From The Morgue

So your writing team have been knocking it out of the park – taking risks, gaining attention, turning all the right heads. The show is surging into the zeitgeist, and the world is starting to notice. Suddenly there’s proof of how well things are going: the star of the show is booked to host Saturday Night Live. Quick, writing team! We need a new episode with no Buffy in it, and we need it now!

This is the episode they come up with, and it’s the biggest proof you’ll get that Buffy was on a roll. They produced not a filler episode, but an important, funny character piece that is remembered fondly as one of the better episodes of the entire series. That just doesn’t happen unless you’re in the zone.

So, following an episode examining the perils of masculinity, we get an episode examining… the perils of masculinity. This time, however, the show turns its attention to a different flavour of Buffy man: Xander Harris, who remains something of an unsolved puzzle.

In typical Western storytelling modes, different characters usually embody different approaches to problems and challenges, and I’ve previously suggested that Xander embodies “instinct”. Following your instincts is an important problem-solving approach for anyone, but especially for teenagers, and so a character with this approach is essential for the Buffy ensemble. Unfortunately, the show is generally down on the efficacy of instinct. It’s a nerdy show where part of the fun is being wrongfooted by the twisty plots. In the narratives deployed on this show, it’s very easy to use ‘instinct’ for comedy beats.

Instinctual responses are also useful to generate conflict when a protagonist needs to take a risk – “instinct” tends to be conservative, associated with “common sense”. Witness the somewhat odd spectacle of Xander being the one who maintains his resistance to Buffy’s relationship with a vampire, while the more cerebral Willow and Giles quickly fall into line. In a show with a vested interest in upending received wisdom, this usually puts Xander in the wrong.

As if that wasn’t enough – in this show, gender is very much under the microscope, and masculinity is often a source of frustration. An “instinct” character who happens to be male will also easily fall into the role of expressing objectionable male instincts and assumptions. This was a role Xander assumed in The Pack, where he became a way for the show to talk about sexual power and its abuse.

So with these three complicating factors more potent than ever as the show enjoys a golden run of quality, it’s interesting for the show to look a little closer at Xander. Of the core characters, his character arc has been the most patchy and uncertain. Willow has clearly blossomed into greater self-confidence and autonomy; Giles has changed his perspective on his responsibilities and his relationship to Buffy; and Buffy herself has come to terms with her duty and assumed the mantle of power. Xander, however, has had a series of small triumphs quickly reversed into humiliations, and while his heroic instincts and indeed his courage have strengthened he continues to fail to apply these in any consistent way. The obvious direction to take Xander is to give him some control over his circumstances, and that means addressing his continual downfall: his relationships with women.

There’s lots going on in this particular kettle of weird fish. Xander’s “girl trouble” arises from his general sense of inadequacy and tendency to overcompensate; his expectations of and assumptions about women; his habit of speaking without thinking; and many, many other happy contributing factors. Xander is a deeply flawed character. However, at this point in the show’s narrative, the writing team are working hard to show him in a redemptive light. He does keep trying to do the right thing – to rise above his limitations. His moments of heroism have never quite been able to eclipse the entitlement and poor judgement that typify his behaviour, but consistently, when he does find a clear and noble path, he commits. He represents, then, another important archetype of all storytelling: the sinner who keeps trying for redemption.

This comes out very clearly in the inciting incident in this episode, where Xander buys Cordelia a locket and tries to be honest with her about what’s happening between them. It’s a brave move, and one he’s uncertain about, but it’s also unquestionably the right thing to do. The audience can’t help but get on side with him here.

Unfortunately, Cordelia dumps him, and Xander immediately does something unspeakably awful, and all of that viewer identification and goodwill gets set on fire.

This is his role. He’s instinct, specifically a male instinct in a female-voiced narrative. He is going to screw up, and those screwups will reproduce the gendered biases at large in our world. To be blunt: Buffy is invested in taking on rape culture, and Xander is the best vector they have for bringing that on-stage.

Xander’s crime is to blackmail the witch Amy to enchant Cordelia so she’ll love him, giving him the power to break up with her and devastate her emotions. It’s a terrible thing to do, and though the show takes care to draw boundary lines around his intentions (specifically, he makes clear he doesn’t intend to use magic to rape her) it doesn’t soft-pedal the ugliness of his actions.

The use of Amy the witch as an instrument is interesting, however. She returns here for the first time since Witch (another instance of the show’s delight in recurring minor characters), and her engagement in Xander’s revenge is a reminder that this show does always speak with a female voice. The spell she casts ends up making all the women characters lust after Xander, but it reads to me as a very female-friendly take on that particular male fantasy. In fact, once you dial out a bit, this episode is revealed as a remarkable showpiece for the many diverse female characters of the Buffy world, and while the episode is unmistakably a spotlight for Xander, it is equally unmistakable that the hero is Cordelia.

Cordelia doesn’t get to lead the story, because the story is all about the weird experiences of Xander Harris. However, the character arc is hers. The story happens because of her crisis of self-belief and consequent bad decision, and it tracks her movement to a place where she can reverse that decision and lay claim to her true identity. Xander doesn’t get that kind of arc. He makes an awful decision and pretty much immediately realises it was an awful decision. For the rest of the story he’s just coping with the mess he’s made, which is very entertaining but doesn’t make him the protagonist.

