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Movie Madness
By spikeNdru, September 2003
Humor, PG-13
1,375 words
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The group of sorcerers felt a disturbance in the air around them. Mordoc’s fingers sketched an arcane sign in the air, which immediately halted the chanting. Casting a handful of powdered herbs and other ingredients into the brazier, Mordoc sketched a second sign and three figures appeared in the center of the circle. The tall, beautiful, self-possessed woman, impeccably dressed in designer clothing, was obviously in charge. Accompanying her were a rather non-descript young male and a slender, fairly attractive man in his mid forties.
“Who dares to summon the power of Mordoc?” Mordoc thundered in the voice he had *borrowed* from the Great and Powerful Oz.
“I do. Lilah Morgan. These two just attached themselves to my designer power suit coattails.”
“Not I,” said the man. “I just came along ‘cause it seemed like fun.”
“What do you want?” thundered Mordoc.
“I want revenge!” replied Lilah.
“Me, too,” said Jesse.
“I just came along for the ride,” said Ethan.
“Revenge on who?” thundered Mordoc.
“Whom,” Lilah corrected.
“Whatever,” Mordoc conceded.
“On Joss Whedon, to answer your grammatically incorrect question,” Lilah answered.
“Me, too,” said Jesse.
“Oh, I don’t need revenge,” said Ethan. “This just looked like fun.”
“’Splainey!” thundered Mordoc.
Lilah gestured, and a leather executive chair magically appeared. Ethan gestured and produced a British pub stool, a three-foot section of bar, and a pint of Guinness. Jesse gestured and nothing happened. He tried again. He finally shrugged and sat down on the floor.
Lilah sat in the leather chair and crossed her slim legs, clad in real silk stockings, hand woven by hearing-impaired, visually-challenged female members of an Asian religious order. Looking at her legs, Mordoc lost control of the conversation, as well as several bodily functions.
Lilah snapped her impeccably manicured fingers.
“Pay attention!” she ordered, and cracked a six-foot long bullwhip.
Mordoc lost control of an additional bodily function, and Ethan decided he was in love! Lilah ignored the drooling idiots and launched into her diatribe.
“Joss Whedon is the God of Television! He can do whatever he wants. He had three separate series running simultaneously in 2002!” Lilah paused to collect herself, taking a deep breath.
“Following the ancient principles of yin and yang, Joss developed two shows to compliment each other. One was a female-driven show with only three main male characters.”
“Don’t forget Andrew,” Ethan interjected.
“Who’s Andrew?” Mordoc thundered.
“Tucker’s brother,” Lilah, Ethan and Jesse chorused.
Lilah continued, “The other was a male-oriented show with three main female cast members, of which I was one—the most beautiful, stylish and snarky one, I might add! Fred was the Brains, Cordelia was the Heart, but I was the Power! And It’s! All! About! Power! I was poised to become the most powerful woman in the Jossverse! This was my moment! Joss had Buffy spend the season making strident, boring motivational speeches and Willow cowering in a corner, playing Tiddlywinks with an obnoxious, annoying S.I.T. . .”
“What’s a S.I.T.?” Mordoc thundered.
Ethan explained. “S.I.T.s are dozens of mostly nameless, extraneous characters, whose main function is to eat up screen time, as well as any and all food ever brought into the Summers’ house. They were created by Evil Gremlins and snuck into the Buffyverse while Joss’ attention was distracted by Firefly.”
Ethan took another sip of his beer, and with a satisfied smirk, continued, “It was pure Chaos! It turned everything upside down and the regulars were functioning as extras! Good times!”
Lilah cleared her throat and tapped the bullwhip against her hip. Every male in the room shut up and immediately came to attention.
“Just when I was about to become the most powerful woman in the Jossverse, he killed me off! What were the odds of that? I was one of only three women in the series. He didn’t kill any of the three men on our (Lilah’s beautiful hands made ‘air quotes’) *sister series*!”
“Well, technically . . .” Ethan broke in.
