James Marsters penned this, but it doesn't really make sense to me to have this set in season seven, although maybe I'm misremembering the series.   I didn't like season seven much so I haven't seen it in a while. 

Anyway, I was disappointed in how short this was, in the lack of character development and the storyline.   The art was fun, and Spike was pretty Spike, so it's not like I hated this.  I'd just hoped for more, especially because I was so pleased with Marsters' writing in the Spike and Dry one-shots.

Everything about Buffy is amazing, except for maybe the outfits as this Twitter account, Bad Buffy Outfits will tell you. Anyway, #BuffySlays20 and every blog/website will be listing the top ten episodes/plot points etc from the series. On most of them you will find mentions of amazing episodes, such as this one, which according to io9:

“Hush” was nominated for a writing Emmy, even though it only has 17 minutes of dialogue. That’s all you need to know to understand how groundbreaking this season four episode was. The Gentlemen, some of the show’s creepiest villains, steal everyone’s voices so they can silently steal some hearts, and the Scoobies struggle to express their feelings to each other in the wake of losing something as integral as human communication. A bold and risky episode of TV, the episode ends up saying so much with so little.

and The Body, which according to News.com.au:

“Mummy?” All it took was one word and all of our hearts broke. Buffy finding her mother’s dead body sprawled on the couch, struck down by an all-too-human disease and not anything supernatural was one of the most wrenching Buffy moments. The sequence that followed of her wandering through the house in a daze, with no score and an almost saturated aesthetic brought home the completely uncomfortable truth of human death.

Of course, how can we forget the scene where Buffy kills Angelous in Season 2, which WhatCulture says is one of the iconic moments from the show! The kiss, the music playing in the background (yes, it is one of the ringtones on my phone), it was all heartbreaking!

All these scenes are undoubtedly amazing but the scenes that stayed with me also include those you won't find on such lists. Here are a few of them:

Killed By Death was one of the scariest episodes for me. It doesn't add to the overall theme of the show and the monster seems like a ripoff of on-screen villains, which it was, and yet I liked how it left me...too scared to go to sleep! 

Halloween (Second Season) is another favorite because of so many reasons. Willow was crushing on Xander and felt invisible like the ghost she dressed up as. Xander went as a soldier and the experience that he gains in this episode filters down to us in the future ones. We also get to see what Giles was like before he became so prim & proper.

Willow: Poor Xander. Boys are so fragile. Speaking of, how was your date last night?

Buffy: Misfire. I was late due to unscheduled slayage. Showed up looking trashed.

Willow: Was he mad?

Buffy: Actually, he was pretty unmad. Which probably had something to do with the fact that Cordelia was drooling in his cappuccino.

Willow: Oh, Buffy. Angel would never fall for her act.

Buffy: You mean that 'actually showing up, wearing a stunning outfit, embracing personal hygiene' act?

 

Helpless is heartbreakingly sad and damn scary! The vampire that Buffy has to fight, Gile's betrayal, the Watchers' Council politics...all of it made one helluva episode. And then there was this:

Angel: I saw you before you became the Slayer.

Buffy: What?

Angel: I watched you, and I saw you called. It was a bright afternoon out in front of your school. You walked down the steps... and... and I loved you.

Buffy: Why?

Angel: 'Cause I could see your heart. You held it before you for everyone to see. And I worried that it would be bruised or torn. And more than anything in my life, I wanted to keep it safe... to warm it with my own.

Buffy: That's beautiful. Or taken literally, incredibly gross.

Angel: I was just thinking that, too.

 

 

I don't remember much about Homecoming but what I do remember is that Buffy looked amazing when she dressed up for the event.

 

 

I also remember that I fell in love with Oz when he said:

Oz: As Willow goes, so goes my nation.

Band Candy is memorable for me because I can still see Giles & Joyce behaving like two teenagers and smooching in front of Buffy. Funny as heck! I realized how detail-oriented the show's creators must be when I came across this piece of trivia:

 

The Cream song that Giles and Joyce listen to is played after Joyce's funeral. Giles listens to it in the season five episode "Forever".

 

 

Pangs is another favorite because Angel comes back to visit in this episode. I loved everything about the brief return! It is also funny because of what happens to Spike and Xander.

 

Spike: A bear! You made a bear!

Buffy: I didn't mean to.

Spike: Undo it! Undo it!

 

Read other quotes here because the humor in this episode was ah-mazing!

 

As you watch the episode, you try to hate the entity responsible for the sickness and yet can't...

 

I can't leave Buffy vs. Dracula off this list for the same reason: humor! Of course, Xander would be the Count's choice for a Reinfeld.

 

Xander: Where is he? Where's the creep that turned me into a spider-eating man-bitch?

