Buffy the Vampire Slayer S03 E05 – A lot of work for a plastic tiara.

Previously: Angel is back, and, well shit.

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Homecoming

Lorraine: We find our gang at the Bronze, and Cordelia is suggesting they rent a limo for the upcoming homecoming dance. Xander thinks taking the bus sounds like lots of fun, and is also free. Oz offers his party van, but Cordy balks: the homecoming queen doesn’t show up to the dance in a van. Xander reminds her that she hasn’t been elected yet and the look he gets in return says, “BITCH PLEASE.”

Sweeney: Cordelia gives excellent, “BITCH PLEASE,” face.

Lor: Buffy has been a little absent during this exchange, and she lamely offers that she’s in for the limo, if she goes to the dance. They are talking about whether or not she has a date when Scott walks up, and Willow gamely changes the subject. Cordy the Tactless Treasure, however, brings it back to where they didn’t want it to be: What’s going on here? Did Scott not ask her to the homecoming dance yet?

K: Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwkward.

Lor: Scott stutters that he figured Buffy would think the dance is lame, but Buffy would like to go if he would like to go. Oz helps the awkward by pronouncing that a yes on both their parts. Buffy quickly excuses herself, but leaves Scott with a little kiss.

Sweeney: As someone who spends a ridiculous amount of time with high school kids, I love this scene because I’ve totally seen this be a thing recently. Except, with way more drama when both halves of the couple are genuinely into each other, unlike this one, in which Buffy’s Adorable But Tragically Forgettable Boyfriend is sadly just sort of “there” while Buffy deals with her epic feels and confusion.

Lor: Cut to the Baddie Mansion and Angel pacing next to a fire. I suppose this is now the Brooding Bungalow. (K: A+) (S: YES. A+) Angel hears a voice and twitchily investigates only to find it is Buffy, bearing a paper bag gift. It’s a tub of blood that kind of reminds me of the tubs of sweet and sour sauce you get from crappy Chinese food places. EW I GROSSED MYSELF OUT.

Angel twitches as Buffy tells him that she hasn’t told anyone about his return , and she intends to keep it that way. They wouldn’t understand that he is better. Buffy has gotten herself into some pickles because of this belief that her friends are beyond understanding. And, I mean, yes, they can be beyond understanding, but non-communication in TV shows/books is a pet peeve of mine. EVERYONE. JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER.

K: Seriously. There are so many buckets of crazy that could be avoided by this.

Sweeney: This is a major plot, many times over, for every television ever. Shows wouldn’t exist without this plot device! But yeah, +1, major pet peeve.

Lor: Anyways, Buffy promises to keep helping Angel, but things are different: she’s a senior, she is trying hard in school and… she’s involved with someone else. Angel whips around to face B, causing her to flinch. She goes on, saying that Scott makes her happy, and she needs someone she can count on.

Whirl cut to Scott telling Buffy that they shouldn’t see each other anymore. Buffy is surprised, but just sort of drily inquires where she was when this happened. He explains that she used to seem so full of life but now she’s constantly distracted. Though Buffy says she’s working on it, and swears a “drastic distraction reduction,” Scott walks away. Buffy sadly watches him so this is probably a bad time to mention Buffy’s weird, mom pants. LOL. JAYKAY. It’s never a bad time to discuss the bad fashion choices of the 90’s.

K: I’d also like to give a shout-out to her weirdly ruffly top:

Lor: The next shot is framed so that we can tell someone is watching Buffy through binoculars. We see a rape van near by, and inside are two men who could pass for the love children of Arnold Schwarzenegger. They have some “high tech” gadgetry that includes a giant flip phone and a dial up modem. It’s super cute.

On the other side of the cell phone/modem deal is an old dude eying Buffy on a fuzzy TV screen. Mr. Trick comes from offstage to confirm that she is the target.

City Hall after the credits. A young gentleman is told that the mayor will see him. He enters the office, a little nervous, and with good reason because we finally see the mayor, and ew. The young gentleman informs him about The Love Children of Arnold being in town, all while the mayor is sniffing the papers in front of him, as one does. Then he asks to see the young gentleman’s hands and pronounces that they could be cleaner. Also, he wants the Love Children watched and reports on any other “colorful characters” recently in town. The Mayor is weird.

