#I would've been STRESSING myself out trying to 'redeem' them or make them 'see the error of their ways' or something

[bungobble-my-balls]

Never in my life have I seen more buckwild obsession than when I stumble upon posts from whatever new account that Dazai anon has made.

I want to put them in a jar and study them like a bug. Shake it around a little even to see what happens.

[kittythelitter]

Goddddddd season 6 was really just. Pulled out of their asses. Some stuff makes sense but the back to back of As You Were and Hell's Bells sucks so bad. Like. I spent 10 minutes ranting and raving to myself and my cat about how much As You Were a) sucks and b) makes no sense.

Riley sucked from the beginning. From the first episode where he's going around talking about how Buffy's "peculiar" he's a self-centered misogynist. He sucked the entire time they were dating and he sucked especially when they broke up. Having Buffy chase after him was such a fucking stupid end to that arc but like. Imagined scarcity makes people desperate. One of the biggest reasons that they broke up was that he couldn't handle that she was better than him and his manly pride couldn't handle it.

All this to say having him swan back into town with a cool hot wife who is also a badass military demon hunter and the two of them charm everyone and make Buffy feel even more miserable and insecure about how much her life sucks at this rock bottom. It makes no sense for his character or his story arc and!!!! It sucks and is so obnoxious and it ends with Riley redemption??? Riley being emotionally intelligent??? Riley getting a nice conclusion/goodbye??? It's so out of the blue and unearned and even though we barely meet Sam I know she deserves better than being married to fucking Riley.

It sucks. It's shitty and it sucks and if they really wanted to hit home how dysfunctional the Spuffy situationship is at this juncture it would've been better and more satisfying narratively to have Buffy compare her "human x (former) demon on a redemption arc" relationship to Xander and Anya and/or her spiraling unhealthy relationship to the unhealthy and controlling Willow who is now going through the steps to redeem herself in Tara's eyes and/or going to therapy instead of spiraling further.

Like we have two really interesting relationships that are complicated but going through the steps to become better and healthier. That are also her best friends and not her shitty ex who. I cannot stress enough. Does not like or respect strong women and needs to be needed and therefore shouldn't be with a woman whose only defining characteristics are strong and compassionate and military.

Which leads me into Hell's Bells. It could've been really good. If it ended up with Xander and Anya happily married.

I know that lots of people hate Xander which. Whatever. I don't. I think his worst crimes are being an immature and self-centered teenager - which is every single Buffy character's crime when they were teenagers - and a handful really shitty moments that feel (to me) ooc. Like the stuff in OMwF (which doesn't make sense with his larger arc/narrative), and leaving Anya at the altar which again. Terrible ending to that episode which doesn't make sense for Xander or Anya.

Xander and Anya have so much potential as a relationship of two people who are learning and growing together to become better people without losing themselves. And the abrupt ending to their relationship screams of desperately trying to set up the end of the season without thinking it through.

Xander's whole thing is loyalty and faith in the people around him. Making him abruptly leave Anya after seeing his own fears without talking it through with her or his besties about it makes no fucking sense.

It sucks and it's misery making for the sake of misery. Season 6 is relentless in how shitty it makes the audience feel with no relief that's not immediately destroyed. It's such a tonal shift for the show. And like. Yeah season 5 is like depressing but there's rhyme and reason and rhythm to it. It makes sense narratively. It's a satisfying and bittersweet end to the story. Season 6 is just. Bad for my mental health. It sucks and it's miserable and I genuinely hate it but I'm watching it because all I can see is how good it could've been.

Anya and Tara deserved way better. But Xander and Willow also deserved not to have their characters butchered. They both had so much potential and could've had really interesting arcs in that season but instead they became instigators for suffering.

And Buffy. This is really the Buffy suffers season. More so than the other two seasons where she dies. And how shitty is that. Adulthood is hard and overwhelming and can suck but God. Joss Whedon really said once you stop being a young pretty martyr your life is over and there's nothing you can do about it. Jesus fuck.

Anyway I'm on season 6 and it's bad for my mental health but I can't stop watching because I know there's some fun moments in season 7. And I want to read fix it fics but dont remember all the details that get us there.

[organic-guacamole]

I've got a lot of thoughts on this finale.

starting with the length.

27 minutes? really?

I'm not asking for a 2 hour episode but cmon, at least give us something closer to 40 minutes.

next, the characters

the characters just didn't feel like themselves, especially portwell.

all season long we saw how much potential they had, how well communicated they were, how good they were at being a proper, healthy couple, and now they just can't talk to each other?

it doesn't feel like them.

portwell had arguably the best set up of all the other ships, they showed us how good they had the potential to be only to throw in a cheap plot to wrap it up? I would understand that they want some angst to make the ending all the more satisfying, but this was pathetic.

there I said it.

of all the ways to add drama in a ship, don't use the one that completely contradicts their entire development.

paired with the length of the episode, it seemed even more poorly written.

here I made a lovely, handy dandy homemade graph to represent how I see portwell's storyline:

as i said before, we saw the build up being nearly perfect. they peaked during episodes 9-11 because they just had the chemistry, the communication, and the most potential to be the endgame couple.

they just got eachother.

then we get Jamie popping in for 10 seconds and erasing a lot of that, only for mediator Ashlyn to jump in and solve their problems.

then there's the "kiss".

