Buffy the Vampire Slayer S02 E05 – Slaying under the influence.

Previously: More plot holes than you can imagine as a Mummy Princess resurrects long enough to fall in love with and almost kill Xander. In positive news, we met Oz and Willow dressed up as an Eskimo.
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Reptile Boy

Lorraine: We start the episode at Casa de Buffy, where she is watching TV with Willow and Xander. Buffy and Xander are on the bed, while Willow is seated just in front of it. Buffy is absently playing with her hair and it’s freakin’ adorable. It makes me want to call my best friends and invite them to a sleepover right now.

Sweeney: This is how I want everyone to believe we write these posts. Never mind the geographical impossibility of this.

Lor: As the younger Scoobies watch a foreign movie, featuring a woman singing in Hindi, we’re told that this bonding moment is brought to you by being broke. MMHMM. BEEN THERE.

K: Personally, I love Willow’s description of the movie when asked why the main character is singing: “She’s sad because her lover gave her twelve gold coins. But then the wizard cut open the bag of salt, and now the dancing minions have nowhere to put their big maple… fish thing.” Because that sounds like  movie I need to watch.

Lor: Xander is a little complain-y (SHOCK!) but Buffy admits she’s liking hanging out with her friends and not having to fight bad guys. No bad guy activity around here! Nope. None whatsoever.

Sweeney: It’s cute that she still thinks that can be a thing.

Lor: Cut to bad guy activity. We see a girl bust through a window and then jump off a terrace. She hits the ground and starts running as some figures in brown hooded robes start after her. There are about, oh, 87 of them chasing her, so you just know that she’s going to get caught.

Gonna Get Caught Girl runs under shit and over shit and into a cemetery and I seriously applaud her the whole way, ’cause at this point I probably would’ve dropped to the ground and played dead. (S: Intensive cardio/running should be a gym class requirement in this town) (K: +1. I also feel the need to give a round of applause to whoever it was in Sunnydale who decided they needed a little pyramid as a grave marker.)

The brown hooded figures catch Gonna Get Caught Girl. A particularly menacing one we’ll call the Frat Rat says, “where are you going? The party’s just getting started.” Poor Gonna Get.

After the credits we hear Cordelia fake laughing before we see her talking to someone in the hallway about a magazine article that says to laugh at everything a guy says. She smiles super proudly after she demonstrates her fake laugh again.

Willow and Buffy are also in the hallway. Buffy been dreaming about Angel again, kiss-y dreams that she says have “surround sound.” So I guess her dreams are all MUAH MUAH KISSY KISSS BANG! Willow gushes how right for each other Buffy and Angel are and I think I just heard Kirsti’s head exploding. (K: UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH, SO MUCH) (S: I laugh at your pain.) Willow concedes that “him being a vampire” is a point of contention but suggests that Buffy invite him out for coffee.

It’s the non-relationship drink of choice. It’s not a date; it’s a caffeinated beverage. Okay, sure, it’s hot and bitter like a relationship that way, but –

HA. Choice line and a brilliant description that is interrupted by Xander. The group passes by Cordelia, who is still flipping through the magazine. Xander stops and invites himself into her conversation, so I don’t feel too bad for him when Cordy insults him by predicting his bright future as a pizza delivery boy. We also learn that Cordy is dating a college boy.

Buffy is late to a Wiggins Library meeting with Giles. He scolds and demands she come to her combat training, do her homework and definitely refrain from dawdling. Buffy pouts and Giles tries to avert his eyes and resist the spell of said pouting. Giles was almost annoying in this scene but then that happened, so we’ll call it a wash.

Cut to Buffy sitting out in front of school, dawdling with her friends. Cordelia blows by them, walking up to a BMW that’s just pulled up to the school. Driving is the Frat Rat and next to him is another frat-y looking guy. Frat Rat tells us that he’s having a party at the house and Cordelia fake laughs, and says she’d love to go. The passenger dude is oogling Buffy from afar and asks for an introduction. After a little hesitation, Cordelia agrees.

K: I’d hesitate too. Because our heroine is wearing giraffe print pants and a see-through lace top… In slightly better news for the Buffster, her sunglasses are cute?

Lor: Cordy pulls Buffy despite some mild protestations to meet the frat guys. At first we only see the Frat Rat and he’s completely smarmy, even using the old “you playing hard to get?” line that always reeks of, “I might rape you.” (S: We have learned a great deal, on this blog, about dialogue with rape/murder subtext.) The passenger dude swoops in at that precise moment to play good cop (er, flirt) and apologize for his friend. “I feel like a complete dolt meeting you this way,” he says and I thank him for his new nickname. Complete Dolt goes on about how he’s only in the fraternity ’cause his dad was and how dull the people there are. Buffy, for her part, looks charmed by him, but has to decline his invite to the party because he’s a senior in college and she’s 16. JUST KIDDING. Because she’s involved. With a guy who is two hundred years old. College senior don’t seem so bad now.

