#the finns really do have a siren charm so powerful

[ratatatastic]

"Before we get to Bob, I just got one Mikkola stat for ya. So Niko Mikkola—we always talk about Matthew Tkachuk being an Edmonton hater and an Oilers Killer—maybe it's Mikks being the ultimate hater though? Because Mikkola has 3 goals in 8 career games against the Oilers in the regular season. He's got 8 goals in 264 regular season games against everybody else. Something about the Oilers, Mikksy gets up for the games against Edmonton. And stick tap to him, maybe my Dawg of the Game, he was a big dawg in that game. Reinhart probably the most impactful player but Mikks was the dawg, a just absolutely dawg that whole game but—" "I used my veto power because they give us the Three Stars of the Game, I saw it was selected by Sportsnet, Canadian outlet. There were two Oilers, one Panther on the Three Stars. Whoever the third star was—" "It was McDavid, he had three assists but I'm putting Mikksy, one goal, one assist." "I bumped him off and I put Niko Mikkola as the Third Star. I left the top two as they were—" "Reinhart." "—put Reinhart number one." "That's fine. I agree." "I used my veto power and change it to that. On the radio broadcast anyway!" "Which is the real Three Stars that matter!"

Territory Talk | 12.17.24 (x)

the mikks hivemind works in wondrous ways folks!

congrats to niko "oilers killer" mikkola for having 10 career goals so far and 4 of them being against the oilers he hates that fucking team

[eldritch-elrics]

i rewatched the entire ice age series and i have opinions

after rewatching some of the madagascar movies, me and @calocybe​ decided to embark on a quest to watch more animated series from our childhood. an obvious choice was ice age! so, i present to you: finn’s comprehensive ice age opinions masterpost.

read on for an in-depth review of each movie, my opinions on what the series does well (good animation, really fun chase scenes) and what it does not so well (manny is an awful protagonist), and some other things too (like my analysis of queerness in ice age)

first of all, a ranking of the five movies from best to worst:

ice age

dawn of the dinosaurs

collision course

the meltdown

continental drift

first movie

definitely the best

accidental baby acquisition…

it’s just a really good premise. three bros with completely different personalities are forced to work together towards a common goal that doesn’t even benefit any of them personally!

it’s silly and charming and well-written

diego’s arc is especially well-done and it’s easy to follow the way his personality and opinions change

my theory is that they made this movie because they wanted to show off how good they were at animating ice. most of the models and stuff are not very realistically rendered but the ice is honestly pretty impressive

honestly hilarious, has really good visual gags

one of my favorite parts is where they go into the ice cave and find like the ufo and stuff

also the baby does the vulcan hand sign at the ufo which was so subtle and REALLY funny

the ice slide scene. incredible

and then it transitions to the cave painting part with a fantastic depiction of manny’s backstory in a way that’s honestly heart-wrenching??

i wonder if the death of his own family is the cause of his annoying clinginess in later movies, especially with regards to peaches. unfortunately this never comes up again

there are some genuinely emotionally affecting moments in this movie, especially with the humans (when the human woman gives away her baby, when they return the baby to the group) - plus, kudos for conveying all that emotion with no dialogue

this is the only movie where manny’s emotional stuntedness is actually somewhat endearing rather than aggravating

this is also the movie with the most interesting villains - they feel like an especially relevant threat to the protags, and putting diego in with manny and sid creates both good tension and good humor

i wonder why the humans never came back. i think subsequent movies could have benefited from their presence, though i have no idea in what ways. not sure how they would’ve pulled it off but having the baby they rescued in the first movie appear as an adult in a later movie is a plot point that i think would have had the potential to be really powerful

second movie (the meltdown)

pretty underwhelming after the first movie

plot feels disjointed and the climax is weak

i feel like they were trying to go for this sort of found family vs nuclear family / reproductive futurism bent but didn’t entirely succeed and instead made the themes feel muddled. especially after the first movie which was all about rejecting heteronormative standards of family, having manny suddenly go “oop i’m the last mammoth better Reproduce” was a bit jarring

even if he isn’t actually the last mammoth, it feels like the wrong way to start a romance

in general the romance between ellie and manny isn’t very well-done in my opinion.

manny should’ve apologized for getting so offended when ellie freaked out about the pressure to save their species, but instead ellie apologized for “overreacting” for some reason???

