“Once More With Feeling” is a musical episode steeped in revelations. The singing and self-awareness of the characters allows for each song to contain, beyond the catchy tune, deep and meaningful messages that portray the character’s inner turmoil. The devil, the demon in this episode, is a catalyst that allows all the characters to reveal their innermost secrets and fears. In the end, the demons within each character are worse than the actual Big Bad who peacefully leaves them, luckily without making Xander his new queen. Now everyone must live with what they have shared and deal with the consequences, which we saw in “Tabula Rasa.” All of their problems are man-made and have nothing to do with the supernatural. In this respect, reality is worse than hell. Tara is upset with Willow for being too dependent on her magic, Giles realizes he has to leave Buffy in order for her to grow, Dawn feels neglected and turns to thievery, Buffy is depressed that she was taken out of heaven, and Anya and Xander have serious relationship fears. Through their singing, as Becca said, the characters were able to communicate very serious issues through a happy and colorful median. I found it very effective that you could still see and hear the character’s true nature while they were singing. The truth was finally revealed through sing and dance which was mildly ironic because everyone sang about serious issues, however it was brushed off because of how ridiculous everyone looked while doing it. If life is a song, then you would expect it to be happy, however everyone is just going through the motions of happiness while they are truly hurting deep down.
12.10.2011
The End
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You mentioned at the end the irony of the episode in that dark and serious issues are presented in a cheery sing-song light. This was sort of my point in class when I argued that this episode was perhaps a little more gothic than others. The demon, without ever laying a hand on any of the gang, breeds so much turmoil and then escapes back to his hell dimension that he basically wins a sweeping victory against the Scooby Gang. In terms of the twisted and depressing aspect of the gothic, I think this episode definitely wins out because the bad guy wins.
ReplyDeleteI don't know necessarily that the bad guy wins. The demon is, pardon the pun, hell bent on taking Dawn back to be his bride, insisting that it has to be done. But the minute he finds out it was Xander who conjured him, the deal is off and he wants nothing to do with claiming his reward. In that sense, I think the Scooby Gang, though accidentally, defeated him.
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