Now You See Me. Now You Don't. Now I Kill You.

S01E11

Opening shot of the exterior of Sunnydale High. Kids play as Cordelia, in voice-over, waxes poetic (hey, it's just an expression) about springtime. We see her walk down the hall flanked by Harmony and some dud (I meant to type "dude," but the typo works better) who's got his arm around her. That's actually significant, because the dud is played by Ryan Bittle, better known as Ambiguously Gay Eric on Dawson's Creek. Only, since he's pretty unambiguously into Cordelia, I think I'll have to refer to him as Firmly In The Closet Eric in this recap. They mention things they like about spring, one of which is the end-of-school dance, which segues into Cordy saying that she's having her dress specially made. "Off the rack gives me hives." Firmly In The Closet Eric tries to be endearing by rhyming that with, "Let me guess. Blue, like your eyes." I don't get the chance to groan too long, however, because Cordy snaps, "My eyes are hazel, Helen Keller." Harmony brownnoses that the two of them will look great in the May Queen photo. Cordy gives the obligatory "I haven't been elected yet" speech. I note, for not the first time, that Charisma Carpenter's skin was about 537 shades lighter in the first season than in the third or in any season of Angel. They reach the library doors, and Buffy, running out, bumps into FITC Eric, spilling assorted weapons all over. Cordy just snickers, and Harmony pulls one of her patented "Buffy is an escaped mental patient" faces. Buffy babbles, trying to explain that she borrowed the stuff from Giles for "show and tell" in history class. Why she cares what this group thinks is beyond me. Harmony: Disparaging comment. They walk off; Cordy starts to tell FITC Eric about the time Buffy "attacked" her in the Bronze, referring to the incident in "Welcome To The Hellmouth." Buffy looks sad.

Nice segue to a large black (can you believe it?) female teacher, reading Shylock's famous "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" speech from The Merchant Of Venice. She asks the class how it relates to their discussion of the outcast in society. Good combination of a tie-in to Buffy's feelings and foreshadowing of events to come in this episode. I guess the anvil budget was low in the first season. Cordy responds that Shylock was completely self-involved and a whiner, in such a way that illustrates that she's more self-involved than Madonna and Courtney Love put together. The teacher says that Cordelia has raised an interesting point. The bell rings, which is too bad, because we don't get to see how the teacher was going to spin it to make Cordy not look like a self-absorbed lunatic. The class leaves, but Cordy approaches the teacher, whose name is Ms. Miller, for some help on her term paper. She says, "I have all these thoughts, and I'm pretty sure they all contradict each other." Well, that would certainly explain some of your fashion decisions over the years. Mrs. Miller tells her to come by the day after school for the plot contrivance, er, "help." Cordy happily walks out and sees Harmony, and tells her that her dress is ready. She says that FITC Eric "is gonna die." Groan.

By Couch Baron

Boys' locker room. FITC Eric has been surreptitiously checking out the other guys' bods -- er, "taking a shower." He goes to his locker, which has a baseball bat on top of it, so we know which jock clique he belongs to. Some buddy of his asks him if he's going to the Bronze, but he says he has to pick up his tux first. Jock Friend: "You gotta look good to be on Cordelia's arm." What sayest thou, yon princely bard? Thou must take pains with thine dress to be on the arm of the fair maiden Cordelia? Sheesh. FITC Eric says it's not her arm he's looking to be on. They guffaw like the big dorks they are. Jock Friend and some other dude who's been checking out FITC Eric leave. We see the camera close on FITC Eric from the other side. The Creepy First-Season Music Of Something's About To Happen kicks up, and we hear a girl laugh. FITC Eric asks who's there, then goes back to the apparently very complicated process of drying off. Perhaps taking a shower with other boys led to the baseball bat not being the only wood in the locker room. The girl laughs again, and FITC Eric reaches for his bat. The bat, however, has other ideas, and floats into the air. He looks scared, and with good reason, as the bat clocks him in the face. He cowers, and the bat hits him a couple more times. The last thing we see is the bat from FITC Eric's perspective, winding up for one last shot. We hear the girl grunt, the bat swings, and all goes dark. Long-assed teaser! Credits.

