“Earshot”

I’ve been dreading writing a blog about this episode. And yet, this is such a good episode – it checks all those Buffy boxes (humor, drama, romance, unexpected twist, and plenty of life lessons).

A week before the originally scheduled air date of this episode something horrible happened: Columbine. That one word says it all, and yet it shouldn’t. Columbine is a type of flower, it’s a town, it’s a high school. And it also sums of the following words: the shooting at Columbine High School. The world changed, and I didn’t even realize at the time how much it did so. As an adult this horrible event makes me want to cry. As a teacher I’ve been through so many drills on what to do if there’s ever a mass shooter in a school. These things weren’t part of my student experience in the 1990s. Columbine, along with 9/11, completely changed the world and how students experience high school and the world. While I’m very grateful to have had my high school experience before these events were felt (I was in 11^th grade for Columbine, in college for 9/11), I realize now that I can’t even imagine what it must like to be a high schooler now. In 20 years things have changed, and not because of various trends, but because of tragedies.

Buffy not airing “Earshot” made me really angry. It made Sarah Michelle Gellar angry, too. I remember both Joss Whedon and Seth Green, when interviewed, seemed to take it more in stride, their reactions were more compassionate. “Earshot” was only the first episode to be affected by the mass shooting. “Graduation Day Part 2” didn’t air until August, same as “Earshot” (or maybe one of them actually aired in September – I don’t remember the exact dates anymore), because the plot involved high school students taking up arms at graduation. This also made me angry – obviously they were taking up arms to fight evil, not to gun down their fellow students.

When the episode finally aired I remember thinking that Sarah Michelle Gellar was right – the episode was nothing like Columbine and actually centered around a suicide. Well, and an angry lunch lady with access to rat poison. How could The WB have pulled this episode? This episode may have helped us after Columbine. Now, as an adult I understand the decision that was made with both episodes. I’m not angry anymore – not about this at any rate.

Now I’m angry that the violence hasn’t stopped. At one point in the episode Cordelia and Oz are discussing school shootings, commenting that high school shootings are now trendy. I don’t remember a school shooting before Columbine. I know they happened, but I don’t remember when I found out that Columbine wasn’t the first. That conversation now is chilling. It seems timelier today than it did back in 1999. Not only are there more shootings in high schools, but in elementary schools – no one is safe from violence in this day and age. I don’t even want to think about the events of this magnitude that have taken place outside of a school building.

And so, writing this blog, 20 years later, is not easy. There are so many emotions tied up in it that have almost nothing whatsoever to do with the episode itself. I can’t watch this episode without thinking about Columbine. For a few years after I was able to pretend that I wasn’t thinking about Columbine, but then violence ramped up again and it hasn’t stopped.

As a result, this episode is almost a gem. You couldn’t even conceive of writing an episode like this today. And again, it isn’t even really about a mass shooting, but that is how this episode will always be perceived. Normally I would say something like, “and that’s the real tragedy,” but obviously it’s not. This episode is more of a casualty, a never-ending reminder that evil exists and it effects everyone, even if it is in small, seemingly unimportant, ways.

Okay, so now that I’ve bummed everyone out I’ll talk about the episode itself, as there are some really important things that happen. For starters, there are still ramifications from the previous episode, “Enemies,” and Angel’s charade. As Buffy and her classmates study Othello in their English class (yay for more Shakespeare!), we see that Buffy is still trying to wrap her head around Faith’s sort-of Iago-y turn (I mean, their story doesn’t quite fit the bill, but it’s just similar enough for Buffy to be able to relate to the story – just as Cordelia could relate to The Merchant of Venice back in season 1).

Here, the plots all get wrapped up together. As Buffy gains her aspect of the demon (more on that in a second), she’s able to hear everyone’s thoughts and hopes to hear Angel’s – to help reassure her that Angel does love her and is sorry about what happened. Then, as we hear Buffy explain in class that Iago is a dark reflection of Othello, we hear Angel explain that like a mirror, his thoughts have no reflection, meaning that Buffy can’t hear them. What can she hear though? A shadowy voice claiming that it will kill all the students tomorrow (I could clearly tell that it was a female voice, but Buffy was probably too caught up in all the thoughts to be able to hear gender clearly).

So let’s rewind. Buffy kills a demon and gets some blood on her that will give her an aspect of a demon. The demon has no mouth, so in retrospect, it makes perfect sense that she would get telepathy, but that aspect could be anything. Leading Willow to ask if it was a boy demon. And you thought all Buffy had to worry about were horns!

And so, she can hear thoughts, which at first is pretty neat, until she realizes that she can’t turn it off or control it. It’s actually pretty amusing for her to hear all her friends’ thoughts before the whole insanity thing happens. Cordelia says what she thinks, Xander can’t keep his mind off of sex, and Oz is afraid that if Buffy can hear his thoughts he might stop being him (in a very Oz-like philosophical manner), leading Willow to be jealous that Buffy can hear the thoughts of her reticent boyfriend.

In the midst of all this, Buffy hears the mystery voice threatening murder, but is confined to her bed while Giles and Angel come up with a cure for her. In the meantime, her friends all go around the school interviewing teachers and students, hoping to find out who is planning to kill all the students. Xander makes a crack about it being the lunch lady, having no idea how right he is. Willow is assigned to Jonathan – again! Xander has another heart to heart with Larry, and we finally see Nancy in the non “Wish” world. She is not nice in this world at all. Her white hat persona is a much better person.

As it turns out, Xander ends up saving the day when he goes into the lunchroom to get an extra pudding (or was it jello) and sees the lunch lady putting rat poison in the food. He screams at everyone in the lunch room and turns over everyone’s food, thwarting the evil lunch lady.

Buffy is cured just in time to go to the clock tower at the school (has this always existed?) and stop the person with a rifle. This is the heart of the story. Jonathan has a rifle and Buffy makes a beautiful speech explaining why Jonathan shouldn’t shoot everyone. She explains that everyone has pain – you just can’t always see it. Jonathan then explains that he brought the rifle to school only to shoot himself. (Why a rifle? How would you fatally shoot yourself with a long pointy gun?) Here is the twist and the reason that this episode is not at all like Columbine. Here is the reason why airing this episode would have helped heal the nation, but I digress (I promise I’m over it – I just can’t forget how I felt). Jonathan, a recurring character, suddenly becomes a real person. He knows he’s a loser and is hurt and unwilling to go on until Buffy saves his life by convincing him not to commit suicide.

We could all stand to learn a few things from Buffy.

There were a couple of things from this episode that I thought were worth noting: we see cheerleader Cordelia again, it’s been a while, and Angel makes a joke. He does this very rarely on BtVS, but is actually pretty funny on his spin-off. We get a little sneak peek of what’s to come.

Now while Buffy was home and incapacitated, she discovered a secret of her mother’s from “Band Candy.” You remember that time that Joyce and Giles had sex, right? Well, Joyce had a little trouble hiding certain thoughts from her daughter leading to this wonderful moment at the very, very end of the episode. As Buffy and Giles walk together, Buffy adds, “if you’re not too busy having sex with my mother.” The shock of this sends him straight into a tree. It’s so funny! And such a Buffy ending. And that is the ending I will leave you with as well.

Addendum: As wonderful as this episode is I decided not to add pictures out of respect for the seriousness of the topic it raises.

What Buffy Means to Me

This past weekend was the 22^nd anniversary of Buffy’s premiere, so I thought I’d take this week to reflect. Next week I’ll post another episode blog, don’t worry!

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer debuted, I was a high school Freshman with very low self-esteem. I was smart, somewhat geeky, somewhat nerdy, and a theater kid. I wasn’t one of those theater kids though. I love theater and have been involved in theater since kindergarten, but when you picture the drama kids, you don’t picture me. I was an outsider, even when it came to the thing I loved most.

Don’t get me wrong – I had plenty of friends, many of whom did theater with me, but we were a small group and because we had each other I never felt like a total outsider, but I was.

When Buffy began, I was excited. I have always loved stories of vampires and witches and I really enjoyed the movie. So, I knew this show would be for me, even though my expectations were low (see my intro blog for that).

What I got was not just a show about vampires and the girl whose destiny it was to kill them. I got a friend. I got a show that got me. In some ways, it feels silly to write those last two sentences. I had plenty of friends and I was probably considered cooler than Willow or Xander. For starters, I had more than two friends and I didn’t have a Cordelia-like person constantly taunting and belittling me. And my high school was (and still is to this day) a lot more accepting than Sunnydale High was. And yet, despite that, I saw myself in Willow immediately. Sometimes I saw myself in Buffy, Xander, Giles, and even, on occasion, Cordelia.

