Overall Rating: 6.8
After a strong opener, this episode is a little on the silly side...and not in a good way. On the bright side, I do enjoy the parable in this episode. Particularly in the first seasons, just about every episode is the fright-night equivalent of a 45-minute parable but with snarky teenage dialogue, and the message here is a strong one.
Plot Synopsis:
Buffy has decided that she wants to make every effort to have a social life in spite of her calling. Her first impulse is to return to her cheerleading roots and try out for Sunnydale's elite squad - a squad prominently featuring Cordelia, with whom Buffy is already in a state of cold war. :) When a series of strange accidents and occurrences (including a girl spontaneously catching on fire during her audition) propel Buffy and a quiet, unassuming girl named Amy Madison to alternate status on the squad, Buffy and Willow begin to suspect that Amy is only participating because her mother is putting too much pressure on her.
When Cordelia goes blind while taking her driver's test and another cheerleader suffers a mysterious accident, putting Buffy on the team and Amy one step away from also joining, the newly-formed Scooby gang suspects Amy is a witch. Willow and Xander test Giles' theory with a revealing potion and Amy's witch status is confirmed. However, Amy seems unaware of what she's doing. We then see Amy come home in a huff and order her mother to do her history report - she's carrying the ID tag Xander gave to Buffy for good luck early in the episode, marking Buffy as the next likely target. When Buffy starts losing control at a rehearsal and throws a girl across the gym - then falls ill with severe weakness - Giles sends Willow and Xander to locate Amy's spell book. Only then do they discover that Amy's mother is the real power and that she has switched bodies with her daughter to relive her glory days as head cheerleader. They manage to reverse all of the spells she's cast in time for Buffy to defeat her and trap her in the school's trophy case. A fitting end for a horrible stage mother living in the past.
Writing: 6.0
Maybe it's just me, but I think the characterization in this episode is a little...um...over the top? The super-evil mom casting spells in a very VERY hokey looking witch's lair with green smoke-filled cauldron...the amped up cheerleaders...even Xander, who I normally find irresistibly charming as someone to whom I can relate is a bit quick to be mooning over Buffy in such a manner. :) It's early and some of it is probably just the actors not being totally comfortable in their roles. On the bright side, I very much enjoy the realistic way in which Buffy and her mother interact in this episode and there enough little cutesy lines and exchanges to keep me entertained.
Acting: 7.0
Sarah Michelle Geller is definitely getting more comfortable in her role by this point - especially when interacting with her mother and a generally solid job is done by all except for Amy's mother, who was not just purple with emotion...she was URPLE. I am going to find it hard to rate any Buffy episode down too far on acting merits...they cast so brilliantly that it is rare indeed when they hit a sour note. Not that every scene is perfect, but on balance, this will be the most consistently solid aspect of the show, I believe. OK...I guess I can gripe about Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia)...I think she plays her role a little too peevishly. A queen bee should appear outwardly nice and her actions should reveal the inner lack of confidence and the less appreciable qualities inherent in this type of personality. Cordelia's lack of tact makes it difficult to believe she would rise as high as she has in the high school pecking order.
Message: 7.5
All you kids watching at home...please...I'm begging you...when you have kids of your own some day...let them live their lives and you go on living yours. There is nothing more despicable about Yuppy culture than stage parents. Well...except perhaps for the gigantic SUVs they drive and the obsessive clinging to their friggin' cell phones...while driving said SUVs. LOL I had the benefit of parents who did not try to live vicariously through me, and I think I'm a lot better off thanks to that fact. It never gets old the way Buffy writers take a simple lesson like the above and turn it into a horror story to bring it into stark relief.
Highlights:
GILES: Have you lost your mind? You have a calling! Now I make certain allowances for your youth, but I expect a certain level of...responsibility. Instead you enslave yourself to this...cult?
BUFFY: You don't like the color? (referring to her cheerleading outfit)
GILES: You were chosen to fight vampires...not to wave pom poms at people. As your watcher I forbid it.
BUFFY: And you'll be stopping me how?
GILES: Well..ehm...by appealing to your common sense...if such a creature exists. (LOL)
BUFFY: There are cheerleading coaches??
AMY: Yeah...you don't have one? I train with my mom...three hours before school and three hours at night.
BUFFY: Hm. That much quality time with my mom would probably lead to some quality matricide. (heh)
XANDER: So we have no idea who's responsible.
GILES: But that's the thrill of living on the hellmouth! There's a veritable cornucopia of vampires and fiends and ghouls to confront. (everyone looks at him like he's insane) Pardon me for looking at the glass as half full. (LOL!)
WILLOW: That means hacking illegally into the school's computer! At last something I can do.
XANDER: I'll ask around about her.
BUFFY: You guys don't have to get involved.
XANDER: What are you talking about. We're a team! We...are a team aren't we?
WILLOW: Yeah. You're the slayer and we're like...the slayerettes.
BUFFY: I just don't like putting you guys in danger.
XANDER: I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away. (LOL)
JOYCE: Oh! Look what I found. It's my high school yearbook from my Junior year. Oh...and there I am!
BUFFY: Mom, I've accepted that you had sex. I'm not ready to know that you had Pharrah hair.
JOYCE: This is Gidget hair...don't they teach you anything in history?
XANDER: You see how I'm not even a man to Cordelia?
WILLOW: I see that.
XANDER: It's the invisible man syndrome. A blessing in Cordelia's case...a curse when it comes to Buffy.
WILLOW: You're not invisible to Buffy.
XANDER: No...it's worse! I'm just a piece of scenery. Like an old shoe or a carpet you walk on every day but don't even really see.
WILLOW: Like an old pen that's really chewed up. But you don't get rid of it, not because you like it so much but because you're just used to it...
XANDER: ...that is the point, yes. You don't have to drill it through my head like a railroad spike. I gotta ask her out. It's like you said...I gotta stop beating around the bush.
WILLOW: Or maybe I'm wrong and you should beat around the bush more.
XANDER: No...I gotta be a man. What I have to stop doing is giving her cheesy bracelets...speaking with innuendo...taking polaroids outside her bedroom at night...and I'm going to abandon the last part of that joke because here she comes!
WILLOW: You'll be fine...
XANDER: Alright Xander...you can handle it...showtime. PLEASE CAN YOU ASK HER OUT FOR ME!! (pause) No...be a man... (ROTFL)
GILES: But why would someone want to harm Cordelia?
WILLOW: Maybe 'cause they met her? Did I say that? (LOL)
BUFFY: Of course you don't! 'Cause you're my friend! You're my Xander shaped friend.
XANDER: Riiight...
BUFFY: Do you know why I love you so, Xander?
WILLOW: Buffy, you're not yourself...
XANDER: Let her talk!
BUFFY: You're not like other boys. No no no! You're just like one of the girls! I'm that comfortable with you!
XANDER: Great.
BUFFY: Most guys would give me a bracelet and want to date me! (aww...poor Xander)
XANDER: I got her! I got her! Cut her head off!!
BUFFY: Whoa whoa, Xander...relax. Get your hands off her.
XANDER: But she's a witch!
BUFFY: It wasn't really her...
XANDER: What?
AMY: I was my mom.
XANDER: Oh.
WILLOW: Xander, look out!
XANDER: Willow...it's cool.
WILLOW: It is?
XANDER: Yeah, I took care of it. (LOL!!)
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