"Phalanges! Phalanges! Dancing phalanges!"
In defense of the events of the season finale of Bones, but a declamation against the method in which those events were presented, with copious comparisons to Buffy and Angel, because I'm a Whedon nerd.
Because I know Lady U is anal about spoilers ♥ I would like to note that this contains spoilers for the end of BtVS S6/beginning of S7 and the beginning of AtS S4 BOTH OF WHICH SHE'S SEEN. Don't worry Lady U - anything you haven't seen (post-Selfless and post-Spin the Bottle, yes?) will be left out.
I've said most of what I had to say in the previous post, but have since spoken to my father about it. He's one of the few people with whom I share most of my opinions re: books, media, and TV and things pertaining thereto. But I wasn't very surprised when he felt "outraged" and "manipulated" and like my mother "probably won't be watching next season."
And then I was watching Buffy (because Anya makes lunch better) and realized something. So I need to point it out at length.
Look at Zack, Willow, and Fred. They're all sweet, adorable nerds who have gone through a traumatic event and subsequently murdered someone because that person did not fit in with their view of what is "good." Watch BtVS S1-5: Willow is not a killer. Same with AtS S3 and Fred. Fred's a little different because we pick up with her after she's gone through the traumatic event, but at least we get a flashback of her pre-Pylea (oh, and that regression spell in StB) so we know what she was like (which is roughly the same but without being crazy).
Admittedly, the circumstances are all different. Zack went through a war, and killed a corrupt government official. The love of Willow's life was murdered, and Willow killed the murderer. Fred was banished to a hell dimension, and she killed (or would have had Gunn not intervened, but more specifics later) the guy who sent her there.
In Willow and Fred's cases, they're killing the person directly responsible for what happened to them. Zack kills someone who was generally not a good person and was making the world a worse place in small ways just by being alive.
But okay. Specifics. And the reason why Bones could have been excellent but wasn't (although the killing Warren arc on Buffy was annoying and Suppersymmetry was a really bad episode... >.>;)
The main/only difference between the Whedonverse characters and Zack is the way in which they were presented to the audience. With Willow, we meet her when she's pretty much exactly the same person as Zack: cute, smart, shy, and socially awkward. One of my mother's main grievances was that Zack had "a loving and supportive family in S1." But like Zack, Willow has a loving and supportive family - the Scoobies instead of the squints (I'd say even Cordy and Anya were more like bickering sisters with Willow than people who truly disliked her). And like the squints, the Scoobies eventually get too caught up with their own crap to deal with Willow and her problems. Her father-figure, Giles, isn't even there anymore by the time things start going to hell, and when he is, he calls her names and decries her for trying to do something she was really proud of. Even Tara bails when she realizes Willow is getting too far into magic. But here's where things differ from Bones: we get to see what Willow's going through, even though the Scoobies are oblivious. We see her going to Rack, we see her almost kill Dawn. We kind of get what's happening. And we've also seen the way Willow reacts to grief: doing over-the-top stupid things with magic (when Oz left, she cast a spell that almost got all of them killed). So when Warren kills Tara, we can understand why Willow kills Warren - they've built up her character enough and showed us enough onscreen that we don't find it out of character, though perhaps still shocking. We also have to remember that Willow was actively trying to kill Andrew and Jonathan, who are basically innocent of anything really bad (being dumb and annoying, yes, but they're not killers). At that point, Willow's not just killing the bad guys, she's killing innocent people. And then she decided to kill everyone. Which, for the cute nerd, it a really startling thing to do.
