The entire town of Sunnydale goes silent when a group of strange creatures called The Gentlemen appear and steal everyone's voices. Buffy and the gang must solve the mystery and overcome the bad guys without being able to discuss their battle plan.

Hush

One of the best buffy episode ever: a great joss episode with a simple idea: 20mn silence with one of the best score. Where the all thing is kinda explain by walsh lecture about communication at the start of the episode. The gentlemen are the scariest smiling evil ever (and we still don’t know why they need seven hearts) and well the ugliest death (head exploding: ewww). And some strange minions.

Too bad we have riley (kissing buffy, blindluckily finding the gentlemen HQ, wrongly destroying a bottle in place of the voice box, nearly killing forrest and him by using the lift that use voice recognition system as security, …………..who trained that guy?)

At least, we have the introduction of tara, anya at her top form (eating poc corn during giles lecture, discussing private stuff in public, miming and finally understanding how much xander love her ……….. well you doesn’t beat a neutral vampire without reason), spike (his need for weetabix for his blood, sleeping at xander, ….), some great acting from everyone having to communicate/show emotion without words.

The episode develop the season arc with the revelation of the secret identity of buffy and riley (with a funny scene at the end of the episode: once again bringing the communication problem when the both are about to discuss what happened but are unable to explain themselves)

Exceptional story telling

Totally compelling with typical Joss self-assuredness. He manages to make the verbal silence both creepy and fun. I love how he switches between the fun misunderstanding between Xander and Spike to the Gentleman chasing Tara and Willow.

I love the subtle inference to the effect that Buffy is a modern 'spoilt princess' driven home brilliantly by having Buffy acknowledge she is with her 'How do I get my voice back' on the message board.

Emma looks creepily thin when she first appears on screen outside Giles flat. Her face is to die for though.

Again Riley seems pretty sweet almost compelling here. I wonder if circa Goodbye Iowa I will change my mind. I have no fixed prejudices about Riley other than he was a little underdeveloped.

Maybe this is hindsight speaking but Amber seems to fit in straight away. I love the totally deadpan dialogue at the wicca group especially the line about 'who left their scented candle drip on my women power shrine?'.

I could articulate one of my outlandish interpretations but there is not enough here to support one. At the beginning Maggie makes it clear it is all about communication and Giles emphasises the Gentlemen are fairy tale monsters so it is somewhat straightforward. Joss has commented that one of the influences on the look of the Gentlemen was Mr Burns from The Simpsons. What to take from that though? 9/10. sk

This is about as good as Buffy gets.

John mentions Joss' self-assuredness and that is spot on. In a show that has its dialogue and verbal wit as one of it's biggest factors, it's incredibly brave to produce an episode which for at least half its length has no dialogue whatsoever. The scene in the lecture theatre was sheer comedy genius... the mimed staking of course stands out... obvious, but somehow still funny. And Sarah's expression when she sees Giles drawing of Buffy is priceless.

But the thing I always remember is the Gentlemen. The Burns influence is clear when it's mentioned to you, but there is something almost primal about them, something common to everyones nightmares. Especially the floating... so spooky. I know the story of the gentlemen isn't a 'real' fairy story, but Joss seems to have tapped into the same elements that our tradtional tales have come from, before they were sanitised by the Victorians and Disney. :fear:

Loved the introduction of Tara, was always a big fan. There are little hints of what is to come between her and Willow. Amber is just stunning, and I'm a huge fan.

It was pretty much impossible to find something I didn't like in this episode. Close to perfection.

Andrew :yahoo: