Buffy the Vampire Slayer S01 E03 – These are spirit fingers.

Previously: Despite a truly masterful plan that involved clearly marking the vampire Buffy needed to kill, the Master did not manage to break free from his churchy-prison-lair. It was quite a welcome to Sunnydale for Buffy, and really, for us all.
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Witch

Lorraine: Seriously, K and I aren’t going to do a post per episode. Probably. We’re really trying! But, I mean, here’s a post for one episode:

I was never a cheerleader. I could attribute this to my two left feet, distaste for most group activities and propensity for alienating people, but the truth is that I never tried cheerleading because my mother deemed the skirts too short, and we all know short skirts are the devil.

K: I was never a cheerleader, because we don’t do that shit in Australia.

And also because of all the reasons Lor said. (Except for my mother thinking short skirts were the devil. She grew up in the 1960s and so was ALL about the short skirts…)

Lor: Laugh if you will, but welcome to episode three of Buffy, in which we basically learn that short skirts are the devil. Or something like that.

We open with Giles getting his Watcher on, lecturing Buffy on “enslaving” herself to a “cult.” We pan over to Buffy who is wearing what I imagine a cheerleader Halloween costume looked like before Halloween became Whore-loween.

Then:

Now:

K: I miss the 90s…

Lor: Anyhow, Buffy gives a big spiel about wanting to do something NORMAL and SAFE, meaning that our danger-of-the-week will be a Devil Cheerleader. ‘Cause of foreshadowing and all.

Oh, look, here’s a cauldron and evil goo and a Voodoo Barbie dressed as a cheerleader and a shadowy figure to boot. Cool.

K: I’ve always wanted to know if the shadowy figure went out to buy the Barbies specially to put in the cauldron, or if she already had them. I can just picture the scene in Toys R Us: “Does this look sufficiently like a Sunnydale cheerleading uniform, or will I have to make a new one when I get home for my evil cauldron of goo to accept the Barbie offering?” (aka I think too much about random shit)

Lor: Back at Sunnydale High, a group of girls are getting reading to try out. As soon as I saw all the back flips and cartwheels and stuff, I thought, “Buffy is going to OWN this shit,” because of her super Slayer gymnastics moves. FYI: this is not the case. I don’t understand why.

K: Seriously. I mean, I get that you have a (not so) secret identity, Buffy. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use your super Slayer gymnastics moves to wow the bitchy cheerleaders!

Lor: It’s not like anyone would see her back flips and think, “clearly she’s a vampire slayer.” Especially when everyone chalked up all the Harvest happenings to GANGS and PCP.

We meet a cheer-hopeful and her name is Amy and she used to be fat. We can’t mention fat people on SS and not link back to the amazing story of fat!Robin in Sweet Valley High. Seriously. Click that link and read it. It’ll make you laugh and want chocolate.

Amy says that she’s been training an ex-lard-ton for cheerleading because back in the day her mother was the cheer-tator. A Bring it On reference was required.

K: Bring It On references are ALWAYS required.

Lor: That sentence is probably why we’re friends, K.

We watch a little bit of a random girl’s tryout and she’s doing really well… until her hands spontaneously combust. Buffy thinks on her feet and puts the flames out.

The gang all consults Giles i.e the flaming hands, and his advice is all vague and non-helpful. Xander and Willow offer Buffy their help and she’s all, “I don’t want to put you all in scary cheer danger.” Xander then says, “I laugh in the face of danger. And then I hide until it goes away.”

Actually… that sounds like me. I laugh when I get scared or nervous or generally if I’m not sure how to react. It’s an awesome trait if you ever want to create highly awkward situations.

K: Xander should really have stuck to this approach throughout the next seven years. #justsaying.

Lor: The next day at even more try-outs, oncefat!Amy flubs a move and crashes into Cordelia. This makes Cordelia panic, so I approve.

K: So do we all.

Lor: Amy is distraught over her performance and is conveniently hanging out by a trophy case so that we can get a little back-story on her: mom was a great cheerleader, mom and dad were homecoming king and queen, they got married, dad left when she was 12, mom is a control freak now.

The cheer-results are posted sometime after this and Xander goes to check out the list for Buffy and Amy. Cordelia made the team but Buffy is first alternate and Amy is third. Amy is not happy.

