Re: Season Finale Thoughts *SPOILERS*

["blinviz" <debvii@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- In buffywantswillow@y..., jeepy91@a... wrote:

cuz i'm unimaginative and and and and and and

> 
> S
> O
> 
> M
> U
> C
> H
> 
> F
> O
> R
> 
> D
> A
> V
> I
> D
> 
> F
> U
> R
> Y
> 

> Everything was a plot device to make Buffy Buffy again. And its the
> most ridiculous and stupid thing I've seen in a long time.

Yeah, I think you're right about that, but such is the nature of Hero 
stories. It's.All.About.The.Slayer.

Honestly, i didn't mind so much. My perspective was sooooo with AH's 
Willow the whole time, that I just glossed over Buffy stuff. Sad but 
true. Seriously, when Buffy failed to tell Willow that she loved her, 
part of me was like "Buffy, oh, Buffy, say it!" then, as time went on, 
I was like, "Whatever, Living Dead Girl." By the time Willow told her 
she needed to have her ass kicked, I had sold my soul and hitched a 
ride on the Semi From Hell.

The epiphany scene with Dawn? I just laughed. And "you think I 
haven't watched you?" GUFFAW! As fucking if. If ME thinks I'm gonna 
dig The Adventures of Buffy & Dawn and Their Quaint Little Dorky 
Sidekicks, they gotta another think coming.

I think ME/Fury overestimated how much "our" POV is with Dawn. When 
she sniped at Buffy "Sorry to disappoint" I was truly appalled. I'm 
talking more deeply appalled than when Villow skinned Warren. I 
couldn't believe such FILTH would come out of her mouth. Is she 
socially retarded?? How the hell could she think that?

See, I follow Buffy's POV, not Dawn's. When I look thru Buffy's eyes, 
I see a person who's endured trauma after heartache, but who's trying 
her best. And it's been a HELL of a long time since I got the 
impression that Buffy didn't love Dawn; moreover, it's made complete 
sense to me that Buffy's epiphanies have been multiple. No one just 
gets over the sort of profound experience and feelings Buffy must have 
been having POOF, just like that. So, when Dawn harshed on Buffy that 
last time about not being quippy and not loving her and blah blah blah, 
I wanted to smash her teeth in. HOWEVER, and here's where ME muddled 
itself: The final scenes were too much. Essentially, those final 
scenes combined with the taunting from The Big Bad Witch (she's The 
Villain, she MUST be wrong and evil in her wrongness!) said that Buffy 
*hadn't* really woken up yet, had been lying to herself, and, therefore 
Dawn really *hadn't* been excessive in her whining. In addition, Buffy 
really should have been "showing Dawn the world", as if Buffy's 
vocation is a fucking flight attendant rather than Superhuman Chosen 
Fighter of Evil. Sorry, that's not the story I've been watching all 
this season.

> From a shipper standpoint I dont think it gets any worse than what
> happened in this episode. Sure Buffy said that she was not protecting the nerds, she 
> was trying to save Willow. And a couple of times I actually felt like that 
> might be the case. But when they started beating on each other, I just don't 
> know how they can ever fix the damage that caused.

I think I crossed the line over to "shipper in theory only" with these 
last eps. I couldn't believe how clueless Buffy was (geez, makes me 
nauseous just thinking about S3-5), and I could not believe how hard 
they pressed the "nobody but Tara ever loved me" angle. What the hell? 
(What was even more bizarre was that the script indirectly reinforced 
the validity of that claim by having NOT ONE PERSON be able to tell 
Willow they loved her.) Willow, if your identity is so bound up in one 
person, and if you truly haven't experienced all the genuine love 
that's been around you all these years, you will forever be a frigging 
drip.

Anyway, Xander finally caught a clue. I almost didn't catch it, what 
with the mild concussion I got from all the Anvils of Low Self-Worth 
they started tossing in the Teaser of the first hour! Still, though I 
was annoyed that I had to endure yet another Buffy/Dawn scene in lieu 
of a Buffy/Willow scene, and even tho NOTHING in the previous 22 eps 
pointed to a W/X scene to resolve Willow's storyline, I did get choked 
up during said W/X scene. NB did a good job.

The Missing B/W resolving scene, tho... I cannot forgive that.

Anyway, I watched Willow. And AH didn't disappoint. She was 
fascinating, and emoting around those mondo contact lenses cannot be 
easy.

Oh, and the overly-long Cathartic Laughter scene between Buffy & Giles 
might have played a part in determining whose POV I went with. It was 
great at first, came at a perfect time in the action, but then they let 
it go on some several seconds too long.

One thing I didn't like was that Villow was, at times, written too 
stock villainy. Willow is super-brain, longtime Scoob, remember? She 
wouldn't waste time dismantling the side of a building brick-by-brick. 
The director had no hope of making that work, esp. with the police 
officers standing right in front of her and brandishing weapons. In 
addition, some of her speeches could have been improved by including 
more valid statements. For example, the speech to Giles started off 
well, then rapidly disentegrated into spoiled brat. Feh. Remember who 
you're writing, and craft that person's dialogue to the established 
character. Screenwriters don't always do a good job motivating the 
Antagonist, but when you've got a special case like Willow's you oughta 
be able to do better, IMO. (The Dawn shit was great, tho, and I 
totally knew Rack was a dead man as soon as he started blathering.)


> So my question is, how in the hell do we go into next season and actually 
> like Willow?

I still love Willow. Never an issue for me. However, *inside* the 
story, yeah, Will's got a lot of work to do. Maybe not so much in 
regaining trust cuz B/X/W tend to be extraordinarily forgiving of one 
another, but moreso in terms of working out her own issues. Also, I 
think it was clear to all of them (except when Buffy was doing her "I'm 
the Big Bad Slayer" routine :gag:) that Villow was "no longer Willow". 
Villow was a walking, talking ball of pain and anger; Will had 
surpressed her grief behind a wall of rage and then it got away from 
her.

However, I don't know if the audience will "get that" (to borrow a 
phrase WAY overused tonight), esp. those bloody Spikeophile people who 
call for divine retribution if anyone so much as leaves a hair 
uncombed, all in the service of boosting up their walking dildo.

(And how refreshing was it to have limited Spike! It almost makes me 
cry to see how much more character action they can achieve without 
Bleach Boy hogging all the screentime. :sigh: Getting a soul is perfect 
comeuppance: After all his puerile strutting and showing off what a Big 
Bad Mofo he alledgedly is, Lurky mocks all that and hands him a soul. 
BWAH!)

Anyway, I pretty much enjoyed both of the eps, despite the problems I 
had with them.

Parting thought: The addiction arc was a waste of time. It didn't 
advance Willow's character in any way, shape, or form. In fact, in S7, 
Willow will be back to mid-S4 concerns. Again.