Alternate Realities--Gingerbread and Normal Again

I watched the episode Normal Again this morning, an hour or so before watching Gingerbread in class. I was quite intrigued by the conversation that we had about how Gingerbread seemed especially slow. Many people believed that there was an illusion that the slow was dragging on because, as viewers, we were unprepared to cope in the universe Whedon creates in Gingerbread. When we first entered Sunnydale, we were forced to suspend our disbelief and accept that we were now located on the hell-mouth where people mysteriously disappear and die quite frequently. "Buffy" episodes follow a certain trajectory: 1) normal day; 2) conflict from love/evil monster; 3) battles evil; 4) vanquishes evil; 5) everything returns to normal. However, when we are presented with a different schema, one in which humans become the antagonists and we must root for Buffy and her supernatural (implied evil) friends, there is a certain discomfort that arises in having to adapt to this deviation from the norm. Normal Again perfectly exemplifies how anxiety-provoking the presentation of a new reality can be. Throughout all seven seasons, Whedon's viewers have accepted some basic tenants about life on the hell mouth and what being the slayer entails. We have also accepted Buffy as our hero. We want her to always defeat the bad guys so that all can return back to normal. But when we are presented with the option of understanding Sunnydale as a figment of Buffy's imagination, that all of her friends, her sister, her relationship, everything, is simply made up and are products of a six-year delusion, everything that we have accepted as truth is challenged. What is so difficult about this episode is that as viewers, it becomes impossible to navigate what is truly Buffy's reality. That she would be in a mental institution seems so real, especially considering the information that Buffy divulges to Willow about her past. Normal Again forces us to step back and question whether or not we have been insane to suspend our disbelief by joining Buffy in her delusion for all these years. Both worlds seem so real. Like Buffy, how do we choose? Which is the reality we should accept? As creatures of the era of science and technology, it is hard not to grasp onto the newly presented idea that Buffy has merely created everything and that Sunnydale is an illusion. Ah, we would say, there is a medical diagnosis for all of the crazy events that occur in Sunnydale. It's Buffy's psychosis. That explains a lot. If we can boil it all down to science and "hard" evidence, then we no longer have to suspend our disbelief. So how do we as viewers, viewers who have spent seven years with Buffy Summers in Sunnydale, accepting all along that it is her true reality, reconcile our "reality" with the possibility that our understanding of Buffy's reality is delusional because she is delusional. Whedon is even more tantalizing in that the episode ends with a catatonic Buffy in the mental institution, after she has decided to reclaim her slayer duties. It was just such an unnerving ending because there wasn't any resolution and because the sense of our own reality has been so profoundly altered. The ending of Normal Again is very similar to James', "The Turn of the Screw" because both are steeped in such powerful ambiguity. As readers and viewers, we are offered various interpretations of what has happened, but in both the novel and the episode, the mystery is never solved. These two works beg to be read and watched again and again so that we can gather enough evidence, some sort of proof to tip the scale one way or the other. However, no matter how many times one readers the novel or watches the episode, it seems that there is too much uncertainty for resolution to ever be attained.