This weekend I lent a friend the first two seasons of Angel to watch and she asked if I was trying to ensure that she gets nothing done for days. Then, a few minutes later, she admitted that Angel has become her favorite TV show. Behold the addictive powers of the Whedonverse!

As mentioned before, Kath over at GMMR is currently wrapped in a Project Buffy of her own. She resisted for a long time but has finally given in and is blazing through all seven seasons. Along the way, she has been sending Ducky and I commentary via email and I’ve finally broken down. When she began one of my favorite seasons ever (Season Five), I decided it was time to watch along with her. Of course I can’t watch without talking about it so, how about a little Buffy discussion for old time’s sake?

I’ve made it through the first three discs of season five and to ensure that I don’t spoil Kath, I’ll keep my commentary limited to what we’ve learned in those episodes (”Buffy vs. Dracula” thru “Triangle”). If you want a quick refresher of what exactly is covered in each check out the Buffy Dialogue Database, but here’s a quick summary of where we stand as of the end of “Triangle.”

We met Dawn at the end of the very first episode but, by this point, Buffy, Giles, and Joyce all know that she’s the Key even if they’re still not quite sure what that means except keeping that secret from Glory is important to the safety of the World. Tara is now firmly a member of the Scooby Gang but Riley has left for “the central republic of Where-in-the-hell.” Spike has realized he can’t kill Buffy and not because of the chip in his head. Giles is running the Magic Box and Anya is enjoying both making money and Xander’s freshly declared love. Joyce is finally back home after having the tumor removed from her brain successfully. Also, we know Ben’s connected to Glory but we don’t know exactly how just yet.

I think that covers the major plot points. Again, please try not to comment on upcoming events in season five so that Kath is free to join our discussion if she wants!

Ok, so first, I want to talk about Dawn. Unlike others, I’ve never disliked Dawn. Sure she could be annoying at times but I thought that was very intentionally done. Not so much by the writers of the show as by the monks who placed her in Buffy’s life. After all, they built her as the stereotypical little sister. I’ve always just felt it was a facet of who she was but, after every re-watch of this season, I feel more and more like she is so much more. I know that Buffy has her friends and, as even the show tells us, our friends often become more of a family to us than our family. But when your mom gets sick? The only person who can truly understand how that feels is someone who is also experiencing it. In that way, Dawn gives Buffy something she needs in a way no one else on the show can/could. Re-watching those scenes where Buffy is dealing with what is happening with Joyce, I realized that she never would have held it together so well without Dawn’s existence. Dawn gives her a strength she wouldn’t have had otherwise and I think that’s key (sorry, sorry, bad puny Rae) for the rest of the season.

So, sorry Dawn haters, I kinda love her even more in retrospect. But then we just talked about how I am all about unpopular fandom opinions just last week, right?

Next topic is another not-so-loved character, Riley. Again, I always liked Riley despite the hate coming from fandom. Or, rather, I liked him until this moment in the series. Convenient, I suppose, since he literally takes off in the middle of the night. It isn’t, however, his choice to let vamps feed from him that bothers me. Not that I liked that part but I understood why he was doing it so I didn’t immediately hate the character for being human. No, no, it was the way he tries to guilt trip Buffy with his reasons for doing it. See, I don’t completely agree with Xander’s take on the situation. In normal circumstances I might and I do think he’s right about the way Buffy was treating Riley but I also think he was giving Riley way more credit than he may have deserved. Kind of a pattern with Xander. He’s not always the most objective judge of Buffy’s boyfriends. On the surface Riley seems like a great guy and definitely preferable to Buffy’s previous choices. Too bad it’s not that simple.

I know this is partly born out of my loyalty to Buffy but I can’t help it. I watch Riley basically telling her that she drove him to seek out someone who needed him and I want her to run as fast she can in the other direction. As nice as he is, that passive aggressive “I’m not blaming you but if you had…” thinking makes me cringe. Riley’s issue was just that, his issue, and valid or not it wasn’t fair to lay it on her shoulders. Especially when she’s already got the weight of the world and, more importantly, her mother’s health on them. That, to me, isn’t exactly the behavior of someone who loves you and is a scary indicator of how he might deal with more serious issues down the line. So, yeah, I can’t quite agree with Xander’s argument. In the end, I think all he does is scare Buffy into thinking she’s letting the first “normal” relationship she’s had go without a fight and not that she’s about to lose someone she really loves. Of course, she’s too late to stop Riley from leaving and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved. I rarely “hate” any of the relationships on my favorite shows but would have had a hard time seeing Riley and Buffy together after all of that.

