Hugs and kisses to my sister, Sep, and JWG, who all conspired to make my week in the Bay Area fun, fun, fun.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I had to recap this episode off a tape with no sound. Please excuse any inaccuracies with the dialog as I'm working solely off the closed captioning.
Previously on Buffy: a monk croaked, but not before telling Buffy that Dawn was the key; Buffy's mom came through her tiny pore surgery okay; Spike tipped Buffy off that Riley was paying vampires to suck his…arm; Buffy and Riley had words; Riley left Sunnydale.
Xander's happening new pad. He and Anya lie in bed, naked, and for some reason, instead of any of the fun things a guy could do with a naked and willing girlfriend, Xander wants to talk about how much he misses the Big Spud. Xander hasn't quite gotten used to Riley's absence (I have. And how!) and refers to the Spudster's current location as the "central republic of where-in-the-hell." I don't know why I quoted that -- it's not actually very funny. Let's just say that not being able to actually hear this episode has thrown me off my game. Anya tells Xander she wants a warning if he ever leaves, and reveals that she's been watching a few too many Mission Impossible-type moves by demanding that Xander's warning come in the form of a "big bomb clock." They smile at each other and cuddle. "Maybe it's her," muses Anya, hoping that she and Xander won't break up because what happened between Buffy and Riley can all be blamed on Buffy. Anya makes the obligatory reference to her former life as a vengeance demon, but Xander defends Buffy, saying that break-ups haven't been all her fault. He wonders how she's dealing with this one. Well, Xander, since you were all Mr. McNoseypants into Buffy's relationship last episode, maybe this episode you could muster up enough energy to, I don't know, call her on the phone and ask how she's doing?
Convent. Nuns in wimples walk hither and yon. We see only the back of one nun, who has a large, over-processed blonde curl sticking out of her wimple. Hoo haw! We're supposed to think that Buffy is dealing with her break-up by joining a nunnery. And maybe if we were among the few lost tribes of the Amazon, who recently only got electricity and haven't quite saved up the cash to purchase a TV for the village, we'd fall for it. A vampire slams into the nun and spins her around, and of course, she isn't Buffy. The Slayer in question is quick upon the scene, however, and sporting a flashy pink satin blouse. Pink satin, for when nothing but the very loudest will do for killing vampires! I had a shirt like that -- in 1997. Someone tell the Fashion Nazi that four years isn't old enough to be considered retro. Buffy and the vampires fight in one of this season's characteristic fight scenes: graceless and choppy, with too many close-ups and quick cuts. Of course Buffy dusts the vamp in the end, and approaches the nun who is cowering on the ground. Buffy helps her up and starts to grill her about nunliness and "abjuring the company of men." Hoo. Haw. Buffy's blouse is pulling and gapping across her chest. Maybe if the WB coughs up more money to pay Fox Studios for Buffy, some of it will trickle down, and SMG will be able to wear shirts that fit.
Credits. I get out my Buffy CD so I don't have to miss the kicking theme. This soundless recapping ain't easy. Except for the fact that I won't have to be subjected to Mr. Wanker's banal soundtrack noodlings. Hmmm, maybe things are looking up.
Buffy and Giles are training in Der Zauber Kasten's gym facility. Giles is wearing round pads on his hands and is critiquing the punches Buffy is throwing at them. Sep and I have some critiques of Buffy's punches too, but I think Sep covered those in her last recap. As Buffy flails away, they discuss Giles going to the Watcher's Council for help with the Glory problem. Do you think I'll get a chance to make a Glory-hole joke this season? Ew, I grossed myself out. Tra la. Giles gets a little blissful just thinking about the CoW's main library and oh, how I love a man who loves books. Buffy apparently doesn't feel the same way about books, so she decks Giles really hard in the shoulder. Bitch. Buffy grills Giles about what he's going to tell the CoW, and he assures her that although he'll have to discuss Glory looking for the key, he'll not mention the identity of said key. Buffy doesn't trust the Watchers; Giles sees no alternative. Blathercakes. Giles makes a nonsensical reference to going to the Initiative for help if they still existed (um, wasn't it very clear that they had no interest in research of supernatural events, especially including those that "pre-date the written word" or whatever theory Tara came up with about Glory episodes ago?), and then mentions Riley. Buffy looks sad but assures Giles that she'll be okay about the break-up. He's sorry to leave her while she's feeling down, but she encourages him to go. I was going to ask why Giles can't just call the CoW and ask them to do the research, but then I remembered that they're a big bunch of boobies. If I was in Giles's shoes, I guess I might want to keep a close eye on them myself.