number of biblical parallels: a surprising amount??

you’ve got. sid as a jesus figure to the sloth tribe, the ark saving them from the flood, scrat as moses??

the villains in this one were super boring they were just like… evil fish…

ok i’ve said too many mean things about this movie. to atone let me present this opinion: the scene where the vultures sing a parody of “food, glorious food” from oliver completely unprompted is one of the best moments in the series

also the possum brothers are wonderful

third movie (dawn of the dinosaurs)

this was my favorite as a kid!!

it’s still really good

it doesn’t take itself seriously and that’s wonderful. like… dinosaurs? in the ice age? objectively stupid plot. who cares

buck is the best character ever he’s so much fun

buck’s entire thing is also being a VERY cliche kooky adventurer but the way that they play with it and are self-aware about it makes it good

also i legitimately get chills at the scene where he explains his tragic backstory with rudy

god the romance with the female scrat is SO stupid but at least they’re clearly making fun of romantic tropes here

good team-building shenanigans, like the laughing gas sequence

there’s probably something to be said about the ways that family is portrayed in this movie but sorry i’m too busy looking at the scene where they get swallowed by a giant plant and buck has to like cut its veins like he’s diffusing a bomb

also i do need to mention that the scene where they find the carnage of sid’s attempt at feeding vegetables to the dino babies and buck goes off on his whole silly detective-shtick about what must’ve happened (“leaving broccoli… a vegetable!!!”) was my favorite scene in the series as a kid. it’s so wonderfully absurd!

there are a surprising amount of dick jokes in this movie? and by that i mean like 2 but. it’s really funny rewatching this and going “holy shit”

there’s also a joke about a butterfly dude that i’m pretty sure is a trans joke (“i knew that guy as a caterpillar! yknow, before he came out”) so that was also pretty funny

this movie parallels the first 2 by 1. having sid take care of kids and 2. having a group of creatures who copy all of sid’s wacky movements. i don’t have anything more to say i just think that’s funny

buck and rudy are kismeses send tweet

fourth movie (continental drift)

yeah okay this one’s the worst

it takes itself too seriously and that is its downfall

feels tonally off from the other ones

i saw this movie during the height of my hyperfixation on plate tectonics and i remember being very offended at the fact that they made such a mockery of the way it actually worked… :pensive:

(granted, poorly-done science is a cornerstone of ice age, so i can’t really say shit)

anyway this one really felt like a jumble of cliches. the enemies-to-lovers thing with diego! peaches’ teenager problems! manny’s troubles of raising a teenager! all the mean girls! evil pirates! sirens! woooo!

it just didn’t feel all that original and it didn’t play with the tropes like 3 did

what is it in this series with guys not apologizing for their sexism and then getting the girl anyway

also wow. damsels in distress much

sheera’s design is also such a generic “female animal” look

the ape dude was a boring villain and too much of the movie focused on the pirates

okay BUT the sea shanty scene slapped. had some good rhythm and clever lyrics

lewis was good and i’m glad he stayed friends with peaches

the water was well-animated! maybe they made this movie so they could show off how good they were at rendering water

the chipmunk creatures on the island are like knockoff minions/ewoks

in general this movie felt way less funny than the others. less punchy dialogue

fifth movie (collision course)

solidly in the middle of my movie ranking. not as good as 1 or 3, better than 2 and 4

this was my first time seeing this movie! which means that my view of it isn’t colored by nostalgia, and also that i have a lot more to say about it i guess

first of all it’s wild to see how much the animation has progressed… this one was so well-rendered wow

i liked this one a lot more than i expected to! it was a good time, and, like 3, didn’t take itself seriously, which is always great

the whole thing is built off a lot of bullshit science which offends my inner scifi nerd BUT i think they pulled it off quite well

the fact that they got neil degrasse tyson to do voiceovers is just so funny

they’ve firmly established by now that the ice age universe can fully ignore the laws of science when it wants to, especially with regards to scrat and his butterfly-effect influence on the world

okay buckle up because i have a lot to say about scrat actually.