Hallway. We see Buffy and Harmony at their lockers, and the camera shot widens to show Cordy, flanked by random Cordettes, giving chocolates out to students to solicit their May Queen vote. The group comes up to Harmony, and Cordy proudly displays the chocolates, each in wrapping with the letter "C" printed on it. Harm asks if the "C" is for "Cordelia," and Cordy duhs her. Cordy says that this ploy will cause people to associate her with something sweet. That would have worked on me in high school, I'm quite sure. Cordy starts to give one to Buffy, but takes it back, opining that she doesn't need the "loony fringe" vote. Buffy calls after her that she doesn't even like chocolates, but mutters that that was "the lamest comeback of our time," so I don't have to. Xander and Willow walk up, and Buffy fills them in that Cordy is running for May Queen. Xander notes that Cordy loves titles, and Willow almost hyperventilates recalling an amusing anecdote to that effect. Only she and Xander spit out random lines that no one who wasn't at the original event could understand. Buffy tries to laugh along with them, but finally snarks, "It's fun that we're speaking in tongues." They say that the story's not that funny, but that Cordy has a history of trying too hard. Xander, for one of countless times, ruins one of his shoes as he puts it in his mouth: "What kind of moron would want to be May Queen, anyway?" Buffy turns to her locker and softly says that she was, at her old school. ["Okay, nitpick time. First of all, does SHS have both a May Queen dance and a prom? That seems unlikely to me. Second of all, Buffy won May Queen as a freshman? Yeah, right. Only on TV and in movies do freshmen and sophomores get to run anything, or run for anything more important than treasurer of anything. Ohndrea on running the school paper for, like, a decade is Exhibit A. Doesn't happen in real life. Sorry, but that always annoys me." -- Sars] Everyone gets serious in a hurry, and Xander does his trademark make-things-worse-by-not-shutting-up apology. Buffy says that they didn't call it "May Queen," but it was nice. Xander tries to make her feel better, but Willow chooses the most inopportune moment to bring up the inside joke about Cordy again. Buffy's feelings of isolation now established, Jock Friend appears, yelling that FITC Eric "got whaled on. I think he's --"

"-- dead? 'Course not." It's Snyder, in front of the locker room, talking to a bunch of students. "There are no dead students here...this week." Heh. FITC Eric is wheeled out on a gurney, conscious. Buffy stops them to ask FITC Eric what happened. His right eye is swollen, even though from the way the earlier scene was shot, it should be his left eye that's in worse shape. FITC Eric, stripped of his machismo, tells her how the bat attacked him before they wheel him away. Buffy starts to walk into the locker room to check out the scene, but Snyder sternly stops her. It doesn't look good until Willow, making up for earlier, loudly starts a conversation with Xander about how FITC Eric said he was going to sue the school. This gets Snyder's attention, and Buffy mouths a "thank you" in their direction and enters the locker room. Inside, she sees the attack bat, and gingerly taps it with her foot, but nothing happens. She notices that a few lockers are open. When she closes them, she sees that the word "LOOK" is spelled out on them. What? You mean they're not going to explain or show the viewers everything now? They're not going to drain the episode of all its suspense in the first ten minutes? Get out!

Cafeteria. Buffy, Xander, and Willow wonder what the word on the locker could mean. Buffy says that a monster wouldn't have left it, and Giles, who has just joined them, confirms that. Xander says it could have been a vampire bat. No, he really, really did. Sigh. Giles runs down the possible culprits: A person with telekinesis, an invisible creature, or a poltergeist. I'm surprised that the first is the only one of these that hasn't been a Monster Of The Week on Buffy, since it's already been done on Smallville. If you look behind Willow, there's a large, rather severe-looking campaign poster of Cordelia's. Heh. For some reason, they latch onto the poltergeist idea as being the most likely, and speculate that it's a dead kid. Buffy asks Willow to compile a list of dead or missing kids. Giles asks Xander if he'd like to help him with research. Xander, whose combination of puffiness and bad hair is making close-ups a very bad idea, is inexplicably put off by that suggestion, until he's informed that the other choice is talking to Cordelia. He opts for the research.

