OT: ARGH! Damn Spoilers!--SPOILERS!! (for "Tabula Rasa" & ep 9 promo)

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

(Note: there's a snippet down below. I hadn't intended to put it in,
but these letters take on a life of their own. Below is the original
letter--this note is a late revision.)

(Later note: this one's long)

Okay, I'm back with the ep discussion. I know someone slagged me on
another list for "obnoxious posts that only rant", but that's not my
intention, and ep discussion is part of the concept of this list. My OT
posts are clearly labeled, so anyone who has problems with them should
probably have already moved on to the next thing in your inbox. I hope
no one is offended by any of these statements; I'm just a little wigged
by getting dissed "behind my back" and yet still in public, as it were. 

Anyhow, part of this letter is contrasting the actual ep to the spoilers
for it that Lip Shakur posted on 10/30, which contained something I wish
had happened, but didn't. And when I start getting oblique, that's the
cue for the spoiler-space, in this case

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(Phoen, I hope that's enough--I don't have a way to simulate your
monitor size and adjust accordingly. If it's not, my bad.)

Yeah, I'm talking about the "Willow is attracted to Buffy when they get
amnesia" thing, which was mentioned in the spoilers, but didn't make it
in the show. Where'd that go? Waaaah!

I've got to say that when I got spoiled by Lip's post, I was so psyched.
I mean, quasi-half canon, baby! (Canon is if they both admit it
[Buffy/Angel], half-canon is if one does [Willow/Giles]; this would
have been Willow admitting it, albeit under magickal circumstances) I
was all set to talk about this being the first step--even had a fic
sketched out with Willow taking solace in the knowledge that no matter
how much people hate her, at least now she knew her true feelings and
couldn't lie to herself any more.

Well, that's why you shouldn't start fic ideas based on spoilers or
previews. I still remember that "New Moon Rising" preview which made
Tara look like a menace and that blowing out of the candle seem
sinister. Live, learn, and then have to learn again. *Sigh*

Oh, heck, let me do a few 'graphs here. "All Gone" would have ended
something like this:

(I guess, technically, this is a snippet, and it rates PG, 'cause G
doesn't stand for Gay. Willow p.o.v.)

"?and I know that it was love. I mean, yeah, we were stripped of
everything that defined us, our memories of details, and incidents and
relationships, but we were still us. I was me, 'cause that's who I am,
and Buffy was Buffy, even though she was Joan.  

"And I loved her. Like I always have--no, like I always should have,
without all the fear and the reasons not to think that way and the 'oh,
no, it's just a friend kind of love' stories I told myself. I didn't
know I wasn't supposed to love her, so I just did.

"So they can turn away from me and Xander can look at me like I'm nuts
and Tara can leave and Buffy can go kiss Spike--what is she thinking?
He's never going to be Angel; if she wants Angel, she should go be with
Angel. I know it's tough for her with Angel because of the history, but
the only reason she and Spike don't have a history is because they don't
have a history. I mean it's not like after she's been with Spike a
while they won't have the same 'it's never going to work with a vampire'
problems she had with Angel, because Spike is a vampire, and he's always
going to be one, and not that nice a one, either. 

"'But Buffy doesn't want Angel, any more than she wants Spike. I know
who she wants, even though there's no way I can tell her. She wants me.

"Because I know what I felt, what WE felt, even if I didn't know what it
was. And I know she felt the same thing--we're too close for me to be
feeling one thing and her another, cause if I didn't feel so connected,
so in synch with her, I wouldn't have felt so close. And we are
connected--even now I know that's true. That's why Tara leaving
doesn't hurt nearly as much as Buffy shutting me out, and that's why
Buffy's shutting me out, instead of punching me out, like she'd do to
Xander if this was his fault. But it's mine and she can't hurt me, so
she hurts herself.

"And, Goddess, that hurts me. Almost as much as knowing it was me that
hurt her to begin with.

