When Life Is the Big Bad

January 24, 2009

I had an interesting experience about an Ebay/Paypal transaction, something that to other people will surely be more aggravating than anything else. I decided to buy a box set of all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer because the deal I got was just too good to be true. Maybe later I’ll recount all the boring details. In case I won’t get to do that, know this: If something is too good to be true, then it probably is. 

Anyway, when I got home, I immediately jumped to all the commentaries and interviews I didn’t get to see with my downloaded videos, and my appreciation for the show just got more cemented if it hasn’t been already. I’ve never seen any other TV show that played with the emotions so well while being so witty, self-effacing, silly, and multilayered, all at the same time. I’m almost afraid to recommend it because there are too many riches around the entire mythology that can be lost if you’re not paying attention to the details, and not everyone has the time to sink their teeth into something that sounds so ridiculous. But as Joss Whedon said in the interviews, he had no intention of creating a show that people will like and then forget. He wanted a show that 100 people need to see and not a show that 1000 people would like to see. I think Drew Goddard, a writer for the show and a big fan, said it best when he said that Buffy “has a punk rock feel to it; it has a movement that doesn’t belong to everybody and [fans] feel very possessive of it.”

 

That being said, I am among the very few fans of the show that liked the 6th season more than any other. It is here when the writers explored the darkest path that their heroine will ever go to in her continued search for the true meaning of her legacy and her life’s mission. Unlike the previous seasons where there is a thematic “Big Bad”, the one that will wreck havoc for the entire year and will get “dusted” by the end, this time the big enemy is life itself. There’s no life insurance, no real ticket to happiness; it’s about growing up. And when I say it’s about dark times, I’m not saying it lightly. For a show mislabeled as a “teen show”, this is the part where the kids should not be allowed to watch without supervision.     

 

 

Disregarding the implausibility of the idea and all its theological implications, I was captivated by the thought of bringing Buffy back from the dead and having her walk around alive but feeling dead inside because she was torn out of heaven. How can someone with such huge responsibility of saving the world everyday and at the same time caring for her own needs and her sister’s cope with something like that? To be able to breathe but not to feel any spark inside.  

 

Then there’s Spike, who’s torn between the divide of good and evil because he learned how to love even if he doesn’t have a soul. He tried to be good, Buffy didn’t love him; he tried to be bad, Buffy despised him; he tried to live through the gray area, Buffy used him.

The vampire loves the vampire slayer - poetic, no?

 

 

 

 

Anya, on the other hand is learning and touching into that place called humanity; she finally learned what it really means to love, after thousands of years of dooming men who wronged women. Finally, she is human; then she got left at the altar by the person she thought she was so lucky to find over all dimensions. She finally felt what human pain feels like. 

 

 

 

 

Xander, the deserter, is still just an insecure little boy after all. This is why guys shouldn’t propose if they don’t really feel ready for something as mature as marriage. Even if the world is about to end, don’t do it. Not even, because what’s the point either way?

 

 

Stephanie Zacharek of Salon said that, “of all the characters on Buffy, Tara was the one who stood most clearly for the right of human beings to live and love as they choose without having to explain themselves, and to make their own mistakes if need be. ” In Joss Whedon’s world, there’s no place for someone as good and pure of heart. Even after repeated viewings, I still close my eyes whenever that stray bullet is about to strike her. I skip that part if I can help it. It couldn’t have happened to someone less deserving of such fate.

 

 

 

Now here’s the big bad, in lowercase because we’ve already established that L-I-F-E is the Big Bad. When Tara died, Willow went into a rampage of despair and destruction. She took all the magic her body can take to have her revenge and to dull the pain of losing the person she loves most of all. In the process, the dark side that has always been brewing inside the geeky sidekick of Buffy came out in full force. Grief does that. And power undermines grief. Willow had always been the “sideman,” the mousy bestfriend of the Slayer. Thoroughly removed from herself, she relished finally being more powerful than Buffy.   

 

 

 

As Buffy said,”Life’s a show and we all play a part.” The parts these fictional characters take parallel the real world only in allegory - the abusive relationships, the addiction, the meaning of power, the meaning of living, the path to redemption and forgiveness -  they’re all for show. But what a show it is.

Season 6 is a demonstration of ugly realism in the middle of supernatural circumstances. I hated the things unfolding before my eyes, but I couldn’t look away. That’s superb storytelling. That’s how life is sometimes - it grabs you and beats you and leaves you to pickup the pieces. And you will. Because, as I always say, it beats the alternative.