|
WE'LL FIGURE THIS OUT…
In this section, I will address some of the topics that didn't really warrant their own full length commentary. Some thoughts that have either been the topics of e-mails sent to me, or just things that I want to mention. Before I get into that though, I want to recommend to all of you that you pick up the graphic novel of Joss Whedon's comic series "Fray". It's about a future Slayer, and I did take it into account while writing season 8, so it's worth the read. Okay, now onto business… "We'll figure this out" Yes, the line is said about a billion times during the season. If you didn't notice it before, it will bug the hell out of you now. Was it on purpose? Well, honestly, no. But it just fits so easily into just about every episode. They say it a lot on the real show too. Hank One question that people ask me is "What's the point of Hank being there?" They don't really like him, and he never went evil or anything, so why bother? For me, there are a few reasons. First of all, I wanted to add more characters that didn't know about the supernatural. Hank was an interesting choice because of that tension that he would bring. Buffy doesn't really like him. In her eyes, he abandoned her and never looked back. When writing him, I tried to make that story a little more complicated. Joyce and Hank are characters, just like everyone else on the show and we've rarely seen a nice, simple, black and white breakup. Add the fact that they were married for about 20 years, and it has to be more complicated than it seemed on the show. So bringing Hank back was just interesting to me, from a writing standpoint. Was he cleared of all charges? No. The relationship between Hank and Buffy was always strained, and it would take a lot of work to even begin to fix that. We only saw the first steps. The reason he never went evil is because everyone already thought of him as evil. It's much neater to make him more human. The Artist The Artist never actually got a name, but she did get a face. In "Legacy, Part 2" we see her with a hood that covers her face, so Buffy never sees her. However when Jenna sees her in "Hide And Seek", it's revealed that she has a familiar face. That of Amber Benson, who played Tara on the show since season 4. So what is the deal with the Artist? Well, I am going to leave that open for interpretation. However, we do see her setting up the events that take place much later. She is a powerful witch who stores the amulet of Morel Divineh in the lightning rod that she creates, by using a Doll's Eye Crystal. The same crystal that Tara gave to Willow in season 4. Tara was the dream guide in the episode "Restless", back in season 4. In those dreams, she said to Buffy "You think you know ... what's to come ... what you are. You haven't even begun." This means a lot more when you see the finale of season 8, and realize Buffy's true destiny. Why did I write this into my season? Because I always thought that there was more to Tara than met the eye. At first, they built a big mystery about her on the show, but then it was revealed to be nothing in an episode that seemed a little flat to me. Her family just seemed like a bizarro version of the Scoobies. I never expected her to be evil, just more than she was. Even until her death, I suspected that she was more powerful than she was letting on. But where would she get that. Listening to her speak in season 4 about where she found the crystal and how long she's been practicing provide clues. Still, the Artist remains a mystery because it's more fun that way. There are a number of ways to explain her. Good luck! Why Kill Faith? One of the easiest episodes to write, but also one of the hardest. I'd been thinking about it for months. I knew it had to happen, because it came down to two options. Give Faith her own episode to die in, or not show her die at all, but know that she does still die in the finale with all of the other nameless Slayers. In the end, I thought she deserved more than that. So I wrote "It Just Is" as the final note to the Faith story. Letting her finally find love and some kind of peaceful life, only to have it ripped from her. In the end, that's what kills her. She can kill the vampires involved in Robin's death, but they still manage to defeat her. I wanted it to happen this way because Faith was such a lost, lonely soul. She would get some, and get gone. Never settle down. Never come to peace with herself. Always running from something, whether emotionally or physically. In the end, I wanted her to have that love, and that life. I wanted to give her that much. In the end, she can't go back to the way she was. She can't just move past it. Losing that life kills her. Legacy These two episodes were kinda scary to write. I knew that I wanted to tell the story, but there's a certain risk involved here because these are unfamiliar characters who you will never see on TV. I wasn't sure that anyone would be able to connect to them. Luckily, the feedback has been good, so I'm happy with that. I think the plot speaks for itself, so I'll just talk about the quirky parts. First, the lack of main Scooby characters in the episodes, for the most part. This happened because I needed to write a handful of episodes over the course of the season