Overall Rating: 6.5
This episode reads more like science fiction than your typical Buffy creature feature. They took the script for "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" - scratched out every mention of aliens and wrote in "parasitic demon" and remade the movie for TV. It was mildly entertaining - compared to "Ted," the dialogue was far more enjoyable and the characters far more "in their roles." But it certainly isn't anything to write home about.
Plot Synopsis:
The theme for the week is responsibility. Children - can you say...re-spon-si-bi-li-ty? Very good! Buffy and her mother begin the episode quarreling over an apparently revealing outfit Buffy wanted to purchase and when her mother asks her to pick up a dress for her while she's getting them a fast food dinner in the mall's food court, Buffy gets sidetracked by a vampire in a rather conspircuous wild west style hat. She saves a teenaged girl from being sucked dry and then fights the vamp to a draw, sending him running. Her mother assumes (rather unfairly) that she didn't pick up the dress her mother wanted because she got distracted by a boy and grounds her for life (seriously? because you didn't get your dress??). She's under direct orders to report to the library after school and study until her mother picks her up at 5:30 the next afternoon.
Things take a strange turn later on when a class project in health (specifically a sex education experiment involving the rigors of childcare demonstrated on eggs) goes horribly wrong. Somehow the eggs are switched with demon seed and begin hatching little pod-creatures that take over their hosts with tenticle clamping. Buffy manages to kill her pod creature before she is taken captive, but everyone else affected (NOT including Xander - whose laziness saves his neck since he hard-boiled his egg to prevent breakage) is too sluggish from early brain-sucking fun to defend themselves. Xander's fortunate cheating, though it nearly caused him to eat a demon (ew), leads the slayerettes to the science lab to dissect the pod creatures...but at this point, Willow and Cordelia get orders from the mothership...er...mother demon...to knock out the interlopers and drag them into a closet with a new pair of pod creature eggs.
As it turns out, the mother demon - a bosoul - lives beneath the school and has ordered its minions (under the influence of the pod creatures) to dig her up and spread her eggs all over town. When Buffy's mother arrives to pick her up, she's not in the library (sorry, Mom, I was a little too unconscious at the time), and a furious Joyce talks to Giles about the burden of parenthood. Unfortuantely, Giles is already pod-Giles and he infests Joyce with a creature as well. Buffy and Xander come to, find the intended for them and smash them into paste (ew again). They then track a demonized student to the bosoul nest. Xander trails Cordelia and her latest batch of demon seed eggs out and stops her from spreading the little buggers.
The hilariously stupid vampire Buffy fought in the opening sequence and his even stupider brother (specifically the Gulch Brothers - a villainous pair of wild west crooks before getting turned) choose this moment to attack Buffy. They switch off between fighting side by side to fend off pod-people from the planet bosoul and fighting each other. When Buffy gets sucked into the bosoul pit and hacks it to bits from inside with a pick axe (EW!!), the surviving Gulch (his brother having been eaten by the bosoul) decides this is one slayer he'd rather not fight and runs away. With the mother demon dead, the pod-people all go back to normal and are told that their blackout was caused by a deadly gas leak. Buffy's mother, apparently unaware of her daughter's heroics, tightens the noose on Buffy even further, restricting her to her room when not at school (for not showing up at the library as ordered). Buffy is OK with this...Angel comes over for much smooching.
On the relationship front, this episode lays the groundwork for the coming big moment between Angel and Buffy - their first and only sex (the sex that will turn Angel evil and drive the second half of the season). Buffy confesses that she is enough in love with Angel that when she looks into her future, all she can see is him. This despite the fact that he'll never be able to give her children or be with her in the light of day. Also, Xander and Xordelia continue their lust/hate relationship in various out of the way closets - but it's quite an unhealthy dynamic they have going. Cordelia spends the whole time telling Xander how gross he is, and Xander spends the whole time telling Cordy how infuriating she can be.
Writing: 7.5
For a mediocre spoof of a classic bit of 1950s sci fi, this episode is entertaining enough. The dialogue has been a bit hit or miss thus far in the second season of Buffy, but was the strength in this particular episode. Thematically, I did feel a bit like I was being smashed over the head...everything was a bit too "on the nose" in the expository parts of the script...everyone being extra-certain to use the word responsibility at least 3 times per act got a bit grating. Writers take note...a theme should not be this blunt...when you see this happen in your script it's usually because you've taken two or three unrelated stories and smashed them together in a way that doesn't make sense and are trying to force them to fit.
Acting: 6.0
I enjoyed the scenes between Buffy and Joyce - SMG and Kristine Sutherland continue to have fantastic mother/daughter chemistry and that will always be true as the series continues. I was not, however, impressed with the acting during any of the scenes involving characters possessed by the pod creatures or drained of energy in the day leading up to their possession. Nor was I terribly thrilled with Jeremy Ratchford (Lyle Gorch) or James Parks (Tector Gorch), despite them having some seriosuly juicy comedy dialogue to play with. This episode could have been a LOT funnier than it was if the Gorches were a little livelier.