"But even though I've got nothing, I've got this. What Buffy and I
share is the most important thing in my life. We could have kept calling
it friendship and I would have been happy until I died. But I know the
truth now--however I meant it when I said "I love you", she meant it
the same way. And if I was lying to myself, then she was lying to
herself, too.

"So no more lies, because I've got nothing and it's stupid to have
nothing but lies. I love Buffy, and therefore, she loves me.

"I've got nothing, and that's all I need."

Yup, that's how it might have gone, but I'm Jossed out of existence
before there even was an ep to spin it off from. Did I say *sigh*?

Other than that, I loved the ep. Which makes me feel better about
hating the earlier eps this year--it's not that my perceptions were
skewed because I was upset about the story arc, eps 3-6 were just bad
TV. I continue to enjoy Rebecca Kirshner's work and my worries that
this script would suffer without her "Tough Love" director, David
Grossman, were nicely alleviated when I saw the "directed by David
Grossman" credit. Keep the two of them together, Joss.

(Why do I think Grossman improved on Kirshner's "Tough Love" script?
Three things:

1) in the script, Anya's "us of A" remark is the more conventional "U.S.
of A".

2) in the script, when Anya says of the captured minion, "he's one of
those things that work for Glory" and Giles goes "Yes. How helpful.",
it comes off as Giles zinging Anya again. Like in "Dead Man's Party",
when Cordelia says "worse than a zombie?" and Giles gives her a
withering look and "Yes, worse." But on air, that "how helpful" was
played for wonderful menace.

3) in the script, when Giles sends Willow and Anya to get rope and then
tortures the minion off-camera, we're supposed to come back to the
minion on the floor in obvious pain. But on air, neither he nor Giles
appears to have moved a muscle, which makes his fear and Giles's
apparent torture so much more scary.

1) and 2) could just be Emma and Tony having ideas, respectively, but 3)
seems like it came from Grossman, so I'm inclined to give him credit for
it all.

And that's why I was glad to see him directing from Kirshner's script
again. I'll be quite interested to look at this script and see what he
changed this time, and also if the Willow-digs-Buffy thing is in the
script and just got cut, like the wonderful "we don't like boys" line
that vanished from "Becoming, Part 1")

[Hmm, I probably should explain that. In the shooting script--not a
draft, the script the actors got--there's a Buffy/Joyce scene that
happens right after Buffy talks to Willow on the telephone and before
she meets Kendra while on patrol. Joyce thinks Buffy is going to
Willow's to study for finals--which she was, after patrol--and tells
Buffy to actually study, "don't spend all evening talking about boys."
To which Buffy replies "Oh, we don't like boys. Not while we're
studying, I mean." And then a couple of crosses fall out of Buffy's bag
and Joyce says that even though they're agnostics, maybe a deeper
interest in religion will be good for Buffy. I guess the scene got
edited out due to time constraints. Which is a pity, because that line
is 'shipper heaven.]

Getting back to "Tabula Rasa", I loved all the comedy, from Buffy
telling the (literal) loan-shark to close his eyes (sorry, not possible)
to Spike's disgust at discovering he's British to the hug Rupert gives
his "son", to "I think I'm kinda gay" redux. And I loved how well the
drama flowed in the first scene after the credits, with the somber mood
over Buffy's "heaven" revelation sliding easily into the big W/T breakup
argument.

And Kirshner makes it clear, without it turning into a Public Service
Announcement, that the Willow story is being cast in
compulsion/addiction terms. Some people seem to get all riled up and
claim that I'm going "yay, addiction", but I'm just glad to see this
storyline maintain an inherent sympathy for the redhead--I don't say
Willow can do no wrong, it's just much better to see her as "messed-up
girl" rather than "thing of evil". To touch an old point, a thoroughly
corrupted and thus always inherently evil Willow would invalidate
Buffy's protective care for her in the earlier eps, and that problem
could not be solved by having Buffy now be protective of Dawn. Because
if Willow could turn out to be unworthy of Buffy's efforts, why should
we care about what happens Dawn, who, for all we know, could turn out
just the same? The good guys have to be good guys (complex, evolving,
tormented good guys, but still), otherwise why should we care about
whether they win their fights? If Willow is evil, why couldn't Buffy be
(aside from being the lead character)? Joss is too good to be so
nihilistically pointless.