Giles appears, yells Buffy’s name and motions to his watch. Buffy takes her leave from Complete Dolt. In the library, more combat training and these scenes are getting old fast. Buffy disarms Giles. Giles is hurt. Har, har, har. Training over.

That night, Buffy is patrolling the cemetery and she finds a broken bracelet. “There’s blood on it,” some one says. If you are wondering who just snuck up on her, hi, you must be new here. Like, newer than I am. It’s Angel and he creepies that he can smell the blood and I hate to keep bringing this up, but we recently had to think way too much about vampires, the women they love, and periods. So yeah, ew.

Sweeney: I say this begrudgingly, but: fair.

Lor: Buffy says she’s been wondering about seeing him and Angel is all, “DATE?” making things awkward. Buffy hems and haws and Angel’s all, “oh, I get it. Coffee,” which is hilarious. Buffy can’t find what to say, especially when Angel says, “you’re 16. I’m 241.”  He follows that up with “you don’t know what you are doing. You don’t know what you want.” I was almost offended on B’s behalf, but yeah. The flirting and couple-y nature of these two has been very inconsistent so far. One episode they are walking around holding hands, the next the word date is a BFD. Meh. Buffy says she wants out of the conversation and, word.

As she tries to walk away, Angel stops her. He says that if they date, things will spiral out of control and Buffy’s all, “yeah, TOO LATE.” Then Angel gets a little domestic-violence-y when he grabs Buffy and pulls her close. “When I kiss you, you don’t wake up from a deep sleep and live happily ever after,” he says. Alright Grabby McGrabster. Calm down there. Seriously, Angel, my friend. Since when is the vampire and the slayer some sort of fairy tale dream? Buffy says, “No. When you kiss me I want to die.” And yeah, okay, angst with a side of cheese, but it certainly is more true to their relationship.

Buffy runs away. Angel takes some deep breaths for a guy who isn’t supposed to breathe.

K: This entire scene pretty much sums up why I’m Team Spike. Also? On behalf of all Whovians, THAT’S NOT AN AGE DIFFERENCE!! Try 19 and 904, and then get back to us. Kthxbai.

Sweeney: I have so many feelings about this, but I’ll just say that I am Team I Like 90% Of The Important Characters. Unfortunately that’s a bit of a mouthful, so it’s hard to make it catch on.

Lor: At school, presumably the next day, Cordy finds Buffy and starts flattering her. She starts to compliment her hair, but stops herself, ’cause she’s Cordelia. She wants Buffy to come to the frat party because the boys said if she doesn’t go, Cordy can’t either. Still reeling from Angel Grabamuffin, B decides to go. Cordy is ecstatic.

In related news, I hate Cordy’s hair in this episode. Those bangs are killing me.

K: At least Cordy owns a hairbrush? Buffy seems to have misplaced hers in this episode… 

Lor: Next, we hear some dudes pledging their lives to the Zeta Kappas and they are wearing the brown hoods from the teaser. The pledge ceremony includes being cut by a sword, the phrase “and to Machida, whom we serve” and some shouting of “in his name!” The moral of the story is don’t pledge the Zeta Kappa. Mostly ’cause these brown hoods just don’t look good on anyone. Oh, but also because Gonna Get Caught Girl is now chained to the wall and I can’t support fraternities that chain women, and stuff. Gonna Get begs to be let go, but Frat Rat douchily declines.

Sweeney: People who get caught in fictional universes have apparently never seen any other movie or television show, because “Please let me go!” never works. Except if you are Wesley captured by The Dread Pirate Roberts who does appreciate a “please.” But Frat Rat doesn’t strike me as one to be persuaded by that.

Lor: Sweeney, I love you. 

At the school lounge (???) Willow assumes Buffy is going to the frat party with Angel. Buffy says that she’s actually going with Cordelia and tries to run away before Will can say anything. The exchange that follows consists of Willow trying to find out what happened between Buffy and Angel and Xander interjecting his “Angel suxxxs” opinion. I am not a big fan of Xander constantly making these anti-Angel remarks. Because really, they are anti-Buffy-with-anyone-but-me-wah-wah-wah remarks. And really, dude. Get over it. (K: +1)

In the Wiggins Library, Giles is practicing with his sword. The Scoobies enter and his face is all, “whoops, caught with my sword out!” if you know what I mean. Buffy tells him about the broken bracelet, and as Giles considers (and sniffs!) it, Xander swoops in and becomes the biggest cock block ever when he suggests that Buffy go on patrol duty again that night. It’s beyond me why Buffy continues to be his friend. (S: You will continue to wonder this for a long time.) Giles thinks this is a good idea, so Buffy lies. She says she’s got homework and her mom is sick and she’s sick and maybe her little dog is sick too. Willow’s face while she is lying is fantastic.  Anyways, Giles apparently buys the lie and the Scoobies retreat.

