Stew’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer Retrospective: Season 2, Episodes 7 & 8

Spike Is A Clown: A BTVS Retrospective: S2 E7-8

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Episode 7

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

Episode 7 kicks off with Drusilla out and about on her own. She acts up a typical Drusilla storm of seeming like she is drugged and would rather be doing anything else in the world than be on set as she gets ready to chow down on a kid she finds waiting for his parents. Angel intervenes to save him, and the two talk a bit. From a nearby rooftop, Buffy sees them seeming to be close.

In class the next day, we are reminded that, despite Clueless coming out about 3 years before this, cell phones weren’t really a “thing” for most kids yet in 1997. Buffy and Willow are PASSING NOTES about Drusilla. And for the first time in entertainment medium history, kids passing notes in class are NOT caught by their teacher!

We then meet a new character, a transfer Student who used to attend the same LA school as Buffy. I’m pretty sure Buffy calls him “Fart”, though my wife says his name is Ford, but here’s the thing! My wife has slight hearing loss in one ear, so I’m going to go ahead and assume I am right. Buffy tells him she used to have a crush on him and would lie in bed listening to “I Touch Myself” thinking of him. Even though this is played off as “I didn’t know what it meant!”… still: Jesus, show.

You get no dollars for correctly guessing which regular cast member is an insufferable jerk upon meeting a boy Buffy says she had a crush on.

At the Bronze later on, we see Fart playing pool, and I swear to Christ there are two cue balls on the pool table, and that is ALL I care about. I am suddenly acutely aware of how the fans of Game Of Thrones felt about that infamous coffee cup.

Buffy talks to Angel, but he doesn’t admit he met Drusilla, so Buffy invites Fart on a walk to make him jealous AGAIN. Xander and Willow try to talk to Angel, but he Batman’s away when they aren’t looking.

Fart catches Buffy dash off to slay a vampire. She tries to play it off in her typical idiotic fashion, but Fart admits he’s always known she is The Slayer. Immediately after this, we see him go to some dark underground club to reveal that OH NO he’s a bad guy who could have guessed. He mentioned that he and the others there will soon get to “die young and stay pretty”.

Angel visits Willow’s house at night and asks her to cyberstalk Fart, which is still hilarious to me in 1997. Like she would have said “Sure, my 14.4 KPS modem and I will have answers for you in 3-5 business days”. But nope, she instantly finds out that no one named Ford is registered at their school. I mean, yeah. Cause his name is Fart.

(Are the fart jokes working for you here? I can stop if not)

Willow is somehow even more sitcom-y and idiotic at keeping secrets than Buffy, and she acts like a clown when Buffy asks what she has been up to. Giles agrees to go on a date with Ms. Calendar, and he gives Buffy her beeper number in case peril arises. Bitch, it might!

Later on, Buffy and Faaaarrrrrrr-orrrrd run into two vampires. Buffy kills one and lets this high school boy who has never fought a vampire in his life to deal with the other. Of course, he subdues the second easily and demands information from her.

Angel, Willow, and Xander head off to Ford’s secret club and quickly find out it’s like some kind of vampire fan club. They are all proto-Twilight fans! Angel should be a HUGE hit with them.

In the library, Buffy, Giles, and Ms. Calendar see a picture of Drusilla in a vampire book. Why does EVERY VAMPIRE IN THE WORLD have a chapter in a book somewhere? Does that mean the two vamps Buffy has killed this episode have their own chapters? Does Giles just rip those pages out after the vamp is slain? Is that why Ethan called him Ripper? Why do these books have trading card stats on these vamps? I’m so confused.

While there, the vamp Ford claimed to kill is seen running away with a book of Giles’. Buffy knows something is up!

Ford struts into Spike’s lair all big dick swinging, but then basically turns into a moronic geek, insisting Spike say cheesy villain lines like “You have 30 seconds to tell me why you are here before I kill you”. Ford then has the vamp present Spike with the book. He wants to trade Buffy to him in exchange for being turned into a vampire.

Buffy and Angel have a confrontation over Ford and Angel’s Drusilla secret. Buffy says SHE LOVES HIM, and I would joke, but she is a nebulously aged teenage girl, so she probably thinks she does. Angel, who asks her to say it, should fucking know better, though. Angel admits he stalked and emotionally tortured Dru when she was a human. Then, when she was at her lowest, he turned her. Holy frijoles, he was a monster. He then tells her what he found about Ford.

Honestly? This was a straight ahead adult conversation between two characters with no whacky misunderstandings or either character acting unreasonably like a douchebag. A talk which finally feels genuine: you love to see it.

Buffy and Ford talk, and he invites her out. This conversation SOMEHOW merits a Bad Boys 2 style 360 degree swooping crane shot! Who directed this, Michael Bay?!

I forget the context, but someone announces sunset as 6:27pm, and my complaint from the Halloween episode is revived! You done goofed, Buffy The Vampire Slayer! You can’t get your minor, inconsequential continuity errors past Stew!

Buffy The Vampire Slayer, as a show, is not even two seasons old, and Ford is our SECOND character with plot-centric brain cancer! Jesus, what is going on in Southern California? He wants to not die, so… vampirism. He and Buffy have an Emmy reel debate with sad music. Regular Teenage Boy Ford smacks around THE SLAYER and chucks her down some stairs. He locks the door to the club; it can only be opened from the outside, and the vamps are coming!