(Again, Angel, who always had the well-defined potential for darkness,
is a special case.)

(BTW, not to Dawn-bash, but I'm still having the problem someone else
talked about a while back. Buffy has memories of Dawn we don't have,
therefore Buffy cares more about Dawn than we do. It's emotionally
dissonant.)

But I don't think Willow's prompt use of the amnesia spell means she has
zero willpower. I think she just told Tara "no magic" to get out of the
argument, she was always going to do the spell. She disagrees with
Tara's "it's wrong to use magic to make your friends happy, because we
should have free will to be miserable" argument, which is her right,
even if she's wrong to force her opinion on them like this. 

So I'm reasonably happy where the storylines are going, especially in
light of the 'shippiness of "Once More With Feeling". That "Wish I
Could Stay" duet, with Giles and Tara, the cautious, knowledgeable
characters realizing that they had to let go of Buffy and Willow, the
powerful, headstrong, "I'll do it my way and deal with the consequences
later" characters, that basically drew an equivalency between B & W.
Joss said the theme of the season was "Oh, Grow Up" and just like Buffy
must learn to make do without Giles to be a mature Slayer, so must
Willow leave the safe harbor of Tara to mature herself. This point is
further brought out in "Tabula Rasa", where the W/T argument is followed
by Giles's "I'm going"--over a very angry Buffy's objections.

So Buffy and Willow are on parallel courses. For B/W fans, the allure
is that the parallel lines must intersect, since Buffy's main dilemma is
still the "I miss heaven" syndrome and everyone, including Willow,
blames Willow for it. It would seem that for Buffy to be reconciled to
her situation, she must be reconciled to what Willow did, and therefore
to Willow.

The danger is that they could be using the parallels to tell contrasting
stories, with Willow (being the non-title character) as the one whose
story has a tragic end, but I don't think so.

Oh, and was it not wonderful that when G/T were singing of letting B/W
go, we saw our girls sharing their sweetest scene of Season 6, silent
though it may have been? Buffy still seemed a little emotionally closed
off, but she wasn't trying to move away, she didn't have her arms folded
across her chest or anything defensive, and Willow was at her sweetest.
The only thing that marred the scene was that U-G-L-Y black coat they
had Willow in.

And I have to like AngryBuffy, because the rule of the Buffyverse is
that letting it out is a good thing. So now we don't have any secrets,
we're into the yelling (although she hasn't yelled at Willow yet) and
afterwards comes the healing (and hugging and smooching?okay, got a
little ahead of myself). Buffy and Willow are getting in touch with
their emotions and that gives us the 'shippy moment of Willow lamenting
"We were selfish. **I** was selfish." See, she admits she made her
mistakes because she wanted Buffy back, because she couldn't live
without her, because she loves her. "The subtext is rapidly becoming
text" (Giles to Buffy, "Ted").

And another good thing about that first scene, I liked how Kirshner drew
the contrast between Xander and Willow--faced with a problem, Willow's
willing to try anything, no matter the cost, but Xander, with a complex
issue before him, deals by not dealing, which here is almost a
deliberate choice. I just didn't like Anya's bit about the shoes in
heaven. Let's do something with Anya rather than just give her old
Cordelia lines, okay?

On to the Spike/Buffy thing: well, I'm glad the spoilers ("Buffy deals
with sleeping with Spike") were wrong here, I must say. And the second
kiss doesn't trouble me much more than the first. Joss basically
spelled it out: it's a mistake and Buffy knows it ("This isn't real,
but I just want to feel"). She's empty, and hopes that by indulging
Spike's passion, she can feel again ("I just want to feel alive.") Vent
a little, sober up, move on. No worries.