In the hall, Willow voices her disbelief. She lied! To Giles! For a frat party! Where there will apparently be orgies! (???) Etc. Buffy says that she’s going to have fun tonight, which OMG. CAN WE GET OVER THIS? You are NOT gonna have fun, you are going to encounter evil. WE GET IT.

Speaking of evil, cut to Cordelia’s bangs. Well, all of Cordelia but hot damn those bang, y’all. “This isn’t about fun,” Cordelia ironically segues. She lays down the law, which includes “don’t wear black, silk, chiffon, or spandex,” as those are apparently Cordy’s trademarks. Also: the trademarks of strippers every where.

K: She also uses the word ‘duty’ about a thousand times and I cackle hysterically because MY GOD, AMERICA. Duty and doody have very different pronunciations everywhere else in the English speaking world. If you’re very good, Traumateers, I might make you a video demonstrating this some day. 

Lor: By the time Cordy gets to “give it your all and keep to the shadows“, Buffy literally head-desks.

Over on the other side of the school lounge (???!!!) Xander decides to crash the party, “to protect Buffy” and also in case of orgy.

That night at the party, the Frat Rat greets Cordy and Buffy and hands them drinks (K: With “just a smidge” of alcohol). Buffy puts hers down and looks very uncomfortable. Cordy is soon whisked away by the Rat. Xander ungracefully sneaks into the party. Complete Dolt appears just in time to save Buffy from a random drunk. They dance together, the Complete Dolt saying all the right smooth talking, slayers-just-wanna-have-fu-un types of things.

Later, the Frat Rat, suspiciously sans Cordy, spots Xander and deduces that he is a party crasher. Some guys grab him and begin chanting, “new pledge! new pledge!” I think the Zeta Kappas like their chanting.

Buffy walks outside and steps on some glass. She surveys the scene and sees that the upstairs window, the one Gonna Get Caught Girl came barreling through, is boarded up. The Complete Dolt sneaks up on her and is soon followed by the Frat Rat who is freakin’ everywhere. Frat Rat offers drinks and Complete Dolt toasts to maturity. Buffy’s all, “LOL. FUCK THAT.” and chugs the drink.

Inside, Xander is in a skirt and stuffed bra, dancing around while fraternity dudes tap that ass with paddles. I wish I could say I felt bad for him BUT I TOTALLY DON’T.

K: Nope. There’s no feeling bad. He deserves it for having been a total douche up until this point in the episode. Karma’s a bitch, Xan.

Sweeney: You mean being a douche in, like, all of the episodes.

Lor: Meanwhile, and I mean like what came off as two seconds later, Buffy is either insta-drunk or there were roofies in her drink. In case you didn’t know, we like alerting people to the presence of roofies here on SnarkSquad.com. We even have a #roofiealert.

Any questional-Google-image-search-of-the-day, Buffy stumbles upstairs and finds a bed to lay down on. The Frat Rat follows her in there and starts creepily caressing her until the Complete Dolt comes in and tells him to keep his hands, feet and all other objects to himself! Buffy is for the one they serve and so is “the other one,” who is of course a passed out Cordy because Cordys are every villain’s favorite.

At the Wiggins Library, Willow and Giles have been doing research and I’m self aware enough to know that in this entire equation, I’d be the one at the library. Willow realizes that the broke bracelet comes from Kent prep school. Willow pulls up their newsletter and finds an article about a recently missing girl, aka Gonna Get Caught Girl.

K: It’s okay, Lor. We established a while back that Sweeney’s the Slayer of our little trio and we’re the research-doing Scoobies. I also feel the need to point out that Willow and Giles’ method of working out what the bracelet says is to go through the alphabet and see if each letter works with the ending ‘ent’. What took hours of research in the 90s took me a two second Google search (1216 words in English ending in ‘ent’…). SUCKS TO BE THE SCOOBIES! 

Lor: Giles wants to call Buffy but Willow dissuades him, citing her sickness. But then Willow finds out that a year to the day ago, other girls went missing and Giles thinks this could be tied to some sort of ritual. Giles goes to call B again, but Willow thinks on her feet and suggests calling Angel instead since he was also around when Buffy found the bracelet.

In the basement of chains, rocks and chanting, we see Buffy and Cordy now tied up next to Gonna Get Caught Girl. Cordy is wiggin’ and she wants to know what’s happened. “Roofies,” Buffy (basically.) says. The Complete Dolt is being carved up with a sword again.

