Dreams for the Future

During our time of privation (since Soul Sister’s arrival we’ve been calling it the ‘pilgrim diet’), we’ve been having dreams of a prosperous future. Much like the first white people that landed on these shores, we are often hungry and have no fucking idea what we’re doing. We do have a better sense of fashion and more respect for diversity which is unrelated to our ability to survive, but hey, the name evokes pretty accurate visions of both the amount of food that we’re eating, and the monotony therein.

The thing is, we’re not just cutting way back on eating out. We’re shopping at Costco like the frugalistas we are, buying twenty five pound bags of rice and only shelling out $0.75 each for what is probably half a pound of gelato because “we have to be able to tell Soul Sister whether it’s good or not if she wants ice cream”. We’re doing laundry by hand in the sink (or bathtub, depending on how long we’ve let it go) because our utilities are included in our rent. We’re washing our hair every other day to save shampoo and conditioner (an unprecedented change for Anya, who is a clean hair nazi). But yes, it’s really the snacks that we’re missing.

And while we love food (boy, do we love food), and basic hygiene, they’re not the only luxuries that we’ve been pining for as we work hard to save our pennies and not run through our savings quite as rapidly, searching in vain for the real job with benefits and livable wages thing. We’ve each steadily built up a list of items in our heads that we will get “one day”, when we’re established adults with disposable income.

Oh, how we long for this day.

Below are just a few of the things we’ve wished for, best read aloud in the most wistful tone you possess.

Beer

Belts (see: Work pants)

Biscotti

Blazers of all colors and materials!

Boots (for fashion, for winter, flats, heels, all kinds of fun)

Brazilian wax

Bubble bath

Burritos on the regular (we just found a great new restaurant that only costs like $7 and has a salsa bar and we STILL CAN’T AFFORD IT)

Coffee table

Dry cleaning (not clothes that need to be dry cleaned, a trip to the dry cleaner for the clothes we already have but can’t afford to clean).

"If the clothes from that dry cleaning bag are on the floor of my closet, you’re going to be a very sorry young lady."

Food of all kinds:
    -Ice cream/Gelato/Fro-yo
    -Mall pretzels
    -Pizza
    -Popsicles
    -Sunday brunch
    -Cheese
    -Chips and Garden Fresh salsa
    -Smoked salmon
    -Any salmon/fish/seafood
    -Basil
    -A wide variety of seasoning
    -Fresh produce
    -FOOD TRUCKS

Herb garden (or just herbs!)

Makeup (This one is getting dire, and Anya will likely have to rely on the annual Christmas stocking replenishment of the basics to get by with some semblance of mascara and blush. Good bye, concealer, old friend. Hello, dark circles, how I’ve missed you!) and Name-brand toiletries

Nights out on the town (dinner, movies, drinks, ANYTHING)

Plane tickets home for the holidays

Purse that an adult would conceivably carry her belongings in

Razorblades

Salon haircuts

Starbucks (A luxury Anya has been enjoying in spades thanks to her loving ex-coworkers and the gift cards they bestowed upon her, soon to run out and be missed all the more)

Wallet (filled with cash)

Work pants (in our new smaller waist sizes)

Top 5 Episodes of Buffy Season 3

Anya has powered through another season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so here we are to once again rank our favorite episodes. It’s impossible to read any list of “best” Buffy episodes without thinking, “I can’t believe s/he included/left out [Episode]!” Hopefully you can find some of your favorite moments below, and that we can at least all be in agreement that Buffy is an all-around great show.

Season Three is an all-around great season. Unlike the rough and intense ride of the darker and more emotionally taxing Season Two, this season is much steadier trip, slowly building up to its cathartic ending. This season will probably be the only time where our list of favorites actually follows the sequential order in which they aired. This season may not reach the intensity of Season Two, but in terms of overall watchability, this season has fewer episodes that you might be tempted to skip on a rewatch (perhaps the fewest out of all the seasons). As usual, spoilers throughout for the entire show through this season.

5. “Band Candy”

“Whoa, Summers, you drive like a spaz!”

We begin with “Band Candy.” Buffy, resenting her mother and Giles for denying her the freedom and privileges of adulthood, spends a day in their shoes, when all the adults in Sunnydale are turned into obnoxious teenagers from eating Ethan Rayne’s tainted candy bars. We finally get a taste of the days Giles spent as “Ripper” and we also get a hint that Joyce liked to have a lot of fun in her youth. We love Willow seeing her shirtless, stage-diving doctor at the Bronze and we love the eventual payoff to Giles and Joyce’s cop car sex with Buffy’s temporarily telepathy in “Earshot.”

This episode is the only time on the series that Principal Snyder is ever likeable, and even then, it’s only from the knowledge that was such a clueless boob in high school. Pretty much everything that he says is gold, but highlights include:
“Oh! There’s some foxy ladies here tonight!”
(to Oz) “You’ve got great hair.”
“Let’s go do doughnuts on the football field.”
and
“I can do that too, I took Taekwondo at the Y!”

