Previously: A super powerful witch uses her powers to go back to being a cheerleader in high school. Because that’s pretty much what we’d all use witch-y powers for, am I right?
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Teacher’s Pet
Lorraine: We start this episode with a peak into Xander’s weird, testosterone-douched dream. In it, Buffy can’t handle herself against a vampire, but Xan comes to the rescue. He throws the vamp around easily and flings around cheesy one liners. After the vampire is staked, he hops up on stage to finish playing a song. Sure, no one mind the vampire dust. Please, delight in my electric guitar cords.
Kirsti: Ugh, Xander’s stupid “mmmm, Buffy” dreams are THE WORST. Mostly because Buffy turns into a helpless damsel in distress.
Lor: I hope you realized you’ve just ruined my life by informing me that there are MORE of these dreams. Thanks so much.
Buffy wakes a drooling Xander up, because they are actually in some sort of biology class, which is weird, because Xander recently mentioned having a chemistry course. Sunnydale, please, get your curriculum in check. (K: Things I have never noticed despite seeing this episode about ten times? THIS.) Even though Xander was the one sleeping, when the teacher calls on Buffy, she’s completely lost.
Teacher asks for ways ants communicate and Willow tries to mime Buffy the answers. Willow touches Xander and Buffy guesses, “touch!” Willow sniffs Xander and Buffy guesses, “B.O.?”
I don’t know whether to laugh harder at how stupid Buffy is or at poor, poor Xander. Probably Xander.
K: I always laugh at Xander. Primarily because season 1 Xander is lame.
Lor: The teacher pulls Buffy aside after class and has a little heart to heart with her. It’s pretty nice of him to reassure her even though she did totally burn the gymnasium down at her last school. I’m wondering if we are going to hear about that in every episode, though. I sure hope so! You all know how much I just LOVE repetition.
K: Nah. By season 3, she’s done so much damage to her house, the school, and Sunnydale in general that no one remembers she burned down the gym. The concussions people keep getting sure do come in handy!
Lor: Because this teacher is actually not so bad, you just know bad things are going to happen to him. And they do, when a little while and some creepy music later, a giant insect tentacle grabs him from behind.
After the credits we’re at the Bronze. Buffy spots Angel in da club, and she goes to speak to him. They have a typical Buffy and Angel conversation. In the spirit of recapping, it goes a little something like this:
Angel: Brood, brood, brood.
Buffy: Sarcasm aaaah!
Angel: Cryptic warning issued.
Buffy: Sarcasm aaaah!
Angel: I have to go.
Buffy: Sarcasm aaaah!
K: I think you mean “FLIRT sarcasm aaaaah!” Lor. Because despite saying, “I really didn’t like him” in the pilot, she’s apparently decided that Angel is a dreamboat between then and now.
Lor: Well, I should mention that David Boreanaz takes off his jacket during this particular exchange and say wuh?! I didn’t know that 1997 David had it going on that way! Angel: less velvet jackets. More wife beaters. Kay, thanks.
K: Yeah, okay. I’d probably decide he was a dreamboat too.
Lor: It’s too bad that this lovely view is ruined by some ugly gashes on Angel’s arm. Buffy snarks that it looks like he was attacked by a giant fork and Angel warns that the fork monster may attack her too.
K: It always puzzles me that Buffy isn’t all “DUDE. YOU CANNOT SERIOUSLY EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THERE’S A *FORK* MONSTER. Can you quit being cryptic for 30 seconds and construct a decent warning?” But I guess that would take the mystery out of their relationship or something…
Lor: Or something.
Buffy relays the cryptic warning i.e. Fork Guy to Giles. However, the kiddies are soon distracted by the news that the nice teacher from the beginning of the episode, Dr. Gregory, is missing.
Xander is further distracted by some female hotness walking into school and asking for directions. Xander is useless and can’t even manage to tell her where the science class is. While the exchange between Xander and female hotness is pretty stupid, the looks shared between Buffy and Willow make me want to ship them. Is that a thing?
Turns out that the female hotness Xander encountered is the new substitute teacher Natalie French. She continues their lesson on insects, focusing on the praying mantis. Buffy calls them “bug-ugly” and French gets all, “nuh UH IT IS NOBLE AND BEAUTIFUL AND THE BEST EVAR!!”
So, uh, I swear to you I haven’t seen the rest of this episode yet, but I’m going to guess mysterious new substitute teacher is a giant praying mantis. I’m also going to secretly hope that Whedon & co. get better at subtlety. And by better I mean, “OW, WHEDON. THAT’S MY HEAD YOU ARE BEATING WITH FORESHADOWING.”
K: Season 1 of Buffy is…not great. I promise you, it does get better. And then worse. And then better again. Ish.
Lor: Wow. That really inspired confidence, K. Thanks some more.
The Scooby Gang is in the lunch line and as soon as Buffy picks up a cardboard lunch tray, my stomach cringes. School lunch, ewwww. Sunnydale school lunch is actually the worst of all time because as it turns out, a decapitated Dr. Gregory is stuffed inside one of the refrigerators.
K: Predictably, it’s Cordy that finds him, allowing Charisma Carpenter to scream, as is apparently required once an episode in her contract.
Lor: At the Wiggins Library, the Scoobies are sad. I would be too if Science Teacher were on the menu. Giles shares some info about another murder that’s happened in town that appears to be at the hand of a fork. It isn’t clear to the gang whether they are dealing with fork guy AND the teacher killer or if fork guy did the teacher killing. Giles asks Buffy not to do anything rash.
