Buffy is fighting an ineffective vamp in a cemetery at night. She gets the better of him and quips, "We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Buffy, and you're history," as she dusts him. Giles pops up from behind a tomb and, checking his notes, criticizes Buffy's execution and technique in offing the vamp. As Buffy scoffs, Giles informs her that she's expending too much "time and energy" and instead her technique should be "plunge and move on." Sounds like too many guys I knew in college. Uh, anyway, as Giles speaks he notices the dusted vamp has left behind a signet ring, although I don't know why a vampire's accessories would stay behind when their clothes seem to always vanish. Giles tells Buffy that he's not sure of the origin of the ring, but that it seems to imply that her recent slaying was not random. He of course is eager to consult his books. Why is Giles so surprised to find a ring? Most of the vampires we see sport an accessory or two.
We see a huge dusty book slamming down and then the ugly mug of the Master, who is reading a passage from the book concerning "the Anointed, the Master's greatest warrior." The rest of the passage says that the Anointed will come, the Slayer will not know him and "he will lead her into Hell." Heavy, dude. "As it is written, so shall it be," muses the Master. For some reason, I'm not entirely sure why, on this rental tape I have captioning in Spanish instead of the usual English closed captioning. Which means that as part of Ace's Buffy Learning Hour, I can tell you that "As it is written so shall it be" in Spanish is As' est‡ escrito y que as' sea. We get a long shot of the Master's cavern, and the set has obviously been expanded since "The Harvest," because it's much more obvious this time around that the Master is trapped in a ruined church. Which is a theme I seem to recall getting recycled in season four. Okay, wait, I'm getting distracted from oh-so-important exposition here. The Master approaches three vampires and continues reading. Apparently "five will die and from their ashes the Anointed shall rise." The vampires are members of the Brethren of Aurelius, who have to meet the Anointed One and lead him to the Master. The Master scolds the Brethren for allowing one of their membership to get slain by Buffy the night before. He chokes one of the vamps, trying to impress upon them the importance of not letting the Slayer get in the way of his (Master) plan.
Buffy is sitting in the library fiddling with the ring she and Giles found, as he informs her he's discovered that the rune on the ring stands for fidelity. That is note-worthy, because fidelity doesn't seem to be in the vampire pantheon of virtues. Buffy notices a symbol on the inside of the ring, and although Giles tells her it's meaningless, she takes the book from him and instantly identifies the symbol. Apparently the dead vampire belonged to the Order of Aureoles, oops, spell check problem there -- I meant Order of Aurelius. As Buffy gloats over besting Giles, a tall young man enters the library. Buffy pops up and smoothes her dress, greeting him as "Owen," but Giles snappishly demands, "What do you want?" Owen, a wide-eyed good-looking lad, if a trifle, say, thirtyish to be playing eighteen, wants a book. He explains he's lost his Emily Dickinson. Buffy babbles at Owen and proves she doesn't have any idea who Emily Dickinson is, and when Giles points Owen towards the poetry sections, Owen tells Buffy that he didn't think he'd find her in the library. Buffy runs after him, revealing the fact that she wearing a dress made out of two tea towels my grandmother bought in 1965. As he browses the shelves, Owen says he never thought of Buffy as the bookwormy type, and she gazes mooncalfishly at him and then admits she's surprised he ever gave her any thought. Buffy, for god's sake, you wear about thirty square inches of fabric and leather knee-boots to school! Of course the boys have thought about you. As Owen goes to check out his book, Buffy continues chatter at him; he tells her he'll see her in math and leaves. Buffy gazes after Owen as Giles returns to the Order of Aurelius. However, Buffy can't concentrate and wants Giles to find her another copy of Emily Dickinson. He dryly tells her that her interest in checking out a book is "grounds for a national holiday" but that they need to focus on their supernatural problem. Buffy agrees and then frets, "Does this outfit make me look fat?"
In the cafeteria, Buffy and Willow buy their lunches and discuss Buffy's close encounter of the Owen kind. Willow describes him as "brooding and mysterious," and I guess the reason we never saw Owen again after this episode was that he was stepping all over Angel's stereotype. The girls join Xander at a cafeteria table, and Willow calls Buffy a vixen for checking out her own copy of Emily Dickinson. They discuss the food of unknown origin and Xander inquires loudly, "How'd the slaying go last night?" and then for secrecy's sake corrects himself, "How'd the laying go?" Buffy glares. The group notices Owen sitting alone and Buffy simpers that perhaps someone should go and sit with him. I pause the tape in order to transcribe the this scene so far and freeze SMG mid-simper. My boyfriend, wandering through the room, inquires, "What's that face? Buffy looks like she just ripped one." And after laughing until my ribs hurt I have to admit that she really, really does. Buffy grabs her tray and approaches Owen's table but is body-checked by Cordelia, who apparently had the same plan. As Buffy bends down to pick up her lunch, Cordy plops herself down across from Owen. Buffy gets revenge by making a crack about Cordy's wide hips as Owen helps her gather her lunch. Cordelia tries to recover the situation by telling Owen he should stop by the Bronze, since "a bunch of us" (by which she means herself) will be there. Buffy looks hurt until Owen asks if she's going. Despite Cordy's attempts at sabotage, Owen and Buffy agree to meet at the Bronze at 8:00.
