Buffy the Vampire Slayer S02 E09 – Sunnydale has an AIRPORT?

Previously: Giles was a badass, Buffy inadvertently got a tattoo, Jenny got a really terrible makeover in the form of a demon, and we got some hilariously bad special effects.
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What’s My Line, Part 1

Kirsti: Oh look, it’s career fair time at Sunnydale High! I have to admit, when we had career day in high school, I always went to the talks that promised to be the least boring, which pretty much meant “the things in which you are least likely to get a paying gig.” This may have something to do with the fact that I’m 29 and have a string of qualifications in areas that won’t get me a job… (S: +1)

ANYWAY, Buffy and Xander are filling in one of those stupid tests that apparently tell you what career you’ll have.

Lorraine: Those things are always hilariously inaccurate for me because they are all, “you like people, and wearing pants and want to work for a living.” Nope, test. Nope.

K: Willow, obviously, is excited to see what it’ll tell her. Xander pooh-poohs her, saying that it sucks all the fun “out of being young and stupid.” Xander, honey, you’ve got the market cornered on that one. Oh, look. He backed me up on that – Willow said that they won’t always be young, and he replied “Yes, but I’ll always be stupid.”

Sweeney: Fictional characters (and actual people) that applaud their own stupidity are immediately subject to me hating them.

K: +1. Meanwhile, Buffy mopes because she already has that whole life calling thing going on. But taking the test is apparently Principal Snyder’s latest method of torturing her, so WAH MY SECRET IDENTITY IS RUINING MY LIFE. Over at the factory, Drusilla is playing with tarot cards while a nerdy, bespectacled vampire who’s apparently never moved on from nineteenth century fashion attempts to read a Latin manuscript. Spike(!!) stands next to him with a dictionary, translating. “Debase…the beef…canoe,” he says, before punching the vamp in the face, because apparently this dude’s Latin reading abilities are on a par with Buffy’s French skills (Remember “The cow will touch me from Thursday?”).

Sweeney: Except this guy is essentially being “employed” (see also: given a task which determines whether he lives or dies) for this skill.

K: This is true. Try not to suck at your job, kids. Especially if you work for a vicious killer. (L: With bleached hair!)

Spike reveals that the manuscript holds the key to Dru’s cure (not to her being batshit crazy. That was Angel’s fault. Just to her being all weak and feeble), and that they’re running out of time. He blames Buffy for ruining all his fun. Meanwhile, Nerdy Vamp has worked out that it’s not actually Latin, and Dru’s tarot cards have revealed that they need a key to read it. Because, you know, tarot cards can tell you that. One of the tarot cards is even nice enough to have a picture of the EXACT MAUSOLEUM where they’ll find the key. Because apparently these tarot cards are drawn on the Doctor’s psychic paper??? SIGH.

Sweeney: We’re going to need to develop a guide for these Buffy-Dr. Who references.

K: Probably a sensible idea.

Lor: That’ll probably arrive the day after we publish my Buffy Wiki. AKA: Wait for it.

K: After the credits, Buffy’s wandering through the cemetery. She hears break-y and enter-y noises coming from a nearby crypt, and sneaks over to take a look. After spotting Nerdy Vamp getting his grave robbery on, she waits outside to do some judgmental punning when he walks out. Gotta say, it’s not her best pun work. A beefy vamp appears behind her, but because of her super Slayer hearing, she whirls around and kicks him. After a short fight, he’s dust. “One down…one gone?” says Buffy, and I get confused because DUDE. Did you really expect him to wait around? “Oh, you’re the Slayer and you’re going to kill me just as soon as you’re done with my friend? No worries, I’ll just take a number and wait over here.” WTF.

Back at Buffy’s house, Angel is doing some quality loitering-in-bedroom. Buffy throws her bag in the window, and Angel whirls around, clasping Buffy’s stuffed toy pig to his chest because “Buffy. You scared me.” Ahahahahahaha, oh Angel. You’re like the worst vampire EVER. Seriously, you guys. Look – he even has to self-comfort by stroking Mr. Gordo.

Mr. Gordo is the pig. Get your minds out of the gutter. Jeez.

Sweeney: I’m not even a little bit sorry that I love him and his general Being A Shitty Vampire-ness.

Lor: I think I’d like him a lot less if he was out there being a really great vampire and, I don’t know, ripping Mr. Gordo to shreds. That would be bad.

K: I think I’d like him less if…oh wait. Not possible. #TeamSpike4Eva.