that wouldn't require the actors. I was writing this as though the series had been picked up, so I put some challenges, or "rules" in there for myself. This included the idea that the season would be 22 episodes, but that the actors were only signed for 18 or so episodes. As a result, you have different characters absent from different episodes. The other odd thing about "Legacy" is that it's a two-parter, but not shown back to back like one would expect. There are a few episodes in between the two parts. I just wonder why no other show has done anything like this. The plot elements needed to be revealed at a specific pace, so showing part 2 right after part 1 wouldn't work. It also helped to spread the episodes without the Scoobies out a little because I wasn't sure people would accept them as much and I knew that later on in the season, there would be three episodes in a row without main characters at all. The Night Of Morel Divineh… Why do it? "Chosen" left things on what seemed to be a pretty happy note, right? So why bring it down by turning this into a huge mistake? Why kill all of the Slayers? Why make Buffy an uber-Slayer who must leave her life behind and begin a quest to destroy every demon on the planet? Well, first of all, "Chosen" seemed too simple. To call all of the Slayers didn't seem like a happy ending for me. It seemed like a can of worms that wasn't properly thought through. Not to mention, it was pretty much the First's fault that Buffy came to that decision, and the First is the master of manipulation. It couldn't really be a happy ending. The mistake had to be massive. It had to be something that Buffy would have to suffer with for the rest of her life because this was a very big decision that impacted the lives of thousands of people. There's no way to make this small. Which means that you can't just undo it in the end. You can't go back to the way things were because that's not how life works. In the end, all of those Slayers die and Buffy is left as the only one to fight the forces of evil. She has to devote the rest of her life to this cause because there will be nobody left when she's gone. This was written like this for a couple of reasons. First, Joss Whedon wrote the comic series, "Fray", and I wanted to match up to that as much as possible. This meant that Buffy would be the last Slayer, and there would be no need to other Slayers after her. At least not for a few hundred years. I even mention this in one of the scripts. The idea that there could be another Slayer again at some point. More than that though, I wanted to make Buffy stand out among the Slayers. Make her special. She has always been different, and more powerful than most Slayers. Yet, she hasn't really been the Slayer since season 2, when Kendra showed up. Since then, she hasn't been the one girl in all the world with the strength and ability. She's been one of them. First there were two, and then there were thousands. I wanted to end the series with Buffy being back to where she was to begin with. The one girl. The one with the weight of the world on her shoulders, and nobody else to help her when things get hard. Now, death isn't even an option for her until she's done with her mission. I did give her a little slack though. She's a super Slayer now. The job won't be simple and will take quite a long time, but it will be a little easier now that she's got concentrated Slayer strength. It's not a happy ending, but it is a fitting ending in my opinion. Also, the struggle within Buffy is gone. The fight between a normal life and the life of a Slayer is over. Again, not the best possible outcome, but still fitting. Kennedy Evil? Kennedy. You love her, or you hate her. Which means that you love the fact that she was "bad" in season 8, or you hate it. But to me, it's more complex than that. In my opinion, Kennedy was a very flat character in season 7, and her relationship with Willow seemed forced. In season 8, I tried to explain and expand on who she was in season 7. First, I brought her back with a mission. To take the power of the Slayers for herself. Yet somehow, I didn't see her as evil. She wasn't evil. She was selfish, and closed her eyes to the facts in front of her, but she wasn't evil. She managed to convince herself that this was the best thing to do. In the back of her mind, she probably did know that it was wrong, but she didn't want to believe that, so she didn't. She still did her job as Slayer, killing demons, and she still cared about Willow. Everything bad that she did was driven by the selfish desire for power. Power corrupts. I wanted to explain the forced feeling of her relationship with Willow in season 7 too. This is why I made her dealings with the First go back to before she went to Sunnydale and met Willow. When she first met Willow and got involved with her, it was part of the mission. However, over time, things changed. It became complicated and messed up and it ended with Willow not liking her very much at all, just when Kennedy was starting to care more for Willow. The goal wasn't to make Kennedy evil, it was to make her human. Not the best human, but human. I knew it would probably upset people. Actually, I expected more violent reactions than I got. I guess that worked out well