Writing for Riley
Every time you have a character who is romantic interest, you grow very attached to him and to the idea of him, but that was our whole idea - romance never goes well in Sunnydale.
We knew that Riley’s shelf life was limited, especially being such a good guy and such a straight man. I think we all felt that ultimately he and Buffy wouldn’t work out because the stresses between superhero and non-superhero being were just going to be too much for them to handle. We knew that was inevitable and that’s what we played in episodes where Riley’s character starts to go a tad darker.
It was difficult, but by the time he actually flew, I felt like we’d really earned it. The whole challenge of that episode was how to do it in a way that felt fresh, because we’d already done a big leaving with Angel of course, and it had different issues.
Some of what comes up in that episode is Buffy’s own culpability in what happened - accepting that she had a part in it. It’s not just fate, it’s like, "Oh, I screwed up."
It was an amazing episode to direct [for the first time] because it was just really rich in character stuff and the stuff that I tend to do. I just don’t see myself doing a big troll musical farce. Maybe some day. I don’t want to say that I couldn’t - I certainly would love to do something like - that but for my first thing it was great to do something that was really emotional and really lived in the lives of the characters more than just some external thing that happens to them.