Spike and the vampsquad arrive and start feeding on all the kids. Boy it sure looks like Buffy is in for it now oh no nevermind, she takes Drusilla hostage Effortlessly^TM and Spike lets her go.

WHY

DID YOU BRING

DRUSILLA

YOU IDIOT?

All he does is talk about how weakened she is presently! Why bring her to your big Buffy confrontation?

Real talk: Spike seems about as dangerous as Dr. Claw. He has one incompetent plan after another! I feel like the show might as well play Yakkety Sax when he’s coming after Buffy. This is his fifth episode, and she has clowned him at least three times, all in situations he basically could not have lost!

After this most recent spanking, Buffy returns to the club to see the vamps eventually broke the door down and escaped. Time passes, and she visits Ford’s grave. He emerges as a vampire after all! And she stakes him to end the episode.

EPISODE 8

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

Outside Sunnydale High, at nightime, we see a man named Phillip desperately searching for Giles. He doesn’t realize Giles doesn’t LIVE at the school, I guess. But joke’s on me because Giles IS inside, training with Buffy who is playing very loud music so that neither hear this guy banging on the door in terror. A zombie strikes and kills Phillip before it… melts into blue goo?

The next day, Giles and Ms. Calendar are flirting in the hallway with plenty of innuendo. Rupert’s gonna get some! As he enters the library, though, some cops are waiting for him and begin questioning him about the strange dead man who had Giles’ name written down with him.

During the questioning, Cordelia walks in. When Giles points out he is busy with police stuff, she asks the cops if they can erase a ticket she received for going the wrong way down a one-way, and the Cordelia And Her Driving Adventures subplot strikes again! I hope the writers did this on purpose, but so little of this show genuinely seems purposeful, so I doubt it.

At the morgue, Giles IDs the body of Phillip, a friend of his from London that he had not seen in 20 years. Giles’ gaze lingers on a tattoo that will be important in a few minutes, I’m sure.

Elsewhere at a hospital, Buffy fights off some vampires who were there to steal a blood delivery. Angel jumps in to help, but one of the vamps still gets away. Buffy rues the lack of Giles’ presence. But… he never goes on these patrols? What assistance could he have provided here, Buff?

Buffy heads off to Giles’ home to see how he is faring, and it turns out he is not doing well! Giles opens the door drunk and disheveled! So un-Giles-like! He shoos her away and then we see him try to call the lady who was the zombie that killed Philip. Upon hearing she has passed, he scratches her name off of a list.

At the morgue… Phillip WAKES UP.

On Saturday morning, the school is having some kind of Make-Up Computer Class For Main Characters Only. Xander, Cordelia, Willow, Ms. Calendar, and Buffy are all there and the ONLY people there. Nothing super important even happens! Well, Cordy breaks the news that she saw Giles talking to the fuzz.

In the library, Buffy is attacked by Ethan The Costume Shop Owner! She gets Giles’ backstory from Ethan, and based on the footage we see, Giles was in a Megadeth video when he was a young man. Corpse Phillip busts in and Ethan tries to flee. He is stopped by a swift kick in the dick by Cordy!

It’s off to library jail for Phillip! Library jail is apparently not super strong, though, because he breaks free pretty much right away, knocking Ms. Calendar out with the door as he does so. He then… melts. Anticlimax! But when Ms. Calendar wakes up, we see her eyes glow.

Giles yells at Buffy and orders her to stay out of everything going on. Cordelia wants to help Giles, too! She admits she cares about him. Aww, Cordy; you’re the best.

Buffy the the gang do their studying and figure out the demon involved here is called Eygon. Giles and his buddies summoned him because summoning him got them high when they were young idiots. Eygon is able to jump into any dead or otherwise unconscious body. Unconscious… like Ms. Calendar was! The team figures that out, and while Eygon is alone with Giles, they strike! But Eygon flees.

Buffy gets sent off to protect Ethan, who OF COURSE immediately turns on her to no surprise whatsoever. He ties her down and tattoos the Eygon mark on her–and burns away his own–so that the demon will skip him and attack her.

Xander, Willow, and Cordelia are planning how to defeat Eygon. Xander and Cordelia start a spat to see who cares more and who has better ideas, but Willow shuts them down… then has an idea to be revealed later.

Buffy, whose real superpower is the ability to break any bond with exactly half a second to spare, breaks her bond with exactly half a second to spare. The big Buffy/Eygon confrontation is interrupted by Giles, and then by… Angel. Hey, its Willow’s plan! Eygon jumps into Angel because he is TECHNICALLY dead. Angel EFFORTLESSLY subdues Eygon inside of him.

That… that CAN’T be the end of Eygon, right? It can not be that easy. I refuse to allow that. Angel just has a-whole-nother demon living inside of him. I assume this has to play out further later on. Also, the very next time Angel is around a dead or sleeping person… couldn’t Eygon just jump into them? Hmmm.

The next day, Giles goes up to Ms. Calendar to apologize for what she went through, but she is clearly put off by him. Aww, poor Rupert.

Two more episodes down! We got some Giles backstory! We got more incompetent Spike! I suppose this season is building towards Drusilla going back to full strength and seeing what she is capable of. Only a few more episodes until I find out if I’m right.

Until next time… take care!