As for other characters, I’ll admit that it took this re-watch for me to realize that, much like the rest of the Scooby Gang, I never truly accepted Tara as a member of the group until “Family.” I’ll give the credit to Amber because she definitely played Tara as an outsider until that episode. From that point forward, there’s a subtle difference in her body language and how comfortable she looks in scenes with characters other than Willow. Of course, it’s hard not to like Tara after you get a glimpse of her childhood. Yikes!

During one of our many TV talks while I was in Canada, Jo and I discussed Glory and how she liked Glory more in re-watchings than she ever did initially. This is funny because, while I loved Glory the first time around and still find her enjoyable as a villain; I don’t think she holds up as well as some of the others on the show. She’s not nearly as compelling to me time and time again. Or maybe she just suffers from being one of the villains I re-watched over and over again, eh? I’ve also got some issues with Ben in retrospect but I’ll wait until we reconvene to discuss the second half of season five to share those.

We can’t discuss this season without touching on Spike’s developing feelings for Buffy. I don’t nor will I ever buy into the idea that Spike felt anything more than maybe a passing attraction for Buffy prior to this season. I’m more inclined to believe that Spike is just infatuated with Slayers in general, the high that he gets from killing them. If nothing else, he’s got a zest for life. So, I can believe that he did become obsessed with Buffy after leaving Sunnydale. Especially after finding out that she survived a fight with Angelus. However, I think the chip was his undoing. All of that hateful admiration had to be channeled somewhere, right? Watching his struggle with to keep his hate for her alive instead of admitting that he wants her is fun (and funny) culminating in my favorite Buffy and Spike moment ever, at the end of “Fool For Love,” when all of Spike’s anger dissipates at the sight of Buffy’s tear-stained face and just sits there with her comforting her in the only way he can. It’s a small, quiet moment but it marks the first time Buffy lets him in and it’s the moment I decided I’d be ok with the idea of them together.

What else can we talk about? I want to list out a bunch of my favorite quotes/scenes but that’d take forever. Like I said, I love this season. There’s not an episode I don’t like to re-watch. Wait, no, I take that back. There is one episode I don’t like much, “Listening to Fear.” Isn’t it funny that the alien creature freaks me out way more than all other Buffy creatures? Actually, it’s the combination of the creature and Joyce’s sense of helplessness. The fact that she really is seeing something but, because of the brain tumor, everyone thinks it’s just crazy talk. It’s something you’d think would never be believable on a show like this, a show where the characters know such creatures are real. And, yet, because of the circumstances it’s the one time that no one’s really listening to Joyce. Freaks me the hell out. To this day, I have to fast forward past those scenes where he’s on the ceiling about her bed and drops down onto her face. Eeek!

Well, that isn’t a very great way to end this discussion! Ok, let me go back to the funny for a moment. Though it’s a tie between “Buffy vs. Dracula” and “Triangle,” I think “Triangle” wins as the funniest episode of the first half of this season. Because insane troll logic is always funny. And Spike unable to swallow his vampire pride long enough to even apologize to his Buffy mannequin. Love him fighting with it and then just picking it back up and starting over. Ha. And who doesn’t love Willow and Anya being catty with each other? Or Olaf’s version of the Ross-We-were-on-a-break!” protest, “I did not cheat! Not in my heart.” Even Buffy’s over-the-top weeping over losing Riley is clearly played for laughs. Though I have no idea if I’m right, I always felt that part was a bit of meta-commentary from the writers on Riley and his (lack of) popularity. If nothing else, it seems to prove what I was saying about why Buffy’s really upset about losing Riley.

Look at that, I’m veering back into real discussion when all I wanted to say was this stands out as the funniest episode of the season so far. Not anywhere as near as funny as “Something Blue” but still quite amusing and necessary… to get us ready for the episodes to come. And I’ll stop there before I’m tempted to go any further.

Feel free to join in the discussion below and then come back again in a few days for the second half of season five including one of my favorite Buffy episodes, “Checkpoint.”