A group of sinister creatures known as The Gentlemen arrive in Sunnydale and steal the population’s voices. They seek seven hearts, and Buffy must stop their killing spree.
You can be fairly confident of a high level of quality in an episode written and directed by Joss Whedon, and this one is no exception. As Riley and Buffy get closer, Anya starts to think Xander doesn’t care about her, and Giles’ love life experiences some ups and downs, the loss of a means of communication is very badly timed. However, luckily for us, it does lead to some great comedy moments and a revelation we’ve been expecting.
The Gentlemen are a wonderful creation. They’re immensely creepy and look just like something out of a Grimm fairy tale. Their credibility is slightly dampened by the creatures in asylum jackets lurching around behind them, but the way the Gentlemen move silently, without even touching the ground, makes them even more scary. Then of course, there’s their medical experiments, done in total silence on unwilling victims. It’s never explained what they need their seven hearts for, but it doesn’t really matter, as they’re more there for the atmosphere and a sense of threat.
Meanwhile, Riley and Buffy get closer to finding out the truth about their respective night jobs, leading to a great scene at the end where they sit down to talk and don’t know where to start. Xander and Anya also reach a new understanding when the former thinks Spike has bitten Anya and attacks him, showing the former vengeance demon he really cares and being offered a very self-explanatory symbol for his troubles.
I’m still annoyed that Spike isn’t doing much at the moment, but he’s also got some good moments in this story, with a gesture of his own that doesn’t leave much need for explanation. Now Riley has been revealed, maybe he’ll become a more active part of the story. The funniest part of the episode, though, is Giles’ slide show, in which his pictures tell the story of The Gentlemen in glorious red technicolour, leading to cringing from Buffy and friends and various other gestures that leave the viewer rolling about on the floor.
Although the entire thing is designed mainly to bring Riley and Buffy out into the open, it still works as a very different and atmospheric episode, with the arrival of a new potentially recurring character and plenty of great visual jokes, as well as the in-joke of Giles running his slide show to the tune of Dance Macabre, which aside from being appropriate here is also a fun reference to Anthony Stewart Head’s appearances in the early episodes of Jonathan Creek, for which this is the theme tune.
A few too many unexplainables mean this isn’t quite a perfect episode, but it’s definitely extremely good.
****
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