scrat’s ability to influence the universe has been steadily increasing as the series goes on, so it made sense that he would be the catalyst for the apocalypse in this one

and also the catalyst for the creation of the solar system i guess?? which was very stupid. i say that in an endearing way. that beginning scene was super fun & wacky

absolutely brilliant way to bring the ufo from movie 1 back btw

ok so the prophecy tablet thing that buck brings back? he finds it by pressing a button with the outline of an acorn on it and that’s very interesting to me

at that point in the movie i was really invested because i thought that scrat and the protagonists were finally going to be forced to confront each other on the same level. the idea that ice age might finally break its unwritten rule of “the protags can never know scrat as the force of global change that he really is” was legitimately exciting to me, and it seemed appropriate for the last movie in the franchise

unfortunately this did not happen. scrat just keeps doing his silly scrat shenanigans

um anyway let’s talk about some of the other characters!

manny continues to suck. more on this in the “low points as a franchise” section

peaches was actually really good in this one! she’s grown out of her “teenage stereotype” phase and into a character with a believable narrative about growing up and moving out.

her boyfriend is adorable and i was surprised to discover i actually liked their relationship!

sid did not need to be paired off though. neither did diego. what is up with kids’ movies and their shallow heterosexual romances

buck is back and he is fruitier than ever

man i really like buck. he’s so silly and irreverent and flamboyant and it’s like kind of embarrassing to watch sometimes but it’s ok he’s just doing his own thing

the villains were pretty good in this one. i liked how the female dino didn’t have a stereotypically feminine design

on an entirely different topic: let’s talk about the aesthetic direction!

the scifi thing was super fun. like, absolutely wild for a series about the ice age, but whatever. i like scifi

like the whole superpower magnetism shit, especially the scene in the forest? great! especially reminiscent of the climax of the guardians of ga’hoole movie

however the whole dive into the crystal cave environment was a lil tonally dissonant and i think it should have been cut (introduced an entire new world/characters way too late in the plot and didn’t have time to develop them enough, went too far down the rabbit hole of magic healing crystals jokes and all that stuff which didn’t seem to relate to the rest of the story at all, introduced a fun but unnecessary girlfriend for sid, the time could have been better spent making fun of more scifi tropes and developing the villains)

brooke the sloth girl is just miranda from the tempest change my mind also that climax is on a similar level of stupid as that one episode from hoshi no kaabii where they deflect an an entire asteroid using uhhhh cannons i think

but it’s like. whatever. they’ve fucked around with science enough that they deserve this

also i just realized there were no chase scenes in this movie which is so sad??

so there are my thoughts on the individual movies. let’s talk about it as a whole!

high points as a franchise

this series consistently has VERY good chase scenes

just top-tier chase scenes with excellent comedic timing and general pacing

3 is so good because it has a chase as the climax, and that’s what ice age is good at

4 is bad because it doesn’t have a proper chase anywhere!

the animation is really good. by that i mean less like the models are realistic and more that they’re great at conveying emotion and body language through animation

like this is especially true in 1 if you look at the difference between the sort of smooth, not very realistic animation of the humans vs… scrat

like they’ve got the way scrat moves down so well it’s delightful

the movies are, generally, funny

there are good messages about found family, especially in the first couple

low points as a franchise

alright i had a bunch of these written out as universal truths about the series and then 5 actually improved on many of them! so here are some criticisms that apply to the first four movies only:

just… every single female character? they deserve better

too many damsels in distress

all the fat jokes about manny are so unnecessary

the romances are really boring and not very well-written or believable

okay with those out of the way here’s the real biggest issue with the series: manny is an awful protagonist

heterosexual “no fun allowed” man

they keep him sucky so he can have a fresh new character flaw to be worked on in the next movie but that seems like a bad formula for character development, especially how many of his character flaws seem to be related to mistreating the women in his life

the man’s got a major possessiveness issue

he is just the archetypical slightly shitty husband/dad who forgets the anniversary and doesn’t let his daughter see boys and calls women hysterical and yes he does get better at each of the individual problems and he does love his family but that development feels so shallow!

manny is absolutely making AITA posts and getting labeled the asshole

it also feels like he never truly learns from his mistakes. he needs to be learning to apologize properly and most importantly to communicate properly! there’s so little emotional reality to his development and the script always seems to give him the benefit of the doubt when he doesn’t deserve it.

plus, this series is meant for kids and i just don’t think manny is an appropriate or relatable protagonist for that audience?