K: I kind of love the Mayor. I mean, he’s legitimately buckets of crazy. But you have to admit, he makes a nice change from bad guys like The Master and Angelus!

Sweeney: The mayor might be my favorite villain in the series. I was going to word this differently, but I’ll just say that for now and probably forget to say the rest of this thought at some much later point in time.

Lor: Sorry! I feel like my not being able to see the future cockblocks everyone. And on that note, I’ll reserve my judgements accordingly.

Cut back to Sunnydale High where it is picture day:

Willow courts Xander’s help for picking out a homecoming outfit and I question the wisdom of that decision. Cordy is near by, scoping out her Queen competition and making snarky comments about their general intelligence and/or ho-like qualities. She proclaims one, “open to all mankind,” and I might borrow that for the next time I recap a Sweet Valley High book.

Willow worries that Buffy will miss her picture as she’s in the Wiggins Library training with Faith. Cordy offers to go remind her about picture day. We cut there, and Buffy is aggressively punching. Faith thinks boys should break up with her more often, as it gives her an edge. Belittling Buffy’s emotions is a cool pass time around Sunnydale. Anyhow, Faith suggests they still go to homecoming together, and while Buffy isn’t sure she’s in for the “find studs, use and lose them” portion of the evening, she agrees to still go to homecoming.

Cordy passes by the library but never enters as she is distracted by people walking.

Sometime later, Buffy approaches a teacher and explains that she needs a glowing letter of recommendation, as per the terms Principal Snyder laid out for remaining in school. The teacher doesn’t even know who she is.

K: AWKWARD. Although I’m kind of confused about the fact that the name of Buffy’s junior history class sounds more like a second year university history subject. Did you guys really have classes called things like “Contemporary Heroes: Amelia Earhart to Maya Angelou?” Because in Year 11, I took the following classes: English, Literature, Chemistry, French, Australian History, and Mathematical Methods. </tangent>

Sweeney: In spite of being in the middle of nowhere, my high school was quite large and, as such, was able to offer a lot of really awesome elective courses. I have endless thoughts and soapboxy feels on this subject as they’re currently talking about splitting my high school into two, which would force it to be lame and not have the resources to offer such epic, incredible things. Long-story-long: yes. I mean, not that class specifically, but that’s not all that far removed from a course my high school might have offered.

Lor: Cut to the cafeteria where Cordy is still campaigning and Buffy looks, well, distracted.

She’s sad that her favorite teacher didn’t even remember her, and wonders if maybe she is invisible. This is kind of weird in the development of Buffy. I find it hard to believe that the hot girl who got kicked out of school, had a murder rap and is notorious for not wearing bras but yes kicking ass would ever feel invisible. I find it hard to believe that there is a teacher at Sunnydale who doesn’t know who Buffy is. But whatevs.

Sweeney: THIS. I’m not questioning that a “glowing” review might be a struggle for her to locate, but the idea that she was so forgettable is absurdly inconsistent. In fact, it’s inconsistent with events in this season. I absolutely call bullshit on this.

Lor: I’m glad it isn’t just me, then.

Buffy goes on about how at her old school, she was the queen of all the dances and the yearbook was practically the story of her. This year, she’ll only get that one square picture, except LOL. NOPE. Because she missed school pictures. Buffy wants to know why no one told her and it all gets turned back to Cordelia, who was supposed to. And while Cordy probably should be a little less Cordy-focused, it really wasn’t her responsibility to make sure B didn’t miss something as big as PICTURE DAY.

K: And again, I’m going to be sitting here being confused. Because we got taken to the school hall a year level at a time for our pictures and had to stand in alphabetical order. So there was no way of missing it.

Sweeney: Yep. At none of the schools I attended would that even be possible. And a big double yes to the this-was-not-Cordy’s-issue thing.

Lor: She stomps up to Cordy and wonders why she couldn’t take 30 seconds to think of someone other than herself. Cordy blah blahs about being under a lot of pressure and didn’t she grow some character depth at some point? What happened to that? This little showdown ends with Buffy saying that her inner-prom-queen has been awakened. She’s going to run for Queen.