4. “Lovers Walk”

“You’re a very bad man.”

After being spurned by Drusilla, Spike returns to Sunnydale to give the pot a rather generous stirring. The drunk and depressed Spike enlists (read: extorts) the help of Willow to win Drusilla back with a love spell, kidnapping her and Xander and storing them in his old factory lair (“He’s probably just got ‘em locked up in the factory.” “...How thick do you think I am?”). During his time in Sunnydale, he has a wonderful reunion with Joyce (“Well, Spike, sometimes, even when two people seem right for each other, their lives just take different paths. When Buffy’s father and I started having trouble-” “But this is different, our love was eternal, literally! You got any of those little marshmallows?” “Let me look.”) and calls out Buffy and Angel on their bullshit “friendship.”

Willow and Xander allow their sexual tension to culminate at the worst possible time, celebrating life (and its probable end) with a heated kiss, just as Oz and Cordelia come to the rescue. After a stairway collapses, Cordelia is impaled and the scene fades to funeral, causing the audience to spend a (retrospectively) humorous 30 seconds thinking she’s dead, before the camera pans to Buffy and Willow walking outside of the cemetery talking about how she’s okay. Classic.

3. “The Zeppo”

“Did I mention that I’m having a very strange night?”

This is one of Paul’s all-time favorite episodes. Ordinary Xander Harris finally gets to shine on the center stage, experiencing a wild night of raising the dead, losing his virginity, and saving the school, only his friends are too busy preventing another apocalypse to notice. The usual meat of the show (Buffy’s relationship drama, Big Bad/Monster of the Week) is pushed to the side of the plate, allowing Xander’s plotline to be main focus of the episode. The audience thus only gets to see snippets of the action happening with the show’s de facto major players. We hilariously barely get to see the Hellmouth monster (“My god, it’s grown.”), and we never get to see any part of Angel’s brush with death or what Giles did that Buffy called “the bravest thing” she had even seen.

The show makes fun of its, at times, over-the-top action and drama, also featuring a delicious scene where Xander interrupts a soap-level of camp exchange between Buffy and Angel. Xander is forced to get through the night with his own special set of skills, receiving no aid from his supernatural friends. This gives him a boost in confidence and maturity, allowing him to end the petty war waging between Cordelia and himself.

2. “Prom”

“We’re not good friends. Most of us never found the time to get to know you. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t noticed you.”

“Prom” is a no brainer for this list, and the only episode so far that has really eked tears of our Anya. Although she flatly refuses to buy this whole Angel comes all the way back from the dead but still has the same deal going with his soul curse and they can never be together thing, we see the breakup coming from a mile away. Once the Mayor got in Angel’s head it was so. over. We have all that that high school moment where Buffy lays her sad little Slayer head on Willow’s lap and says “I feel like I’m dying”. (Fun Wikipedia fact: Sarah Michelle actually did cry for like half an hour after their onscreen breakup, and they had to close the set for her to recover.)

Paul warns Anya that the end of Prom is the happiest moment that will ever happen on Buffy: the Class Protector Award, and Angel coming through in the end for a last dance. We know Buffy’s sacrifices and hard work are rarely recognized, and that shiny little umbrella really hit Anya where it hurts. That and Angel in his goddamn tux prompting a “I knew he’d come through for me! Uh, her. Yeah, come through for her” text. The whole episode is an emotional rollercoaster, even engendering sympathy for Cordelia when her poverty (and sad, sad “relationship” with Wesley) is revealed.

1. “Graduation Day”

“Guys, take a moment to deal with this: We survived.”
“It was a hell of a battle.”
“Not that battle, high school.”

Graduation: a perfect finale for Buffy’s time in high school, and some of the most tense moments of the season, especially for a first time viewer. The Mayor is Paul’s favorite Buffy villain EVER, and we both enjoy his chipper attitude and sunny tone mixed with his completely fucked everything else. His affection for Faith highlighted how pathetic and love starved they both were, and they fact that Buffy lured him with her knife, of all things, was the final cherry on that twisted sundae.

Paul is a big fan of “Poor old Faith”, which Anya can’t get behind. Despite her hatred of Buffy’s foil, she did enjoy watching her arc play out on screen. Is this what Buffy could have been without her support system? It’s a tragic arc, from start to finish. The stabbing, the spiteful jump to avoid helping Angel, the final visit to Buffy to help her win in the end...it’s all Faith through and through.

Speaking of arcs, we can see that this episode/finale is the end of an era. High school is over, and some of our characters are heading their separate ways. Anya was forced to admit that Angel won’t be back for real this time, Cordelia is off to be vapid elsewhere, and Xander isn’t quite making it to actual college for the time being. We liked that this really felt like an ending, though only a couple episodes into season four, Buffy herself says “it’s basically just like high school.” Too true, Buffs.