on a mostly unrelated note, yes i do like the found family themes but when it starts pairing up every single character and implying that all of them are gonna be monogamous het couples and have kids and conform to the nuclear family model. that’s pretty sad

some more random thoughts

my dad once said that ice age fails as a franchise because the premise of the first movie was not strong enough to support sequels. i think i kind of agree - you can see in 2 they’re trying to worldbuild off what little they established in the first movie, and also set up a bigger cast of characters, while still keeping up the “man vs nature” theme that’s such a cornerstone of the series.

i’m not sure they completely succeed. the worldbuilding of ice age isn’t necessarily weak but i do think they could have done more to round out the world and make it feel less like just a prehistoric clone of ours

there’s something about the first movie that makes it feel like a moment suspended in time. we don’t learn very much about the pasts of the characters and they get enough development in one movie that we (or at least i) don’t feel any desperate need to know their futures. it feels complete!

so in all the other movies are working with a set of characters who have ostensibly completed their development. so in each new movie, they need to give the characters more problems. usually this comes from external factors, like new characters. a couple times they do a pretty good job introducing new internal problems for the characters - diego’s quest to get over his fear of water was a pretty good one i thought.

but after a while the main trio just stagnates. diego, once the most compelling character, becomes pretty boring. he doesn’t have anything to do anymore. i’ve already talked about manny - each movie he reverts back into an asshole and it gets old so fast. sid’s a little better; he’s got issues with his family and a desire for a family of his own and all that, but more often than not the conclusions to his arcs are unsatisfying

sid plays the role of the character who’s doomed to never get exactly what he wants, except, like, in a way that’s supposed to be funny. we pity him!

i think he has some archetype parallels with escargon from hoshi no kaabii (why do i keep mentioning hoshi no kaabii) but i am not going into that here oh boy

i feel like i’m juggling a lot in my head right now, but sid’s position as the comedic scapegoat is interesting. i’m sure there’s more to unpack here but i’ve already gone way too deep into this series

there’s also more to unpack when you consider his queercoding hmm

anyway, on that note…

additional thesis: sid the sloth is queer-coded

complicated relationship with family (they hate him and think he’s useless)

lispy voice

cares about “fem” things like children. takes care of kids in both movies 1 and 3. calls himself “mama”

gets pushed into the role of caring for the kid in 1

makes vaguely gay comments at his male friends, like “you have beautiful eyes” to manny

there are literally so many jokes in the first movie like. diego’s “you guys are an odd couple” to manny and sid

that whole part in 4 where he’s trying to kiss the sirens and kisses diego instead and is like “wow romantic”

not interested in the idea of a nuclear/traditional family. see his shenanigans with the dino babies

he is interested in women throughout the series though (bi rights)

5 especially tunes down the queercoding and tunes up the “awkward guy who can’t get girls” angle

so. ice age. is it fun? yes! i definitely enjoyed rewatching the series with my friend. and kids will probably get a kick out of the slapstick and silly dialogue. but if you’re not a kid and looking to (re)watch any of them, i’d probably just stick to the first one.

[fionnwhitehead]

