The Watcher Diaries - Triangle - Buffy Episode 5.11

Posted by Jason Chamberlain on 01.13.2010

This week in Sunnydale, there's an odd love triangle between Xander, Anya and.... a troll?!



5.11 Triangle
Writer: Jane Espenson
Director: Christopher Hibler

Slayer Speak

Buffy: I killed something in a convent last night.
Xander: In any other room, a frightening declaration. Here, a welcome distraction.

Willow (imitating Anya): I like money better than people. People can so rarely be exchanged for goods and/or services!

Olaf: You there! Do you know where there are babies?
Spike (to Xander): What do ya think, the hospital?
Xander: What? Shut up!

Watcher’s Notes

Tara has a shrimp allergy... Anya was recruited to be a vengeance demon after she turned her boyfriend Olaf into a troll for cheating on her.

Ron Martin has the full review!

Ah, welcome to the quintessential comedy episode meant to be a bumper between the big storyline we just laid on you and the episode where the next chapter of the story starts. Yes, there may be no better version of this kind of episode than “Triangle.” With the Riley story wrapping up in the last episode not so nice for the characters (no matter what the fan base may have wanted) and the Joyce storyline about to kick into high gear, “Triangle” is the writers’ way of bridging the gap with alleged comedy.

Regular Buffy viewers understand that at some point in the season, each title character will get their own episode. That how we get our “Zeppos” and “A New Mans.” Seeing as this season has so much going on, what with the inclusion of Dawn, the Joyce storyline, Glory/Ben, Spike’s falling in love with Buffy and of course, the Riley fiasco, season five doesn’t have a whole lot of “this character’s episode” or “that character’s episode.” What the writers’ have decided to do in the case of “Triangle” is take two characters (Willow and Anya) and meld their episodes into one with (alleged) hilarious results. You will find no bigger Anya fan in this state or on these pages than myself, but even I have to admit – this just didn’t quite click.

All of a sudden after almost two years, Willow decides to get all protective like of Xander and uses her personality clashes with Anya as an excuse to accuse her of one day hurting Xander thus setting us up with the Buffy version of wacky tag team partners who hate each other. This riff between Willow and Anya has never been hinted at before other than Willow’s outspoken distaste for Anya’s bluntness, but we’re supposed to accept it as having been a deep slow burning issue all this time.

The one good thing that comes from this pairing is everyone’s favourite giant guest star, Abraham Benrubi. I am afraid that as excited as I was to see his name in the opening credits, not even the great Kubiak could save this one. Benrubi comes to us in the form of Olaf the Troll, made such a creature by Anya in a deed that would eventually open doors for her to become a vengeance demon. While the backstory on Anya is very much appreciated, the pairing of Willow and Anya just don’t work. That’s one spinoff I could do without.

The substory here is actually much funnier than the headliner. Buffy is freaking out because of her inability to keep a man in her life and goes crazy insane at the thought of Xander and Anya having any sort of relationship problems whatsoever. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s face every time strife in a relationship is mentioned is awesome. It’s this blind rage that would eventually defeat the Troll but not before Olaf has made a pretty good run beating up on both Buffy and Spike, breaking Xander’s wrist and destroying the Bronze. Got to love the Troll Hammer.

The ending of the episode where Xander is made to choose literally between Willow and Anya, with the one he doesn’t choose dying seems contrived and very corny. Talented writers like the ones at Mutant Enemy should have been able to handle this better. Not even a dimension without shrimp could save this one.

Ronny Sarnecky	While on the outset, this episode appears to be a stand alone “monster of the week” program in the Season Five arc, this episode foreshadows the future of the series in many ways. When Buffy defeated Olaf, he left his hammer behind. In the typical TV world, you would never see the hammer again. However, this is “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” The hammer will come back into play later in the season. In the scene where Anya and Willow while trying to counter the spell gone bad, a couple of hints in regards to future storylines are dropped. One is the eventual turn to evil that will face Willow next season. The other is that Anya would return to her demon ways. Let’s not forget the most important storyline advancement, Dawn knows that something is going on with her, after she overheard Buffy and her mom talking. I thought that having Olaf’s backstory as that of Anya’s old boyfriend was an interesting twist. I don’t remember if we see Olaf again in the series, but a return where he tries to win Anya back could be funny. Olaf was an interesting demon. He wasn’t your typical scary, must die demon. He was a man, who was turned into a troll, and adapted to their way of living. Olaf is a very likeable demon. “Triangle” was the first post-Riley episode. One of the main subplots to this episode was how “Buffy” was reacting. Buffy went through several stages of “break up” all in this one show. There was anger, as she destroyed a vampire, and wailed on Giles in training. Denial, by telling Dawn that it will be okay, and will get easier. Then finally sadness, as Buffy finally broke down about the break up while talking to Tara. While this was an enjoyable episode, I only consider this an average episode. I give the rating a small bump to the foreshadowing involved in the episode.	6.5
Mike Gorman	Aside from a few comical moments with Abraham Benrubi as Olaf the troll, I must say that I really didn't like this episode. Specifically, the Anya and Willow pairing meant to be comedic genius just really fell flat for me. I felt bad for the actresses the entire time as I know that they are better than the writing this week. The entire situation just felt a bit out of left field and forced, which can work sometimes for this series but fell flat this week. Buffy's emotional outbursts at Riley's departure also felt a bit overdone. She had plenty of opportunities to keep him around but kept pushing him away because in the end maybe she knew he was just plain boring. I guess she had forgotten that this week. (Sorry, my Riley disdain had to resurface eventually!) Perhaps it is because next week's episode coming is so good that I felt let down by this one as a lead up. It is one of the rare few episodes I can safely say I would be ok with never seeing again. >	5
Jason Chamberlain	The best thing about this episode is easily Olaf the troll. And thank god for his presence, because otherwise this one wouldn’t have been very enjoyable. Maybe it’s because Anya is one of my least favourite characters, and there’s a lot of her in this episode. Frankly, I was cheering Willow on as she told her off! I have to admit, Buffy’s relationship strife was pretty funny, especially her muffled “miraculous love” into Tara’s shoulder.	6
Jeremy Thomas	I'm with my compatriots here…there are a lot of great episodes in Season Five, but "Triangle" isn’t one of them. It was a necessary episode…or at least, a "Monster of the Week" episode was necessary. We'd just had a major emotional turn of the series with Riley's departure, and the Whedonverse creators know very well that there needs to be a cathartic episode after those in order to pace things well. The problem here is that, while it was necessary and handled a dynamic that needed to be straightened out between Willow and Anya, the troll story just seemed forced and the plot just sort of keeps going in this episode without any real point to it. I appreciated the work that Alyson Hannigan, Emma Caulfield, Nicholas Brendan and especially Abraham Benrubi put in, and Gellar does some good stuff in going wacko when relationship issues come to the forefront of conversation, but otherwise this episode felt like filler, which is something less than most Buffy filler episodes achieve.	6

GRR!!! ARGH!!!

The 411: While not as unwatchable as some episodes in the first two seasons, with the quality of Season Five surrounding it, "Triangle" stands out as see through attempt at place holding in a season with massive storylines. As much as I love me some Anya, her pairing with Willow just didn't work out. Abraham Benrubi and Buffy's obsession with keeping relationships together were good enough to keep this one on the plus side of 5.

Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]