Buffy the Vampire Slayer S02 E02 – Batteries not included.

Previously: Buffy was a bitch.
—

Some Assembly Required

Lorraine: First off, the “for every generation there is a slayer” opening is now voiced by Giles instead of Very Serious Raspy Man! I’m… not sure how I feel about this.

Sweeney: A moment of silence for Very Serious Raspy Man?

Lor: We never knew ye.

Buffy is sitting on top of a gravestone playing with a yo-yo because passing the time before cell phones SUCKED. What she wouldn’t give right now even for a little Snake, am I right? She’s waiting for a recently turned vampire to make his way out of the grave. Angel sneaks up on her, but not really, because he’s just walking all openly in the graveyard. He’s just doing it quietly, which Buffy notes. Buffy Life Lessons: when you approach someone in a graveyard you should “stomp” or “yodel.”

K: I really wish they’d followed through on that yodelling thing, just for the LOLs. 

Lor: Angel is totally stealth when he’s all, “so are you here alone and totally not with Xander?” and Buffy is basically Nancy Drew so she deduces that Angel’s a little jealous. They bicker a bit and Buffy asks if maybe vampires don’t get jealous. Angel says that whenever they fight, she always brings up the vampire thing and you can tell he’s almost thinking:

Almost.

Buffy says she didn’t come here to fight, and it’s #punny because the vampire she was waiting for has just risen and knocks her into Angel. She fights the vampire, but has lost her stake. There is a conveniently place shovel nearby which the vampire picks up and uses to clock Angel in the face. Buffy manages to steal the shovel away, Buffy Break it and stake the vamp who was like 1 minute years old. Harsh.

K: To be fair, the element of surprise meant he lived at least 30 seconds longer than he would have otherwise! 

Lor: If you thought a little vampire killing interlude would stop the bickering, LOL. Buffy asks if Angel thinks she’s just a kid and Angel’s response is to “nah-nee-nah-nee-boo-boo” aka not actually answer the question and walk away. Buffy says she isn’t easy to get rid of and then falls into an open grave. Did I already use #punny? Ah, well.

Angel assumes another vampire has risen, but Buffy notes the tracks leading away from the grave suggest someone was dragged out. Also, that explains the shovel.

Credits, with a couple new scenes and like a million times more brooding since David Boreanaz is now included in them.

Sweeney: I already know Kirsti’s thoughts on Angel, and something tells me that it’s going to be a long couple seasons for me. I’ll go brood over this with Angel.

Lor: I’m keeping an open mind! I’m simply saying he gives good brood.

Xander and Buffy walk into the Wiggens Library to find Giles seated opposite an empty chair, talking to himself.

Sweeney: A much younger Invisible Obama?

Lor: Good guess! But it’s actually Invisible Ms. Calendar. He’s practicing asking her out. His invite includes the words “indecorous,” “social engagement” and “amenable,” so basically what I’m saying is that I would’ve said yes. I’m guessing Invisible Obama would’ve too.

When Giles realizes he isn’t alone, he putzes around a little, rattled, but I mean… It’s the school library. During school. In the library. Take that shit home during off hours, yo.

K: Truth. Perhaps someone needs to have a chat to Giles about appropriate workplace behaviour. 

Lor: Buffy’s date advice is for him to speak English and not what they speak in… and Giles gamely provides “England.” It reminds me of when Kirsti and I met in Chicago and I spent 87% of the time making fun of her English, while she rubbed in my face that it was the Queen’s English and I would laugh and laugh because she said “rubbish bin” and “bubbler” and “chips.” FYI: trash can, water fountain and french fries.

K: I mostly love that you think Australian English = the Queen’s English. Also, you left out the great tomato sauce debate of 2011. (Ketchup = tomato sauce)

Lor: YOU SAID IT WAS THE QUEEN’S ENGLISH. I remember you saying that because clearly that is not something I would make up. (ketchup=ketchup)

Sweeney: Cosign.

Lor: ANYHOW, Buffy gets down to business and tells about the grave robbed grave. Giles says that’s “interesting” but Buffy was thinking more along the lines of “gross and disturbing. Giles: “Yes, yes yes of course. Terrible thing. Must put a stop to it…dammit.” MS. CALENDAR BETTER DATE HIM.

Sweeney: Yes, Giles is great and deserves eternal happiness, but my thing is: Whedon couldn’t have written him someone better than Ms. Calendar? Really?

Lor: Someone who knew Reading is Fundamental perhaps?

So, the gang decides that they should find out more about the woman who was dragged out of her grave.

