"Conversations with Dead People" is the seventh episode of the seventh and final season of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. [edit] Plot synopsis [edit] Summary Several separate encounters take place around Sunnydale on one night. What makes this particular episode unique is none of the subplots, or the characters in them, interact with each other. Instead, the characters each interact with someone dead that they once knew, hence the title of the episode. According to the episode's staff writers, it was important to note that the primary emotion to be felt in this episode was "being alone". This is also the first episode, in the series, in which Xander, portrayed by Nicholas Brendon, does not appear. According to the episode's co-writer, Jane Espenson, it was determined that Xander didn't appear in this episode because his character didn't have a deceased friend or relative that he once knew or had a direct relationship with. On patrol, Buffy discovers that her latest vampire foe is an old High School classmate named Holden Webster. Upon recognizing her, he stops the fighting and takes on a friendly demeanor – seeming pleasantly surprised to have run into her and asking how she has been. Though she doesn't immediately remember him, he starts to jog her memory about times they'd run into each other before and the two begin to reminisce. The vampire, a psychology major in life, proceeds to psychoanalyze Buffy, and she opens up to him, revealing her innermost conflicts and problems. "Webs" deduces that in her position as the Slayer, Buffy is suffering from a superiority complex and has "an inferiority complex about it" ultimately meaning she will never truly connect with others. After revealing that she has had relationships with vampires, Webs tells Buffy that Spike, believed to be unable to harm humans, was the one who sired him. At home, Dawn is attacked by a malevolent force that ransacks the house. Dawn believes the entity is interfering with her mother contacting her. After she drives off the entity, Dawn is confronted with Joyce's ghost, who predicts that she and Buffy will become enemies. In a story entirely devoid of dialogue, Spike picks up a woman at a bar and takes her home, where he feeds on her. Jonathan and Andrew return from Mexico to dig up an artifact hidden near the Hellmouth. Andrew is secretly in contact with what appears to be the ghost of Warren, while Jonathan is having a personal revelation that he misses high school and still cares for his old friends. After they dig up the artifact, Andrew, on Warren's instructions, kills Jonathan, causing his blood to spill all over a 'door' in the dirt. In the library, Willow is visited by the ghost of Cassie, a girl Buffy once helped, who claims to have been sent by the dead Tara. The ghost relays a prediction that Willow will end up killing everyone unless she commits suicide. Willow is not fooled, and the figure reveals itself, and by implication the other ghosts, to be manifestations of The First. Buffy is briefly seen staking Holden. [edit] Acting [edit] Starring [edit] Guest starring [edit] Co-starring [edit] Performances - This is the only episode of the entire series in which Nicholas Brendon, or his character Xander Harris, does not appear. Although credited, Emma Caulfield (as Anya Jenkins) does not appear in this episode either.
- Jonathan M. Woodward, who plays Holden Webster, has also appeared in two other Joss Whedon series: as Knox in the fifth season of Angel, and as Tracey in the Firefly episode "The Message". All three of these characters are initially friendly (or at least helpful), but eventually die at the hands of the heroes.
- With this episode, Kristine Sutherland becomes the only actor to appear as a guest star in all seven seasons.
[edit] Production details [edit] Writing - Under a severe time and production crunch, it became necessary to have four writers writing this episode. This, as well as actor scheduling conflicts, inspired the structure of the episode where characters are isolated from each other because all four writers wrote independently of each other.
- The writing of this episode is credited to Jane Espenson and Drew Goddard. However, according to the commentary by Espenson and Goddard on the DVD, this episode actually had four distinct writers: Espenson wrote the Dawn scenes, Goddard wrote the Geek Trio scenes, Joss Whedon wrote the Buffy-Holden scenes, and Marti Noxon wrote the Willow-Cassie scenes.[1] Since Whedon and Noxon were the executive producers of the show, they would often forgo formal credit for their contributions to various scripts.
- Amber Benson was initially going to appear as Tara, taunting Willow instead of Cassie, but Benson chose not to because, among other reasons, she "didn't want Tara to be bad" [2][3]. In the commentary for this episode on the DVD, the writers claim that Amber Benson simply wasn't available.