U Mad, Bro? A Compilation of the Most Ridiculous Things That Inspire Anonymous Internet Fury

Alternatively titled “We Don’t Comment and Neither Should You” or “Facebooking Lawyering: Never A Good Idea” (See “The Sequel: Facebook Evangelizing, Even Worse”)

Unless you look like this.

First of all, don’t you think we should be in charge of writing titles for theses? Just take a quick pass through our Archives and tell us we wouldn’t be great at that. Unfortunately, this is a relatively recent skill, and we’ve turned in more papers than we’d like to admit with just “Title” typed in at the top, waiting for a burst of creativity that never came. How sad. However, let’s turn from the emotional problems of our academic past, and focus instead on the topic of today’s article: things people get really goddamn upset about on the internet that they wouldn’t dream of touching in person.

What’s that you say? “But Anya, Paul, isn’t that list absolutely endless? Isn’t the anonymity of the internet almost wholly responsible for the slow decay of modern society? Haven’t we all agreed that that’s how the kids these days are bullying each other?” Yes, sure, the internet is a double edged sword, the one ring to rule them all, with great power comes great responsibility. But we’re not here to tackle those kind of topics. Those literally are thesis material (holla Master’s students! We’re here if you need us, drop us a line if you need a title, or want this one), and we’re more the sort to make mocking lists.

Per usual, our realm of expertise is specific.

As people who spend a fair amount of time online (like WAY too much), we’re pretty experienced in the ways of online forums/comments sections/etc. As people who exist, we’re totally guilty of confirmation bias, in that we seek out articles and sites and discussions that support our beliefs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, our strongest beliefs are centered squarely on some of the most controversial issues, which means a guaranteed load of bullshit by the time we get to the comments section. YAY.

Things like women’s rights, abortion, gay marriage, and whether or not we should care about the Royal Baby are things we expect to be hot button issues, with vitriolic fights between the right and the correct. You can visit any page that so much as mentions these issues, and read a series of tired arguments and quickly devolves into name calling. In fact, like fights with our parents, we might as well not even have them anymore, since we’re freakishly good and predicting exactly how the conversation will go, down to the turns of phrase.

“And then she’s going to make passive aggressive comments about your life decisions.”

But there are other, stranger forces at work here. There are things on the internet that make people into monsters, tear relationships asunder, turn perfectly normal (?) people into vicious trolls the likes of which the undersides of bridges have never seen. Why people choose to be so personally offended about things that are so obviously none of their business is really surprising to us...haha but really. If you’ve read much of this blog at all, you’ll have noticed that we’re pretty sassy and pretty hard on the general public. We just so badly want to everyone to get it together and be decent to each other! And no matter how snarky we seem when we’re taking out our fury on our poor little keyboards, we assure you that we are actually very pleasant in person. Sure, we have our fair share of anonymous internet fury, but we’re not directing it at specific people, demanding their ritual sacrifice for having naturally blonde hair or following the paleo diet.

But we would totes turn some of them into rats.

We’re not firing off emails to our legislators full of incomprehensible punctuation and a very evident lack of research on the topic at hand. We’re not leaving nasty reviews on Yelp because we don’t understand basic veterinary medicine (holla at the lady who was mad that she spent money on antibiotics and her kitten got better so she “obviously didn’t need them”!) or restaurant etiquette (holla at the guy who had passive aggressive fights with a three year old and seated himself next to us at breakfast last weekend!). As much as humankind tends to drive us crazy, we do operate under the premise “innocent until proven guilty and then also benefit of the doubt in case you’re having an especially bad day”.

Here are the things we have found that the denizens of the internet cannot read about without instantly turning into dickheads of epic proportions:

1) Vegetarianism (or Vegans, or really any kind of specific diet)

If we have to read “PETA = People Eating Tasty Animals” or the pseudo science of why meat protein is actually essential to our diets one more time, it will be just another day. Or how STUPID the Paleo diet is because OUR ANCESTORS ACTUALLY ATE X,Y,Z AND EVOLUTION GUYZ”. On the flip side “I will be laughing as all of you meat eaters die horrific deaths from heart attacks and cancer because I will never get sick or go to tell because of my respect for LYFE”. Stop the diet shaming! At least on the internet.

You’re all this guy.

We’re sorry everyone is so goddamn annoying, but shut.the.fuck.up. Eat what you’re going to eat, don’t eat what you’re not, and stop making everyone’s life decisions about you. WHY DO YOU CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE PUTTING INTO THEIR BODIES? Literally we could not give two shits about strangers using heroin, why would we get on their dicks about carbs?

