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nygma619 writes...

Question on the last aired episode, Nature vs. Nurture:
Without going in to spoilers of season 2, if possible.
What exactly was the motivation for Peter to dismiss Eddie (a guy who has dangerous information he could use against Peter, and others) as not important enough to continue searching for him at that moment? Or at the very least to not keep him in the back of his mind, at some time during the thanksgiving dinner?
During that time he carried on like everything was fine. But I never got that feeling at all watching it. It took me out of moments like Peter dumping the gene clenser or Gwen kissing Peter for the first time.

Yes I know what you've said about Peter looking for him next season, and for the sake of ratings/anticipation (to get someone to continue watching) I get why this was done.
But from a storytelling/narrative standpoint I find it annoying, and it feels too much like Peter looking the other way, for my liking.
Now had something like Peter taking Eddie to Ravencroft after defeating him, then the next season he finds out he's no longer there; and never started any sort of therapy happened. I could buy that.
What I got just didn't fly with me, as it felt too much like the threat had no form of conclusion.

Anyways, was this done for the sake of audience anticipation when you left Eddie Brock out there?

Greg responds...

SPIDEY SPOILERS!!!!!

<sigh>

Of course, he searched for Eddie immediately -- as soon as he finished disposing of the Symbiote. He just didn't find him. Which seemed to me to be a scene not worth showing relative to everything else we had to fit into the episode. He searched for Eddie continually ... which we tried to indicate by both his nightmare in episode 14 and his trip to Eddie's dormroom immediately after. Those two scenes were representative of his entire search. They were never meant to be the sum total of his searching, anymore than, say, his questioning of Blackie and Patch about the Master Planner in episode 16 was supposed to be the sum total of THAT search.

Anyway, after going to the dorm, and not only NOT finding Eddie there but finding INSTEAD clear signs that he had moved out, I assume Spidey checked a few other likely locations, and then, yes, having no other leads, he probably did stop looking for a time, distracted as he was by the antics of such people as Mysterio, Kraven and the Master Planner, et al.

See, I don't deny that Pete's a distractible boy. Girls distract him. Aunt May's condition distracts him. Other villains distract him. Etc. Is Eddie ALWAYS on his mind? No. But the idea that Eddie wasn't in the back of Pete's mind during this period is belied by the nightmare, I would think. Not to mention his fear that he was seeing things when Eddie did finally show up and began gaslighting him.

Including scenes of Pete taking Eddie to Ravencroft, scenes of him checking on Eddie in Ravencroft later and finding him gone, i.e. the type of stuff you're suggesting -- well, it strikes me as a waste of precious screen time. (Besides, I have plans for Eddie and Ravencroft, as I think would be obvious by how we ended the Season Two Venom arc. Wasn't much point in feinting in that direction and then balking, only to restart that Ravencroft plotline again in Season Three. I'd rather there were distinctions/differences between how the situation is left at the end of our two Venom arcs, as opposed to duplicating the same beats.)

Again... only 19 minutes and thirty seconds of original content in each episode means I have to be somewhat economic with what I put on screen. And I'm not shy about making the audience WORK either. Making them fill in the blanks. Sometimes that tactic is successful, sometimes not. But I don't really feel I had much choice in the matter. For ANYTHING I put in, down to the shortest line of dialogue, something else has to come out. As I've mentioned before, you might feel there were other things worth dumping in favor of clarifying this point. But what you might have been okay with dumping, I can guarantee another fan somewhere would not have been. So I always have to rely on my own instincts, and thus choices are made. I felt Pete's feelings here would be fairly clear, given all he had said to Eddie and Venom during the episode. You clearly disagree.

Left with no other choice, we'll have to agree to disagree. I get that the story "just didn't fly with [you]" and believe me, I wish it did. But all I can say is that it indeed flew for me, and I hope it flapped pretty well -- or at least glided along -- for most of our audience. But I learned a long time ago that I can't win 'em all. (Though God knows I agonize over the attempt to do just that.)

Response recorded on April 16, 2009