In the next scene, it’s dark and she’s wearing her “doing something” ponytail with her “rash” leather jacket. Oh, Buffy.
Some weird Friday-the-13th type guy with a claw for a hand jumps out. He’s all “claw, claw, claw” but Buffy fends him off until a group of police appear and shout, “STOP POLICE!” Which makes no one stop, ever. Fork Guy runs away. I’m not sure why the police are there at all, except to give Fork a chance to run away.
K: I feel like Angel could have been more clear about the fact that the fork is less of a fork and more of a gardening implement. Or maybe a nineteenth century toasting fork?
Not this.
Kind of like this?
Or like this with less crumpets
Because let’s face it – a dude with a kitchen fork for a hand? Not really that scary. Dude with a huge claw for a hand? I would run the fuck away.
Lor: Having a fork for a hand might be pretty convenient though. You could have a meal anytime.
Fork Guy doesn’t let getting beat up by Buffy one second ago slow him down. He finds a woman to follow around but she turns out to be the female hotness substitute. Fork Guy gets one look at her, freaks out and runs the heck away. Buffy’s curiosity is piqued. Why would hotness scare scary 19th Century Toaster Hand Guy?
Buffy is running late to science class the next day and when she peeks in the window, she sees the creepy sub turn her neck all the way around, exorcist style. Buffy, Willow and Giles are on it.
Meanwhile, the sub has asked Xander to work on some project for the science fair. Conveniently, female hotness left all her papier-mache supplies at home and invites Xander to come over that night. Also: homegirl eats a mayonnaise and cricket sandwich. DIS.GUS.TING.
K: I love that she takes the grasshoppers (cricket = a sport) out of a Tupperware container marked “FOOD.” God, you’re so sneaky, Female Hotness Substitute.
This whole exchange also makes me curious about American schooling, because we sure as hell didn’t make papier-mache insect eggs in Year 10. Grade 5, maybe. Year 10? LOL, nope, go write an essay.
Lor: For the love of God, do not base your knowledge of the American school system on Sunnydale High School. Give us that benefit, please.
Also, I went to Wikipedia to prove that cricket = insect, but when you type “cricket” in Wikipedia, it takes you to the sport page first. Touche, non-Americans. Touche.
Buffy tries to warn Xander about the female hotness being less than human, but the long and short of it is that he’s an idiot.
So, he goes to the female hotness sub’s house that night despite Buffy’s warnings. Female Hotness is being all gross and cougar-y, and it makes me very uncomfortable. She drugs Xander and then drags him away with her tentacle hands. She is in fact a giant praying mantis. Next we see Xander he’s in a cage.
In the Wiggins Library, the remaining Scoobies are putting together the details of what they are now calling the She-mantis. I like that better than calling her female hotness anymore seeing as how she’s a huge bug. Praying mantis kill by chopping off their mate’s head, and this causes Willow to fuh-reak out. She inexplicably finds Xander’s head adorable.
The She-mantis takes Xan out of the cage and is about to mate with him and lay eggs.
K: Other things I have never understood? How the GIANT PRAYING MANTIS had the dexterity to put Xander into restraints. Did she change back to her human form? If so, why couldn’t Xander overpower her? Did she have the other captured teenage boy do it?
Lor: Buffy, Willow and Giles are trying to find the She-matis’ house. B decides to use the Fork Guy vampire as a sort of radar…? Because he gets scared when he’s near the She-matis? So she finds him, ties him up and pushes him around yelling, “where is she? where is she?”
The fuck?
I think that at this point, they just want to show Buffy kill a vampire so we remember why this is called, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
When Fork Guy gets aggressive, Buffy kills him. And there it is.
They find the lair o’ She-mantis and Buffy does a lot of Ass Kicking Exposition. She also sprays bug spray in the She-mantis eyes! Basically this turned into a Raid commercial, WTF?
K: Someone once told me that anything that hurts if you accidentally get it in your eye will kill a bug. This is how I once ended up killing a cockroach with hand sanitiser. I kind of wish Buffy had gone with NOT bug spray, because much more amusing.
Lor: Buffy has other insect killing tricks: She had Giles record some bat sonar. When mantises hear bat sonar their nervous system goes cray, thus allowing Buffy to chop up the She-mantis with a machete of some sort. Bad guy? Exterminated.
We stop at the Bronze at some point post-killing long enough to get another visit from Angel. He brood-thanks Buffy for killing Fork Guy and Buffy sarcastic-asks for a better way to keep in touch with him. Angel brood-smiles and walks away. Buffy knows her vagina- I MEAN HEART- is in trouble.
Mmmhmm, girl. Been there.
We end the episode with a classic horror movie type-ending. We pan away only to see that there are She-Mantis eggs left in the science lab. One hatches.
DUN DUN DUN!
Except not.
K: I like the way they set this up for Buffy going into the sewers one day and suddenly coming face to face with a giant praying mantis again. But clearly even Whedon realised it was totally lame and never went back there.
Lor: Lesson of the episode: Never agree to do a science fair project.
K: TRUTH. Especially if it involves papier-mache. It’s dangerous, yo.
Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy just wants to date like a normal girl, but that doesn’t really work out for her in S01 E05 – Never Kill a Boy on the First Date.
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.
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.
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