It's important to keep your skills current.

This is where I mention that I've got the entire run on tape - sometimes first run on CBC.

Yes, yes, yes. And I've pretty much got a complete run of MST on tape. However, tapes get decrepit. I don't envy anyone's tape collection - I want DVDs! I can't believe there's no demand for KITH on DVD, so I'm guessing rights issues. That's generally what holds these things up. Considering it was on in this country on HBO, then Comedy Central (and I think somewhere else - CBS late night?), and that it's CBC originally, I suspect the lawyers are fucking things up.

I just watched Wild at Heart again and the Joss/Marti/Seth commentary too (which is wonderful, I never want it to end, which is good as it nearly never does). I concede all the stuff about Oz's culpabilities. If you just take the metaphor as the text, then he is guilty as all hell. Seth is pretty clear about Oz's choices and while the writer-types duck, the actor is pretty direct. (cool). My only fanwank is this: if it isn't just about the metaphor, and I'd like to say that it shouldn't be just, on this show, then there is more going on than simply Oz is a betrayer. In the circumstances, there's more happening than his choice to screw around.

He's a werewolf, finding that the wolf is bleeding into his normal reality, and struggling to absorb that information and make it make sense. It is wolf moon time and he's not entirely driving the bus here. The other thing that is going on is the unfortunate other-reality that Seth has to be written out. Otherwise, it might have been possible that these two wacky kids just might have worked it out somehow. (/eternal optimist)

Anyway, IJS, that the subtext is a bit too much text in the ep, the bones are a little too close to the surface. Not that it isn't a fabulous and powerful ep, because it certainly is that.

And funny/sad, for me, I was just thinking that Wild at Heart might be the real break for me, from the series that was (the high school years) and the series that it would become. Angel is already gone (although not really, cuz he's on just after, in those days -grin-) but Oz leaving, that was a real dividing line, because he was really gone. Punctuated, of course, by the raw pain of the ep.

Great analysis JSw. And I agree. They took a REALLY bad situation (i.e. Seth leaving) and spun gold from it. Although they have mentioned that they always intended on breaking Oz and Willow up at some point, as an inevitability-type-thing, although not necessarily that Willow would have gone over to Tara. I'm actually glad it went this way, because they kinda botched this scenario when they did it with Xander/Anya. I doubt an Oz/Willow breakup would have played the same way, but Xander/Anya felt so doomed from day one that the actual breakup felt a little anti-climactic.

The only flimsy reason I have for thinking that they had consumated things is that Giles is not surprised in "Passion"

He isn't? I thought I saw a "huh?" on his face.

when he believes that she let herself into his house and decorated it quite romantically and elaborately.

Of course, anyone living in Sunnydale should have more of a "run screaming from home" reaction when they discover things inside that they didn't put there. And especially Giles.

Leading me to think that he gave her a key at some point and that usually implies intimacy.

Of course, no one living in Sunnydale ever, ever locks their front door. Especially not Giles.

(He's quite willing to complain about people taking advantage of that fact, though.)

I didn't say Oz didn't bear responsibility - just that his sin was more defensible and less of a betrayal than Willow's actions with Xander. Willow knowingly and consciously played footsie and stole kisses.

Stuff and nonsense. Willow's betrayal grew out of lifelong feeling for Xander. They had agreed to stop the messing around (which was never planned) and in fact, Willow was in the process of doing a de-lusting spell when Spike captured her and Xander. I give Oz a pass for his first time with Veruca, as well, but for the second time? Pish. Oz can talk to the hand. Any hand. But not Willowhand.

He broke my her heart.

He broke my her heart.

Me too. The final scene of the episode with Willow, ' My whole life, I've never loved anything else'? Cried. Like. A. Baby.

Oz can talk to the hand.

Word. He had Buffy standing right in front of him asking about the second werewolf, asking whether he was okay. All jokes about taciturn character traits aside, all he had to do was open his mouth and ask for help. And the only reading I can take from that scene, as much as I love Oz, is that he was choosing hairy-gorilla sex with a girl he didn't even like over Willow. So I tend to agree with Willow on this one--it doesn't compare to what she and Xander did.

I too see a difference between attraction/kissing and actions-you-know-will-(and-do)-lead-to-sex. But the real difference is that Oz failed and bailed, whereas Willow and Xander failed and fell all over themselves apologizing, trying to make amends, sometimes even in that egotistical way that Oz called Willow on (she's trying to feel better about herself, and is no longer apologizing for Oz's benefit).

People fail; that happens. (It even happens with human premeditation.) It's how they react to that failure that showcases character. And in Oz's case, the bailure (though not the failure) was extratextually mandated.

Actually, as much as I want to refuse Oz all forms of cookies because of the poor decisions he made here, his leaving didn't seem to me to fall into the poor decision category. He was playing with fire in respect to Veruca--all his fooling around nearly got people killed and if those decisions were affected by his wolfish nature, then I can understand the need to find some space to think about what that means.

On the other hand, it fits very well with his pattern of bailing when things get emotionally fraught so I'm just back to 'No cookie for Oz!'

Of course, anyone living in Sunnydale should have more of a "run screaming from home" reaction when they discover things inside that they didn't put there. And especially Giles.

To be fair, candles, rose petals, and wine aren't the kind of signs a monster would usually leave of its break-in. Angelus being the notable exception, of course.

Leading me to think that he gave her a key at some point and that usually implies intimacy.

Of course, no one living in Sunnydale ever, ever locks their front door. Especially not Giles.

Maybe he fell victim to stereotypical thinking about Gypsies and assumed she picked the lock?