Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight

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.

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 herethis 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?"

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.

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.