WARNING!!
This article contains spoilers for viewers not yet up to Episode 13 of season 2!
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She has written three episodes so far this season, earlier with "Untouched" and then "Redefinition" and most recently "Blood Money," co-written with Shawn Ryan. "At first we weren't sure [Blood Money] was going to turn out as well as we wanted but I was actually very happy with how it came out. I was very thrilled with it." How much fun is it working with Shawn? "It's fantastic! He's so fun, he calls me Mere-bear. He's a really awesome guy." All of these episodes are emotionally charged, multi-dimensional, and have that hanging-in-the-balance thrill ride to them. I wondered if this was where the center of Mere's creativity lies.
"How many opportunities do you get to be a big sleaze ball? Unless you're me, which is all the time."
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As if she taps into something dark and unique to reach this inner core which she conveys and structures around her characters so well. "First of all I have to give a lot of credit to Joss for 'Untouched.'" She admits, "He really took my script and made it something more than it was. Not directorial, I mean writing. He rewrote parts of it and just made it so much more complex than I had even thought that could be mined from the material. He's a genius and any kind of complexity that you see from that episode is from Joss, not me!" she confesses with a laugh. "But I'd like to think that I learn well, and I feel like I followed up 'Untouched' by watching what Joss had done with the material and tried to implement that into 'Redefinition.'" She explains how he does this by looking at the story from different perspectives, "Joss says, 'In everybody's life story, if they were to tell their life story, you're going to be your own hero'. You've got your justifications for doing what you do and you're the hero even if you're talking about a bad guy, even if you're talking about Lindsey or Lilah. They still have their perspective wherein what they're doing is right, right for them.
Wolfram & Heart's new
Special Projects team
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So his telling me that really made me, sort of turn a corner and I realized that a lot of what I had done were stock characters, stock feelings, just one dimensional things. What he got me to do was to go deeper than that, to go more complex than that, the layers. I got the layers from Joss and I'm just so thankful that I'm learning from such a great teacher."
When "Redefinition" aired there was an outpouring of positive feedback from all corners, critics and fans alike. It was an amazingly driven episode and opened so many avenues for all the current characters. Mere admits that she was emotionally attached to "Redefinition," even to the point where at one of the note taking sessions she felt herself getting a little defensive. "I was so emotionally involved with the story, with sort of redefining Angel, redefining the gang, redefining Lindsey and Lilah. I felt so lucky to have been given an arc episode that I was completely 100% emotionally involved in it." "Redefinition" can be considered a cornerstone at the middle of the second season. There is so much going on in this episode in way as preparation. Darla & Drusilla are the new bad in town, Wolfram & Heart have a new special projects team, Angel and the gang are now solo and separate, respectively. Talk about layers, here within the construct of multiple story threads dwells the calmest of cool heads. "First I sat down and panicked for awhile," she confessed laughing. "I really did, I sat there after I'd written the outline and said, 'There is no way I can do this.' " A slight panic-attack, but then Mere pulled it together. "Got a little self-denigration going right off the bat and I was so intimidated that I just plowed through it, I mean literally. I wrote the teaser and act one on a Friday, I wrote act two on a Saturday, act three on a Sunday and act four on a Monday. I mean I just plowed through the script and then took a few more days and polished what I had. I think because I was so intimidated by the weightiness of that episode I just sort of tucked my head down and just felt like, 'Well, if I can just get through it that'll be something. I might die at the end but at least I'll have gotten through it'. And Rob Kral, oh my God."
"I felt like, to get torched at the end of it I was just like, 'God, this girl can't get a break!'"
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Isn't he a sweetheart? "He's not only a sweetheart but did you hear his score for my episode? Could that have been any better? It was so phenomenal! I was just completely taken aback when I heard it. I listened to that score and I said, 'He totally got it'. He absolutely got every single note of it! It was so much more than I had ever expected, it was just so beautiful! He's really fantastic, both he and when Chris Beck was working for Buffy."
