Gingerbread

These snapshots may contain SPOILERS for the entire series, so if for some reason you haven't yet seen some of the episodes and do not want to know what is going on, read no further.

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Picking the wrong night for mother-daughter bonding, Joyce discovers the bodies of two children in the park, apparently sacrificed in an occult ritual. Deeply disturbed by what she has seen, Joyce rallies the adults of Sunnydale, convincing them to rid the town of all magical and occult influences. Soon, however, it becomes apparent that Buffy, Willow, and Amy are themselves considered a part of the occult threat to Sunnydale.

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Cordelia: I came by to tell Buffy to stop all of this craziness and found you all unconscious ... again. How many times have you been knocked out, anyway? I swear, one of these times, you're gonna wake up in a coma.
Giles: Wake up in a co... ? Oh, never mind. We need to save Buffy from Hansel and Gretel.
Cordelia: Now, let's be clear. The brain damage happened before I hit you.


Good character development, average dialogue and a so-so plot.

We see the distinction between the child and adult perspective on evil and how you deal with it, in this episode. For the kids, evil is done by monsters. The solution is simple, kill the monsters. That's the perspective we've seen on Buffy 'till now. Buffy makes this point when Giles tells her the killings were probably committed by a cult, by humans. She finds it hard to believe that something with a soul committed such a terrible crime. In the end, she turns out to be right, but she is revealing a certain narrow minded blindness. A casual glance at the newspaper or a history book reveals that humans (souls or not) are capable of some really vile acts.

The adult perspective is different. There are no demons and humans are capable of anything. Problems are not resolved by direct confrontation, slaying monsters, but by creating controlling structures like laws. Joyce tells Buffy that her slaying isn't accomplishing anything. Regardless of the fact that Buffy has saved people's lives and the whole world twice over. But for Joyce accomplishment means the elimination of the problem, not merely dealing with instances of it. Joyce plans to eliminate the problem by changing the rules. First, all the civil rights people have are set aside. We get illegal searches, seizure of private property without cause or compensation, censorship, the immediate assumption of guilt without the right to confront your accusers, and ultimately punishment without trial. This allows for much quicker and surer justice. Any mistakes along the way are just the price for creating a safer, more secure world.

But at the end of the episode we're left with humans are essentially good, demons are essentially evil. So terrible crimes are committed by demons, not by humans.

Although and average episode, it really had quite a few burst out laughing moments.



My views/status of characters;
Buffy - like
Willow - like
Xander - like
Giles - like
Cordelia - like
Spike - like
Angel - neutral
Oz - like

Overall I consider this an average episode compared to the rest of the season.