Richard Wilkins
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- For the Australian television/entertainment personality, see Richard Wilkins (TV presenter).
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 Harry Groener as Richard Wilkins |
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Richard Wilkins III was the fictional mayor of Sunnydale in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character was played by Harry Groener. Although disturbing allusions to the Mayor were made in Season 2, Mayor Wilkins only appeared in Season 3, becoming the Big Bad of the season. It turned out that he had ordered Principal Snyder to act harshly towards Buffy Summers. Mayor Wilkins is seen in dreams and on tape the next season, and as a manifestation of The First Evil in Season 7.
He had many humans, vampires, and demons working for him, including the renegade Slayer Faith and Mr. Trick.
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[edit] Biography
Richard Wilkins arrived in California in the 1800s, looking for gold. It is shown in Tales of the Slayers that he founded Sunnydale after the last Slayer died there. Wilkins found a place infested with demons, with whom he made a pact to avoid being killed.
He agreed to found a town atop the Hellmouth for "demons to feed on", on the promise of an Ascension and subsequent immortality once a full century has elapsed (cf. "Enemies"). Until Wilkins attains demon form, he would not age until after 100 years to the very day Sunnydale was founded, at which point he will assumedly lose his power. As it so happens, Richard Wilkins III was also Richard Wilkins I and II, pretending to be the son in each subsequent generation to conceal his lack of aging. This created a problem when his wife Edna May, whom he married in 1903, began aging and probably contributed to his lack of romantic relationships later on (cf. "Choices"). Wilkins seemed to have sold his soul early in his life (cf. "Lovers Walk") as one of his "campaign promises."
Throughout Season 3, Mayor Wilkins works to ensure his transformation into an Old One, the pure-breed demon Olvikan. Unlike many villains featured on Buffy, he has quite a pleasant demeanor. A family man with an aversion to swearing, Mayor Wilkins almost always wears a smile on his face, and is obsessed with cleanliness. After sending his henchmen after her and Buffy in the episode "Consequences", Faith leaves the life of a Slayer and offers her services to Mayor Wilkins. Mayor Wilkins soon becomes a father figure to Faith, their evil deeds notwithstanding. He even furnishes her room, paid for with taxpayer money, with a PlayStation because he does not like to see her stay at a place with an "unsavory reputation." His affection for Faith was highly unusual for a "Big Bad" or other heartless villian; He was willing to put his final plan, that he had been planning for over a century, in jeopardy to see to her well-being and lost his famous cool and attacked Buffy physically(Not to mention broke into tears) when he discovered she had badly injured Faith. This love for her even carries into his demonic form.
After Mayor Wilkins achieves Ascension into the gigantic demon known as Olvikan during Sunnydale High's graduation ceremony in 1999, Buffy exploits his love for Faith by taunting him with the knife he had given to Faith and with which Buffy put Faith in a coma. Buffy lures Mayor Wilkins into the empty library, now filled with bags of dynamite. Rupert Giles then presses the trigger that obliterates the Mayor and the school building.
In the Haunted comic book series, Mayor Wilkins is shown to live on as a ghost for a while, possessing the bodies of dead animals and demons (as well as vampires). In the process, he is also responsible for the creation of Adam, when he possesses the corpse of a powerful demon (his earlier vampire body having been captured by the Initiative) and badly injures the then-human Adam. After a battle with Buffy in the clock tower, where Buffy finally learns of his inhuman nature after decapitating his current body to no effect, Willow, with the assistance of Xander and Buffy, sends him to the next realm. There is no evidence that they ever discover it was the Mayor who had been attacking him, although Faith later tells Angel in prison that she recalls the Mayor's ghost visiting her using the body of a dead bird while she was in her coma.
Mayor Wilkins is seen again in Season 4 on a videotape he had left for Faith in case she ever woke up from her coma. He is seen again in Season 7 as one of the many incarnations of The First Evil.
[edit] Writing and acting
- "Groener has mentioned that "There's something the mayor knows about the potential of his power which makes him less afraid of people who threaten him. That's interesting to play because the closer we get to absolute power, the closer we get to the parts that corrupts. Even the vampires are sort of scared of him."[1]
- "Groener made some of his own conclusions about the character, "I think in his actual political life, he's a good mayor. He's probably a fairly conservative politician, a very conservative democrat or a very liberal republican. He likes to keep things clean. He likes things to be neat. He doesn't like a lot of clutter, so I imagine he likes to keep his town that way. It's only this other thing which makes him a little weird. Other than that he's a fairly standard mayor."[2]
[edit] Romantic relations
- Edna Mae, his wife from 1903 until her death of old age.
[edit] Trivia
- True to his avoidance of foul language, Mayor Wilkins' last words were "Well, gosh."
- He loves the Family Circus cartoon strip, amused that P.J. is such a handful (cf. "Bad Girls"), but dislikes Marmaduke, who being always on the desk seem unsanitary to him. Unlike his deputy, he does not like Cathy.
- In a deleted scene of the series premiere of Firefly, it is learned that the Alliance troops who advanced on the Independents in Serenity Valley were led by General Richard Wilkins. The characters are not related, as Firefly is not part of Joss Whedon's Buffyverse.
[edit] Buffyverse appearances
In order of Buffyverse chronology. Canon appears in bold.
[edit] 19th century
[edit] Autumn 1996 - Summer 1997, Buffy Season 1
[edit] Autumn 1997 - Summer 1998, Buffy Season 2
[edit] Autumn 1998 - Summer 1999, Buffy Season 3
- Homecoming
- Band Candy
- Lovers Walk
- Gingerbread
- Bad Girls
- Consequences
- Doppelgängland
- Enemies
- Choices
- Graduation Day, Part One
- Graduation Day, Part Two
[edit] Autumn 1999 until Summer 2000, Buffy Season 4
- Haunted - Wilkins as a ghostly figure
- This Year's Girl - Wilkins appears in a video he recorded during the events of "Graduation Day, Part Two" and in Faith's dream
[edit] Autumn 2002 until Summer 2003, Buffy Season 7
| Preceded by Angelus |
Buffy Big Bad Season Three |
Succeeded by Adam |
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Stokes, Mike, "Absolute Power", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #10 (UK, July 2000), page 18-19.
- ^ Stokes, Mike, "Absolute Power", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #10 (UK, July 2000), page 19-20.