School balcony. Harmony chides Cordy for not being in class, but Cordy says she went to the hospital to visit FITC Eric. Cordy tells Harm how awful he looked. She almost sounds genuinely concerned, until she starts saying how worried she is about the prom pictures. Harm: "Well, they can do wonderful things with airbrushes these days." No kidding -- just look at Jennifer Lopez's latest album cover. And I absolutely refuse to call her by that shortened name she's going by nowadays. I said "nowadays." I'm officially a crusty old recapper. I can just picture Ace, Sep, Sars, and me sitting on the porch of the retirement home watching Cecily (Buffy's long lost granddaughter) the Vampire Slayer and shaking our fists at the TV. "They knew how to write a show about vampire slayers in our day! Well, for a few seasons, at least!" Ahem. Harmony succeeds in placating Cordy. Suddenly, we're in a flashback, shown in some sort of weird sepia filtering, accompanied by creepy music. Still on the balcony, Cordy is telling Harmony how FITC Eric just broke up with his girlfriend and is already nosing around. Showing that they also used to pay attention to continuity, at least within an episode, Cordy smirks that if he makes varsity baseball in the spring, she'll "take him on a test drive." They giggle to each other, but are interrupted by a girl saying, "Hey guys!" from behind the camera. Cordy snides, "What do you want?"

Back in the present, Cordy and Harmony walk to the stairs, but are stopped by Buffy, who asks Cordy if she can have a word with her. Harmony starts to say something bitchy, but we hear a thud, and she goes tumbling down the stairs. Everyone gathers around. Snyder, appearing on the scene, looks very chagrined, and orders a random girl to get the school nurse. Harm says she thinks her ankle's broken. Snyder asks what happened. Cordy says Harmony fell, but Harm corrects her, saying she was pushed. We hear the girl from before laugh at such a volume that by all rights she should be heard three zip codes away. But somehow, Buffy is the only one with hearing skills advanced enough to detect it. Snyder hilariously tells Harmony not to sue as Buffy hurries up the stairs. She hears the laugh again, and sees a door swing closed. She walks inside, but something bumps into her, and she hears footsteps running away. She looks around, and we see that she's in the band room. Buffy loudly says that she knows someone is there, and that she just wants to talk. In a dark corner, we see one of the ceiling panels slide back into place. This apparently escapes Buffy's notice, and she leaves.

School, the day. People walk outside, but the camera stops for a second on two men in black suits who look conspicuously out of place. The Scoobs walk. Buffy asks Giles what it's like to touch a ghost. He says it's like a chill passing through you. Nice foreshadowing to "Halloween." Buffy says that's what she thought, but that the being she touched in the band room was corporeal, and concludes that it was a girl. They muse about what it would be like to have that power. Xander: "Greek myths speak of cloaks of invisibility, but they're usually for the gods." He gets the expected surprised look. "Research boy comes through with the knowledge!" So why didn't they write him smarter later on? They try to identify the girl's motive, and Xander and Buffy realize that the attacks on FITC Eric and Harmony spell Cordelia. Buffy exposits that Cordy will be working on her May Queen dress that evening, and that she'll go watch and mope and long for her glory days -- er, "start the hunt" then. Giles points out that to hunt an invisible person, she'll have to hone her listening skills. Only he does so in a way that actually annoys me. Forsooth, sir Giles, forbear from poorly delivered snark!