Cordelia’s return to focus also means it’s time to bring back another recurring player, Harmony Kendall, who reigns supreme on the mean girl throne she claimed back in Out of Sight Out of Mind. Cordelia’s secret hookups with Xander are now common knowledge, and Cordy’s status with the in crowd is in the toilet. That she decides the best way to fix this is by dumping Xander and trying to hold on to her established identity is entirely understandable, even though it’s obviously the wrong option. Cordelia, after all, is the narrative’s truthteller, but here she can’t even bear to tell the truth to herself. She’s found out by the magic spell, which doesn’t affect her because the magic knows the truth even if she doesn’t – she’s in love with Xander. (Note that this is the second time a big magic spell hasn’t affected Cordelia – she evaded the madness of Halloween by shopping upmarket – underlining her association with truth and authenticity.)

The episode concludes with Cordelia choosing Xander, choosing truth, and choosing the Scooby Gang nerd vampire life over whatever she had before. Her final duty in the story is to pass judgement on Xander. The show, as noted above, is set to make Xander screw up a lot of times, and forgiving him will get more and more difficult each time, but he’s not yet too far gone. In Xander’s favour this time – he very quickly figures out what’s going on and doesn’t hesitate in confessing to Giles, whose absolute disgust makes clear the degree of his failure, as does Willow’s refusal to talk to him after. The episode sticks the landing on this, I think – “You came through. There might just be hope for you yet.” says Buffy – but it’s Cordelia’s acceptance of him, flaws and all, her empathy and love, that allows him to carry on.

Other thoughts:
* This episode has some standout gags – barricading the door only to reveal it opens outwards, and Willow’s “Force is okay!” comment is just the first hint of hidden depths…
* Likewise, Spike wondering what rhymes with lungs plays very differently after some later revelations about his origins as William the Bloody.
* The “suddenly, Angel!” instant threat move continues to work brilliantly.
* Oddly, this is the second time in recent weeks that Jenny has attempted a seduction while not in control of herself. She’s past due for a big spotlight episode to give her some dignity at last. Maybe next week?

Oz was already a firm audience favourite before he was inducted into the Scooby Gang. It’s not hard to see why, as he holds three mighty assets: an abundantly good heart, sardonic imperturbability, and the laser-accurate comic timing of Seth Green. All three of these meant Buffy now had a voice perfectly suited for mordant self-aware observations, its favourite comic mode.

Oz’s slow introduction, in isolation from the rest of the cast, allowed the show and Green to find their way into the character and work out how to best make use of him. This paid off in spades – his first full conversation with Willow in What’s My Line part 2 is a strong candidate for the show’s all-time highlight reel. The writing team had figured out how to ground Oz’s humour in good sense and morality, instead of leaning on character flaws like anxiety (Willow), overcompensation (Xander), and self-obsession (Cordelia). Oz was presented as a good man, Buffy-style. Which raises the question – what kind of man is that?

And so we come to Phases, an episode with Oz at its heart, and with the question of masculinity very much on its mind.

But before we talk about any of that, there’s some other business on the table. It’s the same damn thing I’ve been bringing up since the start of this blog. You guessed it: the problem of Jesse.

To recap: the first Buffy story ended with Xander and Willow laughing happily with their new best friend Buffy, despite having just seen the horrible death of their old best friend Jesse. If this show wants us to take its threats and its emotions seriously, this just isn’t good enough. And yet, if deadly and existential threats and the resulting emotions are taken seriously, then what room is left for laughter? This show would have to be completely different if Xander and Willow were embittered by grief from Jesse’s death. So how can you balance this triangle?

Over the last two episodes the show threw down its marquee storyline, in which Buffy had sex with Angel, transforming Angel into a murderous psycho. This plot twist turned the dials on real threat and real emotion right up to 11. Here’s the test we’ve been waiting for. Has the show worked out the Jesse problem? What happens next?

At the conclusion of the previous episode, Innocence, Giles refused to judge Buffy for her sexual activity. This redemptive moment was founded on empathy and respect – on love. In that moment, Buffy was able to find a way to escape judging herself and accept her own humanity. This is essential to the show’s method of resolving the problem of Jesse: the core ensemble of characters must love one another, so they can give each other the strength to move past trauma and remain in touch with joy.

That moment couldn’t escape the whole problem. The emotional consequence of Angel’s threat isn’t limited to Buffy’s profound guilt. Indeed, I made a comment last week about how killing Angel would mean tumbling into the problem of Jesse, by which I meant, such an action at this point in the narrative would be so emotionally devastating to the characters that there would be no plausible escape back to “normality”. However, that exchange with Giles shows the model that Buffy wants to apply to the more-manageable grief and confusion currently at play.

The problem of Jesse is really about the compact between a show and its audience. The show encourages us to love its characters, then puts those characters into enormous misery. Then it must earn back the right to have the same characters crack jokes without making us feel cheated. It does so like this: it shows us pain, and then it shows us love, and then it shows us the bruises.

There are storytelling choices at work here. The story has to show us pain on a scale that matches the harm they suffered. And then it must show us enough love that we can believe the character sees some light in their darkness. And that’s usually enough for us to accept they have been to a dark place. We are being told a story, here, and like all stories, we don’t need to be told all of it to believe in it. After this, the character can step back into the regular narrative function, as long as – and this is essential – we can see the bruises. We can’t settle back into “business as usual” unless we are shown from time to time that the character is still hurting.

It’s a neat solution to the Jesse problem, and it works fairly well here. It doesn’t stand by itself – this process only works because of other qualities of Buffy, like the hazy timekeeping that never quite nails down how much time is passing between (or even within) episodes; like the clearly different rules for minor characters, who don’t need to be depicted with psychological believability, thus allowing the whole edifice of a monstrous and murderous Sunnydale to continue; and above all, like the embrace of self-awareness on the part of the show as a whole. Being meta allows Buffy to get away with its neat solution to the problem of Jesse, because it enlists the show’s viewers as co-conspirators in achieving big tears and big laughs (two great tastes that taste great together).