2) Talking during movies

Yes, we shit you not, the number of casual death threats over talking during movies is actually astronomical. Anya is a movie talker, and will never stop doing that. Her inability to stay silent during movies is something everyone around her has to either enjoy or put up with. HOWEVER, she would never do that shit in a movie theater unless it was empty or full of people that were being so inconsiderate that her “movie talking” morphs into “Can you honestly please shut the fuck up?” to the teenagers behind her. No one likes a loudmouth at the movies, let alone the cell phone answerers, the shriekers, and the children crying. Does that mean we have to summarily execute these people? No. Calm the fuck down and just get management to throw them out the movie.

Unless it’s this hot mess, then loud scoffing is allowed.

(To be fair, this type of inconsiderate behavior is often not an isolated trait, and if these people are just generally breaking the unspoken social contract, we support execution).

3) Breast feeding in public/any type of parenting shit

“If you’re not a mother you CAN’T POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND” “I give no shits about your feelings, this is a NATURAL PROCESS OF FOODZ FOR MY BAAAAABY”, etc. Unfortunately, the Great Kate Wait has given rise to the number of articles about our least favorite thing: children. Doubly unfortunate: the mommy bloggers are out in force, reading these articles and showing their “tiger stripes” or “mama bear instincts” by being incredibly judgmental and shitty to everyone who is not a parent/wants to go out to eat in a child free environment once in a goddamn while. Let us just say, they are setting a terrific example for the next generation of entitled, self obsessed, the entire world must bow down before my very specific preferences assholes they’re raising. THANKS.

We know this list could be endless...what ridiculous shit have you seen on the internet that made you go “really?”?

[Fake Kate Photo by Alison Jackson]

10 Hottest Hollywood Jews

We’re ending an incredibly hot week with a blog article about some incredibly hot people. Because the temperatures outside literally will not allow us to voluntarily raise our own body temperatures, we spared you by choosing pictures of all of these sexy people in some of their...cooler...moments. Basically we’re making the case that yes, anyone can look pretty frickin delicious when they have a team of four to six people dedicated to making them look really, really good for an hour and a half of walking down a well laid vermillion carpet, but these ladies and gents look better at their worst than we do at our best. And by “we”, we mean “you”. Sars.

Because we’re so into equality, we divided our list (almost) evenly down the gender line. Because we’re also into the Chosen People, we did not divide our list evenly down the faith line. Jews only today, folks! To be fair, we did not put a shit ton of effort into fact checking the Jewish credentials of these people (but we’re pretty sure the same goes for the folks as Buzzfeed, whose strangely-ordered list last week inspired us to one up them), because the internet says it’s true, and also we don’t care that much.

1. Natalie Portman

We're just going to cut the bullshit and start at the top, and there is no arguing about this, Natalie wins every “Top 10 Hottest” everything, ever. She is the best looking human the world has ever known, and if you think differently you have poor taste. Nat is our girl crush, the only lady Anya allows her boyfriends to admit is hotter than she is (if they deny it, they’re lying). The best part is, it’s not just her perfect face and perfect body that puts her at the top of our list. Israeli born genius, Harvard graduate, vegetarian, need we say more? Plus, she loves her dog and she did that fantastic rap on SNL. Finding a picture for this article led us straight down the rabbit hole of “God, even bald she looks amazing” “Wow, has she EVER taken a bad picture EVER?” and most telling of all: “Ugh, I even want to be her when she’s pregnant”.

Even her goddamn mom hair is inspiring.

2. Joseph Gordon-Levitt

“Joe” as his friends call him, (that’s us, Joe’s friends!) Mr. Gordon-Levitt has been a favorite of Anya’s since...she laid eyes on him? He charmed us even as a slightly pathetic lovesick puppy in (500) Days of Summer, and redeemed himself in Inception. Remember when he was in Batman and he was super fly in that uniform? Remember how great he looks in a suit? Remember how he said “most pretty girls aren’t funny” and then apologized and felt like an asshole and we actually believed him which is unusual in this day and age? We enjoy that he, unlike Nat, appears to be operating on our plane of existence. Some days he looks like a million dollars, some days he looks like a normal person, but he also seems like a sweetheart.

“Paul, who is that guy that looks like James Franco and Heath Ledger had a perfect lovechild?”

3. Eva Green

Arguably the classiest Bond girl, Eva Green ran rampant over Daniel Craig’s secret agent heart in Casino Royale, and left us sad for the first time at the death of one of his booty calls. She’s sassy, just the perfect amount of weird, and we love her foreign flavor. It doesn’t hurt that she also played one of our favorite heart-breaking witches, Serafina Pekkala (sorry Willow!), in the ill-fated movie adaptation of The Golden Compass. Even when she’s being all French and languid and slightly consumptive, she’s a force to be reckoned with.

And look, science!