Front room, Der Zauber Kasten. The Scoobs are all gathered to discuss Giles's trip to England, displaying their usual nonchalance about stray customers overhearing their business. Giles is tying a silver tie, which combined with his blue pinstriped shirt is just about as ugly as the Zauber Kasten set. I still haven't been able to put my finger on what bugs me about this set so much, but I do know it's ugly. Anya is excited about the chance to run the shop, but Giles dithers about how difficult the task will be. Tara, looking lovely (except for the reefs and shoals of blue glitter eyeshadow), offers that a trip to England sounds "exciting and exotic. [pause] Unless you're English." Buffy and Willow are also eager to help out in the shop, which makes Anya uncomfortable. You know, seeing as so much of her new human identity revolves around her ability to...snooooore. Uh, oh, sorry, I put myself to sleep there. Now that I'm awake again, I've noticed that Willow is wearing a disturbing choker made of an O-ring and two pieces of chain. The O-ring is centered right over the front of her throat as if to say, "Poke here for maximum larynx crushage." Anya wants to run the shop alone, but Giles reminds her that dealing with customers takes finesse. "I've got finesse!" Anya protests. "I've got finesse coming out of my bottom." I think I had that one time too, after eating some bad seafood.
Willow again assures Giles they'll all help; Anya is irked, and she and Willow bicker, using Xander as their conduit. Sigh. This will get old quickly, even without sound. Attempting to deflect the unwanted attention Xander asks Buffy, "So, how goes the slaying?" Buffy offers that she killed something in a convent the night before, to which Xander quips, "In any other room, a frightening declaration. Here, a welcome distraction." Buffy admits the slaying was routine but, "Oh! But I met a nun and she let me try on her wimple." Xander: "Okay, now we're back to frightening."
Summers home. Night. Buffy finds her mom dressed, and she and Dawn tease her about finally getting out of her bathrobe. I'm always happy to see Joyce, but the horizontal stripes she's wearing in this scene are not her friends. Dawn and Buffy leave her to get some rest. Buffy enters her bedroom and Dawn tags along behind, asking if she can hang out. She looks over Buffy's mirror and notes that she's taken down her pictures of Riley. Approving of the decision, Dawn says, "I think I would've done that sooner. Like, boom, don't wanna see that face again." Buffy protests that she was never angry with Riley. Liar! Buffy, your pants are sooo on fire. She then admits that "that's a lie" -- thank god, because I don't think I could stand that kind of revisionism occurring between contiguous episodes. Strangely, she then says, "But it's not like I didn't want to see his face," which leaves me confused as to why she took down his pictures. Buffy and Dawn discuss the fact that Buffy's friends have told her Riley's leaving was "gradual," and that she feels bad for not noticing things were wrong with him. Oh barf. Riley and Buffy's break-up is even more annoying than their relationship. I think it's natural for Buffy to feel guilty, but I don't think it's right. Riley never told her about his deeper problems, and besides, her mother had a freakin' brain tumor. Buffy explains to Dawn that the break-up, or Riley's leaving, or her not noticing that he had problems, or something, "hurts in all kinds of horrible ways." For the love of Mike, let this scene be over soon. Dawn puts her head in Buffy's lap, and as Buffy strokes her hair she assures Dawn that the pain of break-ups does eventually go away. Then she sadly muses, "Maybe he'll come back. Maybe he'll hate the jungle or maybe he'll want to give it another try." Or maybe he'll want to get a life that has some depth and doesn't entirely revolve around you, Buffy. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.
