Reptile Boy

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Cordelia convinces Buffy to shirk her responsibilities for one night to go to a frat party with her, only to find that they've been invited not as guests, but as offerings to a demon. While Xander does what he can to help the girls, he instead is made the target of college humor when he's discovered as a party crasher.

Previous: Inca Mummy Girl

This episode plays with the strain in Buffy's (Sarah Michelle Gellar) relationships with her parental figure Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), her love interest Angel (David Boreanaz), as well as her schoolyard rival Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter). What's interesting is that Buffy wants nothing more to impress both Angel and Giles, while distancing herself from Cordelia, but here she chooses to do the opposite in all cases, in part to spite the parties involved, but also as a chance to find herself.

In flirting with Tom (Todd Babcock) Buffy is able to relate to an average guy without all the baggage that comes with someone like Angel. The ease with which she interacts with Tom in comparison to Angel is made all the more apparent when she tries to ask Angel out on a date only to have him dwell on the fact that he's 225 years older than she, warning her that things between them could very easily get out of control if they aren't careful, noting that theirs will never be a fairytale ending. In recognizing that she has no future with Angel, Buffy agrees to go with Cordelia to a frat party, arguing that "Angel barely speaks two words to [her], and when he does he treats [her] like a child[...] At least Tom can carry on a conversation."

Willow (Alyson Hannigan) calls both Giles and Angel out on their recent treatment of Buffy, instigating a change in the both of them. In Giles' case, Willow points out that he treats her as a tool for the greater good while ignoring entirely her needs as an individual and a young woman, forcing him to reconsider the nature of his training regimen. Despite his disappointment with Buffy's actions throughout the episode, Giles finally admits that "[he] drive[s her] too hard because [he] know[s] what [she] ha[s] to face," agreeing to relent toward her training in the future and make certain compromises when it comes to her personal future.

Cordelia has always been presented as fiercely independent, but here she is made to be so incredibly focused on how others perceive her that she loses sight of who she is. She crafts a fake laugh to use in conversation with her college boyfriend in order to impress him, and as though this weren't belittling enough, she is then made to include Buffy or be excluded entirely, tearing down her self-esteem yet another level for the sake of earning the approval of a man she barely knows. As danger surrounds them, and Buffy and Cordelia are faced with what could potentially be their final moments of life, Cordelia turns against Buffy completely, stating that she doesn't know why she "ever let [Buffy] talk [her] into [going to the party" when it was, in fact, her own idea; the Cordelia we've been presented with so far would have owned up in this moment and apologized to Buffy for what has happened, and this scene just makes her seem incredibly weak in regards to who she so far has been. The episode closes with Cordelia on a date with Jonathan (Danny Strong), and while their coupling is unrealistic for a number of reasons already, it's made all the more glaring when considering the vast difference in their social standings, and it's unlikely that Cordelia would make time for someone so much less popular than she without experiencing any repercussions from her friends.

In training with Buffy Giles is made to embarrass himself, ending up splayed across a table and deciding, after only a moment's interaction, that Buffy would be better off skipping training. Having him trying to save face in front of his charge isn't completely out of the question, but later he is shown practicing alone with a sword, displaying great skill and prowess that's rarely displayed when the training is focused on Buffy, and the fact that he's so capable in her absence makes his earlier failure all the more strange.

The chemistry between Gellar and Babcock is great, and were Tom not quickly revealed as a murderous villain the two characters might have had a natural romance in the works. Boreanaz is still quite stiff in this role, incapable of delivering a good number of his lines with the proper amount of emotion behind them, but given that a number of the regular cast have difficulty with some of their work, too, it could just be a malfunction of the material.

Director David Greenwalt appears to have bitten off more than he can chew here, creating an incredibly slow story that drags far beyond its value. While there are a few good touches to the episode, such as Buffy's drunken stumble through the frat house and Tom's prevention of Buffy's date rape that come off very realistically in their depiction of danger, much of the rest of the episode is just an awkward mess. The story opens on Callie (Jordana Spiro) escaping from a group of pursuers, but she strangely stops resisting as soon as they catch up to her, going limp and almost helping them take her back to her captivity. Willow at one point is distracted by Angel's lack of a reflection, questioning how he manages to shave, despite the fact that she thinks a murderer might be on Buffy's trail, and the humor is so ill-suited to the tone of the scene that it detracts from the threat level of the episode. The music that plays as Angel, Giles and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) start a fight at the frat house is also so over-dramatic that it makes the scene play out far more ridiculously than it was likely intended.

Written also by Greenwalt, this script is filled with jokes and dialogue that just don't land very well when mixed in with the subject matter, and it appears that, for the most part, these characters are very mindlessly walking through the motions here. There are many threads that are laid out, each of which could have been interesting, with Buffy noting that "there's a kind of hush over Sunnydale, no demons or vampires to slay," but they're never really expanded upon to the point that they're made relevant. Buffy lies to Giles about her mother's health as an excuse to get out of her duty as Slayer for the night, and while this could have lent a great deal of tension to the story, it's instead swept aside and made more of a footnote than anything else, while Xander's college hazing is thrown in as an attempt at humor when it, unfortunately, leads absolutely nowhere.

If anything, this story progresses the nature of Buffy and Angel's relationship, having them accept that they need to work on their relationship all the harder because they are such different people. The script also has Giles softening toward his treatment of Buffy in regards to her training, which could very well lead to a stronger bond between them down the line.

Next: Halloween