul because he knew he was wrong to try to rape her. I believe and always will believe that Spike went to get the chip out, I don't care what the writers have said later in the chat rooms and other places, if they wanted the viewers to believe he went to get a soul they should have showed it with actions and dialog instead of trying to be too clever because only a small fraction of the fans/viewers go to the net to read their interviews where they explain what they tried to do. I only learned about what they tried (and failed) to do years after I saw the show and because I believe in what I see in the show instead of what the writers say afterwards I will never change my opinion that Spike went to get the chip out and got tricked into having a soul, because what Buffy deserves is a vampire with a soul: Angel. Okay, back to topic. The only vampire who's got a soul that Buffy knows is Angel and I believe that knowing him makes her want to believe that it makes Spike different. After he returned to Sunnydale he has been repeating that he went to get a soul for her, that makes Buffy feel guilty for the pain he's gone through and collects sympathy points better than confessing that he tried to get the chip out so he could be William the Bloody again.
I just love how much Buffy interacts with people in this episode, first there is the talk with Dawn and then she saves Anya from D'Hoffryn's assassin and offers her a olive branch, saying that she doesn't want any of her friends alone. Anya is right when she says that she needs to figure out who she really is, like it was shown in Selfless that she just clings to what is there instead of having something of her own. There really should be more scenes between Buffy and Anya, they just work so well. And later Buffy hangs out with Willow and Xander at the Bronze, just love that scene and the talk about wet towels, how a soul should make a person pick his own from the floor and Willow's and Buffy's answer to it. Also loved everyone's reaction to slutty-Dawn and Xander's disgust with himself as he realizes the girl that “daddy likes” is actually Dawn, also Willow's agreement
Liked it when Dawn first saw her new crush, the music and finally falling off the bench, it was well done and managed to be amusing. But that's where the liking ends cause I'm really bored with simply lovesick Dawn, but very annoyed with whiny lovesick Dawn. In the scene after she shredded Buffy's cheerleading outfit and whined about how her love for R.J is not a crush and that it is true love was annoying, but when she said to Buffy that she has no idea what real love is I really wanted to slap her Xander remembers his own experiences with love spells (Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered) with warmth and good for him that the guy who used to put gum in his hair is now just a pizza delivery boy living with his mother while he himself has a career in construction. It's really good to see Xander get some screen time and useful things to do, but it was a little too convenient that he just happened to be at the school when Dawn ran out crying. Multiple scenes on one screen with the 70's music on the background as all the “girls” go to prove their “love” for R.J was absolutely great, but again I'm annoyed with Dawn's melodramatic going to lay on the train tracks. Willow's he (R.J) “doesn't have to be (boy)” explanation to Xander was funny as well as Buffy trying to kill principal Wood with the bazooka, Spike grabbing it and them running back and forth while Wood is completely oblivious to what's going on outside the window, hilarious. And Xander and Spike stealing R.J jacket was great as well. Buffy's love for her sister is greater than the affect of the spell as without a second thought she goes to save Dawn from getting trisected by the train. Even though Buffy does say that no guy is worth your life (Dawn killing herself) it should have been worked through more thoroughly because what Dawn did was idiotic as was her reasoning and she had done almost the same thing before in All the way as she was going to let the teen-vamp bite her. And later after the jacket is burning Dawn is upset by the way she talked to Buffy when she was under the spell, she must have forgotten the past two years. But I do think that Dawn took the spell hardest because unlike the others, she hasn't experienced true love unlike Buffy with Angel and Willow with Tara, plus Buffy has been under a love spell before (BBB and Something Blue). The reasons why I do not believe that Buffy had sex with R.J is because firstly it wasn't explicit which Mutant Enemy loves to do (Where the wild things are, season 6 and Touched for example), they were both fully clothed, neither was sweating, blushing or looking like they were doing more than making out and even under a spell Buffy would have been embarrassed when Xander walked in and when the spell was broken she only couldn't believe she almost killed the principal, if she had had sex with R.J I believe she would have been upset about it as well. Mostly boring, partly funny filler, but BBB was ten times better. Spike got out of the basement and Buffy said without hesitation that she and him will not be continuing their sexual relationship, ever. Also it's good to see that the attempted rape hasn't been completely forgotten since Buffy jumps when Spike touches her arm. And Xander still hates Spike, but they work great together just like he did with Angel the too few times it happened (Prophecy Girl, School Hard). The unfortunate fact is that Drew Z. Greenberg just can't write a full solid episode, all episodes written by him tend to lose wind at some point, so ME really should have paired him with a good writer because he can do decent episodes, at least half-episodes, when he puts his mind into it, but someone else should be there to finish it. 'Him' had it's good moments, but mostly it was just boring, maybe a co-writer could have made the boring parts better.
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