I know that Sofia is underage and that even if she/her legal guardians consent to the kiss, the writers can still decide not to show it, but still. In my opinion, if you're not going to show the kiss, then don't bother.

there are other ways to establish a relationship that would work better in this situation. Of course if they get together they'll have to kiss sometime, but one way they could postpone it is by having Gina be a bit more reluctant to give away her first kiss like that. it could also show how accomodating EJ is.

I like to think that Gina is very meticulous when making decisions so she'll probably want to be very sure of the relationship before giving him her first kiss. perhaps she'd stick to cheek kisses until she's ready, and then she kisses him and he's surprised.

that would've been, in my opinion, a sufficient way to hold off the kiss while still wrapping up portwell until season 3 when Sofia would be 18 (assuming they get picked up for S3 this summer then start filming fall-winter. Sofia will be 18 in January).

as my friend @rtcosley (idk why it's not letting me tag them, so their page is linked) said,

"They created like 10 plots

And instead of wrapping it up

They added 4 more"

there's just so much more they could've done...it's the season finale for crying out loud.

I get that seblos already had (what I assume is) their storyline for the season, the fight and resolution. Ignoring the fact that that only lasted for 2 episodes and didn't have anything to do with what we were expecting, (i.e.the financial differences between their families, as mentioned in episode 1, the fact that everyone treats seb like he's stupid, this being carlos' first show and the drama that the stress of that caused, etc.), seblos had to purpose this episode than to stand next to eachother and be gay.

I get that they're not part of the core four or anything, but the poster for season 2 has all of them, as opposed to season 1 just being the core four.

They deserved better, just like redlyn and kowie.

redlyn's arc was pretty early in the season compared to the other ships. they had Ashlyn confessing her insecurities in episode 3, antoine stirring the pot of confusion and causing a bit of distance between them briefly, and then big red confessing his goals and plans for the future in episode 8 and for the rest of it, we just see them getting closer and more comfortable with each other and caring about each other more and more.

they had a good arc together.

but that's just it. I wanted to see them have their own arcs. but then again, this show can't seem to balance multiple storylines. I think it is possible, but not when they keep adding new characters that don't contribute anything much to the story(more on that later).

kowie's storyline is... confusing.

I really like their dynamic, how carefree and happy Kourtney gets around him, how she's remaining true to herself and managing a million and one things, plus a relationship in her own without losing herself to it all.

but the main issue I have is that the entire development was never shown.

we went from strangers, to coworkers, to friends that flirt, to lovers that text constantly and went on numerous dates (and Howie met her mother at some point). but all of that, was off screen.

it's like the writers made every episode with them in it kind of thrown in at a new stage of relationship progression and said "here, accept this, no questions asked because we don't have answers"

I just wish we could've seen more of howie trying to get in her good side again after episode 7 because it seems like that's when a lot of it happened.

I appreciate the Rini scene in this episode, seems to be the very end of them, for good this time.

i'm happy about that.

Ricky especially deserves to be free for a while to focus on his development, and Nini has the chance now to really shine through her talents and make a name for herself.

The Rini storyline is the only one I'm fully satisfied with.

now, that being said;

what the heck are they trying to pull with Lily and Ricky rn???

just like that.

after lily being the villain this whole season, they're just gonna not redeem her and then have her confess her feelings to Ricky, a guy she barely knows and only talked to to harass and intimidate, and for him to reject her publicly then call her afterwards?

please I hope it's just to say "you dropped something, here it is and never contact me again, thanks." /hj

speaking of the villains, this season was promoted as the season of rivalry between North and East High right? so why did that plot idea only progress in about 3 out if 12 episodes?

we got Zackey Roy in there for a few episodes then he disappeared, Lily just caused Gina to stay true to her friends in episode 2 and 7 and then basically did nothing else?

this is what I mean by the new characters providing nothing to the show.

the writers can't manage having so many characters and plots at once so they start so many promising arcs, only to kick them aside later on.

we already know that the first half of the season felt like filler episodes, so I think they could've cut those down to leave room for the more important plots to take root, rather than have them pop up and get rushed at the end of the season.

all that, and they just add 4 more plots at the end of the season.

this post sounds very negative looking back...but if I'm being honest with myself, I'm just very very disappointed.

I love this show so much and I really expected better for the season finale, especially if they don't know if it's getting renewed or not.

given the IMDB ratings of this episode so far, I don't have very high expectations for the renewal, but I'm still hopeful because this show is a great thing, one of the best things that happened to me over the course of this quarantine. I've become so attached to this show, the cast and the friends I made through it, that I don't know what I would do if it just ends like this. writing these reviews and posts about this season has been so fun for me to do and thinking that this may be the very last one is a painful thought.

I'm sorry if you were expecting this post to be as light-hearted as my other posts about the episodes, I just had a lot to say about this episode in particular.

all my episode posts are tagged with "#guac's episode text blocks :)" in case you wanna read through and reminisce the simpler times🥲