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Neill Shaughness

I agree that the break up was handled badly last episode, but the silver lining for me is Xander realizing he needs to appreciate what he has with Anya. I do love the speech he gives Anya at the end.

Jeff

This isn't related to this episode in particular, but I found this video, for fans of Buffy and dachshunds: youtube.com/watch?v=vh4u-7X7a4A&list=WL&index=2

Leah W.

There has been a lot of subtle moments where Willow has mocked and insulted Anya, but they have been so under the radar (and primarily in season 4) that they are easy to miss. As a result, the dynamic really comes out of nowhere this episode since they really dial it up to 11. Also, I definitely agree that Spike is one of the funniest elements of the show right now, but I have to hard disagree that he was happy with Harmony... he literally staked her lol. I'm glad she survived, so I'd worry for her safety if Spike wasn't preoccupied at the moment.

Youtalkingtome

I agree, I don't think Spike was happy with Harmony. He treated her like a second-rate stand-in for Dru.

Neill Shaughness

"this cheater", I think we can let Xander out of the doghouse for cheating on his highschool gf when he was 17 at this point. It's been years, it justly cost him his relationship with Cordy, plus Willow was just as guilty and we all forgave her immediately.

acidnova

Spike showing us a more toxic version of "Lars and the Real Girl" here.

Jontor11

So much fun. Olaf the Troll rocks!:-)

acidnova

That was cute! I love that they did the "Grr argh" end title bit too!

Neill Shaughness

As far as Buffy's boyfriends, true there were only two really serious ones, but there was also Scott in the early s3 episodes. Plus, not exactly a boyfriend, but Parker in s4 definitely did some damage to her ego. I understand how a 19 yr old could get in their head about relationships after Riley.

ScarlettMi

I don’t really think the conflict came out of nowhere, but perhaps it’s from picking up on those moments over multiple viewings.

Neill Shaughness

I remember feeling like it came out of nowhere on my first watch too. I think part of the problem is Allyson Hannigan is just so likeable that is so hard to notice when she is being passive aggressive. With rewatches Willow's dislike of Anya is more apparent.

Claire Eyles

Absolutely yes to the "talk to your significant other if things aren't right" sentiment. My husband and I have been married 24 years this year. We've been through some really rough patches in terms of general life issues in that time, but our marriage has stayed strong because we've always made communication a priority. Sure take a couple of days to sort out your thoughts on a certain issue if you need to, but then go and talk to your partner. Doesn't matter if the issue is big or small, you can't work through stuff if no one ever gives voice to things that might be concerning them.

danzthename

I love Anya-centric episodes. She cracks me up. And Olaf is a really funny character. That actor has popped up in so many shows over the years. I'll always remember him working the front desk on ER.

Pam Nail

- This isn't my favorite episode, but it's nice to have some silliness after the last three episodes. - 100% agree on everything you guys said wrt Riley. - Wow, that conversation between Xander and Anya is some bullshit! Comparing Buffy's breakup with Angel to her breakup with Riley is WILD. And comparing Buffy to a woman who went through cycle after cycle of romance-breakup-vengeance is insanely unfair. - [rot13 for spoilers] Abg gur ynfg gvzr V'yy srry guvf jnl nobhg Naln naq ure nggvghqr gbjneq Ohssl. Arire abg entvat nobhg Rzcgl Cynprf. - Olaf the troll is played by Abraham Benrubi, probably best known for his role on ER. But yes, he does resemble David Harbour quite a bit.

Youtalkingtome

Yes! And he was in an original Fox show when I was little, Parker Lewis Can't Lose.

Stephanie P.

