Buffy: The Zeppo

Giles: "There's something different about this menace, something in the air... the stench of death."
Xander: "Yeah, I think it's Bob."

Xander indeed has a very strange night. This was an unusual episode, even for BtVS. I thought it was different and clever. I laughed a lot.

I keep seeing previews of Buffy episodes and thinking I'm not going to like them, and then I see them and they're not at all what I expected. The preview for this one made it look like a possible take-off of Stephen King's "Christine," the one about the possessed old car (and yuk), but it certainly was a long way from that. Instead, what we seem to have gotten was something like "Data's Day"; we got to see the gang from another angle, from Xander's no longer fray-adjacent viewpoint.

There was a lot going on here. We had Xander, as he foiled a plot to bomb the school basement (and incidentally, the Slayer party fighting evil in the library above). We had typical high school plot devices -- wanting to be cool and fit in, how to resist peer pressure, how to cope with bullies -- but of course with the BtVS twist, since the bullies were undead. I thought there was something unnatural about the blonde, too. Maybe it was just because she knew so much about cars.

We also had this dire emergency with the Apocalypse and the Hellmouth actually opening in the library, but we only get to see bits of it from Xander's perspective. We got the heavy Buffy/Angel scenes but without the background drama that makes it work-- it all looked different when we were with Xander just barging in, didn't it? We got glimpses of the monumental fight and references to how horrible it was, but only that.

BtVS is strong enough and well written enough to satirize itself and make it work, and we still had a major character doing some major character development, since Xander saved the world, outsmarted O'Toole, and had sex for the first time, but no one will ever know. And he grew. He didn't need to boast about it all. And in the end, Cordelia's needling no longer hurt him.

Bits:

-- Buffy averts yet another apocalypse.

-- That must have been the shortest "previously on..." that I've ever seen. "Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer... 'You're fired.'" And the fact that Giles was fired was mentioned in the episode early on, so did we need it? Or was it intended to be short and silly?

-- It was inevitable that a male member of the gang would be around when Faith... needed him. It'd be interesting to see what would happen if it were one of the other guys, wouldn't it? Of course, Faith would rather kill Angel than come on to him, and I'd like to think that Oz would be faithful to Willow... I wonder what Giles would do? It's a shame Faith isn't bi. Or maybe she is.

-- What is a Zeppo, other than the fourth, forgotten Marx brother? Or was that the point?

-- Another reference to the magic shop, and another owner.

-- It occurred to me while I was watching that if I'd never seen BtVS before, this episode would make virtually no sense.

-- Another dog reference: Willow: "Can't dogs sense when there's an earthquake, and they bark, or cows lie down, or something?"

Quotes:

Buffy: "You know, with the pain and the death, maybe you shouldn't be leaping into the fray like that. Maybe you should be... fray-adjacent."

Buffy: "What do we do with the trio here? Should we burn them?"
Willow: "I brought marshmallows. Occasionally, I'm callous and strange."

Xander: "But... It's just that it's buggin' me, this 'cool' thing. I mean, what is it? How do you get it? Who doesn't have it? And who decides who doesn't have it? What is the essence of cool?"
Oz: "Not sure."
Xander: "I mean, you yourself, Oz, are considered more or less cool. Why is that?"
Oz: "Am I?"
Xander: "Is it about the talking? You know, the way you tend to express yourself in short, noncommittal phrases?"
Oz: "Could be."
Xander: "I know! You're in a band! That's like a business-class ticket to cool with complementary mojo after takeoff! I gotta learn an instrument. Is it hard to play guitar?"
Oz: "Not the way I play it."

Buffy: "Do you remember the demon that almost got out the night I died?"
Willow: "Every nightmare I have that doesn't revolve around academic failure or public nudity is about that thing. In fact, once I dreamt that it attacked me while I was late for a test, and naked."

Xander: "What do you mean, what is it? It's my thing."
Willow: "Your thing?"
Xander: "My thing."
Buffy: "Is this a penis metaphor?"

Buffy: "'Sisterhood of Jhe. Race of female demons, fierce warriors...' Eww. '...celebrate victory in battle by eating their foes.' They couldn't just pour Gatorade on each other?"

Xander: "I am really sorry about that. But your car came out of nowhere."
Jack: "I was parked."

Bob: "How long I been down?"
Jack: "Eight months. I had to wait till the stars aligned."
Bob: "Oh, eight months. I got some catching up to do. Whoa! Walker, Texas Ranger. You been taping 'em?"
Jack: "Every ep."

Bob: "What? You're, you're too good to be dead? You got a problem with dead people?"

Faith: "You up for it?"
Xander: "Oh, I'm up. I'm suddenly very up. It's just, um... I've never been up with people before."
Faith: "Just relax. And take your pants off."
Xander: "Those two concepts are antithetical."

Three out of four stakes,

Billie