Reviewed By: Adam Bardwell
Rating: 8/10
This is the only episode of season 4 to centre on Giles. This just shows how woefully under-used he and Xander (who has no episodes centre on him in this season) have been of recent times. Its nice to see Tony Head get a chance to act in a slightly different guise (and look!) to normal and this episode is good for reasons beyond pure novelty.
The basic premise of the episode can be summed up as - Giles feeling left out of the group and useless shares a drink with Ethan who uses magic to turn him into a Fyarl demon! Only Spike can understand him and he agrees to help for money. Giles finds Ethan but before he can kill him Buffy enters and fights Giles thinking he hurt Giles. She would have killed him if Giles letter opener had been real silver but luckily it wasn't and on looking into the demons eyes she realise that its Giles and gets Ethan to turn him back. Ethan is then taken away by the military to be rehabilitated. Unfortunately this makes future appearances unlikely. I really enjoy his scenes with Ripper.
This episode is funny - the funniest of the season in my opinion. Other episodes contain funnier scenes but this episode kept me laughing throughout although if I were handing out a Buffy comedy award it would have to go to "Bewitched, Bewildered and Belittled". As normal Spike has the funniest lines. For example, his response; "And what you're shocked and disappointed? I'm evil!", to Xander's protest that he was stealing Xander's radio was priceless. The best humour comes from the metamorphosed Giles. The funniest moment of the entire show comes when he gets Spike to stop the car so he can chase Professor Walsh, who he hates with a fiery vengeance for she called him an "absent farther figure". There are so many other funny moment to mention them all but the scene between demon Giles and Xander has to get a mention as does the one when Ethan emerges from the shadows only to be heard by Giles.
On some levels Giles metamorphosis could be seen as a metaphor for a hangover. He got very drunk with Ethan before Ethan did the spell and he woke up but instead of having a hangover he was a demon. However, to me this episode seems to be more about Giles mid-life cries and his lose of his sense of purpose. If you wanted to get the hangover metaphor in there you could go as far as to say that Giles is feeling hangover with life. That may be pushing thinks a little but is probably true. I always that you can over analyse thinks so I'm trying not to do that here like I try not to over analyse the more cryptic episode such as "Restless" because its so easy to get the wrong end of the stick.
This episode has an interesting theme which it brings up and then forgets about. This is the question of whether looking and feeling like a monster makes you a monster? In some ways it does answer this because Giles doesn't end up killing anyone or using his killer mucus (that would have been interesting to see!). Its a pity it was not explored more thoroughly for it is true in life that once we are seen as one thing we end up going along with that just to live up to peoples expectations. However, this was a comedy episode and there was no room for something so deep but it could be explored in a further episode.
This episode gives us the one and only car chase in Buffy history and it was worth the wait! Spike obviously is having the world of fun despite the fact he's driving Giles Citron which is not the speediest of cars (although according to Giles is quite serviceable so that's a relief!). It is a pity that the scene where Spike leaves the car after crashing it and exclaims that things are looking up in his life was cut due to the fact the episode was running long.
Many of this episodes problems come from the editing. I particular the editor can't have been paying attention in the scene with Giles and Ethan drinking for the drink levels do al sorts of amazing things. I accept that this scene will have been hard to edit for it would be hard for the people on set to refilled the drinks exactly between takes. A worse offence occurs in the first scene between demon Giles and Spike. Spike puts a cigarette in his mouth to light up, the angle changes and the cig. is gone never to be seen again! Aside from these glitches the production values are good, the direction is above average and the Fyarl make up is very impressive!
Great Buffy Moment: Giles getting Spike to stop the car just so he could chase Prof. Walsh.
In a Nutshell: A rarity in that it is a Giles centred episode but not a rarity in that its very funny and well worth watching!