Apparently he’s there because he was worried about Buffy, due to “a feeling.” I’m going to use John Green’s theory that anything can be made better by the addition of three little words, and change that to “a feeling in your pants.” Because it’s funnier and more accurate that way. Buffy gets snippy, and then blames it on this thing at school. “Career Week?” Angel asks. She asks how he knew, and he says “I lurk,” which just makes me LOL.

Sweeney: Fine, fine, I have to give credit where it’s due: A+

K: I’m thrilled that you like it, because I’m old and it took me about a hundred years to get Meme Generator to work.

Lor: We’re proud of you, Oldie. So proud.

K: Buffy says that she wants a normal life, and Angel gets all “WAH, YOU NO WANT ME?”, because we’ve gone a whole five minutes without him brooding about something. Buffy says that “You’re the one freaky thing in my freaky world that still makes sense to me.” Awww… *vomits* Angel, meanwhile, picks up a picture of Buffy on ice skates from her nightstand and asks if ice skating was something she did before the whole Slayer deal. Buffy reveals that she went through a Dorothy Hamill phase, and having just Wikipedia’d that, it seems a little weird considering Buffy would have been three when Dorothy Hamill retired from skating.

ANYWAY. Angel suddenly announces that he knows of a rink that’s closed on Tuesdays and suggests she strap on her skates again. Conveniently, the next day is Tuesday.

Sorry. This is all I can think of when a TV show is set on a Tuesday…

At school the next day, Cordy checks the list of test results. Because, you know, that’s something that you post up for everyone in the school to look at. (S: MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY. Yet another administrative fail for Sunnydale High) Her results say she should be a personal shopper or a motivational speaker. When Xander bitches at her, she checks his results and sniggers. He checks the list, and runs off to find the girls. Apparently Xander’s going to be a prison guard. Buffy laughs, and he tells her that she’s going to be enjoying a career in law enforcement. She makes a whiny noise, and Willow points out that at least there are doughnuts when you’re a cop. Good old Willow, always finding the bright side. Willow, meanwhile, wasn’t on the list, which causes her to sulk because she followed all the rules and handed in her test.

Cut to the Wiggins Library, where Giles is staggering around under a mountain of books. When Buffy arrives, he says that he’s been indexing the Watcher Diaries, and that she’d be “amazed at how numbingly pompous and longwinded some of these Watchers were.” Oh, Giles. We really wouldn’t. Buffy updates Giles on the whole grave robbing thing, and he gets a case of serious face. Apparently she should have tried to find out what the vampire took. Yes, because you can totally work out what was taken from what they DIDN’T take…

Sweeney: Obviously part of the slayer gig is memorizing the full contents of every crypt/grave/other-place-associated-with-dead. It was in the Slayer Handbook… Oh, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

K: Slight spoiler alert: at least that explains why Buffy didn’t know about it! Buffy points out that he could get someone else to be the Slayer, except for that whole pesky “one girl in all the world” clause. Giles uses his serious face some more, and Buffy does a typical teenage “I MAY AS WELL BE DEAD” mope. Aaaaaah, teenagers. Always with the melodrama…

Sweeney: And yet, I wonder how many teens watched this and thought, “BUFFY GETS MY LIFE!” rather than, “OH, WAIT, BUFFY’S GOT REAL PROBLEMS OF A KIND I WILL NEVER KNOW.” Maybe I should be less of a brat? LOL. Had I watched this show as a teenager, I most certainly would have fallen in category A.

Lor: Crap. I fall into category A right now. “Anointed Onsie? I know how you feel, girlfriend! I have to baby-sit tonight!” “So your love interest is dead. Mine was a deadbeat!”

(I’m kidding.)

K: Over at the factory, Spike and Dru are looking at their stolen booty. It’s a huge ugly gold crucifix, which bizarrely has no “Get thee behind me, Satan” effect on them, like crucifixes usually do. WEIRD. (S: Convenient.) Nerdy Vamp brings up the Slayer, and Spike says “She’s the gnat in my ear, the gristle in my teeth, the bloody thorn in my bloody side!”, and we’re right back to Spike being better than Angel, because Angel would just mope in a corner. #justsaying

Anyway, he decides to bring in the big guns to distract Buffy while they work on Dru’s cure. Apparently the big guns are a group of assassins known as the Order of Taraka, and Dru’s Magic Tarot Cards of All Knowing-ness say that three of them are coming to town.

