Party of One: Unpopular TV Opinions

[tearknee]

Buffy Davis should have remained the only Buffy.

Ditto Opie Taylor compared to Opie of WNEW-FM 20-odd years ago.

Anissa Jones was a far better person than SMG IMO in both character and admirability.

[Raja]

5 minutes ago, tearknee said:

Buffy Davis should have remained the only Buffy.

Ditto Opie Taylor compared to Opie of WNEW-FM 20-odd years ago.

 

Something in the back of my mind is saying Eddie Murphy tagged him as Opie Cunningham on SNL

[Spartan Girl]

46 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

Oh, yes. See also many shows/movies about the mob where people excuse them with "Oh, but they do it for their family", "They are such a close family", etc. Who cares? The people they hurt have families too.

 

IMO, Joyce was lowkey retconned into this supermom once they decided to kill her off. And apparently some sort of mother figure to the other kids, which just didn't work with the previous seasons. Sure, there was the Dawn retcon, so she might have been more involved in the new reality, but we remember the original one and she wasn't that.

 

 

I think it was very telling that in the new reality Buffy distinctly remembered Joyce never using any endearments for her as a child whereas Dawn was Joyce’s Little Pumpkin Belly. Clear case of playing favorites.

And right before she went into surgery, Joyce’s priority was asking Buffy to take care of Dawn and telling her how important Dawn was to herself, despite knowing by this point that Dawn wasn’t her real daughter. Which wouldn’t have bothered me if she spent equal time telling Buffy how important she was to herself: it was all just “you’re strong and you can do it.” Again, playing favorites. Maybe I’m nitpicking and being overly critical about Joyce, but it feels dishonest that the show pretended that Joyce was a perfect Scooby mother after she died when in reality she was much more flawed and made a lot of mistakes.

[tearknee]

Lots of things about you are forgotten after you take your final breath.

[scarynikki12]

I wonder where the Perfect Mom Joyce thing came from because the show did a good job of presenting her as very much not that in the first two seasons. She loved Buffy and wanted her to have a good life but she also left Buffy alone a lot due to her job. Leaving Buffy alone worked for dealing with demons and not having to worry about her mom (until the plot required it) but it also showed her not having a great support system for the non-Slayer parts of her life. Joyce cared about whether Buffy was doing well in school but also made no effort to make sure she was actually doing the work to get good grades (to be fair, this is a trait every tv parent shares). The biggest example of Joyce not being a Perfect Mom was her finally learning about demons and Buffy being the Slayer and reacting to it by throwing her out of the house. In the first two seasons the show was aware of Joyce's failings and used that for characterization and story progression but that went away starting in season 3. Season 3 is also when Buffy's dad, who was like Joyce in that he loved her but had his own parental failings, went from long distance father to full on doesn't care about his daughter abandoner so I wonder if there was a connection.

Anyway, Joyce throwing Buffy out of the house could have led to a really interesting story. How does a parent come back from that kind of action? Can they have a relationship again and what would that look like? The show loved playing with demons as metaphors (high school is Hell being the main one) so it's not like it wouldn't have fit the premise. Joyce finding out about Buffy and demons was intentionally presented as a Coming Out metaphor but the fallout was mainly about how Joyce Feels Bad and the Scoobies' anger at Buffy abandoning them. Buffy's feelings were mostly centered on her trauma and guilt over killing Angel and less on her guilt over Willow's attack, Giles' torture, and how completely alone she was when she struck that killing blow. Joyce was shown to regret her action but she also made no move to find Buffy and apologize. When she woke up the next morning and found Buffy had come back only to get some things she was upset but, again, just sat there upset rather than take action to find her. She was very passive in all of this and then it got swept under the rug.

My UO related to Buffy leaving Sunnydale and then returning is I'd rather the show not have done the episode where everyone confronts each other if they weren't going to do it right. If they weren't going to do a real fallout to the season 2 finale, which should have been over the course of the season, then that should have been it. In the house party episode Buffy hears Joyce say she wished she hadn't come back yet Buffy is the bad guy for taking her at her word. Joyce is never in a position to explain herself and instead is allowed to get angry at Buffy for running away and then intending to do it again. The Scoobies are allowed to get angry at Buffy for running away but not allowed to actually ask what she was going through emotionally. Everyone fixated on Xander's "kick his ass" line, which I understand, but the bigger question for me is: did any of the Scoobies find out Joyce had kicked Buffy out of the house after learning she was the Slayer? I think Giles knew but I don't think the others did and that's a big piece of information they're missing. I hate that episode so I don't rewatch unless absolutely necessary so they all may have known and just taken Joyce's side (which would be worse).

The episode where Giles keeps asking Buffy for every detail of fighting and killing Angel so he can do a binding spell only to reveal to Willow there was never a spell was exactly how the season should have handled the fallout from season 2 finale. He knew Buffy was leaving something out about killing Angel, knew that detail was the last straw for her emotionally, and knew she needed to unburden herself but wouldn't if directly asked so he found a way to get her to open up. Imagine a season 3 with little moments like this sprinkled throughout. Instead Buffy was the bad guy, Joyce got away with being a bad mom, and the only fallout was centered on Angel. Missed opportunities all over the place.

[Affogato]

8 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

 

IMO, Joyce was lowkey retconned into this supermom once they decided to kill her off. And apparently some sort of mother figure to the other kids, which just didn't work with the previous seasons. Sure, there was the Dawn retcon, so she might have been more involved in the new reality, but we remember the original one and she wasn't that.

 

 

I don’t remember supermom. I remember her work was a focus for her, but I bet it needed to be. Buffy was partially remarkable because the characters were real people.  Flawed, and some times they overcame their flaws and sometimes their flawd defined them and sometimes that wasn’t bad. So of course she wasn’t perfect. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Affogato