And Joss did us the great thing of having Spike himself debunk that
"you're the only one I can talk to" balderdash. He sings "a whisper in
a dead man's ear, that doesn't make it real"--see, it's not that Spike
is some great nonjudgmental guy, it's just that Buffy doesn't care what
he thinks. He's like her diary, up and walking around.

Plus Marti Noxon, in an interview with Zap2it.com, said that Buffy's
interest in Spike was an immature urge for the wrong guy. And in an
"oh, grow up" year, an "immature urge" hardly seems like a long-term
situation. And David Fury is on record as being strenuously against it.

Now, I don't know that Joss has this all planned, much like I don't know
that his post-season 3 comment that Angel was NOT Buffy's soulmate meant
that he had Buffy's soulmate in mind (we probably give Joss too much
credit for a grand scheme)--but if Spike's being the wrong person means
that there is "right person" for Buffy, well, that field is kind of
narrow. We've got a pretty tight couple, two recurring players who are
leaving town, Buffy's little sister--and a certain devoted, newly
single redhead in desperate need of Buffy-shaped huggage. Will the
right person please babble cutely?

Likewise on the soulmate issue, ruling out the two vamps and discarding
Anya (although she did have the butterfly-applique shirt in "OMWF" and
Buffy has all those butterflies in her bedroom?Nah), that leaves
Xander (a heck of a guy, but too earthy for big romantic "soulmate"
concepts) and Willow, again. To paraphrase inell, Joss needs to have
the courage of his conclusions.

Besides, Spikey's got that whole defective chip situation. Now the
"After Life" script says Spike suffers chip-pain when he shoves Xander
up against the tree, and a look at the ep shows him having a
barely-perceptible wince (a far cry from the cry he gave in "The Weight
of The World"). But in "Once More With Feeling", there wasn't even that
when he grabbed the priest. Looks like the chip had a 2-year warranty
(implanted in ep 4.7, dead by ep 6.7).  

Of course this frees him up for Big Bad duty, and this year needs one.
Usually it's in play, if not evident by now. Consider:

Season 1--the Master was in the premiere

Season 2--Angel didn't turn until ep 14, but Joss was foreshadowing all
the way. Look at the Angel/Buffy argument in Act 3 of "When She Was
Bad" [2.1]--Buffy says "I don't trust you. You're a vampire." and
tries to goad him into a fight ("You must have thought about it?you
think you can take me?"). And Angel tells her "you're not as tough as
you think you are"--no, in the end, after everything Angelus does,
she's tougher ("No friends, no weapon, no hope--take that away and
what's left?" "Me."--Angelus and Buffy, "Becoming, Part 2"). And
Spike & Dru show in 2.3, and there's a significant Angel/Buffy talk in
2.5 and "Lie to Me" [2.7] is all about trust issues, re B/A, and so on.
So definitely by ep 7 it had been well foreshadowed.

Season 3--The mayor, who had been talked about for a year, first
appeared in "Homecoming" [3.5]

Season 4--Adam didn't show until ep 13, but it was supposed to be
Maggie Walsh [4.1] and the Initiative troops are also seen in the
premiere, with the big reveal on the Initiative in ep 7.

Season 5--Dawn, the Key to the plot, appears during ep 1 and is the
subject of ep 2; Glory, the actual Big Bad, shows in ep 4 (as Ben) and
ep 5 (as herself).

So the Big Bad should be something present already. What we have for
candidates are Willow (whose storyline seems to be being presented to
maintain a certain audience sympathy, however long it takes Buffy to
come around), the three Dorks (are you kidding? BTW, haven't seen them
in 3 weeks, don't miss them), and Spike--who's always called himself
"The Big Bad", so maybe he finally lives up to it. If he lost Buffy and
his chip simultaneously, maybe that grotesque "Flooded" joke about
killing the Scoobies wouldn't be so far from the truth. 

