Die Young and Stay Pretty

Season Two Episode — uh — 7 Lie to Me

In this episode a friend of Buffy’s from her high school in LA comes to Sunnydale — but it turns out that he really has a brain tumor and is planning on using the Slayer as bait so that he can become a vampire and die young and stay pretty.

Here a couple of interesting character things happen. This is the first time that Buffy has an active reason to distrust Angel (except for the first episode where she finds out he’s a vampire)–she spots him in a park with Druscilla and when he lies to her about that meeting it throws their relationship off — setting up a situation where it seems like she can only turn to her old friend Ford for comfort. We also have Angel turning to Willow for help behind Buffy’s back thus heightening the betrayal from Buffy’s point of view.

And here’s the first inkling of what often becomes a problem on the show — as writer Jane Espensen remarked in her commentary on an episode in the 3rd season (earshot) Buffy being the Slayer is not just an all brawn no brains gig. The slayer is also the general — the strategist — she may not be the brains in the strictest sense, but she runs the show. And when her people start to act without her, or behind her back, or start to mistrust her judgement, well, that throws the whole thing out of whack.

But, as far as I’m concerned, the very best thing about this episode is that it introduces Chantarelle/Lily/Anne: an episodic character with a fantastic arc that lasts all the way into the last season of Angel.

Ford is a great villain (if annoying), yet another in a series of human beings who cooperate with evil out of some really misguided reason. We had Chris Epps who defied death and consented to kill for the love of his brother, we had the frat boys sacrificing to a demon out of greed and power lust, and here we have Ford plotting to feed an entire group of innocent of stupid and foolish kids to vampires so that he won’t have to get ugly as he dies a painful death. But, brain tumor and all, Ford is not excused for his evil actions. As Buffy says “you have a choice — okay, not a good one, but you have a choice.”