The Classroom: A Place to Learn and Make Convenient Segues.

An interesting parallel I noticed between "The Body" and "Hush" was the use of a classroom environment to set up important themes to later reappear or to accent events in the episode. In "Hush", this happens on two separate occasions. First, at the opening of the episode, Professor Walsh is discussing communication in Buffy's psychology class. She explains the difference between talking and communication, implying that understanding this difference will be important for the viewer later on. This is also an opportunity to show Buffy and Riley's relationship in this awkward phase, and finally to show Buffy's dream foreshadowing the arrival of the Gentlemen. The second instance of classroom learning comes when Giles explains the presence of the Gentlemen, their purpose for being in Sunnydale, and how to defeat them. This is important, obviously, because without this information the episode would not have made any sense. In "The Body", Buffy takes Dawn out of her art class to tell her of their mother's death. The art teacher instructs her students to draw the empty space around an object. The last shot in this scene is of Dawn's painting, an outline of a woman's form without any filling and nothing on the surrounding page. This image emphasizes the idea that their mother's body is now empty, just open space, with nothing inside. Thus, we see Joss Whedon take advantage of the classroom environment and his viewers' expectance to learn something there to present information that will be vital for their overall perception and understanding of the episode.

I'd like to end my post by posing a question to you all: Why do you think Joss Whedon chose The Gentlemen for the villains of this particular episode? How do they connect to communication, silence, that sort of thing? All I could think was that Gentlemen tend to be soft spoken, but I'm sure there's more to it than that. I'm just curious if any of you have thoughts on the matter!