Buffy and Willow leave the cafeteria as Buffy tries to insist that her plans aren't a big deal. Willow is very excited, but the girls run into that bummer Giles, who is more concerned with "trouble" than he is with "boys." He informs them that the Order of Aurelius will be bringing the Anointed One to the Master on a certain night. Buffy says they'll be ready, but Giles reveals that the prophesied night is tonight. Buffy is quite upset because of her big date with Owen, but Giles lays the sarcasm on heavy. He's insistent that Buffy will have to put her date on hold and Buffy whines about fulfilling her "post-pubescent fantasies." Giles declares that "tonight we go into battle."
Later that night, Buffy and Giles sit in a quiet graveyard. Buffy yawns. Giles admits that perhaps he miscalculated and Buffy, clad in a tiger-print fun-fur coat that I'm having a serious love/hate relationship with, is eager to make her rendezvous with Owen. Giles lets her go, but reminds her that dating someone unaware of her secret identity could be dangerous. He claims that if her identity as a slayer is revealed, "it could put [her] and all those around [her] in grave danger," but I think we've seen that Giles was pretty much wrong about that one. Buffy sasses, "In that case I won't wear my button that says 'I'm a Slayer, ask me how,'" and leaves the annoyed Giles behind.
A short bus drives along a dark street. Most of the passengers doze, except a small boy playing with a toy plane. In the back of the bus, a menacing guy with bad facial hair spouts what sounds like Biblical passages. He's obviously a few steps short of a staircase.
Buffy enters the Bronze and looks around for Owen. She spots him dancing with Cordelia, who is running her hands up and down his arms. Putting Cordy right to Owen like that just makes it all the more obvious that the only way they're even believable as high-school age is if they've lived every day twice. Buffy stares, and then turns and leaves the club.
In the bus, the scary guy walks up the aisle and preaches about Judgement Day or some other TV crazy-talk. The bus driver tells him to sit down, and while he's distracted with the scary guy, a vampire steps out into the road. The bus hits the vampire and then swerves off the road, finally plowing into a telephone pole. The driver checks if his passengers are okay, and then goes out to check on the man he hit. He kneels to check the victim but is grabbed by the throat. More vampires move into the bus and screams are heard.
day at school, Buffy has explained the situation to Xander and slams her locker shut in frustration. Well, however much we like to complain about the clothes in the fourth season, at least the cast isn't costumed in spandex anymore. Blue spandex. In this case, a blue, faux-velvet, spandex tank-top with a tie-dyed target over the breasts and bra cups showing in the arm holes. And that's not even mentioning the extremely high waisted, wide legged pants. Buffy explains that she left without talking to Owen because she couldn't think of a good explanation for her lateness. Xander tells Buffy she could date any guy in the school, but she seems fixated on Owen. At that moment, Owen walks up and asks Buffy where she was the night before. She gives him a lame excuse about her watch breaking, which he understands. He asks her again to meet at the Bronze, and then romantically gives her his pocket watch so she can make it on time. Xander glumly stares at his plastic Tweety Bird watch. Buffy tries to feel Owen out (not like that! God, get your minds out of the gutter) about him and Cordelia, but Owen describes Cordy as "grabby," which earns him a date with Buffy. Buffy swoons off and Xander glums some more.
Giles is in his library office when Buffy bursts in, checking to see if Giles has made any developments in the Anointed One thing. She doesn't give him a chance to speak, but lets herself off the hook for patrol and rushes out of his office. "She is the strangest girl," muses Giles.
The Master for once is doling out some praise to his henchmen, telling the Order of Aurelius that they have done a good job. He mentions that after tonight he'll be one step closer to escaping from the "mystical prison" in which he's trapped. I know it's mystical and all, but I really never understood how the other vamps could come and go but the Master was stuck. The Master muses that he's "nearly forgotten what it's like on the surface. Well, there'll be time enough to remember..." "When the dealing's done," I finish in my head. Because Kenny Rogers is the master of my world, you see. He again tells the Order to kill Buffy if she gets in their way, and to not disappoint him.