Night. Buffy walks through the school. She sees several Cordettes helping Cordy with her outfit. Buffy looks sad. I covered that already. She then hears a flute playing somewhere, and goes in search of it. Giles, in the library, hears it as well. He looks a bit flustered, and then hears the hinge of a door squeak. He nervously asks who's there, but no one answers. He looks around, and sees his reflection in a glass door. When he looks away, Angel is standing right to him. That was well done -- it had been a while since we'd seen him. Giles jumps, looks back at the glass, and breathes, "A vampire casts no reflection." I wondered at first if Giles knew it was Angel, but upon reflection, I think even this pre-Ripper version of Giles would have put up a fight if he thought he was in danger.

By Couch Baron

Buffy looks around, and finds a plot contrivance -- er, "footprint" that points her to the ceiling hiding place. She finds herself in a tight crawlspace, which leads to a small room containing a makeshift bed and items such as a teddy bear, sheet music, and a flute. We hear breathing, and are meant to understand that we're seeing Buffy from Marcie's point of view. Another camera angle shows Buffy pick up Marcie's yearbook, confirming her identity. The camera slides over to show a knife floating behind Buffy's head. That was scary. The knife falls away, however, and Buffy leaves with the yearbook. If I were in an invisible person's domicile, I think I'd keep my back to the wall, you know?

Ms. Miller's classroom. She's grading papers. She hears the door shut, and good-naturedly asks if it's possible for Cordy to be on time. When she looks up, however, there's no one there. She looks down again, but hears the same laugh as before. Ms. Miller asks who's there, but a plastic bag is pulled over her head. Yikes!

Cordy finally gets to the classroom. She finds Ms. Miller lying facedown on the desk. Calling her name, Cordy pulls the bag off her. She regains consciousness in about .002 of a second, which I don't understand. Ms. Miller sputters that she was attacked and didn't see who it was, but a piece of chalk floats into the air. Cordy gasps as the chalk spells out, "LISTEN." I wonder why Harmony didn't rate a message when she was attacked, but then again, who could pass up a chance to push her down the stairs?

Buffy has filled the gang in about Marcie's "nest," and shows them the yearbook. Willow and Xander are chagrined to see that everyone who signed Marcie's yearbook wrote, "Have a nice summer." Ouch, that's cold. Giles doesn't get it, but they explain the rather obvious concept that a person only writes that when he or she has absolutely nothing else to say. Buffy administers the coup de grace by informing Xander and Willow that they both wrote that message in Marcie's yearbook too. Wow. That means Marcie occupied a whole new subbasement of loser. Maybe she shouldn't have tried for Cordette so soon. Willow and Xander are ashamed. Xander thinks maybe he never really saw her, but Willow, finding Marcie's schedule inside the book, says that they each had four classes with her the year before. Xander points out that no one noticed her, and now she's invisible. Giles has a breakthrough, and attempts to give an explanation that mixes science and the Hellmouth. Short version: Our perceptions can alter reality. As Sep would say, leave science the hell out of it. Sepia flashback to Mrs. Miller's class. She's asking questions, to which 95 percent of the kids are raising their hands to answer. Yeah, right. She calls on lots of students, even ones with no speaking lines, to illustrate the lengths to which people will go to ignore Marcie. Marcie finally looks at her left hand, and realizes it's fading away. She looks wigged.

By Couch Baron

Sepia flashback. In the girl's bathroom, Clea DuVall, our Invisible Girl, Interrupted, is applying lipstick. Cordy, Harm, and a couple random Cordettes enter, and Cordy is, surprise surprise, bitching. Clea, whose name we'll soon learn is Marcie, tries to get in on the conversation, but Harmony shuts her up. Then Cordy repeats exactly what Marcie just said, but they all act like it was a Cordy original. Everyone leaves, and Marcie's face falls. Actually, if she were willing not to speak, she could be a Cordette in no time. Harmony's the only one of them who actually gets to talk.