But the heart of this process is love. Love is the pivot point that lets us, the audience, take the character’s hand and walk them back into the party. Our love for the characters, as expressed through the love the characters show for each other.

So: maybe the perfect Buffy man is one who can solve the problem of Jesse. One who is wise enough and good enough to save other characters with his love.

Through this episode we get a bit of a tour of the male cast of Buffy, but it isn’t love at the forefront, it’s lust. (Willow: “I want smoochies!”) Hello metaphor monster: there’s a werewolf on the loose and werewolves (says hunter Cain) are drawn to “sexual heat”. This is the show directly addressing something previously only featured in Xander’s dialogue: guys only have one thing on their minds. Right?

The episode dives into it hard, featuring returning character Larry (the I-became-a-rapist-pirate from Halloween) as the uber-macho sports guy sexually harassing all the women, to the point of outright groping Buffy Summers (which doesn’t go down well). He’s the obvious candidate to be the werewolf, especially after he shows off his dog bite injury.

Then it introduces new character Cain the werewolf hunter, who is even more macho than Larry. His attitude towards women is condescending rather than salacious but he still reinforces the theme by instantly assuming Giles and Buffy were having a sexual rendezvous.

Next the episode gives us a young woman named Theresa, who is the designated victim of the early episode – she was harassed by Larry before, and we are led to believe the werewolf is about to strike. Instead, Angelus steps into frame, and he smoothly lures her into his fatal embrace.

Three men, each of them a cliche, each of them dangerous. The show is making it clear in no uncertain terms that there is a problem with men and masculinity. Against these three, we are given compelling portraits of Xander and Giles: the first, too hung up on Willow to make out with his girlfriend, and the second nearly moved to violence by the insolence Cain the hunter shows towards Buffy. Both presented as flawed but clearly on the right side of things. And then there is Oz, presented as essentially a mystery – Xander frets about him, in fact.

Having put all its pieces in play, the episode immediately sets about subverting them. Most dramatically, there’s Larry. The decision to have Xander lead the investigation would tip off any audience members who hadn’t yet clicked that he was a red herring. But then the show makes a beautiful ju-jitsu move, taking that audience expectation of Larry’s innocence and yanking them right around into a reveal that Larry does have a secret: he’s gay, and all that sexual harassment has been overcompensation. It’s a splendid move that quickly undermines the very idea of hypermasculinity by revealing Larry’s version was just a performance. The show moves on to make Cain the hunter such a male cliche that you can’t take him seriously either: his unrelenting manly man act is clearly positioned as a performance like Larry’s, even if it isn’t hiding anything.

Angel, however, doesn’t need to be subverted. He’s a straight-line character at this point, a murderous troublemaker out to make Buffy’s life miserable. When he sends his message to Buffy via the girl he killed and turned into a vampire, it shocks Buffy, rips open that wound – we see her bruises.

Giles is essentially a secondary character this episode, with his bravery and support for Buffy and her friends reinforced several times. With Xander however, the show makes some trickier moves. Xander’s past (I-became-a-rapist-hyena-spirit in The Pack) hangs over him, and the show overtly references it when he almost reveals to the other characters that he remembers what happened in that episode. Buffy lets the moment pass, which is just as well, because that unpleasantness is the last thing the show needs to put front-and-centre. Later, Xander is allowed to save Buffy when she loses herself before Angel’s threat, and then he is the character on-hand to give her the love she needs to continue. The moment between them is layered with the complexity of their relationship, but the central emotional transaction is clear.

Which leaves Oz, who turns out to be the werewolf. The climax comes, hilariously, when Willow confronts him to demand that he be *more* of an animal, whereupon he turns into a werewolf and attacks her. After OzWolf is incapacitated (and saved from the hunter), we finally get the measure of Oz the man. He is calm, and considerate, and suggests forgoing his own happiness for the greater good of everyone. But Willow doesn’t accept that: “Yeah, okay, werewolf, but that’s not all the time. I mean, three days out of the month I’m not much fun to be around either.”

And Oz listens to her.

If you follow pop culture at all, you’ll know just how unusual that is. The man is meant to make the decision for both of them – it is his tragic burden. (The prominent recent example is Spider-Man, which has had film after film where Peter Parker must tragically end his relationships to protect his partner regardless of her opinions on the matter.) The episode never really explains why Oz has been withholding smoochies – presumably he just likes to take things slow – but it makes it very clear what kind of man he is.

Xander’s moment comforting Buffy made clear that he could do the job of carrying her through the problem of Jesse, but it also showed he was compromised. Oz, in contrast, has none of those limitations. Oz has empathy and respect. He cares, and he listens. He’s just what this show needs.

Other notes:
* At the top of the episode, Oz is watching the cheerleading statue from way back in Witch. It’s a neat little continuity nod, the kind of comics-style back-issue reference that was leveraged last episode to save the day. It’s also a cute reinforcement of Oz’s acuity and perceptiveness.
* It’s kind of beautiful that Xander’s many, many flaws can bring together Willow and Cordy.
* The introduction of werewolves to a vampire-focused mythology is commonplace now, but wasn’t when this episode aired. The show has been working through a list of non-vampire monsters since Witch, so it was bound to hit “werewolf” eventually, but it sure does play differently in 2015 when it’s almost a cliche.
* Using werewolves to talk about masculinity might seem obvious (men are animals!) but it wasn’t actually that much a feature of werewolf fiction. The reverse, using werewolves to talk about femininity (they change with the moon!) has perhaps been more common, with two standouts being Alan Moore’s story The Curse in Swamp Thing and the subsequent film Ginger Snaps.
* Oz’s cousin Jordy is just a kid, and also a werewolf. Apart from being a very amusing bit that is pointedly never referred to again, it’s interesting to note that a pre-pubescent werewolf clearly serves as counterpoint to the association in this episode between lyncanthropy and sexual drive.
* Angel is a great villain because the show can just have him be nice to someone and cut away and you know it’s awful.

