Previously: It’s really not worth recapping the demon-bot story because it’s the worst of the eight episodes we have recapped so far. The Snark Squad does not approve of that awful internet stranger danger PSA.
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The Puppet Show
Sweeney: I’m really glad this is my first recap because I genuinely love this episode for its fantastic level of campy ridiculousness. Also, I made my little sister start watching Buffy too, and I spent 30% of the episode laughing at her terror. My notes include updates on her panic-attack levels.
Sister of the year award, obviously.
The episode begins with a creepy disembodied voice saying, “I WILL BE WHOLE AGAIN,” while a ballerina warms up.
Kirsti: Hey Sweeney, did you find it a little Not Quite Right that the episode basically opened with a shot of the ballerina’s crotch accompanied by a creepy voiceover, or was that just me? I swear to God, you guys. This is the opening shot:
Sweeney: Oh, yes! Super awkward. Thank you for sharing it with us again.
There’s also a creepy ass dummy, and this is where my sister first lost her shit and turned to me all, “No. Just no This is unacceptable.” Her fear of dolls was a win for me!
We then learn that it is talent show time at Sunnydale! And thanks to a visit from the contrivance fairy, the new awesomely creeptastic principal Snyder (you know, after the last one was eaten?) decided to force Giles to be the faculty in charge of the talent show.
K: I’m inclined to not blame Snyder for this. Giles sure as hell hasn’t done much in the way of work up until this point, y’all.
Sweeney: Aside from spending an inappropriate amount of time with three students, anyway. I think helping the sensitive-poetry-liking kid was the only actual librarian task he has performed.
Cordelia takes a break from her usual screaming in lieu of some horrendous, delusional singing. Buffy and friends mock Giles mercilessly, and Principal Snyder overhears and decides to be extra creepy whilst telling them that they are also now obligated to participate. They only fret over this a little, but it’s an obvious source of stress given that Buffy’s only talents are witty banter and vampire slaying; Willow is bookish and shy; and Xander is just generally useless.
Whedon amusingly has his actors deliver lines insulting acting; they suggest that a dramatic reading is the lone option that doesn’t actually require a talent.
Meanwhile, we cut back to the stage and there is a kid doing an A+ ventriloquist routine, where his dummy is making fun of him, and is also a total pervert.
K: Who doesn’t love being hit on by a ventriloquist dummy? Oh, right. EVERYONE EVER.
Sweeney: My decision to like Principal Snyder, in spite of his being nothing more than a pawn of the Contrivance Fairy for his entire existence in Sunnydale, begins with his deadpan declaration to Giles that he’s going to be a total prick of a principal because any other way would be, “The kind of woolly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten.” He makes several offhand remarks about the demise of his predecessor and I support them all (K: Cosign).
We are then properly introduced to the demonic force of the episode with our first death. Dancer girl is totes dead, having had her heart ripped out. However, she was killed with a knife, and demons all have claws, right? So this could just be a normal human murderer, and not a demon.
Willow’s all, “It could be anyone! It could be me!” Awkward pause. “It’s not, though.” Because she’s precious.
Buffy is not having any of this. HELLMOUTH, GUYS! Unfortunately, nobody really listens to her, now or at any point up until about ten minutes before the episode ends when they decide that they’d like to be not dead and should therefore listen to Buffy. But we’ll get to that later.
They decide to investigate the murder anyway, even though everyone but Buffy believes it to be non-mystical in source. Given the fact that everyone in Sunnydale has to constantly forget or explain away 95% of things and dismiss random deaths, it’s probably a safe bet that Sunnydale PD is useless, so this is actually a solid choice, independent of the larger fact that Buffy is right and the gang is wrong. (Oh, sorry, spoiler alert?)
K: Let’s be fair – 99.9% of the time, Buffy is right and the Sunnydale PD are wrong.
Sweeney: They interview people who knew or recently spoke to the dancer girl whose name I didn’t bother to write down, and everyone says the last person she spoke to was nerdy Morgan, the kid with the dummy.
Buffy goes directly to Morgan and overhears him talking to his dummy. They then have a weird, awkward conversation, where the dummy does most of the talking. After Morgan puts it away, Buffy apologizes for making Morgan angry, to which he replies, “It’s not me, it’s him!”
