"Wild At Heart"
Airdate: November 9, 1999
It could just be me, but it seems like it's way too late in the year to still be mating season. After the sex-fest of "The Harsh Light of Day", I was generally unfazed by "Wild at Heart" -- well, okay, I'm generally unfazed by sex, but in the Buffyverse, sex usually means trouble, and I tend to get overwhelmed by this incredible sense of foreboding.
I'm fairly certain that Joss Whedon has sexual issues. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy. I worship and adore him. I probably shouldn't speculate on his high school traumas and rejections or anything. But man. Every time somebody has sex on Buffy, it seems to end in tragedy. Witness Angel turning into Angelus after boffing the Buffster; Xander nearly dying at Faith's hands after a quickie; Giles and Joyce having a tryst on the hood of a police car (that's wrong on a number of different levels); Drusilla dumping Spike for a Chaos Demon, then again for a Fungus Demon; Spike shagging Buffy to death...
Okay, so I made that last one up.
The point is that in a world of love gone wrong, Willow and Oz were something of a... well, I want to say "example" but I think I'll go with "anomaly". They were incredibly cute and strangely devoted, though; Willow's fling with Xander seems like a distant blip on the timeline compared to the case of the warm fuzzies I tend to get just looking at the two of them. Sometimes it gets a little saccharine and makes me a little queasy, but through it all I could count on one thing: no matter how miserable Buffy's love life got, or how pathetic Xander's became, I could always count on seeing Willow and Oz snuggling in their unique way at some point.
"Wild at Heart" is one of a very rare breed: the Ozisode. (Get it? Oz-episode? Ozisode? Nevermind.) The episode centers around the werewolf's animal side: he finds himself attracted to another girl, Veruca, who turns out to also be a werewolf. He has a crisis of judgment and self, conflicted between his love for Willow and his confusion because of what he is. He ends up fleeing Sunnydale, presumably to find some little shack in the woods and discover himself, and his relationship with Willow's left up in the air.
So yeah, consider this the end of an era.
The best thing about the episode is that for once Seth Green's allowed to take center stage and bring Oz into a little more living color; he gets to emote, for god's sake! What's strange is that Oz is usually just lurking in the background with the stoic face on and occasionally supporting Willow by holding her hand. Woohoo. Can't blame the guy for wanting to get back to movies. He's extremely underutilized on the show, especially considering that he's probably the most experienced cast member, with 36 features and 23 guest-starring or recurring television roles, according to the IMDB.
"Wild at Heart" also pulls us further into a storyline that'll be more prominent in the next episode: that of "The Initiative", those commando types we've seen running around Sunnydale and catching vampires for reasons unknown. We see Spike (James Marsters), in a very brief guest spot, being captured by members of the shadowy Initiative, and the trailer promises a lot more Spikey goodness in the next episode.
Though my favorite characters on Buffy aren't Willow and Oz, "Wild at Heart" is easily the best this season's seen so far. Outstanding performances, especially from Alyson Hannigan, give the episode the feeling, heart, and gut-wrenching emotion that's been mostly missing this season. There's a nice feeling that everything's clicking and coming back into place again, and the story seems to be hitting its stride... even if the werewolf costumes still look like Big Gay Possums.
-- Lisa Kohles
Buffy the Vampire Slayer airs Tuesdays on the WB. Check your listings for local airtimes.
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