- Espenson claims to have given her first production note that made it to air: the monster appearing to strangle Joyce was actually the Gnarl costume from "Same Time, Same Place" shot from the back and spray-painted black.
- On the DVD commentary for the show, Jane Espenson revealed that the image of Joyce was actually The First. In the original draft of the script, Dawn was going to try to raise her mother. When Joyce appeared, she was to say "They said I couldn't bring someone back." To which The First/Joyce would reply: "Maybe I'm the First."
[edit] Translations - Italian title: "Conversazioni con l'aldilà" ("Conversations with the Beyond")
- German title: "Gespräche mit Toten" ("Conversations with Dead People")
- French title: "Connivences" ("Connivances")
- Spanish title: "Conversaciones con los muertos" ("Conversations with the dead")
- Portuguese title: "Conversas com pessoas mortas" ("Conversations with Dead People")
[edit] Quotes and trivia - Jonathan "Me neither. Desde abajo te devora"
- Andrew: "It eats you starting with your bottom." An alternate, correct translation of the phrase that would be repeated often during Buffy's Season 7: "From beneath you, it devours."
- Spike does not have any dialogue in the episode
- This is the only episode of the entire series not to feature Xander Harris.
- This is the only episode with a specific date and time given at the beginning of the episode - November 12, 2002; 8.01pm. This is the same date and time as the original airdate of the episode.
- This is one of only two episodes in the whole Buffy series that has the episode title appear on-screen at the beginning of the program. The musical episode "Once More, with Feeling" was the only other.
- It is often considered to be one of the best episodes of the whole series along with "Hush", "Innocence" and "The Body".
[edit] Continuity - This episode further establishes the season's "Big Bad", whose shape-shifting ability was displayed in the season premiere, "Lessons", and, previously, in Season Three's "Amends".
- Holden informs Buffy that Spike sired him, giving Buffy doubts about Spike's newfound goodness.
- Jonathan, a recurring character since the second season of Buffy, is killed.
- The "Hellmouth Door" underneath the school is seen for the first time.
- Dawn accidentally gets pizza sauce on one of Buffy's shirts in this episode, shrugging and saying, "She'll think it's blood." In "First Date", Anya scrubs at the stain and says that she thinks it's pizza sauce and not blood.
- The music Dawn is listening to whilst home alone is the same Buffy was listening to whilst washing dishes in season 5, before breaking down and crying over her mother's sickness.
- Cassie, supposedly speaking for Tara, reminds Willow that she is "strong like an Amazon", referencing a conversation that Willow and Tara have in "The Body". She also reminds Willow of the time when Tara sang to her on the bridge ("Under Your Spell") in "Once More, with Feeling".
- Holden Webster pronounces "nemeses" correctly and Buffy replies "Is that how you say that?" This comment is an allusion to the Season 6 episode "Gone" when both Warren and Buffy have trouble with the word.
- Holden mentions that some of Buffy's classmates thought she was some sort of religious fanatic. Others, he notes, thought she was involved with an older man.
- Holden also reveals that Scott Hope, the boy Buffy dated briefly in season 3, told everyone at the time that she was gay. According to Holden, Scott said this about every girl he broke up with, and that a year earlier [i.e. season 6 of the show] Scott himself came out.
- The First appears as Warren Mears, who was killed in Season 6. It is revealed in the canonical comic storyline The Long Way Home that Warren was saved from death by Amy Madison. On the letters page of Buffy Season Eight #6, Whedon responds to the question of how the First could have impersonated Warren if he'd never died, by saying, "He was legally dead for like a second. Amy didn't tell him 'cause she didn't want to upset him. I forgot, okay?!"
[edit] Reception [edit] External links [edit] References - ^ DVD commentary for "Conversations with Dead People", at 0:22, 1:33, and 13:38.
- ^ "BBC - Cult - Buffy - Amber Benson - Staying away". BBC 2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/interviews/benson2003/page4.shtml. Retrieved 2009-07-01.
- ^ a b "Buffy Episode Guide - Conversations with Dead People". BBC Cult. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/indetail/conversations/trivia.shtml. Retrieved 2007-07-31.
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