Like this scene, which features Spike in his crypt, holding a large beribboned box of chocolates. He's giving a sincere (that's my reading, sans sound) little speech to an unseen person: "Um, there's something I got to tell you. About showing you Riley in that place." As the camera revolves around Spike and he continues to explain that he was only trying to help the Slayer, we see that he's actually addressing his Buffy stand-in, the mannequin. As he talks, his anger and frustration grow and in his, uh, interior monologue, the Buffyquin is being "dead petty" about the whole thing. Yelling (I guess), "You ungrateful bitch!" he slams the Buffyquin over the head with the box of chocolates, toppling her from her pedestal (ooh, significant symbolism?). Upon my first watching I found this both rather funny and very, very disturbing. Spike's trying, but dude, he's evil. And very angry. Spikes sighs and gathers himself together, replacing the Buffyquin and smoothing her hair. He retrieves the chocolates and tries again: "Buffy, there's something I wanted to tell you."
The ugly set. Tara, Willow, and Anya are all behind the counter. As Anya looks over receipts, Tara and Willow are gathering supplies. I know I've been talking too much about the fashion in this episode, mostly because my whole experience of it has been visual, but Willow's jacket here takes the large and unsavory Bad Fashion Cake. She's got on a Be-Dazzled jeans jacket, and as if the copious amount of studs adorning it weren't bad enough, it also has 3/4 length bell-sleeves, and she wearing a much longer-sleeved shirt underneath. Awful and wrong, just like when Xander wears long-sleeved T-shirts under short-sleeved Hawaiian shirts. Willow discusses one of the magic ingredients she's handling, explaining she tried to use it to de-rat Amy. It didn't work, but she feels Amy is now smarter and peers at Willow like "she's planning something." Anya realizes the witches are helping themselves to supplies from the store and comes over to bitch. Tara explains that they're working on a project to give Buffy a "floating ball of sunlight" to fight vamps. Agitated, Anya complains some more, and Willow accuses her of being like the mood-killing fish in The Cat in the Hat. Will we never come to the commercial break? Since she has no twentieth-century childhood to speak of, Anya is distressed by the witches' little Dr. Suess in-jokes. Commence bickering between Anya and Willow about stealing and whether Giles would be okay with it. I'm so glad I don't have to listen to this. This way I can just close my eyes and pretend these scenes never happened. Willow offers to teach Anya a few tricks, but Anya doesn't fall for this distraction, labeling it "peer pressure." Just to annoy us all and drag the scene out a little more, Willow shows off by floating various products around the store. Poor Xander chooses this inopportune moment to show up and once again ends up right in the middle of the argument. As Xander hides behind Tara for protection from the nagging, Willow accidentally vanishes the cash register. Remember how Willow used to be a brainy hacker chick who helped out the gang by using skills that none of the others had? Well, now she's a buffoon who hinders her friends with skills possessed by just about everybody else in the gang. Nice character development, huh? I'm going to run through the rest of the scene this real fast: Anya is upset, and Willow brings back the cash register, but messed up. Willow mocks Anya by stating, "I like money better than people. People can so rarely be exchanged for goods and/or services." Xander and Tara look like they'd rather be elsewhere. I feel that, my friends. Xander gets smart and bails. Tara catches a clue, and, telling Willow and Anya they have things to work out, leaves as well.
Some time later, Willow is working on her sunlight spell as Anya notes down the dollar amount of each supply the witch is using. Willow is careful to tell Anya that speaking any word not in the ritual can disrupt the spell, so we can all see what's coming as if it were a neon pink elephant about to sit on our laps. Willow starts the ritual, and a small ring of sparkles rises from the cauldron in front of her. Of course, Anya interrupts, and the young women begin to argue. As they do so, the ring of sparkles spreads and wobbles wildly. Willow encourages Anya to say what's really bothering her, and the circle of light passes over a large purple crystal. There's a flash and some sort of sound effect, I'm sure, and a huge shaggy guy with horns -- played by Abraham Benrubi, who was Jerry the desk clerk on ER and Larry Kubiac on Parker Lewis Can't Lose -- appears in the shop. I must admit I had quite a little crush on Corin Nemec, who played Parker Lewis. He hasn't aged so well, though, and I was totally over him by the time he appeared in The Stand. But, uh, enough about me. Jerry the Troll roars at the girls, who cower, and then begins to trash the store with his large hammer. As he exits the store Willow quietly observes, "He's not a ball of sunshine."
Phew. Commercials at last.
