Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 10 Volume 2: I Wish; Mike Nichols: A Life; Hollywood Babylon; Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 12

 

All right, I skipped "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 10 Volume 2: I Wish" but it finally came in for me so I was able to read it. Dawn no longer wants to live with Xander and Buffy no longer wants to live with her roommates, so the gang gets rid of a ghost in order to score reduced rent in an apartment building. Xander and Spike room together, and Willow, Dawn, and Buffy room together. Giles, the fifty year old former Watcher/Librarian trapped in a teenager's body, somehow gets an apartment all on his own. Didn't he leave Faith all his money? How can he pay for it? 

At any rate. Xander and Spike go out to a bar together to bond over their girl troubles. Xander's still bummed about Dawn not being in love with him anymore (yet?) but Spike is happy with the direction he and Buffy's relationship has taken. They are getting along well and becoming real friends ("You'll never be friends. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other until it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends"...). At the bar a couple of ladies pick them up. Turns out they're sirens, and they cast a spell over the boys and take them back to their lair. Luckily they're able to break out of their trap but while they were gone the Vampyr book (the blank book to rewrite the rules of magic) disappears from their apartment. D'uh! The gang heads to the ruins of Sunnydale, where Andrew has taken the book. He wants to try to resurrect Tara for Willow, which is sweet but not terribly bright. Buffy and Spike have a lovely and moving heart to heart while trying to keep Andrew from making a terrible mistake. 

Behold! An actual book! For the first time since May, I finished a non-Buffy related graphic novel! A real book! Why this is the book that broke my book funk I have no idea (I mean, it was well written and interesting, but still). I tried *everything* over the last few months. True crime, mysteries, rereading old favorites. Even Faulkner couldn't break me out of it, and I was starting to get really worried. But here you have it. The life of legendary director Mike Nichols.

The funny thing is that I put this book on hold on a whim. I didn't know much about Nichols, other than the fact that he directed one of my all time favorite movies, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (turns out that was the first movie he directed. He picked a good one to start with!). He had a very interesting life and seems like everyone he worked with really liked him. He won Tony awards for the plays he directed on Broadway, Oscars for his films, Grammys for his albums with Elaine May (look the two of them up on YouTube--hysterical), and Emmys for his TV work. A multi-talented individual to be sure. It was nicely done, I enjoyed it. 

Another real book! Although I use the term "real" loosely (well, and "book"). It was, quite honestly, the worst kind of garbage, but it was entertaining and a quick read. Kenneth Anger dishes all the dirt in Hollywood from the 1920s through the 1960s. Most of it has been disproven by now, but at the time it was all very scandalous. There were a lot of tasteless photos I could have done without. 

And finally, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 12", which is the last one. They honestly should have stopped at 11, the ending on that one was good. They just phoned this one in. It was disappointing.

The first half was all about what Giles was doing while Buffy, Willow, and Spike were locked up in the safe zone in season 11. Giles, aged about 16, was at a boarding school, hiding out so he wouldn't get shipped off due to his magic skills. There's a demon in the basement of the school who is sucking out the students' brains -- they're high schoolers, how can you tell? :) 

That was mean. But still. 

Giles ends up falling for a vampire named Roux (cue me screaming at him to go and APOLOGIZE TO BUFFY right this minute for all the grief he gave her over being with Spike in season 7 of the show. Hypocrite). In the end Roux died while helping him kill the demon. 

The second part is a little while later. Giles is magically back to his own age (late forties? early fifties?). And for some reason that was never explained, Buffy and Spike have broken up. 

Fuck you, Joss Whedon. I guess my happiness means NOTHING to you.

Seriously, though, there was no explanation. Just, oh, we aren't together anymore. Why?! Everything was perfect at the end of season 11 and you were so happy and...sigh.

Xander and Dawn have moved to the suburbs and have a little girl they named Joyce after Buffy and Dawn's mom. Buffy is once again upset about how everyone else seems to be moving on with their lives but she's 30 and stuck doing the same old thing she's done since she was 15. I tried to feel sorry for her, because I've been there and I know the feeling, but since I 100% blame her for the Spike breakup it was hard to be too sympathetic. On the plus side, she was very nice to him, and they were sweet to each other when they were around each other. I think that's what made the whole thing that much worse. Well, and Angel's smugness when he found out. Can someone please punch Angel in the face for me? Thanks.

Everyone makes an appearance for this one: Angel and Illyria come back (guess they're a couple now? Okay), Faith, Andrew. The slayer that Buffy went into the future for back in season 8, Maleka, her twin brother absorbed her slayer memories and as a vampire is able to figure out a way to come back in time and kill Buffy and everyone else (honestly, it was all a little confusing and I was so pissed about Spike and Buffy I wasn't really paying close attention). The resolution was super lame. The artwork was lame. The whole damn thing was lame. 

Ironically enough, the best seasons were 10 and 11, and those were the two I didn't buy since they were so expensive. So there's that.