4. Jake Gyllenhaal

Ah, Jake. This makes Anya feel a little old, but he was one of her very first crushes after the onset of puberty, and the heartache she felt when he and Kirsten Dunst adopted a puppy together is unmatched to this day (by any other celebrity couple’s demonstration of commitment). Those blue eyes! That invariably spectacular hair! And we’re not sure if this is just great management on the part of his agent, or fact, but Jake always comes off as a good guy in his movies. Like painfully good. If he’s actually a douche, he deserves an Oscar just for fooling us for the past decade and some change. Subtracting points for his short lived relationship(?) with Swifty, adding points for his reaction to her song about him(?) which was: Silence.

Too busy giving no fucks and calling Anya while wearing his flannel plaid.

5. James Franco

It seems like the older he gets, the more of a douchebag James Franco becomes. Anya was pleased when he decided to go to Yale and do some learning, but we all know how that went. And remember when he hosted the Oscars and we all had to spend like three hours feeling bad for Anne Hathaway? And then she was nominated for an Oscar and we had to spend like three months regretting our former pity? ALL HIS FAULT. However, the reason he is getting away with all of this bullshit is clearly his exquisite looks! And he does seems to have a selectively good sense of humor. There’s something in most of us that is conquered by his broody, dark eyed, slightly off kilter mosey through life, and if he can keep milking it, good for him.

Not interested in hiking with him though.

6. Jesse Eisenberg

It’s hard for us to separate Jesse Eisenberg from his excellent portrayal of on-the-spectrum asshole Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, and we’re not really sure what that says about us given that and his placement on this list. Like an attractive Michael Cera, he’s made a career out of playing bumbling man-boys with communication issues. At first glance, he may not seem like much to look at, but once you get past the fuzzy mop and permafrown, you’ll notice his blue eyes and a bone structure that would make a lot of male models jealous (they’re probably not, however, jealous of his spindly little limbs). Jesse is also a vegetarian who apparently really like cats. We’ll take it.

He also manages to act using only two faces: smug and pondering (pictured here).

7. Rachel Weisz

First point for Rachel: she’s English. We obviously have a deep seated affection for our brethren across the pond, and she is no exception. Second point, if you haven’t seen The Fountain go see it RIGHT NOW because it’s an incredible movie with another incredible actor (Hugh Jackman, only missing from the list because he’s not a Jew), directed by an incredible director, Darren Aronofsky (To whom our girl Nat owes her Oscar and who is missing from our list because he’s not that hot, although he is Jewish).

Unapologetically rock that cardigan, girl.

8. Paul Rudd

I think we all know how Paul Rudd made this list...he’s fucking hilarious, and that can really do a lot for your attractiveness factor. But he’s not just funny, he’s also smart enough to do some pretty incredible improv, and we’re suckers for wordplay (shocking, right?). Even if he weren’t super famous, he’d catch our eye on the street (or in the office) because of his unrelentingly happy golden retriever smile. Seriously, it’s very charming. He’s one of those people that would be a great or friend’s boyfriend, but not someone you want to actually be in a relationship with. While we appreciate the earnest energy he’s always giving off, we prefer our men of age, in that magic trifecta of physically, mentally, and emotionally. Tall order, we know.

Loving the purple, less so on the gut.

9. Josh Bowman

We’re just now realizing our list leans slightly older than we initially expected, with beautiful Brit Josh Bowman being the youngest entry on our list. He’s also the most attractive in the traditional sense, coming to fame for his role as the dreamy Daniel Grayson on the soaptastic Revenge (Paul hasn’t watched past the first season, but hopes that Daniel is still alive and successfully stealing Emily/Amanda’s heart away from dopey Jack). His teeth (or veneers) and nose look pretty great for a former Rugby player. We predict a bright future for Josh of playing young and pretty rich boys and distinguished and pretty rich men.

Some were tougher than others to find “normal” screencaps for.

10. Idina Menzel

What’s not to love about this wacky Broadway lady, with a set of pipes that give us goosebumps and a sexy husband worthy of her greatness? Nothing. We loved her as sassy, eternally self absorbed and terrible Maureen in RENT. We loved her even more when she originated Elphaba in Wicked because holy shit if you haven’t listened to her sing “Defying Gravity,” you are not living life even a little bit. And she did a jazzy remix of “Pokerface” that we listened to our on waterfront drive to Santa Cruz that is fantastic. She’s got a great name, a great voice, and even Glee couldn’t ruin her for us.

Nor could this terrible hairstyle.

Top 5 Episodes of Buffy Season 2

Followers of our blog may have noticed a recent increase in Buffy the Vampire Slayer related pictures and tweets. This is due to Paul finally succeeding in getting Anya to watch the spectacular (I will defend it to my grave) series. Although it may have started in large part due to Anya having to spend an hour a day in an internet free house, and Paul owning Buffy DVDs (we grew up without Netflix), she is now totally on board with the dark, witty, cheesy, and heartbreaking show, and Paul couldn’t be happier.

