If you miss last week's episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, here's what happened: the Nerds start making her hallucinate (again), but this time she hallucinates that she's in a mental institution, and has spent the last six years hallucinating her life as a Slayer. So: which is hallucination, and which is "real"? Colin takes on the conundrum:

>so, what was your take on last week's episode (the asylum)?

I watched it again last night (it stands up to a second viewing) and really enjoyed it. As to the "what's real" question, I'm not sure what the verdict of the boards is, but my personal position is A) the hospital was the illusion and Willow is real (okay, that second bit is partly wishful thinking) and B) even if that's not Joss and Marti's point, it doesn't really matter. We're still going to live on in the Buffy universe, as we know it, so I'm not going to feel all betrayed and nihilistic about the underlying reality of the show. I'm feeling all betrayed and nihilistic about the underlying reality of reality, so I prefer to keep my Buffy dreams alive.

This is as far as I'll get into the Twilight Zone: It seems to me the two primary arguments you can make, based on narrative structure (what we see/what we're shown), center on two scenes. (The rest are inconclusive; a wash, basically.) One would seem to imply that what I'll call "Buffy's world" is real (where there are monsters); the other seems to imply that "Mom's world" is real (no monsters, just doctors).

The scene that implies Buffy's world is real is the brief statement by Jonathon, something like "Your demon's got Buffy tripping like a Ken Russell film festival." Buffy isn't present in this scene, which takes place in the middle of the show, before she's "cured," that is, before she chooses a world to be in.

The other scene, of course, is at the very end, after she's chosen to be in the world of Willow et al, and there's a pull from inside the hospital room out through the tiny window of the door. Buffy *is* present in this scene (physically, at least), but it's not her point of view. Until this point, all of Institutionalized Buffy's scenes were her direct experience. This is part of the trick of the episode. Let me explain.

With Jonathon's comment, David Gutierez, the writer, first reassures us that Mom's world is just a dream, and that the demon juice is indeed giving Buffy paranoid fits. This scene jibes with the logic of the show for the past six years; there are always scenes going on, even when Buffy is not physically around. (But of course, it's the logic of the past six years that is about to be called into question.) At this point, we are confident that Buffy's world is real.

At the end, however, Gutierez gives us that scene which appears to be "objective," from the point of view of some heretofore unknown omniscient narrative entity. (The Uber-Joss, perhaps.) We instinctively think we're seeing "reality" because we've pulled back from Buffy as she appears in Mom's world, and it *seems* like an authentic narrative construct (it's at the end of the show; it "feels" definitive; Institutionalized Buffy has "chosen" the other reality). Simple, right? It's all been a big dream.

But wait...

If Mom's world is real, we can logically conclude from the scene with Jonathon that Institutionalized Buffy's hallucinations allow her to see events that are outside her direct experience (and if true, she's presumably a fine director, editor, costumer, and lighting crew, in addition to being the Slayer and Head Writer).

Now then, if Institutionalized Buffy can have 'out of body' hallucinations based on her schizophrenia, then CERTAINLY Demon-poisoned Buffy is allowed them. Indeed, Poisoned Buffy's hallucinations were what the whole show was about. Is there any reason Poisoned Buffy couldn't have a hallucination that was separate from Institutionalized Buffy's point of view? Tit for tat, it seems to me.

Recall, at this point, that Buffy never did take the antidote; at the end of the episode, she's still susceptible to hallucinations. SO, there's no reason in the world to assume -- EVEN THOUGH IT "LOOKED" LIKE "OBJECTIVE REALITY" BECAUSE OF THE WAY THE CAMERA MOVED -- that the last scene of the episode was "actual reality" and that the whole thing has been a dream. There's not even any reason to assume that, as we move forward in the show, we need to worry about whether the Uber-Joss's perspective is going to pop in again. It's not. THAT reality was all just a dream. As it turns out, Poisoned Buffy has a nice directorial style herself.

Besides (and here I'm borrowing from the show's own logic) what's more likely: that a bunch of whipsmart writers would crank out six years of great TV and then throw us a brain-teasing curve? Or that they'd crank out six years of great TV and imply that it's all for naught?

Like I said, A) Willow is real and B) if not, it doesn't matter.

Keep in mind this is an episode-specific analysis, and discussing this season's villain arc (wherein Reality Itself is the Big Bad) would take us other places. This episode refracts quite nicely with the whole nightmare of growing up and facing the "real world." But I'm confident that, in the context of the whole season and the whole show, Buffy's choice to stay and fight is one she's making in *her* real world, Sunnydale, where the show lives and where our heroes are heroes, no matter how grown up they get.

I said I wasn't going to go on like this, but dammit, you asked the magic question. Just don't get me started on whether Miss Calendar is really dead. (I'm still waiting for her spinoff.)

-- Colin

Of course, if Slayer-world is a Buffy hallucination, then we also have to assume that she's hallucinated a complete spin-off on another network. Now that's what I call imaginative overdrive.

Not that I would want it all to be fake, but imagine this: before Mom-world Buffy goes bonkers, she sees the movie "Buffy The Vampire Slayer". Which is the seed for her whole six-year freakout. [Cue Twilight Zone music.]

Colin posted this on March 22, 2002
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