on joss whedon

Five episodes of Buffy left, and I’m completely involved with these characters.

Don’t jump if you plan on watching Buffy or Firefly and haven’t yet.

When Wash was killed at the end of Serenity, my friend (who’d turned me on to both Joss Whedon and Judd Apatow shows) told me that Whedon is fond of killing off main characters. If the world of Firefly did exist, it’d be unrealistic to believe that all of the main crew did survive all they went through. Losing Wash sucked balls, yes, but it wasn’t unfathomable, you know?

BUT, knowing that, I’m entering into the last part of Buffy with the same feeling I had reading the last Harry Potter book, knowing that a character (or in Harry’s case, many of them) dear to me is going to leave us. Still, I want to believe that, for fantasy’s sake, our main four (Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles and, I’m sorry, five, Spike (although I already know Spike shows up on Angel’s last season)) make it through this apocalypse intact. I think the potentials are expendable, as is Faith (she’s paid her dues). I guess Dawn ought to make it through too, otherwise Buffy would just be inconsolable, but really. She’s still a whiny ass teenager. I could take her or leave her. Not to say she hasn’t made huge strides this season, but still. Whiny as hell.

I just got to the part in Dirty Girls where Caleb killed Rona (thank goodness, she was obnoxious), another girl, and went on to crush Xander’s eye socket in. Number one, there’s my fear of the main characters getting hurt. Number two, who thought Nathan Fillion could be so evil?

But back to Joss Whedon. I’ve noticed in the past couple seasons that the effects, which were always good, have gotten magnificent, especially for a television serial. His use of symbolism is stunning. There have been much better examples, but the use of the red wine barrels exploding coinciding with the spilling of blood in this episode is poignant.

Having watched (and loved) Freaks & Geeks, it was also funny (in a sick way) to see Sarah Hagan being tortured by a priest, when every time I see her I think of her playing “Jesus Is Just Alright With Me” at Lindsay’s anti-kegger.

I’m off to finish this episode.

Really. Mal Reynolds. So evil. I didn’t think he had it in him.

PS Just kidding, I guess Rona didn’t die. At least not yet. I paused the episode too soon, typed this, and then went back to watch the ending. There she was in the emergency room, having lived another day to give Buffy more dirty looks.

PPS Shouldn’t Marty McFly be driving a Delorian through Sunnydale?