4.16 - Who Are You

Faith switches bodies with Buffy.

***

What we have here is your standard body switching story which we who read comics have seen over and over again.

Well, Joss takes the reigns on this one and makes it a lot of fun.

Sarah Michelle Gellar gets to act like Eliza Dushku's portrayal of Faith, and she actually does a really good job. She's got the mannerisms and the speech pattern down. Dushku, on the other hand, does a pretty good job of acting like Gellar herself. It's episodes like this that point out how much of the characters comes from the dialog. In this case, when Faith stands before Giles and explains that she's really Buffy, the lines sound just like something Buffy would say, but it's coming from a totally different character.These writers, Whedon especially, really know how to write for their characters.

And I like the journey that Faith went on. She started out thinking that Buffy was just a spoiled princess, and when it was over, I am sure she still thinks of Buffy as that princess, but she's seen what it's like to be loved and have friends who care about you, and she's not sure what to do with that. She is actually a better person (hopefully) for having walked a mile in the Buffster's shoes.

And Willow and Tara pretty much consumated their relationship with that spell, I think. If that wasn't a sex metaphor, I don't know what is.

My favorite moment in this episode comes with Faith/Buffy standing in front of her mirror after getting a bath. She's testing out Buffy's face in the mirror and trying out the line "because it's wrong!" over and over. Gellar is pretty freaking cute here.

Rating: 8/10