Buffy rewatch: 2.16. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

This episode is mostly known for the wacky love-spell-gone-wrong comedy, but I find it a bit overrated as comedy and actually like the parts before the spell much better. The stuff with Xander and Cordy’s relationship is really good for the first 20 or so minutes, and another plus is that the darker B-plot with Angel is woven nicely into the fabric of the episode together with the comedy parts. Once the spell kicks in, it’s fun, but I don’t find it nearly as funny as Band Candy, Something Blue or Tabula Rasa. But it’s the resolution of the Xander/Cordy storyline that bothers me, and takes half a point off from my rating. Cordy breaks up with Xander out of a shallow reason – her social status in school – but the reasons she takes him back, not just in spite of, but because of his stupid, irresponsible actions, are very misguided.

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Buffy S9 #1 "Freefall" and Angel & Faith #1 "Live Through This"

So, finally, after a long wait, three preview pages, lots of craziness in the fandom caused by spoilers and a couple of weird early reviews and people's general tendencies to read their own preconceptions and obsessive peeves into the text and several really bizarre quasi-controversies with some things blown way out of proportion, I finally read the first issue of Buffy season 9 and liked it, though it's not as impressive as #40.

I'll add some belated thoughts about the first issue of Angel & Faith, which was out 2 weeks ago.

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