In Buffy's bedroom, Buffy, in a bathrobe, and Willow are picking out an outfit for Buffy's date, as Xander sits on the bed and watches. She shows two different dresses to Xander, one described as "shy, coy and naïve," the other as "unrestrained, insatiable and aggressive," but both of them are tiny shift dresses so short they look like they'd leave her curlies waving in the breeze. Xander suggests a more demure approach, and pulls a huge parka and hat out of Buffy's closet. There's some more banter where Xander tries to play up possible bad side effects of Buffy going on a date with Owen, and then Willow hands Buffy another dress. Buffy changes into the dress, while Xander turns his back but peeps at her in a jewelry box mirror. Willow wants to know where Owen will be taking Buffy, and has to engage in some clunky dialogue further establishing the fact that she's never really dated at all. Like, we get it already. The doorbell rings and the gang rushes down excitedly, only to find Giles instead of the expected Owen. Buffy attempts to close the door in Giles's face, but he pushes in, showing her a newspaper headline about the bus crash of the night before. He insists that the five who died in the crash fulfill the prophecy and that the crazy guy from the bus, Andrew Borba, was a possible murderer and therefore a good candidate for the Anointed One. As Buffy protests going to check out the bodies in a funeral home, Owen shows up at the door, confused by the tableau before him. Buffy grabs his arm and prepares to leave, telling Giles she'll return her library books tomorrow. Xander and Willow usher Owen into another room so that Giles can continue to argue with Buffy about doing her Slayerly duty. Giles calls the Slayer having a social life "problematic," but finally agrees to let Buffy go on her date and beep her if he needs her. Buffy and Owen leave, and Giles follows after, telling Willow and Xander that he's heading for the funeral home. Willow declares they should "go along" but Xander thinks she's talking about Buffy's date with Owen.
At the Bronze, Buffy and Owen sit and discuss the morbidness of Emily Dickinson. Owen also tells Buffy that he doesn't "get out much," because he considers most girls "pretty frivolous." Maybe he doesn't get out much because he has no idea how to talk to a sixteen-year-old girl on a first date. Buffy, feeling a twinge of guilt, checks her beeper, but it shows no messages. The happy couple hits the dance floor, where Owen tells Buffy she's "like two people," one of whom he can't figure out. As they dance Cordelia arrives on the scene with her herd and approaches Owen, bitching, "Owen, look at you here all alone." Owen points out that he's with Buffy and Buffy tells Cordy to go "somewhere that's away."
Giles arrives at the Cemeterio de Sunnydale and, looking spooked, walks up to the front of the building. Suddenly two vamps surround him; Giles pulls a crucifix and runs into the funeral home. He tries locked doors in the hallway and then runs. The vamps enter the building and follow.
At the Bronze, Buffy and Owen dance and google at each other.
Giles enters the embalming room in the funeral home and drags a filing cabinet over to block the door. The door handle wiggles and the vamps pound on the outside. As Giles searches the room, he is surprised by Willow and Xander, who are peering in through a barred window. Giles tells them to get to safety and when Xander suggests perhaps Buffy should be on the scene, Giles tells them to contact her on her "beeping thing." Xander and Willow go to get help as the vampires pound loudly on the door.
At the Bronze, Owen offers to get Buffy something to eat. She asks that he make sure it's something "fattening," as Cordy looks on and snipes jealously. As she gripes, Angel enters the club and walks by her. Huh. I'd forgotten he was even on this show. Upon seeing Angel, Cordy utters the immortal Buffy line, "Hel-lo salty goodness." She prepares to work a little seductive magic on him, but is outraged to see that he's at the club to talk to Buffy. Angel tells Buffy he came to find her and that "some serious stuff is happening." Who writes this guy's dialogue? Not very snappy for a lurking mysterious guy. Buffy lets him know she's already aware of the Anointed One and then, for some reason, points Owen out to Angel. "You're here on a date?" asks Angel, looking like a kicked puppy. Owen walks up and Buffy introduces them. Angel looks surly and says he knows Buffy from "work." But before the two males can engage in any more testosterone wrangling over the Slayer, Willow and Xander rush in. Owen is surprised to see them, Xander is surprised to see Angel and as a cover-up, Xander claims that he and Willow came to be on a double-date with Buffy and Owen. Buffy tries to brush everyone off, but Xander and Willow finally get their point across by saying that they need to go the Sunnydale Funeral Home. Buffy tries to take her leave of Owen, who wants to come and then asks why she wants to leave him behind. Buffy assures him that she'll be back and then gives him a big smooch. Angel grits his teeth as the Scooby gang leave the Bronze.
Buffy and the Slayerettes enter the funeral home and start to look for Giles. Suddenly Owen shows up behind them, excited to see a dead body. Buffy leaves him in Xander's and Willow's care, and then enters the embalming room. The door is open and the room is trashed but Giles has been hiding with a corpse in one of those corpse lockers you always see on TV. Having made sure Giles is okay, Buffy declares her intent to remove Owen to safety; Giles is shocked to hear that she brought her date along. Buffy tells Giles to stay put and that she'll take care of things. Buffy finds the Scoobs and Owen and breaks into an office, hoping to stow them there out of harm's way. Owen still thinks they're in the funeral home for kicks, and is confused as to why Buffy wants him to check out such a boring room. She tells them to barricade the door.
