February 27th, 2010
Never Kill a Boy on the First Date
A student wanders into the library for an actual book. It’s the mythical sensitive high school boy who loves Emily Dickinson. Kill it! Kill it with fire!
Wait. Owen is not the baddie. He’s the hottie for this episode. *shrug*
There’s a prophecy about an Anointed One rising from the deaths of five. Buffy and Giles hang around the cemetery, as is their wont, but it’s really about a shuttle bus accident involving the driver, a middle-aged woman, a young mother and her son, and a bible-verse-spouting lunatic. Hmm…which one is the Anointed One, I wonder.
Giles goes to the cool deco funeral home alone and is trapped by vampires. Willow and Xander go fetch Buffy from the Bronze where she is on a date with Owen. Angel makes a quick appearance, but when the Scoobies + Owen go to save Giles, he’s like, “See ya!”
The bible-verse-spouting lunatic is now a bible-verse-spouting lunatic vampire. Buffy kills it with fire. Owen, freaked out and woozy from a possible concussion, goes home. The next day he reveals himself to be an adrenaline junky. Buffy does not kill him with fire; she just blows him off.
Then the master is revealed. Is he sad that the Anointed One is dead? No. The Anointed One is actually the kid. It’s like Anakin Skywalker invaded the Buffy-verse. If only some peroxided, leather trench-wearing vampire would kill it with fire (from the sun)….
While I liked the subtle lesson that pretending to be someone you are not is no way to win a boy’s heart, I have to give this episode a C. It’s clever enough in places that it almost makes up for the Annoying One. In the end, Giles’ constantly pained expression and a cool funeral home that is conveniently cemetery adjacent can’t overcome the dread of what’s to come.