What Joss Whedon created, and what the wonderful actors brought to life, spoke to me in a way that no other show had up to that point. Of course, I had completely missed watching My So-Called Life and tended to watch what my parents watched. Lois & Clark was my favorite show when Buffy started. So, I guess in some ways, of course Buffy spoke to me, but it was so much more than that.

I want to talk about how watching this show gave me confidence, and it did, but more importantly it brought me friends that allowed me to become confident. In high school, those of us that watched BtVS talked like we had a secret. Sophomore year I remember printing out pictures of Buffy from the internet and bringing them in. During history class I showed the other school’s Debbie because she was a fan. She was also a popular, blonde cheerleader that I didn’t socialize with. This bonded us. As soon as her best friend, one of the several Jens in our grade, asked her, “You watch that show?” our conversation ended out of what I perceived to be embarrassment on her part.

Junior year of high school we had to take a theme from The Scarlett Letter and compare it to something else. One of the most popular girls in high school and I both talked about Buffy. It’s been awhile, but I think she spoke about it in terms of how the vampires were hidden until they chose to reveal their true faces and I talked about how you think you’re watching a vampire show, but there is a hidden high school/life metaphor contained within each story. Either way, we both, and totally separately chose to compare the same theme to BtVS.

Senior year, we had to do a project on Macbeth. Someone I was friendly with was my partner and we decided to show how the themes of Macbeth are still prevalent in pop-culture. Our main example was the Faith storyline in season 3.

This just outlines how I made connections with people in class. The friends that I hung out with on a regular basis watched Buffy – well some friends. My friend Alana had a dream in which she was Buffy and she saved me from a vampire, who in real life, was a guy I had a crush on who also watched the show. There were a few others as well.

In college, I had many more friends who watched this gem of a show, and through them, and through the journey of both Buffy and Willow on the show, my confidence grew. My best friend, Amy, is the most important of these friendships, and in the early days it was Amy and Matt. I met both of them during orientation and quickly found out (specifically, during our ice cream social) that they were Buffy fans. Every Tuesday in college that Buffy was new, the two of them would come to my room, sometimes joined by others, to watch the show. Well, until Matt started dating Amy’s roommate.  She kind of stole him away from us. But that’s another story.

The other big Buffy friendship at this time is my friend, Charlotte. If you’re reading this, I miss you – we need to get together, catch up, and be in each other’s lives more. I mean it. Charlotte was not a fan – not yet. She was a good listener though and I talked about Buffy non-stop. When I talked about Spike she wanted to watch the show. Luckily for her I taped, and kept, every episode and lived 30 minutes away from college, so I could very easily drive home and get the old episodes for us to watch. I got her caught up to season 4 pretty quickly. I feel like that bonded us. We were both theater people (as were Amy and Matt – well Matt was until his girlfriend stopped him from doing that, too) and we both watched this amazing show, among other activities and similarities.

Another dear friend of mine from college is a Buffy fan as well. Shelby may not have watched the show with me while in college, but we knew we were fans and still to this day, many birthday presents from her are Buffy related. Junior or senior year I showed her the movie and she scoffed at it and kind of ruined it for me. That stung, but our friendship has endured.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended our junior year of college and Angel ended our senior year. The Buffyverse got me all the way through high school and college – no wonder my confidence grew watching this show. I was growing as I was watching and becoming the person I am today.

As I look back over the 15 years without new Buffy episodes I know that I have filled the hole it left as best I could. Supernatural comes close. The Vampire Diaries and The Originals (not to mention Twilight) did not. Surprisingly, the TVD/Originals spinoff, Legacies, is doing a pretty good job of filling that hole. Yet, re-watching this show continues to remind me that this show was special.  It was the first vampire show that showed pretty, young vampires as something other than villains (and, still as villains) that was relatively popular and not just a cult hit. It may have started that way, but it’s more than that now.

In the 22 years since the show debuted the world has changed. The feminism that was shown on Buffy is embraced by so many more people now. Toxic masculinity has been named. #MeToo, Time’s Up, and so many more things that have nothing to do with women becoming stronger. I’ve changed, too.

Could this show be as popular now? We might find out as a reboot is in the works at Fox. But that doesn’t count. Imagine if Buffy were a brand-new show, and not a reboot, this year. Would Buffy be the same? Technology has changed and everyone knows you shouldn’t say, “You throw like a girl,” and yet, I think it would still be something special. Of course, it would have to be on the CW or would risk getting cancelled if people don’t tune in by millions and millions in the first two weeks, but then again, Buffy helped to make the WB before moving to UPN, so it would have to be on the CW, right?

I can’t put into words what this show means to me, but I’ve tried. I continue to meet people who are fans, new and old and I hope that never stops. This show has connected me to people and informed who I am – and that’s almost as important as the show itself. I just hope that as new teenagers discover this show that it means as much to them as it did to me. I hope they are able to find themselves and be better people as a result of watching Buffy. If the next generation asks, “What would Buffy do?” this world will be okay.

 

“Bad Girls”

Okay, so things just got good, or bad, depending on your take.  Buffy delves back into the moral quandary pool, only this time Buffy herself is the one toeing the line.

As I’ve mentioned in at least one other previous blog, the slayer’s job is to kill, therefore Buffy is a killer. However, because she only kills monsters and demons (and evil robots) she is not seen as a villain. This episode, along with its companion, “Consequences,” takes this idea and plays with it.  With power comes great responsibility, and on this show, who has more power than the slayer (you know, other than the other slayer)?

There’s a lot going on in this episode.  It starts off with Buffy and Faith working really well together in their fight against vampires.  It’s actually really great to see them fighting together and being all friendly, cause you know, that won’t last long. After the whole evil watcher thing, Faith seems to have come back around nicely, just in time to be a bad influence on Buffy.

What allows Buffy to slowly start losing (or at least testing) her moral compass? Well, that would be the arrival of new Watcher, Wesley Windham-Pryce.  First of all, Alexis Denisof is awesome, and I have been waiting to see Wesley on Buffy since “Helpless.” And, wait, is his British accent more proper here than it was on Angel? Hmmm… it definitely sounds different than I remember, maybe it’s just been a while since I’ve seen his character on either show. Second, his character is such a great buffoon (“Preparation, preparation, preparation” says it all) that Giles now looks extremely cool by comparison. I do appreciate that Giles is still the school librarian.  I mean, the Watcher’s Council obviously got him that job to put him in the slayer’s orbit and give him a place to hide all the occult books he would need in his capacity as Watcher, yet, Wesley just shows up at the school, starts hanging out in the library and goes unquestioned? I know that schools were much more lax about these things in the 90s, but the Watcher’s Council could have made him some sort of teacher or assistant librarian as a cover – don’t you think?

Anyways, Buffy’s reaction to having a new Watcher is great – “Is he evil? The last one was evil.” Faith’s reaction is better – “Screw that.” And then she turns around and walks out of the library. Clearly Wesley has an uphill battle here. He is also the cause of Buffy being more open to rebellion. She never liked taking orders from Giles, but he was able to find teaching moments to get her to take responsibility and never treated her like a lackey. Think back to the very first episode. Buffy is at the Bronze, still resisting the whole slayer thing, when Giles shows up. She teases him, he puts up with it and then gets her to try to hone her senses to see if there are any vampires at the club. She spots one easily and explains to Giles how she knows that he is a vampire.  Giles is a bit flummoxed, as Buffy is not doing things in the traditional way, but he accepts that and he accepts her. Wesley, on the other hand, goes straight in for the orders. And he’s super uncool. She’s having none of that, so when Faith’s bad girl approach calls, she listens.

Interestingly, this is all against the backdrop of college talk. Although Buffy has applied for colleges, she still sees her future as limiting. She understands Xander, who is definitely not going to college. And Willow, of course, has early acceptances from Harvard, Yale, and Wesleyan (didn’t Joss Whedon go to the latter?). During the career fair in season 2 (the same episode that introduced Kendra) Buffy was also not feeling so great about her future.  She has a better outlook now, but it is interesting that when a story about 2 slayers working together comes along, the gang’s future is being discussed yet again.