Buffy and Tara exit class. Hey, that's nice. I don't think we've ever seen them in a scene by themselves. There, I said something kind, so it's probably best to just leave Buffy's messy pigtails and stripey blouse alone. Discussion of the professor's spitty lecturing style segues into Buffy being sad about Riley. Tara asks, "Is it that bad?" with a look of concern, and Buffy says she's not going to indulge in the "furrowed brow" and maybe that Riley "needed to be where he was needed." Buffy asks Tara if she and Willow would like to go for a hamburger, and Tara mentions the argument that Anya and Willow were having earlier and how she and Xander "cleared out." Somehow Buffy gets the impression that Xander and Anya were fighting and that Xander left Anya. Tara tries to assure her otherwise, but Buffy goes off on a rant about catching little things before they turn into big things and insists that Anya and Xander can't break up. "They have a beautiful love," she sobs, and falls on Tara's shoulder crying. Um, is Buffy under a spell here? Because she sure as hell didn't think Anya and Xander had a beautiful love in the last episode. Tara pats Buffy's back and looks astounded, as did I while watching this scene, I'm sure.
Daylight. Anya and Willow are driving around in Giles's red convertible, with Anya at the wheel. I can't believe he left the keys to his car anywhere near this kooky bunch. As they drive, we're treated to seeing smashed cars and other examples of mayhem left by the big guy with a hammer they conjured while arguing. Willow's not sure how they conjured up the Jerry the Troll, and Anya suggests that it was trapped in the crystal and released by Willow. More arguing about who is to blame for the mishap. Willow is leafing through a book of spells, looking for a reversal spell, and Anya makes humorous references to not knowing how to drive, even though she apparently knew enough in "Graduation Part 1" when she asked Xander to leave Sunnydale with her. More bickering; Anya informs Willow that the creature they conjured was a troll.
Xander at the Bronze. He's carrying what looks like a basket of French fries. On his way to a table he bumps into Spike, who is lurking about drinking a beer. Xander tells Spike to go away, but instead Spike follows him to his table, getting a chuckle out of bothering Xander. Apropos of nothing, Spike then informs Xander, "They have chicken wings too. And a sort of flower-shaped thing they make from an onion. Brilliant." Heh. Spike's developing quite the food fetish. And this scene is making me very, very hungry. Nothing like deep-fat frying to make a meal sound good. Spike tries to snag one of Xander's fries and Xander slaps his hand away defensively. Sitting down at the table, Spike observes that Xander is in a bad mood and wonders if it's "sympathetic misery borrowed from the Slayer." Xander is understandably confused, and more so when Spike asks if Buffy is holding grudges. When assured that Buffy is fine, Spike muses, "No need to talk about it then. I'm sure she's merrily slaying some pals of mine. Having a grand old time," and takes a speculative drink from his beer.
"This is very bad," voice-overs Buffy as she surveys the smashed remains of Der Zauber Kasten. Tara comes running out from the back of the store and tells Buffy that Anya and Willow are definitely missing. "Buffy," worries Tara, "something's been here and Willow's gone." Buffy and her pigtails assure Tara that they'll find Willow and then grab Tara's hand as they run out in pursuit.
On the main street of Sunnydale, Jerry the Troll smacks things around with his big hammer. "Ha ha ha! Puny receptacle," says he. Oh, okay. Heh. The people of Sunnydale are for once displaying an actual survival instinct as they run far, far away. "You do well to flee, townspeople. I will pillage your lands and dwellings, I will burn your crops and make merry sport with your more attractive daughters." Somewhere, the Ugliest Girl in Sunnydale laughs gleefully and crows, "Choke on it, bitches!" But, "burn your crops?" The only thing that's being grown around Sunnydale are wine grapes and marijuana. Both of which will bring him much more joy once harvested. Alas, trolls are not known for their foresight. Anyway. The point here is that he's menacing and loud. And easily distracted by a whiff of "delicious ale."
Meanwhile, Xander and Spike are having a little game of pity pool. Xander snarks to Spike about his wimmen troubles. And who ever thought I'd type that sentence someday. Spike sympathizes with, "A lot of people never really got Dru." Heh. Spike again wants to get Buffy's take on the situation, because he's worried that Buffy holds the whole Riley thing against him, rather than, say, the numerous instances of him trying to kill her and/or her good friends. Mid-bitch, Jerry the Troll bumps into Spike as he passes by. Spike tells him to "watch it," but when Jerry the Troll turns around, Spike adopts a look of fear and says, "On second thought do what you like." Jerry is distracted by the kegs being wheeled to the bar and picks one up, not just with one hand but with his pinky, and bites a hole in it with his troll teeth. Yeah. Okay. I get that they're trying to show us that he has super troll-strength, but I wish they had left a bit of liquid in there or something, because that keg looks so empty. It's as obviously fake as all of the Buffy stunts and props this season.