This is peak Buffy. The highest viewership ratings, the greatest critical acclaim, the favourite episode of the show’s creator, the archetypal metaphor-as-monster, the definitive “what people want is not what they need” Whedon storytelling decision. The last eight episodes of excellence have led to this, making television history. This is why you came.

The first people you see are Spike and Drusilla and the newly-assembled demon, the Judge. It’s a brief sequence offering a minuscule recap, a few character beats, and a tiny bit of exposition. It isn’t there to excite or illuminate. It’s there for rhythm. It’s ushering you back into the fiction, giving you a chance to find yourself there again. It’s the rollercoaster cranking up to the first high at the start of the ride. You breathe out and in. You hold on as it comes into view:

Buffy, alone in Angel’s bed.

Then Angel. Hurting in the rain, still. His pain stops as a woman approaches him. She looks a bit like Buffy, blonde, red jacket, but older, smoking a cigarette, hanging out in an alley. A prostitute as surrogate for the leading lady. This is not a category of character we’ve seen before. Angel has stumbled outside the frame, dragging the camera with him to somewhere colder, more desperate. Yet even here, the instincts of ordinary people are good and kind. The woman comes to offer help. Then you watch Angel kill her. He murders her swiftly and callously, then mocks her with a breath.

He mocks her and smiles.

You feel the show tilt on its axis.

Credits play, and you nod your head to the propulsive music. Then you’re in the Summers home. Joyce finds Buffy just after she sneaks in from her night with Angel. Buffy’s knowledge that she has just lost her virginity is all over her face. (You know exactly what’s going on inside Buffy’s head, because Sarah Michelle Gellar has a special talent for taking you along on Buffy’s internal journey.) Joyce senses something, and starts to say Buffy looks different or changed – but she stops, leaving her sentence hanging, unfinished. You hold on to that ambiguity.

The library. The Scooby Gang confer with Buffy. You can see the pieces being arranged for the next phase of the story. Along the way, Xander is mean to Cordelia. It’s the exact kind of snarky put-down he’s been throwing all season but now they are a secret couple, it snags you – because it’s about Buffy, and her importance, and because Xander does love Buffy more than he loves Cordelia. And you know in that instant he always will. And you see that Cordelia knows it too. A tiny throwaway moment but Whedon finds another knife to twist. Everything is working in this episode, everything raising the stakes, everything charged with emotion.

The Factory, and Angel saunters in to join Spike and Dru. The Judge tries to harm him and fails, proving to them that Angel has changed. Proving the same to you, reinforcing the implication of that cruel murder before. It is sinking in: this isn’t pretend. They’re not kidding around.

Library. Xander tries to apologise to Cordelia, and she doesn’t let him, but they make out anyway. You are just wondering how you came to feel so much empathy for Cordelia when the pair are discovered by Willow. Alyson Hannigan uses her special powers to make you feel every part of her devastation. You knew this was coming, and it is exactly what it had to be, and you hoped that somehow you could get through this without hurting Willow, but you can’t. She has to get hurt. You have to feel it.

Angel’s apartment. Buffy finds him and is so relieved – and you tense up, because Angel just said he was going to destroy her. But he doesn’t threaten her. He is… almost gentle. His casual attitude and his belittling words are given so little weight. And you see Buffy try to understand, you see her connecting the dots. Review the dialogue in this scene and you discover it is so bare, so simple, there’s almost nothing there at all, because it was written specifically for Gellar’s talents. You are there with her, every moment, as her self-assurance crumbles. “Was I not good?” And you see how Angel is choosing to destroy her, the sheer pettiness of it, and it’s breathtaking. The metaphor in this episode is widely shorthanded as “the boy who turns into an asshole after sleeping with you”, which is accurate, but it misses out a whole layer in what’s going on. The interaction is coded in the status politics of high school existence. Everything Angel says is an expression of power and distance as channeled through the iconography of high school bad boy popularity, because this is the culmination of the vampires-as-cool-kids imagery that’s been deployed since episode three. The cool kids are good at adult stuff, and the uncool kids or the kids who secretly fear they are uncool – which is to say, you – are not. That boy you liked is too cool for you. You thought he loved you but he was just using you. You don’t measure up. You know about this feeling, this nightmare. It happened to you or to one of your friends, or maybe just to someone you wished was your friend. But it happened. Because high school is hell.

Jenny and her uncle. It’s a jarring sequence for you not just because it follows Angel’s awful betrayal, but because it’s still a very strange development. Jenny’s secret gypsy heritage and mission concerning Angel is hard to reconcile with everything you’ve seen before now. Uncle Vincent Schiavelli is superb of course but it feels forced and perhaps inauthentic in an episode where everything else rings so true. But the scene adds to the rhythm of the episode, letting you catch your breath with a side character while you process, and you start to realize that Angel is only just starting.

The school. Willow and Xander reach an uncomfortable truce, and are interrupted by Angel. The scene plays as straight terror, with shadows and isolation and an audience who knows badness is there as a coiled snake. It is no accident Angel targets Willow. She is a lightning rod for our emotions. That’s why the writers choose Willow, you know that. But Angel knows it too. Angel goes after Willow because he knows it will hurt everyone who loves her. And you love Willow, right? She’s fictional, but so what? After all those real emotions and real threats, you have a connection with her. How can you not? You love her. And Angel knows. He is targeting Willow to reach out of the television and hurt you, too.