We join Willow near a sign announcing the science fair where a dorky looking kid gets up in her grill with a camera. I immediately think, “HIM. WHO IS HE?” IMDB tells me Michael Bacall, who has been in some things like Manic and Inglorious Basterds. Clearly, though, I don’t recognize him from either of those things, but probably from Free Willy or guest appearances on The Nanny or The Wonder Years. He also wrote (or co-wrote) the screenplays for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and 21 Jump Street. Legit.

ANYHOW AGAIN, a ginger with a unibrow (K: I’m so glad I’m not the only one who couldn’t see past it) walks up and chides Free Willy for being a creep with a camera. Turns out Willow and Ginger Brow are signing up for the science fair because it is mandatory that year and OMG. They did this to us once. As Cordelia walks up and signs up with her experiment, “Tomato: Fruit or Vegetable,” I’m reminded of my experiment, “What Color Construction Paper Will Make Ice Melt Faster in the Sun?” Admittedly, it was the 3rd grade. Also, the answer is black.

Buffy comes to get Willow saying, “sorry to interrupt but it’s bat signal,” which is super stealth. Cordelia also walks away, prompting Free Willy to note that she’s a fine piece of ass and that “she’d be perfect for us.” Ginger Brow says that’s a terrible idea seeing as how she’s alive. Grave robber say wuh?

K: Seriously. They’re not exactly whispering. How does NO ONE in this crowded hallway think that this conversation is weird?! 

Sweeney: Because this is Sunnydale?

Lor: 

Willow is getting her hack on. She finds out that the empty grave belonged to a girl who died in a car accident along with two other girls her age. Cordelia has shown up to the Wiggens Library to ask Willow for science fair project help. “Fruit,” Willow says without missing a beat or even looking up. Cordy exposit-whines that she would’ve asked Ginger Brow for help but that would’ve brought up painful memories of “Daryl.” Again she is ignored and she asks someone to take note of her pain. Giles, walking in from off screen passes by, says, “there, there” while patting her back, and walks away. LOL.

Giles offers up theories on this week’s diabolical force, saying maybe demon who feeds on dead flesh or voodoo practitioners making zombies. Buffy suggests finding out if the other girls who died in the crash are still in their graves. Not really following the logic here but, meh. Again: this is Sunnydale. Grave digging party that night, “BYOShovel” says Xander. “I’ll bring the food,” says Willow.

Cut to grave digging party, where the boys are digging and the girls are gossiping and eating powdered doughnuts. They talk about Angel being jealous of Xander, Buffy never living down her Sexy Dance from “When She Was Bad” and love making you do whacky things. At this point, Xander suggest the girls dig and Buffy offers up, “I’m an old fashioned gal. I was raised to believe men dig up the corpses and women have the babies.” That’s sexism I can get behind.

K: I love that the person with Slayer Strength sits around punning and eating doughnuts. You have to make the civilians earn their keep, yo. 

Lor: Cordy is the next topic of conversation. Buffy asks about whatever painful memories she was babbling about in the library. Willow explains: Ginger Brow had an older brother Daryl who was a total stud, but then died in a rock climbing accident, breaking Cordy’s heart. Ginger Brow has not been the same since then either.

Sweeney: AKA, contrivancey excuse to give us Ginger Brow’s back story, because Buffy wouldn’t actually give two shits. The fact that she even asked about Cordy’s painful memories can only be explained by, you know, reasons.

Lor: The boys are all done digging so Buffy hops in the grave and opens the casket. We don’t get to know what’s inside because of suspense and stuff.

We cut away to see Cordelia leaving cheer practice with two randoms. “If we don’t get this down by tomorrow, no one is going to be led by our cheers,” she tells them. Man, she’s amazing. The randoms drive away leaving Cordelia alone in an empty parking lot. I get ready to hear her scream. Sure enough, she hears some weird noises and gets wigged. She runs to her car, drops her keys because of course, and while she’s down on the ground reaching for them, spots some one approaching her car. She doesn’t even know who, but she probably thinks, “those shoes look malevolent” and runs the fuck away.

Cordelia hides in a dumpster, making me lover her more, because I’d probably rather be captured by the malevolent shoes. (K: +1) When she thinks it’s safe, she takes a peek around and of course, her stalker is there, but actually turns out to be  Angel. He’s all “LOL. CORDY IN A DUMPSTER” and she just wants to know why he was following her. His answer of “I didn’t know it was you,” and “I was looking for Buffy” really don’t help make me feel better about him as a person. Cordelia informs Angel that Buffy is at the graveyard. As she’s about to get out of the dumpster, Cordy realizes that she’s stuck on something, and oh, look, a dead person’s hand. Cue scream.

