Put that in your pantheon
Updated 2003-03-03 16:00:00
Previously on Buffy: Andrew was introduced. He was a spineless weasel with no moral center, so he killed Jonathan. The Scoobies were spineless weasels with no moral centers who have a history of murdering and coddling murderers, so when Andrew said, "Buffy, can you take me with you? I won't eat much and I don't know the difference between right and wrong!" Buffy brought him home and turned him into a funnel-cake-making house pet.
Just a brief note before we begin: I've never clarified this before, but very seldom do my problems with a character carry over to the actor playing the character. Heck, I even envision the Marti Noxon I rail against in my recaps as more of a fictional figure standing in for the entire Mutant Enemy creative team than a real person. So I just want to say that I think Tom Lenk seems like a nice guy who is acting his ass off. It's not his fault that I'm a bitter heathen who finds nothing to identify with in the forty-seven poorly realized stories of redemption we've seen this season. Yo, I'm all about hatin' the game, not the playa.
Masterpiece Theater-type music plays. The camera pans across bookshelves filled with weighty-looking tomes. There's a fireplace with crackling fire, and the walls are decorated with all sorts of masks and other art objects. Scattered among the ethnographic artifacts are a number of framed posters of Star Wars comic book art. I think I actually had those issues -- early ones from right after the movie came out. My mom used to buy them for me at Target and I spent many hours reading and rereading any parts of the comics featuring Han Solo. Mmmmm, Han Solo. The camera ends its pan when it finds Andrew sitting in a wingback chair in front of the fireplace. He closes the book on his lap and puts aside his pipe to welcome us as "gentle viewers." Beside me on the sofa, Ash giggles, because he loves Andrew. I'm surprised to find myself giggling as well. What's happening here? Am I losing my mind? Affecting a cultured voice and a mannered air, Andrew muses, "It's wonderful to get lost in the story, isn't it? Adventure and heroics and discovery don't they just take you away?" He sighs reflectively and then invites us, "Come with me now, if you will, gentle viewers. Join me on an new voyage of the mind, a little tale I like to call Buffy, Slayer of the Vam-Pyres." Andrew rests his chin on his hand and smiles seraphically. I'm all befuddled, because I enjoyed that and I suspect I'm starting to like Andrew. I turn to Ash and protest, "They can't make me like him. They can't!" Then I go and lie down for a little while because the room is spinning.