Xander figures it out. Jenny is already there, and Buffy too who knows the moment she sees. The characters catch up to you in a rush. The show wants you right there with them. But it’s Xander who makes the move, takes the risk, frees Willow, sees Angel off without anyone getting killed. His role in the Scooby Gang – Willow is the heart, Cordelia the truthteller, Giles the conscience – he is the instinct. He gets it wrong as often as he gets it right, more often, but he is necessary, and sometimes he is the only one who can save the moment. Right now, Buffy can’t fight Angel. She can see, she can say, but she cannot yet do. It’s too big. You’re with her.

Then in the library, the gang piece it together and Buffy realizes this change happened because they slept together. It’s too much for her. (Willow, of course, instantly understands.) We’ve already left any close analogy to the source of the metaphor – when boys sleep with girls and don’t call them again, they don’t start a campaign of terror to make the girl guilty. But it doesn’t matter. The metaphor was just the crank that wound up this nightmare. What matters now is that Buffy feels terrible and there’s no way out.

Factory. Angel returns. You watch him put Spike in his place. It’s fascinating to watch. Angel the villain starts making sense to you as a character. You discover he’s fun to watch. That’s an awful moment.

Buffy’s room. She sleeps, cries, dreams – then school, confronting Jenny. Again the show burns through a secret, puts it out in the open as quick as possible. You’re still not convinced about this plotline but Buffy’s rage gives her and you something else to feel, gives you a focus. Anger at Angel’s betrayal is seamlessly transferred on to Jenny.

Angel kills the gypsy man.

Oz’s van. It is such a relief to see Oz. This episode has been pushing your emotions into bad places and he is reliably a source of sanity and delight. And while Xander and Cordelia steal army weaponry, revealing comics-style continuity links to the events of Halloween where this run of storytelling began, you get a moment of perfect Oz, albeit one where he doesn’t give Willow, or you, what you want. Instead he gives you what you need. It’s the only joy you will feel this episode.

Jenny, Giles and Buffy find the gypsy man. Buffy knows, now, deep down, what you’ve feared. There is no way out of this: she must kill Angel. At the factory. Angel usurps Spike. The season has, at last, its Big Bad. At the school, Buffy takes control, telling Jenny to bugger off, snapping out orders, coming into her own. What’s My Line had Buffy embracing her slayer identity and power; and here is the test. Giles dismisses Jenny as Buffy says. There is no question where the power lies.

The mall, as you saw just eight days ago. The surprise of the rocket launcher, upending “no weapon forged” as a comedy beat, somehow finding levity in this awfulness and shortcircuiting the great battle with the Judge (3/4 swerve!) so the episode can focus on what really matters:

Angel in the rain, as he was at the start of the episode. Now you/Buffy are ready. Now you can fight. And you defeat him, but you can’t kill him yet. You let him go, knowing he will kill again. You have no choice, because to kill Angel would be to tumble irrevocably into the problem of Jesse. Threat is real. Emotions are real. What possible future can there be, apart from misery?

Giles and Buffy speak at last, and your heart breaks because Giles refuses to be disappointed in Buffy. He is full of love. Love is the answer to the problem of Jesse. Love will carry Buffy forward. Love will carry you forward.

Buffy with her mother. At the beginning of the episode Joyce stopped short of saying Buffy looked different. Now, she says it clearly: “You look the same to me.”

You don’t feel the same.

You watch to the end of the credits. The little monster says “Grr Arrgh”.

It’s just perfect TV.

Two episodes, broadcast over two nights, that changed everything for this show. This is the story that still defines Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the perfect expression of teenage emotional trauma as monstrous action adventure. The big turn still feels ambitious today, a brutal twist of the knife that is equal parts ridiculously melodramatic and fiercely poignant. This is critical, mighty television.

With all this import, it’s strange to be reminded the first episode is kind of weak.

There’s certainly plenty going on. Willow and Oz start dating in the cutest way possible, Jenny Calendar is revealed to have a secret mission of vengeance, Drusilla and Spike are gathering the pieces of a terrifying demon, and Cordelia thinks chips & dip = cooking.

However, through all this it’s Buffy’s relationship with Angel that stays in tight focus. The episode begins with a prophetic dream in which Buffy witnesses Angel’s death at Drusilla’s hands. (The dream sequence is superbly done, laden with symbols and a hilariously obtuse callback to the Monkey Pants conversation from What’s My Line part 2 – the show has now figured out how to present dream sequences that actually feel like dreams without being a waste of time, a magic trick that will be deployed multiple times in coming seasons.) Buffy rushes to Angel and they can barely control their desire for makeouts – the same beat from Bad Eggs but here played not for gleeful comedy but as an urge that threatens to overtake their sweet romance with something riskier. Then Buffy relates all this to Willow, and confides that she thinks sooner or later their relationship will become sexual. That’s the show opening with three scenes in a row entirely devoted to Buffy/Angel. And there’s more to come on this front. As with What’s My Line and Bad Eggs, the show has realized it needs to actually put the Buffy/Angel relationship onscreen where we can see it and tries to cram as much into this episode as possible. It’s great to watch as the two actors have solid chemistry – Sarah Michelle Gellar continues to build her performance and take the audience along her emotional journey, while Boreanaz is almost pleasingly wooden, deferring to his role as the love interest in a female-led show and not yet leavening his performances with the self-mockery that would become his trademark.