With Fred, on the other hand, we meet her after she's already gone through her traumatic event, although at that point she had no one to blame. But they still set up the fact that she's mentally unstable and easily capable of violence. They make you forget it pretty quick, though, but making her cute-crazy instead of scary-crazy, and just generally cute all around. But we do know that Fred gets very violent when she's cornered. They set that up in "Billy" when she knocked Wesley unconscious with a fire extinguisher. We don't get to see much of anything she went through in Pylea, but considering that it made her lock herself in a room for three months, and the fact that she thinks even Gunn, who's lived on the streets as a free-lance vampire hunter and was forced to kill his own sister, couldn't understand how horrible Pylea was for her hints at the fact that whatever happened was really bad. So again, they've set up the fact that Fred's gone through bad shit and has a violent streak as wide as David Boreanaz's forehead. So when she kills Seidel (or tries to kill - but I completely believe she would have if Gunn hadn't been there), it's perfectly in character. It might be a bit surprising when she announces that she's gonna kill him, but not in that way where it's nothing Fred would do. And again to point out the flaw in my mother's notion that just because someone has a loving family means they can't be a killer: Fred's parents are the greatest TV parents ever. Bottom line. There are no more sweet, wonderful, and caring TV parents than Fred's. Jackie Tyler comes close, but Pete Tyler provides more angst than support for Rose. Fred also, like Zack, has a loving adoptive family (the Fang Gang) who are too busy with their own crap to take care of her.
So if, like with Willow and Fred, we'd seen what Zack was going through, it could have been quite easy to accept him as a killer. And also as shocking as it needed to be. I mean, if you show a friend "Entropy" and then tell them that the next episode the nice redhead becomes a murderer, they'd be all "OMGWTF NOWAI!" And you'd probably get the same reaction if you showed them "The House Always Wins" and then said "oh and in the next episode that chick in the green makeup kills a guy."
The other way in which Buffy and Angel work better than Bones is that they deal with the consequences. Willow never really gets over what she does, even after going to England for a three month "don't kill people" seminar. Her friends forgive her easily (and I have a whole series of thoughts on the merits of the Willow storyline v. the Fred storyline based on that fact (and the color of Willow's hair)... but that's another rant), but she never forgives herself, and the way she lives her life is completely different from that point on. I won't go onto the specifics of what happens to Fred for Lady U's sake, but her relationship with Gunn is never the same after that, and she gets over it perhaps more easily than Willow, but that's expected. She's really insane.
Zack, on the other hand, will not be a regular on Bones next season. If he appears at all, I doubt it will be so the writers can deal with the emotional consequences for him - they will most likely deal with the impact it has on B&B, as they're the main characters and Bones is a procedural, not a drama like BtVS and AtS.
Of course, the other way Zack's story differs from Willow and Fred's is that Zack comes under the influence of Gormagon, who he knows is a killer and a cannibal, and doing things by Gormagon's bidding. Willow and Fred are acting of their own volition. But is clinging to someone who has a black and white view of the world, someone who actually pays attention to you, any different from ascribing your own black and white view of the world and acting on that (and I would argue that Fred and Willow could be seen as clinging to Gormagon-like figures: Rack and Wesley, but in the end Willow is eviler even than Rack and murders him too)? We have to remember that Zack didn't eat anyone. He would probably find this action disgusting, but rationally as long as you're not cooking/eating the person alive, what to they care? They're dead. And Zack is very rational. Willow and Fred certainly wouldn't have eaten Warren/Jonathan/Andrew and Seidel anymore than Zack would have eaten the lobbyist, but they killed them for pretty much the same reasons Zack did. Zack just did it because someone else gave him a specific target. (Although Rack and Wesley gave Willow and Fred the means and the approval to kill the Trio and Seidel... so... same thing? Comparable, at least.)
Bottom line: if the Zack arc had been dealt with the same way the Willow and Fred arcs had been dealt with, it would have been really, really good. Plus, Tamara Taylor.
But this is why I hate procedurals. I will most definitely continue watching Bones. But this season finale failed, and I blame that on the writer's strike. As sad as a 9-ep season made me, PD probably did the right thing. They really should've ended the season with Max's trial. But I must reiterate what Lady U said: the actors blew me away. Especially Tamara Taylor. That is a fine ensemble they've got there.
Ah well. At least we've still got one procedural that's still doing a good job of walking the line between procedural and drama. And that r Dexter, I luff it. Moar eps nao plz?
So yes. That was long. And I know my lj-cut promised an Angel/Booth joke, but... I got nothing. So I'll just quote a bad joke from Doctor Who: "Shakespeare walks into a pub and the barkeep says 'Oi mate, you're bard!'"
