Buffy the Vampire Slayer S03 E04 – It’s about a dog.

Previously: The arrival of Faith (!!) has left Sunnydale with two slayers. Also: naked Angel.

Beauty and the Beasts

Sweeney: The episode begins with a full moon, suggesting Oz/werewolf time. Buffy tells an ominous story involving a guy with a dark nature.

K: I love you so much, Sweeney. She’s reading “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London, and it’s about a dog. So…LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.

Sweeney: Awkward. I’ve never read it, so I didn’t know that until a few minutes later when Willow says it. Regardless, I’m glad we get to begin this episode with me having a Cordelia moment. I’ll hang my head in shame for a few paragraphs.

Story time transitions into Willow’s voice, reading aloud in the library. Werewolf!Oz smashes his library cage, and Willow stops because the story is not having its intended soothing effects.

Xander shows up and I realize that part of why I hate Xander so much is that Nicholas Brendon is so clearly thirty years old that I can’t view his douchiness as typical teenage boy douchiness. I wonder if I might have liked him more (or at least hated him less) if he were played by someone who was at least in the vicinity of Xander’s age.

K: I think this is why I hate Xander less as time goes on – Nicholas Brendon becomes more age appropriate for the role, you know?

Lor: I can’t say if The Receding Hairline is affecting me. I try to think of it and then all of Xander’s douchey lines come flooding back at me and I want to kick a puppy, so then, I have to stop thinking about.

Sweeney: ANYWAY. Willow passes off werewolf watching duties to Señor Douche. There are towels up so that Oz can put his clothes on in the morning and they have a funny conversation about how the towels are there for Willow’s benefit because she’s still adjusting to half-naked Oz. Xander gets almost adorably protective of Willow.

Willow thanks Xander who assures her that it’s nothing and he can count on her. Unsurprisingly, as soon as Willow leaves, Xander lays down on the table to go to sleep because responsibility isn’t really his thing.

Lor: If you can fall asleep in the presence of a werewolf, self-preservation isn’t really your thing.

Sweeney: Valid point.

In the cemetery, Faith and Buffy have a girl talk moment while they patrol.  Buffy points out that things are moving slowly with her boy-of-the-moment and that she’s good with slow and the lack of hellbeast. Faith gives a typically Faith speech about all men being hellbeasts of some variety.

Elsewhere in the woods, an unseen growling hellbeast of some variety is getting his murder on with a random teenage boy. Roll credits.

After credits, Buffy continues girl talk with Willow at school.

She sees the boy-of-the-moment and they’re kind of precious so I’m almost sad that he’ll have to go away soon. Not actually sad, but almost. Like, I considered the possibility of sadness.

K: Team Heartless Cow says “LOL, NOPE.”

Sweeney: We meet a couple who we have never seen before but have lots of lines in this conversation, which is how we know that they’ll be important in this episode. The girlfriend and Buffy chat about the school counselor, who the girl finds creepy and Buffy will soon have to meet.

The bell rings and Willow/Oz go to the library. Are they getting a study hall credit for this? Giles and Xander are freaking out because Giles knows about the dead student who, as it turns out, was mauled.

Lor: 

Sweeney: Favorite cameo ever.

Xander notices that the window was open and Xander mentions that he rested his eyes now and then. He does his talking-too-much thing and gives himself away as having slept all night. He gets a decent helping of Giles rage, so I don’t even feel the need to be mean to him.

Buffy meets the guidance counselor who has been in a few things, but I know him for his Disney channel roles: Lizzie McGuire’s Principal and the hotel guy in Suite Life of Zach & Cody, a show that I am probably too old to admit to having watched. This post is just an all-around winning moment for me.

K: At the risk of showing my age, I’m pretty sure the only thing I know him from is Heathers…

Sweeney: That’s a far more respectable cultural reference point. No shame, girl.

He gives Buffy a great speech about the kind of relationship they will have that I have heard variations of frequently in popular culture but never heard from any of the therapists/counselors I’ve seen. It’s another one of those “TV does it better” things, huh? Anyway, his speech about how everyone has problems and DEMONS gets to Buffy and she likes him.