Speaking of Kendra, Buffy is the Kendra to Faith’s Buffy.  Last season, Kendra had to remind Buffy that slaying isn’t a job, it’s who she is. Kendra was also a rule follower and Buffy was the impulsive one. Now Faith is reminding Buffy that slaying is who she is, but taking it a whole lot further. And because Faith is so impulsive, it puts Buffy in a more responsible position, the position that Kendra used to fill. Doug Petrie, who wrote this episode, says something to the effect that Faith is Buffy’s darker side in his episode commentary. This will come up again when Buffy is learning about Othello in English class. Comparing Buffy to other slayers is interesting.  Obviously, all people are different, and therefore so too are slayers. But seeing how different slayers perceive being the slayer, and what that means, is what makes this and the next episode so important.  And it’s all centered around the idea of how far a slayer can go and how far a slayer should go.  Faith takes this to the extreme with her mantra of, “Want, take, have.”

Doug Petrie also talks about Buffy’s rebirth in this episode. There’s a moment when a vampire seemingly drowns Buffy and she reemerges from the water with, “I hate it when they drown me,” recalling “Prophecy Girl.” This almost drowning serves as a baptism of sorts. When Buffy emerges, she changes and is more open to bad behavior. From that moment on, she makes horrible choices up until the moment when Faith accidentally stakes a human.

This is an understandable mistake. Vampires are coming at them as they walk down an alley, and Alan, the deputy mayor, probably shouldn’t have been in that alley. Buffy sees him as he reaches for her, pushes him away, and then Faith picks up the slack, ready to pounce. As she’s about to stake him, Buffy realizes that he’s not a vampire and tries to warn Faith, but it is too late.

Brief pause: why was Alan there? He must’ve been there to tell Buffy and Faith about the Mayor, right? We’ll never know for sure unfortunately, but he did look pretty uncomfortable in the Mayor’s office with Mayor Wilkins and Mr. Trick. How did he become the Deputy Mayor? When did he find out that the guy he worked for was evil? What made him stay and why decide to speak out now? Unfortunately, we are left with a lot of questions. Of course, none of these really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Back to the murder. I have to wonder, what if their roles were reversed? What if Faith was the one who pushed Alan, and Buffy was the one who tagged in with the stake? Would Buffy have realized he was human before shoving the stake into his heart? Would Faith have noticed from afar or would she have continued moving, knowing that B can handle herself? Since Buffy is more of a thinker and more of an observer than Faith, who again is more impulsive and more about the action, would Buffy have been able to stop the murder from taking place if their roles had been reversed? This doesn’t really matter. We don’t want the hero of our show, who will always be Buffy, killing anyone, so it had to be Faith. However, how Faith handled this crisis, versus what Buffy would have done, is how you know that Buffy is a moral character and Faith is not.

I have to believe that this event affected Faith, even if she won’t admit it. She goes back to look at the body and seems genuinely upset. But then, like a Vampire Diaries vampire turning off his humanity, she makes a decision off-camera to not care. She disposes of the body (and honestly, not very well as he pops right up again in the next episode), and moves on, not wanting to discuss what happened, not wanting to think about it, and, as she tells Buffy, not even caring that she killed someone.

What follows is fodder for the next blog.  While this feels like a natural ending point there is so much more to discuss here that I haven’t really even touched on.

I mean, Buffy is pushing Willow, her best friend aside.  And using the same lousy excuse the whole gang used on Xander in “The Zeppo.” Doesn’t Buffy get that just by being her friend Willow and Xander will always be in danger? Poor Willow. Or what about when Xander’s eye twitches every time Faith’s name is mentioned? Or how about when Joyce says that she doesn’t want to meddle in Buffy’s slaying? I guess she learned her lesson after “Gingerbread,” huh?

I haven’t even talked about what a bad influence Faith was on Buffy.  I mean, I skirted the topic, but then went straight to the murder, leaving out all the class skipping (when there’s an important test to be taken) and store robbing.  For the first time, Buffy breaks the law for fun, rather than out of necessity. And then, while escaping police custody, she and Faith injure the police officers and against Buffy’s better judgement, they leave without calling for help. Buffy gets so caught up in the whole bad girl behavior thing that she actually freaks Angel out by being way too sexual with him. Sure, they’re back together, but no one wants Angel to lose his soul again and it seems as if Buffy’s too caught up in her own feelings to realize that her behavior with Angel is inappropriate. Angel has to remove himself from Buffy and get all business-like with her.

Oh, and Wesley! Yes, I talked about him, but I didn’t mention what a horrible Watcher he is. Aside from all the negative things I’ve already mentioned, he thought that the demon of the week was dead, then got kidnapped by said demon, and then was ready to blurt out everything to that demon in order to try to save his life – what an amateur! And then, because he lacks fighting skills, Giles had to save him. Now, this isn’t entirely Wesley’s fault, the Watcher’s Council doesn’t really field train their guys. You know, cause that’s the slayer’s job anyways.

And speaking of the demon of the week, when Buffy kills him he utters one more ominous line –  “When he rises you’ll wish I’d killed you all.” We know that he is referring to the Mayor, but our characters haven’t figured that out yet. And Mayor Wilkins has that whole dedication ceremony that makes him invincible. A sword-wielding vampire slices his head in two, and the Mayor lives (and magically heals).  This does not bode well for our hero.

At the end of this episode there is also a not-so-sneaky Shakespeare reference. Faith is washing blood out of her shirt and, metaphorically, off of her. Here, she is like Lady MacBeth, only Faith’s conscious doesn’t seem to be in play here. Faith washes out the blood, but Buffy is the one who’ll have the hard time dealing with the murder, which I’ll talk more about in the next blog.

“The Zeppo”

This is one of my favorite episodes of the series.  It might even be my favorite episode of season 3.  Why?  Well, for starters it is Xander-centric, but it also turns the regular Buffy formula on its head by telling a B-story as the A-story and relegating the A-story to the B-story for the week.  It’s just a fun episode!

There are so many little things from this episode that I could talk about, like that fact that all television pastry boxes are pink for some reason.  Or the fact that I appreciate Willow’s marshmallow joke when the other characters don’t seem to.  Not to mention, who names their knife, “Katie”?  Who names a knife, period? And – wait, Sunnydale has gangs? And while I could go on to talk about these insignificant things a little longer – this episode has so much meat to it.  It’s different than “Helpless,” which was certainly a meaty episode, as well.  This one is so much lighter, despite the episode featuring yet another apocalypse.

Xander is threatened by “Katie”

Okay, I honestly don’t know where to start with this episode, so I guess I’ll throw a dart and land at… Xander and Cordelia.  Surprisingly, Cordelia is still talking to Xander, even after the whole cheating thing (although, Oz and Xander seem to be friends again and Oz forgave Willow and got back together with her, so this isn’t so far-fetched) – of course she’s mostly just taunting him which is classic Cordelia. However, her teasing strikes a particular chord in this episode.  She compares him to Jimmy Olsen, which is down on Xander’s level, he even made a joke about the same subject with Giles, who just didn’t get it (oh, if only Oz had been there).  When Cordelia says it though, it is suddenly an insult. She also says, “Can you say “expendable”?” – which I find particularly funny since she ended up being in a movie called The Expendables.  This all leads to Xander obsessing over being cool.  Here’s the thing though, although Cordy was being mean, when compared with Jack O’Toole’s threats moments earlier, one can see that at least Cordelia still cares.  Her taunting comes from a place of wanting to hurt Xander for what he did to her, sure, but re-watching this makes me certain that these two can be friends again (and they will be before she moves on to L.A. and the spin-off series).

It’s also fun to compare this scene at the beginning of the episode, with the scene at the end when Xander does find his cool.  He leaves Cordelia hanging, as he walks away with a big smile on his face.  What a great ending!  Xander really grows during this episode and it shows.

Okay, we have to talk about one more thing having to do with these two former love birds, and I know I’ve mentioned it before.  Xander loses his virginity in this episode, which I think is proof that Cordelia is a virgin.  I know, this shouldn’t matter, but it does because of certain events in Angel’s first season.  Xander may have been Cordelia’s first love.  She is never shown, before or after Xander, having another committed relationship on the series.  The one possible exception to this is Darryl, who we find out about in “Some Assembly Required.” She loved him, he treated her badly, then he died.  And then he became Frankenstein’s monster and tried to make her his bride.  He died while Cordelia was a high school freshman, when she was maybe 15 years old.  Now it’s completely possible that she lost her virginity to him, but if she did, it stands to reason that she would have had sex with Xander, too.  Likewise, if she had had sex with any of the other random guys she dated in season 1, there’s almost no good reason for her not to have also had sex with Xander.  Since they didn’t have sex, Cordelia must have lost her virginity to that guy on Angel who impregnated her with a demon baby.  Which again, means that Cordelia’s first time having sex got her pregnant!  Can you imagine – that must have been so traumatizing.  Yet, Angel, being a more grown-up show and making Cordelia seem more like a twenty-something than a 19-year-old (if not 18-year-old) glosses over her loss of virginity, which is a really big deal.  I understand that there wasn’t really room in that episode for this discussion, but at the same time – can you imagine?