Xander is about to go fetch Buffy, but before he can, the troll singles out him and Spike and demands to know where he can find some babies to eat. "What do you think, the hospital?" Spike suggests earnestly. Xander tries to dissuade Jerry the troll with the offer of "some roast pigs and stags and much hearty grog." "They've got this onion thing," interjects Spike, and excuse me for the few minutes while I pick myself up off the floor. HEE! "You cannot appease me. Do not try," replies the troll. Oh, man. This is a shout-out to Sep if ever there was one. That's like her personal sigil. I'm serious! She has it on a latch-hook rug in her entryway. ["Actually, it says, 'You want a piece of me, fatboy? I'll spork your ass!' -- Sep] What? You guys know how she gets. I don't need to tell you.
Anyway, Xander and Spike try to slip out but are met by Anya and Willow. After pointing out the troll, Willow says, "I wish Buffy was here." Enter Buffy and Tara. So Tara, who was so fired-up worried about Willow earlier, doesn't even LOOK at her, much less reach out across the great divide of five inches that separate them. Anya and Willow, the Bickersons, fill Buffy in. Willow starts her spell again but is interrupted by the troll. "You told the witch to do that, Anyanka. You seem determined to put an end to all my fun. Just like you did when we were dating." Everyone gives Anya a Look, but I'm inclined to sympathize with her. I mean, she was probably pretty young when she was going steady with Jerry the Troll, and heck, how embarrassed would I be if one of my first boyfriends suddenly showed up? We all make mistakes, people. Ugly, pompous, layabout, semi-stalkerish, poor-personal-hygiene-having, alcoholic mistakes. Although I must note that this guy's been trapped in a purple crystal for eleven hundred years, so I don't think he'd really be throwing around the term "dating." Who knows what they called making time back in the Dark Ages, but I'll bet that it wasn't "dating." Technically, he shouldn't be able to speak English at all, but I'm trying not to get overly nitpicky. I'll just go with the babel-fish or "universal translator" principle. This is a "wacky" ep, after all. Anya explains the backstory of dating the troll; Sep tells me that the music in the scene is "wacky hippos dancing music," and once again I'm glad I can't hear it. When Anya gets to the part where she turned him into a troll for cheating on her (and here I just thought that turning into a troll was what happens to you if you don't wash your hands after going to the bathroom), Jerry gets all Explainypants (tm Sep), protesting that "it was only one wench. I had had a great deal of mead." He goes off on a tirade, proclaiming that Anya and "all witches" must die, as Buffy prompts Willow to start the spell again. Alas, the spell gets flubbed, and Buffy takes this opportunity to start kicking some ass. Spike is right there behind her, but is quickly dispatched. Jerry shoves Buffy across the room with a tap from his hammer and she lands on Spike, who cops a few feels before letting her get back up. Ha! The lascivious look on his face when Buffy gets free is just priceless. The troll starts taking out support beams with his hammer, and the second floor collapses. Tables fall. People dangle from the rafters like little troll snacks. The troll runs off.
Back at the Bronze, the gang is helping pull beams and things off the victims. Spike is stabilizing a victim, and Buffy suspiciously demands to know what he's about. He tells her that he's not feeding off the victims because he knows that she wouldn't approve. Buffy's eyes narrow as she asks, "You want credit for not feeding off of bleeding disaster victims?" Spike answers in the affirmative, and she calls him "disgusting" before stalking out.