Rising star Fionn Whitehead on filming Dunkirk, rejecting fame

"I don't feel the need to please people," Fionn Whitehead decides. It's a traditionally English, wet summer's afternoon and Fionn is in an east London photo-studio, where the actor is weighing up his increasing success. "I don't need to go out there to try and get people to like me. I have friends who don't even like me," he says, half jokingly. The 20-year-old actor has spent the day having his photo taken. Rain is beating down fiercely on the glass roof and his voice is barely audible above the din, but he's nothing but charming and polite, persevering through a volley of interview questions, and demands from the team to look beautiful in a million different ways. Such hardships are nothing compared to the gruelling regime he underwent while filming Christopher Nolan's critically and commercially acclaimed new war movie, Dunkirk. Shot on location in northern France, Fionn spent five excruciating months running up and down the beaches of Dunkirk carrying heavy stretchers laden with bodies, and being plunged into freezing cold waters, weighed down by a full length woollen trench coat, army boots and a gun on his back. There was smoke everywhere, screams, blaring sirens, giant warships, Spitfires overhead and people actually shooting at him. "It was so draining having to go through all of that," he recalls. "But, of course, it wasn't even remotely close to what the soldiers themselves must have experienced." Set during the Second World War, Dunkirk, tells the harrowing tale of 400,000 Allied troops being evacuated from the French port as the German army advanced upon them. It's a brutal story of survival and heroism against the odds, as hundreds of small civilian boats famously came to the rescue the stranded servicemen. Cast alongside British heavyweights Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, and Mark Rylance, and Hollywood newcomer -- but no stranger to the limelight -- Harry Styles, Fionn plays the role of Tommy, a young soldier fighting to get home. "He's the eyes and ears of the audience," Fionn explains. "You see the world through him as he takes you on this journey." Despite the obvious differences in situation, it's a role Fionn easily identified with on a basic human level; that of a young man thrown into a bewildering situation, fighting to navigate his way through it. "The whole thing felt very real. You didn't have to act, you were just responding to what was happening around you," he recalls. "Dunkirk is such a strange place, it was so weird being on the beach and knowing how many people were slaughtered there. There were still bullet holes in the wall of the church. I'm not religious but it's crazy to think of someone shooting at a church." Forever haunted by the events of 1940, Dunkirk is one of those eerie places where time stands still. "The whole town is still reeling from what happened," Fionn reflects. "Being there was very emotional, you had to make jokes and shake it off at the end of the day otherwise you'd get dragged down in sorrow. Anyone who complained, cast or crew, got shut down immediately with an 'at least you weren't there.'" Born in south west London, Fionn is the youngest of four siblings. He had a happy childhood, growing up in a house that was filled with music. His father, a jazz musician, would slide down the stairs scat singing, and improvising melodies on the spot. There's also a slight sadness about him; an incredibly private person, Fionn's air of mystery only makes you want to understand him better. That he is named after the mythical Irish hunter Fionn mac Cumhaill (it's pronounced Finn MacCool) -- who as a teenager gained all the world's wisdom by mistakenly ingesting some of the salmon of knowledge, is no coincidence. Fionn too appears wise beyond his years, yet full of boyish charm, it makes for quite a captivating combination, on-screen and off. Fionn got into acting at school, and joined the National Youth Theatre at 15. "It sounds quite weird and perverse, but I like the idea of manipulating people's emotions, making them feel things they wouldn't normally feel," he says of why he was first attracted to acting. "With some characters you can draw on emotions you've felt in the past, experiences that are personal to you, but there are other characters where you can't truly become them, that's when you need to do the research and start taking into account why they do what they do, how they think, how they feel." When preparing for his role in the three-part British drama Him, it was a case of combining experience with exploration. Fionn plays a troubled young teen, navigating the turbulent waters of boyhood, who suddenly discovers he has telekinetic powers. "That feeling of isolation people have growing up," he muses, "it can be really lonely. But it's also quite a taboo subject. You get told that it's meant to be the best time of your life but it can be really shit. You have all these intense feelings but you can't talk about them. There's a stigma about being a man and not being able to reach out and talk to people. I've been quite lucky as my family is very open. We talk about everything." Released this summer, Dunkirk is already making headlines. Of course, having co-star Harry Styles being, well, Harry Styles, helps, but as the lead all eyes will be firmly on Fionn. Is superstardom something he's ready for? "I have no interest in it," he says immediately. "I find that whole world quite weird and creepy. It's so important to keep a sense of normality. I have a close group of friends and a supportive family. They always keep me grounded and never let me get big-headed. I also don't have Instagram as it feeds that whole machine. If you want to do that side of it, that's absolutely fine, it doesn't mean you're a bad actor. I just don't like the idea of people knowing me on a personal level."

[tialovestelevision]