Sweeney: This goes to an interesting place, I suppose, but the set-up is just so shoddy. Lots of contrivance and character regression had to bring us to this point and it makes it hard to appreciate any of what comes from it.

Lor:  “Competition,” we hear Trick say as we SEGUE MAGIC over to him. He’s addressing a group, made up of humans, vampires and a spiny-headed fish thing. Trick is proposing some sort of The Most Dangerous Game meets The Hunger Games where the targets are Buffy and Faith. He’s calling it Slayerfest ’98, and NO. Stop it.

Sweeney: THE ’98 PART GAVE ME LOLFOREVER LEVEL LAUGHTER.

Lor: In Willow’s room, Xander is getting suited up while Willow tries on different outfits. The first one looks like what my grandmother might wear to church on a Sunday, were she still alive. She was blind in one eye. The second one looks like what my grandmother might wear to church on a Sunday, were she still alive, but also drunk.

The music in the background is 90’s strummy guitar, breathy vocals, romance… OH NO. OH GOD. Willow helps Xander with his bow tie and she starts reminiscing, which isn’t good. STOP IT. Xan asks how far she’s gone with Oz, but she won’t answer. He won’t answer either when she reciprocates the question, i.e. Cordy. She steps out from behind her changing screen and they both pause. Willow is wearing a long, black dress which didn’t really seem impressive to me, until I saw the back, which dips down pretty cutely.

Xander proclaims her gorgeous, and SHIELD YOUR EYES. THERE IS KISSING. Willow Rosenberg, you stop doing that to Oz RIGHT NOW. Willow blames it on the clothes and says they must get out of the clothes. Yeah, awkward.

K: My notes at this point of the episode just say “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! WILLOW WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING OH GOD MAKE IT STOP.”

Sweeney: +1 and general sadness.

Lor: Cut to school and Buffy is laying out her campaign strategy for the Scoobs. She’s got a white board with the strengths and weaknesses of all the other candidates listed. The Scoobies are visibly uncomfortable as B prattles on about popularity. Finally, she assigns them all tasks,  as Cordy walks in. Buffy smarms something about them being all friends even through the competition, but little does she know that Cordy already has already enlisted everyone’s help.

Xander stands and says, “she’s my girlfriend,” before walking to Cordy’s side. Willow’s excuse is, “she needs it so much more than you do,” and Oz adds, “as Willow goes, so goes my nation.”

K: That Oz line breaks my heart a little bit, because WILLOW ROSENBERG, HOW COULD YOU KISS XANDER WHEN YOU’RE DATING OZ?????

Sweeney: More +1 and general sadness.

Lor: Cordy boasts and exits. Buffy officially has the worst friends of all time. I mean, sure, Cordy was running first but 1.) could no one tell her at some point before the entire speech that they were helping Cordy? 2.) Cordy is nice to no one. 3.) Really? EVEN WILLOW? 4.) The least they could do is pick no one’s side or help both equally.

Sweeney: EH. I’m absolutely with you on point #1, but they were almost certainly recruited before Buffy decided to go after it and, quite frankly, Willow’s point is absolutely valid. Cordelia is, at this moment, on the road to peaking in high school and this is pretty much all she has. Plus, as much as I feel like the Scoobies are failing miserably at picking up on Buffy’s issues, this is so NOT her, that I can’t fault them for not just knowing the Big Inner Feels behind this for her. Should they have cut off her speech, yes, but that’s about all I fault them for here.

Lor: I stick by my feels. Although parts of this are a step away from B’s development and are contrived, she’s often thought about her time as a popular girl pre-Sunnydale. She often has these, “why can’t I be a noooormal girl??” moments, and that she would finally decide to try and recapture that? I’m fine there. I can’t stand behind the fact that Cordy needs it more. When Willow says, “she needs it more that you do,” I was thinking, “my help.” But the thought that she was maybe saying, “she needs homecoming queen more than you do,” make me every more annoyed.

ANYWAYS: Buffy tries to downplay the entire thing and ends up Slaying a glass bottle of juice she’s holding. Calm those crazy eyes down, girlfriend.

