About:
Last week, we closed out Season One, and Cordelia finally (and semi-unwillingly) joined the Scooby Gang. Oh yeah, and Buffy died then came back to life, which didn’t leave any kind of mark on her psyche at all. JK, it totally did, as we’re about to find out in Season Two.
Speaking of, we’ve got a new version of our drinking game!
The Buffy Season Two Drinking Game Rules
Drink once every time:
A vamp is dusted
A scene takes place in a cemetery
Cordelia says something cutting but true
Buffy and Angel share a romantic moment
Principal Snyder hates on students
Oz is ridiculously low-key cool
Drusilla says something nutty
Spike has mad swagger
Drink twice every time:
We see the entrance to Sunnydale High
We see a scene from the credits
Giles cleans his glasses
Jonathan appears in a scene
There’s an extremely outdated pop culture reference
A vampire is invited into a house
All of these new rules make me ever so glad that Season One is over, because there’s a ton of awesomeness (and better writing) in store.
2.1 “When She Was Bad”
It’s the end of the summer, and Willow and Xander are walking by the cemetery, trading movie quotes with not a care in the world, because there’s been zero vamp activity since the Master died (though there’s clearly been some gym activity for Xander). The two haven’t really heard from Buffy since she went to LA to hang with her dad, which seems fine by Willow, who is soaking up Xander’s attention. After Willow gets ice cream on her nose and looks totes adorbs, Xander *gasp* leans in for a kiss… that is interrupted by a vampire. Sorry Willow! Thankfully, Buffy (with a fetching new haircut) arrives and slays him while quipping, “Miss me?” (I remember yelling, “YES!” to this after waiting a very long summer for this Season Two Premiere.)
After Willow and Xander tell Buffy that they buried the Master’s bones in the cemetery (really hope that makes it into a “What I Did This Summer” essay), the scene cuts to Buffy’s dad, who shares with Joyce that their daughter has been well-behaved but distant all summer. “At least when she was burning stuff down,” he laments, “I knew what to say.”
First day of school! Ms. Calendar also got a fabulous new haircut, which Giles clearly notices (sparks!). We find out that she went to Burning Man over the summer, which is… weird? I feel like I probably thought that was cool back in 1997 but I know better now. After the gang informs Giles of the vampire sighting, he says he must consult his books–and Xander wins the bet, having called that it would take 10 min or less for this to happen (for the record, it took eight minutes and 33 seconds).
Buffy is clearly dragging around baggage from her face-off with the Master, which she tries to work off with an epic training montage, complete with squealing guitars!
While that does make her a stone cold badass, it doesn’t prevent her from having a dream in which Giles tries to strangle her–then he turns out to be the Master. She wakes up, freaked out, only to find Angel watching her from her window sill like frickin’ Edward Cullen, UGH. He warns her that the Anointed One (why is he still around?!) has been gathering forces, but she blows him off, so he takes the hint and leaves, murmuring that he missed her. She turns to say the same thing, but he’s already gone. BYE EDWARD.
In a move that everyone should have seen coming, the Anointed One and his followers (which now includes a black preacher type dude) are digging up the Master’s bones and planning to resurrect him. Cool cool cool.
Meanwhile, at the Bronze, Xander is back in full-on Buff obsession, which even Willow and her ice cream nose can’t deter (sorry, girl, but don’t worry, better boys are ahead), especially after Buffy struts in, tells Angel, “there’s no us,” then sexy dances with Xander in a way that makes all of us uncomfortable before she exits the scene. Cordelia follows her and says what we’re all thinking (drink): “Buffy, you’re really campaigning for bitch of the year, aren’t you?” She gives some of that tough Cordy love, advising Buffy to get over it, deal with her pain, and “spank your inner moppet, whatever,” or she’ll lose her friends. Buffy, who could care less, walks off, and Cordelia gets taken by vampires and thrown into a locked room with an unconscious Ms. Calendar. Yikes! Then Buffy discovers that the Master’s grave is empty. Double yikes!
