Okay, that is the guy you want to party with.
Am I the worst blogger or what? Now that I’ve lost my entire audience, I’ll continue. I should warn everyone that my buffy watching has far outpacd my Buffy writing (this is Mr. Elizabuffy’s fault — he always says ‘just one more’) so that my memory of episodes past is getting hazy. But, I soldier on.
Season 2 — episode 5: Reptile Boy
Reptile boy is a monster of the week episode that has lots of juicy turning points for character relationships. The plot is that a college fraternity worships a demon, who ensures the financial success of its members, forever. Once a year (or however long) the frat boys make a sacrifice of girls to the demon and also throw a keg party.
Of course, Cordelia, in her search for rich guys to date, gets her — and Buffy — invted to the party, where they are drugged, chained up, and offered to the phallic snake demon for his pleasure/lunch.
The best thing about the episode is that Willow has her first bust out moment where she lashes into both Giles and Angel for making Buffy miserable.
After eviscerating Giles for running Buffy raggedwith slayer training, se turns on Angel and says, “And you, you’re going to live forever, you don’t have time for coffee?”
The other thing about this episode is the way that Xander reacts to being hazed by the frat guys. During the actual hazing he is just totally blank, suffering the indignity of wearing a bra and wig with the resigned incomprehension of someone who knows that any action on hs part is futlie and all he can do is wait it out. Very understated moment of Xander vulnerability.
Next episode is Halloween — if you did a poll it probably ranks very high on every Buffy fans list of all tme best episodes. It was so clever, unexpected and just darn fun of an episode — it is one of those that makes the series stand out.
2 Responses to “Okay, that is the guy you want to party with.”
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October 20, 2007 at 12:33 pm
I’ll always comment no matter how long it takes for you to slap an entry in here. No worries.
I wrote out a lot of stuff about this one when I watched it, but I won’t bombard you with all of it.
Foreshadowing:
Buffy saying “When I kiss you I want to die” - reminiscent of Spike telling her later on about what a slayer really craves
Frat house secrets act as a precursor to Riley’s frat house and the hidden Initiative base below campus, also housing demons.
Already complaining about Giles scheduling her life around slay duties (like Band Candy later)
About Giles, I don’t understand why Giles gets so knocked around when training with Buffy. He should be excellent at the training aspect even if he’s not a slayer because he’s the Watcher and is supposed to train, unless Buffy as slayer is preternaturally adept at all fighting skills and no matter how good Giles might be, Giles looks like an inept bumbler every time they go up against each other. What good does he do her if he doesn’t try his best against her, though? And that bit with the sword, why is Giles embarrassed to be seen using a sword? Or is he more embarrassed to be seen pretending?
Is this the first episode we actually witness Buffy lying to Giles to get out of doing her Slayer stuff? In “Never Kill A Boy On the First Date” she was honest about wanting a night off, but here Buffy is deliberately making up excuses. Buffy is a secret keeper – here her friends are in on the censoring of details, later in the series they’re not. Who is really protected by keeping secrets and lying? She claims she’s protecting Giles but ultimately Buffy’s attempting to protect herself from criticism and harsh judgements.
Lyrics - “she walks into the room, all the guys’ eyes are upon her” – the frat party lyrics can refer either to Cordy or Buffy. “I think she’s got her hungry eyes on you” – Cordy’s desire to be with her guy instead of Buffy. “she said she runs with the wolves” – enhances the attraction factor of danger and risk. “She thinks she runs with the wolves” – the idea that belief and reality are not always cohesive. What feels like reality may be illusion, the unrealized danger of the situation ignored. Unrealistic belief of being in power, in control of a situation. Other lyrics – “bend and I’ll break you, leave and I’ll take you back again” - could relate to what’s going to happen between her and Angel later this season and the next.
I love watching Willow gives Giles and Angel hell for how they’ve treated Buffy lately. Giles for treating her only as a weapon in a never ending war and Angel for acting like she’s someone unwanted that he doesn’t want to make time for. I also liked Xander’s reaction when he does go back to the frat house and gets his rage on about getting treated like a girl and treatment in general.
“If she bends, she breaks” reprise. Buffy isn’t automatically agreeing to have coffee with Angel. Last time she automatically bent to the will of a guy over a drink, she was chained up as a food source. That’s gotta give a girl pause. She walks out smiling at the lines “She loves you but then she takes it away” which happens at the end of the season as she tells Angel she loves him and then takes his life.
It’s neat to look for parallels and (probably) unintended connections to future/past events.
November 1, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I agree with the point about Giles, why does he seem so wimpy in some episodes even while in the very next episode, we see that he actually has some skill? Is it because Buffy is just that much better or what?
Also, way impressed with the attention to lyrics detail that you give — whole new layers of meaning. I may even start paying more attention to them