The hope I bring you is: demons can be fought. People can change. You can change.

They start to talk about Buffy’s issues and she has a really hard time giving the demon-free, vague version of the story, but she manages. Angel becomes the “bad-ending guy.” She admits that he was her first and Disney Guy fills in that he changed and got mean. It’s all very deep. He gives her another motivational speech about moving on and working through her issues.

Buffy goes to the library to find the full set of Scoobies brooding over the current theory that Oz is responsible for the mauled student. Cordelia and Xander are being typically unhelpful. They divvy out tasks and put Faith on watch duty. Oz gets all moody about the fact needing a slayer to watch him. He starts to storm off, but Willow stops him. He has a great line about the necessity of storming off, but Willow points to the clock.

Oz sulks into the cage, closes the door, and tells Willow to get away from him. It’s super sad. He’s equally sad and angry and they’re helpless in this situation. My heart breaks a little for both of them.

Out in the woods, Buffy is on patrol and gets tackled by speedily moving flashes of flesh. I mean ANGEL. MY BOYFRIEND’S BACK, GUYS! I mean Buffy’s boyfriend. Buffy’s boyfriend is back.

K: I gave you a Naked!Angel gif last time, which I feel entitles me to do this: UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.

Lor: I like to think that you are keeping score at home K. One naked gif = one groan at an opportune time.

Sweeney: Groan away, because unfortunately for me, newly returned from a demon dimension is not a good look for him; he’s got this whole “I have rabies” vibe.

Buffy, meanwhile, has a serious case of WTF face as she sees Angel. They fight, and we see that he has somehow acquired pants. I’m not sure how or why. Did he steal them from the mauled boy? If so, why? I think I’m more stuck on why he chose to put pants on than how. I mean, he doesn’t seem all that present, so what exactly made him think that was a necessary step?

K: Contrivance, dude. Whedon can get away with a lot – his characters have called people a whining vagina, a baboon’s asscrack, and the stupid son of a drooling whore and a monkey – but I’m not sure that Angel Wang is something the network would have allowed.

Lor: Whatevs. Clothed Angel < Naked Angel.

Sweeney: Anyway, she manages to knock him out and we cut to the morgue where Willow is inspecting the mauled boy while Cordelia and Xander are talking about how grossed out they are and being generally useless. Actually, Xander is holding a flashlight, so there’s that. Willow faints and our One-Liner Couple point out that this doesn’t look good for Oz and that “this guy was mauled by a big, wild animal.”

SEGUE MAGIC back to Buffy acquiring chains and locking Angel up back in his former lair. He comes to about as soon as she locks him up and he thrashes about like a crazy animal.  Buffy kneels by the spot where she left her ring and continues to show us her range of confused faces, you know, because the boyfriend she destroyed with her magical vagina and then murdered has just reappeared and tried to kill her. I don’t know from personal experience, but I imagine the recovery time on that kind of information might be a bit long.

Back in the library, Faith’s turn on watch involves rocking out and dancing around the library with headphones in. This is probably one of my top five favorite Faith moments. I know there are some other awesome moments ahead and maybe I’ll demote it later, but for now, it’s in the top 5 for sure. As if Buffy’s evening hasn’t been headfucked enough, she taps Faith on the back and gets punched in the face. B’s having a rough night.

K: I love this scene so much. Like, SO MUCH. It just says worlds about Faith’s personality.

Lor: I stared on that loop way longer than I feel comfortable admitting. That’s becoming a thing around here, huh? Gif Staring.

Sweeney: Indeed. We’ll have to give a tag of its very own.

Buffy recovers and tells Faith that she’s there to give her the rest of the night off, because she can’t sleep. While misleading, this would probably be true if she actually tried. Faith runs off to do slayer stuff and Buffy pulls out the card catalog. It’s a strange thing to see Buffy do, but it’s good to know all that time in the library has done something for her.

The next morning, Giles comes into the library to find Oz sleeping in his cage and, buried away in the upstairs stacks, Buffy sleeping in a chair, reading books about demon dimensions and Acthla. She tries to play it off as though the books are Faith’s, but half-heartedly, knowing that Giles won’t buy it.

