Scratching the Surface

As promised, I went back to the first episode, "Welcome to the Hellmouth." Which, as it turns out, is a two-parter (followed by "The Harvest"), and I couldn't resist watching the second along with the first. The first season is perhaps my least favorite, but like the others, it has its merits. We all have to admit that every story needs an introduction.

Buffy's reaction to Sunnydale is precisely like the one most people have upon their first viewing of a BtVS episode, regardless of where it falls in the trajectory of the show: horror, confusion, frustration. But a few come to regard it with deep affection and love.

After arriving in Sunnydale, Buffy is feeling optimistic, like she's escaped an awful fate. She is eager to begin again. But as someone pointed out to me once, you can't escape yourself, hard as you try and as far as you go. Buffy's identity as the Slayer is, she quickly discovers, just as inescapable. But she denies it until threatened with the possibility that someone she cares about (Willow) will come to harm. She is sucked back in to her role, whether or not she wants to be--there is simply too much at stake (pun intended).

I think the fake bottom in her trunk, filled with the trademark keepsakes of an average teenager's life is especially poignant. Underneath are hidden her less cuddly secrets: cloves of garlic, stakes, vials of holy water. Secrets that, like in our own lives, are less than attractive for others to discover, if we allow them to discover any of it at all. We keep the brighter, happier things on the surface. We appear to be fine and smiling, when inside we have pain, sorrow, hurt.

We keep our darkness buried.