Mommy Can Hear You...

We have reached the season four finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at last. This season, though not entirely connected and comprehensible, has lead to some important episodes and revelations. “Restless” is an attempt to sum up the characters and all the changes they have gone through up until this point; it is also a step into the next stage of the female journey for Buffy Summers, Sunnydale Slayer.

The episode opens with the focus on Willow. Her character changes are probably the most obvious and probably provided a hot topic among audiences despite some mild foreshadowing. Giles comments about how they are all hiding from and lying to the audience. We begin to understand that the dream is the interpretation of her insecurities about her changes both in her personality (less of a wallflower) and in her sexuality. Dream Tara tells her, “Everyone’s starting to wonder about you, the real you. If they find out, they’ll punish you.” Later Buffy asks her, “Why are you still in costume?” Suddenly, we see an image of the old Willow, the shy, too smart, unfashionably insecure high-school peer tutor/substitute. We leave her dream to enter reality in which Buffy calls her a “big faker” when Xander asks about her restless sleep.

Xander’s dream is next. We see him in the basement multiple times. Twice in this setting, he states to the rattling door, “That’s not the way out.” Anya asked him, “Do you know where you’re going?” Xander’s issues are with his family and his dead-end jobs. He hasn’t found a calling yet nor a place to belong. He has problems in his love life, too. Xander is pretty much unfulfilled and unsatisfied in all areas of his life. (Not that we needed a dream to tell us that.)

Giles is next with Olivia and Dream Buffy to whom he keeps saying, “I know you.” Yet the Buffy we see is sillier and childlike, not very much like the Buffy we know. At one point in his dream, Willow turns to him and accuses, “Do you know this is all your fault?” Giles is insecure about completing his duty and protecting Buffy; he is becoming more attached to her beyond the role of watcher. We have seen Giles portrayed in the role of father from Buffy’s perspective, but now we get to see this fatherly stance from Giles own eyes, yet he feels unwanted, unneeded. His slayer has grown up, and he doesn’t want her to.

Buffy’s dream is the culmination of the episode, revealing what monster is that is after them. Buffy’s fear is the loss of her friends; they are, or at least seem to be, her greatest strength. The slayer also fears what she may become. She may be super-human, but as she insists, “we are not demons.” The use of the plural is interesting; who is she talking about? We can assume she means the Scooby gang, but it is clear that they are human. Only the slayer’s origins are uncertain.

This brings us to the sandbox, the empty loneliness, the primitive violence of nature. In one of my previous blogs, I wrote about how Buffy could never pass into the crone stage because she has no one to guide her. Her mother is hardly capable of leading her, Maggie Walsh was corrupt and betrayed her trust; all the previous slayers had to die in order for Buffy to begin her journey. This was true. Now, however, the scoobies have called on the power of the first slayer. They awoke her, and she is ready to instruct.

There’s just one problem; Buffy doesn’t like the lesson. The slayer finally finds her own voices and speaks to her saying, “No friends. Just to kill. We are alone.” Buffy insists, “It’s over. We don’t do this anymore.” She believes the line of slayers have passed into a new level of understanding that is not just brute force but comprehension and now friendship. She tells the first slayer, “You’re not the source.” For Buffy, the source is her support system of friends.

One final separate note on the riddle of the random cheese man The psychoanalytical answer: she is the cheese, Buffy that is. His comment to Willow is “there’s enough room for the cheese.” Willow and Buffy have grown a little apart since Tara, and Willow is insecure about that distance. To Xander he says, “The cheese can’t protect you.” Buffy often rescues Xander from demons, but she can’t do anything about the direction of his life. Cheese man tells Giles, “I wear the cheese; the cheese does not wear me.” The comment plays on Giles loss of his role as watcher. He no longer has the ability to give the slayer order; Buffy is in charge now. So because I can’t leave a riddle without finding an answer (logical or otherwise), the cheese is Buffy, and the man’s presence shows her role in the loves of those around her and how she has affected them.