Message: 6.0
This one is a bit lacking on the message front. It's more of a "stage setting" episode than anything else. The writers were taking some time to set up Buffy and Angel's coming fall and Xander and Cordelia's relationship...so you can't expect too much on the message front. The real heavy-hitting message is about to be delievered...in the next two-parter, we are going to get a heavy dose of reality thrown on this teenaged passion stuff...and it is much needed.
Highlights:
Buffy: Come on, Mom, please?
Joyce: I'm sorry, honey.
Buffy: Don't you understand how important this is?
Joyce: It's an outfit. An outfit that you may never buy.
Buffy: But I looked good in it.
Joyce: You looked like a streetwalker.
Buffy: But a thin streetwalker. (LOL!) That's probably not gonna be the winning argument, is it?
Joyce: You're just too young to wear that.
Buffy: Yeah, and I'm gonna be too young to wear it until I'm too old to wear it.
Joyce: That's the idea. (YES!!)
Buffy: Everyday Woman?
Joyce: Mm-hm. There's the receipt.
Buffy: Why didn't you just go to Muu-Muus R Us? (LOL!)
Joyce: Do now, make fun of your mother later. (heh)
Joyce: (sternly) A little responsibility is all I ask. Honestly, don't you ever think about anything besides boys and clothes?
Buffy: Saving the world from vampires? (LOL)
Joyce: (crosses her arms and shakes her head) I swear, sometimes I don't know what goes on in your head.
Xander: You wanna talk negative consequence? What about the heartbreak of halitosis? (Cordelia looks at him and he looks back) I mean, a girl may seem spiffy, but if she ignores her flossing the bloom is definitely off the rose.
Cordelia: Like that compares to kissing a guy who thinks the Hoover technique is a *big* turn-on.
Xander: What about having to feign interest in her vapid little chit-chat just so you can get some touch?
Mr. Whitmore: Now. Another consequence of sexual activity? Anyone? (Cordelia raises her hand)
Mr. Whitmore: Uh, else? (ROTFL)
Joyce: Are you sure your egg is secure in that?
Buffy: (looks up at her) Did I ask for backseat mommying? (LOL)
Joyce: (gives her a look) Are we a little touchy this morning?
Buffy: No, I just feel all funky.
Joyce: Hmm. (feels her forehead) You don't have a fever.
Buffy: Oh, no, it's not that, I just... I didn't sleep well.
Joyce: (bends down to her daughter) What's the matter? Your egg keep you up all night?
Buffy: (gives her mom a look) You're killing me. Parenting's a pain!
Joyce: (straightens up and smiles smugly) Wait till it starts dating. (HEH!!)
Giles: How did the, um... hunt go last night, Buffy?
Buffy: No go.
Giles: Uh, 'no', 'no' you didn't go, or, or, or you were unsuccessful?
Buffy: No Gorches.
Xander: Apparently Buffy has decided the problem with the English language is all those pesky words. (looks at her) You... Angel... big... smoochies? (LOL!)
Willow: You boiled your young?
Xander: Yeah! I know it sounds cruel, but sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind! I mean, you can bet that little Xander here is thick skinned now.
Giles: Technically that would be cheating, yes?
Xander: No! It's like a short cut. You know, when you run a race? (Um...)
Buffy: That would also be cheating. (thank you Buffy....LOL)
Willow: (shakes her head) You should be ashamed.
Giles: I suppose there is a sort of... Machiavellian ingenuity to your transgression.
Xander: I resent that! (gets a look from Giles) Or possibly thank you. (LOL)
Buffy: I still have to go home and fill out my egg diary.
Angel: Your what?
Buffy: Oh, I told you, that faux parenting gig we're doing at school. (faces him) Like I'm really planning to have kids anytime soon. Uh, maybe *some*day, in the future, when I'm done having a life, but... right now kids would be just a little too much to deal with.
Angel: I wouldn't know. (looks at her) I don't... Well, you know, I, I can't.
Buffy: Oh. (looks away briefly, then back) That's okay, um... I-I figured there were all sorts of things vampires couldn't do. You know, like work for the Telephone Company, or volunteer for the Red Cross, or... have little vampires.
Angel: So you don't think about the future?
Buffy: No.
Angel: Never?
Buffy: No.
Angel: (swallows) You really don't care what happens a year from now? Five years from now?
Buffy: Angel, when I look into the future, a-a... all I see is you! All I want is you. (this scene highlighted because it is brilliantly written to demonstrate the deep flaw in the thinking of a teenager in love...this is exactly how young lovers behave and think about their relationships...and exactly why most young romance...without a lot of luck...is doomed to failure...not only does the script writer do a good job accurately rendering reality here...but he's setting us up for next week's devastating blow)
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