We visit the Cauldron o’ Goo again and the shadowy figure is being witch-y with it. Shadowy Figure casts a spell that offers up Cordelia as a sacrifice. Is Cordy going to be a victim for each freak of the week? Because she’s bitchy, but damn.

K: Yup, pretty much. I guess Charisma Carpenter was the best at realistic screaming on cue?

Lor: At school the next day, Cordelia isn’t acting like herself. Buffy doesn’t even notice Xander trying to ask her out on a date (K: LOL) because she’s noticing Cordelia.

Cordy walks out to her driver’s ed class and tells the instructor she isn’t feeling well. The instructor is all, “poo poo! Please, get in the car and let me put my life in your hands.” This turns out to be the wrong choice because Cordelia’s vision goes fuzzy, and I guess her ability to locate the brake pedal gets, uh, fuzzy too. She peels out in reverse taking out a completely innocent fence in the process.

K: Poor fence. It will become apparent in later episodes that Cordy’s driving abilities are pretty much on a par with Cher Horowitz’s. Even when she *doesn’t* have fuzzy vision…

Lor: Buffy is on hand when Cordelia gets out of the car to regain composure and a UPS truck comes straight for them.

K: Apparently the UPS driver ALSO has fuzzy vision, because girl standing in middle of road when you’re like a hundred metres away = don’t bother applying the brakes.

Lor: Good catch. I guess fuzzy break vision was contagious.

Buffy saves Cordy, but she doesn’t manage to save her fuzzy vision which has now become no-pupil-vision.

In the Wiggens Library, the Scoobies deduce that someone is targeting cheerleaders and immediately suspect oncefat!Amy.

K: Well, obviously. She used to be fat.

Lor: They want to prove this theory somehow, so Willow suggests checking out some books on witchcraft, since they are in the ‘brary and all. Xander’s all, “whoooopsies” because he’s a CREEP and has actually checked out every single witchcraft book because they have some semi-nude pictures in them? WHAT IS HE TWELVE?

K: Pretty much, yes. And it’s creepier than that. Because they’re not semi-nude pictures. They’re semi-nude ENGRAVINGS.

We also find out that Xander’s name is really Alexander, and yet because of the rules of Sunnydale (1. No normal names allowed; 2. No matter what craziness happens, it’s just a gas leak/gang on drugs), he’s not known as “Alex.”

Lor: Giles has luckily found a witch identification spell. He reads the ingredients and then the instructions: Heat ingredients and apply to witch.

LOL.

K: Best. Instructions. EVER.

Lor: Anyhow, if the concoction turns blue when applied, it means she’s pregnant. Wait, no, a witch.

Buffy manages to spill the stuff on oncefat!Amy and it turns blue. Mazal Tov!

At that moment, another cheerleader in the room falls victim to the shenans. Her mouth gets sealed shut together which is an effective way to get her off the team. Personally I would’ve gone with something like a “sprained ankle.” But, you know. I like to keep things simple.

K: Yet another reason why we were never cheerleaders, Lor. We don’t think big enough with our sabotage plans…

Lor: We follow oncefat!Amy all the way to her house where she’s really mean to her mom. She takes a moment to clarify her evil plans for us: she’s taking out cheerleaders and Buffy is now all that stands between her and the team. She’s snatched Buffy’s bracelet (one that Xander gave her) and is heading up to her cheer-limination headquarters and cauldron o’goo.

Buffy wakes up the next day and she’s on some other shit. Like some really good stuff. She’s bouncing around and inexplicably singing “Macho Man.” This is worse than cloudy pupils AND a sealed mouth everyone!

K: She also gets REALLY excited about juice, and lets slip to her mum that she’s a vampire slayer. But conveniently, Joyce isn’t paying attention, and thinks she’s just being a weirdo teenager.

Lor: Hyper Buffy means that her Buffy Brawn is a little out of control. She manages to toss the head cheerleader across the gym at one point, getting herself cheer-liminated. That means Amy has made it! She’s in.

Xander and Willow drag Buffy out of the gym to the Wiggins Library.

She’s crashing and Giles explains that she’s under a spell meant to kill her. I’m not sure why it first made her hyper, but okay. They need Amy’s spell book to reverse it.