She asks him strictly HYPOTHETICAL questions, of the variety that would normally send off “This is not hypothetical” alarm bells, were this whole scenario not so wildly improbable, even by the weird often-mythology-altering parameters of this show. Anyway: she says that she “had a dream” but says she doesn’t think it’s a prophecy. I know why she keeps this all a secret, but part of me wonders why she doesn’t take this opportunity to say that it could be a prophecy, to at least prepare Giles for this information. Regardless, her questions are (1) is it possible -and- (2) what would he be like.

Giles says that it’s totally not probable, but anything is possible when Joss Whedon makes up his mythology as he goes. Or something like that. He also reiterates stuff about how the demon dimension is filled with torture and reminds us of how time moves differently there so Angel will have been there for hundreds of years so basically he’d be the crazyfaced wreck that we have already seen. They have this exchange:

Giles: It would take someone of extraordinary will and character to survive that and retain any semblance of self; most likely he’d be a monster.
Buffy: A lost cause.
Giles: Maybe. Maybe not. In my experience there are two types of monster: the first can be redeemed, or more importantly, wants to be redeemed.
Buffy: And the second type?
Giles: The second is void of humanity; cannot respond to reason or love.

K: So the second type is basically The Master from Doctor Who.

Sweeney: Buffy’s feels are showing. Willow arrives, however, giving Buffy a new place to channel her secret feels. Willow is bursting with energy and has donuts and she’s excited about them aaand it’s clear that she did not sleep well/at all. Willow asks why Buffy is awake, saying, “This time it’s not your boyfriend who’s the cold-blooded —” before being interrupted by Oz walking up. Awkward.

K: What, you don’t think adding “Jelly doughnut?” to the end of that sentence covered it up sufficiently?

Lor: Mmm, a cold-blooded jelly doughnut sounds delish right about now.

Sweeney: Willow is being evasive about the results of their demon autopsy and she gets a little pushy in her quest for information, so Giles has to shut her down and remind her that she of all people should appreciate Willow’s feels. I mean, he just says her name, but all that information is totally loaded into that line. Buffy gets the message and shuts up.

At lunch, she joins the boy and the couple whose presence still hasn’t actually been explained. The girlfriend complains about the counselor some more and the boyfriend makes fun of him. Buffy adds that she kind of liked him. The precious high school boy makes a joke about not knowing these people, which is funny because that’s what I’ve been saying all along. He then gives her a majorly cheesy line about how she looks amazing. Buffy squirms because suddenly his normal-high-school-boyness has gone from appealing to making her uncomfortable. She makes up a lame excuse and runs off.

Back at doubly undead boyfriend’s lair, he’s cowering in a corner and twinkly pianos of sadness are playing as Buffy tries to get through to him. He doesn’t respond until she touches him and he sort of lashes out before resuming his cowering, now with added growling sound effects. Buffy runs back to school.

Lor: I love this sequence of events. “My high school boyfriend is kind of lame. Let me go check my doubly undead boyfriend. SIKE. HE’S GROWLING. I’M GOING BACK TO SCHOOL.”

Sweeney: Meanwhile, it’s finally time for the random couple to explain why they’re in this episode. They sneak into a closet to make out, but it’s interrupted when he notices an empty mason jar with residue of the neon green substance that was in it. He asks her if she drank it, which she did not.

K: I know I, for one, really enjoy drinking glowing green liquids out of preserves jars that have been sitting around a high school basement/closet/workshop/THING.

Sweeney: Buffy goes to talk to the counselor and begins with a totally awesome speech in which she admits that she can’t actually talk to anybody else about this because nobody believes her and the people who would believe her would freak out if she told them. There’s nobody else she can talk to and so she’s here to talk to him and admit that she needs help. She starts crying as she admits that she’s scared and it’s so very sad. Just as she starts to explain the situation, she realizes that his cigarette has burned quite a bit without being ashed because OH WAIT HE’S DEAD. More feels and heart sads from me on Buffy’s behalf.

