By now, I would say that it is fairly obvious that I have a penchant for controversial and disliked elements in the Buffyverse. For this entry, I will be beginning a study on an episode that seems to polarise fans. The episode in question is the season four finale, "Restless". I am going to be focusing on my interpretation of the Willow's dream for this blog post. In the future, I will write posts following a similar structure about the other members of the gang's dreams.
"Restless", has, without a doubt, always been one of my favourite episodes. I have always admired its effective nuances, bold cinematography and its David Lynch-esque writing. To me, it is one of the most important episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as it gives us an extremely insightful look into the gang's subconscious minds and it is crammed with foreshadowing.
On the region 2 DVD, the episode begins with only a recap of prior events in season four, there is no actual teaser as to what the episode is going to entail. Already, that makes one wonder just what the episode is going to be about, especially considering that the Big Bad, Adam was defeated in the penultimate episode, "Primeval". I have read some fan's comments saying that they found "Restless" to be an odd season finale because it does not follow the traditional structure of a season finale in the series. That is indeed true. However, some fans have even made comments claiming that they found the episode to be pointless and unpalatable. To that, I couldn't disagree more.
I am not one of those fans who vehemently hates season four, though it isn't my favourite season. What I think that season four did best was explore the dynamics between the gang in a completely different setting (UC Sunnydale). To me, the main theme of the season is change. Many defining moments for the main characters took place in season four.
The weirdness of the episode begins at around 03:53 when the camera zooms in on Willow's sleeping face. Next, there is a transition to Willow and Tara in Tara's dorm room during the day. Tara is lying on her stomach with her back exposed and it is implied that she is naked. Willow paints a Sapphic Greek love poem on her back. For those who do not know, Sapphic relates to lesbianism. Tara asks Willow if she is worried about them not knowing a name for their cat, Miss Kitty, to which Willow replies with, "I never worry here. I'm safe here." - I see this as relating to Tara being Willow's comfort and solace amongst all of the craziness that Willow regularly deals with. Tara tells Willow that Willow does not know everything about her, I would suggest that this foreshadows season five's "Family", as Tara believed that she was a demon up until that point. Tara tells Willow, "They will find out, you know. About you.". This line can be interpreted in many ways: you can look at is as others finding out about Willow's lesbianism or you can look at it as others finding out that Willow is only pretending to be more confident and mature (more on both of those points later). Willow then looks out of the window and the scene cuts to a desert in which there is a human in rags moving very fast, this links into Buffy's dream in particular later in the episode.
The next scene in Willow's dream takes place within the halls of UC Sunnydale. She walks along, clearly pondering something, as she passes Xander and Oz. Oz and Willow have a small talk about the drama course that Willow is taking, and then he says something very interesting, "I've been here forever.". I fully believe that this relates to Willow feeling subconsciously guilty for moving on from Oz and that he is always going to be a part of her. Next, a conversation from "New Moon Rising" takes place with Xander and Oz, in which Xander informs Oz of Willow and Tara doing spells together. Willow hurries off to her drama class and then Xander cracks his infamous "Sometimes I think about two women doing a spell... and then I do a spell by myself." joke to Oz.
Cut to backstage in the drama class. This scene is extremely reminiscent of Willow's dream in season one's "Nightmares", in which her nightmare was having to sing opera on stage in front of lots of people. Perhaps this is alluding to how Willow is still not over that fear and to an extent, she still feels like she is a shy 16 year old in Sunnydale High.
After Giles (who is acting as the drama teacher) tells everybody to "break a leg", there is a sudden eerie silence in which the only sounds heard are Willow's footsteps. After a few seconds of that, the infamous "Cheese Man" appears. Joss Whedon himself has said that the Cheese Man does not represent anything, but before I knew about that, I always assumed that it linked into the old wive's tale of eating cheese before bed gives you nightmares.
Next in Willow's dream, she moves between the curtains and she meets Tara. The two talk and Willow expresses both her panic about the drama class and her confusion of the completely changed "Death of a Salesman" play. Tara tells her, "The play's already started. That's not the point." after Willow asks what she should do as the play will start soon and she doesn't know her lines. There is a short scene of the play before Tara speaks to Willow again, she tells her that if they find out, she'll be punished and that she can't help her with that. The "finding out" part to me, symbolises Willow's fear of people being cruel to her on the basis of her homosexuality. Though she had already came out to her friends at this point in the series, there were others from her past that did not know. Additionally, it isn't uncommon for people to dream of past experiences and past feelings.