When getting inside the emotional head of the characters, a writer will usually find aspects that they enjoy writing about more and exploring in one over another. Mere is no exception, admitting to having her favorites who she enjoys getting wrapped up in. "Definitely, some characters are more fun to write. Cordy is a blast to write, I love writing Cordy! I also really love writing Merl because he's just so sleazy. (laugh) How many opportunities do you get to be a big sleaze ball? Unless you're me, which is all the time," she adds, laughing. "I love writing some characters over the other but I have to say, emotionally, the Darla story. Being this vampire and still not really being able to let go of Angel yet. She was sort of the emotional story that I got wrapped up in most in "Redefinition" because I just - I mean I know, killed 12 lawyers, evil, okay I get it. But at the same time I just felt so sorry for her." But that's what's great, you create this character who is consummately evil and yet you've created this empathy for her as well. "Yeah, that was a big thing for me," she confides,
"God doesn't want you,
... but I still do!"
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"I just felt so empathetic towards her. She's gone through this huge upheaval, first she's dead, then she's alive and she's human, then she's gonna die, and now she's a vampire who's never gonna die. You know, it was just this huge upheaval and for her, I felt like, to get torched at the end of it I was just like, 'God, this girl can't get a break!' " (laugh)
The collective creative force behind each character is, of course, the writers, the actors and the brilliant mind of Joss Whedon. But there are always 'stand out' characters, scenes and dialogue, and more times than not they come from the focused center of a particular writer. This season the character of Darla, magnificently portrayed by Julie Benz, has outshined every other character (except perhaps for The Host) [Andy Hallett] with her heart wrenching emotional range. "I think Tim [Minear] really has a handle on Darla because he was the guy who came up with the idea for Darla to be brought back in the first place and he understands her. I just have to remind you that I do know this is fiction!" After a laugh she continues, "He has a great Darla voice and every time I've tried to write her I feel like I'm trying to channel Tim. Also Marti [Noxon] wrote a couple of the really good lines in "Dear Boy" like, 'God doesn't want you... but I still do!' " That entire scene was outstanding! "Yes. Every time I watch that scene, when she comes to that line, I just get chills!"
"Does everybody
know where I live?"
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And Julie brings so much to that character. "Oh, absolutely! Julie Benz is a fantastic actress, fantastic. And she's so sweet, just the nicest person. I brought my mom to the set when my mom was visiting me in August when they were shooting "Dear Boy" and Julie sat there and talked to my mom for like 20 minutes. It was so nice."
Sometimes, if you are lucky, you'll come across a scene which makes you really think about what you are watching. Of course, this happens 90% of the time when dealing with the Joss-verse. But you wonder if the writer was so in tune to the moment that they made a conscious effort to make you think or they are just so naturally talented that you've come to expect such profundity. In Act Four of "Redefinition," Darla and Drusilla emerge from a bar before heading to the factory. Darla goes on a verbal montage of, 'If this were a perfect world... ', in her last line she says: "In a perfect world there would be nothing left but ashes...” Here we find an amazing, subtle, irony where 'in a perfect world, (without vampires), there would be nothing left but [their] ashes. "I'd love to take credit for being smarter than I am but I'm really not," admittedly laughs Mere. "I wrote the line and I sat there and I was like, 'I don't know, is that too arch. Is it too flowery, too lyrical?' and then I sat there and I was like, 'Look at that double entendre staring me in the face!' I thought, 'I'm pseudo-smart! I'm subconsciously smart'. But it was subconscious and then I realized it. But you're not crazy, you're not seeing things that aren't there." I brought it to the attention of a couple friends of mine and they were like, 'oh man, that's so cool.' "That's the exact reaction I had when I read it for the second time," she concludes laughing again.
A new dynamic has been created between the characters of Drusilla and Darla, Grandmother/daughter, daughter/Grandmother, since they have been in existence together for hundreds of years. Darla still seems to react as if she's 'saddled' with Dru. Not really one of her favorite people, yet a necessity perhaps? "I feel like she doesn't really have any choice. I mean, who's left, Spike?" Mere explains, "She never liked Spike either. This is totally non-canonical, but in my own head, it's kind of like Dru in some weird way is her connection to Angel where Spike wouldn't be, because Dru made Spike. I feel like Darla has just been re-brought back into the world and she's got nobody. Lindsey's a human so he wouldn't understand. At least Darla spent countless years with Drusilla so even if she doesn't particularly like her, kind of like you don't particularly like certain members of your family, but they're still family. I feel that's the toleration forbearance attitude she has towards Dru. It's like, 'you drive me nuts but I don't got anybody else'."
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