Alright, I’m done, so back to the Xander portion of this conversation.  Yep, Xander manages to help Faith out of a jam, she has some energy she needs to get out and they have sex.  It’s actually kind of funny how one second, they’re shown in post-coital bliss with the cuddling and the next minute she’s kicking him out of her motel room without any emotion.  I wonder if Cordelia ever found out about this and what her reaction was.  We see Willow’s reaction in a couple of episodes, but never Cordelia’s.

So, jumping all over the place, I want to go back to talking about Xander’s search for how to be cool.  It reminds me of this episode of Beverly Hills 90201 when Valerie was going to be written up in some magazine for being cool and she kept asking about it (and therefore, being uncool).  Xander’s obsession with it is very similar.  The more you think about being cool and ask questions about how to be cool, the less cool you are apparently.  I mean, take Oz.  He has hardly anything to say on the matter and doesn’t even know that he is cool when Xander asks him about it.  And so Xander, in his quest to be cool, ends up looking for a thing – which ends up being a car (and some penis jokes).  And that car is what ends up getting him in trouble and eventually leads him to finding his cool – without the aid of a “thing.” But the car isn’t what makes him cool at all.

The other thing that leads Xander towards his strange night is the abandonment of his friends.  I mean, I get it, they want to keep him safe, but why now?  I mean it’s great that Faith is in the mix and working well with Buffy, but that doesn’t mean that Xander can’t be useful (in a non-snack capacity way). What his friends do to him in this episode is actually kind of mean. Also, Xander is actually pretty good at staying cool and collected in the face of danger. He doesn’t buckle under pressure. Sure, over the years he has his moments and sometimes runs away screaming (only in “Go Fish” though) or gets pummeled, but overall, he keeps his cool when it really counts. Sure, by not running away he is a liability as much as he is an asset, but what does Willow contribute?  Can’t she do her spells from a safer room/distance?  Xander could at least work to protect her during these tense moments. And honestly, his cool head in these matters is what allows him to save Faith.  He sees that she is in trouble and maneuvers the car just so, without missing a beat, to hit one of the demons and allow Faith a quick get-a-way.  Clearly, he is being underestimated in this episode by those who know him best. And, after this episode, without his friends ever finding out about his own adventures, he’s back in the mix without a question.  Weird, no?

After all is said and done, this episode is a zombie episode. I am not a zombie fan, but here they are used for comedy and are completely different from the zombies seen in “Dead Man’s Party” – thank goodness!  One of them is even played by Michael Cudlitz – one of those actors that you’ve definitely seen in at least one other thing between the 90s and now. The majority of the Xander-centric episode is played for laughs.  Sometimes it is in the physical humor (see Xander accidentally decapitate a zombie with a mailbox), and sometimes it is through the typical Xander method of talking.  For example, “Two guys wrasslin, but not in a gay way “– oh Xander.  I don’t think this would fly anymore, but it is amusing to hear Xander try to be cool and then have to backtrack and say too much.

• 

  MIchael Cudlitz on Buffy

• 

  Michael Cudlitz in real life
  

This is juxtaposed with the overly dramatic apocalypse scenes sprinkled throughout the episode. The most obvious example of this is, of course, the Buffy-Angel scene.  It seems pretty typical, but then once Xander interrupts we see how the over-dramatic can be played for laughs.  Especially since, as soon as Xander leaves, the romantic music swells up once again – right where it left off.

Imagine this with dramatic music swelling

Music actually plays a really important part in this episode.  As soon as Xander’s scenes get serious, there is no music.  The apocalypse battle has music and is very loud, but Xander’s scenes are quiet. This signals a change, both in tone and in Xander. The lack of music shows Xander’s inner-calm (or, cool, if you will) – the music stops, the rest is silence. It is in these moments that we see just how much Xander is worth.  After all, unbeknownst to his friends, he is the one saving those who save the world. If not for Xander (with an assist from werewolf Oz that he doesn’t know about), anyone in the high school would have been killed in an explosion.  Xander stops a bomb from going off and rescues his friends – and the world. No wonder he’s my favorite guy on this show!

I do wonder though why Jack isn’t a better fighter.  I mean, you’re telling me that he can’t take Xander? Or maybe, against regular threats, Xander can hold his own? Last season Xander almost got pummeled by Larry, but maybe he would have been okay without Buffy’s interference.  Or maybe he’s learned some fighting over the past 2 years. Or maybe Jack’s not as tough as he seems.

It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Xander is cool and he gains some much-needed confidence through his own hero’s journey in this episode.  Also, Oz is strangely full the next day. 

“Helpless”

Buffy does not have good birthdays.  I mean, I get that the slayer doesn’t get a day off (although, with Faith around, why not?), but you can’t tell me that the world’s best secret superhero can’t have a nice quiet birthday at the very least.  But then, of course, where’s the drama in that?

This episode is pretty much about men trying to control Buffy while at the same time bringing up daddy issues.  Let’s start with the latter.

Hank Summers up until now has been a pretty good father for someone who lives an hour or so away.  He visits, Buffy spent a summer with him, and he genuinely seems concerned about her well-being.  The first time that his absence was odd was when Buffy runs away and he is nowhere to be found at the beginning of season 3.  That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care though.  Off camera it’s entirely possible that he and Joyce talked on the phone about Buffy while she was gone.  He may have even gone to Sunnydale for a few days.  Maybe Hank even talked to a bunch of Buffy’s former Los Angeles friends to see if they had heard from her.  We don’t know, but I’d like to think he was somewhat involved – even if we didn’t see it or hear about it.  And that brings us up to this episode where he cancels on Buffy on her birthday.  They had plans – and tickets – to go see an ice show and he flakes on her.  This is the first time that we start to see that Hank isn’t a great dad.  Maybe it was just easier for the writers to villainize him in order to help viewers forget his existence.  Maybe it was hard to schedule the actor to come back at any point in season 3.  My guess is that it was the former, which also allows for more drama. Besides, there is no doubt that Giles has become Buffy’s father figure, especially since “Band Candy” when he and Joyce, um, spent some quality time together.  So, having Hank Summers in the picture would just complicate that relationship and would make for some boring/non-existent drama.

• 

  Hank Summers last seen in season 2

• 

And that brings us to the other daddy issues that Buffy has in this episode with Giles.  So, first, Buffy’s actual dad cancels on her and then Giles, seeming very distant, is oblivious to all of Buffy’s hints that he should take her to the ice show.  Her purpose in asking him is that he is like a father to her, but Giles seems to be not paying attention.  The sad reality is that he is trying very hard to follow through with his duties as her Watcher and feels the need to make himself more distant and colder in order to protect himself, as he does see Buffy as a sort of daughter.  What results in this episode leads to the betrayal of two fathers.  The only thing that redeems him is his firing from the Watchers’ Council for disobedience.

Speaking of the Watchers’ Council… as we find out later in the series, this entire operation is a bunch of men using and controlling women to do their dirty work for them. On one hand, it’s very empowering that men in ancient times chose a woman to be the first slayer, but in order to do so, they had to first put her in chains.  That’s the irony of the slayer – this woman seemingly has all the power, but is always doing the bidding a man, her Watcher.  Now, of course we know that there are female Watchers, but at this point the only one we know of was evil (see “Revelations”), and that sends quite a message. Also, the majority of Watchers and members of the Council that we know about, from the beginning of the series through the end of season 3, are all men with that one evil exception.  Buffy’s 1^st Watcher was a man (both according to show and movie lore), as is her current Watcher (obviously).  The members of the Watchers’ Council that we meet in this episode are all men, as was Kendra’s Watcher.  I will admit to not remembering what Faith said about her Watcher back in Boston, so perhaps she had a female Watcher, but the fact that I don’t remember also says volumes about this issue.  And finally, the new Watcher we meet after the events of this episode is also, you guessed it – a man.

