On
the one hand, I really think she was a wasted character. She appears
in a pair of two-parters, the first of which she's a decoy villain
for half of it and the other where she spends half of it dead. She
offered Buffy an interesting foil because the one thing Buffy could
rely on before this point was being unique, there was this one thing
she was by definition the best in the world at. Then along comes
Kendra, who has a Slayer Handbook that was withheld from Buffy, who
fights Buffy to a standstill despite having a couple years less
experience, who bonds with Giles on a level Buffy won't for years and
never previously considered.
They
come to the beginnings of an understanding by the end of What's My
Line, to the point that when she
turns up again in Becoming
its something to smile about.
Then
she dies.
So
yes, we don't get much of her and I wish there was more. That scene
where she practically blushes in the face of Xander's barely
competent flirting makes me yearn for scenes of her and Willow
bemoaning their romantic inexperience. I also think that Buffy and
Kendra as “sisters” would have been a fantastic angle, as the few
scenes of them getting on in Becoming
hint at.
On
the other hand, though, it is a perfect bait and switch. Kendra
appears in What's My Line
to highlight how serious curing Druscilla would be. After everything
Spike has done, after everything he's survived, its Dru who amounts
to such a threat that two Slayers are required to fight her.
And
then Kendra returns in Becoming.
Another two-parter and the season finale and it looks like we have a
handle on how this character works: she turns up for the big events,
a semi-regular presence whose presence is code for “Take this one
seriously!”.
Then
she dies. Dru waltzes majestically into the library (itself only
violated in momentous event stories), hypnotises her without effort
and slashes her throat. Its another moment alongside the “death”
of Angel, Xander's betrayal and Buffy abandoning Sunnydale at the end
of the story that makes it look like the series might actually be
killing off the Sunnydale setting and moving on. It doesn't, of
course, but it raises the stakes effectively and actually delivers on
the amazing threat that Dru apparently represents.
So,
I would definitely have liked to see more of Kendra but, honestly, I
wouldn't want to undo her death because it works so very, very well.
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