Overall Rating: 8.7
A thoroughly enjoyable episode with a surprisingly mature final message that should appeal to the Catholics in the crowd. :) (nudge nudge)
Plot Synopsis:
On a routine training hunt, Buffy scores mediocre marks from Giles on her technique - that is until he discovers a piece of jewelry amidst the ashes of the vampire Buffy dusted that leads him to believe something important is about to happen. The next day, an ordinary gathering of the Scooby gang is interrupted when a mysterious (and evidently very attractive to teenage girls - though that sound you just heard were my eyes rolling so hard they literally popped out of their sockets sending me to the ground to find them and reinsert them before continuing on with this review) young man enters looking for (egads!) a book from the school's library. He wants to check out a collection of poems by Emily Dickenson (a bit cliche, writers!), and he and Buffy get to talking. One thing leads to another and wouldn't you know it, she winds up pretending to love classic poetry to impress the lad.
Giles, injecting a little reality into the picture, gets Buffy thinking again about their encounter with the strange new vampire and Buffy beats Giles to the key insight (a fact that seems to annoy him just a tad...LOL)....she recognizes a symbol on the inside of the ring and traces it to the Order of Aureleus - the same clan which attempted to free the Master in "The Harvest." Giles digs into the books while Buffy giggles with Willow about getting noticed by the boy who "can brood for 40 minutes straight!" Cordelia, evidently possessing a radar alerting her to when any other girl may have access to a man she wants, tries to get a date with this chap, named Owen, but he is far more interested in Buffy. They agree to meet at the Bronze later that night. Unfortunately, Giles discovers a lead which makes him believe an apocalypse-portending ritual is about to take place. Over her cries of protest, she is dragged to the graveyard to wait for the dead vampire they know only as "the anointed" to rise. When he never shows up, Giles, puzzled, allows Buffy to head to the Bronze a little late, but once she gets there, she sees Cordelia practically humping poor Owen and flees.
The next day, Buffy gets a second invite from Owen to meet that night, and he very charmingly lends her a watch and shows her how to use it - I liked him better after this sequence, for what it's worth. She implores Giles to let her have the night off and he agrees...that is until he sees news that five people have died in a van crash, one of whom was likely a multiple murderer. As his prophecy has warned, five have died and the anointed may very well rise tonight! Buffy outright refuses to follow up on the lead, thinking it's thin and not wanting to miss her chance with Owen, so Giles goes to the funeral home alone where he is promptly cornered by multiple rising vampires.
Buffy and Owen hit it off big time, but then Angel arrives ("Here I come to ruin the day!!") and informs her that something bad is indeed about to happen. She has to ditch Owen and run to the funeral home...but Owen follows her. When they arrive, Giles has walled himself off, and with a little help from Willow and Xander, he has successfully fended off the first few vampires to rise - average demons, nothing to write home about. However, when Owen witnesses another dead man rise, he is far stronger than the rest. Assuming he's the anointed, Buffy goes into battle mode with Owen watching in amazement. He tries to help her and gets himself knocked unconscious. Buffy, thinking he might be dead, goes ballistic and kicks the crap out of the menacing vamp before getting him to flip into the incinerator. Owen, a little light headed, awakes and stumbles home. The next day, he approaches Buffy and tells her how cool he thought the previous evening had been. He wants to be "danger man," but Buffy, realizing just how serious this could turn, breaks it off with him for his own protection. Thinking they've stopped the anointed from rising, they return to their day, unaware that a small child has been brought to the Master. He is the anointed, and as the prophecy foretold, the slayer did not know him and she did not stop him.
Writing: 8.5
Apart from some annoyingly cliche commentary about the mysterious brooding intellectual boys that girls always seem to prefer to the average "nice guy" at this age (trust me, I know), this episode features the show's hallmark enjoyable dialogue and a pretty solid plot concept. I still hate The Master as a villain...he still seems maudlin and goofy compared to some of the other bad guys Buffy winds up facing in later seasons. But in this episode, they actually managed to write an interesting sounding prophecy and pay it off in a genuinely surprising way. Oh and dealing with the hazards of a slayer attempting to have a social life will be a regular feature in the years to come, but in this first full-on attempt at it, the writers, IMHO, hit a surprising home run. They chose NOT to go the stereotypical way and have the boy get scared off by her vampire-enriched lifestyle. They chose, instead, to have him be attracted to that life - a fate far worse for all involved and much more in line with his character.
Acting: 8.0
I wasn't terribly impressed with Christopher Wiehl (Owen), and every time I see Mark Metcalf attempt to play a super-evil vampire, it inspires laughter from deep within my spinal column, but the regular cast was superb in this episode, particularly my long time favorite (and IMHO the most under-appreciated amongst the Scoobies) Nicholas Brendan. Sarah Michelle Gellar has by far her strongest episode to date as well.