Now I don’t want you to think that I have a huge problem with this.  The Council is an ancient order (and a secret one at that) and probably only started bringing women aboard in more recent times.  Also, BtVS is from the 90s and while I’d love to say that the 90s were a wonderful time, clearly, we still had a lot to learn then, as we do now, about gender relations.  We’ve come a long way, but not far enough.  A few years ago, I watched a documentary about Anita Hill, who is a wonderfully nice and intelligent human being (yes, I met her and spoke with her back when I worked at the same university where she teaches, which also happens to be my alma mater).  I was shocked by exactly what went down between her and Clarence Thomas, as I was too young to know or understand the details of those hearings as they were happening.  What was even more shocking to me though, was that “pubic hair” was not a common thing to say aloud.  Not that I say this out loud on a regular basis, but it has definitely lost its shock value, in part because Anita Hill was forced to talk about it on Capitol Hill.  My point being, that a lot has changed since the 90s.  A lot changed in the 90s, and Buffy was a direct cause and effect of that.  So, having an almost all-male Watchers’ Council doesn’t bother me – what bothers me is the control they assert over their all female slayers.

In this episode, that control is deadly, mean, and just the worst.  And Giles, as an instrument of the Council, goes along with it – mostly.  What he does to Buffy leading up to the Tento di Cruciamentum (or slayer rite of passage) is despicable and horribly controlling.  He basically hypnotizes her in order to inject her with something that slowly takes away her slayer powers.  And then, he continues to send her out hunting by herself!  I mean, she could have died before the stupid Cruciamentum test!  But that’s missing the point.  He hypnotizes her to put her in a trance where she doesn’t see or feel anything and then drugs her – literally taking away her power.  What?  As a high schooler I didn’t see the full implications of this, but now it’s just awful.  Giles is following ancient orders. This has been done, as Quentin makes clear, to every slayer upon her 18^th birthday – assuming she lives that long in the first place.  (Side note: there is at least one slayer that we hear about who was older – if you are called when you are over 18 does that mean that you are spared this barbaric ritual or is there one for when you turn 30, too?)

• 

  Giles hypnotizes Buffy

• 

  and then drugs her…

Before continuing, I think it’s important to note that this is the first episode in which we meet anyone else from the Council, and more importantly, the first episode in which we meet Quentin Travers, who is the head of the Council.  He actually, and surprisingly, becomes a beloved character in the future.

Quentin Travers played by Harris Yulin

Okay, back to what I was saying before.  Giles is going along with his orders, taking away Buffy’s powers and sending her out to slay, knowing that she is getting weaker and weaker.  When Buffy finally says something to him about it, on the heels of Cordelia having to rescue her (which is actually really funny – don’t mess with Queen C guys), he appears unsympathetic as he plays his part in Buffy’s test.  When Buffy says to him, “I throw knives like a…”, Giles tries to finish her sentence by saying, “girl?”  Luckily for us, Buffy gives him an evil look and finishes her own sentence with, “slayer.”  Giles is certainly from another time, and as such, his perspective is colored by the same sexism that keeps the Council in control.

This whole test that Buffy goes through is a way of controlling slayers, but why and how?  At 18, children become adults, but not so in ancient times.  This is a relatively new concept.  Teenagers are also a relatively new concept. Perhaps, at some point, the Council realized that women are capable of learning and controlling their own lives and this test was a convenient way to get rid of problematic (aka non-controllable) women.  Of course, those who survive, like Buffy, do so because they are resourceful and able to think for themselves, but perhaps it is the rare slayer who survives, which is the whole point.  Or maybe, 18 was convenient for Joss Whedon and he just went with it.  Either way, this story shows that Buffy is now an adult, she is resourceful (remember that time she killed a vamp with a pencil? Even Spike admired this quality in her), and she is better than the Council and will not be controlled.

Giles, who does care for Buffy, eventually does break the rules of this test and goes to try to save Buffy from death.  He is too late as Buffy doesn’t need a man to save her.  However, in doing this, Giles is fired from the Council.  This just isn’t okay as he is clearly a better person than all the other men in the Watchers’ Council, but again, future drama.

A couple casting notes from this episode: Zachary Kralik is the first character that Jeff Kober plays on Buffy.  He will back for multiple episodes in season 6 as a different character.  Also, David Hayden-Jones is one of the men that Quentin brings to help prepare for the test.  He is now a recurring character, Mr. Ketch, on Supernatural where he also uses a very real sounding British accent.  Thanks to DVD commentaries, I now know that he is, in fact, American.

• 

  Jeff Kober as Kralik

• 

• 

  Jeff Kober as Rack (season 6)

• 

  David Hayden-Jones now and then

On another note, before Joyce is kidnapped by Kralik in order to get Buffy to play along, Buffy is wearing a red coat with a hood that makes her look very much like Little Red Riding Hood, which Kralik acknowledges when he sees her wearing it.  In season 4, Buffy will dress up as Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween.

In more episodic connections, Amy the rat is officially Willow’s pet, with a wheel in her cage and everything.  If only Willow knew how to reverse the spell to make Amy a human again.

A fun moment in this episode is a kryptonite conversation between Oz and Xander. This is a true geek conversation, as I had never heard of gold kryptonite before and I had been watching Superman, Superboy, and Supergirl since I was a child and read plenty of comic books. Buffy wouldn’t be Buffy without these geeky moments.

• 

  I was raised on reruns like this classic.

• 

  This show was in syndication when I was young.

• 

  This movie might be considered bad, but I love it.

And finally, speaking of Xander, while bringing the conversation back to male control… the end of the episode when Xander tries to help weak Buffy out by opening a peanut butter jar and can’t is priceless.  I mean, he means well, but this is such a stereotypical thing for a man to do.  But, of course, on Buffy, women are always the strong ones, and so Xander can’t open it either, and that’s what makes this moment okay.

I feel like a said a whole lot in this blog, and most of it was kind of depressing.  However, it’s important for me to also say that when I first saw this episode, I was unable to even think about many of these things and was able to enjoy this on a much simpler scale.  Because of this blog, sometimes I say a lot, especially as the world continues to change around me.  At its core, this episode is wonderfully dramatic, opens up the Buffyverse, and has wonderful character arcs.  At the end of the day (and this blog), that’s what I want to remember.

“Gingerbread”

I always enjoy watching shows take on fairytales and giving them a modern-day twist.  Charmed did it on more than one occasion, and while I can’t think of any non-Charmed examples at the moment, I know there are some.

This episode is also the first one in which it is clear that Willow has moved on from computer geek to witch.  She’s obviously been doing spells since Ms. Calendar died, but now we see that she is part of a witch community (I hesitate to say coven, as I don’t believe that Willow is actually in a “coven”) – something she tries to find again in college.  And, since this episode centers around witches, Amy’s back!  One episode in season 1, one episode in season 2, one episode in season 3.  I’m sensing a pattern, which gets broken after this.  We also meet a new witch – a male witch.  Some don’t like the word “warlock” even though that is the word typically assigned to a male witch, so I won’t use it.  If Harry Potter isn’t a warlock neither is new character Michael, played by Blake Soper from Boy Meets World and Salute Your Shorts.  These three witches are working together to perform a protection spell for Buffy’s birthday, but it all goes horribly awry when the latest demon comes to town.

• 

  Blake Soper as Michael on BtVS

• 

  Boy Meets World

• 

  The cast of Salute Your Shorts

But this episode is about more than witches and demons.  It’s about how communities deal with tragedy, and more importantly, about mothers and daughters.  Joyce is heavily featured in this episode.  She tries so hard to be a good mother, but just doesn’t get it.  She’s clueless, despite knowing Buffy’s secret.  I mean, she wants to watch Buffy work (a.k.a. slay).  Doesn’t she get that it’s dangerous?  Juxtapose that with Willow’s mom, who we finally meet, who doesn’t even pay attention to her daughter.  She doesn’t realize that Willow changed her hair months ago and refers to Willow’s best friend as “Bunny.” She seems to care, but only when Willow is doing something wrong.  Because Willow has been so perfect all these years, her mom has ceased to pay her any attention and thinks her new interest in witchcraft is a phase that can be related to a paper she just published.  This all definitely paints Joyce in a better light, despite her well-meaning cluelessness.  On the subject of Joyce, I have to mention how adorably awkward she and Giles are together.

• 

  Willow and Buffy’s moms unite for a common cause.

