But if you break down the season -- more of it wanders than tends to stick in memory -- it was largely about exactly what it said it was about -- inappropriate older boyfriend for a young girl.
I must say I feel like I really *was* watching a different show than you if Season 2 is being reduced to only "inappropriate older boyfriend for a young girl."
I think you might be confusing fans' expectations of a tightly wound thematic seasonal arc for a tight plot. Comparing the same Season 2 in a thematic sense, we open with a girl terrified of her calling and her place in the world. The season takes her through this exploration of her identity (another slayer shows up to challenge her sense of being the one, she enters into a sexual relationship with disastrous consequences). And Becoming is aptly named because it finally shows that moment where she says, "Me." She has accepted her inner strength, accepted her grief at her failed relationship with her first lover, accepted her duty to now kill her lover in order to save the world. She is enough. She has become whole. Strong. Resolved. Only to regress after that moment of self-actualization when forced to send a souled Angel to hell. Rejecting her duties as the slayer and running away from her friends and family, her very identity which she had just owned so completely. Trauma and the resulting human response - fight or flight.
Joss has never been about tight plots in the sense that you seem to be categorizing them, but about creating plots that propel the characters' journeys. The plot serves to create moments and experiences that resonate and shape the characters. In fact, I have to wonder if he stopped "wandering" so much in order to create the desired tight plots, the character journeys would suffer since he's no longer making their experiences and reactions the primary focus.
Joss writes stories with the characters journeys in mind first and he creates plot events that will guide their growth/regression. The plot events serve as the underpinnings, the gravitational forces, of their forward momentum as they react to each other and the world around them. The plot was never really all that important - it was the way the characters reacted. Create random event A in order to make Buffy cry and question her ability to have a healthy relationship. And so on.
no subject
I must say I feel like I really *was* watching a different show than you if Season 2 is being reduced to only "inappropriate older boyfriend for a young girl."
I think you might be confusing fans' expectations of a tightly wound thematic seasonal arc for a tight plot. Comparing the same Season 2 in a thematic sense, we open with a girl terrified of her calling and her place in the world. The season takes her through this exploration of her identity (another slayer shows up to challenge her sense of being the one, she enters into a sexual relationship with disastrous consequences). And Becoming is aptly named because it finally shows that moment where she says, "Me." She has accepted her inner strength, accepted her grief at her failed relationship with her first lover, accepted her duty to now kill her lover in order to save the world. She is enough. She has become whole. Strong. Resolved. Only to regress after that moment of self-actualization when forced to send a souled Angel to hell. Rejecting her duties as the slayer and running away from her friends and family, her very identity which she had just owned so completely. Trauma and the resulting human response - fight or flight.
Joss has never been about tight plots in the sense that you seem to be categorizing them, but about creating plots that propel the characters' journeys. The plot serves to create moments and experiences that resonate and shape the characters. In fact, I have to wonder if he stopped "wandering" so much in order to create the desired tight plots, the character journeys would suffer since he's no longer making their experiences and reactions the primary focus.
Joss writes stories with the characters journeys in mind first and he creates plot events that will guide their growth/regression. The plot events serve as the underpinnings, the gravitational forces, of their forward momentum as they react to each other and the world around them. The plot was never really all that important - it was the way the characters reacted. Create random event A in order to make Buffy cry and question her ability to have a healthy relationship. And so on.