Willow Where
Feb. 8th, 2024 05:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
setsuledI seem to be at a time in my life when I can appreciate Jane Espenson's writing more. "Same Time, Same Place" is a really good episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from 2002. Willow comes home from England after some amateur therapy to fix her from being evil and finds her friends seem to be absent. In fact, Buffy, Xander, and Dawn were there for her, but somehow neither party is able to see the other. Espenson's premise is a nice way of using supernatural elements to explore the emotional fallout of Willow's situation. The episode's monster, a Gollum-ish creature that paralyses and feeds off of living victims, is one of the few genuinely creepy demons in the series.
The episode also has one of the best "Crazy Spike" moments when Spike talks to Willow and Buffy at the same time and assumes one of them is a hallucination. Though it's kind of awkward that, after the conclusion of the previous episode, that Spike has ended up back in the high school basement somehow. You'd have thought Buffy would've done something for him.
It's also kind of odd how much the demon's paralysis is played for laughs. Buffy and Anya have fun posing a paralysed Dawn even after reading the paralysis may be permanent. Buffy takes a moment to remark on a can of nuts Anya brought back from Brazil.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is available on Disney+ in most countries.