All of this intense relationship focus is intended to bring both characters, and the audience, to the climactic moment. After a tearful farewell (later rendered unnecessary), and then a showdown with Spike and Dru, Angel and Buffy seek shelter in Angel’s apartment. There’s a deliberate counterpoint to Angel’s makeout-heavy visit to Buffy’s bedroom window in Bad Eggs, and Buffy’s chaste sleepover there in What’s My Line part 1. The energy between the two is very different to anything we’ve seen before. Buffy cries, simply overwhelmed from the highs and lows of the last few days. This is perhaps the last piece of the relationship we needed to see to believe in it: Buffy allowing herself to be vulnerable, and trusting in Angel to catch her. And then the moment pivots into desire as the emotional intensity jumps to a different track and engulfs both of them. They confess their love for each other, and Buffy takes the initiative, and the camera cuts away. It’s a well-played sequence, surprising in its tenderness and rawness after the goofball makeouts and high melodrama that have characterised their relationship before now. The moment is grounded in real threat and emotional reality, giving it major weight.

Then the climax is Angel mysteriously walking outside and wailing and um what? If you don’t know what this actually signifies, and the portentous gypsy talk earlier doesn’t give much clue, then the ending is incomprehensible. If you do know what’s coming – and I think even on first broadcast most viewers had some idea – then you can read it as a chilling and exciting cliffhanger, but if not, it’s just bizarre. It’s a bit of a head-desk moment, the most important cliffhanger of the whole series so far, the one the show has been deliberately building too all season, and it’s a complete clunker.

But that’s the story of this whole episode: not really Buffy at its best, loading up with stuff but not really making much of it count. Two separate mook-fights over the Judge’s arm? Couldn’t the show have figured a better way of managing that? The obvious diagnosis is that everyone was so focused on what was about to happen, they didn’t tighten up the steps getting there.

That said: what was about to happen was worth getting excited about. So goodbye, early Buffy. It’s been fun, but this is where you finish. Everything’s about to change.

Other notes:
* Willow in a Blossom hat is love. Also, Seth Green is the best at delivering Whedonesque dialogue, they must have loved writing for him.
* Dru is in charge and in control of herself, but she’s still pretty loopy while Spike still has the wits in the relationship. Keeping Spike around definitely dilutes the recovery of Drusilla we supposedly saw in What’s My Line.
* It’s a two-part macguffin chase, right? Wrong! 3/4 swerve – the bad guy is fully assembled as of right now!
* Vincent Schiavelli! Another lovely swerve with Jenny – we know she’s pledged to harm Angel, and we think she’s taking Buffy away to some sinister destination, only to have her deliver Buffy to the previously-mentioned surprise party. Although there is a bit of weirdness where Jenny apparently drives Angel home to get some dry clothes, then drives him back again, and it’s only mentioned in passing. Missed opportunity…

Everyone’s thinking lustful thoughts in this episode. Buffy wants to buy a sexy outfit. Cordelia and Xander can’t keep their hands off each other. Buffy and Angel likewise, although they aren’t conflicted about it. There are makeouts a-plenty (though not for Willow or Giles, whose partners are missing this week) and it is super-strongly implied that Cordy and Xander are going All. The. Way.

Trust a boring health class assignment to pour cold water all over this sizzle! It’s the old “look after an egg to learn about responsibility the egg is a metaphorical baby okay kids NO SEXING” thing that apparently happens! By the way the eggs are monsters. And with that, the episode runs out of ideas.

It turns out the egg monsters are mind-controlly bodysnatchery things and there’s a thing in the basement of the school they want to dig up. There are definitely some creepy set-pieces with the critter in Buffy’s bedroom (complete with Alien homage shot of creature landing on shoulder) and the reveal that Willow has already been controlled, and there’s a brilliant 3/4 swerve (actually at the 3/4 break for once) where Joyce ends up joining the fun. But beyond the set pieces, there’s not much here to talk about.

The episode thinks it’s about “responsibility”, i.e. look after an egg, don’t forget to pick up your mother’s dress, um, stuff. It all feels thin because the episode has actually set the viewer’s eye on one of the most intense subject areas in its thematic focus area – the powerful experience of teenage lust – and then does literally nothing with it. The monsters just mind control people to go dig a hole together as asexual drones. There is so much to work with here and the episode can’t backpedal away from it quickly enough.

All of which is very disappointing because this is the very same move you get from most teenage media, at least, it was in the 90s. Lust was a feature of after-school special morality plays, Christian rock songs, and dumb comedy films, but didn’t much get talked about beyond that. Buffy has so far been pushing hard at taking the emotional experiences of teenage life seriously, but here it doesn’t want to get involved, and the avoidance is jarring. Buffy is meant to be better than this! (The show does start getting stuck into lust as a thematic interest next season, at least.)

What this episode should have done is make the egg-monsters lean right into the sex and lust continuum. There’s some ironic appeal in having the abstinence eggs turn their hosts into ravening lust machines, but given that this show can’t actually descend into a wild orgy, that episode would be tricky to write. So maybe something like this.

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PRECREDITS

• The mall – a shop. Buffy wants a sexy skirt that Joyce won’t buy for her. Then she spots a vampire (Lyle Gorch) on the hunt. She makes some transparently false excuses why she has to slip away, and Joyce lets her go.
• The back rooms – Buffy interrupts Lyle, but he gets away.
• The mall – Buffy returns to Joyce, who reveals she didn’t believe Buffy’s excuses. “I know that look. You spotted a cute boy and suddenly had somewhere better to be.” “Um, kinda.” Then Joyce initiates a super-awkward version of “the talk (teen version)”, about how sometimes her head is going to want to do one thing, while her body is pushing hard to do… another thing. The talk goes swiftly out of Joyce’s control too. (Buffy: “Oh please don’t say any more words.” Joyce: “Too late for that. I’m terrible at this.” Buffy: “Let’s just pretend we never have any of those feelings.” Joyce: “Milkshake?” Buffy: “Milkshake.”)