The gang conclude, as people who weren’t in Sunnydale and associated with the vampire slayer would, that he’s just crazy. However, as neither of those things are true for them, their continued refusal to listen to Buffy is just annoying.
Buffy breaks into his locker and then Principal Snyder creeps up on her. We all know why Buffy is running around the school halls well after everyone has gone home, but there’s really no reason for Snyder to still be there hanging out, other than the fact that he is creepy. This isn’t really plot relevant, but it lays out the general character of Principal Snyder.
His presence is required so that he can tell Buffy that the three things he will not tolerate are: (1) Students loitering on campus; (2) Terrible murders with hearts ripped out; and (3) Smoking.
K: I’ll take “Reasons why Snyder is hilarious” for $2000, Alex. I also feel the need to point out that Buffy’s outfit in this scene deserves all of the ho suspensions ever:
HONEY. YOUR JACKET IS AS LONG AS YOUR UGLY ASS LEOPARD PRINT DRESS. THIS IS NOT OKAY.
Sweeney: I forgot to even mention all of the hatred my sister has for Buffy’s extensive collection of ugly-animal-print clothing. That was just a lot less lolzy than her hyperventilating.
Buffy insists that she needed to grab something out of her friend’s case, referring to the dummy case, which unfortunately turns out to be empty. Buffy obviously finds this suspicious, though this detail will also be irrelevant to the gang.
We cut to Morgan and the dummy spying on this whole exchange. Then, back on the stage, they are conversing again, and Morgan is all, “NO! I CAN’T DO THIS! NO MORE!” And Sid, the pervy dummy, says, “ONE MORE! I’LL BE FREE! YOU SAW HOW STRONG SHE IS!”
Later that night, Buffy loses her shit and starts screaming because the pervy dummy was in her house, in her bed, but he sneaks back out the window by the time Joyce comes in to see why her daughter is screaming.
At this point I have enjoyed many laughs at my sister’s expense, but she feels vindicated and points out, “See! Even the vampire slayer is afraid.”
So then I apologized and stopped laughing. LOLJK.
Back at school the next day Cordelia is pestering Giles about the talent show lineup and Giles employs a tactic suggested by Xander and makes her go away by preying on her insecurities, which seems like a dickish move for a grown man to pull on a sixteen-year-old girl.
K: True. But the sixteen year old girl in question is Cordy, who’s an uber-bitch and DOES have an overzealous obsession with her hair being perfect, so I’m kind of okay with it.
Sweeney: GROWN ASS MAN. SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL. NO.
Buffy tries to tell them all about the previous night, but they continue to ignore her and are now simply calling her crazy. This damn near sent my sister into a fit of rage, complete with yelling at the fictional television characters.
Fortunately, Giles does eventually come up with a demon explanation for the death – there are demons who are crazy strong and can pass as teenagers and need to steal body parts in order to stay hidden. This kind of rules out Morgan, though, because he has been getting weaker (and less mentally stable).
In class, the puppet sasses a teacher, so she takes it away from Morgan, who gets super panicky about it and suffers serious separation anxiety from his puppet, though still only Buffy seems of the opinion that something supernatural is afoot.
When Buffy finds the gang again later, Xander has stolen Sid the pervy dummy from the teacher’s cabinet. How he did this, I do not know, because Xander’s moments of competency are so few (K: And often offscreen). Regardless, he’s banging the dummy around like a toy and Buffy is wigging out.
This leaves Buffy to talk to Morgan alone, and the gang to do more library research. Xander and the dummy are left alone. (My sister does not approve.)
K: Librarian-in-training Kirsti feels the need to mention Willow’s parting line: “Once again, I’m banished to the demon section of the card catalogue.” a) Card catalogue = LOL FOREVER, b) how in the hell did no one ever think it was weird that the high school library had a section on demons?, and c) because I get curious about things like this, I looked it up and there *is* actually a Dewey call number for the heading ‘demons’. In case you’re also curious, it’s 235.47. WHO KNEW???? </librarian nerdiness>
Sweeney: Of all the things that you think Sunnydale residents should question, I can’t agree with you on the oddity of the high school library’s demon section. In fact, I’m more confused as to why more residents of Sunnydale weren’t investigating that demon section. Or the inexplicable size of their public high school library.
(But I seriously love you for looking up “demons” in the Dewey decimal system.)
