Buffy Rewatch: Chosen

[kuzibah]

So, the Buffy rewatch project I started 144 weeks ago came to an end this past week. Almost everyone who was with us at the start dropped off, until it was basically me, Grim, and Michael still watching, but it was very interesting seeing it all again, in order, spaced out, knowing what it was all leading up to

Comments

[jjbrozenske]

I've been watching Buffy for the past few months. I started in college when it was airing, but never followed through to the end. I'm about three episodes shy of the end now :)

[kuzibah]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Obviously, it's the show that changed my life. (Remind me to show you my Buffy tattoo next time I see you...)

[jjbrozenske]

A good ending, I just wish Dawn could have bit it instead of Anya. I never liked Dawn. But Spike went out with some grand dignity which rocks.

[liliaeth]

Honestly, I've despised Chosen since the first time I watched it. I still haven't forgiven Joss for that final scene with the Scoobies joking over Anya, Spike and several potentials' graves...

That joking turned what could have been a meaningful ending into a tragedy, cause Spike might have won the battle for them, but the Scoobies clearly showed they weren't worthy of it. Losing the war by allowing themselves to become corrupted. I still have trouble regaining even the slightest bit of liking for any of them (except maybe Buffy) after that scene.

[kuzibah]

I guess I can understand that feeling, but I saw it more as trenches humor than being uncaring. Coming close to death and not dying can be almost euphoric, which is where I saw that coming from. There will be time to mourn their losses, but that will be later, off-screen.

That said, I can understand and sympathise with your POV.

[liliaeth]

I've tried to see it that way, I really have. But then I see the end of Not Fade Away, where they're all in the middle of a battle, they're about ready to face death and yet all of them take a moment to mourn Wesley.

I don't even like Wesley, but the fact that they all mourned him, made me care about every character in that last stand. Even Illyria.

Trenches humor is all good and well, but that was the last moment we go to share with those characters on screen and seeing them joking over the graves of characters that at that point I liked a million times more than I did any of them, just signed death for any remaining feelings of liking I might have had left for them at that point.