ACT ONE

• Closet. Cordy and Xander having makeouts in the closet, both conflicted about it.
• Health class. Teacher introduces the egg challenge to a very distracted class! He has to yell a few times to get people to settle down. Willow spots that there’s something happening between Cordy and Xander.
• Library. Xander and Willow give Buffy her egg. Xander is like “I’m not sure one little egg will make much impression on the frying pan of testosterone that is the teenage boy.” Giles identifies the Gorches.
• The park. Buffy and Angel make out instead of hunting. The Gorches are watching, identifying Buffy as the slayer and Angel as Angelus. Tector Gorch is envious of Angel – he thinks Buffy is pretty. Lyle berates him for always thinking with his crotch. “Ain’t like there’s anything down there any more, not since that crab demon got super friendly with her pincer hands!” Tector is unrepentant. “Don’t matter that I’m dead. See a pretty girl, and things get stirred.” Lyle says he knows how to kill the Slayer.
• Buffy’s bedroom. She falls asleep, with some dialogue to the egg indicating she’s going to be thinking about Angel – all those makeouts are fresh in her mind. As she slips into bed and closes her eyes with an Angel smile on her face, we see the egg… crack… a tentacle extends…

ACT TWO

• Buffy’s bedroom. She wakes up. The tentacle is gone. The egg has repaired itself.
• Summers kitchen. Joyce observes Buffy getting ready for school – impressed by how she’s uncharacteristically calm and well-organised. Buffy suggests the egg is just focusing her attention, reminding her she has responsibilities…
• Library. Buffy (with egg) reports “no Gorches” to Giles. Willow has her egg too. Xander has boiled his egg! After Xander leaves with Cordelia, Willow confides that there’s something weird happening between them. Buffy asks Willow if she’s also feeling really alert and focused; Willow says she is. Giles asks Buffy to once again go Gorch-hunting with Angel.
• Near the park. Angel meets Buffy, who is carrying her egg this time. Angel goes to kiss her – she avoids it. They talk about the egg, and hunting. Buffy doesn’t even seem to notice Angel’s physical interest in her.
• The park. The Gorches attack! Tector tangles Angel in a lasso (might as well put that old west style to some use) and Lyle seizes Buffy, saying “Like I tell Tector, lust is a distraction. And distracted slayers are -” He is cut off by Buffy smashing him in the face and clinically giving him an ass-whupping. The Gorches flee in different directions.
• Near the park. Angel asks Buffy about her change in tone – last night, he was a distraction. Tonight… is she feeling all right? Buffy isn’t sure. Something’s off. Like she’s run out of steam. But… that little fight scene might have woken her up again… Makeouts start in earnest. But Angel pulls away – “I’ll get after Tector. You track down Lyle.” Angel goes, and Buffy looks after him, and it’s obvious that she did not want to stop kissing him. And while she thinks these thoughts, the egg cracks open and the creature emerges, and it crawls up her and it COVERS HER FACE…

ACT THREE

• Near the park. Buffy FIGHTS OFF THE THING. She stabs it to wriggly death, and then realises it came from the egg. “That’s not good.”
• School. Morning. Willow arrives, cradling her egg. She looks around the school, and observes many couples doing couple things. All seems normal. She opens her locker, sees the Dingoes band poster with grainy Oz picture – and sighs happily. The egg quivers. She doesn’t notice. And she goes to the…
• Library. Willow finds Buffy, Xander and Cordelia are already there. “Where’s your egg?” they ask. They grab it from her, and put it in a box, then slam on a lid. “There might be a creature in there,” Buffy says. Cordelia says it was probably only Buffy’s egg. If it was her egg, then her maid might be in terrible danger! Xander reminds everyone he hardboiled his egg. Willow comes up with the idea of opening his to see what’s inside. And she’s still noticing Xander/Cordy chemistry, as she remarks to Buffy again…
• Giles’s Office. Willow leads the dissection. The egg is cracked open revealing a weird, disgusting creature. They make a plan: Giles and Willow will hit the books, Buffy will investigate the Teen Health classroom, while Xander and Cordy volunteer to check out “several out of the way places”. Willow doesn’t stay with Giles – she moves to follow Xander and Cordy.
• Health classroom. Buffy stalks around. She finds several additional racks of eggs… and a pickaxe? Why would a health teacher need a pickaxe? Then the teacher enters. Buffy hides as he goes to the egg racks, picks up an egg, and it extrudes a tentacle to wiggle at him…
• Hallway. Willow creeps after Xander and Cordy, who are obviously looking for a good makeout spot. They go into a closet. Willow goes over, pushes it open: “All right you two, caught in the act -” Except they are NOT making out. Cordelia is putting one of the weird egg creatures on Xander’s face! They both turn to look at her! She backpedals, falling, sprinting back to the
• Library. Willow rushes in. “Giles!” The librarian tells her he’s just had a very interesting phone conversation with Ms. Calendar and he now knows what they’re dealing with – a Bezoar. The eggs are disguises for their hibernating young. They feed off hormonal surges. When they get enough hormones, they come alive and take control of their host.” Willow says “Well here’s a couple of hormonal hosts right now!” Sure enough, Xander and Cordy, smiling oddly, are coming into the library as Willow backs away… only for Giles to PUT AN EGG CREATURE ON HER TOO.