Long montage of campaigning cut with scenes of Slayerfest ’98 preparations. Seriously, it goes on forever.

Buffy corners a spazzy Willow and guilts her with the whole “best friend” and “saving her life repeatedly” thing, which is pretty sucky of her. Buffy just wants 15 minutes looking at the voter database Willow made for Cordy. They sit down and we see that the Love Children of Arnold are peeping tom-ing again.

Next, Buffy is trying to schmooze Jonathan the Context-Less Wonder, but Cordy gave him $6 for his vote. We see Cordy trying to convince someone she’s “been doing the Vulcan Death Grip since [she] was four.” Buffy confronts her about paying for votes, and Cordy wants to know if that is “any more tacky than her ‘I’m shy but deep’ campaign posters.”

Votes? I’m going to say the cash was definitely more tacky.

K: Agreed. Although considering I STILL have no idea what Homecoming is (what are you coming home FROM?!), and we had no kings/queens/princesses/arch-dukes/whatever at our school formals, I may be the wrong person to ask…

Sweeney: Weee, America Lessons! It’s generally tied to American football — the homecoming game is the supposed central event, but for most kids the dance outshines it. But it’s called the homecoming dance because of the homecoming game. It’s a big game where, if your athletic department is wise, you’re scheduled to play a team you’ll beat and various alumni “come home” to their school.

Also, my vote is that YES, buying votes for Homecoming Queen is totes tackier.

Lor: Cordy claims that Buffy’s trying to be like her isn’t funny. Buffy says she was never trying to be like her and she also isn’t laughing.

Cordy: I don’t see why your pathetic need to capture your glory days gives you the right to splinter my vote.
Buffy: How can you think it’s okay to talk to people like this. Do you have parents?
Cordy: Yeah. Two of them. Unlike some people.
Buffy: Your brain isn’t even connected to your mouth, is it?

EW.

Votes here? ‘Cause I’m thinking Cordy wins the bitch fest.

K: Probably.

Lor: Cordy tells Buffy to stay out of her way and places a hand on her shoulder to presumably push by her. UM. CORDY? REALLY? Are you going to push the Slayer? Buffy lifts her hand and sternly tells her never to do that again. We see Xander and Willow approaching as Cordy calls B “sick” and a “crazy freak.” Xander tries to intervene but not before Buffy throws back, “vapid whore.”

We overlap from that scene to Willow and Xander again alone in her room. Willow thinks this is the worst thing ever and he agrees. It’s like he’s seeing her for the first time. Except, whoops!, she was talking about Buffy vs. Cordy and not the fact that they are being disgusting and flirty with each other.

They freak out a little on that front, but Willow goes mushy, noticing the sweet things Xander’s mouth does. “What are we going to do?” she asks, and he thinks those two just need to communicate. Except, whoops! This time she was talking about their flirty times.

Buffy walks out of her house on Homecoming night looking very nice in a red dress (K: I always see it as orange, and therefore hate it by default.). She enters the limo but only Cordelia is there. By way of explanation, Cordy hands her a letter from the other Scoobs who decided to leave them alone to talk out their problems, because their friendships are super important.

Of course, the driver of the limo is one of the Love Children. Some driving to their doom time later, Buffy and Cordelia are still quarreling and now they’ve stopped in the middle of nowhere. They exit the limo and now I see that B’s dress hits her mid-shin and it’s kind of awkward. Anyways, there is a TV and a video set up for them. She presses play I’m pretty impressed because Slayerfest even has a graphic. Mr. Trick explains the whole Slayerfest thing, which basically boils down to, “RUN.”

K: This one was left wide open. Sorry I’m not sorry:

 

Lor: I didn’t notice when I typed that but I’d like to think I was channeling the Doctor.

Buffy and Cordy run.

Back at the dance, Willow and Xander are moping as they watch Oz’s band. Faith wants to know what up with the mopage but they are in mopage-denial. Giles comes over and jokes about Buffy being in danger, except this is the Hellmouth and that will never be a joke. But nice try, Giles! I love you!