This Year's Girl

Yay, good Angel stories! And now, yay Faith! Getting her back will be nice both because she’s one of the best characters in the franchise and because it will give us a break from Adam, the most bland villain since Coach Who Turns His Swimmers Into Fish Demons Guy. 1. Buffy is making a bed. I think it’s her room at home. Yeah pretty sure. And there’s Faith. They’re talking about the smell of the sheets. Buffy: “I wish I could stay, but…” Faith: “Little sis coming. I know. So much to do before she gets here.” Faith is bleeding on the bed, because Buffy stabbed her with the sketchy mall knife and didn’t notice. “Are you ever gonna take this thing out?” 2. Faith is in her hospital bed. The hospital looks… kind of awful. 3. “Guest starring Kristine Sutherland.” Haven’t seen that in a while. Haven’t missed it. Xander is trying to fix the lightning gun. Willow suggests just pressing some buttons; Giles vetoes it. They’re all in Xander’s basement again. “Will, you haven’t seen this Adam thing. He’s the Terminator without the bashful charm.” 4. They haven’t heard from Riley, but the Initiative has told Buffy he’s fine, which indicates that she’s not on the run from them any more. Which sort of makes me wonder why they’re in Xander’s basement instead of Giles’s house. Xander got shocked by the blaster, while Giles and Willow reassure Buffy that the Initiative wouldn’t be hurting Riley. Buffy thinks they might have put him back on the drugs, though, which is something that would make sense for them to do - gives them a leash and him power. 5. Riley’s looking a ton better. He’s out of bed, but there’s a guard at his door. Forrest just relieved the guard. “The shish kebob that walks like a man.” Forrest thinks they should deal with Adam without involving Buffy. 6. Faith is blinking her eyes. No, REM. 7. Faith dream: She’s having a picnic with the Mayor. She’s worried it’s going to rain. He found a snake and released it. He was getting cheesecake, but Buffy stabbed him to death. “I told you I had things to do.” Now Buffy is chasing Faith with the sketchy mall knife. 8. Buffy, Willow, and Xander are patrolling. Buffy has a leopardprint coat. They found a demon who’s been flayed. 9. Willow thinks Adam killed the demon to study it. Buffy is planning to defeat Adam, and to rescue Riley. First Riley. She wants to launch a frontal assault after Willow magically hacks the Initiative, but Riley is at the basement. Buffy is surprised-delighted. Xander asked Riley if the Initiative put a chip in his brain. That’s a good question, but Buffy derailed it. 10. Back to Faith’s dreams. Buffy is chasing her at a leisurely pace through a graveyard with the knife. Faith is running but can’t get away. She fell in a grave. There’s thunder starting. Buffy jumped into the grave as it starts to rain. There’s a stabby noise and grunting, Faith climbs out of the grave. And now she’s awake. 11. She’s weakened, in the hospital, IVs hooked up. Removing her equipment. That should be summoning a nurse. This hospital is terrible. Dark and dingy. Someone just came in with a bear and a hoodie. Faith needs to get to Sunnydale High School graduation, but the school isn’t there any more. It’s Friday, February 25. She knows the Mayor is dead, and now has the girl’s hoodie as she leaves the hospital. 12. Buffy and Riley are having a conversation about his time in the infirmary. Riley is a little somewhere else. Riley has no orders, and what he does is follow orders. “I’m a soldier. Take that away, what’s left?” “A good man.” Buffy is looking for brainwashing chips and kissing Riley while sitting in his lap. “You’ve been strong long enough, Riley Finn. I’m gonna help you.” 13. The doctor, the nurse, and the police are in Faith’s room, talking about the lack of security. No kidding - when she pulled her equipment, it would have read her flatlining, and no alarms went off and nobody noticed. Never mind containing a murderer; this hospital is terrible at hospitaling! Hospital security has found the woman Faith took the hoodie from. The nurse just called someone to tell them to “send the team.” 14. There’s Faith at the high school ruins, staring at them. She’s very sad, and now walking lost through Sunnydale. Looking a little stronger, though. Moving better.Terrified, though. Alone. 15. Now she’s at Giles’s place. Giles, Willow, Riley, and Buffy are discussing Adam, who needs to recharge because he’s working off an autonomous power source. Riley fixed the blaster. Giles and Buffy think Riley should go to the Initiative to do the double agent thing. Xander is disapproving of another of Buffy’s boyfriends. 16. Buffy just got a phone call. She has a face. She now knows Faith is awake and free. Xander: “I’d say this qualifies for a Worst Timing Ever award.” 17. Buffy has basically put the Adam search on hold because of Faith’s return, and has now explained who Faith is to Riley. Buffy hasn’t found Faith yet, and edited out Angely bits of her conversation with Riley about Faith. And there’s Faith. 