Living on a Hellmouth means that the Scooby Gang sees a lot of death inBuffy the Vampire Slayer, but one character’s demise in particular was meant to be much more shocking for the audience than it was. With plenty of blood shed throughout its seven seasons, the iconic ’90s teen series proves early on that nobody is safe, andBuffy herself even dies three timesin the show.
Some ofBuffy’s most tragic deathsare character love interests like Jenny Calendar and Tara Maclay, whose passings are as heartbreaking as they are surprising. Perhaps the biggest mortality plot twist is Joyce’s death, who succumbed to natural causes as opposed to supernatural ones. Then there’s Warren, who totally had it coming, though the violence of his murder still made me gasp. But while all these demises are all surprising because of story-related reasons, an issue behind the scenes prevented one character’s death from being an early-Buffymemorable moment.
Jesse Actor Eric Balfour Was Supposed To Be In Buffy’s Opening Credits To Make His Death More Of A Shock
Budgetary Reasons Prevented This From Happening
In theBuffy the Vampire Slayerpilot, “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” Buffy meets Willow and Xander for the first time, along with another member of their friend group, the ill-fated Jesse McNally. Like the others, Jesse is considered uncool by the general Sunnydale High population, and he’s primarily defined by his crush on Cordelia.The tone of Jesse’s scenes in “Welcome to the Hellmouth” suggests that he’s one of the gangand meant to stick around for a long time.
However, at the end of the episode, he’s separated from the future Scooby Gang and kidnapped by Darla and co. When Buffy and the others go to rescue him in episode 2, “The Harvest,” it’s revealed that Jesse has been turned into a vampire.This is the show’s first major plot twist, and it’s one with devastating consequencesfor Xander. As Giles explains, the Jesse whom Xander was best friends with is gone forever. The episode ends with Xander staking Jesse during a vampire attack on the Bronze, and the character is gone forever, never to return onBuffy.
This would make it look like Jesse is a character in the show for the long haul, only for him to be bumped off quickly.
While Jesse’s death was definitely a surprise,Buffycreator Joss Whedon really wanted to take the shock factor to the next level by putting actor Eric Balfour into the opening credits for the two episodes he was in. This would make it look like Jesse is a character in the show for the long haul, only for him to be bumped off quickly. Unfortunately for Whedon,withBuffybeing a fledgling show, there wasn’t room in the budget for two sets of credits, so his plans were foiled.
Amber Benson Was Added To The Credits In Tara’s Death Episode For That Same Reason
Whedon Upheld The “Bury Your Gays” Trope
Joss Whedon may not have been able to shockBuffyseason 1 audiences, but by the time the show was in its sixth season and had a much bigger budget, he got his wish. Though Amber Benson had been in several episodes of the series, andTara and Willow’s relationship was aBuffyfan favorite, the actress was never made a series regular — that is, until season 6, episode 19, “Seeing Red,” when Benson was added to the credits.
After an entire season of tumultuousness between Willow and Tara, the iconic couple finally got back together in the previous episode. It was a moment of romantic euphoria for the downer of a season, and Benson seemingly becoming a series regular was just the cherry on top. Sadly, this wasall a narrative trick by Whedon, as Tara was accidentally shot dead by Warren at the end of the episode. Not only is Tara’s death upsetting, but it also completely upholds the problematic “bury your gays” media trope, in which LGBTQ+ characters continually face tragic, fatal fates.
Amber Benson Was Also Asked To Return
Though the show’s final season is considered one of the weaker installments, one ofBuffy’s best episodesis season 7, episode 7, “Conversations with Dead People,” in which the First Evil visits several characters in the form of deceased people from their past. One of those was supposed to be Jesse McNally, who was meant to speak with Xander, though this never came to fruition. (Eric Balfour was rumored to have been unavailable.) As a result,this storyline was cut from the episode, and it was the only one in which Xander doesn’t appear.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of “Conversations with Dead People” is the reappearance of Cassie, who visits Willow and taunts her in an attempt to drive her to suicide. Cassie does this by claiming that she’s speaking for Tara from beyond the grave. As upsetting as this is, it was supposed to be even darker because Whedon had reportedly wanted Amber Benson herself to return as Tara.Ultimately, Benson turned them down, and the actress explained her reasoning to theBBC:
I wish that we could have worked it out but there were extenuating circumstances that I don’t really want to go into.
I would love to have come back but sometimes there are things in your life that you have to stand up for and to tell you the God’s honest truth, I really didn’t want Tara to be bad, and that would have been a component of me coming back.
As much as I wanted to come back - and I almost did - that was something that was dogging my not wanting to come back. I just felt like people really loved that character and for her to be bad would just destroy people. So that was one of the reasons I didn’t go back.
Benson made the right choice, and Tara truly does live on in the hearts ofBuffy the Vampire Slayerfans. It would have been an interesting throwback to have seen Jesse, but like his appearance in the opening credits, it just wasn’t meant to be.