Giles and Buffy go to Amy’s house and Amy’s mom Catherine opens the door. Giles explains that Amy’s up to no good. Catherine tries to shoo them away and at some point during the exchange Buffy realizes that they are talking to Amy! Catherine and Amy have switched bodies because her middle aged mother wanted to be a cheerleader again that badly.

K: I feel like we need to mention that Buffy works it out because Catherine is eating an entire plate of brownies. She quickly determines that this is only something that oncefat!Amy would do, and joins the dots to body swapping.

Lor: As one would.

Giles breaks into the Cheer-limination headquarters and finds all the green goo and Voodoo Barbies. He collects what he needs and with Amy-as-her-mother-Catherine in tow, they head back to school.

Once there, Giles puts Buffy on a science lab table and starts preparing the potion to undo what Catherine-as-her-daughter-Amy did. As Giles is saying the magic words and stuff, Catherine-as-Amy can sense that something is happening. She falls off the top of a cheer pyramid and stalks out of the gym to find out what the heck is happening. (K: Side note – why would you put your third alternate ON TOP of the pyramid? That seems a little foolish to me.) Willow and Xander try to stop her but that lasts about 1 second. She keeps hallway stalking and picks up an axe on the way.

Giles is getting to the end of his spell when Catherine-as-Amy breaks into the science lab with her axe. She’s about to chop her some Buffy when suddenly the spell is complete and mother and daughter switch back into their proper bodies.

Catherine is not happy about this and starts flinging around threats and tables and people. She shoots a spell Buffy’s way but thankfully there is a large mirror above her head. In a science lab. Just a mirror, chilling there conveniently. She flips that down and the spell bounces off of it and hits Catherine.

I’M RUBBER, YOU’RE GLUE. WHATEVER YOU SAY BOUNCES OFF OF ME AND STICKS TO YOU. BOOYAH.

K: My younger brother, despite the fact that he’s about to celebrate his twenty-seventh birthday, still does a version of this. Only more direct: “So’s your face.” I feel like Buffy could have used it here while flipping the giant mirror down.

Lor: Catherine screams and vanishes. Buffy checks that everyone is okay, Xander and Willow show up super late and all is right with the world.

The next day, Buffy’s mom is blah-blahing about not being able to understand her daughter. Buffy asks her mom if she’d ever want to be 16 again and her mom is all, “LOL NO.” Buffy appreciates that her mom won’t be body snatching her any time soon and gives her a peck.

At school, Amy is telling us about living with her dad and how awesome that is. Amy and Buffy pass the trophy case again, wondering what happened to Amy’s mom and Amy’s all, “whatevs. No big. See ya sucker.” I guess losing your witch-y mom is really easy to get over.

K: Somewhere in here, Cordy turns up and gives Amy and Buffy the equivalent of the Nelson Muntz “HA-HA” because they’re back to being alternates. Amy replies with “Well, I know that I’ll miss the intellectual thrill of spelling out words with my arms,” and Cordy stalks off. Ooooh, SNAP.

Lor: They walk away and Amy says she’s thinking of getting fat again. Good plan, girl. I support it entirely. I mean not really getting fat, but you know, chocolate and artificial sugars and stuff.

We close on a close-up of a cheerleading trophy and suddenly Amy’s mom’s eyes appear in the trophy and we get some muffled screaming.

Um, kay.

Two things:

1.) I was not a big fan of this episode. I’m still not overly impressed by the series, other than some of the dialogue which makes me giggle. The plots so far are pretty terrible.

Seriously, a witch strong enough to blind people and fling them around rooms is going to use that on BEING A CHEERLEADER? BEING SIXTEEN AGAIN? HIGH SCHOOL? FOR REALZ?

K: DUDE. I just realized something. Catherine was totally the Edward Cullen of Buffy. Has the chance to do amazing things with her life and her powers? Chooses to go back to high school again.

Lor: 2.) I present to all you the horrible outfits of the episode. I’ve decided to give them as a parting gift instead of getting all shouty about it mid-post:

Buffy: 16 year old high school student?

No, girl. I don’t know what you’re wearing either.

That combination confuses me too.

Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The new substitute teacher at Sunnydale really bugs. Find out how in S01 E04 – Teacher’s Pet.

Marines (all posts)

I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.

K (all posts)

I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.