Buffy goes looking for Morgan backstage, where it’s all empty and dimly lit. (Never mind the fact that this is the day of the talent show, so you think there would be someone around.) This is, of course, the ideal time and setting for Principal Snyder to show up. He creepily tells Buffy that given recent events, it’s probably not a good idea to be wandering around alone, and then promptly leaves her alone.
Back in the library, Willow comes up with a doll demon that harvests organs, leading the gang to finally decide that Buffy might not be crazy. Then the dummy goes missing.
Buffy finds Morgan all dead and without a brain. Then a giant chandelier falls and pins her down, and out pops Sid the pervy dummy trying to stab her. Given that her arms are immobile, I am unclear on how he was so unsuccessful here, but I guess the logistics of the dummy’s movements are, in general, a thing that defies explanation.
Somehow, Buffy gets free and just as she’s about to end the dummy, they have their obligatory pre-dusting witty banter, which goes as follows:
StPD: All right, you win.
B: Yeah, and now you’ll never be human.
StPD: Yeah, well neither will you.
They both share a WTF moment before we cut back to the library where Sid the Pervy Dummy is explaining to us that he is a demon hunter who has been trapped in this form by a curse. This demon (the one that Giles first guessed they were dealing with) is the last of its kind that Sid has to kill in order to be free. However, now that it has Morgan’s brain, it has all its parts and will be moving on.
Sid the Pervy Dummy suggests that Giles go start the talent show (to which Giles is all, “Oh, shit! Talent show! My bad!”) with a power circle and see who is missing, because that’s their likely demon.
Buffy and Sid hang out and chat, and we learn that because Sid is old, he won’t have a body to return to, so being free from his curse also equals being dead, which is NBD for Sid because he’s really sick of being a dummy. (K: Who wouldn’t be??) He then hits on Buffy, to which my sister declares, “See – still creepy. Different kind, but pedo-bear dummy is still fucking creepy.” Fair.
Unfortunately nobody is missing from the power circle.
I wasn’t paying attention, so I don’t remember what contrivance reason we used to find ourselves with Willow hacking into school records, but we do and for some equally magical contrivance fairy reason, we come to Morgan’s file and learn that the kid had brain cancer! Womp womp.
K: I can fill in the blank here. Buffy goes looking for Sid backstage, and a brain falls on her. Which she then drops on the floor, because ew, and IT BOUNCES. Which never fails to make me LOL. Anyway, this leads them to wonder why the demon rejected Morgan’s brain seeing as how he’s super smart and all. Or was…
Sweeney: I stand by my explanation.
So the demon is still around, looking for a smart person. At first they decide it would be Willow, until they remember that Giles is absent. This whole episode is a giant game of, “Wait, who is not in the room with us right now?”
They sprint off to the stage, where in a very Nancy-Drew-like fashion, nameless magician kid from the talent show has conned Giles into allowing himself to be strapped to his guillotine thing. (K: Seriously – who the hell okayed the idea of a GUILLOTINE in a high school talent show???) (Giles.) Buffy shows up and kicks the kid out of the way as he is sawing off the rope that holds up the blade, though the rope is now on the verge of breaking. Just as it’s about to go, Xander shows up and does his once-every-few-episodes useful thing by grabbing the rope before it falls. He and Willow spend the duration of the demon-fighting holding the rope and freeing Giles.
Buffy is doing well against the demon, but he suddenly gets the upper hand and it’s not looking good for her when Sid suddenly shows up, after having gone missing earlier for no reason other than to appear suspicious again for a brief moment.
Sid stabs the demon’s heart and then goes limp. Buffy picks him up and the curtain opens, to this absurd scene. Principal Snyder sits in the audience wondering if it is some sort of weird avant garde piece that he just doesn’t understand.
K: Hands down my favourite thing about this episode happens in the closing credits – Buffy, Willow and Xander’s dramatic reading of Oedipus Rex, during which Buffy uses her “Oh God, is this over yet? I’m SO bored” voice, Xander forgets his lines and just repeats a bunch of words at random, and Willow runs off-stage because people are looking at her. All while dressed like this:
Sweeney: Buffy is clearly pissed about having to be so covered up.
Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Nightmares come true in Sunnydale. Like, more nightmares than living on a Hellmouth. Find out what the Scoobies fear in S01 E10 – Nightmares.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
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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