Re: 'Villians' Thoughts *Spoilers for Ep*

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Some for DEM, Some for Cas, and some 

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Well, I still think Willow's **bitterest** irony is that if Tara hadn't
made her give up the mojo, she could have had that bullet out of her
before she had time to hit the floor, but I agree the locator spell
thing is a keeper. All I'm saying is cut from "We are not going to let
Willow destroy herself" to Willow with the map and the blood and then
cut back to B/X/D about to leave and Xander's "where do we go" (from
here?) line. Breaks up the long scene, and adds some insulating
distance between "Buffy cares deeply for Willow" and "Buffy thinks Spike
would make a great babysitter", which would stifle the bad taste a
little, anyway.

This whole "Buffy misses Spike" deal has got to be enormously offensive
for anyone who's been sexually assaulted, right? Hell of a message to
put out there. I know we thought the anti-drug message in "Wrecked" was
over the top, but I doubt anyone wanted Marti to pull this far back on
the morality meter.

I'm just trying to conceive it: your ex-boyfriend tries to rape you,
and 24 hours later you think he's the guy you want watching your
15-year-old kid sister. Not on this planet. No one is actually after
Dawn, and Warren doesn't know Janice exists, much less where she lives.
Send the kid anywhere but Spike's. Even mainstream reviewers have
mentioned this.

On the Buffy-as-focus issue: I don't mind seeing Buffy's p.o.v. on
Willow-related events, but I agree, we don't need Buffy's subplots at
all. If we need the Spike scene (won't really know until we see what's
up with him next week) then my best guess is to find a reason to keep
either the Warren/bar or Warren/Rack scene (actually, I think they're
both superfluous) and work a cut like this:

Rack: You're going to need a lot of help, kid. You don't know what
you're messing with.

Warren: Hey, I'm no rookie, okay? I'm the guy behind the Trio, and we
damn near ran this town!

(Rack looks at him like he's from Mars)

Warren (cont.): Well, we would have if it wasn't for that Slayer bitch.
I'm telling you, we were evil!

SMASH CUT TO:  

Spike in the demon's cave (skip the crap with the villagers and the
paintings, and get to the point).

Demon:--you were a great dark warrior, but now you are nothing. You
dare come to me after the way you let the Slayer toy with you?

Spike: Look, mate, I didn't come all the way to bleeding Africa to be
insulted! Get this sodding chip out of my head and I'll show you a
warrior.

Demon: You are unworthy.

Spike: I'm the worthiest man you'll ever meet, Glow-Eyes. Give me your
tests, whatever you've got, and I'll tear them into pieces. And then,
once you take care of that stinking chip, I'll do the same thing to the
Slayer. (quieter) Bitch is gonna suffer.

CUT TO:  

Buffy in the operating room, her life slipping away.

Something like that, get Spike over and done with quickly. Normally,
I'm against cramming the subplot scenes into Act 1 at the expense of the
main plot, but here there's no real way to justify cutting to Spike once
Will's on the warpath, so get it out of the way asap.

Likewise, I was thinking about the slowness of Act 3, and I couldn't
help imagining how much faster and tenser the scenes used to play.
Here's how I'd rewrite the Act, roughly:

Buffy and Xander find Dawn sitting with Tara's corpse, that's a keeper.

Sofa scene, up to "we are not going to let Willow destroy herself". Cut
to:

Willow in the dorm (no intervening establishing shot) doing the spell on
the shirt.

Buffy, Dawn and Xander heading out the door (gives a little more urgency
if they're actually going somewhere). Magic Box, what to do with Dawn,
I want to go to Spike's, Okay, Are you nuts, get your stuff, B/X argue,
she wins, Dawn's back, they go.

Warren driving like hell, on a lonely road near a forest.

Back to Willow. She's now levitating the sweater with the bloody map on
it. Spooky music plays and the flashing spot on the sweater begins to
grow and peel back, opening a portal to that same lonely road (a fairly
simple dissolve, tricked up a little). She steps through the portal
onto the road, perhaps gets run over by Warren's car (although that
kills the effect of the axing, so I'm ambivalent). In any event, by the
end of the scene, Willow has pyrokinetically blown up the car and Warren
is fleeing into the woods.

Magic Box. Buffy sweeps in, in full slayer mode, and the camera tracks
with her as pulsing Chris Beck music plays on the score, throughout this
scene. (See, get some urgency here. We don't need the Horns of Doom
[from "Innocence" and "Earshot"], maybe just some staccato strings and
an occasional tympani or something.)

Xander (as Buffy comes towards him and Anya; really bitter, we don't
know why yet): So, how's Spike?

Buffy: Out of town. I left Dawn with Clem. (Xander starts to say
something, but Buffy cuts him off) Not now. (To Anya) Can you do the
spell?

Anya starts to answer, but Xander cuts her off, and now we see it's ANYA
he's really pissed at.

Xander (coldly furious): Oh, Anya doesn't need any spells. Tell her.

