Notes on Buffy 3.13: The Zeppo

[2maggie2]

Standard disclaimer: I'll often speak of foreshadowing, but that doesn't mean I'm at all committing to the idea that there was some fixed design from the word go -- it's a short hand for talking about the resonances that end up in the text as it unspools.

Standard spoiler warning: The notes are written for folks who have seen all of BtVS and AtS.

Comments

[ceciliaj]

Willow. We get the quick flash of Willow’s internal dark bubbling to the surface in her remark about wanting to bring marshmallows to roast when they burn the demon bodies. She’s sometimes callous and strange she says when everyone is taken aback. It’s a cool moment of everyone getting a glimpse of the truth and then promptly ignoring it because it doesn’t fit what they think they know.

Excellent observation. This pretty much sums up the episode.

It is so cool to read these after gabrielleabelle just hosted discussion of The Pack -- I'm developing Xander brain :).

Final observation: your thoughts about the music in this ep made me think about OMWF...but I'm not sure exactly what to say about it.

[2maggie2]

I was totally thinking about OMWF. It was the music and lighting for the Bangel scene that made me think of it.

What's Xander brain?!!!!

[ceciliaj]

Hehe by Xander brain I just mean that I am empathizing with him, and in pre-season 6 eps, which is rare for me. I totally empathize with drunken failure Xander, but I never realized how much internal consistency he has across the whole series

[beer_good_foamy]

I've sucked at commenting lately, sorry, but I recently found out this interesting piece of trivia and had to share.

The "Zeppo" is supposed to be the useless one of the group. Marx fans may or may not disagree (what's comedy without a straight man?). But what most of them don't know is what Zeppo Marx did after he retired from acting.

He founded the company that built the mechanism that dropped the A-bomb on Nagasaki.

There's a metaphor in that somewhere which may or may not be relevant to this episode.

[2maggie2]

Interesting piece of trivia, but not a clue how to work it in as part of the metaphor! Hope all is well by you.

I'll give it a try...

[angearia]

Well, Xander as the Zeppo becomes an instrumental part of helping Jack's gang plant a bomb in the high school in the first place. If he'd truly been the Zeppo and just gone along for years with the gang he didn't fit in with (like the Marx Zeppo), rather than striking out on his own, the bomb would've gone off.

Xander only feels like he's the Zeppo and by the end of the episode, that gets stripped away for a moment of clarity. His insecurities will come back in Season 4, especially when he's struggling to find a job where he'll respect himself, but by Season 7 (really, the end of Season 6) he's always that guy at the end of this episode -- putting his life on the line by refusing to leave.

His method to defeat Jack in "The Zeppo" is how he defeats Willow in "Grave" -- he refuses to leave, even if it means he'll die first.

Re: I'll give it a try...

[local_max]

We can also view the metaphor is that Xander is the anti-Zeppo to the anti-Marx Brothers of Jack and his gang. In fact, Xander is the one guy who almost joins their gang who is actually funny, in reverse of the Marx Brothers. The zombies are the anti-Marxes, and so Xander, as the anti-Zeppo who doesn't belong in their gang, leaves the gang behind and then defuses the bomb. Ahem.

His method to defeat Jack in "The Zeppo" is how he defeats Willow in "Grave" -- he refuses to leave, even if it means he'll die first.

Yep. His superpowers are talking and using his body to block the exit/statue. And in a sense finding the humanity in the people before him. With Jack, the qualities he reaches are maybe not as admirable. But he sees through Jack's bluster and identifies that, yes, Jack is a person with a desire to 'live' beneath the entirely cucumber-cool exterior he puts on. With Willow it's a desire for love and for some measure of forgiveness.

[ctrent29]

"a bit of a push for Giles to submit Buffy to the Cruciamentum"

I don't think so. The idea of Buffy being a Slayer has always been first and foremost in Giles' mind. Regardless of his feelings for her.

[2maggie2]

I get that he sees her as a slayer. I still can't quite get to sending Buffy out in a condition that very nearly got her killed, and which ought to have gotten her killed. But folks have different takes on it for sure!

[2maggie2]

Yay! I really enjoyed writing this one. I'm developing a soft spot for that lug known as Xander. I blame it on you.

And big word to the way POV shapes everything. I hadn't thought how that works for season 6, but yeah, that totally makes sense.

Best analysis yet

[sophist]

This is really terrific. I think it's the best of all you've done so far.

Re: Best analysis yet

[2maggie2]

Thanks so much! It's the first one in a while I've enjoyed writing.

[angearia]

A great read!

Part of the reason Xander’s triumphantly walking away from Cordelia feels a tad false is that it’s not quite enough to ignore her; Xander still has to make it up to her that he hurt her, and that doesn’t happen until The Prom.

But it's a necessary step in his ability to make it up to her. Before this point, he's still tempted to be antagonistic towards Cordy, an antagonism Cordy welcomes as she's supremely confident her barbs will hit home while his will fail to slip past her armor. It's only when Xander accepts Cordy's anger and learns to let her be angry that he'll eventually be able to see her clearly in "The Prom". The episode is about Xander accepting himself, finally not falling prey to his insecurities in how others see him, but becoming secure in his own POV. So his walking away from Cordy at the end is acceptance of Cordy's feelings and her right to have them -- he won't trade barbs with her, but he's also not going to be her whipping boy. Finally, it's only when Cordy's anger has cooled by "The Prom"

[local_max]

It's a good point that this is a step on the right path for Xander, if still a temporary one (he's back to sniping back and forth in Bad Girls). I think there's a fine line between accepting the right of someone else to have their feelings without letting it bother you, and simply ignoring their feelings entirely, and I'd like to think that Xander is closer to the former than the latter. There is just a hint of meanness though, in the way he takes just a tiny bit of pleasure in letting Cordelia dangle with his ambiguous smile. Which, you know, I think is its own revenge fantasy which in its own way continues the cycle. It's ultimately very good that Xander doesn't take Cordelia's bait, and that he doesn't let her define him, so it is a step forward in that sense

[angearia]

Cordelia putting on a smile, in a way, is part of her same coping strategy from before;

True, but a smile to save someone pain appears so different from a smile that relishes someone's pain. The outward appearance of her method remains the same on the surface, but it's fundamentally shifted to the point where she's smiling out of compassion and self-preservation.

[local_max]

I'm not sure the distinction is so far apart. I don't think May Queen Cordelia's smile is about relishing others' pain. I'm thinking of the same Cordelia fake smile that is associated with, say, her campaigning in Homecoming, or when she's talking about going out with college boys in Reptile Boy--one that isn't about malice but is simply about getting ahead. I'm not so convinced that she's doing anything all that different in City Of. That's not a criticism of her in City Of at all; I'm just not sure whose pain she's saving by smiling, besides her own. Further, I'm not so convinced that there is anyone who would be in pain if she stopped smiling; I don't think it's self-centred of Cordelia to be out for herself at those Hollywood parties, because it's pretty clear that (nearly) everyone there is, and if she showed how upset she was she would lose what slight chance of success she had.

Definitely later on in the series she is smiling to avoid causing pain to those around her--like That Vision-Thing/Birthday etc. There's still