It's a pity that this episode had to be such a rehash of "Phases." I've mentioned that I feel the writers don't have much of a good idea what to do with Oz, and the fact that Oz's first substantial story in a long time is essentially a rehash of that earlier one doesn't do much to persuade me otherwise. People are being mauled to death and we're led to suspect it might be Oz. But of course, it's not. Again."Every guy from Manimal down to Mr. I-Love-The-English-Patient has beast in him. And I don't care how sensitive they act. They're all still just in it for the chase."
- Faith
And once again, the plot is tied to a metaphor about men being like animals, which isn't very interesting except insofar as it relates to Buffy's discovery of Angel in his feral state. But even this isn't all that interesting: It complicates the plot with another unpredictable element, but other than that it doesn't have much impact.
Which is odd, because it should. Maybe their reunion ought to have been saved for a different episode. On paper, it sounds like it should work: we begin the episode with Willow reading Call of the Wild to Oz, but we hear Buffy saying the words and we're not sure why. Then we end the episode with Buffy reading it to Angel, and we've come full circle. But I don't know that the parallel works well enough, and it seems to gimmicky to really have the sort of impact it should. Though maybe that's just me.
In any case, I like Scott. It's obvious from the start that there's no future between him and Buffy, but unlike many of Buffy's other pseudo-boyfriends some effort is made to make him distinctive. He's too interested in Buffy for his own good, and this episode marks the second time he should have walked away but didn't.
Other than that, there's not much to say about this episode. The werewolf looks doesn't even look good. I prefer the older version.
Man, I don't even remember this episode. I don't even really remember Scott.
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