for me. Xander/Willow Yes, I know. Willow is a lesbian. She was deeply involved with Tara, and then slightly involved with Kennedy, so how could I possibly have her get involved with Xander? Well, here's how I explain this situation… First of all, I wanted some romantic relationships on the show, but I didn't want Buffy to be involved in any. Cookie dough, right? I also didn't want to have to cram too many budding romantic feelings for new characters into the season, which had a lot going on for Willow and Xander anyway. Dawn had a new character to fall for, and that was enough for me in that area. The only option, if I wanted to have a romance that had a history was Xander and Willow. This was good in my head because they did have such a strong history. It worked because they did love each other, and had had romantic feelings for each other in the past. Willow wasn't just falling for any guy. She was falling for Xander. The person that she's loved since she can remember. To ignore that history with a simple "well, she's a lesbian" is more of a betrayal of her past than having her fall for a man. She did love Xander, and she did love Oz. To forget all of that because of her relationship with Tara is like saying that Willow didn't exist before season 4. She fell for Tara the person, not Tara the woman (if you don't believe me, I'm sure the Joss quote is still out there somewhere). Now, as I watched the series play out on TV, and Willow was interested in women, I did still notice moments where she seemed to have feelings for Xander. Whether she was jealous of Anya, or sitting by Xander when he was in the hospital, she did still seem to love him. As a friend, of course, but also a little more. It was Xander's love that brought her back from the dark side in season 6. Xander was her closest, dearest, most beloved friend, even if it wasn't on a romantic level. So why rule out a relationship between them? I wasn't making a political statement here. I was just picking up threads that I noticed on the show and continuing with them. On Xander's side of this story, the romantic feelings are a bit newer. He did have that fling with her in season 3, but after that he didn't seem to go there too much. His relationship was very close, very loving, but not too romantic. Still, there were moments throughout the series where the two of them seemed to spark. I didn't want this to be a 'shipper' fanfic. I didn't want to force the characters together without purpose or cause. I didn't want to make it some weird fulfillment of my own wishes of seeing them together. I always thought they'd make a good couple, but I am just not that obsessed with it (no offense shipper writers. I'm sure you're all very nice and good at what you do, but I just never got the Buffy/Giles vibe). It felt natural to me. It felt right to do within the context of their arcs. That's why I did it. Other Slayers Over the course of the season, there are a handful of other Slayers that I featured in the scripts. The most notable being Jenna. Each of these Slayers showed a different aspect of the arc that I was putting Buffy through. Jenna was the one that we saw the most. The girl who was called to be a Slayer at a very bad time, and ended up severely injuring her little brother, and putting him in a wheelchair. This guilt stays with her, obviously. It would be hard to get over. It also makes it hard for her to accept her role as Slayer. To her, it's a curse. There are also hints that her own spiritual beliefs don't mesh with the world of spells and chanting. She is a different kind of person than we normally see on the show, which is what I found interesting about her. In the end, she is good, but she is coming at it from a different angle than the rest of the Scoobies. In "Over The Lips" we see two other Slayers. These Slayers are selling their blood in exchange for a ritzier lifestyle. When you get down to it, they're hookers. Not my most subtle metaphor ever, but it still worked, I thought. This was a dark underworld that was created after Buffy decided to call all of the Slayers. Slayer blood is worth a lot of money to demons. They'll either kill Slayers for it, or pay them for it. Girls without much in this world just might be willing to sell their blood. They're vulnerable, and Buffy sympathizes with that. On another level, it disgusts her. The last Slayer that was featured in her own episode (Road To Hell doesn't count… she wasn't a Slayer) was Randi, in "The Sanctity Of Youth". This Slayer was a little girl, about 5 years old. A girl with the power of the Slayer and the mind of a child. There is no way that she should be expected to handle this responsibility, yet there it is. She has no choice now. Her father is obviously not going to just ship her off to England, so this girl has no choice but to deal with it the best she can. There's nothing that Buffy can do about it. Now, yes. Randi's story was sad, and it just gets sadder when you realize that even though we don't see her in the finale, she does still die with the rest of the Slayers. The horrible reality of this situation. Not In Line With The Angel Continuity There are two angles from which I could address this matter. I'll do it both ways and let you decide which you'd prefer to go with.
|