ACT FOUR

• Health classroom. Buffy hides. Teacher comes very close to where she is hiding when… the door opens and her classmates start filing in! Time for Teen Health! Buffy pops up with a grin and takes her usual seat. There’s Cordy and Xander and Willow, all sitting happily smiling in the class. In fact the whole classroom is sitting smiling, calm and easy. Teacher asks: “Now, does anyone still have their egg?” As Buffy watches, Jonathan holds up his hand. He gives an uneasy “Yay me?” as classmates all around him converge, and he too is creature’d up. They pull back. Teacher: “Anyone else?” Willow looks at Buffy: “She broke hers.” Buffy has to think fast: “Oh I did. But then I came sneaking around in here and one got me. Also I found a pickaxe.” She hefts the pickaxe. The room is silent. Teacher: “Great! Well let’s get moving then.” And they all start filing out…
• Tunnels. Tector Gorch, wrapped up in his own lasso, is walking with Angel. “I swear, Angelus, Lyle will be down here somewhere.” Angel realises they are almost under the school. Tector asks Angel about Buffy. “No judgement, brother. Nothing like forbidden fruit to give you an itch. Like the time Lyle put some stinging nettles down my trousers.” Angel has to defend his feelings for Buffy – it isn’t just an “itch”. Tector calls him on it. “I seen you kiss that girl. There was itches. I reckon she’d like to be scratched.”
• Cavern. Tector leads Angel into a cave where a weird critter peers through the floor – the Bezoar. A tentacle wraps itself around him and drags him close! Tector unwraps himself. He lied about Lyle coming here. He’s fallen under the spell of the Bezoar.
• School basement. The class descends through a bashed-open hole in the floor into the basement. The teacher takes the pickaxe from Buffy and knocks some of the hole wider to allow easier access. They all go down and see… the Bezoar, and Angel wrapped up, and Tector nearby. Teacher: “Now, let the Bezoar cleanse you of your impure thoughts!” and they all form a line to let the Bezoar soak up their hormonal surges. Appalled, wondering how to free Angel, Buffy shades back when someone grabs her and pulls her to…
• Tunnels. Lyle has grabbed Buffy. He proposes an alliance to kill the Bezoar and free Angel as well as “my dumb brother”. Buffy figures out what’s up – the Bezoar is feeding on teen horniness. “Like a disgusting old man at a bus stop.” They both roll out – into the:
• Cavern. Lyle and Buffy make their move, but the class move with swiftness and co-ordination, Cordy and Xander cleanly take down Lyle. Buffy’s attempt to get to the Bezoar fails – Willow and Giles cut off her options. She ends up next to the still-trapped Angel. Teacher: “You can’t stop us, Buffy. We’re all focussed. Calm. Our minds are clear in service to the Bezoar.” Buffy: “Well my mind isn’t clear. But I do know what I want.” And she turns and locks eyes with Angel. “Trust me,” she whispers. And begins the MAKEOUT TO END ALL MAKEOUTS. All the servants of the Bezoar shudder, close their eyes, as the psychic feedback hits them. Xander and Cordy reach out and hold hands. Willow bites her lip. Tector gyrates foolishly. And Lyle RUNS FORWARD AND SINKS THE PICKAXE INTO THE BEZOAR’S BRAIN. Game over.
• Basement. The Gorches have fled. Everyone is rubbing their necks in confusion. Giles is telling everyone there’s a mold problem down here, everybody out… Willow approaches Xander, “Are you okay? Can you believe I thought you were having secret kissing sessions with Cordelia? But no, you were just being mind-controlled by a demon! I should have known.” Xander flails. Meanwhile, Buffy and Angel have a moment. Then he leaves too.
• Summers home. Buffy sits with Joyce on the couch. Joyce breaks the small talk to say, she didn’t mean to worry Buffy before, and if there is anything she wants to talk about – any person or any feeling – then she should. Because Joyce will always be there for her, and will probably not ground her too bad. Buffy is reassured. They talk about how everything would be so much simpler without any of that stuff. Joyce: “But also, kind of boring and pointless.” It isn’t easy finding the right balance. Buffy rests her head on her mother’s shoulder. End on a nice mother-daughter bonding moment.

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So.

Where was I.

Bad Eggs is a bit of a failure as a Buffy episode. It’s the one bum note in this great run of episodes – and being surrounded by amazing episodes surely does it no favours, reputation-wise. Perhaps because of its thematic problems, it never finds its tone – it is bizarre for a purely-plot episode to play all the final defeats of the bad guys as comedy beats.

Anyway, this episode does contribute something to the bigger picture. All this physicality and lust is an important aspect to the Buffy/Angel relationship, and one we haven’t yet seen. The relationship has often felt a bit weak onscreen because the show forgets to actually put them in front of us as a couple doing chemistry-laden couple things, and this episode attempts to make up for that all by itself by underlining just how hot and heavy (and yet chaste) their relationship is. This is necessary setup – and just in time for a very significant payoff. Next episode. (Hint: abstinence eggs don’t work.)

Other thoughts:
* A rare visit to the Sunnydale mall! We don’t see it much, because it’s a complicated set to manage requiring masses of extras, but that’s a pity because it does make a lot of sense as a hunting ground for Sunnydale’s vampires.
* Buffy sniffs out a vamp in a crowded place, just like in episode one! Which is to say, she uses her powers of observation, not the slayer-senses spoken of by Giles. Another gap in Buffy’s education?
* The Gorches have no role to play in this episode, but there they are anyway! Note that these are characterful season 2 vampires, not boring season 1 vampires.
* Urgh, the tentacle violation of a sleeping Buffy is something I could have done without, especially in an episode that encourages you to read everything sexually.
* If midriff tops weren’t on trend, this invasion would have succeeded.