As Anya finishes a season, we’ll do a rundown of our favorite episodes. Season One only has 12 episodes, and while it sets up the show and has its moments of brilliance, the show did not really hit its stride until Season Two. So we’re just going to skip the first season (not sure we have enough favorite episodes to warrant an entry) and start with the emotionally-charged Season Two. Please be aware that all of these articles will feature spoilers for their, and any previous, season.

5. “Lie to Me”

“It’s just, like, the more I know, the more confused I get.”

We begin our list with “Lie to Me.” This episode is a favorite of Paul’s, mostly for its final scene. After an episode of being confronted with uncomfortable truths, Buffy asks Giles if “life ever gets easy,” and, knowing the answer, requests that he lie to her and gives her the answer that she wishes were true. Giles tells her that life is “terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.” His speech is sweet, yet incredibly tragic, especially considering upcoming events with Angel and Jenny Calendar.

Great comedic moments include Angel wearing the same clothes as a wannabe vamp, the eyeliner (oh god the EYELINER), everything about “Chanterelle” (the name, the clothes, the eternally clueless demeanor), and Drusilla talking to her dead bird (“You sing the sweetest little song. Won't you sing for me, hm? Don't you love me anymore?”).

4. “School Hard”

“Do you like daisies? I plant them, but they always die. Everything I put in the ground withers and dies.”

This episode is important for its introduction of bad British vamps, Spike and Drusilla. Drusilla is a truly magnificent secondary character. She manages to be ethereal, kooky, and terrifying all at the same time. You really never know what batshit crazy thing she’s going to do or say next, and we love it. Famed slayer of Slayers, Spike, rolls into town to up his kill count to three, and picks Parent Teacher Night, of which Buffy is in charge, to make his first big attack. We learn that subpar student Buffy is also incapable of making lemonade and that Principle Snyder and the police are somewhat aware of the supernatural goings-on and their go-to public explanation of PCP gangs.

Angel pretending to be evil with faux-hostage Xander is great, as is Spike seeing through the charade and angrily bewailing that Angel was his Yoda. If there’s anyone we quote more than Spike and Dru these days, it’s Ewan McGregor’s spectacularly pathetic “You were my brother, Anakin!” and the end of Episode III. Melding these two pop culture phenomena keeps us going through the endless days.

3. “Becoming (Part 2)”

“Close your eyes.”

This is one hell of a season closer. Willow successfully casts a spell to return to Angel his soul, but it is too late and, after a tearful reunion, Buffy is forced (still not buying the necessity of this part) to stab Angel, sending him to Hell. It’s all too much for Buffy, who then leaves town, giving us a rough end to a rough season. With Giles getting tortured, Buffy’s expulsion, Drusilla siding with Angel over Spike, and Xander lying to Buffy about Willow’s spell, there are not a whole lot of bright moments to this episode.

We thankfully briefly get the dynamic duo of Buffy and Spike. This gives us the incredible formal introduction of Spike and Joyce (“Um.. you hit me an axe one time, remember? Uh, ‘Get the Hell away from daughter!’” “Oh...So do you live here in town?”) which is perfection, even if it unfortunately dissolves into the brutal exchange between Joyce and Buffy on acceptance (“I mean, have you tried not being a Slayer?”).

2. “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”

“I think it’s more of a hot night, don’t you?”

We decided that we needed a safe and silly episode to sit between our third and first selections, and “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” certainly serves that purpose. Though it doesn’t actually come in at second place for either of us, we couldn’t stand putting all of that sad in a row. After being scorned by Cordelia, Xander enlists the help of witchy Amy to cast a love spell on Cordy (so that he can dump and embarrass her), which goes awry and causes all of the women in Sunnydale to become violently obsessed with him. Poor Cordelia’s love(ish) for Xander can’t overcome her desire to be popular, but her getting the locket “out of her locker” pulls at the heartstrings of an especially sensitive viewer (read: not us). And how many times are those two idiots going to seek shelter in the Summers’ not-so-secure basement (Joyce must have some kind of ridiculous home insurance/If you’re okay with the constant threat of death, Sunnydale is the place for contractors and construction workers)?

By far the highlight of this episode for Anya was a creature we affectionately refer to as Buffy-Rat, and nervous little rodent intent on escaping the confines of the library and hunting down some delicious cheddar, but only in a place that is large enough for her to transform herself...in the buff. GET IT? Watching Buffy-Rat scuttle around was a close second to watching Willow try to murder Xander with an axe, uttering sentiments that are probably dangerously close to her true feelings sometimes.

1. “Innocence”

“I’ll just let it burn.”

This episode is the epitome of what Buffy accomplishes at its best: showcasing the heights and depths of the human condition through the Fantasy lens of monsters and magic in a moving way. The show attempts to do this with varying levels of success (Everybody ignored her so much that she became invisible! Be careful what you wish for!), but this is one of the times ol’ Joss got it very right. Anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone who turned out to not be the person you thought they were (which has happened to anyone who has ever fallen in love), can relate to plucky protagonist Buffy Summers, as she slowly (SO VERY SLOWLY!) realizes that the man she loves, Angel, has turned into a monster. Spike may criticize the evil Angelus for being too soft, but his torturous treatment of Buffy throughout this episode is pure cruelty and malice.

