There have been many examples of novels and television dramas that challenge the nature of reality. It’s an idea that was popularised by Descartes, but goes right back to Plato: can we trust our senses to tell us the difference between reality and illusion? Both Descartes and Plato used the “dream argument”, a philosophy that dreams indicate that we cannot truly believe what our senses tell us when we are awake, and it’s that basic form of questioning reality that is probably the most popular in fiction, in examples ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Doctor Who via The Twilight Zone. But the most interesting iteration of the idea is when we are shown two possible realities and both are given equal weight. In the case of fantasy or sci-fi, when the two realities are equally possible, the one with fantastical elements therefore becomes the least likely, and that happens to be the show we have been watching all along. That’s a brave thing to do.

The first two examples I ever saw of this approach to the dream argument are by far my favourite: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Far Beyond the Stars, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Normal Again. They are basically the same story. In DS9, we have the choice between Sisko the 1950s writer or Sisko who runs a space station. In Buffy, we have the choice between a young woman in a mental hospital or a vampire slayer. In both cases, the former creates the fiction of the latter. 1950s Sisko writes about sci-fi Sisko, while mentally ill Buffy is lost in her mind, in the fantasy world of vampire slayer Buffy. The important thing these have in common is that the more prosaic reality is obviously going to be the more believable. This was a daring move with DS9, which offered a choice between a writer, or a sci-fi world of the future (and sci-fi is reasonably grounded in the science of what might be possible, particularly in the case of Star Trek), both of which seem like valid possibilities. In the case of Buffy, it’s brave to the point of almost being foolhardy, because the moment you start thinking about the choice here, the fantasy world seems ridiculous. After all, this is the show that gave us Buffy vs Dracula.

The writer even spells it out for us, with some of the comments the doctor makes (and Buffy herself echoes). Once you start questioning how realistic Buffy’s world is, it does start to look silly. But because the weirdness happens by degrees, one episode at a time, we come to accept an unleavened diet of demons and vampires hiding in every shadow, buildings getting destroyed while superhumans fight giant monsters, robots that are indistinguishable from humans, magic that is achieved by just saying some words, multiple apocalypses and a girl who keeps dying and still remains the hero in her own story. The writer really does a number on the show here, looking for the loosest threads and pulling on them, and then explaining them with the fiction Buffy has constructed in her head. A sister who suddenly appears from nowhere seems absurd. A sister who is there because a mental patient rewrote an entire fantasy in order to have a familial bond is dream logic. Buffy’s death is very neatly explained as a time of lucidity in the real world, while the misery of her life during the sixth season and the lack of an impressive Big Bad to fight this year are explained as her imaginary construct becoming less comforting to her over time. It’s like the writer looked for all the big flaws, and used them all to strengthen the argument that the mental hospital is the bit that’s really happening. And if we are brutally honest with ourselves, the depressing truth is that’s the bit we ought to believe. It’s even the reality that the episode ends with: Buffy is back in a catatonic state. She has failed to escape from Sunnydale, the ridiculous fiction that exists only in her head.

So the writer does a thorough demolition job on the entire show we have watched and loved for six years. How does it get put back together? The answer is that it actually can’t be. The mask has slipped. The cat’s out of the bag. The smoke and mirrors are revealed for what they are. A girl in a mental hospital makes sense. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is silly in comparison. So we simply move on, and the writers assume that we will reinvest next week… which we will, of course. There’s one very straightforward reason for that: television drama is never really truly immersive. On some level, we know that what we are watching is just actors performing a script, the product of a writer’s imagination. It makes little difference if the fiction is created by a 1990s/2000s scriptwriter, a 1950s dreamer of sci-fi dreams, or a mentally unwell young woman, escaping into a fantasy where she fights vampires. We can still enjoy the fruits of the incredible thing that is human imagination. And who knows, one day we might all wake up to a different world and question how we ever believed in something so absurd.   RP

The view from the Sunnydale Press:

When I finished watching Normal Again, I made a beeline to Wikipedia to do a search on writer Diego Gutierrez.  I wanted to know how many episodes he wrote.  My hope: many.  Alas, he only wrote this one, but I found it such a powerful piece of television, it makes up for the last few episodes being somewhat lackluster.  Having been disappointed to learn Diego only has the one episode to his writing credits, I did a cursory search on the overall opinion of the episode and it’s not that well liked.  Color me amazed.  I love things that make me think, and as a student of Ontology, this really was a fun hour of television.  The question I have is: will this end up being the reality of the show when it wraps up next season?

The story has Buffy poking around the Lair of the Trio when they summon a demon that injects her with a poison that makes her think she’s in a mental institution.  To my surprise, Joyce is back along with Buffy’s dad.  Together, mom and dad try to bring Buffy back to “reality”.  Considering the episode ends with one more shot in the asylum, one can’t help but wonder if the writers will go down this path to end the series.  That would be shocking alright.   Even if they don’t, the seeds of doubt have been sewn.  Xander sums it up with this: “What, you think this isn’t real just because of all the vampires and demons and ex-vengeance demons and the sister that used to be a big ball of universe-destroying energy?”  When put into context, it does seem more likely that Buffy is in an institution.  Even the creators might have been letting us know that she’s living a lie when she kills the demon.  Take careful notice: when she punches the creature through the chest, her hand comes away clean.  Then the camera shoots to the dying demon and cuts back to Buffy whose hand is now dripping in ooze.  Makes you wonder…

As far as I can recall, this episode might be the first where Buffy confronts what she’s been through since her resurrection.  Let’s face it, Spike is one of the few people she confided in and only when she was forced to sing about it, did she let on that she was ripped out of heaven.  But that’s not the only emotional burden she’s been carrying.  The whole affair with Spike has been kept secret from all but Tara.  She’s stagnating while all of her friends are growing.  She’s lost and for whatever reason, Buffy has been unable to confide in her friends; it’s eating at her.  Having lived with someone with depression, there’s the sense that one can be a burden to all those around you.  I felt strong vibes that this was part of Diego’s plan with the writing of this episode and it ties in nicely with what we’ve been seeing all season long.  Buffy is exhibiting those same traits and when she says goodbye to her mother, she’s able to confront the demon – literally in this case.  She returns to her friends and saves them from the creature, but I can’t help but wonder: did she just accept the delusion?  It’s funny because in another show, the character would win by releasing the delusion.  In this, we see a girl who accepts the unreal as her world and retreats from reality.  Sure, it gives us more exciting TV, but did we just watch a tragedy?  The hero rises scene, while powerful, is really sad if we consider that she let go of reality completely to live in her fantasy world.

Buffy hasn’t been herself this season and this might be the first step in making her normal again but it comes at a cost.  I don’t think I’ll be able to get this episode out of my head for a while.  I’ll probably forever wonder if we just had a glimpse into Buffy’s reality and watched her turn it away for a fiction.  Say what you will about this episode, it sparked my imagination and made me wonder.  What’s not to love about that?  ML

Read next in the Junkyard… Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Entropy