I dislike season 4. It started off with some bad stories, most especially the first episode. The first episode needs to set a tone for the season and the tone that episode set was “weak unrealistic characters.” That said, there are some spectacular episodes this season, and some really spectacular moments. Superstar, Hush and Restless are still some of my favourite episodes ever. Add on to that Spike’s continuing impotence and Anya’s ongoing completely adorable and completely inexplicable adoration of, and devotion to, Xander. And as much as, in my heart of hearts, I want Willow and Xander to be together in the end, if it had ended up with Xander and Anya ending up together… well, I would’ve managed. Let’s not forget Giles’ singing made me an acolyte of Anthony Stewart Head. So I can’t deny that this season has a lot to offer, but of all the things it has to offer stunning storytelling is not one of them. Although the final episode of the season does set up some really great aspects of the Slayer mythos, it’s not enough. The season was all over the place and was in general inconsistent.

Well, I gave Xander’s “growing up and out” episode a solo review, so I felt I had to do the same for Willow’s. Also, I absolutely love this episode. Of course, the weird thing here is that this isn’t a one-off, because there actually is arc development going on here, whereas The Zeppo was completely void of any of that. Of course, this episode has something up on The Zeppo: it’s written by Joss Whedon, AKA God. Which explains why it manages to beautifully interleave single episode story structure with ongoing arc elements.

But I’m gonna pretty much ignore the arc elements. It suffices to say: Faith bad, Mayor badder. On to Willow. Something about which I have had many a dream.

She finally realises that she’s boring. Well, she’s not actually boring; she’s a computer-hacking, witchcraft-performing, super-nerdy, super-sexy girl. Any one of those things on its own would mean she was not boring, and putting them all together is not a “two rights make a wrong” kind of situation. But anyway, she likes to think she’s boring and decides to be more dangerous. Which lead to her performing a funky time-folding spell with Anya, formerly the vengeance demon du jour for scorned women, that got messed up and led to her parallel world vamp version coming to in our world. And then the fun begins.

The jock whose homework was to be done by Willow get his ass womped, Willow gets to pretend to be a dominatrix psycho bitch, and last but not least we get our first overt clue to Willow’s future homosexuality. My personal views on homosexuality aren’t exactly as strict as Joss Whedon’s; for instance, just because you fall in love with a girl doesn’t mean you couldn’t also fall in love with a guy. Most people would stick to whatever side of the tracks they’re on, but if you’ve gone both ways before, you’re no longer bound to one side or the other. (To be fair, that might just be a part of my consistent delusion of hoping that Xander and Willow will end up together in the long run, because they’re perfect for each other)

There are so many school-boy-squealing, this-is-freaking-awesome moments in this episode but the best ones sums it up pretty well. Giles rushing like a little boy headed toward his mom to hug Willow. Nuff Said.