The scene in Angel’s apartment where he ridicules her performance in bed, calls her a needy child, and then brushes off her confession of love? UGH. This episode is light on the comic relief, highlights being Xander telling the soldier that he only needs five minutes in a closet with Cordelia and Drusilla’s eternal oddities (this episode features her stargazing through the ceiling and naming them all the same thing). “Innocence” also gives us the iconic Buffy-using-a-rocket-launcher scene and the wonderful speech from Giles, where he tells Buffy that she will only ever find support and respect from him. When Joyce asks Buffy what she did on her birthday and she replies with, “I got older,” you believe it.

Honorable Mention:
“Passion”
In a heavy season of dark and twisty plots and nothing great happening for anyone, Angel’s stalking and murder of Jenny Calendar (or Gyp-say Jen-nay as the more pro-Angel among us call her) really put the sad icing on the miserable cake of this season. This is an extremely important game changing episode, featuring the first death of a major character on the show, but it does not resonate with us as much as the above sad sack selections. We knew when the disc fell that her soul restoring work would live on, but watching Giles smell that rose before ascending the stairs with a smile on his face was a heart wrenching build-up to the scene that made us realize that things with Angel really never could be the same. Ouch.

Weird Shit You Googled to Get to Our Blog

Okay, guys. We’re glad that you found our special little corner of the internet. Like, it’s great. We’re glad that you’re here. But some of you Googled some pretty goddamn bizarre shit to get to us, from ‘LOL wut?’ to ‘WHAT THE FUCK!?’. Perhaps we shouldn’t judge too harshly, with our own lurid history with the Google search engine, and, to be fair, some of these searches are quotes from Minds Melding... but let’s get real, we’re judging the fuck outta you. We hope you enjoy a secret look into the life of our people and your peers.

“bad behavior of queen's corgis”

So. Naughty.

“fertility vase of the ndebele tribe”

“libertarians being called domestic terrorists”

“is stannis a hero” (The answer is no.)

“stannis submissive in bed”

Probably not.

“did joffrey baratheon feel guilt?” (The answer is also no.)

“still sleeping with his wife” (Who?? Mysteries abound.)

“daenerys targaryen boobs gif”

“daenerys boobs all”

“daenerys second sons naked”

“game of thrones dragon queen titts”

“daenerys targaryen tit”

“daenerys targaryen tits gif”

No tits here, guys!

“would stannis ever marry daenerys” (hmm...again no.)

“motherfuckings joffrey baratheon”

“joffrey needs his ass kicked”

“robb stark puppy” (awwwwww *sniffle*)

“joan mad men iron throne”

Can you imagine?

“some elderly negro woman”

“bob benson ‘are you a homo?’”

"ted's infatuation"

“did betty draper really gain weight?”

Do you mean January Jones? Ha, please!

"much older woman"

We close with the largest source of hits from Google searches to our blog:

“trust no one”

Top 6 Looks from Mad Men S6 E13: In Care Of

And the people around the world collectively exhaled. While we are sure that Don getting “laid off” was not a surprise to everyone, but we can’t imagine that anyone out there could have predicted the act that would be the final nail in his SC&P coffin. Don’s “pitch” to Hershey led to a many a mouth agape in our viewing party, as we sat there trying to process the words that were coming out of his mouth. It’s been one hell of a ride this year, huh? Weiner and friends managed to nicely tie up many of Season 6’s storylines, while leaving us all intrigued for what’s in store for the next and final season of Mad Men.

-What the hell is Pete Campbell doing? He, admittedly, had a pretty rough episode, with both personal (his mother) and professional (Chevy) losses. But when he told Trudy he was going to California and was then absent from the SC&P Partners meeting, a gigantic red flag went up. We have no idea what his plan is, but it can’t be good. Maybe the 7th Season will go in a new direction: a California-set sitcom featuring Don and Pete as a jolly pair of pranksters who won’t let the overly-serious Ted get any work done. Maybe not.

-This takes us right to: What the hell is Don Draper doing? We’ve figured that he was going to get out of the advertising biz, one way or another, eventually, but we now have a (basically) unemployed Don and entire season to get through. Will he spend some time in sunny California (with or without Megan)? Start his own agency or get hired by another firm? Reconnect with Midge in some Village crack den? Finally get off the drink and focus all his energy on being a good Dad? Don certainly was “going down,” but it’s all up from here, right? This episode was a bit of a game changer for Don. We’re interested in his next step for the first time in a very long time.