At the Wiggins Library, Angel and Cordy are sitting as Buffy and the Scoobies stroll in, Xander expositing that both graves they dug up were empty. Not entirely sure why the grave robbers would bother filling those graves back up and not the grave we found at the beginning of the episode BUT WHATEVER. IT’S SUNNYDALE.  The Scoobies are busted because Angel now knows that he was not invited to the hunket invited to the grave digging party. (10 points for the reference!) Buffy explains that they were looking for dead girls, but Angel already knows seeing as how they found parts of them in the dumpster. “Angel saved me from an arm,” Cordy dramas, as she hangs off his arm. IS THIS A THING?

No, wait. Don’t tell. I think I know the answer but don’t do it.

K: Can we all just stop and marvel at Angel’s jacket for a second? I hope to God it’s laundry day, because NO. BRING BACK THE LEATHER JACKET. You’re showing your real age, Angel.

Sweeney: +1. It also manages to make him look pastier, and even I am a little grossed out here. Not a good look, Angel.

Lor: Cordelia hams it up, asking why terrible things always happen to her and Xander fake-coughs, “karma.” True. Also, Xander gets in a number of other little jabs and snits in this scene, and it’s great to see Angel-nohumor-lus react to them. Or stare woodenly at them. Same-same.

Angel suggests that someone’s keeping certain parts of the dead girls He says whoever is chopping them up knows their way around surgery, so Willow suggests some science club boys. Cordelia insists on not sticking around for the forthcoming locker search they plan and volun-tells Angel to take her home.

Cut to a house where we’re treated to the Humming Piano of Bad Things Happen and we see a scraggly woman smoking a cigarette. Ginger Brow announces that he’s going out, but nobody cares, least of all Momma Scraggly.

Back at the locker searches, Xander finds books such as, “I’m Guilty” and “Grave Digging 101” and, um, “Villain of the Week” in Ginger Brows’ locker. Something like that.

K: Willow, meanwhile, gets excited when she finds an issue of Scientific American that she hasn’t read yet, and stoops to petty theft. 

Sweeney: Villains of the week don’t have the same property rights as the rest of us.

Lor: The gang deduces that someone is taking dead girl parts and piecing together a dead girl. Cool.

So we know that they are right, we get a brief scene of Ginger Brow and Free Willy in a nefarious lab poking at dead girl parts. Free Willy says they have to finish the girl soon and Ginger Brow says he’s working on it. Free Willy is too, he says, as he hangs up pictures of Willow, Buffy and Cordelia.

At school the next day, when considering why anyone would piece together a girl when there are so many pre-packaged ones, Xander waxes poetic on falling in love with what you cannot have.

The gang’s powwow on the reanimation of dead tissue is interrupted by Giles, standing around looking a little moon-eyed. It leads to a jittery Giles attempting to ask out Ms. Calendar out, and basically Ms.Calendar asking Giles out instead.

Sweeney: Which made me kind of like her for a hot second or two.

Lor: In some school science lab where apparently no one is doing any learning, the topic of reanimating dead tissue is back. Buffy enters and announces (which is something that happens often) that Ginger Brow and Free Willy are not at school today. Giles enter-nounces that the police found three heads in the dumpster, meaning that whatever the evil dudes are making is probably missing a head.

Ginger and Free have apparently taken a cue from the season 1 church-y lair vampires and plastered KEEP OUT signs all over their secret basement lab. Free Willy is saying they are running out of time because of blah blah atrophy blah blah this doesn’t make any sense anyways. Free Willy says that the car accident that killed those three girls was lucky, but they are running out of time, need a head, and can’t keep waiting around for another accident. Ginger Brow isn’t too hot on killing someone. He begs some off screen person not to make him kill anyone. From behind a curtain comes Ginger’s big, dead brother, all stitched together and Frankenstein like. “You promised me I wouldn’t be alone,” says Frankenbrother. I’ve seen his face and Ginger should probably not have promised.

K: Seriously. NYARGH.

Lor: Frankenbrother gets Ginger Brow to commit to finishing the project. Free Willy displays his collection of photos and Frankenbrother picks Cordelia as his head of choice.

The Scoobies figure that Ginger and Willy will be looking for a very fresh head, leading Buffy to think “murder” and send her along her way to Ginger’s house. Momma Scraggly lets Buffy in but doesn’t really pay attention to her, making it easy for B to spot the SECRET LAB KEEP OUT DEAD GIRLS HERE LOL signs on a nearby door and let herself in. As rambly as this post has already been, I must take a moment to say that it must be freakin’ awesome to be able know that you can handle yourself in 99% of all situations. Creepy basement where dead girl body parts are probably hanging out? NO PROBLEM. I’M A SLAYER. I think it plays on my deep desire to be unafraid and totally kick ass.

K: Right there with you, Lor. I think in our situation, Sweeney is Buffy and we’re the Scoobies, because of that one time in Chicago where we made her eat the bouncer’s ice cream while we hid behind her.

Lor: Sweeney the Ice Cream Sandwich Slayer!

