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 1st 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 18th 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.
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.
The Great Buffy Re-watch 