Fear: The Princess Screamed Once

One subject that is covered in this chapter from Rhonda Wilcox's Why Buffy Matters is how the silence in 'Hush' altered the ways that the characters of Buffy interacted with each other. One example of this is the interaction between Buffy and her current love interest Riley. Before The Gentlemen stole the voices of everybody in the town, Buffy and Riley were on awkward terms, to say the least. The two were less than honest with each other and showed little sign of moving forward. However, once the two lost their voices, they were able to grow closer in an incredible short period of time. As Wilcox noted, Joss Whedon once said that a theme of 'Hush' is that "when we stop talking, we start communicating." (Wilcox 161) In the episode, Buffy and Riley communicate while fighting off the gentlemen; a fight that ultimately leads to the pair's first kiss. Sure enough though, when the town's voices are retrieved, Buffy and Riley are back to square one. The episode concludes with the two sitting apart from each other in silence, with Riley saying, "Well, I guess we have to talk." Wilcox observes that though the pair has their voices, "they are searching for words." (Wilox 161) The irony of Buffy and Riley's relationship during the episode was the fact that the two connected the most while they were unable to speak.