Conversations With Dead People (Jane Espenson & Drew Goddard)
One of the signs of great writing is to introduce a stranger into a cast of familiar characters and have the audience care about the interactions between the stranger and the well-known. This failed miserably in “The Message” (written by Joss Whedon and Tim Minear) where Jonathan M. Woodward played Tracey so it isn’t Woodward that made the trick work. Joss wrote the scenes between Buffy and Holden so it’s obviously something he can’t pull off every time. Andy made the point that Buffy clearly doesn’t remember Holden at all so she has no advantage over us (via in-jokes and shared memories, for example). This suggests to me that “The Message” didn’t work because the Browncoats remembered Tracey while we didn’t. Plus the story was execrable.
Although Jane Espenson and Drew Goddard are credited with writing the episode it was actually broken down like this: JE wrote Dawn’s story, DG wrote the Trio’s, Marti Noxon wrote Willow’s and Joss Whedon wrote Buffy’s. I wonder what happened to the person who wrote Xander’s… It is rather a kick in the chops that after six seasons the writers thought that Xander didn’t have a role to play in this important episode.
Spike has no dialogue and yet his story is told effectively and ends horrifically when he is revealed as a killer again.
Horror is the name of the game as Dawn’s story unfolds. It may be classic horror but it was also genuinely scary and revealed how resourceful and brave she can be. Such wasted potential.
I loved the character interaction between Buffy and Holden. The actors played off each other well. It is sometimes easy to open up to strangers. The look of sadness, dismay and thoughtfulness on Buffy’s face after she dusts Holden is nicely played by SMG who is, shall I say it again?, absolutely fabulous as Buffy.
“She's sorry she couldn't come herself.” says Cassie, “She’s in dispute.” said Andy. Only a handful know the whole truth about Amber Benson’s absence but it is a great loss to BtVS that she wasn’t in this. There is no doubt in my mind that if Amber had been in this then it would have been awesome and the episode would probably be in my top ten. Tara egging on Willow to commit suicide, Willow’s dawning comprehension, Tara’s mocking “Oh, baby, you left such a big hole. It hurt so bad.” – all of that would have been amazing. The great “what if?” of BtVS. However, despite the oddity of Cassie (a character who Willow had never even met) being used to get at Willow, this still packs a punch. Alyson Hannigan is particularly good as she realises she has been had.
When Jonathan and Andrew appeared on my screen I gave a Pavlovian groan but their story was compelling and Andrew’s murder of Jonathan after being easily tricked by “Warren” was excellent drama. Unfortunately, the arrival of Andrew leads to the marginalization of other characters in his favour.
This was a fantastic episode and S7 continues to confound my memory of it. However, there is more Andrew to come and a bunch of Potentials and maybe my memory of them is not wrong. On the other hand, Faith!
Goodbye tiny man
Thanks for the memories of a truly great episode (yeah, I know...I think they're all great).
I'm curious about your take on the absence of Tara. Since you're such a big AB fan and she chose not to appear here - do you agree with her, fault her or neutrally defer to her judgement?
A lot of people call this episode the best of season seven because it's a typical Joss high-concept affair, but I think that distinction belongs to "Selfless." Willow and The Trio's stories work for me, but Buffy's is too pretentious and talky and Dawn's is a combination of poorly written and poorly executed.
Dare I say I like the Trio in this episode? Also, Adam Busch is awesome here. As much as I dislike Warren, I think AB did a fantastic job. I would have much rather had Jonathan around all season instead of Andrew, though I understand that the relationship dynamics between the three guys makes the situation that plays out the most realistic. It doesn't seem fair to me that Jonathan, who has been on the show since the beginning, gets gutted here, and Andrew gets to stick around forever. (He's still in the comics! WHY?!?) But I do like the dramatic effect of Andrew killing Jonathan, so I'll just lament that Whedon & Co. decided to keep Andrew around all season, hogging screen time from characters I actually care about, but he's in good company there with all the Slayerettes running around, seducing my favorite redheaded witch who wasn't near ready for a new girlfriend, especially one as bratty and charmless as...
Sorry. I'm back.
Once again, you're much kinder to Dawn than I can be. Some of the boo elements in her story are very effective – I find it chilling when Joyce's body appears on the couch – but Michelle Trachtenberg's overacting kills that story for me. And she DESTROYS the house. Way more than she has to. I can't help it — excessive property damage just bugs me.
I find Buffy's story too navel-gazey and boring, though Holden does get in a couple of good one-liners. But I think his diagnosis of her is wrong. Yes, Buffy has a superiority complex, but I think her inferiority complex has more to do with feeling like she won't or can't live up to whatever expectations have been placed on her shoulders by the universe. (And I don't think that combo of neuroses is actually that uncommon in really talented people.) She's also got a bit of a martyr complex thrown in there as well.