The next day, Willow and Xander share their theory with Giles that Buffy is possessed–but wise ole Giles knows she’s actually still traumatized from dying. Buffy arrives with the news about the missing Master bones, which is punctuated by a stone thrown through the library window with a message: the vampires are going to kill Cordelia unless Buffy shows up at the Bronze. It’s clearly a trap, but Buffy forbids anyone from going with her, because she doesn’t want to have to look out for them while she’s fighting. Girl is on a real loner kick! For once, I’m glad Angel follows her to the Bronze, though Buffy’s response is still well-deserved: “You know, being stalked isn’t a big turn-on for girls.” The two find a vampire pretending to be Cordelia and realize their error–the vampires needed the blood of the people closest to the Master when he died, and that wasn’t Buffy, it was Cordelia, Giles, Willow and Ms. Calendar. Buffy rushes back to the library and finds all four of them gone, with a very pissed off Xander left behind.
After torturing the Cordelia decoy to find out the location of her friends, Buffy leads Angel and Xander to a warehouse where our kidnapped pals are hanging, knocked out and strung up by their feet, over the Master’s bones. Buffy starts her slaying in order to distract from Angel and Xander rescuing the crew and getting them out. Once she’s made dust of all of the demons (minus The Anointed One, who is conveniently gone), she takes a hammer and goes to town on the Master’s bones, which looks like a very satisfying type of physical therapy. Angel gives her a much-needed hug, and she finally breaks down, discarding that ice cold pretense that she was completely and totally fine.
The episode ends with Xander and Willow sweetly welcoming her back to the Scooby fold (complete with after-school special music, yeesh) while the Anointed One discovers the Master’s bone chalk and mutters, “I hate that girl.”
How many times do I have to take a drink?
19
Vamps Dusted
5
Headlining at the Bronze
It’s Cibo Matto! When I started DJing at the college radio station a year after this episode came out, I got such a kick out of playing Sugar Water.
Giles for Life
Snyder: There’s some thing I can just smell. It’s like a sixth sense.
Giles: No, actually that would be one of the five.
Slay of the Week
During her fight with the vamps in the warehouse, Buffy grabs a torch pole and slays one vamp with the pointy side while slaying another with the fire side. That’s what I call multi-tasking!
A Bitca?
File this under one of those jokes that still makes me snort with laughter just as hard as I did the first time around.
Willow: I mean, why else would she be acting like such a b-i-t-c-h?
Giles: Willow, I think we’re all a little too old to be spelling things out.
Xander: A bitca?
Giles blinks and sighs heavily.
Stylish Yet Affordable Boots
Look, I get that the preppy look was in but what… is happening with this sweater? Is it safety pinned? Did the arms come sewn together?!
Meanwhile, I would totally wear this outfit, like, today if I owned it.
Scooby Gang Feels
Awww, it’s back to normal for these buds!
Xander: So, we Bronze’n it tonight?
Willow: Wednesday… it’s kind of beat.
Xander: Well, we could grind our enemies into talcum powder with a sledgehammer, but gosh, we did that last night.
Willow smiles and looks at Buffy, who is clearly touched.
2.2 “Some Assembly Required”
The episode opens with Buffy sitting on a tombstone in the cemetery (drink), stylishly waiting for a vampire to rise. Angel shows up, and the two immediately start bickering–thankfully, they’re interrupted by the vampire, whom Buffy immediately slays right before falling into an open grave. Looks like Sunnydale has a bit of a grave robbing issue!
In super cute news, Giles is practicing his speech to ask Ms. Calendar out on a date, and Buffy finally gets to play the Watcher and impart some wisdom on asking out a girl. Speaking of girl, the missing body belonged to Meredith Todd, a student at Fondren High (will we ever hear about that place again?) who was killed in a car accident along with several other girls. “You know what this means?” Buffy asks. “That Fondren might actually beat Sunnydale in the cross town body count competition this year?” replies Xander. Points for that tongue twister of a zinger!
