All my midterms are over (wheee!), and now that I've got some time, I really can't not talk about Buffy to some extent. Even though I really should be researching eating and body dysmorphic disorders right now. But this is more fun and less depressing.

So. First of all, adjrun and I share a hive-like mind in these matters, so if you haven't yet, go read her huge-ass essay about this episode, because I agree 100% and really have nothing to add. I'm pretty sure I was the one who suggested to her in chat the other night (unless somebody in another window suggested the same thing at around the same time) that Nice, Understanding Buffy might have been the MMBB, trying to seduce Spike into a sense of complacency as well as keeping him confused and distrustful of the real Buffy. We've been shown that it can appear as Buffy, and that it can touch Spike, and that it can see into his head to his fears and desires. And the almost angelic appearance of this first Buffy calls to mind scripture that says the devil can appear as a being of light. But as somebody in the forum pointed out, the most telling thing was the braid. Sure, it could have just been convenience, not wanting to make SMG change her hair as well as her costume, but would that really have been such a big deal? Why would Spike have hallucinated the exact same hairstyle -- which was a brand new (and not universally approved) Buffy hairstyle -- that the real Buffy was wearing?

See, it's these little things that hang me up and make me go "Oooooh!"

Anyway. I'm really impressed at how productive this season has been so far. The season doesn't usually really take off until about the sixth episode or so, but only five eps in and they've already addressed Willow's guilt and welcomed her back into the fold, established that Xander's still in love with Anya, dealt with her return to vengeance and her subsequent attacks of conscience and returned her to human once again, and gone from Buffy finding out about Spike's soul to being completely incapable of dealing with it to taking steps to make it deal-with-able (and on an aside, how happy am I that the answer to the question she posed last week -- what do you do when you know you can't help someone? -- turned out to be to get him to help himself and tell you what he needs. Without coming right out and asking for help, Spike identified a basic need: a place to live. This is a tangible thing that Action Girl can take care of, allowing Buffy to do something for him without stretching her comfort zone more than it's ready to be stretched just yet. Yay!). Considering that before the season started I didn't even expect Buffy to find out about the soul until sweeps, I'd say they've accomplished a hell of a lot in only the first five episodes. It seems to me that they're trying to get the weightiest and angstiest of the weighty, angsty issues dealt with and out of the way so that they can hurry up and shake off the dregs of last season's über-angst and get on with the lighter, happier Buffy that Joss has been promising all summer. Not that the lighter, happier version won't be without a fair share of angst, because really, what's Buffy without angst?

That's all I've got. I'm off to look up bigorexia. Yes, that's a real disorder, and it's pretty much exactly what it looks like.