Because I know Lady U is anal about spoilers ♥ I would like to note that this contains spoilers for the end of BtVS S6/beginning of S7 and the beginning of AtS S4 BOTH OF WHICH SHE'S SEEN. Don't worry Lady U - anything you haven't seen (post-Selfless and post-Spin the Bottle, yes?) will be left out.
I've said most of what I had to say in the previous post, but have since spoken to my father about it. He's one of the few people with whom I share most of my opinions re: books, media, and TV and things pertaining thereto. But I wasn't very surprised when he felt "outraged" and "manipulated" and like my mother "probably won't be watching next season."
And then I was watching Buffy (because Anya makes lunch better) and realized something. So I need to point it out at length.
Look at Zack, Willow, and Fred. They're all sweet, adorable nerds who have gone through a traumatic event and subsequently murdered someone because that person did not fit in with their view of what is "good." Watch BtVS S1-5: Willow is not a killer. Same with AtS S3 and Fred. Fred's a little different because we pick up with her after she's gone through the traumatic event, but at least we get a flashback of her pre-Pylea (oh, and that regression spell in StB) so we know what she was like (which is roughly the same but without being crazy).
Admittedly, the circumstances are all different. Zack went through a war, and killed a corrupt government official. The love of Willow's life was murdered, and Willow killed the murderer. Fred was banished to a hell dimension, and she killed (or would have had Gunn not intervened, but more specifics later) the guy who sent her there.
In Willow and Fred's cases, they're killing the person directly responsible for what happened to them. Zack kills someone who was generally not a good person and was making the world a worse place in small ways just by being alive.
But okay. Specifics. And the reason why Bones could have been excellent but wasn't (although the killing Warren arc on Buffy was annoying and Suppersymmetry was a really bad episode... >.>;)
The main/only difference between the Whedonverse characters and Zack is the way in which they were presented to the audience. With Willow, we meet her when she's pretty much exactly the same person as Zack: cute, smart, shy, and socially awkward. One of my mother's main grievances was that Zack had "a loving and supportive family in S1." But like Zack, Willow has a loving and supportive family - the Scoobies instead of the squints (I'd say even Cordy and Anya were more like bickering sisters with Willow than people who truly disliked her). And like the squints, the Scoobies eventually get too caught up with their own crap to deal with Willow and her problems. Her father-figure, Giles, isn't even there anymore by the time things start going to hell, and when he is, he calls her names and decries her for trying to do something she was really proud of. Even Tara bails when she realizes Willow is getting too far into magic. But here's where things differ from Bones: we get to see what Willow's going through, even though the Scoobies are oblivious. We see her going to Rack, we see her almost kill Dawn. We kind of get what's happening. And we've also seen the way Willow reacts to grief: doing over-the-top stupid things with magic (when Oz left, she cast a spell that almost got all of them killed). So when Warren kills Tara, we can understand why Willow kills Warren - they've built up her character enough and showed us enough onscreen that we don't find it out of character, though perhaps still shocking. We also have to remember that Willow was actively trying to kill Andrew and Jonathan, who are basically innocent of anything really bad (being dumb and annoying, yes, but they're not killers). At that point, Willow's not just killing the bad guys, she's killing innocent people. And then she decided to kill everyone. Which, for the cute nerd, it a really startling thing to do.