Sweeney: GUYS, YOU HAVE MADE THIS NON-JOKE SO MANY TIMES. LEARN.

Lor: Out in Slayerfest, Cordy is being self-centered and Buffy is trying to keep them alive, also known as “every day fest.” She captures one of the hunters and gets info on the other players from him.

Homecoming: Willow and Xander mope. Faith cockblocks Scott.

K: You can say a lot of things about Faith, but this cockblock is fabulous. Scott, you deserved nothing less. 

Sweeney: Such a fantastic Faith moment.

Lor: Agreed.

Slayerfest: Buffy finds some abandoned cabin to hide out in while Cordy freaks out about dying and never getting to tell Xander that he grows on you like Chia Pet. Or that she loves him. Something like that. Buffy riles Cordy up enough, and they find a telephone which Cordy overlooked in favor of a spatula. You might almost fault her for it, but seeing as how the Baddies track the phone signal, maybe they should’ve stuck to the spatula. Then again, they manage to get half a message to Giles.

Cordy complains about being caught once again in the crossfire of Buffy’s life. We get a Slayer Speech about how all she wanted was homecoming queen because otherwise her life is being hunted. She delivers it all  in her dirty party dress, gun in hand. The Tinkly Piano has found them in the woods, which was awful nice of it.

Sweeney: The Tinkly Piano is the ultimate stalker.

Lor: After the Slayer Speech ends with B cocking her gun and proclaiming she looks cute in a tiara, the spiny-headed fish thing comes busting in the cabin. Cordelia spatula’s it while Buffy tries her best to avoid his attacks. Mid-fight, the Love Children fire a rocket into the cabin. Cordy and Buffy jump out of a window, but the spiny-headed fish thing is blown up. They head off to the Wiggins Library, where we see the vampire couple, who have ties to the country vamps featured in Bad Eggs, have knocked Giles out.

When the girls get there, B is ambushed by the Wife Vamp, who knocks her out but one second too late, as Cordy stakes her with a spatula??? REALLY?

Sweeney: Every it-comes-way-too-easy staking gives me endless annoyance, because what the fuck is the point of so-called Slayer strength and chosenness if Cordelia can stake one with a spatula.

Lor: Husband Vamp is pissed and makes a lot of angry, garbled threats while also not moving at all. Cordy takes this opportunity to psyche him out, saying all his competition is dead, and that she is the Queen to Buffy’s runner-up, so he can just imagine what she’s going to do with him. The idiot buys this and beats it. We get to see Cordy’s self congratulatory smile and I kind of want to spatula it off her face.

K: I dunno. As much as her self congratulatory smile makes me want to hit her, this was a pretty awesome moment for Cordy, considering how she’s usually all about the screaming and the hiding. 

Sweeney: +1, I’m with you. It was more lucky than smart, but points to her for not doing the screaming/running/hiding thing.

Lor: After a cut, Buffy realizes that the corsages they received in the limo were actually tracking devices, which means this darn episode still isn’t over. Here come the Love Children, as Buffy requests toilet paper from Giles. She runs out of the library as the LC fire at her. She hides briefly before… spit balling? the tracking device onto the backs of one of the Love Children. The confusion causes the two dudes to fire at each other and they both ultimately die at the others’ hand. The orchestrator of the game (not Mr. Trick. A white haired man I never mentioned until just now, whoops) thinks he’s won the game.

A little earlier in the episode, Mr. Trick was arrested. Just go with it. He’s brought to the mayor’s office, where the mayor proposes working together to take down the rebellious element in the city, namely the Slayer. Then the mayor offers him a moist towelette. Right.

K: Germs are bad, yo. 

Lor: Buffy and Cordy finally make it to the dance, looking dirty and disheveled. They are still pretty invested in the outcome of the Queen vote, so how funny it is when there is a tie, and the winners are everyone that isn’t them.

Not that I’ve been very discreet here, and this may be an unpopular opinion, but I was not a fan of this episode.

Is it a favorite of any of our readers? Feel free to let us know in the comments below.

See you all on Thursday!

 

Next time of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A candy sale has the adults in Sunnydale acting a little less than. Follow the antics in BtVS S03 E06 – Band Candy.