Willow is my favorite character but I do think she can be passive aggressive towards Anya a lot in just snide remarks she makes (although it comes across in a way where it’s not always noticeable). While Anya is blunt often, it rarely comes from her intentionally being malicious. I think Willow and Anya’s personalities just clash the most out of all the Scoobies. This episode is always a lot of fun. I love the dynamics when they pair up characters that aren’t normally together such as Tara/Buffy, Spike/Xander, and Willow/Anya. Always entertaining.

danzthename

Oh yeah! I forgot about that show

Erica

Even last episode, willow was rude to her. "i don't say that. No one talks like that." Willow has disliked anya for a long time. At first it was reasonable, given the events of Doppelgängland, but as time went on, every comment or jab felt like willow just didn't like people xander likes. I'm definitely not implying that willow still has any romantic feelings for him, but she's still kinda possessive of him.

acidnova

Oh wow, another person who remembers Parker Lewis Can't Lose! Did I just check to see if it was uploaded to youtube? Yes, I did and yes, it is! Time for a nostalgia break!

Erica

"what are you doing?" "playing soccer" might be one of the funniest moments of the whole series. Super underrated 😂 Maybe im being harsh on willow, but when she says she's "just doing a spell to help buffy," im really sure her main motivation is to see if she can do something cool and powerful. Maybe it's bc im autistic and anya is so neurodivergent coded, but ive always been annoyed at how xander and willow talk to her sometimes, and i wish xander would stick up for her more often. Once you notice how often he publicly admonishes her for saying the wrong thing it's hard to miss.

James B.

I know that there are a couple of moments from the previous ep. Little bits of sniping. But I'm sure they were placed there knowing this ep would be next.

Carl Wilson

I see both sides here: Willow has her own pre-college issues about lack of social skills, which could be a defensive factor. Even though she's always been perceptive and sensitive. I wonder if along with the rivalry and fear over Xander - it's hardly rare for old friends to be judgmental about newer relationships - Anya's obliviousness and lack of tact bugs Willow so much because she's always trying very very hard to say the right things and have everyone get along. She doesn't see why anyone should get away with not trying. She's been bristling over it all season, so this didn't come out of nowhere. Neither does her tendency to get over enthusiastic and not careful enough about spells. HOWEVER ... ... Anya really could have said she was just going to keep track of what items they used, so that Giles would know when he got back. She didn't have to keep going on about "stealing" and constantly disrupting the work, even after Willow said any interruption could cause it to go wrong. Not to mention that Anya completely kept it to herself that she had any connection with Olaf the troll until it called her out by name.

Carl Wilson

That's all fair, although sometimes Anya's bluntness is (unintentionally) genuinely hurtful and someone does need to smooth over the situation. I don't mostly think Xander's being a jerk about it, though the writers' wanting to milk more comedy out of it sometimes puts him on that edge.

Carl Wilson

The running joke in this episode that Buffy has suddenly gotten hyper-invested in the purity and eternity of all the other couples' love manages to be the perfect mix of funny and poignant.

Erica

I agree mostly. It just feels (to me, sometimes) that xander smoothing things over is often public and at anya's expense. There's better ways to do it, even when anya genuinely should apologize to someone

Jamie Morgan

Yeah, the only reason Xander still gets shit and Willow doesn't is because Cordy left Xander and Oz forgave Willow. But they were both equally in the wrong.

Jamie Morgan

This episode really shows how the writers felt about Buffy and Riley. When she and Angel broke up, there was a multi-episode arc of her dealing with her grief. When she and Riley break up, her crying is played for laughs every single time. You're so right, he should have been written out at the end of season 4! Rot13: "Ur jbhyq unir gb fnir gur jbeyq." V'z fpernzvat!

Youtalkingtome

I agree everyone can be let off the hook at this point for the affair arc. But it is a little hypocritical for Xander to dive into a “boy, Buffy sure does suck at relationships” dialogue based on his own track record. That was my only point. A little bit of a pot-kettle situation.