Sweeney: I was going to +1 the awesomeness of Slayer strength and super powers and stuff, but then you went there, and now I don’t know what to say, except that I’m still not sure I forgive you both for that.

Lor: But we love you.

ANYHOW SOME MORE, Buffy investigates the basement. We see Frankenbrother moving in to attack but a noise distracts them both, just as Buffy sees that Cordelia’s head is the chosen one, and she skedaddles.

K: Okay. I have a problem here. Buffy leaves through the basement window. I know that Scraggly Mama isn’t all there, but surely she’d notice the fact that the girl who went downstairs never came back out again?

Lor: Really? Momma Scraggy looks like she doesn’t even know what day of the week it is.

Sweeney: +1

Lor: Cordelia  is preparing for the big football game in the locker room. Ginger Brow enters and distracts her while Free Willy puts a bag over her head. Buffy gets to the school in record time and finds Cordy before our nerds are able to drag her away. She kicks Free Willy IN THE FACE. He runs off. Buffy unties Cordelia who is all, “kay! Gotta go cheer now!”

Out at the game, Giles and Ms. Calendar are finding their seats. She’s going on about how she loves football and Giles’ reply is, “well, I do find it odd that a nation that prides itself on its virility feels compelled to strap on forty pounds of protective gear just to play rugby.” I laughed. Xander and Willow stop by with a report and also to invade Giles’ date.

K: I laughed about the rugby thing too, but mostly because it’s true. 

Lor: Buffy has a heart to heart with Ginger Brow. Here, it’s finally revealed to her that he is doing all of this for his Frakenbrother. They head over to Ginger’s basement lab and find it trashed and both Free Willy and Frankenbrother missing.

Back at the game, we see FB walking under the bleachers. He spots Cordelia and when she goes for a water break, grabs her. Lesson of the episode: staying hydrated is not really that important.

We see a blindfolded Cordelia being tied to a table. She promises not to scream if they’ll only let her see what’s going on. Frakenbrother removes the blindfold and she screams. Free Willy informs us that she can scream all she wants because they are in an abandoned building. (S: There are an awful lot of those in Sunnydale.) Cordy takes him up on that offer, but it doesn’t last too long before he’s all, “okayOMGshutup.” The two dudes exposit their head-chopping plans to Cordelia and she screams some more.

K: Poor Charisma Carpenter. They really made the most of that “Cordy must scream at least once an episode” clause that I maintain was in her contract.

Lor: Buffy realizes that Cordelia is nowhere to be seen and wants Ginger to tell her where they would’ve taken her. Ginger says their lab, which, whoops! I thought the lab and the basement were the same place!! I’d go fix that in the recap but YEAHNO. SORRY I’M NOT SORRY.

At the lab, Frakenbrother is saying stuff about how when Cordelia is attached to her patchwork body, she’ll have to be with him because she’ll be too ugly to be in public. This entire story line makes ZERO FUCKING SENSE. Like worse than usual. Not as bad as “I Robot… You Jane” or that one time Xander was a hyena, though. But pretty bad. Anyways, Buffy walks in as soon as they are about to cut off Cordy’s head. She fights with Frakenbrother, shit gets set of fire, the rest of the Scoobies show up in time to get Free Willy out and save Cordy. When FB sees his patchwork girlfriend going up in flames, he runs into the fire to be with her. See ya, sucker.

K: Hands down my favourite part of this? Xander tries to get Cordy off the table to save her from the fire. When he can’t, he basically uses the gurney like a giant skateboard and rides it through the flames to safety while Cordy screams some more. Presumably because Xander is on top of her. Apparently he’s not thrilled to be on top of her either:

Lor: Post fire, Buffy’s having a “I should’ve never brought my dead brother back to life but I thought I was looking out for him” heart to heart with Ginger Brow. Xander is taking this time to notice that everyone is paired off, except for him and Willow. When Cordy walks up to express her gratitude, he’s a total scrotum wrinkle to her, cutting her off rudely. He then questions why he never gets a date. For a second in an episode, I almost think I like you, Xander. Then you open your mouth one more time and, yeah. That’s gone.

Angel and Buffy walk through a cemetery because. Buffy repeats Willow’s sentiment that “love makes you do the whacky,” and Angel is all YEAH LIKE THAT ONE TIME I WAS JEALOUS OF XANDER YOLOLOLO. Buffy says she doesn’t love Xander and Angel broods that he gets to be there for her and see her in the sunlight. We end the episode with Buffy offering to walk Angel home. They hold hands and we see Frakenbrother’s gravestone.

Wonderful. For one second there, Angel’s brood helped me forget how dumb the villains were this week. Thanks for the last reminder.

Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Apparently there’s this guy named Spike? And he’s kind of a big deal? Find out why in S02 E03 – School Hard.