Courtyard. Cordy wins May Queen. She blathers about using her popularity for good or some such. Xander and Willow find Buffy, and Willow gives Buffy the list of missing or dead kids. I'd think they only need the missing ones now, but that's a nitpick. Willow notices that the two men in black are around again. Buffy quickly notices that the most recent missing kid, Marcie Ross, played the flute. She explains the significance of that to Willow and Xander, and goes to check out the band room again.

Giles, Willow, and Xander hear a flute playing. They move toward it faster than the rats moved toward the Pied Piper. They speculate that they could try to reason with Marcie, and if that fails, grab her. They head out.

Buffy leads Cordy to a mop closet so she can change her dress. Buffy waits outside, which I don't understand. Why not just go to the locker room -- they're both girls, right? Considering the outfits they've both worn, I find it hard to believe that modesty is a pressing issue for either of them. They've both made me blush, and I'm gay.

Giles and the kids follow the flute downstairs. How dumb are they? Why would they think Marcie would lead them to her? Anyway, they enter a room in the basement. Somehow, it takes until they're all well inside and for Xander to be six inches away from the source of the music for them to figure out that it's a recording. You'd think Willow at least would know -- she's got a lot of experience with flutes. Oh, come on, how could I resist? Anyway, they stand there for a moment, realizing that they're screwed, party of three, and the door swings shut. We now hear gas leaking.

Buffy stands at the door, taking advantage of the plot contrivance to have a heart-to-heart with Cordy. Buffy: Empathy with what you said before. Cordy: Bitchy statement. Buffy: More empathy. Cordy: Bitchy statement. Buffy: "Can we have the heartfelt talk with a little less talk from you?" She gets her wish, and realizes something's wrong. She gratuitously uses her Slayer strength (yay!), punching a hole in the door, and gets inside in time to see Cordy get dragged through a hole in the ceiling. Buffy swings herself up and follows.

Basement. Giles discovers that Marcie has snuffed out the pilot light, and that the gas is turned up full. Much worse, Marcie's broken off the shut-off valve. They try the door, but when Xander goes to swing a crowbar at it, Giles shouts that one spark will take the whole building with them. Well, it's too bad Anya isn't there with Xander -- they didn't have a spark in their entire relationship. ["Insert Riley joke here." -- Sars]

Buffy finds Cordy lying unconscious in The Domicile Of The Differently Visible. She gets sucker-punched, and falls through the ceiling onto a teacher's desk in the classroom below, breaking it. Dazed, she sees a medical bag drop to the floor, and a hypo float out of it. The needle jams her in the neck, and she quickly passes out.

The Bronze. A sign outside says "Closed for Fumigation." Again? Buffy regains consciousness to Cordelia. They're tied to cheesy-looking May King and Queen thrones. "May King" sounds a little fruity. Maybe that's why they cast FITC Eric for the role. Cordy, in distress, says that her face is numb. They look in front of them, and see a big "LEARN" spelled out on a curtain in gold glitter. This seems like some twisted beauty pageant. Oh, wait, that's redundant. Buffy says she doesn't know what the message means.

Giles burns his hand doing something to slow the gas down. Instead of conserving her oxygen, Willow blathers about why Marcie is doing this. Because she hates everyone and she can, you dolt.

A covered metal stand wheels over to Buffy and Cordy. Marcie's voice cuts through, saying she's disappointed that they haven't figured out the meaning of the message. Cordy, on whose head Marcie has placed a tiara, asks what she's supposed to learn, but Marcie coldly corrects her that she's the lesson, not the student. You know, I've really got to give Clea DuVall props here -- she's one of the scariest one-off villains I've seen (so to speak) on the show, and she was only on-camera in two scenes. That can't have been an easy performance to turn in. Marcie goes on that Cordy's face is what makes her special, and that everyone wants what Cordy has, and wants to be noticed. She pulls the sheet off the stand, revealing surgical equipment. "I'm gonna give you a face no one will ever forget." Yikes.