Buffy: He's gone.

Xander: Damnit. You know what? I'm sick of this crap. I'm sick of being the guy who eats insects and gets the funny syphilis. As of this moment, it's over. I'm finished being everybody's butt-monkey.

Buffy: Check. No more butt-monkey.

 

 

 

Some quips that you'll love:

 

 

Forever makes the list, as well. I loved how Dawn couldn't think ahead of the fact that she wanted her mom back. I also loved how Buffy tried to dissuade her at first and then couldn't help herself. While we never see the Joyce they raised, this was one scary episode for me!

 

 

 

 

Here are some more scary Buffy moments:

 

Chosen is both the last episode of the series and on my list. What comes to mind immediately when I think about it is the conversation between Angel & Buffy. It goes something like this but is way funnier to watch. It is also the episode where Anya, one of my most favorite characters on the show, dies trying to save Andrew.

 

 

 

IMDB lists this on the trivia page for this episode and I thought I'd share it before I ended this post:

Buffy's final line in the show is "Spike." Anya's is "Bunnies."

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Bottom line: Incoherent, rambling mess of a memoir. Clearly Simon & Shuster paid absolutely no attention to this book, as there is not an editor at work at all in this crap.

I really was interested in Ms. Montana-Leblanc's experience up until she and her husband landed at Lackland AFB/Kelly AFB in San Antonio, TX. That is when I had it with her constant whining and shoving her quasi-Christian faith down my throat. She expected steak, baked potato, and merlot to be served at a refugee welcome dinner given by the staff of the hotel she and her husband is staying at in Texas. The spaghetti dinner was "cheap" in her opinion AFTER ALL she and her family went through.

And the shade throwing does not end there. Hubby's ex-wife gets several pages devoted to her evilness while she goes on about her faith in God in those same paragraphs. A aunt is vilified for expressing the opinion that Leblanc came off as "ghetto" in the film. Her celebrity status (she is featured in Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke documentary) is described over and over again, yet no mention of her sister, mother, and autistic nephew are mentioned after they are separated during rescue operations. Her family is living a good steady life in Texas, which she does not agree with - she expects them to come home to New Orleans (the reader finds this out through one of the captions to a photo).

Self-righteous hypocritical rumor-mongering preachiness written as though someone just transcribed word for word her inner monologue. 0 stars. And be careful, because this author has come after reviewers on Amazon for less than glowing 5 star reviews.

All additions this week come from the library:

1. No Fear Shakespeare: Othello by William Shakespeare/Sparks Publishing

    I needed a book to read that would fill in the "Dead Author" square on the Summer Bingo Card. Can't get more dead than Shakespeare. This is the one Shakespearean tragedy I have wanted to read, but was never assigned in either high school or college (yet I had to read Hamlet 3 different times!! GRRRRR).

2. Brave Like My Brother by Marc Tyler Nobleman

    I needed a book to read that would fill in the "Published in June/July/August 2016" square. For the record, this MG novella was published June 28, 2016. I can't tell you how many display tables/shelves I went through in two different libraries just to find a book published in this time frame.

3. Hell on Earth: The Wildfire Pandemic by David L. Porter with Lee Reeder

    I have been on a real natural disaster kick lately. I think I miss being an emergency manager.

4. Not Just the Levees Broke: My Story During and After Hurricane Katrina by Phyllis Montana-Leblanc

    I wanted a few books on Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy to read during September (which is National Emergency Preparedness Month in the US). My library had this book (portions which was turned into a movie by Spike Lee, who wrote the forward to the book) and I thought it would be good jumping off point. I put a hold on OverDrive for two more books, but both of those are from journalists.

5. Not Left Behind: Rescuing the Pets of New Orleans by Best Friends Animal Society

    It was near book #4 and I could not resist the dog on the cover. Besides, I really think pet safety/evacuations are so important yet so overlooked aspect of emergency preparedness and response.

*bookish meme created by Moonlight Reader

Ninth book in summer bingo, and boy, did this disappoint.   But it scored on the sun on the cover, which was harder to find in graphic novels, so yay!  But, man, between this and DADoES...

I'm in a rut right now.  I'm determined to read something good next, so maybe Invincible.   I'm trying to stick to digital comics to get rid of some of my Comixology and Humble Bundle reads.   So far, it's working.   I've gotten through a bunch of this week and last week's comics - I fell behind again! - and I'm plowing through some Humble Bundle comics. 

Despite what I felt was lousy art, this could have been a more enjoyable read had Spike not been sending Darla letters like they were the best of friends.   What?   When?   How?   Didn't they kinda despise each other?   

So basically, it was out of character and the art sucked.   Moving on.