Just a quick word to say that some of this is hilarious, especially the whole "Joss should be a gay guy" thing. Dear Lord. Some people...
Anyway, there's a lot of Willow stuff in this ep, which is good, and lots of Spuffy stuff, which isn't. Bleh. Commentary snippets below...
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He talks about the spell he wrote to de-rat Amy and how he wanted it to be in Italian. The problems with that were that someone had to translate it, and then Aly had to say it. He said that this is the last spell he wrote for Willow in another language, and the one he wrote in S7, Ep 6 was in English.
Scene with Willow, Amy and Buffy in Willow’s bedroom
And here’s a really good example of how we’re trying to pick up the threads from the season and move them forward a little bit. Episode 4 introduced us to the dynamic between Willow and Giles; they had a little bit of a confrontation regarding Willow’s use of magic, and we got to see some of Willow’s growing sense of self importance, of her confidence, maybe confidence bordering into something bigger and more aggressive, and this is pretty much a blatant attempt to pick up on that and move it forward, and of course we know, we’re heading towards the end of the season in which Willow’s magic will get completely out of control. So we’re laying in the groundwork here. Willow’s description of her…of her bringing Amy back is not humble and Buffy may be pretty freaked out but Willow’s proud and even though Tara’s left because of Willow’s overuse of magic, Willow hasn’t quite gotten it yet.
Scene with Tara, Dawn and a LOT of milkshake
This was fun. This is the first episode after Tara and Willow’s breakup and it’s the beginning of the process that we all were trying to effect, the process by which Tara would subtly grow and change, I think, um, become, even a little bit stronger after the breakup. She…I think that it was an interesting character development for her that she became a little bit more secure in herself after she left Willow, to the extent that when Willow and Tara finally do get back together it’s on Tara’s terms. It’s something that they’re both ready for at that point. Up until this point Tara has been kind-hearted, and loving and supportive, um, but this is a chance to show her in a slightly different light which is standing on her own two feet and what we see here was our attempt, our, the writing staff trying to illustrate the dynamic of Tara as sort of a surrogate mom to Dawn…this…this…family of characters is trying to raise Dawn, in the absence of Dawn’s mother, after Dawn’s mother passed away last season, and yet Tara’s no longer part of the family on a day to day basis so this was our chance to show sort of the…divorced parents conversation where Tara explains to Dawn that she’ll always be there for her. And I think in the process, we really get to show Tara secure in that, that no matter what else happens Tara believes strongly in maintaining her relationship with Dawn.
Magic Box Scene
And here’s a little bit of foreshadowing. Joss very much wanted to show the audience that Willow’s power was growing by delineating what she is now from what she used to be. She used to be a computer hacker, and the computer was her happy sidekick. Here she is using the computer in a whole new way, just going with the magical easy way and using her power to get what she needs. Of course later on in the season, we’ll see her doing the same move with her magic texts in the Magic Box – with Anya’s magic texts in the Magic Box, and not even having to read the books, just sticking her hands into them to get the information and the power out of them. Joss…that came out of Joss’ big brain and this was his chance to…sort of foreshadow what was happening, I think, what was happening with Willow, how she would eventually go to those texts.
And this is the beginning of Willow’s cluelessness about everyone’s attitude regarding her use of magic. And Anya being forthright, which we all love. And here’s…here’s the thing; Tara’s left because of Willow’s overuse of magic; Giles had a confrontation with Willow about her overuse of magic and despite all of that, Willow will continue to maintain that everything is fine. She’s…she’s fine, she’s handling everything fine, and even her relationship with Tara is…you can tell from her dialogue is just…taking a rest and everything’s been blown out of proportion because they’re going to sort through things and get back to it. There’s a little bit of denial going on.
Scene with Amy and Willow in Buffy’s house
Now here’s Amy…we’re beginning to see Amy a little bit twitchy, um, she’s missing her magic and Willow is…lonely. And that’s mostly what we’re trying to convey here and Aly does such a great job of letting us know that no matter what she’s saying, there’s this undercurrent of loneliness, sadness, and no matter how funny the words, no matter how ordinary the words that is always sort of conveyed in her eyes and that’s why Amy is able to play on Willow’s emotions. Willow may not want to go but Amy’s gonna go do the one thing that’s going to get Willow out of the house. Willow’s lonely and Amy’s going to call upon Willow’s high school experience…and that does it. And Alyson Hannigan is the most adorable person in the world…now!
Scene when Dawn and Tara return to the Summers’ House
I remember talking to Michelle and Amber, the day that they shot this scene, and I of course was, in my head, thinking ‘I’m sorry the story only calls for you guys to be in two scenes in this episode, I’m sorry’ and they were like ‘no dude, we love the break’. More than that though, the thing that both, each of them said to me separately was how much they enjoyed working with the other one and how very rarely they get to do that and they were both kind of excited about having a couple of scenes in this episode where they got to sit with each other and play, in a way that they never got to. And that was kind of nice to hear.
Scene in the Bronze
Here’s Willow and Amy playing pool, but without pool cues of course, because it’s magic. This was the first scene shot of the episode, if I’m not mistaken. (long pause until the part where the two guys approach Willow and Amy) These guys deserve a special gold star, uh, Jordan and Adam, definitely troopers, who spent, let’s face it, a day or two sitting around in pretty much gold lame bikini briefs, um, and maintained their dignity while doing it, uh, they absolutely remained in good spirits and that’s to their credit.
The initial pitch for this scene…of course, the way this scene plays out is that um, the boys will eventually turn on Willow, wanting to spend more time with Amy, and giving Willow a hard time and Willow takes revenge in her own special way. Um, my initial pitch to Joss, this is way back on in the early process before we started even doing the outline, my initial pitch was that Willow should snap her fingers and these two aggressive, heterosexual frat boys were going to start making out with each other, and in fact find themselves unable to stop…unable to stop kissing each other, unable to stop making out with each other, and here’s where we realise that Joss’ brain really is better than the rest of us, um, he came back and said you know, I see where you’re going with this but I don’t think I want to do it that way and here’s why and he gave me two reasons; one, was that he didn’t want ever to give the impression that a person could snap their fingers and change their sexuality, and two, he never wanted to make it look like a boy kissing another boy should be a punishment. So that was when I realised a) I was in the hands of the master who knew what he was doing and who had a very very good head on his shoulders but also, Joss Whedon being straight is pretty much the biggest waste of all. He would have made such a great gay guy.
I think it’s also relevant to point out that anybody who’s familiar with my work before Buffy the Vampire Slayer knows that at this point I was a little concerned that my niche was about to become shows with dancing boys in cages. I think we…not that I’m complaining, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but um, I’m happy to say that I’ve sort of branched out since then.
Third Scene in the Bronze
Again, this is an example of Willow needing something but maybe not knowing exactly what it is, and using the magic to get there.
"Dude, you just rescued a puppy!"
.
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yummy! 