We’re introduced to Chris, a sweet guy who crushes at the Science Fair, and Eric, a total creep with a scraggly goatee who is constantly taking photos “for the yearbook.” Chris hasn’t been the same since his football star brother, Daryl, died in a rock climbing accident.
Later that day, when Cordelia is walking to her car after cheerleading practice, a guy seems to be following her, so she hides in the dumpster, where Angel finds her. He lends her a hand to get out, but she’s actually already got a hand–a severed one from a dead body! They head to the library, Cordelia clutching on Angel because girl knows how to capitlize on an opportunity, and tell the gang what happened. Obviously, someone is keeping some parts of bodies but not others, and when a locker search yields a mortician’s guide, they realize that Chris is somehow involved.
Back to the less icky, more adorable stuff, Giles gets INCREDIBLY nervous while trying to ask out Ms. Calendar and only manages to say that he has something to tell her… later… so she suggest that they just talk about it at the football game, which they will go to together. That’s right, Jenny Calendar just asked him out! Because she’s the coolest.
The scene shifts to some kind of lab, where Eric is arguing with Chris over the fact that they will need to kill a girl to get a head for… the body of Daryl’s girlfriend! Daryl is alive, in a Frankenstein’s monster kind of way, and he’s lonely, so he picks Cordelia (I mean, who wouldn’t?) from the line-up while Eric sings “My Girl” because he is absolutely that gross.
After Willow figures out what we already know, a.k.a. a fresh head is needed, Buffy heads to Chris’ house, where she finds his sad sack of a mom, who is glued to the TV showing Daryl’s old games. Yikes. In the basement, she discovers the plans to use Cordelia’s head as Daryl watches from the shadows. She manages to race back to Sunnydale to save Cordelia from being kidnapped by Chris and Eric, but later during the game, Daryl (mourning his former high school glory) still manages to snatch her and take her to a lab in an abandoned building where Eric is all set to operate. Buffy arrives once again to save the day, but Daryl sure has a lot of strength for a dead guy, and they end up accidentally starting a fire during their fight. Giles and Willow pull an unconscious Eric out (is he really worth saving?), while Xander scores a hero moment and saves Cordelia. Chris is able to get Daryl to stop fighting, but instead of surrendering, he runs into the flames to cradle the body of his would-be girlfriend and burns up. Yeesh!
Fortunately, the episode concludes on a positive note, with Ms. Calendar informing Giles that she wants a second date (yay!) and Cordelia trying to thank Xander for saving her life–of course, he doesn’t really register that because he’s too busy talking to Willow about why they never have dates. Bringing together the sweetness of Giles and Jenny’s date and the ickiness of this whole Frankenstein situation, Willow concludes, “Love makes you do the wacky,” a line that Buffy later repeats to Angel in this swoony final scene where Angel explains his jealousy towards Xander:
Angel: He’s in your life. He gets to be there when I can’t. Take your classes, eat your meals, hear your jokes and complaints. He gets to see you in the sunlight.
Buffy: I don’t look that good in direct light.
Angel: It’ll be morning soon.
Buffy: I should probably go. I could walk you home.
Buffy takes his arm, and they walk out of the cemetery together.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
14
Vamps Dusted
1
Football Giles for Life
Stylish Yet Affordable Boots
I don’t know why I’m so offended by Willow’s patchwork blouse BUT I AM. Especially because it shows up again in at least one more episode. Why did the costume department decide to recycle this top of ALL the things in Willow’s (admittedly terrible) wardrobe? This question haunts me.
So, how do you feel about the show’s exploration of Buffy’s emotional baggage from being the Slayer and her PTSD from dying? And on a lighter note, how cute are Giles and Ms. Calendar?!!
Tune in next week for one of the best episodes of Season Two, “School Hard” (HI SPIKE!!), followed by “Inca Mummy Girl” (HI OZ!!).