Willow's storyline is probably my favorite (surprise surprise). I'm of two minds about whether I would have wanted Amber Benson to have said Cassie's lines. Part of me thinks it would have ripped my heart out to see Tara as evil, even if it wasn't really Tara. But the other part of me recognizes that because it would have affected me like that, it really would have hit home the mental torments the First was trying to visit on our heroines. (I'm ignoring you, Andrew.) I must say that I was happy to see Azura Skye again, and I think she really sells the material as best as any actor who isn't Amber Benson could. As always, Alyson Hannigan is fantastic at crying and making me well up when she says to the heavens that, "it hurts so much. Everyday, it's like this giant hole, and it's not getting better." Plus, take a picture! Willow is grieving and talking about Tara! She even says her name! This ain't gonna happen again for a little while, and then it'll be like Tara never existed.
I really like the opening song performed by Angie Hart! (of Frente! and Splendid!). The framing device of that performance works for me for some reason, even though it doesn't connect with anything else in the story.
I understand why Xander isn't in this episode. He hasn't had any significant people in his life die (and not come back to life), so who was he going to talk to? The other conversations don't lend themselves to Xander tagging along, and having him talk to a vampire too would be redundant. Frankly, his absence doesn't really bother me, though it's probably a sad portent of how the core characters become pushed to the fringe during this season.
I'm confused, why did amber benson decide not to be in this episode?
Hi Kristen,
I'll let Amber speak for herself at BBC Cult.
As for your question, Georgia USA, I would imagine it was a hard decision to make and clearly she is not willing to say precisely why she didn't appear so I am inclined to be entirely on the fence about the issue. However, if her only reason had been that she didn't want to play Tara as "bad" then that seems a poor reason to me.
Blimey, Stephanie, your comment is longer than my original post! Of course, you vigorously add a great deal to my thoughts about the episode.
The Trio are great in this episode. I know I feel odd typing that too. Andrew’s murder of Jonathan is awful.
I am saving any remarks on the subject of Kennedy until she appears because I have liked S7 so much so far that I’m scared…
If I was in my haunted home in supernatural Sunnydale where really weird things happen and I was being haunted by my dead mother, I too would overact and thoroughly smash the house up. So Dawn is okay by me. Her story also gains points for her “anchovies” line and the microwaving of a giant marshmallow.
I wasn’t listening to the dialogue in Buffy’s story too closely. I’m not very good at immediately grasping the meaning of blocks of the spoken word (for example, Shakespeare is hard for me to comprehend unless I read the text). I wrote this response to “CWDP” without reading the transcript (I usually do so to pick out quotes but in this case I stopped at “anchovies”) so it is my reaction to watching it again after a three year or so gap. I loved the way Buffy and Holden talked to each other, their acting and the blue way it looked. Is it pretentious? Definitely. I don’t mind. It’s Joss.
“Plus, take a picture! Willow is grieving and talking about Tara! She even says her name! This ain’t gonna happen again for a little while, and then it’ll be like Tara never existed.”
I can hardly believe I forgot to mention these facts.
Yeah, I have a tendency toward verbosity, I know. But I have all these thoughts. What else am I going to do with them besides post them on your blog, Hazel?
In regards to why Amber did not return, she says (as in you can see the words come out of her mouth) in the Buffy panel at PaleyFest that the main reason she did not return for this episode was because it conflicted with her flying to England to direct the Ghosts of Albion series. That she wasn't sure about playing Tara as evil might have made her hesitate to accept the offer, but I think scheduling also had a lot to do with it.
And I can actually see where she is coming from with the reasoning articulated at the BBC. I think that she (and supposedly Joss) were really surprised how upset Tara's death made people, so I can understand her impulse to tread carefully with playing an evil version of Tara.
Where else can you post them? Hmm, let me see...
BUT I love comments. No matter how lengthy or short.
I wish I could write effortless and with more than two fingers and a thumb.
I've seen the shooting script for this episode, and it's written with Amber acting as Tara/The First.
[ http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/scripts/129_scri.html ]
As much as I am a devoted W/T shipper, I honestly couldn't tell you which one I imagine to be more chilling-Azura or Amber. Either way, it breaks my heart. The fact that Tara isn't there and Willow breaks down the way she does and it still makes me cry is a testament to both the emotional impact and point of the scene, and Aly's acting-crying chops do more than enough to make my eyes prickle. The integrity of Willow's scenes are captured sans Tara, and that to me was very well done.
"Willow is grieving and talking about Tara! She even says her name! This ain’t gonna happen again for a little while, and then it’ll be like Tara never existed"
-I third this notion. The non-talky-Tara thing really irks me the entire season, I just can't get over it. In many instances the show swept heavy issues under the rug and most were never heard from again, and if so only in small ways. But Tara's death was the trigger for literally almost ending the world, and even to take it out of 'season finale action' context, this single event probably changes Willow's life more irrevocably than any other. It's like Joyce's death for Buffy and Jenny/Buffy's death for Giles except way, way worse. I guess I just feel that the Scoobs really fell flat on getting each others' emotional backs, but on the Tara issue more than any other.
