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sallyanne's great (and positive) review on 'Chosen.'
Afterwards, if you're so inclined, you can read my finale-nitpicking:
I read a lot of reviews in which people commented how well the metaphor was wrought in 'Chosen,' how the sharing of power not only makes sense but is the one possible ending to a show dealing with women power.
Why then am I not (100%) happy?
I loved the episode - as an episode, even as a show-closer, but as a season-closer it sucked!
There were too many things set up during the course of season 7 that turned out to be red herrings or abandoned story-lines, instances of slight-of-hand to keep us guessing and to keep events unpredictable. And then there's a villain with no two brain cells to rub together. I could plan a better apocalypse than First Evil in, um, five minutes.
Yes, those are misgivings I'm having about S7 as a whole - but I also blame the finale (and the two epis leading up to it) for not dealing with some of them.
And if we look very closely at what happens in the finale, the wonderful women empowerment metaphor becomes kinda messy:
In the past 3 men take a girl and give her demonic powers so she can fight their (actually humanity's) battles, because (attention, flying anvils) they were cowards, unwilling to fight these battles themselves.
Then an organisation forms to keep that demonic avatar/superhuman weapon under control. (Am I the only one who thinks that the existence of the Council was a good thing? And that we need another one ASAP?)
And a bunch of female (!) Guardians forms (or is already there) who watch the Watchers and do what? Sweet fanny Adams. Ok, they forge a shiny alumininum axe, call it a scythe, pour tons of power into it and leave it lying around for a few thousand years, because hey, power - they have plenty and can afford to bank it. Hmm. Oookay.
And where does the Guardian power come from? Is it just floating around? If it's women's power, shouldn't that be left to the women it belongs to, instead of being poured into a magic weapon that's not gonna be used for centuries?
Or are we to think that female power is different than everything else on this planet, that it can come out of nowhere at no cost?
What about Buffy's power? We found out what we long suspected: it's demonic in origin, rooted in darkness like Dracula told her. And it cuts her off from others - it's an effect she can try to fight, but ultimately that's the price of her power.
And in the finale happens what? Willow uses the scythe to channel power into all remaining potential Slayers around the world, infusing god knows how many girls with superhuman strength and a determination to fight their own battles and possibly fight for mankind. Sounds good on the surface, but if you dig deeper it gets a bit messy. The power they use to activate the SiTs, is that 'good' female power? Are they distributing power that was stored in the scythe or is the scythe used to share Buffy's rooted-in-darkness Slayer power with the others? Why doesn't the power get less through the shareage? Have they just cut off these girls (why no women - while we're breaking the rules laid down by the shamans, why not do it properly?) from their humanity? What if those girls turn out to be little bullies and beat the crap out of their school chums? Are we to assume that girls don't do that kind of thing?
Another thing: wasn't Caleb busy murdering all those potentials? How come there are so many left? Wasn't it initially First Evil's plan to eliminate ALL potential Slayers and then to finish off the last Slayer (Buffy) and end the supposedly vulnerable line once and for all? What was so vulnerable about that Slayer line, I (still) ask?
FE's plan is, in fact, extra extra stupid. Because when Buffy dies, no new Slayer gets chosen (remember 'The Gift' anyone?). So, the smart order of events should be: kill Buffy as soon as possible, kill all the potentials and save Faith for last. So why try to kill Faith in that AtS episode? Dumb, right?
So, what was First Evil doing all this time? What was the plan again? Raise an army to become corporeal? Sick of living vicariously by devouring the memories of dead people? Want to have a body of your own so you can feel bones crush underneath your own fair hands? Go exterminate mankind and populate the earth with a bunch of ugly orc-like neanderthal-vamps (BTW, I wonder what those guys ate all the time while they were 'gathering' inside the hellmouth), let your vamps kill everbody and see if in the end there are enough people left for you to murder once you're corporeal. Blah. Glory had more brains than First Evil. Wait, seeing that she actually had a brain, that's actually true.
Has anybody noticed that the only reason Buffy ever found that stupid scythe was Caleb's message that he has something of? Which lead her to the vinyard. What the scythe was doing in California is another interesting question, but I'll just assume there's a huge cult around that thing that has kept it out of everybody's clutches till then.
Why was Caleb surprised that the scythe was not for him? Shouldn't FE have told him? With the ability to be any dead person FE should have had a lot more access to info like that.
Why then am I so hung up on these details? Maybe it's because I've been mastering fantasy-roleplaying sessions for over 20 years. In those games you have to be consistent or the characters your players have groomed and played for years will end up dead and the players confused and unhappy. Anything else is just plain darn lazy and bad manners, too.
Just one more question: does anyone have a clue what the heck First Evil's plans for Spike were? Because I can't imagine what FE might have wanted him to do. Kill a few girls? Oh please.
While I'm nitpicking: What about Joyce's appearances? Red herring? First Evil changing its modus operandi? No pay off there, doesn't make sense even retrospectively - and that really pisses me off! It must have been FE, because we know FE can reach people through their dreams - it just never bothered with most of the characters.
As for demoralising people, FE did a poor job on that front. If I could visit people in dreams they wouldn't get a single night of uninterrupted sleep. Revello Drive would have been Nightmare Central. Just saying.
Hope I didn't annoy everybody too much with this rant. Again I say, I enjoyed the finale and will probably watch it a few times more, but part of me wishes we'd been given a tidier ending.
