Episode Report Card Ace: C | 3 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Bring On The Night
By Ace | Season 7 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.16.2002
Buffy fights tiny Notsferatu. It does some cartwheel things, but the murkiness of the dark cave and my terrible UPN reception conspire to rob me of full enjoyment. Biff! Bang! Pow! Wee marshmallow-headed Notsferatu has Buffy by the neck, throttling her until she manages to clonk him on his big Styrofoam head with a stalactite. She clambers up the cave wall and is most of the way out of the hole when Notsie grabs her leg and drags her part of the way back in. No sign of Giles above ground. Buffy kicks off Notsie and, grunting, pulls herself above ground. Then there's the strangest Hammer horror films shot of Buffy looking up in desperation as Giles lumbers towards her, silhouetted dark against the rising sun. The soundtrack shrieks significantly, and Buffy gasps as the sun drives Notsie back into his hole.
Sunnydale sunrise shot. Buffy and Giles enter the kitchen, and Buffy seems absolutely flummoxed to see the three Junior Misses hanging in the kitchen, eating breakfast. Dawn must be quite the slug-a-bed for Buffy to be so surprised to see teens up with the sun. Kennedy talks with her mouth full to apologize for the other girls being in the kitchen. Shut up, Kennedy. Buffy wants to discuss what she just encountered, but Giles seems reluctant to have the Junior Misses in on the conversation. "No time to coddle them, Giles," Buffy decides. "Welcome to the war room, guys." Annabelle positively wriggles with excitement and runs to fetch her notepad. Giles gets into explainy mode and declares that Notsferatu is the vampire that's not. Or that's something more. Apparently, it's an Uruk-Hai, a monstrous creature bred deep in the bowels of Isengard to…oh, sorry. Wrong universe. Notsferatu is actually a Turok-Han, which is not at all like an Uruk-Hai. In fact, a Turok-Han is some sort of Ultimate Fighting Vampire, so bad, mad, and -- uh, bad, that makes all the non-Turok vampires shake in their little booties. They're the monster-myth under the bed that vampire mommies would use to scare their little vampire offspring into being good, if vampires reproduced that way. Giles always thought the Turok-Han were a myth until Buffy encountered one. Myths never live up to the hype, do they? That must be why Notsferatu is so tiny and nimble, and not at all the primordial killing machine Giles just described. Giles deduces that Notsferatu is "an agent of the First." Annabelle wants to know if the Turok-Han is dead, and Buffy has to admit that she didn't quite manage to finish it off. She says the Turok-Han wants them all dead, but can't get at them during daylight. So that's its only vampire-like weakness? Giles wants Buffy to get some rest, but she's not willing. She tells the girls to "sit tight" and decides to head off to "work" (ironic quotes there) and check out their enemy. Giles wants to know how she's going to research The First, and Buffy says, "I have the best plan ever."