Anya (embarassed): I can track Willow myself. I, I can feel her need
for Vengeance calling me.

Buffy: Even though you're no longer-- (gets it) Oh.

Xander: Seems D'Hoffryn gave Ahn an un-wedding present she forgot to
mention.

Anya, her embarrasment being overwhelmed by anger, would answer, but
Buffy doesn't have time for this, either.

Buffy: Then let's go. (she starts to do that)

Xander: Uh, Buffy?

Buffy stops, turns back to him. He cocks his head toward the counter.

Xander: Tranq gun?

Buffy (to Anya): Would it stop her?

Anya: No.

Buffy: There's your answer.  

She turns again and heads out the door, the others hurrying after.
Score bulids as we--

CUT TO: Warren hurrying through the woods, and probably some extra
action to fill the time we've saved. I'm for him glamering up a few
duplicates and sending them in different directions, and Willow burning
them all, or something like that.

Anyway, I know this could still be improved on, but the main thing is to
get a sense of movement, get the Spike scene out of the way earlier on,
lose the Clem scene (saving James Leary's salary, btw), skip the Xanya
chat, since we have to tell Buffy about Anya being a demon anyway and we
don't need to see that twice in two minutes, and add some action.

On the blocking in the B/D/X scene, that's not really surprising, since
a lot of the time Xander is blocked so as to keep him away from the
women. Early on, this was great, since it put Buffy and Willow
together, but sometimes it's annoying, like when Joss moved him onto the
floor (the floor!) to give the "you're my hero" speech in "The
Freshman", just so there wouldn't be a hug, much less a possible kiss...

Also, the "Into the Woods" showdown was much the same, although they did
get fairly close to each other by the end of that. And, likewise, the
Willow/Xander scenes in "Wild at Heart" and "Something Blue" put a lot
of unnecessary space between them. I don't know, put Nick close to
Sarah or Aly ("Phases" for Buffy, "Homecoming" et. seq. for Willow,
"BB&B" for both of them), and I see plenty of chem. And, yes, I'm aware
all the examples are 3+ years gone. "People are taking Xander too
seriously, he's just supposed to be comic relief." Fuck you, Joss.

Speaking of people not being together, did you notice that "Villains"
was the THIRD FUCKING EP IN A ROW without B/W being alone for ONE LOUSY
SECOND? I mean, yes, some nice stuff, and I can't complain about
getting 3 (!) big Three Musketeers scenes, but if the finale is all
about "Buffy vs. Willow" and "I have to fight the person I'm closest to
in the world", wouldn't it behoove the arc to have them together for
just a few seconds out of the previous 130 minutes of show (not counting
ads)?

I think Marti just makes way too many assumptions about the audiencee:

She assumes that we all remember that Spike is soulless and absolutely
should never be with Buffy, so she feeds us the Noble Spike scenes from
"Tough Love" through "Flooded", with nary a hint of evil, because she
thinks she has to work real hard for us to believe Buffy would even
consider it--and then she's shocked when a huge chunk of the audience
thinks Spike's the hero and doesn't understand why Buffy's mean to him.

She assumes we will all always love Willow, so she sticks her with Tara
the Perfect Lesbian Mouse (because character flaws would make Tara too
interesting)-- and then she's shocked when people take Tara's side and
so she has to do the Magic=Drugs thing to regain some sympathy for
Willow and make this current arc painful.

She assumes that we all remember that Willow is the most important
person in Buffy's life (except maybe Dawn) and so she skimps on (hell,
omits) the B/W in these last few eps--and I bet she'll be shocked when
a lot of the audience doesn't feel Buffy's pain at all, and thinks
Willow should die or stay evil.

Basically, Marti thinks the whole audience thinks like us, and while
that's a nice compliment, it's very unrealistic. Marti of all people
should know that sometimes the fans don't react the way you want them
to; remember Riley, honey?

(And if Marti is writing for us, how come we haven't had any smoochies?
Grumble, bitch, moan.)

Lastly, is it just me, or does this arc not really seem to fit with the
Magic=Drugs thing? If Willow is making these poor choices because the
Willow-haters were right all along and she's a horrible person, then how
come she's been so good at staying clean and being good since "Wrecked"?
OTOH, if she's the Willow we love and admire and this is just a
momentary relapse into an evil addiction that makes her do things she
would never do, that's a little pointless for an end-of-season arc, no?
Not to mention Warren had ZERO chance of getting acquitted (two
eyewitness that know him personally saw him do it) and California has
the death penalty (alas, IMO), so where was the real need for Willow to
take revenge herself? These people know where the line is: Giles
didn't dust Angel in "Amends", Willow didn't curse Oz, and no one
smothered Faith while she was in her coma.  

Hell, the average murder victim's relatives don't go mowing down their
loved ones' killers, and it's not like they can't buy a gun and only
Willow has the power to do this, or anything like that. For the girl
who resouled Angel to take such an unnecessary revenge...the more I
think of it, the more contrived this seems. Ah, well....

Dan

off to bed