Back at Der Zauber Kasten, Willow and Anya are researching Troll-Be-Gone spells. Anya ruins the moment by bringing up Willow's "theft" again. Willow reads almost verbatim every second post from the boards as she reams Anya for not knowing how to act human, despite living as one for the better part of two years. Anya protests that she loves herself just the way she is (Oh, sit on it, Anya!), and it slips out that Willow is worried that Anya will hurt Xander. Anya picks up on this and is incensed. Anya counters with…oh, forget it. I know I should care about this scene, if only for the famous, "Hello? Gay now," line, but I really, really just cannot. The Bickersons are getting on. My. Last. Nerve. And if I have to read any more whiny lines off the closed captioning, I'm going to turn this recap right around and we are going HOME. Anyway. The wonder twits have reached a "I'm not going to hurt Xander. Well, neither am I!" standoff when Jerry the Troll bursts in. I almost hope he kills the both of them for being so stupid as to stay in a location he is already familiar with, and thus likely to return to. Instead, he just throws them back behind the counter and breaks a whole bunch of stuff.
Enter Xandman, who tells Jerry that he's not touching these wimmens. Sigh. Didn't I read that Joss majored in feminist film theory? Just checking. So. Xander admirably launches himself at Jerry the Troll and his hammer, and somehow, before Xander even gets within a foot of said hammer, he's thrown back by a powerful force known as bad stunt doubling. So we have vone, vone, vone blow vith zee giant hammer. Mwa ha ha. Xander-punch, and then twoo, twoo, twoo blows vith zee giant hammer. Mwa ha ha. That one knocked him across the room. Xander gets up again and it's three, three, three blows vith zee giant hammer. Mwa ha ha. Now, I can't decide which bugs me more here -- the fact that XANDER has survived getting bonked on the noggin three times with the magic hammer that threw Buffy across the room, while Giles can fucking drum his fingers against his forehead and get knocked out; or the fact that the prop is so ludicrously lightweight that it looks like it's filled with helium and could float away at any moment. Would it have killed props to put a five-pound weight in there to give it a little realism? I don't know why I'm looking for realism in a show about blonde California teenagers and vampires, but there you have it. Okay. So Xander has impressed Jerry the Troll, who rewards him with the opportunity to chose who gets to die. Willow or Anya. Go monkey. Choose monkey. No. Of course I'm not advocating that Xander assassinate our President. Unless it's not a crime to make a threat against him yet, because he's only President-elect? In that case, yes, yes I am. Pummel him into monkey-powder.
Commercials. Boy, the WB is getting a lot of mileage out of SMG's Golden Globe(s) nomination. They are just scrabbling for any straw of legitimacy they can get, aren't they?
So. Xander protests that choosing would be "insane troll logic." Jerry the Troll laughs and then snaps Xander's wrist in two. Willow and Anya scream instead of doing anything useful. Because, y'know, we've never seen Willow able to defend herself before. It's not like she's staked vamps with a floating pencil or anything, so it's totally out of the picture for her to be able to projectile-float said pencil right into some troll eye. When Xander again refuses to choose, Jerry says that he will be the one to die, and raises his hammer high. Anya supposedly grows as a character as she offers herself instead, but I'm just so damn tired of this episode at this point that I don't even care. Willow halfheartedly throws some fairy dust at Jerry, but instead manages to disappear the cash register. Again. Enter Buffy and Tara. Buffy engages the troll while Anya warns her that his strength is in the hammer. Willow tells Anya to distract Jerry while she works on the spell. Jerry throws Buffy around; Anya says vaguely amusing things like, "Your stance is merely mildly alarming and your roar is less than full-throated." Willow finally manages to part Jerry from his hammer, but Jerry still has the upper hand in a fight because of his troll strength, until he makes the tactical error of insinuating that Xander and Anya's love will never last. Because if you remember from last week, central to Buffy's beliefs of what is Just and Right in the Universe is the tenet that Xander and Anya share true-capital-T love-capital-L. Not. So Buffy gets her (very tired-looking) kung-fu bitch on and slaps Jerry around a bit while Willow and Anya fuss over Xander. Long story short, the troll is dispensed with.
Back at the Summers', Joyce brings in tea for Giles and Buffy. Giles jumps up to help her with the tray. Aw, how sweet. Joyce expositions that she doesn't "understand why the other Watchers made [Giles] go all the way to England when they don't know anything." Giles explains that they're going to look into it based on the information Giles has given them. Which doesn't really at all answer Joyce's question. Or explain why Giles couldn't just CALL them. Maybe he needs to look into a new long-distance plan. You can get some pretty groovy low international rates these days. Buffy asks Giles about the key, which is just a dirty writers' trick so that they can have Dawn, standing nearby on the stairs, overhear enough of their conversation to know that there is Something Going On.