undermining assumptions

"The Replacement" was enjoyable... I didn't love it, didn't hate it. What I found most interesting was the sense of ambiguity that pervaded the whole episode; Whedon managed to evoke a similar sort of atmosphere to Turn of the Screw, in that the audience's assumptions are constantly being challenged and undermined. The first "turn" is immediately after Xander gets hit by the magic spell in the city dump, and the Scooby Gang helps him to his feet. The audience expects something -- probably something gruesome -- to happen to Xander, but then lo and behold we see that there's yet another Xander still lying in the garbage. Alright then -- so which is the real Xander to begin with? Or are they both real?

We eventually recognize the second Xander as the "real" one -- mostly through his bumbling antics and wacky derrings-do, which is what we as viewers are used to from Xander. And this is the assumption that the whole episode aims to subvert, because by identifiying that second Xander as the "real" one, we A) are reducing a human being (or a fully-rounded personality) to the expression of certain characteristics and B) are automatically assuming, by logical extension, that the first Xander is some kind of imposter, or less "real." So some questions are brought into play: how can we ever justify identifying Xander by outward qualities alone? Why is it that we initially assume that Replacement-Xander is evil or otherwise "wrong"? Is it because he's smooth and suave and charismatic, and we're sure that Xander is none of these things?

By the end of the episode we realize that Replacement-Xander is much like Vamp-Willow; they are the outward expressions of certain latent characteristics that audience rarely sees in Xander and Willow. Therefore it makes sense that both of these doppelgangers are sublimated, or somehow consumed, by their "normal" counterparts and cease to exist within the frame of the show. On that note, however, I thought it would have been interesting to reshoot the scene where the two Xanders become whole again. As it stands, we see the two Xanders standing next to each other, the "real" one on the left, the Replacement on the right. We cut away briefly and then return; the Replacement is gone, leaving only the "real" Xander still standing on the left side of the frame. I thought this was a little too neat, since it doesn't follow with the rest of the episode trying to undermine our assumptions. I thought that if "real" Xander disappeared, leaving only the "Replacement" standing on the right, the disorienting effect would have been that much greater, and the moral that much stronger: because the Replacement isn't really a replacement at all. A replacement necessarily suggests an original, which is somehow nonfunctional, and a copy, which takes the original's place; what we have with the two Xanders, however, are two originals vying for some sort of joint identity. To assume that one is somehow greater or lesser is to take the easy route. It's much harder to rid ourselves of these reductive binaries and to reconcile two seemingly opposing, and yet utterly viable, options.