Basement. Willow's lost consciousness; Giles and Xander attempt to batter the door with something non-metal.

Buffy tries to tell Marcie that what she's doing is wrong, but Marcie punches her. A scalpel twirls in mid-air. Not being able to see Marcie is making this about a hundred times scarier. Cordy begs her not to do it. Marcie conversationally (which again makes it way creepier) tells her that she should be grateful, as everyone who sees her will remember her. It's a little derivative of The Princess Bride, but still full-on scary. Meanwhile, Marcie has inadvertently moved the stand close enough that Buffy is able to pull it toward her. Cordy tries to stall Marcie, but Marcie won't have it, saying the local anesthetic will wear off soon, and she doesn't want Cordy to faint, because "it's less fun if you're not awake." Again, the casualness sells this -- she's speaking with the clarity of someone who has this planned out to the last detail.

Xander passes out. These cuts are starting to annoy me.

Marcie muses over where to start, and settles on Cordy's smile. "I think it should be wider." Yeesh! Cordy tries to tell Marcie that she understands how she feels, which is apparently the exact wrong thing to say. Marcie yells that she can't charm her way out of this situation, and slashes her across the face with the scalpel. That still makes me jump. Cordy's given up now, but Buffy has managed to slice through the ropes holding her right arm, and kicks the stand into Marcie, who apparently goes flying. Buffy frees herself, but makes the tactical error of trying to untie Cordy, and Marcie serves her a little invisible-fu as a result.

By Couch Baron

Giles burns his hand doing something to slow the gas down. Instead of conserving her oxygen, Willow blathers about why Marcie is doing this. Because she hates everyone and she can, you dolt.

Basement. Willow's lost consciousness; Giles and Xander attempt to batter the door with something non-metal.

Xander passes out. These cuts are starting to annoy me.

By Couch Baron

I'm sick of the other subplot. Angel rescues the gang, gives Giles the Codex, shuts off the gas, and looks hot in the process. Well, he was hot in the first season -- it's not my fault he's aged three years for every one the rest of us have since. I don't think any of them even thanked him for saving their lives.

Buffy snarks that she sympathized with Marcie, but there's one thing she didn't factor in: "You're a thundering loony!" More invisible-fu. Cordy's panicked, and Marcie taunts Buffy. Buffy tells Cordy to pipe down, which she does. Buffy uses the Force or something, closing her eyes. I go out for a cup of coffee, and when I get back, I'm just in time to see Buffy deck Marcie into a curtain. She hits her once more for good measure, and then the Men In Black Wannabes come rushing in, saying that they're FBI, and that they'll handle the situation. Buffy suspiciously asks if they can cure Marcie, but all they'll allow is that they can rehabilitate her and make her a useful member of society. Buffy realizes that Marcie's condition must have happened to students at other schools, which I don't understand, since I thought the Hellmouth was partially involved. Maybe I spoke too soon about that intra-episode continuity. They tell her to forget it. Buffy: "Do you know that you guys are very creepy?" Heh. They leave.

The Scoobs have a wrap-up session in the hall, in which Giles deftly lies to Buffy about Angel rescuing them. Cordy rushes up, and sincerely thanks all of them. Xander starts to snark, but Buffy, still identifying on some levels with Cordy, shuts him up. Willow even starts to invite her to lunch, but FITC Eric ruins the party, disbelievingly asking if she's hanging out with them. She, of course, turns back into her bitchy self in no time flat.

The agents escort Marcie, who's still invisible, into a building, telling her she'll be happy there. She enters a classroom, wherein a visible teacher welcomes her, and bids the other students, all of whom are invisible, to do the same. Everyone says hi. She sits, and the teacher tells them to open their textbooks. All the books are pulled open by a string -- er, "the invisible students open the books." Marcie opens to the chapter titled "Assassination and Infiltration." She's all, "Cool!" This ending seems like a combination of things. How can I describe it? I know: La Femme Nikita meets "Steaming Pile Of Crap."