Cut to Buffy checking out the corpse lockers, looking for the Anointed One.
Back in the office, Willow and Xander work to barricade the office door. Owen curiously draws open a set of curtains at the end of the room and looks shocked. Willow and Xander approach gingerly.
Buffy and Giles are still checking the lockers, but find nothing.
In the office, Owen muses he's read a lot about death, but never seen a body before. Then he gulps and asks, "Do they usually move?" We see Owen, Willow and Xander are actually in some sort of observation room, and the window they are looking through reveals another room with a gurney in the center. On the gurney is a body covered with a sheet, but the corpse's arm is twitching. Andrew Borba from the bus accident pulls off the sheet and sits up. His ugly mug has gotten even uglier due to the fact that he is now a vampire. Borba flexes his muscles and quoth, "I have been judged." As Owen wonders what's happening, Borba approaches the glass and busts it out with his head. I know it's not right to judge others on appearances, but I'm sure that's not the first time he's done that.
Borba gloats about his new state while Xander, Willow and Owen frantically remove the barricade from the door. For some reason Ugly Andrew chants, "Pork and beans. Pork and beans," as he follows after them. I have to admit that the first time I saw this episode that phase entered my pop-culture lexicon for quite a while. Thankfully it's now safe to hang out with me. The Scoobs and Owen run into Buffy in the hall and point her back towards Ugly Andrew, who is stomping down the hall singing. Willow, Xander, and Owen try to leave the funeral home but are met at the door by vampires.
Buffy finds Giles still in the embalming room and gets some anti-vamp supplies from him. She tells him to get outside and find the others, but as she turns to leave, Ugly Andrew comes through the doorway and tosses her aside. In one of the funeral home's hallways, Owen says he needs to go help Buffy and runs off to find her. Willow and Xander follow. Ugly Andrew approaches Buffy, splayed on the floor, and Giles, who kneels over her with a crucifix. As always on Buffy, the crucifix is not actually very helpful; Ugly Andrew slaps it aside and tosses Giles into some machinery, where his impact manages to turn on the incinerator. Ugly Andrew lifts Buffy up into the air, but drops her on the floor when Owen runs up behind and smacks him with a piece of metal. Buffy lies winded on the floor and Ugly Andrew attacks Owen, who manages to smack him in the head with a metal urn full of ashes. He goes to help Buffy up and calls Ugly Andrew a "sissy" for trying to bite him. Owen's moment of victory is brief though, because Ugly Andrew whacks him from behind and drops him, declaring, "Dead. He was found wanting." This pisses Buffy off, so she deals him a kick to the chest in the best fight move seen thus far on the show. "You killed my date!" shouts Buffy, enraged. Willow and Xander hover in the doorway and notice that Owen is slowly sitting up on the floor but don't tell Buffy, I guess thinking that her anger will help her fight Ugly Andrew. Buffy manages to slide her opponent along a metal table into the incinerator, and Giles pops up to close the door behind him. Buffy rushes to Owen's side and lies that they scared the Ugly Guy away. She helps Owen up and apologizes for the hectic events of their date. Owen, quite wobbly, says he wants to go home, and Willow and Xander offer to escort him. Sensing Buffy's disappointment, Giles tries to talk to her, but she cuts him off.
day at school, Buffy pumps Willow and Xander for anything Owen might have said about her the night before. They have to tell her that he didn't mention her, and Buffy whines that she messed things up. Xander tells her she needs a guy who already knows her secret, and is about to volunteer himself when the gang runs into Owen. Willow drags Xander off to give them some privacy. Buffy and Owen stare awkwardly at each other and Owen starts, "I don't really know how to say this." Buffy interrupts saying she'll understand if he's freaked out. Owen agrees he was, and wants to know when they can date again. Turns out he was very excited by almost getting killed, and wants to have the experience again. Buffy becomes sad as she realises that Owen is a thrill-seeker. She tells him she can't see him anymore, but doesn't explain why. They agree to just be friends and Owen mopes away. Giles approaches and tells Buffy that he was told at ten he was destined to be a Watcher. He had different plans, wanting to be a "fighter pilot or possibly a grocer" but his father gave him a speech about "sacrifice." Buffy muses that Owen wants to be "danger man" and would get himself killed living in her world. She apologizes to Giles for not being there for him at the funeral home and Giles forgives her, saying she's doing "pretty well" as a Slayer. They congratulate themselves on having eliminated the Anointed One.
In the Master's lair the Master repeats the prophecy, "And in this time will come the Anointed and the Slayer will not know him. She will not stop him and he will lead her into Hell." The Master kneels down before the little boy from the bus accident and welcomes him. The child sneers.