TDL-evision: Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season Two, Part 1
The second season begins after summer vacation in Sunnydale. Buffy has spent the summer in LA with her father. Buffy often seems to leave Sunnydale for entire summers. It’s fortunate that Demons apparently don’t operate much in the summer.
When She Was Bad: Buffy comes back from LA and she’s…. kinda evil. This show foreshadows a ton of themes over the course of the episode, including Buffy’s fatalistic attitude, her inane need to charge into danger blind, and her constant need to blow off her friends even though they’re essentially the reason she stays alive as long as she does. Episodes like this make me hate her character. This is the first in many, many Buffy’s better than everyone episodes.
After charging off into an obvious trap, which turns out to be a diversion to separate her from her friends (success!) she returns to the library to find a beaten Xander (who very easily could have been a dead Xander) and a kidnapped Willow and Giles. Xander, in one of his ballsiest moments in the series tells Buffy that he’ll kill her if anything happens to Willow. This was also one of the few episodes that they teased a Willow and Xander relationship that, sadly, never happened. By the end of the series, I was hoping that they’d end up putting the two of them together, but they went with the forced, try to catch lightning in a bottle a second time Willow/Kennedy thing.
Some Assembly Required: A young genius has raised his brother from the dead Frankenstein-style. He’s promised him a companion. This is first Buffy homage to to Frankenstein.
School Hard: Notable for the first appearance of Spike, who really becomes the most complicated and interesting character on the show as it progresses. Also notable for the fact that, at the end, Principal Snyder tells the police chief to say the trouble caused by the Vampires attacking the school was instead caused by a gang high on PCP. He asks the chief if he’d prefer to tell the truth. This is the first indication that someone other than the Scooby Gang knows what goes on in Sunnydale. It also establishes Principal Snyder as a henchman of someone… as he consistently tries to keep Buffy from killing demons. Angel tells the group that Spike, nee “William the Bloody” has killed two Slayers in the past. Spike also finishes off The Anointed One, cleansing the Big Bad from Season One.
Inca Mummy Girl: A Xander in Peril episode… an ancient Incan mummy is released from her coffin and must kill people to stay alive. She likes to Xander, which depresses Willow (and honestly, it does kind of suck that they never, EVER went anywhere with this relationship. Whether it was planned and then went away when Willow became a lesbian, I have no idea). This episode also marks the initial appearance of Oz and Jonathan.
Reptile Boy: The date rape episode. Cordelia and Buffy decide to go to a frat party. They get drugged and end up in the basement to be sacrificed to to a reptile god.
Halloween: The episode that introduces Ethan Rayne, the link to Giles’ checkered past. Ethan opens a costume shop in Sunnydale. The twist is that on Halloween, everyone will become their costume. In a reversal of fortune, Buffy becomes an 18th Century noblewoman and Xander becomes a soldier. We can also mark this as the episode where Willow gets nice and whored up for the first time sparking off endless Willow vs Buffy hottie debates. There’s no debate, by the way. Willow in a landslide. Xander will retain his military training for the remainder of the series.
Lie to Me: This is an interesting little episode that addresses a few running themes. Firstly, people who want to use vampires to escape death. Most of the vampires that were on the show didn’t really know what they were getting into when they were turned. This is the first (and I think only) character who actively seeks out vampires when they know their death is coming. It addresses the basic question in the whole vampire myth: if you were faced with your own impending mortality, would you be willing to become horrifically evil to live forever? It’s the basic romance of being a vampire… being young and beautiful forever and living without the fear of death. They revisit this more intensely on Angel. We get our first glimpse into Angel’s twisted past, as he reveals how he sired Drusilla, driving her insane first by killing her whole family. It also one of the few episodes that touch on vampire cults; people who are convinced that vampires are good people, and just misunderstood. This is another episode in my top ten of the whole series. It addresses a ton of things the show needed to address starts to move a bit away from the high school drama.
The Dark Age: Really gives us more of an insight to Giles’s checkered past. Apparently, back in the day, he was resisting his Watcher calling and took to summoning demons to get high with his buddy Ethan Rayne (previously from Halloween). One of their demons is on the warpath killing former members of their group.
What’s My Line, Part One: Career Week at Sunnydale high while Spike hires a clan of assassins to kill Buffy. Buffy goes through the stress that most of us would face during career week, with the added bonus of having to lead a Clark Kent Lifestyle. Toward the end of episode we meet Kendra, the Slayer who was called when Buffy died. Kendra is the studious, opposite of Buffy in the Slayer world… something of a Watcher’s Pet. She also, however, fights alone… which has led to the death of many a Slayer. We also get the first mention of Willy’s Place, which is a bar in Sunnydale where both Demons and Humans drink together. It appears the Sunnydale Syndrome is not all encompassing.
For the record, this right here is the first time I wondered why there wasn’t more than one Slayer and wondered what “called” them… something no one else had apparently considered in the 2,000 years previous and wouldn’t think of for another 5 years.
What’s My Line, Part Two: As Buffy and Kendra diverge, with Kendra getting closer to Giles and Buffy feeling alienated, Spike has figured out that the blood of Drusilla’s sire (Angel) will heal her impaired state. Drusilla spends some time torturing Angel which, one presumes, you’re supposed to feel bad about until you recall that Angel killed her entire family and drove her insane. Cordelia and Xander are trapped by an assassin who can turn himself into mealworms and share their first kiss kicking off the Xander and Cordelia relationship. Willow and Oz also kind of start their relationship, thus ending the Xander/Willow tension for the rest of the series.
The Buffy and Kendra tension seems to be the most important thing here. Kendra is your typical “book smart” person while Buffy is the the typical “street smart” person. Kendra is the Watcher’s dream, doing her studies and her training with no complaint and following orders with no question. Buffy does not bother to learn all encompassing Slayer knowledge but accepts help (occasionally) and goes with her gut. Buffy’s (and arguably Faith’s) Slayer time-served turns out to be much longer than Kendra’s, so make of that what you will.
One thing you could say about this series is they could do them a two parter. This was a fantastic story.
Ted: The John Ritter episode. Buffy’s mother begins dating a new man, Ted, who inserts himself a little too strongly into Buffy’s life. He immediately tries to be the father figure, laying down rules and threatening slap Buffy’s “smart-ass mouth.” One of the super-paced After-School specials crammed into one episode, Buffy doesn’t get along with her mon’s new boyfriend but, in typical Buffy fashion, she winds up killing him. By mistake, of course. This is the first episode where Buffy has to deal with her powers being used for evil. Ted was a human… she’s not supposed to kill humans. However, a Dusty Finish where we find out Ted was a robot.
Bad Eggs: This is the episode that goofs on the “Health Class students take home eggs to learn about pregnancy” cliche that is in every sit-com ever. The eggs contain demon creatures which attach to their hosts and make them automatons. Kind of a toss-away episode.
These take forever to write… part 2 eventually.