Message: 9.5
Strongly featured in the highlights for this episode, we see Buffy learn the meaning of the word sacrifice, first by the writers building up how much Buffy is attracted to Owen, then by her coming to the depressing realization that her life is too dangerous to share with a guy like Owen and making the right call despite the pain in causes. The notion of virtuous sacrifice comes to Western society straight from Judeo-Christian morality, though I doubt Joss Whedon would see it that way. Nonetheless, despite her occasional impulsiveness, her bouts of teenage immaturity, and the ease with which she could give up on all of this "calling" stuff to get what she really wants out of life, we see Buffy growing up in a hurry and turning into a remarkable person. In episode 5 That's quite a trick. Incidentally, there are a number of other reviews of Buffy episodes out there, and a common thread among them has been that this episode was light and frivolous, making it less appealing. My comments above make my point for me about this not being frivolous at all. There were lighter moments, but this is an early landmark moment in Buffy's growth and I think it deserves more credit than it gets.
Highlights:
BUFFY: Uh...Giles?
GILES: Oh...what are you doing here, young man?
OWEN: I'm looking for a book.
GILES: A book?
BUFFY: See this is a school, and we have students here. They check books out and then they learn things.
GILES: I was beginning to suspect that was a myth. (LOL)
XANDER: So Buffy; how'd the slaying go last night?
BUFFY: Xander!
XANDER: Uh...I mean...how'd the laying go? No...I don't mean that either.
BUFFY: It's not that big a deal, Willow.
WILLOW: What are you talking about! This is serious!
GILES: Yes, I'm afraid it is quite serious at that.
WILLOW: Thank you. See, Giles knows.
BUFFY: Wait, what are you talking about?
GILES: The Order of Aureleus! It seems they're planning something big. What were you talking about?
BUFFY & WILLOW: Boys!! (LOL)
BUFFY: No, it can't be tonight! I have a date!
GILES: Alright, I'll just jump in my time machine, travel back to the 1200s and ask the vampires to postpone their ritual for a few days while you take in dinner and a show.
BUFFY: OK, now you're just abusing sarcasm.
GILES: Look, you have a duty, Buffy, and this is bigger than anything else.
BUFFY: But...cute guy! Teenager! Post-pubescent fantasies! (LOL!!)
XANDER: Eh, don't worry, Buffy. You'll find someone. Let Cordelia have him - there are plenty of other guys who wouldn't go for that sort of thing.
BUFFY: But we're not talking about just any guy. He's more like an Oweny guy!
XANDER: Alright, he does have a certain Owenosity to him. But still...(Owen appears and distracts Buffy, Xander looks like a puppy that's just been kicked)
BUFFY: Owen!
XANDER: Yes Owen...and Buffy. And Xander. That's me. (aww....poor guy...)
OWEN: Where were you last night?
BUFFY: Well, my watch stopped working...and we don't even have any clocks in my house, so I didn't know what time it was or even what day it was.
OWEN: Well how about we try again tonight?
BUFFY: Tonight? But...
OWEN: What...do you not want to see me?
BUFFY: No! It's not that...just...I heard somewhere that you and Cordelia were kind of...all over each other last night. A little.
OWEN: I danced with her a couple of times. She was kind of grabby.
BUFFY: OK...so...tonight?
OWEN: I'll even lend you my watch. (Buffy seems impressed when he produces a gold-backed pocket watch) I'll pick you up at seven. That's when the little hand is right...here.
BUFFY: Ah...between the six and the eight. Easy. (LOL)
XANDER: See what you need is a guy who already knows you deepest darkest secrets and is still all like "hey...still want to hang!" Someone like...
WILLOW: Owen!
XANDER: You have got to be kidding me. (LOL)
BUFFY: Owen?
OWEN: Hey Buffy. Look about last night...
BUFFY: It's alright...you don't have to explain...
OWEN: That got pretty crazy, didn't it?
BUFFY: I understand...you don't want to deal with that. You don't have to...
OWEN: No, that's just it! I was wondering if we could hang out again some time.
BUFFY: Huh?
OWEN: I thought we could...go to a club and pick a fight or maybe sneak into the mall after hours!
BUFFY: Like what happened last night.
OWEN: Yeah! So can I pick you up some time? Tonight is good for me...
BUFFY: Well it's not good for me. I can't believe I just said that.
OWEN: What do you mean?
BUFFY: It's not you, it's me! I'm sorry...
OWEN: Yeah...it's you...
BUFFY: And I was really hoping we could still...
OWEN: ...yeah...you just want to be friends. I understand. (he looks stunned and hurt)
BUFFY: That would be perfect. (he wanders off in bewilderment and Giles, having witnessed the entire event, approaches gingerly)
GILES: When I was ten years old, I found out I was destined to become a watcher. My father was one, and his mother before him.
BUFFY: I take it you didn't like it any more than I do.
GILES: Oh no, at that age I had very definite plans for what I was going to do with my life. I was going to be a fighter pilot. Or perhaps a rock star. Anyway, the point is, my father sat me down and told me a very tiresome speech about duty and sacrifice. He seems like a very nice young man.
BUFFY: He is. But he wanted to be danger man. A few days in my world and he really would get himself killed. Or I'd get him killed.
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