In the same scene, Willow and Tara begin to look worried. Indistinguishable and unintelligible whispering seems to circle all around them, and when Willow looks around and turns back, she finds that Tara is suddenly absent. I think that this moment in particular pertains to Willow's fear of a lover abandoning her, due to what happened with Oz. The play continues and when we see Willow again, she is even more frightened and the whispers seem to become louder. She speaks and her sentence isn't even finished before a blade is thrusted through the curtain, nearly cutting Willow's face. Willow runs, but the blade continues slicing through the curtains in an attempt to get her. It doesn't take long before Buffy rescues her, no longer in her stage costume. They stand in front of the curtain, but as they move forward, the scene is shifted to a classroom in Sunnydale High.
"Restless", has, without a doubt, always been one of my favourite episodes. I have always admired its effective nuances, bold cinematography and its David Lynch-esque writing. To me, it is one of the most important episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as it gives us an extremely insightful look into the gang's subconscious minds and it is crammed with foreshadowing.
On the region 2 DVD, the episode begins with only a recap of prior events in season four, there is no actual teaser as to what the episode is going to entail. Already, that makes one wonder just what the episode is going to be about, especially considering that the Big Bad, Adam was defeated in the penultimate episode, "Primeval". I have read some fan's comments saying that they found "Restless" to be an odd season finale because it does not follow the traditional structure of a season finale in the series. That is indeed true. However, some fans have even made comments claiming that they found the episode to be pointless and unpalatable. To that, I couldn't disagree more.
I am not one of those fans who vehemently hates season four, though it isn't my favourite season. What I think that season four did best was explore the dynamics between the gang in a completely different setting (UC Sunnydale). To me, the main theme of the season is change. Many defining moments for the main characters took place in season four.
The weirdness of the episode begins at around 03:53 when the camera zooms in on Willow's sleeping face. Next, there is a transition to Willow and Tara in Tara's dorm room during the day. Tara is lying on her stomach with her back exposed and it is implied that she is naked. Willow paints a Sapphic Greek love poem on her back. For those who do not know, Sapphic relates to lesbianism. Tara asks Willow if she is worried about them not knowing a name for their cat, Miss Kitty, to which Willow replies with, "I never worry here. I'm safe here." - I see this as relating to Tara being Willow's comfort and solace amongst all of the craziness that Willow regularly deals with. Tara tells Willow that Willow does not know everything about her, I would suggest that this foreshadows season five's "Family", as Tara believed that she was a demon up until that point. Tara tells Willow, "They will find out, you know. About you.". This line can be interpreted in many ways: you can look at is as others finding out about Willow's lesbianism or you can look at it as others finding out that Willow is only pretending to be more confident and mature (more on both of those points later). Willow then looks out of the window and the scene cuts to a desert in which there is a human in rags moving very fast, this links into Buffy's dream in particular later in the episode.
The next scene in Willow's dream takes place within the halls of UC Sunnydale. She walks along, clearly pondering something, as she passes Xander and Oz. Oz and Willow have a small talk about the drama course that Willow is taking, and then he says something very interesting, "I've been here forever.". I fully believe that this relates to Willow feeling subconsciously guilty for moving on from Oz and that he is always going to be a part of her. Next, a conversation from "New Moon Rising" takes place with Xander and Oz, in which Xander informs Oz of Willow and Tara doing spells together. Willow hurries off to her drama class and then Xander cracks his infamous "Sometimes I think about two women doing a spell... and then I do a spell by myself." joke to Oz.
Cut to backstage in the drama class. This scene is extremely reminiscent of Willow's dream in season one's "Nightmares", in which her nightmare was having to sing opera on stage in front of lots of people. Perhaps this is alluding to how Willow is still not over that fear and to an extent, she still feels like she is a shy 16 year old in Sunnydale High.
After Giles (who is acting as the drama teacher) tells everybody to "break a leg", there is a sudden eerie silence in which the only sounds heard are Willow's footsteps. After a few seconds of that, the infamous "Cheese Man" appears. Joss Whedon himself has said that the Cheese Man does not represent anything, but before I knew about that, I always assumed that it linked into the old wive's tale of eating cheese before bed gives you nightmares.
Next in Willow's dream, she moves between the curtains and she meets Tara. The two talk and Willow expresses both her panic about the drama class and her confusion of the completely changed "Death of a Salesman" play. Tara tells her, "The play's already started. That's not the point." after Willow asks what she should do as the play will start soon and she doesn't know her lines. There is a short scene of the play before Tara speaks to Willow again, she tells her that if they find out, she'll be punished and that she can't help her with that. The "finding out" part to me, symbolises Willow's fear of people being cruel to her on the basis of her homosexuality. Though she had already came out to her friends at this point in the series, there were others from her past that did not know. Additionally, it isn't uncommon for people to dream of past experiences and past feelings.