Back in the closet, the boyfriend starts getting angry and the girl admits that she dumped the green liquid out to help him, because “you know how you get.” He starts to get super ragey and holds up the jar, insisting that it has nothing to do with “how he gets.” He starts breaking shit and eventually turns into a legit demon as he yells at her and blames the situation on her, her stupid voice, and allegedly whoring around. He gets all red and veiny and gross. She’s crying and he starts hitting her. This is how I shall henceforth picture Christian Grey; it will give me laughs when random girls fawn over his hotness.

K: Christian Grey, ladies and gentlemen:

Lor: My notes for this episode include that I cannot come across any domestic violence without seeing/thinking Christian Grey. Glad to see we are all equally ruined.

Sweeney: He then turns back to himself and he goes to her and tries to comfort her. I would feel bad for him, what with his having a weird demony condition, but he’s a good foil for Oz, who is good. This guy, is not good. This guy sucks. Rather than apologizing for having a weird demony condition, he goes the Christian Grey route and blames his victim by saying, “You know shouldn’t make mad. You know how I get.” What a fucking tool.

Anyway, they kiss and she comforts him and UGH it’s so frustrating. We already subject ourselves to Fifty Shades; I don’t need this shit from Buffy too.

K: I was going to say “Domestic violence for EVERYONE!!”, but it just sounds so wrong…

Sweeney: Back in the library the gang discusses what they know in light of this new death. Faith points out that he must have been killed during the day and Willow shouts, “YES!” complete with a fist pump and it’s adorable. She then apologizes and it’s funny. Buffy adds that they are all glad that Oz is off the hook. (Both boyfriends, in fact, get to be off the hook with daylight murder.)

Oz is supposed to be in the library, but he’s out talking to the girlfriend, getting his biology notes back that he gave her so she would not fail. Stalker boyfriend watches from the hallway. Oz shows up just on time and Willow excitedly shares the “It’s a kill-in-the-day-monster! 100% for sure!” news.

K: My favourite bit from this scene is when Oz enters just as they’re talking about a monster, and goes “Present. Hey, I may be a cold-blooded jelly doughnut, but my timing’s impeccable.”

Sweeney: They try to figure out the common denominator between the victims and Oz is not only cleared but also useful: he knows that it’s Debbie. She and the dead kid were flirty and also saw the counselor. Oz adds the eye to their knowledge, and Buffy says that the counselor had to have died immediately so it’s not that she fought back. Fortunately, Queen Girlpower is quick to recognize a Murdery Stalker Boyfriend. The gang split up to go find him.

Willow and Buffy go to talk to Ridiculously Stupid Girlfriend in the bathroom. RSG won’t help them, but the conversation is useful enough to verify that they have the right guy.

Back in the doubly undead boyfriend’s lair, he has broken free of his chains. More accurately, he has broken the stone his chains are attached to. He takes off running.

Back in the library, Oz is in his cage, but not yet a werewolf when Stalker Boyfriend rolls in to yell at Oz for talking to his girl. Oz tries to make him go away and tells him that something is about to happen that the guy probably won’t believe, just as he does his weird demony transformation. “Or you might,” quips Oz, as Demonic Stalker Boyfriend rips the cage off.

Buffy finally gives up on Ridiculously Stupid Girlfriend as she rocks back and forth insisting that he DOES love her and holy shit she is just so Ana it’s ridiculous.

Lor: If you had any doubt, this is because RSG and Ana are basically Domestic Abuse Victim 101.

Sweeney: Back in the library, Oz manages to fight off Demonic Stalker Boyfriend. This seems inconsistent with his prior DEAD IN AN INSTANT killings, but I guess it’s fair because Oz assisted in vampire slayings even while not a boyfriend? Anyway, the moon finally appears, which is good news for everyone’s favorite werewolf.

K: I’m going go go ahead and add a second gif here, because as terrible as the werewolf costumes are in Buffy, this close up of Oz’s transformation is pretty great:

Let’s have a round of applause for the BtVS make up and prosthetics teams, y’all.

