By Chris Snellgrove
| Revealed
Ever discover how followers go loopy for deleted scenes, particularly relating to their favourite reveals? In case you love a sequence exhausting sufficient, it’s straightforward to take a look at deleted content material like one thing that was taken from you. When the scene in query is nice sufficient, you would possibly even begin to marvel why it was minimize within the first place.
Effectively, only a few sequence are as widespread as Buffy the Vampire Slayera present with various deleted scenes. This features a snippy interplay between Willow and Cordelia in “Phases” that many followers wished had been saved within the episode. Nonetheless, it’s good that this dialogue was minimize as a result of it will have utterly modified Willow’s character, successfully hinting at her later transformation right into a a lot darker character.
A Self-Protection Class Gone Unsuitable
“Phases” was, after all, the episode the place we uncover that the eternally Zen character Oz has fairly the key: he’s a werewolf who transforms right into a harmful, ravenous monster by the sunshine of the total moon. The Slayer retains the massive, unhealthy wolfman from harming anyone, and he or she additionally stops a hunter hellbent on making Oz his newest prize. Alongside the way in which, our Sunnydale Excessive college students took a self-defense class, and a few dialogue between Willow and Cordelia was finally faraway from the ultimate episode.
Within the scene, Cordelia is about to spar with Xander, who sarcastically tells her, “Be mild with me.” Matching his sarcastic vibes, Cordelia turns to Willow and says, “You’re first. I wouldn’t need to be accused of taking your home in line.” In response, Willow replies, “Oh, I feel you pushed your solution to the entrance lengthy earlier than this.”
Ladies Can Be So Imply
Issues get more and more snippy between the younger girls, with Cordelia claiming, “Hey, I can’t assist it if I get the highlight simply because some folks mix into the background.” Willow frostily responds, “Effectively, perhaps some folks may see higher when you weren’t standing on the public sale block, shaking your wares.” Cordelia tells her, “Sorry, we haven’t all perfected that phony ‘lady subsequent door’ bit” earlier than Willow brings this deleted scene to an finish with a distinctively vindictive response: “You can be the lady subsequent door, too. If Xander lived subsequent to a brothel!”
Necessary context for this episode is that Cordelia and Xander have been secretly courting behind everybody’s again. Nonetheless, Xander is preoccupied with Willow’s relationship with Oz, even stopping his makeout session with Cordelia to marvel what his witchy buddy sees on this wolfy senior. Whereas Willow isn’t immediately conscious of this specific relationship drama, that very same drama helps to elucidate why Cordelia was being so imply on this deleted scene from “Phases.”
A Girlfight Scarier Than Any Vampire Combat
What the drama doesn’t actually clarify, although, is why this scene portrays Willow as a Cordelia-esque imply lady in her personal proper. Traditionally, early Buffy the Vampire Slayer portrayed Cordelia because the preppy imply lady and Willow because the mousy nerd. The 2 girls had a relatively cantankerous relationship going again to earlier than the present beginning, and of their very first onscreen interplay, we see Cordelia criticizing Willow for the way she attire.
In early Buffy episodes, Willow wasn’t afraid to get again at Cordelia, however she often did so in comparatively refined methods. Maybe essentially the most notorious (and funniest) instance of that is when Willow tracks the opposite girls into deleting an task on the pc by convincing Cordelia that the DEL key on her keyboard stands for “ship.” Nonetheless, she didn’t actually push again towards Cordelia’s snark extra immediately till Season 3, which included the messy plot level of stealing Cordelia’s boyfriend (they’re overtly courting by this level), Xander.
The Mousy Woman Bites Again
On this deleted scene from “Phases,” nonetheless, Willow’s sarcastic replies appear out of character, way more in step with the snappy repartee of Buffy Summers. Willow mainly tells Cordelia to her face that the opposite lady, regardless of having benefits like wealth and sweetness, remains to be neurotically obsessive about being widespread. She then calls Cordelia a prostitute, accusing her of promoting her physique to males earlier than outright saying she belongs in a brothel.
Is it humorous? In fact, and it’s not like ditzy imply lady Cordelia didn’t have it coming. However I maintain reflecting on the truth that that is way more like what we’d count on of Willow in Season 6: that was the season the place she started recklessly utilizing magic, needlessly resurrecting Buffy, brainwashing Tara, and ultimately changing into a risk to your complete world. Darkish Willow was all the time nice for sassy quotes, together with calling a foe “very good*tch” and saying “bored now” proper earlier than she rips the pores and skin off one other human being.
A Scary Glimpse Of What She Would Turn out to be
Clearly, the Willow within the deleted scene of “Phases” isn’t at risk of ripping the flesh off anybody’s physique. However she is within the enterprise of dropping the type of harsh fact bombs that Darkish Willow can be recognized for, and like her later villain persona, she’s abruptly not taking crap from somebody who provides her perspective. That is arguably an enchancment over mousy Willow, after all, nevertheless it’s additionally utterly out of character with the Willow of Season 2, one who had but to totally come out about her love of magic (amongst different issues).
Lengthy story quick? It’s good that this Buffy the Vampire Slayer scene was minimize, although numerous followers would surrender their Mr. Pointy replicas to see it within the last episode. Slicing the scene meant chopping out a severely out-of-character second for everybody’s favourite lady subsequent door, and that helped make it all of the extra stunning when Willow later stopped taking part in by the foundations and confirmed everybody simply how harmful a imply lady may actually be.