Lola Lirola

Get out!!! Parker Lewis aired here, it was a hit! Are you telling me Olaf the troll is Eat Now dude!?? Legend!!

lee

Such a fun and well placed episode. It hops over the heaviness of the last episode by making Buffy's stages of post-Riley grief the B plot, letting us glimpse several varied sides of the process while also making it feel like the deeper, more serious and tonally disparate after-effects are happening privately. It's a neat way of preserving the episode's lightness without fully detracting from the breakup's gravity, while also playing into the constant thread of Buffy's slayer isolation. There's a lot of deft writing going on in what could easily be dismissed as a comic relief monster of the week episode. While it's making us laugh the show is righting itself after last week's tumble into soapy melodrama and getting the season back on track with the Dawn/Glory storyline. There isn't much feeling of a vacuum where Riley used to be because the writing playfully celebrates the cast and characters and explores some criminally underused things, We finally tap Anya's insanely long history for some much needed comedy and lore, and a lot of this episode is made up of character pairings we don't get very often (Anya/Willow, Spike/Xander, Buffy/Tara). That plus a lot of good and frequent gags and great stunt work make this a colourful and effective bandaid to slap on the fresh Riley-ectomy. His character had really calcified into a writing obstruction over time and now that it's been cleared it's like this episode got flooded with a lot of pent up enthusiasm and possibility. The season feels reinvigorated and the characters much more alive and true to themselves than the last episode. I agree that the motivations and anxieties behind the Anya/Willow conflict could have been emphasised and clarified more in the episodes leading up to this. They've had friction before but it was mostly petty digs or unspecified tension and this episode brings it to a steeply dramatic head for reasons that feel a little unearned when plainly stated. There was a hint of this episode's gateway beef with each other in either the last episode or the one before, but it's very missable for first time viewers. This is a more rewatched episode for me so when that brief foreshadowing happened I was like oh that's the seed of Triangle being planted! The one thing that really grates for me is the continued slapstick-ification of Spike's misogynistic bile and violence. Him going full rageful incel in his crypt with his serial killer mannequin and then full groping pervert while pawing at Buffy in the Bronze are unnerving inclusions in the near constant flow of comedy beats. James Marsters has great comedic timing and a ton of hilarious writing has been done with the character of Spike but I find it increasingly hard to crack a smile when the joke is "Guy wants to sleep with girl he can't have so bad that it makes him crazy, pathetic, and violent". He's two seconds away from starting a manosphere podcast and catching a sexual assault charge, and if I found that kind of creep funny the world we currently live in would have me laughing myself to death. Great reaction as always! Enjoy incorporating at least one Olaf the troll quote into your lexicons. It's pretty much unavoidable.

Bri

Can't watch that opening scene. Ugh. It's not something wrong with Buffy. Buffy is 19! Is she supposed to be married?! Also, her being the common denominator? Men (/patriarchy) are the common denominator! Riley was never the kind of man that could be with an independent woman as his partner. He was always insecure about her power and her sense of purpose. She tried to get together with an academic- but he was only posing as that- he's a military man. He tried to get together with a regular 18 year old girl and instead got a grown woman with an important job. They misread what the audience reaction would be to the Willow/Xander thing- probably because Joss cheated on his wife so much - cheaters always think cheating is more of a faux pas than a genuine, deep moral failing (like the rest of us do)

Bri

I think it makes a bit of a difference that Willow was in love with Xander for years... I also think it makes a bit of a difference that Willow didn't owe Cordelia a damn thing (cos of all the vile bullying over years) whereas Xander owed Oz more than that.

Youtalkingtome

Yeah, I'm sure they were playing for comedy(?), but that whole opening scene with Xander really annoyed me.

Youtalkingtome

We were being harsh on Willow, too. I think we have just come to accept Anya's bluntness, so I didn't really see this as a necessary "breaking point" episode. And I was also a bit bothered by Willow blaming Anya for the troll. It was, after all, Willow's spell.

Youtalkingtome

Yeah, that opening scene with Xander gave me a bad taste in my mouth for the whole episode. On rewatch, I will attempt to brush past it more.

Stephanie Bedworth

I still sometimes yell out, "PUNY RECEPTACLE!" when I throw stuff away.