This has always been one of my favourite Buffy episodes. What I especially love about it is the gender switch when Buffy and Angel are possessed by the ghosts (their lines make so much sense, I'm in awe every time I watch it) and the reveal that it's not Angel Buffy can't forgive, but herself. She believes it was her passion that led to everything that happened, so she identifies with James, that's why he choses to possess her. Only when Buffy learns about the importance of forgiveness she is able to forgive herself. So genius.
3:22 The janitor is played by Oscar nominee John Hawkes ("From Dusk To Dawn", "American Gangster"). He was Quentin Tarantino's fellow student in an acting class.
Yes, it was because the ghost (soul) of Grace made him feel again. Grace was played by Meredith Salenger and James was played by Christopher Gorham, who appeared on Once Upon a Time and Ugly Betty.
Meredith Salenger was in The Journey of Natty Gann with John Cusack and a bunch of other movies in the 1980s and she's done some other work mostly in TV since then, and now she's married to actor Patton Oswalt. As for Christopher Gorham, he was also in TV shows like Popular, Odyssey 5, Jake 2.0, Felicity, and most prominently, Covert Affairs.
11:33 Pretty much, she already had visions and Angelus and Darla drove her mad before making her a vampire. She was deeply religious before she was turned..
1:14 I can never understand when people say they don't like math! Math has always been my favorite subject in school! It's not as hard as it seems. It's just math is definitely 1 of those subjects where everyone learns differently, and sometimes needs to be explained through another method, to different people. Once people understand certain things about math, a lot of things that were previously confusing, suddenly just *click*, and everything begins to make so much more sense!
I always thought I Only Have Eyes For You was a great stand alone episode, where the tragic love affair between the teacher and student from the 1950's is repeated down through the years by anyone who is influenced by it in the school now. Great writing here in a very atmospheric episode, in which we also have the Angelus/Drusilla/Spike triangle in the background. Interesting that Buffy has no empathy for the student in the incident, of course she is using her own experience of being hurt and reflecting this in her attitude. Another interesting thing about this episode is we hear Snyder and Police Officer mention 'The Mayor' for the first time. Great scene at the end when Spike is now able to walk and is plotting his revenge. This is very much in the style of X-Files type episode, great writing again.
One of the (few) flaws of the show is that there's very little concern about what happens to survivor victims. Not just the obvious trauma (like for the four kids who were possessed by hyenas), but also the possibility that they could also become a victim of a miscarriage of justice, like the janitor here. It's obvious that the writers don't care (as they could rectify it with a couple of lines), but it makes it look like the characters don't care either. Not one of my favourite episodes. I know some people find it romantic, but a woman did die in the process.
What show have you watched? Of course they care. But there's nothing they can do. None of them are trauma therapists, and to do the job of fighting evil they can't take on and process everyone's pain. Whatever emotional trauma a person has, it is up to them to deal with, ultimately. I speak this from experience. No one else can really do the work for you. And the couple lines you suggest would just be trite.
