In the third season of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer several new characters were introduced. Notably in the episode Faith, Hope and Trick where a character named Faith, a character named Hope and a character named Trick were given to us.
Faith would soon if not instantly become a fan favourite. It helped that she is played by the extremely sexy Eliza Dushku and that as the show went on, she wore lots of leather and was the definition of ‘bad girl’. This only helped, what really worked was the role. Faith the character brought a lot to the show, eventually moving it into a darker path for the season.
Across Buffy and its spin off Angel, the return of Faith is always a major event and current signs are she will feature majorly the in the conclusion of both shows current seasons. This I look forward to.
There was another character introduced in the third season of Buffy, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce played by Alexis Denisof. Brought in to replace Giles as Watcher for Buffy and Faith. Wesley was a wuss for lack of a better word, he was a pompous Englishman respected by no-one and unable to handle any situation on his own. When each slayer took their separate paths, Wesley was lost for a time. By the end of the third season he got it together enough to try and help, but was soon injured and taken away.
In the midst of the first season of Angel, Wesley was reintroduced as a ‘rogue demon hunter’. It was at first a comedic role. But as the seasons rolled on, Wesley has had more character development than anyone else. In the course of the second season, he even took over Angel Investigations. It was the third season which brought the most change. Wesley went up against his friends for the right reasons, but damaged his relationships with them quite badly. In the fourth season, fate throws them together again.
There is a difference. Wesley has by sheer character development reached Faith levels of cool. In the latest episode when no-one can stand against The Beast, he pulls out and unloads two pistols straight into its chest. Following this with a pretty decent Terminator impression with a shotgun merely confirmed this. Wes is currently the epitome of cool.
I am looking forward to seeing how he gets along with Faith on her return.
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