• 

  MOO headquarters

Joyce ends up spearheading the MOO (Mothers Opposed the Occult) movement in the wake of the death of two young children.  The community rallies around this tragedy, trying to cause good, but inadvertently prevents Buffy from doing her job.  This whole storyline actually reminds me of the witch finder general, who I was unfamiliar with when first viewing this episode. In the wake of Malleus Maleficarum and James VI and I writings on witchcraft, a man named Matthew Hopkins took it upon himself to track down witches and bring them to justice.  His methods were sketchy at best and he became rich by exploiting superstitious, 17^th century, English folk.  He was eventually found out and things did not end well for him, but there is a sort of pop-culture mythos that has built around the idea of the witch finder general in the same way that one thinks of Van Helsing.  So having an episode dedicated to a witch hunt certainly reminds me of that now.

• 

• 

  Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins

It is worth noting that, according to BtVS, the type of demon responsible for the chaos in Sunnydale is probably the same type of demon that started the Salem Witch Trials.  Growing up in Massachusetts and loving all things witches you know I know my Salem Witch Trial history, so I appreciated this reference.  I also appreciated that Buffy didn’t say any more than just that.  Cuz that would have ruined it.  BTW – totally in Salem as I’m writing this blog, but that’s just a coincidence – I promise.

Since I’ve mentioned Salem, I should make sure that you all know that no witches were burned at the stake in America – not in Salem, Connecticut (where there was an outbreak around the same time), or anywhere else.  Why mention this fact?  Well, a lot of people think that witches in Salem were burned at the stake and I find that super annoying, but more importantly, because in Sunnydale, the plan is to burn the witches at the stake.  Why would they do this in Sunnydale in 1999 though?  Isn’t there a more modern, and more efficient way of killing witches?  It seems a little odd to me.  Also, who would burn anyone at the stake indoors?  That’s just unsafe – I’m sorry, but it is.

Now, any true witch would find a way to escape this predicament, and Amy, having been at the witch thing for a lot longer than Willow, does just that.  She turns herself into a rat and escapes.  Don’t worry – she becomes Willow’s pet, because Willow can’t figure out how to change her back… so yeah, Amy the rat is here folks!  And as such, technically, Amy will be appearing in more than one episode per season now.

Amy the rat

A more troubling feature of this episode, you know, other than the witch hunt itself, and burning teenagers at the stake, is how the parents of these witches are reacting.  These are your children people! How are you less concerned about them than about the murdered children?  And that’s how you know that the town is once again under a spell.  I mean, Joyce, who knows exactly what’s going on thinks that Buffy’s the problem?!  That’s insane!  And, as Buffy points out, no one even knows who these children are.  They appear out of nowhere, dead, and the entire community goes bonkers.  Parents are choosing children that don’t exist over their own children!  This episode is extremely disturbing for this reason, and this reason alone.

Not disturbing? Cordelia and Giles forced to work together.  These two are hilarious.  I mean, can we get more of this please? (I know we won’t, but a girl can still dream, right?)  Also, toad stool.  It’s the little things that make me laugh.

“The Wish”

This may very well be my favorite season 3 episode. I think alternate reality episodes/doppelgänger episodes and the like tend to me my favorites across the board. For example, two of my favorite Roswell episodes are “Summer of ‘47,” in which the actors play different characters as a veteran tells Michael about what he saw when the spaceship crashed and the aftermath that followed over the next few days and “I Married an Alien,” which re-imagines Roswell as Bewitched. (There are also some alien doppelgänger episodes, btw.) And let’s not forget the Supernatural episodes “The French Mistake” and “Changing Channels.” The former has the Winchesters sucked into a world where they are actors on a tv show called Supernatural playing themselves, and the latter has them featured as part of other television shows, like a Grey’s Anatomy parody. But the Supernatural sitcom is my favorite. My point is, “The Wish” is right up my alley.

Roswell’s “I Married an Alien”

“Changing Channels” envisions Supernatural as a sticom

This episode is also the first one with Anya, played by Emma Caulfield. I remember seeing her when this episode originally aired and thinking, “oh, that’s Brandon Walsh’s girlfriend.” I wasn’t even allowed to watch Beverly Hills 90210, but I knew that much. Now, as I’m watching that entire series all the way through for the first time, seeing Susan, I think, “it’s Anya!” It’s just kind of funny how things change. It’s also funny seeing Anya as the monster of the week, with no indication that she will return, knowing that she actually becomes a huge part of the show.

Emma Caulfield

Meet Anya

Beverly Hills 90210

Jonathan’s back in this episode as well. And it’s scenes like this that explain his entire trajectory as we get closer and closer to “Earshot.” Poor Cordelia, I honestly don’t know if I feel worse for her or for Jonathan. She found out her boyfriend was cheating on her, got impaled, gets back to school and finds that vapid Harmony is now the queen b (despite Cordy’s “Queen C” license plate), and then Harmony, who is supposed to be her friend is just totally mean and uses Jonathan to show Cordelia how far she’s fallen in the eyes of Harmony and the popular girls. It’s like that time in middle school where a boy made fun of me for wearing sweatpants out in public (clearly, I was ahead of my time) by comparing me to an uncool boy who also wore sweatpants. The mean boy was making fun of me and this other kid, but using the other kid to show me how uncool I was. I think I won in the end though. The other “uncool” kid and I became friends in high school and ended up going to prom together. But this blog isn’t about me… sigh.

And of course, while Cordelia’s having a rough go of it, so are Buffy, Willow, and Xander. When Buffy’s asked how she makes it through after heartache she says, “I have you guys.” Buffy is wise and this friendship triangle (or triumvirate?) is very strong. We also see how Oz is dealing with everything. Or rather, we see another example of what a great guy he is. He’s heartbroken as well and is mad at Willow and Xander, but when confronted by Willow he’s still really nice. I mean he tells her the truth, but he could be a jerk about it, and he just isn’t. Which considering everything that happened is really big of him.

This episode isn’t about any of them, though. It’s about Cordelia and what she’s going through. And that is how we get the wish dimension. Anya is new, popular, and the only one that isn’t judging Cordelia. So, of course, Cordelia opens up to her, not realizing that Anya is actually a demon that’s pretty much targeted Cordelia. As we find out later, Anya specializes in spurned women. (Side note: isn’t it interesting that Anya ends up with Xander, who is the reason that Cordelia is vulnerable to Anya in the first place?)

So Cordelia wishes that Buffy never came to Sunnydale and then she is magically transported to a Buffy-less Sunnydale, completely unaware of how bad things are about to get.

Now at this point we need to talk about the events from the very first episode of Buffy. Yes, let’s go back to “Welcome to the Hellmouth” and “The Harvest.” In those episodes Willow and Jesse get taken by vampires. They are to be brought to the Master. Xander ends up going after Willow, solely because of Buffy. We know that Jesse became a vampire and that Xander ended up killing him, but without Buffy he would not have been turned into a vampire at all (he was Buffy bait), and so we can assume that Willow would not have been either. Now, if Willow had been turned, it is entirely possible that she would have turned Xander, but I think, realistically, Willow, along with Jesse, would have just been brought to the Master and killed.

When the Harvest starts at the Bronze, Cordelia is the person chosen by Luke to die first. Meaning that, technically, Cordelia would be dead in this world. However, since this world exists because of her wish, I suppose things would have been altered just enough for her to have survived. And I guess if I really take the time to think about it, she ended up on Luke’s radar because Jesse was dancing with her. Vampire Jesse, who would have just been killed if not for Buffy. So maybe she would have somehow survived the Harvest.

That being said, considering that this wish world is based pretty much entirely on a what if scenario from the first two episodes, it’s a shame that neither Jesse (Eric Balfour) nor Darla (Julie Benz) was in this episode. Oh well. One person that is in this episode that we haven’t seen since the beginning is Cordelia’s friend who was also in Bring it On, Nicole Bilderback. She dies pretty early on though…

Eric Balfour as Jesse

Julie Benz as Darla

unaired pilot

Nicole Bilderback as background Cordette

and in Bring it On

Okay, one other thing, and this isn’t an early BtVS history lesson – Vamp Willow is affected by crosses. She’s Jewish. Why would a cross affect her? Are you telling me that Jesus is the only figure that vampires would be afraid of? I think not! This is where I once again talk about how at least on Being Human, both the British and American versions, the writers understood that a Star of David (or another non-Christian religious symbol) can be just as effective. That just bugs me, I’m sorry. Moving on.

Speaking of Vamp Willow… she’s pretty awesome, right? I mean, she does get brought back this season, so obviously Alyson Hannigan did a good job being a completely different version of Willow. And kudos to Marti Noxon for writing the character in the first place. I love when she says, “Bored now.” I sometimes say that in life. Of course, she also says, “Willow’s going to make you bark” to Angel, which is just… ew! The whole Angel part of the wish world is weird. And Willow and Xander’s, um, fondness for playing with him is just, ew!

