Last season Buffy’s group of friends was broken apart. This season the damage is being gradually repaired. There’s an obvious problem with that. In dramatic terms, unless we are talking about romantic storylines, bust-ups are almost always going to be more interesting to watch than reconciliations. The Buffy writers are rising to that challenge by finding unusual and messy ways to bring the group back together again.

Most obviously, Same Time, Same Place is about Willow’s return. She doesn’t quite feel ready to face up to her friends yet and, as is so often the case in Buffy, feelings are translated to something very literal. They can’t actually see her. With demons being immune to that kind of thing, that doesn’t apply to Anya and Spike. There are two scenes that we see play out twice each, from different perspectives. The first of those is at the airport, but the best is the second one, with everyone talking to Spike at once, but none of them talking to each other. This works brilliantly, because the second iteration of the scene makes sense of the first, and yet nothing jumped out as being nonsensical in the first place. We are used to Spike not making much sense now anyway, but the writing is clever enough to give double meanings to things like “you went away”, which works perfectly when addressed to Willow but actually refers to Buffy.

Willow being visible only to demons also leads to the big moment of horror, with the gnarl picking off bits of her flesh and eating them, after paralysing his victim. It’s hard to watch even if you’re not particularly squeamish, because it’s one of the main characters literally being eaten, and it’s probably the most grisly moment of horror Buffy has ever shown us. It’s rarely a show that prioritises horror, but when it does it’s very good at it.

Friends and family have fallings out, and reconciliations are not always big dramatic moments like Willow’s return. They are also not always honest explorations of feelings, warm words of welcome, or reaffirmations of love. Instead, they are often more like Anya’s return to the group, and that provides us with an interesting counterbalance to Willow’s return. Sometimes people just drift back together again, even simply falling back into old habits. This is what happens with Anya. It has been obvious for a while that she is an uncomfortable fit for her old life. She isn’t very good at being a vengeance demon any more, because she cares too much, and now she has been punished for reversing a curse and is unable to teleport. She finds vengeance “really upsetting”. As I said last week, there’s only one place she belongs now, but she doesn’t come to some kind of a big revelation about that, or even make an effort to go and rejoin the group. Instead, she sort of stumbles back into the fold, and it starts with a simple phone call from Buffy. She’s still needed. Her ability to see Willow saves her friend’s life.

So the group is reassembling, but not necessarily into the same shape as before. Whether Anya and Xander can manage to interact as friends, or whether they will rekindle their romance, remains to be seen, but things are definitely not the same there. Giles doesn’t seem to be coming back, so Dawn has found a new role in the group, doing some of what he used to do, researching stuff (very well, as it turns out), and backing up Buffy in a fight. Ironically, the one who broke away from the group the most dramatically, looks set to be the most likely to pick up exactly where she left off: Willow. And then we have the biggest question of all: Spike. We are seeing moments of lucidity (“I’m insane. What’s his excuse?”) but flicking a switch between normal Spike and crazy Spike can’t be sustained for very long before it stops making any kind of sense. Is he driven mad by the guilt of what he did before he regained his soul? Is he being driven mad by the voices he thinks are in his head, but are actually real? Or is he a sane, useful member of the group? Will the real Spike please stand up?   RP

The view from the Sunnydale Press:

Well, to my surprise, Same Time, Same Place didn’t open with another global adventure taking place.  Well, sort of… Willow comes back on an international flight from England, so I guess that is a bit global adventure-y.   But it’s not in the same context as the prior two episodes.  This time around, we’re going to be hanging out with Alyson Hannigan.  Willow is still a personal favorite of mine, and I am interested in her arc.  I want the Scoobies to forgive her because I forgive her.  I understand why she did what she did.  I’m not saying it makes it ok, but I want her forgiven and back with her friends.  But when she arrives at the airport, Xander and Buffy are not there.  At the same time, we’ve Xander and Buffy at the airport, but Willow was not there.  What is going on?  This is right out of a Doctor Who episode (The Space Museum) which is appropriate because it reminds me of a more modern Doctor Who episode at the same time!

For the next hour, I felt we had a really nice character piece; a little something about all of our friends.  Xander’s faith in Willow even after finding a corpse devoid of skin is a testament to his love for her.  Buffy being so unwilling to accept that Willow could be responsible for the death is also believable even though a part of her is worried.  Dawn feels more like part of the gang than ever, and I’ve no complaints: Buffy was Dawn’s age when this all started!   The most believable of all however is Willow’s self-doubt.  Will her friends be willing to accept her back after what she’s done?  I couldn’t help but wonder if this is what a criminal feels like when coming back from prison: will his/her family and friends still want to have that person in their lives?  We know Willow did those horrible things; it’s not even a question of “shadow of doubt”.  We experience her fear and loneliness as she fights paralysis at the hands of the Gnarl.  It’s once again deeply moving stuff, expertly acted by the whole cast.

On the subject of Gnarl, I was impressed with the look of the thing.  There’s a strong sense of Nosferatu in the appearance.  It’s creepy and disturbing, and of course, I loved it.  There’s also a bit more comedy in this episode but I shouldn’t expect less when Anya is around.  Her reaction to Willow’s entrance into her apartment uninvited was funny, but I absolutely loved Willow’s “real quick like a bunn…”, before catching herself when she remembered that Anya has a thing about bunnies.  Did I mention I love continuity like that?  But you know what I loved most about this episode?  The scene in the basement with Spike.

So far this season, Spike (James Marsters) is winning every scene.  His heartbreaking performance last episode was only tainted by a small (and utterly unnecessary) fight scene, but this week he’s Blink-ing it with a conversation between two parties, neither of whom realize the other is present.  You remember in Blink, the Doctor Who episode, when the Doctor was saying lines that seemed to be out of sync with everything else?  Then we got the other side of it, and we realized what was going on?  This was nearly a decade earlier than the Doctor’s DVD escapade!  Willow shows up to talk to Spike, who isn’t exactly playing with a full deck, making it all seem like he’s spewing gibberish.  He answers Willow’s questions but at one point, Buffy and Xander come in. He talks to them too, but he doesn’t put together that neither party can see the other.  So, the first time we heard Spike speak, some of the statements seemed like nonsense, but getting them a second time around gave us context.  Spike was coherent the whole time.  He eventually works out that they are both there, but he doesn’t know why they aren’t speaking.  It’s a mesmerizingly good scene.  I love intelligent writing and I have to hand it to my last season nemesis, Jane Espenson, who did such an incredible job with the writing.  If you’re ready to give us more like this, I’m in!

Three episodes in and I am so glad to be back in Sunnydale.  I’ve no idea what’s coming this season and that’s even more exciting.  Above all, this cast shines even in the darkest basement!  Let’s see what other truths their light reveals, shall we?   ML