posted 26-05-2000 01:25 PM
The group is more fragmented than it used to be, because of the way relationships have developed. By the end of Series 1, The gang had jumped from four to six (Cordy's entry in "Out of Mind...", and the "How come she's in the club?" whine of Willow's about Jenny in "Prophecy Girl"). (Angel isn't really part of the gang, more an ally. Remember, it was due to Giles and Xander that he was in the episode at all!)So, we had our three amigos, our brainy englishman, his love interest, and the vamp-bait. A perfect team. So, what happened?
Xander has not had an easy time of it. Of his two childhood friends, he had to "kill" one of them. Bear in mind that he was sixteen at the time, and that's going to cause a few problems, to say the least. Imagine having to kill your best buddy, and you start to realise that there's a lot going on inside Xander. Maybe it wasn't just the Hyena talking when he asked Willow, "Wasn't it all much simpler before Buffy arrived?" (paraphrase).
He gets a crush on a teacher at school, who turns out to be a big bug and nearly kills him. He gets posessed be a hyena, hurts his best friend, and tries to jump Buffy (getting nothing more than a clip round the ear with a desk for his troubles!)
He finds that the girl he's really interested in is going out with an older man, and is therefore off the market. It then transpires that said older man is, in fact, one of the creatures that forced him to kill Jesse. Here now is a figure that he wasn't too keen on anyway, onto whom he can project all of the anger and hatred that he feels towards vampires in general.
When it turns out that Angel is a "goodie", he has to rein in this hatred, but his suspicion of Angel never goes away.
Finally, he works up the courage to ask Buffy out, and is rejected almost out of hand. Given the sort of person he is, he will have got used to rejection. But with Buffy, having become friends first will have reborn the seed of hope in his heart, allowing it to be bruised as if it were the first rejection. Even at this stage, the skids are under the group dynamic.
Then, enter Cordelia. This is a relationship that he knows he can't discuss with either Willow (joint chairman of the "We Hate Cordelia Club") or Buffy (would-be ex). In fact, it's just the sort of thing he could only talk to another guy with - oh, yes, but Jesse's dead, isn't he?
Next, Willow starts going out with Oz. That will have caused him to re-examine Willow in a new light. Up until this point, he'd probably not appreciated that she wouldn't always be there. (Ok, this idea would have taken a beating back in Prophecy Girl, but it wouldn't have died totally).
When the news about him and Cordy "hit the streets", as 'twere, he found he was getting the guy-type of teasing from Buffy, who he still cared a great deal for - pretty much playing the Sidney Carton to her Mary d'Evremant (Tale of Two Cities - I may have goofed on the names a little, but you know who I mean - the bloke who does the "far, far better thing" to save the husband of the girl he loves.)
However, the relationship with Willow was damged severely. This being the last of his "long-term friends", this will be the friendship that is closest to his heart, that he would work hardest to sort out.
When Angelus kills Jenny, all the hatred he had laid on Angel for being a vampire crystalises, and becomes personal. He no longer hates Angel for what he is. He hates Angel for WHO he is.
Then, Becoming Part 1 rolls around. Willow is critically injured. He himself was hurt in the fight. As he sat in the hospital, prior to Buffy's arrival, he would have been reanalysing life, probably with a clarity he had never before managed. It is significant that when Buffy fires off the quip, Xander, jovial Xander who always has a joke for everything, Xander is the one who has to be the sober one.
His soliloquy by Willow's bedside is possibly the most tender and bittersweet moments of the series. The sudden realisation that, deep down, he loves Willow, followed immediately by her waking with the name "Oz" on her lips, would take him from a moment of clarity to crushing despair in an instant. In that moment he would realise that, while Willow was the closest and dearest friend he had, he no longer occupied that position in her life.
So he struggles through. With the departure of Cordelia over the summer, and Buffy's disappearing act, it fell to him, Giles, Oz and Willow to keep the vampire threat at bay. Giles was constantly chasing up leads, so it was down to the kids again. Suddenly, the group is down to three people - at the heart of it this time is Willow. It would be during this summer that the castors were placed under his relationship with Cordelia. That the lady of his heart is no longer Buffy is made plain in "Dead Man's Party" - when Willow and Buffy are arguing, he leaps to Willow's defence, ordering Buffy to "Let her finish! You owe her that much!" Buffy's running off hurt all of them, but it hurt him more, because it hurt both him and Willow.
Since her return, there hasn't really been the opportunity to spend "quality time" as the three of them, or even just Buffy and Xander. What with him spending time with Cordy, and Buffy trying to split her time between school, home, Giles, Scott and Angel, it's no wonder the wounds have not begun to heal yet. But now that she can be open with the group (although how she tells her mother that her ex-honey is back in town is another thing entirely!) there is a chance that some ground can be made up, as Mr Gimp states. However, I seriously doubt that Buffy and Xander will ever be as close as they were in the first series. And CERTAINLY nowhere near "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" !