I don’t know off the top of my head when Charlaine Harris’s first Sookie Stackhouse novel was published, but the Master’s plan in this episode is very True Blood, don’t you think? Obviously, I had never heard of Sookie Stackhouse when this episode first aired (and I doubt that the first book had been published yet), but it is quite the coincidence. RIP first victim Cordette, as played by Nicole Bilderback…

Alright, also in this world are the White Hats, run by Giles. Oz is a member, as well as Larry (yes, Larry! – this is the first time we truly see him as a good guy). Nancy is also a member – I can’t recall if she appears in the real world at all though. These are the vampire fighting people and Cordelia gets their attention when she runs to Giles looking for Buffy (and also because she’s wearing a bright color – apparently you don’t want to call attention to yourself, even in bright daylight). The fact that she knows about Buffy is the thing that ultimately saves the world and brings everything back to normal, but she just seems crazy to everyone other than Giles. Sadly, the White Hats aren’t as effective as a slayer and Cordelia is killed by Willow and Xander together, right in front of Giles. Geez, even in this world Cordelia has to deal with the two of them being together – as they are killing her.

The White Hats

By the way – why do people still live in Sunnydale in this world? If you know you have to wear all dull earth tones in order to not be spotted and be inside by a certain time of night or be eaten, wouldn’t you move? Yet Sunnydale High is functioning normally and there are still plenty of people living there. Are the adults in Sunnydale really that stupid? Or lazy? I just don’t get it, but if no one lived there then this episode would be over pretty quickly so I will let it go.

Alright, so Cordelia is dead, but Giles is trying to track down Buffy, who finally arrives in Sunnydale and makes quite the entrance. Because, you know, when does Buffy not make an entrance? She is scarred and clearly not the same person, but she does go to fight the Master. Then just about everyone dies. We see Buffy beating up Vamp Xander, he in turn stakes Angel, then Buffy stakes Xander. Willow, in the meantime, is staked by Oz and then the Master kills Buffy. As far as we know Oz lives, but if this world were to continue, I’m not so sure that he’d be around much longer.

Giles, while all this is happening, summons Anyanka (Anya’s full demon name) and figures out how to get things back to how they were meant to be. This then leads to a great ending as Cordelia cluelessly drones on to Anya about all the things she wishes, while Anya tries to figure out why she is unable to grant any of those wishes. And that’s that… until “Dopplegängland.” Dun dun dun!

“Revelations”

I had to watch this episode twice before being ready to sit down and write this blog.  Why, you may ask? I think it’s because the plot is inconsequential. Everything that happens is about moving the greater story and character arc forward.  In “Band Candy” everything is based around the plot of the spelled band candy.  In “Homecoming” the larger plot revolves around the Homecoming dance.  In this episode, the plot doesn’t feel as important.  Instead it allows major other plots to come forward. 

For example, this episode brings Angel’s existence to life.  When Xander goes in search of the Glove of Myhneghon on his own (because he was feeling guilty about almost getting caught with Willow by Giles) he discovers Angel, follows him, and then sees Angel and Buffy making out.  This seems like the B plot, but the entire plot ends up pivoting on the fact that Angel is back and whether or not characters trust him. 

Trust issues are the other major character development that comes out of this episode and Gwendolyn Post is just the vehicle for this within Faith.  Before I go too far into this though, we need to rewind, I think.  

Just who is Mrs. Post exactly?

Faith knows very little about Angel.  She knows the basic outline: Buffy was in love with him, they had sex, he turned evil and she had to kill him.  There are nuances missing, along with the fact that Willow’s spell worked and he was “cured” before Buffy killed him.  At the beginning of the episode, Buffy actually refuses to talk to Faith about Angel at all.  Faith interprets this as Buffy not wanting to open up to her, not trusting her, when in reality, Buffy is having trouble discussing Angel, at least in part, because he’s alive and well and Buffy has secretly been “training” with him. Here, Buffy is allowing Faith’s trust issues to take hold before we even get to the part where Gwendolyn Post completely uses Faith and basically breaks her trust.  

On top of this you have Xander, who never liked Angel, influencing Faith.  Now, part of this hatred stems from the fact that Angel is a vampire, but his hatred of Angel started with their mutual affection for Buffy.  His hatred (and mistrust) has always been fueled by jealousy.  Sure, Angel turned evil and then Xander’s vocal hatred was what Buffy needed to remind her that the Angel she knew was gone, but Angel’s not evil now, and Xander knows it.  So his hatred at this point is somewhat misguided.  That being said, he also makes some really good points about how many people Angel/Angelus has killed in the past and invokes the name of Jenny Calendar in doing so.  It’s worth mentioning that Giles also had to remind Buffy (along with the audience) that Angelus tortured him last season – so Xander isn’t the only bitter one. 

So now you have Faith, who thinks Buffy can’t trust her and is keeping secrets, basically being egged on to fight Angel because of Xander’s jealousy and hatred. With that misinformation, Faith rushes off to kill Angel.  

While trust is definitely a major theme of this episode, so too is misinformation and miscommunication. Faith goes to kill Angel because Xander didn’t tell her the whole story.  He basically fed her his hatred rather than tell her that Angel’s probably good.  I don’t know how he thought this whole thing would work out in the end, but the fact that he wasn’t there to stop her in time almost got Angel killed.  Now add to this that Mrs. Post got into Faith’s head before she revealed herself to be evil and we have the ingredients for a huge fight scene.  And of course, Angel has to defend himself and might not even realize who Faith is when she attacks him.  All he knows is that she is defending the woman who tried to kill him over the Glove of Myhneghon.    

And then of course Buffy shows up. And she has to stop Faith from killing Angel, which leads to their first real fight.  The first of many.  Which is too bad because the beginning of this episode has them participating in some “synchronized slaying” – Olympics ready and all.  And now their relationship will never be the same.  All because of misinformation, miscommunication, and deep-seated trust issues.  

From synchronized slaying…

…to fighting each other

The good news here is that Angel proves himself to everyone by saving Willow from evil Mrs. Post.  The bad news is that Faith will never truly recover from the events of this episode. Even in season 7 when she is back and reformed, she and Buffy just cannot seem to trust each other.  That is the true evil of Gwendolyn Post. After Mrs. Post’s first scene, Buffy kids Giles about them having to kill her, little did they know that by episode’s end, that’s exactly what would happen.   

By the way – what exactly was she planning on doing with the Glove of Myhneghon? Was she going to kill her way through the world?  I mean, I get that she wanted power, but the glove’s power didn’t seem to be helpful at all.  I would much rather have a magic genie in my back pocket or a magic necklace that let me influence people or something.  The glove can never come off, you need to chant to get its energies to flow, and all it seems to do is cause destruction.  What about love or money?  I just don’t think the glove is worth it, so I’m curious about her entire backstory and her reasoning for why that glove is what she really wants to get power.  And what is her husband like?  Or maybe she killed him… 

But I digress.  While I clearly have many questions surrounding the watcher-turned-evil, this episode isn’t about her.  It’s about Buffy’s relationships with all the other characters.  And it’s about Faith.  Knowing how the season turns out for her, it’s clear that this is where her evil road starts. Thanks Gwendolyn Post. 

“Homecoming”

This is a great episode!  It’s funny, and moves the season arc along by finally introducing us to The Mayor – and finally beginning to show the conspiracy alluded to several times during the second season. 

The episode actually starts off with Scott dumping Buffy.  I mean, he definitely deserves better considering she keeps sneaking off to be with Angel (unromantically), but it’s too bad.  If he knew her Slayer secret he would understand most of her behavior and then she could actually be with a nice guy.  Oh well.  It is pretty funny when during the homecoming dance Faith gets revenge on behalf of Buffy by basically telling his date that he has an STD.  Another reason why Faith is awesome.  

Speaking of homecoming, we actually have a couple of cliché high school things happening in this episode.  The other one (because the first is, duh, homecoming) is school pictures.  Now, when I was in high school, we all made separate appointments for ourselves with a professional photographer (and not the same one or two, or even three) at a studio to get ours done.  So, this whole senior photo thing happening at school makes no sense to me.  I’m pretty sure that generic school pics are only for underclassmen, even today.  Also, all schools have a make-up photo day.  So if Buffy did miss her photo it wouldn’t be her last chance.  I mean what if someone is out of school because they are at home throwing up?  You mean to tell me that the school would just say, “Oh well, too bad.  Guess you won’t have a photo in the yearbook”?  NO – that would not happen.  Of course, in the case of BtVS this is all a plot device to a) pit Buffy against Cordelia, and b)  cause Buffy to feel isolated due to her slaying duties.  

