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Buffy 7.20: Touched

Well, for the third-to-last episode of the series, there certainly was a lot of sex.

I was waiting to find out that everyone had been teleported to Riley's old fraternity house to relive "Where the Wild Things Are." I half-expected Kathryn Joosten to jump out of a closet and start haranguing everyone again.

I thought about the outspoken religious conservatives who watch the show -- I mean, ahem, monitor the show, just as they "monitor" pornographic magazines and R-rated movies -- and I gleefully imagined the increasing quantities of steam that must have been coming out of their ears. I mean, we had lesbian sex, we had interracial sex, we had a man having sex on a kitchen floor with an ex-demon. And there was a tongue ring. All during the 8:00 hour.

The sex looked really hot, by the way.

As hot as it all was, though, it paled next to Buffy and Spike.

Beautiful.

There's a rule in television: when a couple finally gets together and has sex, the tension disappears and the series loses its moorings. It happened on "Moonlighting," it happened on "The X-Files."

But when it happened on "Buffy," it was different. It's because Buffy and Spike had sex, but they never got together. Buffy never allowed it to happen. Her resurrection had left her feeling alone, and the powers and responsibilities of being a Slayer had inevitably left her isolated.

She didn't need Spike last year -- didn't need him emotionally -- because as long as her friends were on her side, she wasn't truly alone. But then they turned on her, and she realized just how alone she truly was. When you reject other people, you hold the power, but when other people reject you, it hurts. The only person Buffy thinks she has now is Spike. She can't afford to toy with him anymore, now that she truly needs him.

It was more fulfilling to see them holding each other than it ever was to see them having sex.

Sex -- being touched -- is profound. It doesn't mean just one thing. For Buffy and Spike last year, sex was emotionally isolating. Last night, for Willow and Kennedy, it was a consummation of their kite-string trust in each other. For Xander and Anya, it flowed out of their past history and their mutual love. For Faith and Wood, it was an expression of their commonality, their shared feelings of isolation, after being abandoned by the only ones who ever cared for them: Nikki (in Wood's case) and the Mayor (in Faith's case).

Sex can be an expression of love, of power, of isolation, of anger, of trust. It can be misleading, confusing, special, ecstatic, painful, profane, sacred. It's not always good and it's not always bad. It just is. We're wired to lust after each other -- it's a part of who we are. The religious conservatives don't seem to get this. Or, rather, they're afraid of it. They don't want to deal with the complexities of human life. If they acknowledged complexity, they might actually have to exert themselves, do some thinking. And exertion leads to sweatiness, which can cause the pain and heartbreak of stinkiness.

Faith and Spike touched each other too, last night, but in a different way. Pow. Blam. It was reminiscent of "Smashed," in which Buffy and Spike's lust turned to violence. I knew Faith and Spike had chemistry, but I didn't realize it was going to be so explosive.

Everyone wants human contact.

Even Caleb wants it. It must have been torture for him to take swings at Buffy, this beautiful creature whom he professes to hate but actually lusts after, and not be able to make contact with her. And it must have counterintuitive for Buffy -- who's always itching for a fight -- to succeed in her mission by avoiding contact with him.

Even the First longs to connect with someone, if only to relish the feeling of cracking someone's neck. It can control people with words, with craftiness -- but dangit, it just can't take human form. It's all alone.

Evil is isolating. Evil keeps itself apart, cut off from the rest of the world, cut off from its diversity, cut off from its fresh ideas.

The Slayer power was born in evil, as we saw in "Get It Done." But what has made Buffy different from other Slayers is that she's always fought that isolation. She's fought against the stale old ideas. And she's done it with her friends at her side.

Evil is isolating, but good is inclusive. When you are good, you are not afraid to go out into the world and learn from others. Interact with them. Make contact with them. Touch them.

It's like Buffy put it at the end of "Bring on the Night":

The only thing more powerful than evil... is us.

What can't we face if we're together?

* * * * * * *

OK. I've done my speechifying, my academic unpacking. I have to say something else.

The fact is, for the third-to-last episode of the show, I felt let down.

First, there was way too much talking. At a point where the tension is supposed to be building and building to a big climax, not just the climax of the season but the climax of the entire series, everything lagged. There wasn't enough action. Well, there was plenty of action, but not the kind I was expecting. I kept gaping at the screen. These people are all supposed to be preparing for a big battle, or at least resting their bodies and building up strength, and instead they're having sex?

The second disappointing factor was that both cliffhangers to the episode were conventional... and derivative. Never before have I thought of "Buffy" as derivative. But a time bomb counting down to zero? And our hero coming across a special weapon as the heroic music swells? I'd seen it all before. It wasn't even that hard for Buffy to find the darn thing.

I was also stunned that after the gang went through all the trouble of kidnapping a Bringer, and after Willow went through the trouble of casting a spell to make the guy speak, and after they began to get some information from him, however vague it was -- Giles cut the guy's throat. What? Are you kidding me? You're not even going to try to get more specific information out of him?

And apparently the incorporeal First can walk on rocks.

Now, there are lots of "Buffy" gripers out there -- irascible people on various websites who are never satisfied, who think the show has gone downhill ever since Season 2, who do nothing but complain, and yet who continue to watch it. I don't want to turn into them. How can they live happy lives if they're always dwelling on the negative? There are enough bad things in the world as it is; we don't need to go looking for more of them.

Me, I've had some doubts along the way, but I've been trying to focus on the good things -- and still finding lots of them. Spike's speech to Buffy last night, for example. Wow.

So despite the flaws this season, I've still been enjoying what is one of the best, if not the best, series on TV.

And I know I won't be let down at the end.


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