Lor: They do not often earn such praise…

Sweeney: The rest of gang conveniently happen to be nearby in the halls as the fight gets real. They all run in and Giles tosses Buffy the tranquilizer gun. As she shoots it, Ridiculously Stupid Girlfriend pushes her, in a DON’T-SHOOT-MY-BOYFRIEND panic. This causes Buffy to shoot Giles who promptly passes out.

Buffy deals with Demonic Stalker Boyfriend and sends Willow and Faith to deal with Oz. Ridiculously Stupid Girlfriend runs off to hide. DSB gets away from Buffy and manages to find RSG in some warehousey-garagey type area of the school that I can’t identify (K: It’s the same weird cupboard thing they were in before, where Demonic Stalker Boyfriend keeps his stash of glowy mason jars). Buffy is able to follow him, however, when she sees high up bloody handprints. She follows the trail, but not in time to save RSG.

Lor: AND THEN SHE DIES. RSG dies, but Ana never will and the world is unfair.

Sweeney: AAAH I DON’T KNOW HOW I MISSED THIS MOMENT TO CITE MY FAVORITE GAME. Thanks, Lor.

Faith gets tackled by werewolf!Oz. Willow manages to distract him long enough for her to grab the gun and shoot him. He’s officially out.

Back in the unidentified storage area, Buffy and DSB are fighting and it’s a close fight. BUT THEN! The door opens and the growly sound effects double! It’s Angel, with his vamp grill on. He beats the shit out of DSB with his chains and ultimately chokes him with them. He returns to his normal face/self after DSB dies.

Angel turns around and sees Buffy standing there. He walks over to her slowly and his vampire grill turns instantly to sobby-broody face. He says her name and then falls to his knees to hug her and cry. Sarah Michelle Gellar gets more practice with her WTF face, this time with tears. She’s going through some shit; kind of a rough time for your counselor/therapist to get murdered.

K: Weirdly, I feel for Buffy more during this scene than during any of the “my vagina broke my boyfriend and then I had to kill him” debacles up until this point.

Sweeney: That’s somewhat fair. This is a rough moment because she’s admitting to her own vulnerability. I’m sure I could count on one hand the number of times Buffy utters the words “I need help” across all seven seasons. In that respect, the moment in his office and all the general FEELS in this episode are huge for her.

However, we now disregard all those feels and jump directly to the next day at school where they share all the gossipy versions of the story created by the high school on a Hellmouth. The short version of the real story is that he was a science experiment gone wrong.

Buffy needs to go comfort her grieving boyfriend. He’s been friends both of these people since before they started school. He adds, “It’s just that you never really know what’s going on inside somebody. You think, ‘if you care about them,’ but you never really do.”

K: I totally thought you meant Angel and was horribly confused. Scott: the most forgettable guy in all of Sunnydale.

Sweeney: Sad but true, Scott. He’s precious! But nobody cares.

Buffy resumes story time as she watches Angel sleep. It’s a weird ending, but the whole episode is pretty heavy on feels. I don’t particularly care for the freak-of-the-week, what with all the Fifty Shades trauma it gives me, but I’m Team Feels Forever.

Lor: I liked the foils. Buffy, our beauty, had to deal with three distinctive beasts here. Oz, the beast against his will, ever the good guy, despite being a jelly doughnut. Angel, the monster who may be redeemed, if the end of this episode is to be believed. The one whom she feels responsible for. And then the Demonic Stalker Boyfriend, the beast by choice. The one beyond redemption, despite having the love of his girlfriend.

This is another case of yicky behavior being personified as something demonic. Because beating up on your girlfriend is bad, everyone, no matter what recent best sellers have to say about it.

Sweeney: Preach. I really like that they didn’t ultimately resort to the demonic thing as a scapegoat for his character. In retrospect, the line that infuriated me so much was necessary specifically to prevent him earning any “But he can’t help himself because he’s a demon” sympathy. Maybe I’m just dismissive of our freak-of-the-week because I’ve now had to write about fictional domestic violence twice in one week. It weighs on a girl.

 

Next time: Homecoming: now with a dash of Hellmouth. Who will be crowned queen? Find out in Buffy the Vampire Slayer S03 E05 – Homecoming.