So because Buffy misses her photo and won’t be in the yearbook, all because Cordelia was too self-involved in her Homecoming Queen campaign, Buffy decides to run for Homecoming Queen herself.  Which is funny.  But even funnier when she and Cordelia butt heads.  So the two of them being forced to spend quality kill-or-be-killed time together makes for a great hour of television.  It’s too bad these two characters never really spent much one-on-one time together.  I mean, I know that they’re not “friends,” but they sure do group hang a lot.  I think this and “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” are the only two episodes like this.  And both deal with popularity interestingly enough. 

The competition heats up

On the way to the dance

Despite Buffy being the slayer, Cordelia somehow manages to save the day.  First, she is just hilarious with a spatula, but when the surviving Gorch brother gets in her way boy does she let him have it.  Honestly, it’s everything.  Cordelia is fierce.  And funny.  Buffy doesn’t even need to defeat him – after Cordelia’s rant he just runs, never to be seen again. 

weapon of choice

giving it to Lyle Gorch

The two girls’ time together isn’t just about standing up to those trying to kill them though.  Cordelia, expressing how she doesn’t want to die says that she thinks she loves Xander.  That alone bonds these two girls and allows them to work together to get out of the Slayerfest ’98 that Mr. Trick has set up for them.  Well, for Buffy and Faith, but one out of two ain’t bad, right?  

Side note: Slayerfest ’98 – awesome or tacky?  The name perfectly fits the time period with various Lollapaloozas and Lilith Fairs and other (usually music) events happening with the year on the end.  I myself attended Mix Fest ’98, hosted by a local radio station and saw The Coors, Edwin McCain, and Barenaked Ladies perform.  The fact that Trick picked this goes with the times, but also suggests multiple Slayerfests, which there were actually none of… so I think it was misnamed, but a perfect pop culture misnomer. 

Why does Trick think that Cordelia is Faith?  Well, Faith was going to be Buffy’s homecoming date after Scott dumps her, so she was supposed to be in the limo with Buffy, not Cordelia.  Here’s the thing though, lots of high schools don’t allow same couple dates at major school dances (even though Buffy and Faith are not a couple).  Further more, a lot of schools don’t allow people to bring dates that go to other schools.  So Faith being allowed into the dance is actually pretty cool.  Granted the extra ticket she used was bought for Scott originally.  I’m sure that most high schools hadn’t even thought about policies like this yet.  Most gay high schoolers were still in the closet and I think it was expected that a lot of kids dated college kids or out-of-town kids and school’s didn’t really care.  But it strikes me as wonderful that none of this was an issue for Sunnydale High back in the fall of 1998.  

Speaking of dates, both Willow and Xander make a huge deal out of this dance and looking great for their dates.  Of course Willow’s date was in the band, so it’s not like they’d get to spend a lot of time together.  My high school did not make such a big deal out of the homecoming dance (I don’t even know who was crowned at any point during high school and certainly no one campaigned for Homecoming Queen or King that I know of.  Also, my senior year Prom decided not to have a king or queen, so I was robbed of that oh-so-very high school experience altogether), but at Sunnydale, at least in 1998, it was huge.  So Willow and Xander decide to help each other out and in the process of previewing their outfits for each other and practicing dancing something happens.  Something that I had been wishing for throughout the entire first season and most of the second.  However, now I no longer want it and it is infuriating how wonderful and horrible this moment is as a result.  Willow and Xander kiss/mini make-out.  Ahhhh!  Why?  Cordelia is actually great for Xander and what about Oz?  Not fair!!!!  The scene starts off so innocently with them helping each other pick out outfits and then just turns into that.  And then they end up deceiving their friends, making Buffy feel unwanted as they (and Oz) help Cordelia out over Buffy due to their guilt, and they can’t even enjoy the dance because of their unwanted attraction to each other (and the resulting guilt).  Not cool!  

not so innocent dance

ah! no!

awkward…

You know what is cool though?  Giles and finger food.  What a great combination.  When chaperoning a dance, it’s good to know that you can eat finger food and be funny at the same time.  

In all seriousness though, this episode is amazing.  It’s funny, has great character development, and is a break from the usual monster of the week even while still including several monsters of the week and introducing us to the season’s Big Bad.  At some point I should actually sit down and try to make my Top 10 Buffy episodes list.  I don’t know if this would definitely be on it, but it would be close for sure.

“Beauty and the Beasts”

Buffy has always been good at making literary references.  There are some that I’m sure I’ve never caught, but for those that I have caught, it allows me to enjoy the show on a deeper level.  It also shows that this show is, in fact, quite intelligent.  This episode brings to life the novel Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde while showing what modern-day abuse can look like.  It’s another moral episode of Buffy, and a semi-depressing one at that. 

Now that Buffy is dating Scott Hope we get to see some of his friends (it’s nice that dating Buffy doesn’t mean that Scott stops hanging out with his friends, which is something that happens far too often on television dramas.  In fact – Buffy starts hanging out with his friends).  Debbie and Pete are another couple and they seem super happy, until we find out that Pete is actually a monster – of the human variety.  Basically, Pete has created a serum that makes him stronger.  What it really does is turn him into a monster.  And, he doesn’t need to take the serum anymore, he just needs to get mad and it turns out that Debbie is his trigger.  

Seemingly happy couple

Pete hulking er Hyde-ing out

This does seem very Jekyll & Hyde like, but the truth is that it is also a stand in for alcoholism and abuse.  Pete gets jealous very easily, which is how Oz gets dragged into the story, and after he lashes out at Debbie – and hurts her, she covers for him, just like so many women in real life that are stuck in abusive relationships.  I, thank goodness, have never been in this situation, so I can’t speak to this directly, but based on all the versions of this type of story I’ve seen on tv and in the movies it seems pretty accurate (except of course for the monster bit).  At one point Giles says that there are two kinds of monsters: those who want to be redeemed and those who don’t.  Without knowing it, he is casting Pete in the latter category and comparing him to Angel, who is the former kind of monster.  And that’s why this episode is so depressing. 

And now time for a rant: why are Debbies always blonde and not smart?  Yes, I spell my name differently, so technically I’m not a “Debbie”, but as “Debbi” the world still hears “Debbie” and I take offense.  Debbies should not always be blonde cheerleader-types that need help from men to get by (Debbie borrows Oz’s notes in one scene).  The flip side of this is that Deborahs (or Debras) tend to be smart brunettes.  Um, all Debbies are Deborahs (or Debras) so why is there always such a difference.  For once, I want there to be a kickass Debbie that I can look up to.  Thank you and good night! 

Wait, don’t go anywhere – I didn’t mean “good night” like go away.  It was more of mic throw down… 

Ahem.  Back to Buffy… despite everything going on with Pete and Debbie, their friend Scott is trying really hard to be a good boyfriend to Buffy.  Buffy has been super sensitive lately – wouldn’t you? – and comes off as a lot weirder than usual.  When she talks about seeing the school psychologist, she’s really putting herself out there and Pete doesn’t miss an opportunity to let Scott know that his new girlfriend is weird, but Scott doesn’t let it bother him.  He really is a good guy, it’s a shame that he and Buffy are clearly not meant for one another. 

Speaking of the school psychologist, Mr. Platt (may he rest in peace), he tells Buffy something that is very similar to Spike’s future “love makes you its bitch” quote, which I love.  There is definitely a theme here that starts with “Love makes you do the wacky” and just keeps on going all the way to the end of the show.  Mr. Platt is exactly what Buffy needs.  I mean it would be easier if she could tell him the truth, but he is able to really help her to put things in perspective so that she can start to move on, which is nice and helpful.  The only thing about Mr. Platt that isn’t great is that he smokes on school property, like in his office.  What?  That can’t be allowed.  He definitely marches to the beat of his own drummer I guess. 

This episode always makes me think about how fake we all are.  I mean how many people know what’s really going on in your head on a regular basis.  We all put on a façade to keep people from really seeing us, or from seeing the dark within us, the things we are ashamed of, and the things that we don’t want to admit to ourselves.  However, in Debbie’s case, if she didn’t hide, if she had just told someone what was going on, maybe her life, and Pete’s, could have been saved.  To quote Cordelia Chase, “Great, now I’m going to be stuck with serious thoughts all day.”