With Fred, on the other hand, we meet her after she's already gone through her traumatic event, although at that point she had no one to blame. But they still set up the fact that she's mentally unstable and easily capable of violence. They make you forget it pretty quick, though, but making her cute-crazy instead of scary-crazy, and just generally cute all around. But we do know that Fred gets very violent when she's cornered. They set that up in "Billy" when she knocked Wesley unconscious with a fire extinguisher. We don't get to see much of anything she went through in Pylea, but considering that it made her lock herself in a room for three months, and the fact that she thinks even Gunn, who's lived on the streets as a free-lance vampire hunter and was forced to kill his own sister, couldn't understand how horrible Pylea was for her hints at the fact that whatever happened was really bad. So again, they've set up the fact that Fred's gone through bad shit and has a violent streak as wide as David Boreanaz's forehead. So when she kills Seidel (or tries to kill - but I completely believe she would have if Gunn hadn't been there), it's perfectly in character. It might be a bit surprising when she announces that she's gonna kill him, but not in that way where it's nothing Fred would do. And again to point out the flaw in my mother's notion that just because someone has a loving family means they can't be a killer: Fred's parents are the greatest TV parents ever. Bottom line. There are no more sweet, wonderful, and caring TV parents than Fred's. Jackie Tyler comes close, but Pete Tyler provides more angst than support for Rose. Fred also, like Zack, has a loving adoptive family (the Fang Gang) who are too busy with their own crap to take care of her.
So if, like with Willow and Fred, we'd seen what Zack was going through, it could have been quite easy to accept him as a killer. And also as shocking as it needed to be. I mean, if you show a friend "Entropy" and then tell them that the next episode the nice redhead becomes a murderer, they'd be all "OMGWTF NOWAI!" And you'd probably get the same reaction if you showed them "The House Always Wins" and then said "oh and in the next episode that chick in the green makeup kills a guy."
The other way in which Buffy and Angel work better than Bones is that they deal with the consequences. Willow never really gets over what she does, even after going to England for a three month "don't kill people" seminar. Her friends forgive her easily (and I have a whole series of thoughts on the merits of the Willow storyline v. the Fred storyline based on that fact (and the color of Willow's hair)... but that's another rant), but she never forgives herself, and the way she lives her life is completely different from that point on. I won't go onto the specifics of what happens to Fred for Lady U's sake, but her relationship with Gunn is never the same after that, and she gets over it perhaps more easily than Willow, but that's expected. She's really insane.
Zack, on the other hand, will not be a regular on Bones next season. If he appears at all, I doubt it will be so the writers can deal with the emotional consequences for him - they will most likely deal with the impact it has on B&B, as they're the main characters and Bones is a procedural, not a drama like BtVS and AtS.
Of course, the other way Zack's story differs from Willow and Fred's is that Zack comes under the influence of Gormagon, who he knows is a killer and a cannibal, and doing things by Gormagon's bidding. Willow and Fred are acting of their own volition. But is clinging to someone who has a black and white view of the world, someone who actually pays attention to you, any different from ascribing your own black and white view of the world and acting on that (and I would argue that Fred and Willow could be seen as clinging to Gormagon-like figures: Rack and Wesley, but in the end Willow is eviler even than Rack and murders him too)? We have to remember that Zack didn't eat anyone. He would probably find this action disgusting, but rationally as long as you're not cooking/eating the person alive, what to they care? They're dead. And Zack is very rational. Willow and Fred certainly wouldn't have eaten Warren/Jonathan/Andrew and Seidel anymore than Zack would have eaten the lobbyist, but they killed them for pretty much the same reasons Zack did. Zack just did it because someone else gave him a specific target. (Although Rack and Wesley gave Willow and Fred the means and the approval to kill the Trio and Seidel... so... same thing? Comparable, at least.)
Bottom line: if the Zack arc had been dealt with the same way the Willow and Fred arcs had been dealt with, it would have been really, really good. Plus, Tamara Taylor.
But this is why I hate procedurals. I will most definitely continue watching Bones. But this season finale failed, and I blame that on the writer's strike. As sad as a 9-ep season made me, PD probably did the right thing. They really should've ended the season with Max's trial. But I must reiterate what Lady U said: the actors blew me away. Especially Tamara Taylor. That is a fine ensemble they've got there.
Ah well. At least we've still got one procedural that's still doing a good job of walking the line between procedural and drama. And that r Dexter, I luff it. Moar eps nao plz?
So yes. That was long. And I know my lj-cut promised an Angel/Booth joke, but... I got nothing. So I'll just quote a bad joke from Doctor Who: "Shakespeare walks into a pub and the barkeep says 'Oi mate, you're bard!'"