Indeed, spoilers say the chip issue will be dealt with soon. But then,
the point of this letter is that spoilers can be wrong, so?

Let me instead talk about next week's preview:

Wow! Amy rocks! I'll say it again, louder: AMY ROCKS!! I swear, I
got more heat from 9 seconds of Willow/Amy in that promo than I got from
2 YEARS of W/T. (Yes, I've timed it, and I've watched it 13 times
already. Hey, if you're going to obsess, a 9-second clip is an easy one
to deal with, lol.) Yeah, yeah, I know, Amy's the enabler, the bad
friend, the one who feeds Willow's bad habit. I sooo don't care. She's
Willow's answer to Spike (that "it's nice, having another
magically-inclined friend around" line is nicely blatant, no?) and
Willow needs to cut loose, deal with her grief, even if this speeds the
bad mojo (because after the bad mojo comes the niceness--yes, I believe
in Joss again). Thrice more with feeling:

AMY ROCKS!! AMY ROCKS!! AMY ROCKS!!

If we can't have B/W right away, I'll take some W/Am to tide me over.
(Hey, does anyone know a good Willow/Amy site?)

Oh, and that promo is half Willow/Amy, half Buffy/Spike. Both girls
playing with their bad sides. Did I mention the "equivalency" thing?
Parallel story lines, eventually coming together?

One note on Amy: it's always written that she turned herself into a rat
in "Gingerbread" to escape being burnt at the stake. But seeing the ep
(for the first time) yesterday, I have to dispute that. When she growls
"I'll show you a witch!" at the MOO mob and starts chanting the rat
spell, it seems clear she plans to turn Joyce and Sheila and whomever
into rats, just as she changed Buffy into one in "Bewitched, Bothered,
and Bewildered". But since her arms were pinned to the stake, she was
unable to gesture (as she did in "BB&B") and the spell ended up aimed at
her. So she was hoist on her own habitrail.

BTW, I guess all those fics where Tara gets Amy as compensation for
losing Willow look a little skewed now, huh? It's a blow to that 'ship,
since it looks like they're using Amy to compare and contrast with Tara,
rather than as a complementary character. Sort of the difference
between a Wiccan and a witch, if you will.

Note on hair and wardrobe: while I liked the bodice gown Tara wore in
"OMWF", which did all the things I've said they should do to make Amber
look better (lift the bust, show cleavage, cinch the waist, flowing
skirt to hide the hips), I found it a little odd to see the two Wiccans
both wearing the Renaissance Faire look. I liked Willow's outfit here a
lot better. And I like Amy's hair being the natural brown of next week,
rather than the blonde of "BB&B" or the over-dark look of "Gingerbread".
Of course, I really like Amy's wardrobe in the promo <eg>, Hey, the
girls got that shot of the returned Angel in "Faith, Hope, and Trick",
now it's our turn.

And next ep apparently makes four in a row with scenes at the Bronze.
What, did they misplace the set after "Family" and just find it a few
weeks ago? I'm all for it, though--it's a touchstone to the past.
After all, we can't get the library back...*sniff*.

Well, this was long as hell, but I enjoyed writing it and hope you
enjoyed reading it.  

Peace and smiles,

Dan

PS--that Giles/Tara duet really has to be a B/G 'shippers delight, no?
I mean, it's a romantic ballad, and he sings a duet with a girl whose
singing to her girlfriend--that makes for some pretty strong
implications about Giles's emotions, too. Personally, I go "Ick!", but
he's gone now, so no wiggins.

PPS--they really got a head start on the filming, didn't they? I mean
it's been 8 eps and I've barely seen any of the new stuff in the opening
credits. As opposed to the season two credits, which are the S1 credits
with a few shots added in from "When She Was Bad" and "Some Assembly
Required", or the S3 credits, which feature a dozen clips from "Anne"
and nothing from after "Beauty and the Beasts". At this rate, they
could start lensing S7 next week.