Buffy: The Harvest

Joyce: "I know. If you don't go out, it'll be the end of the world. Everything is life or death when you're a sixteen-year-old girl."

What is delightful here is that it really will be the end of the world.

This is not a very good episode in the grand scheme of Buffy things, but it gives us a couple of important firsts: (1) Buffy averts her first Apocalypse, and (2) our core of four main characters, Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles, start bonding as we get the first of many exposition scenes in the school library. There are even staples such as Giles researching the end of the world, Willow computer-hacking into the city's plans, and Xander following Buffy into the tunnels as her Boy Wonder wanna be ("It's this, or chem class.")

I'm not a big fan of the Master; despite an occasional bon mot, he's just too unambiguously, mustache-twirling evil. His over-the-top melodramatic scenes with Luke are almost too much. But it's great fun to watch Buffy outwit Luke at the end; it's amazing that a vampire as stupid as Luke could have lived so long.

There is a little Cordelia character development as she completely rags on an absent Buffy while working on a mandatory programming assignment in the computer lab. Willow, already showing more gumption than in the first episode, takes revenge by telling Cordelia to hit the "deliver" key. It seems that nearly everyone blanks out or rationalizes the supernatural things they see in Sunnydale, as Cordelia does ("rival gangs"). But Willow and Xander retain their knowledge of the truth, right from the beginning. Were Willow and Xander fated to help the Slayer?

Back once again in the mausoleum, Buffy once again encounters her handsome, mysterious stranger. She learns that his name is Angel, that vampires don't like Angel, and that Angel has no friends. Stay tuned.

Bits and pieces:

-- The trunk in Buffy's bedroom is transparent metaphor for Buffy herself and her life, with the perfume, ribbons, and girly stuff above, and stakes, crosses, and holy water hidden beneath.

-- At the beginning of the episode, Giles refers to the Bible as popular mythology. I'm just mentioning this because I like it.

-- The infamous Sunnydale sewer systems and engineering tunnels are a convenient plot device that enables vampire characters to move around in the daytime without bursting into flames.

-- Librarians are usually pretty good with computers (I'm a librarian) and I cringe whenever I see Giles fumbling with one and calling it a "dread machine." Giles is more of an archetypal wise man character than a real librarian, though, and I don't insist on reality in my fantasy shows.

-- Harmony (Mercedes McNab) is introduced in the computer lab scene as Cordelia's friend. She is listed as Harmony in the final credits, although she is not referred to by name in the scene.

-- In the tunnels, rats literally crawl over Buffy's petite, well-shod feet, and she doesn't even wince. No girly screams for our Buffy.

-- Ever notice how no one on television has screens in their windows?

-- The Master has been stuck on the Hellmouth for sixty years. The vamps are waiting for the humans to die out and the old ones to return. Good luck with that, guys.

-- Xander is wearing what might be the ugliest shirt I've ever seen: green, and covered with toadstools.

-- This week's dog reference: The Master says to Darla, "I'm your faithful dog. You bring me scraps." And in the Bronze, Cordelia says that pre-vamp Jesse was following her around like a little puppy dog.

Quotable quotes:

Xander: "Okay, this is where I have a problem. See, because we're talking about vampires. We're having a talk with vampires in it."

Giles: "All right. The Slayer hunts vampires, Buffy is a Slayer, don't tell anyone. Well, I think that's all the vampire information you need."

Giles: "You have no idea where they took Jesse?"
Buffy: "I looked around, but soon as they got clear of the graveyard, they could have just, voom."
Xander: "They can fly?"
Buffy: "They can drive."

Giles: "It may be that you can wrest some information from that dread machine. (pause) That was a bit, um, British, wasn't it?"

Xander: "This is just too much. I mean, yesterday my life's like, uh-oh, pop quiz. Today it's rain of toads?"

Xander: "You've done some beheading in your time?"
Buffy: "Oh, yeah. There was this time I was pinned down by this guy that played left tackle for varsity. Well, at least he used to before he was a vampire. Anyway, he had this really, really thick neck, and all I had was a little, little X-act-o knife..."

Jesse: "I can hear the worms in the earth."
Xander: "That's a plus."

Xander: "I don't like vampires. I'm going to take a stand and say they're not good."

Cordelia: "Senior boys, hmm, they have mystery. They have... what's the word I'm searching for? Cars."

Buffy: "What exactly were you expecting?"
Xander: "I don't know, something. I mean, the dead rose. We should at least have an assembly."

It gets a lot better than this. One out of four stakes,

Billie