Angel has arrived at the library and he’s telling Giles and Willow where the bracelet was: near the college. Willow is noticeably distracted and when Giles calls her on it, she says she was noticing Angel’s lack of reflection. “How do you shave?” she asks and I love her. She shakes out of it and the three determine that they should be looking at the frat house near the cemetery. Willow finally has to confess that Buffy is there, at a party with Cordelia. “She lied to me?” Giles asks. “Did she have a date?” Angel asks. Willow is flustered and it leads to this gem of a speech:

“Well, why do you think she went to that party? Because you [Angel] gave her the brush-off! And you [Giles] never let her do anything except work and patrol and, I know she’s the Chosen One, but you’re killing her with the pressure. I mean, she’s sixteen going on forty! And you [Angel], I mean, you’re gonna live forever! You don’t have time for a cup of coffee?”

Hot damn, I love her for this. What a great and self-less friend. I don’t know what happens in the future, but at this very moment, I love Willow best of all.

K: +1 million. This speech really is fantastic.

Sweeney: The moments in this series where Willow is not a contender for Being Loved Best Of All are very few, and she builds up enough awesomeness credit to balance out those few moments.

Lor: Back at Manacle Central, the Complete Dolt is getting his ritual on. It’s all, “I pledge allegiance to the Machida of the United Frat Boys of America,” shit that you shouldn’t worry about. He throws some rocks into a nearby well (?) and calls forth Machida and out pops a big ole reptile creature like a fucked up Jack-in-the-box. We’ve seen some crappy costuming so far, but uh, wow. Cordy screams.

After the break, the Complete Dolt is still blathering about how the Snake in the Box gets hungry every October 10th so they feed him girls. Buffy is pulling at her chains with all she’s got.

Outside, Xander quickly finds and joins up with Willow, Giles and Angel. X found a brown hooded robe in the trash (really?) and was planning on using it to sneak in. The camera pans over to Angel and he’s in vamp-grill and he is pissed. I kind of like it.

Sweeney: 

Lor: The gang heads in and starts punching people and knocking shit over. Complete Dolt hears the ruckus and sends some boys upstairs to handle it but the boys have got it on lock. Even Giles punches someone. Xander is riding piggy-back on some dude and punching him that way, because he’s Xander. Angel is kicking all sorts of ass. Seriously, Angel, you should be angry and hitting people all the time. (Would that make him Spike?)

K: Under no circumstances ever would Angel be as cool as Spike. Also, be careful what you wish for, Lor. 

Sweeney: +1. Even to the first half of that statement; “cool” is undoubtedly Spike’s territory.

Lor: Okay, sorry. I just like Angel right now, and it’s making me confused.

Sweeney: It’s all right, Lor. Embrace it.

Lor: In the basement, Snake in the Box is going for Cordy when Buffy finally manages to pull the chains out of the ceiling. Willow has located Buffy and directs the boys to the basement. Buffy gets her Slay on, making quick work of the Dolt and then basically chopping the Snake in like a second.

Cordelia walks up to Buffy all, “you saved us!” but she actually turns to hug Angel. Oh no. You guys. This is a thing. This Cordy/Angel thing is a thing, right? NO. STILL DON’T TELL ME.

Sweeney: STOP DOING THAT OR I’M GOING TO TELL YOU.

Lor: Cordy says she hates the Scoobs because the weirdest things always happen around them. Yeah, whatever. See you next week Cordy.

Buffy heads to Giles for her stern talking to. She acknowledges that she told one lie and had one drink and almost got eaten by a snake. Never say Joss Whedon didn’t teach you life lessons, y’all. Buffy looks chastised but Giles softens: “I drive you too hard because I know what you have to face. From now on, no more pushing, no more prodding. Just a- an inordinate amount of nudging.” D’oh. Cute.

At the Bronze, Cordelia is ordering around a small dude named Jonathan and I mention it because I think one of the other girls mentioned him before? Maybe? (K: Yup. Inca Mummy Girl tried to suck his face off.) Anyways, Xander is reading a newspaper. It details the consecutive life sentences of the frat boys and the fall from grace of some of its former members. Willow brings up the important stuff though and asks Buffy if she’s heard from Angel. She basically says what I said earlier about his angry vamping out being pretty cool. Of course, as they are talking about him, he approaches. He asks Buffy out on a coffee date and Buffy’s all, “sure. I’ll get back to you on that.” She gets up and walks away.

Everyone is left at the table looking at her like, “WTF? Seriously? We were talking here.”

Word.

 

Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: It’s Halloween! Find out how we celebrate Sunnydale style in S02 E06 – Halloween.