(At least I think it’s episode 6…)

I have previously commented on how much better season one of ”Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is, compared to the way I remember it. The same is true for season two, which may have a majority (I’m open for arguments against this, though) episodes with relatively weak plots, but overall was pretty good — after all, this is the Slayerverse, where the plot’s primary (though far from only) purpose is to serve as backdrop for what’s going on between the characters. I’ve made mention of this before, as have people far brighter than me. And probably people I’d consider as far dumber than me, too.

And now, being done with one third of season three (I think we’re at episode 9 or something; just finished watching “The Wish” ), I am pleased to see that things are still better than I remember them. Of course, I feel that compared to season one the sarcastic bantering has become slightly less prominent, while the personal, emotional conflicts between the characters have become more so. Also, the moral themes are still pretty good.

Take this episode — “Band Candy” — as an example. It starts out with both Giles and Joyce being somewhat annoyed with Buffy’s constant absence, with her using them as camouflage in relation to each other, so that she can spend time with Angel. They confront her, and she snaps at them, telling them that she feels like she has almost no time on her own. Later in the episode, the adult inhabitants of Sunnydale are turned into irresponsible kids, and Buffy — unsurprisingly enough — has to give her mother basically the same lecture.

Now, originally, I thought that this was a kind of criticism of today’s American teenager culture — or if not criticism, then at least some satire over it. However, I came to realise that this analysis is a little too shallow, as it almost exclusively builds upon the elements of the episode that was showed. So, what I thought was basically that Whedon and his crew wanted to give American teenagers a wake-up call, showing them ridiculous parts of their behaviour by having the elder generations live in a away resembling the youngsters’ lifestyle — presented as a hyperbole, that is.

However, like I said, this analysis is too shallow. Which isn’t to say that it’s necessarily incorrect — to the extent that anything related to morals is correct or incorrect — but rather that there’s more ways to interpret the episode. The most central element in it, the way I see it, is that the parent generation isn’t really turned into mere copies of their children. Rather, they are separated from their life experience — or maturity, if you will — and turned into their own teenaged selves. Thus being not only a moralist’s finger aimed at the so-called immoral youths, but also at the moralists themselves. The “told” moral about adolescent irresponsibility is subverted by the “shown” moral, which is that parents very rarely have the moral superiority they claim or think they have, when criticising their children.

And on top of this, the episode is at least as brilliant as all the season three ones I’ve seen this far, and then some, because of all the funny.

(Oh, and I expect my sister to want to bite my arms and legs off for abusing literary terms in this way.)