Back at school, it’s Career Fair time. Willow gets pulled aside by some mysterious suit-wearing dudes and taken into the student lounge, which is decked out with tuxedoed wait staff and canapes. Apparently she’s been selected to meet with a recruiter for the world’s leading software company. Apparently they’ve been “tracking you for some time” and her doing the test was irrelevant. Because, you know, BtVS didn’t make computers and the internet creepy enough back in season 1…

Willow’s informed that only one other Sunnydale student met their crazy high standards, and she turns around to see Oz(!!) staring at a plate of food. She sits down next to him, he does a double take, and very coolly says “Canape?” and I do a small flail of excitement.

Cut to the cemetery where Giles says that Nerdy Vamp broke into a reliquary, which was used to house saint relics, including body parts. Buffy sums up my feelings on the subject by saying “Note to self: religion – freaky.” Giles sees the name “du Lac” carved above the entrance to the crypt, and gets all panicky. Apparently Mr. du Lac was part of a sect that was excommunicated and sent to Sunnydale at the turn of the century. Giles goes on to say that the book stolen from the Wiggins Library in episode 7 was written by Mr. du Lac and that it was said to contain all kinds of bonkers rituals written in code, and that he’s worried that something’s about to go down.

Sweeney: As opposed to every other day ever in Sunnydale.

Lor: Something is going to go downier than usual?

K: Clearly! Cutting to the bus station proves Giles right, because nothing good ever happens at the Sunnydale Bus Station. A big ugly dude with a scar through one eye and eighties rock band hair steps off the bus. Meanwhile, Buffy’s next door neighbour gets a visit from a door-to-door make up salesman offering free samples. She lets him in, and two seconds later, there’s a blood curdling scream of Cordelia proportions. Cut to the Sunnydale Airport (hey, they have a zoo. Why not an airport?!), (S: SO WHY THE HELL DID THE FES HAVE TO TAKE A GREYHOUND BUS INTO TOWN?) where a baggage handler climbs into the hold of the plane. He somehow figures out that there’s a stowaway on board shortly before getting his butt kicked by a girl wearing PJ pants and enormous earrings:

Back at the Wiggins Library, Giles has found out about the creepy cross Mr. du Lac made, which has the unoriginal name of “The du Lac cross.” Xander agrees with me that this is a dumb name, and says that he’d have called it “the cross-o-matic, or the Amazing Mr. Cross.” The others stare at him with confused expressions until he shuts up. Giles gives the Scoobies the low down on what the cross is for, and Buffy says “So you’re saying these vampires went to all this hassle for your basic decoder ring?” Giles is forced to agree, and I snort. Giles then announces that they need to work out what’s in the book before the vampires do, to which Willow says “Oh, goody! Research party!” I have several problems with this. 1. If it’s written down in NOT the book the vampires stole, why wouldn’t the vampires just use that book instead? 2. Giles’ assumption that everyone else has nothing better to do. 3. Willow’s terrifying levels of enthusiasm for this plan.

Sweeney: 1) Right, but the vampires had to know the gist of what the book was about in order to decide to steal it and that’s what Giles is trying to figure out. 2) As usual. 3) THIS IS ONE OF MANY REASONS THAT SHE IS SO MUCH MORE AWESOME THAN ANYONE ELSE ON THIS SHOW. TEAM WILLOW 4EVER.

K: Buffy argues that she should get to leave because of not being very helpful with the research side of things, all of which is code for “I HAVE AN ICE SKATING DATE WITH ANGEL”. Cut to the rink where the Tinkly Pianos of Warm Fuzzies are playing as Buffy does spins and skates backwards and…stuff that looks kind of impressive? Eighties Rock Band Hair appears out of nowhere and grabs her around the neck. He starts to strangle her and it looks like he might succeed until Angel shows up with his vamp grille on and tackles the guy. They fight, and it looks like Eighties Rock Band Hair is going to get the better of Angel when Buffy skates over, swings herself up on a net, and cuts his throat with the blade of her skates. Ew. Thankfully/unconvincingly, there’s absolutely no blood.

Lor: I’ve never ice-skated ever because I am afraid of falling and having my fingers sliced off by a passing skater. I can now add having my throat sliced by a slayer to my list of irrational skating related fears. Thanks Buffy!

K: I HAVE THIS EXACT SAME FEAR, LOR. The finger chopping off part, I mean. Angel goes over to inspect the dead body, and sees a shiny – and very ugly – ring on Eighties Rock Band Hair’s finger. He tells Buffy that she’s in danger (DUDE. When isn’t she??), and that she should go home. She gets all “OMG, YOU HAVE A CUT!”, and he pulls a Fleur Delacour:

Buffy is all “Oh. I didn’t even notice your bumpy face or yellow eyes or giant teeth” because apparently love really IS blind, and they do some serious face nomming as PJ Pants Girl watches them from the other side of the rink.