Oh Darkpoole, such sad and true words.
Rachel, I do think the scenes with Cassie are tremendous but I do think the scenes with Tara would have been even better.
I wonder if we notice the lack of reference to Tara because we are fans. I can imagine, that in the meantime, Jenny, Joyce and Doyle fans are just as upset and and are lamenting their own silence.
A gree this was a fantastic episode. I loved it. Made it into my top ten list. Had me on the edge of my seat. When I first saw it, I was really jazzed for what was coming next.
Turned out to be the last episode of Buffy I ever enjoyed. So when you mention that "S7 continues to confound my memory of it," I think that the first third of the season had a lot of promise. It was the remaining two thirds where it fell apart, IMO.
Hazel, good call. I think each character has had issues that are almost completely ignored and never really brought up or mentioned again in the series. Willow and Xander never talk about Jesse, Jenny is rarely (if not ever) brought up after S3, Willow and Xander never talk about their home lives despite it being...less than ideal, Buffy (and Dawn, I suppose) don't talk about their Father, I mean the list goes on. Dawn, actually doesn't talk about Tara much in S7 either, despite being second closest to her.
It's almost as if the Scoobies care to talk about and deal with issues on everything besides themselves throughout the course of the show. It's fascinating sometimes, but often leads to negative consequences. There's a whole meta on how best-traits become fatal flaws in S6 ( http://elisi.livejournal.com/179224.html ). It really made me think about things in a new way.
But, Tara. Alas, she joins the list of under rug swept things that becomes a silent issue. But as a second-tier Scooby alongside Spike, Anya, and Dawn (for the sake of the issue, I added Spike in there cause I liked him that way
) I guess I expected more than muteness. Oh, well. Fail.
"Oh, well. Fail."
Absolutely. I was being a bit disingenuous. Tara was a major character who was portrayed by someone who was a major cast member despite not being in the credits (and we can debate more about that too!) and she was treated shabbily by people who didn't care about her. Tara was a plot device.
"So even if the characters didn’t talk about her, her presence suggested that they (and the showrunners) were still thinking about her."
Absolutely. They clearly (the showrunners) really liked KS.
It's true that Jenny/Doyle/Joyce fans might feel snubbed, just as Tara fans do. But in regards to Jenny and Doyle, they weren't on their respective shows as long as Tara, and neither of them were portrayed as Giles or Cordy's soulmates by any means. Personally, I think that they receive a decent/appropriate amount of recognition after their deaths. As for Joyce, I feel like she was mentioned a decent amount and Kristine Sutherland appeared on the show four times after Joyce died. So even if the characters didn't talk about her, her presence suggested that they (and the showrunners) were still thinking about her.
On the other hand, Tara was on the show for two years, and clearly was very important to Willow, at least as important as Angel was to Buffy. Joss Whedon, Amber Benson, and Alyson Hannigan have said as much that Tara died because they needed to take away what Willow cared about the most to make her hit rock bottom. If losing Tara was supposed to (and indeed did) have that much of an impact on Willow, I just can't understand why the writers wouldn't mention her more the following season. What she did in "Villains" through "Grave" was not the same as grieving.
Also, in regards to the "To Amber Benson or not Amber Benson" debate, I would have been sad if the last time I saw Tara, or at least something that looked like her, she was actually evil. I would have wanted Amber to appear again before the end of season 7 if she had been able to guest star in this episode.
They showed Tara's grave in Selfless, she was asked back (and did by proxy) iin Conversations and hello The Killer in Me is all about dealing with the loss of Tara (whether you like the episode or not) by serial tv standards that's pretty generous really.
I really hated Tara leaving the show but... it happened.
They asked Jenny back too but she refused.
Originally Xander was to have had a story section in conversations but it didn't make it to the final script. I'm actually glad I think.
Ha but it does warm my insides when people wail about Andrew - coz he just rules! THAT'S why he's in Angel and S8.
Anyhoo - and no, i don't understand you hating The Message so hard but hey - this IS a great episode and another great review too!
If you ARE watching in real time though... make the most of Willow, after Conversations she pretty much hits the inner dimmer switch (with the odd noteable exception).
In fact, as S7 begins to hit the problematic episodes i can't wait to read your views.
Oh come on, wychcroft, I am a sad obsessive, stop being so reasonable.
"The Message" from Firefly would have been perfectly fine - it was Jonathan Woodward (Tracey) who was "execrable", just as he was as "Knox" in "Angel".
Maybe you are right, I haven't liked him in anything.