In the same scene, Willow and Tara begin to look worried. Indistinguishable and unintelligible whispering seems to circle all around them, and when Willow looks around and turns back, she finds that Tara is suddenly absent. I think that this moment in particular pertains to Willow's fear of a lover abandoning her, due to what happened with Oz. The play continues and when we see Willow again, she is even more frightened and the whispers seem to become louder. She speaks and her sentence isn't even finished before a blade is thrusted through the curtain, nearly cutting Willow's face. Willow runs, but the blade continues slicing through the curtains in an attempt to get her. It doesn't take long before Buffy rescues her, no longer in her stage costume. They stand in front of the curtain, but as they move forward, the scene is shifted to a classroom in Sunnydale High.
In the classroom, Buffy is behaving odd. She seems to avoid Willow, which refers back to previous events in season four when the gang were evasive of one another. Buffy asks Willow what the creature looked like and Willow says that she does not know and she isn't sure of why it is after her. In a very un-characteristic way, Buffy claims that Willow must have done something. Buffy then goes on to question Willow as to why she is still in "costume". Confused, Willow feebly explains that it is "just her outfit". "Willow, everybody already knows. Take it off." is what Buffy calmly says to her before Willow is reduced to a stammering mess, insisting that she "needs it". Buffy's patience runs out and she demands that Willow removes her costume. In an odd sequence, Buffy pushes (an out of frame) Willow to the front of the class, ripping the outfit from her. Willow now looks how she did in season one: long red hair and her "softer side of Sears" outfit. The classroom is now filled with students, and all eyes are on Willow, including some familiar faces (Xander, Harmony, Anya, Oz and Tara). Oz and Tara are cozily leaning towards each other, and it seems as though they are whispering. Cruel comments are unleashed by Harmony and Anya and Oz tells Tara that he tried to warn her [Tara]. She smirks and leans into Oz even further. Willow attempts to resume with the class by talking about her book report on "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Xander blurts out, sarcastically asking who cares. Willow shyly tries to continue with the report, but suddenly, the primitive creature knocks into Willow and pins her down. She makes an effort to fight for her life whilst the class does nothing. It doesn't take long for the creature to kill Willow, through strangulation.
In my opinion, the whole "costume" theme relates to Willow masking her identity throughout college. Deep down, she still feels like a naive high-schooler, but she is hiding it via a visible "mask" (more mature fashion sense and shorter hair). As for being killed through strangulation, I believe that it represents Willow feeling as if she does not have a voice (as she has always been the quietest out of Buffy and Xander) and that people do not listen to her. It is no secret that Willow has always felt inferior, and I think that this trait of hers is especially prevalent in her dream.
Tara's role in "Restless" is possibly what intrigues me the most about the episode. It seemed as if she was a sort of quasi guide for each member of the gang, not just Willow. In all of the dreams, Tara seemed to have the role of being a messenger, despite her usually being even quieter than Willow. I think that it represents Tara being some kind of spiritual guardian, even when she was alive. It is because of "Restless" that I like to think that when Tara died later in the series, she ended up becoming an angel, or something akin to one.
For the next part of this thesis, I will be focusing on Xander's dream in particular. I am hoping that the format that I have chosen for writing about this episode will make it easier to digest.
What do you think Willow's dream represented? How do you feel about "Restless"? Let me know!
X
In my opinion, the whole "costume" theme relates to Willow masking her identity throughout college. Deep down, she still feels like a naive high-schooler, but she is hiding it via a visible "mask" (more mature fashion sense and shorter hair). As for being killed through strangulation, I believe that it represents Willow feeling as if she does not have a voice (as she has always been the quietest out of Buffy and Xander) and that people do not listen to her. It is no secret that Willow has always felt inferior, and I think that this trait of hers is especially prevalent in her dream.
Tara's role in "Restless" is possibly what intrigues me the most about the episode. It seemed as if she was a sort of quasi guide for each member of the gang, not just Willow. In all of the dreams, Tara seemed to have the role of being a messenger, despite her usually being even quieter than Willow. I think that it represents Tara being some kind of spiritual guardian, even when she was alive. It is because of "Restless" that I like to think that when Tara died later in the series, she ended up becoming an angel, or something akin to one.
For the next part of this thesis, I will be focusing on Xander's dream in particular. I am hoping that the format that I have chosen for writing about this episode will make it easier to digest.
What do you think Willow's dream represented? How do you feel about "Restless"? Let me know!
X