An Open Letter to Joss Whedon:

A Better Ending for "Normal Again"

Dear Joss:

I finally figured out what the problem is with "Normal Again"!

About 99 percent of the episode is just fine. Buffy is faced with a choice: She can have her dead mother AND her absentee father back in her life again, the perfect fantasy family (in the perfect fantasy family of an older sibling, there are no younger children to distract one's parents' attention). But Buffy can only have this love and acceptance, this position at the center of her parents' devotion, if she accepts that the Buffyverse is a product of mental illness. Her only alternative is to stay in the Buffyverse and can save the lives of her friends. Nothing wrong with that.

The problem is the ending, that last little coda that tells us that poor Buffy Anne Summers is as crazy as a bedbug in THIS reality, our "real world."

This is an ending that needs to be rejected, and strenuously. The Buffyverse is a wonderful, remarkable world, where evil never goes unpunished and love and compassion always win. It is a rich, multi-layered, intricate world filled with complex characters who are capable of astonishing nobility.

If the Buffyverse is the product of madness, then may every alternate Universe there is, including ours, partake of this madness!

And so I have written what I believe is a better ending:
 

A Better Ending for
“Normal Again” (6.17)

INT., THE INSANE ASYLUM - BUFFY'S ROOM

We see Buffy's bed. On it is lying a mannequin that looks a little like Buffy. The mannequin is dressed in the white hospital gown that Buffy wore as a patient in the asylum.

ANGLE ON JOYCE

Buffy's mother is clearly a demon who is full of rage.

JOYCE DEMON

(sardonically)

My baby is gone! My baby is gone!

ANGLE ON HANK

Buffy's father is also revealed to be a demon. He speaks like a potter whose cherished vase has shattered while in the kiln.

HANK DEMON

I don't understand. Everything was going so well. How could this have happened?

ANGLE ON BUFFY'S PSYCHIATRIST

Buffy's shrink is clearly the Boss Demon.

BOSS DEMON

Our plan failed, and she escaped. . . . I guess we'll have to go back to talk radio.

 

Joss, Mr. Whedon, sir, Master of the Buffyverse, O Greatest of All Mortals — please consider hiring Kristine Sutherland, Dean Butler, and Michael Warren to come back and make this 30-second scene. Obviously it can't replace the 2002 “Normal Again,” — but you could sell a ton of specially made DVDs. Everyone who loves the Buffyverse would pop for $45 for “Season Six with the Revised Ending of ‘Normal Again’”!