Back at the Wiggins Library, Buffy shows Giles the ring, and I have a brief moment of terror when the camera cuts across to show Giles’ face through a magnifying lamp. He gives her the lowdown on the Order of Taraka, and WILLOW IS WEARING RED CORDUROY OVERALLS. Oh, 1990s. Your fashion was the WORST. Anyway, Giles suggests running away, and Buffy gets all “What, I’m not strong enough??” and Giles gets his serious face again because “they won’t stop coming until the job is done. Each one works alone, his own way. Some are human, some are…not. You won’t know who they are until they strike.” And we cut to Buffy’s neighbour’s house where there’s a line of wormy maggoty things from her dead body to the make up salesman, who’s watching Buffy’s bedroom through binoculars. He puts the binoculars down and we see that he’s missing a hand. But then a bunch of the maggoty things form into a hand, and DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUN, he’s a bug man.

Lor: Keep him away from Xander or he may fall in loooove.

K: In the hallway at school, Buffy’s wigging out, convinced that everyone is out to get her. Oz goes to walk past her, and she grabs him by the neck. Being Oz, he’s typically laconic and not-freaked-out. Buffy apologises and runs off, and Oz says “That is a TENSE person.” Too true, Oz. That night, Buffy is sporting her flannel shirt of mopey feelings. She looks at her dark, empty house (her mum’s away in LA for a few days), and then walks off. She heads to Angel’s place, and breaks in. Because apparently love means never having to say you’re sorry about the broken door? She looks at his art collection for a bit, and then goes and takes a nap in his bed while the Violins of Sadness play in the background.

Angel, meanwhile, is on the other side of town at a bar run by the dude who played Bob in Becker. I’m kind of ashamed that I know that… ANYWAY. In this, his name is Willy, and he’s a snitch. But not a Harry Potter snitch, just the regular kind. Angel asks him for information, and Willy says he doesn’t do that any more. Angel basically goes “LOL, YEAH RIGHT.” He grills Willy some more before smashing his face into the bar to make him squeal. Just as Willy’s spilling the details on Spike’s plans, Angel gets knocked to the floor. It’s PJ Pants Girl, who breaks a pool cue over her leg and goes in for the staking. They fight, and she locks Angel in a cage. She has a bad Jamaican accent, and all I can think of is Cool Runnings. She points out that the cage has windows facing east, and leaves in search of Buffy.

Sweeney: A friend of mine just started watching Buffy this summer. After she and her boyfriend got to this episode they spent of the rest of the day speaking to each other in this ridiculous accent.

K: AMAZING. Back in the Wiggins Library, Giles rings Xander in the wee small hours and suggests that he get Cordelia to drive him to Buffy’s and make sure everything’s okay. Because, you know, with assassins after her, and her not answering the phone it’s totally fine to wait overnight to do that??? Giles goes to wake Willow, who’s fallen asleep on her keyboard. She wakes with “Don’t warn the tadpoles!!” because apparently she has a frog phobia. Giles says that he’s found a description of the missing manuscript and that it contains a ritual to restore a sick vampire to health. Cut to the factory, where Nerdy Vamp has finished translating the manuscript. “By George, I think he’s got it,” Spike says, and COME ON – like Angel could be a badass while paraphrasing musical theatre. #TeamSpike Apparently the key to Dru’s cure was right in front of them the whole time, at which Dru points to another magic tarot card, this one depicting an angel.

Over at Buffy’s house, Cordy is bitching about Xander treating her like mass transportation. There’s no one home, but we DO get the first usage of the term “Scooby Gang.” Xander finds an open window, and we continue the breaking and entering theme of the episode. He goes to check upstairs while Cordy loiters in the foyer. She hears a knock on the door, and opens it to find Bug Man asking her if she wants free samples. Oh, Cordy…

Back at Angel’s, Buffy awakes to an attack from PJ Pants Girl, who has a hatchet. They fight and break a lot of Angel’s furniture. Eventually, PJ Pants Girl goes “Who ARE you?” to Buffy. Buffy gets all “Nuh UH. Who the hell are YOU??” because of, you know, being the attacked not the attacker. PJ Pants Girl draws herself to her full height and says “I am Kendra, the vampire slayer.” Cue Buffy giving this face:

And TO BE CONTINUED.

 

Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Who the hell is Kendra? Also, will Angel get fried? Tune in next time for S02 E10 – What’s My Line (Part 2).