18. Now, after some verbal sparring, Buffy and Faith are fighting. Police show up and Faith retreats after knocking them out. Buffy’s chasing her across campus. Faith went over a wall and got away… she’s almost certainly hiding right in the blind spot the wall makes. 19. Willow and Tara are looking for Faith. Tara likes that Willow said “recon” and thinks Willow’s a fool monster fighter. Willow would be lucky to bruise Faith’s fist with her face, though, and knows it. Tara is very bad at violence. “She’s like this cleavagey slut bomb walking around going all, ‘Oh, check me out. I’m wicked cool. I’m five by five.’” Nobody knows what five by five means. 20. They recon ‘till nightfall then the ritual hiding begins. 21. They gave Xander the blaster. He and Giles are hunting for Faith, but found Spike. “Is this bird after you?” “In a bad way, yeah.” “Tell you what I’ll do, then. Head out, find this girl, tell her exactly where all of you are, and then watch as she kills you.” Are you ever going to remember that he’s evil? 22. Xander: “We’re dumb.” 23. There’s a helicopter arriving at the hospital, with the nurse waiting. N410JC. Just Googled that; it’s an FAA registration for a single-engine aircraft but was registered in 2014, so that’s not relevant to an episode made in 2000. Those guys look very Council. Helicopter is leaving; the guys are walking into the hospital. So now we have Buffy, Spike, the police, the hospital, and the Council all looking for Faith, who’s looking into a window at a bunch of knives that would be bad for stabbing with. 24. Cop car shows up, so instead of stealing knives she vanishes ito a crowd. 25. Demon greets Faith. “Faith, a friend sent me. I got a little remembrance from him.” She kills the demon and takes an envelope from him, which has a VHS tape. The Mayor is on it with a message for her. Gods, having him show up is a painful reminder of Season 3, when the show had a really good main villain and was producing episodes like Amends. He made the message while Faith was in her coma - the brief window between her being stabbed and him Ascending and dying. He wishes he could make the world a better place for Faith to wake up in, but her watching the video means he failed. He also sent her a box. It’s not going to bite. It’s some sort of magic item. “And here’s the good news. Just because it’s over for my Faith doesn’t mean she can’t go out with a bang.” 26. Riley wants to help fight Faith, but his injury is still bothering him. He wants Buffy to tell him why Faith gets so far under her skin. “I know Faith. She’ll come after me and she’ll come after the people that I love.” Cut to Buffy’s house, where Faith is at the door. “Hi, Joyce.” Punch. 27. Faith is going through Joyce’s makeup and has taken Joyce hostage. Buffy hasn’t been by the house in a while… can’t blamer her there. But Buffy just came through the window to attack Faith. Joyce somehow got free of her bindings and is calling the police. Faith and Buffy just rolled down the stairs. Faith thinks Riley could use a little roll in the sack. Wow, Joyce’s house is getting wrecked. Faith has a knife. 28. “Hello, Rupert. The team from the helicopter is in Giles’s house. 29. Police sirens outside Buffy’s house. Buffy and Faith still fighting in the living room. Faith got out the thing the Mayor sent her, and grabbed Buffy’s hand. They’re looking at each other in surprise, then Buffy punches Faith out. She has a weird expression on her face and just broke the artifact. Handing Faith over to the police, then says “Five by five.” Body swap time, apparently. Overall: That was very much part one of a two-parter. Faith and the Mayor here are almost painfully good, a reminder of the time the show had the best understanding of its strengths. Season 3 was, apart from a set of bad one-off episodes, incredibly well-assembled and very focused, with a villain and a dragon who were as interesting as they were threatening. Season 4 has been a meandering mess basically from the word go, and they supplanted the Initiative in the main plot with Adam just as the Initiative started to show some promise, wiping that promise away in favor of a bland cyborg guy. This, though? This was good. The Mayor’s presence is felt throughout it, Faith is both sympathetic and terrifying, and both Buffy and the script find a focus they’ve been lacking this whole season. Adam exists merely as a cloud that hangs over the events, rather than a presence, which works for him - “We’re already under this existential threat, now Faith is back too” is a great way to take this story. The way Adam is put aside for Faith, though, isn’t good for Adam’s legitimacy as a villain, and he really couldn’t afford to lose any more of that. All that said, though, whatever the implications for the rest of the season from this, I’m glad this episode is happening, because it’s been the best ride the show’s given me all season.