Here endeth the nitpicking.
sallyanne's great (and positive) review on 'Chosen.'Afterwards, if you're so inclined, you can read my finale-nitpicking:
I read a lot of reviews in which people commented how well the metaphor was wrought in 'Chosen,' how the sharing of power not only makes sense but is the one possible ending to a show dealing with women power.
Why then am I not (100%) happy?
I loved the episode - as an episode, even as a show-closer, but as a season-closer it sucked!
There were too many things set up during the course of season 7 that turned out to be red herrings or abandoned story-lines, instances of slight-of-hand to keep us guessing and to keep events unpredictable. And then there's a villain with no two brain cells to rub together. I could plan a better apocalypse than First Evil in, um, five minutes.
Yes, those are misgivings I'm having about S7 as a whole - but I also blame the finale (and the two epis leading up to it) for not dealing with some of them.
And if we look very closely at what happens in the finale, the wonderful women empowerment metaphor becomes kinda messy:
In the past 3 men take a girl and give her demonic powers so she can fight their (actually humanity's) battles, because (attention, flying anvils) they were cowards, unwilling to fight these battles themselves.
Then an organisation forms to keep that demonic avatar/superhuman weapon under control. (Am I the only one who thinks that the existence of the Council was a good thing? And that we need another one ASAP?)
And a bunch of female (!) Guardians forms (or is already there) who watch the Watchers and do what? Sweet fanny Adams. Ok, they forge a shiny alumininum axe, call it a scythe, pour tons of power into it and leave it lying around for a few thousand years, because hey, power - they have plenty and can afford to bank it. Hmm. Oookay.
And where does the Guardian power come from? Is it just floating around? If it's women's power, shouldn't that be left to the women it belongs to, instead of being poured into a magic weapon that's not gonna be used for centuries?
Or are we to think that female power is different than everything else on this planet, that it can come out of nowhere at no cost?
What about Buffy's power? We found out what we long suspected: it's demonic in origin, rooted in darkness like Dracula told her. And it cuts her off from others - it's an effect she can try to fight, but ultimately that's the price of her power.
And in the finale happens what? Willow uses the scythe to channel power into all remaining potential Slayers around the world, infusing god knows how many girls with superhuman strength and a determination to fight their own battles and possibly fight for mankind. Sounds good on the surface, but if you dig deeper it gets a bit messy. The power they use to activate the SiTs, is that 'good' female power? Are they distributing power that was stored in the scythe or is the scythe used to share Buffy's rooted-in-darkness Slayer power with the others? Why doesn't the power get less through the shareage? Have they just cut off these girls (why no women - while we're breaking the rules laid down by the shamans, why not do it properly?) from their humanity? What if those girls turn out to be little bullies and beat the crap out of their school chums? Are we to assume that girls don't do that kind of thing?
Another thing: wasn't Caleb busy murdering all those potentials? How come there are so many left? Wasn't it initially First Evil's plan to eliminate ALL potential Slayers and then to finish off the last Slayer (Buffy) and end the supposedly vulnerable line once and for all? What was so vulnerable about that Slayer line, I (still) ask?
FE's plan is, in fact, extra extra stupid. Because when Buffy dies, no new Slayer gets chosen (remember 'The Gift' anyone?). So, the smart order of events should be: kill Buffy as soon as possible, kill all the potentials and save Faith for last. So why try to kill Faith in that AtS episode? Dumb, right?
So, what was First Evil doing all this time? What was the plan again? Raise an army to become corporeal? Sick of living vicariously by devouring the memories of dead people? Want to have a body of your own so you can feel bones crush underneath your own fair hands? Go exterminate mankind and populate the earth with a bunch of ugly orc-like neanderthal-vamps (BTW, I wonder what those guys ate all the time while they were 'gathering' inside the hellmouth), let your vamps kill everbody and see if in the end there are enough people left for you to murder once you're corporeal. Blah. Glory had more brains than First Evil. Wait, seeing that she actually had a brain, that's actually true.
Has anybody noticed that the only reason Buffy ever found that stupid scythe was Caleb's message that he has something of? Which lead her to the vinyard. What the scythe was doing in California is another interesting question, but I'll just assume there's a huge cult around that thing that has kept it out of everybody's clutches till then.
Why was Caleb surprised that the scythe was not for him? Shouldn't FE have told him? With the ability to be any dead person FE should have had a lot more access to info like that.
Why then am I so hung up on these details? Maybe it's because I've been mastering fantasy-roleplaying sessions for over 20 years. In those games you have to be consistent or the characters your players have groomed and played for years will end up dead and the players confused and unhappy. Anything else is just plain darn lazy and bad manners, too.
Just one more question: does anyone have a clue what the heck First Evil's plans for Spike were? Because I can't imagine what FE might have wanted him to do. Kill a few girls? Oh please.
While I'm nitpicking: What about Joyce's appearances? Red herring? First Evil changing its modus operandi? No pay off there, doesn't make sense even retrospectively - and that really pisses me off! It must have been FE, because we know FE can reach people through their dreams - it just never bothered with most of the characters.
As for demoralising people, FE did a poor job on that front. If I could visit people in dreams they wouldn't get a single night of uninterrupted sleep. Revello Drive would have been Nightmare Central. Just saying.
Hope I didn't annoy everybody too much with this rant. Again I say, I enjoyed the finale and will probably watch it a few times more, but part of me wishes we'd been given a tidier ending.
Here endeth the nitpicking.