“Oh, please! Spike doesn’t count! Long before Joss *killed* him, everyone already knew Spike was coming on Angel!”
Mordoc was running out of bodily functions of which he could lose control.
“He killed me,” Jesse whined. “I never even had a chance. He killed me in the very first episode. He set me up to make the audience think I was an integral member of the core group and he killed me for shock value. It’s not fair!”
“Oh, shut up!” everyone exclaimed simultaneously.
Mordoc sketched a symbol in the air, and Jesse disappeared to re-run heaven. The others heaved a sigh of relief.
“So what do you want me to do about it?” Mordoc thundered.
“I have a plan. An ingenious, evil plan, because *hey!* I’m ingenious, evil Lilah Morgan, and that’s what I do!” Lilah caressed the handle of the bullwhip, and Mordoc ordered a ten minute break, so that everyone (except Lilah) could go shower and change clothes.
INTERMISSION
Reconvening the group, Lilah explained her plan.
“I’ve given this a lot of thought. I have had all the resources of Wolfram and Hart at my disposal and I wasn’t shy about using them. I know each character’s strengths and weaknesses, and I know where to hide them! If I hide all the characters in other TV series and films, Joss will have to bring me back! I’ll be the only one who knows where the rest of his cast is, and he won’t be able to produce this season without me.”
“It’s pure Chaos! Bloody brilliant!” Ethan injected smarmily.
“I have a list . . .” Lilah handed a glowing scroll to Mordoc.
Working rapidly, the sorcerers replaced Lilah’s designated characters with the Angel cast.
Poof! Gunn was riding in a Ferrari Testarossa, patrolling the streets of Miami with Sonny Crockett.
Poof! Wesley was Prisoner Number 6 in an isolated resort village somewhere in Britain.
Poof! Lorne was the Master of Ceremonies in a pre-war German cabaret.
Poof! Angel was a wolf (and still under a curse) trying to track down a renegade Bishop, so he and Isabeau could both be human at the same time.
Lilah was enjoying this so much, she began coiling and then snapping the bullwhip in her excitement, distracting Mordoc and changing the energy of the spell.
Instead of becoming a Square Peg, Poof! Fred was in Manhattan in $900 shoes, preparing to have sex with Mr. Big.
A huge lightning bolt struck the middle of the circle, and a voice—well, *thundered* just doesn’t seem to capture the quality of the voice. Maybe *mega-thundered* or *uber-thundered*?
“I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFUL JOSS”, and Lilah suddenly found herself obsessing about wire coat hangers, having to compete with Bette Davis for roles.
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Cordelia woke from her coma to find Mr. Grant shaking her shoulder. “Mary, Mary! It’s late, why don’t you go home, now. See you tomorrow.”
Flashing her trademark smile, Cordy left the newsroom, turning off the light on her way out.
THE END
Epilogue
Cinamatically-challanged Jesse whined that he didn’t get the references. Mordoc sighed and explained:
“Gunn is the Rico Tubbs character in Miami Vice (1984-1989), Wesley took over the Patrick McGoohan role in a 17 episode British cult classic series called The Prisoner (1967-68), Lorne is now in the Joel Grey role in Cabaret (1972) with Liza Minnelli, which works out well, because Joel left the role vacant when he became Doc on 5th season Buffy! Fred was supposed to be the Sarah Jessica Parker character on Square Pegs (1982-83), but ended up as the SJP character on Sex and the City (1999-present), Angel became the Rutger Hauer character in Ladyhawke (1985) with Michelle Pfeiffer as Isabeau, while Rutger was busy trying to be Lothos, the arch-nemesis of Buffy in her Kristy Swanson incarnation, and the Great and Powerful Joss (who will NOT be trifled with) turned Lilah into Joan Crawford in all her movies!
No wonder, you were killed off early! Don’t you know anything? Go rent them all immediately, and don’t come back until you understand the humorous conclusion!”
Mordoc left Jesse to his own devices, while he went to see if there were any Joan Crawford movies that featured a bullwhip.
REALLY THE END THIS TIME
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