Quotes:

• DON: Los Angeles is not what you see in the movies, it’s like Detroit, with palm trees.
• ROGER: Well you know what they say about Detroit, it’s all fun and games til they shoot you in the face. (Some things never do change)
• PETE: NOT GREAT, BOB!
• SALLY: Well, I wouldn’t want to do anything immoral.
• PETE: Honestly, I have bigger problems than this.
• JIM: Chanel No. 5?
  PEGGY: It’s all I wear
  
• TED: I told your neighbors I was a cop.
  PEGGY: You should go before they kill you.
• CAROLINE: I’d invite him to my place for Thanksgiving, but Ralph stopped drinking and you know little Ralphie’s spastic... I think both are too much for him.
• DON: Happy Thanksgiving, sweetheart.
• BUD: Did they check the beaches?
  MAN ON PHONE: First of all, there are a lot of sharks.
• MEGAN: I used to feel pity for them, but now I realize we’re all in the same boat. 
• LOU AVERY: Going Down? 

Looks:

6. Megan Steely Blue Reserve Outfit

This bottom slot was a tough spot to fill. Honorary mentions go to Trudy, Margaret, and Joan’s Snow Leopard outfit. Megan doesn’t wear a lot of a blue, which is a shame because it looks so great with her eyes, but in this episode it was the only actual color that she wore (also on her nightgown and final ensemble). Megan always takes it just a little bit too far, doesn’t she? The funky-printed blouse and leather vest combination wasn’t enough for her, she just had to throw on the scarf. Regardless of her taste level, she always looks young, hip, and wealthy, and this is no exception. Megan’s future seems to be a bit up in the air, but we’re hoping that this is not her final entry on our list of favorite looks (Well, at least one of us is!). 

5. Stan Suited Up

Man with a plan Stan look looked mighty fine in his dapper little suit. Sure, Don may have stolen Stan’s great idea to talk the partners into giving him the Californian Sunkist position, but Stan can rest easy knowing he is adorable in a tie. This brown and blue suit is still very Stan, with its patterns galore, and would also have been a great first piece for a new West Coast wardrobe. Don’t cry too much, Stan, looks like Pegs is a free woman again, maybe the two of you can finally get on the same page? Just keep on doing you, and enjoy that sandwich. Also, how nice does the newly-named SC&P logo look? 

4. Clara’s Pink & Purple Print

We can’t believe that Clara has worked for Pete for as long as she has (perhaps a crippling shopping addiction has prevented her from even thinking about getting caught applying for other jobs?), and we hope that we are able to continue to feature her fun and fresh outfits in the season to come. For whatever reason (really nice Christmas bonuses?), she seems to respect and even like Pete enough to be rooting for him to succeed. We give her a hard time, but we can't complain about the presence of Clara because she has treated us to some truly great clothes this season. This pink and purple dress may feature a bit of a busy print, but it is completely working for us. We prefer Clara with her hair up, mostly so we can focus on her jewelry, in this case those great hoop earrings. 

3. Peggy in Pants

Peggy also had a bit of a rough time this episode (Did anybody besides Joan have a good time?). Luckily for the world, when Peggy is faced with personal failures, she usually responds by focusing all of her energy on her work. This scene saw Peggy spending Thanksgiving at the office. At first we only see the top half of her outfit. We see the strong and powerful red turtleneck and the bold graphic vest. And then. AND THEN. The camera pans down to reveal a pair of motherfucking polyester pants! Peggy is at work, IN PANTS. Women’s trousers would finally become an office staple in the 70s, but leave it to our girl, Peggy, to get that much-needed trend started at SC&P. Also, can we all reflect on that Ah-mazing shot of her at Don's desk, framed EXACTLY like the one of Don every week? 

2. Joan’s Holloday with her Boys

Granted, a redhead in green isn’t exactly a revelation, but why fuck with perfection? Joan looks spectacular. She changed out of her serious suit from the partners’ meeting and let her hair down to spend her Thanksgiving holiday with the most important men in her life: her son, her son’s father, and her best friend. Who doesn’t want to spend Thanksgiving listening to “Moon River” with Joanie? Love, love, LOVE the gold peacock brooch. Roger’s gift of Ocean Spray’s Cranberry Sauce was a great touch and we also had quite the reaction to Bob Benson’s apron. Wish we could have seen Gail’s hair.

And our favorite look from the season 6 finale of Mad Men is... 

1. Peggy’s Adultery-Inducing Dress

Four screencaps of Peggy vamping it up because why not? Peggy sure has come a long way from her earliest attempts at seduction. Peggy wore this little number after Ted’s wife showed up to the office, when Peggy had a date with a finance guy. Of course, this dress was put on purely for Ted’s torture/enjoyment. Peggy knew exactly what she wanted and knew that this getup would get it for her. She was not at all surprised to see Ted at her apartment, where she would quickly accomplish her mission (leading to tragic/for the best(?) results). We appreciated Ted’s rather human reasoning of “because I don’t want anyone else to have you,” and classic Peggy locking her dangerous apartment door as they begin to undress each other.