Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Lie to Me - S02E07 Review

LIE TO ME
SEASON 2 EPISODE 7

We open up on some fairly creepy images of a playground at night and a kid waiting for his mom to come pick him up. What could he possibly be doing there all by himself? He remarks that his mom's always late...to himself...when will she learn that his late night soccer meetings end at two! Geez, mom! Anyway Drusilla slinks up, doing her crazy lullaby mumbling routine and the kid almost gets himself eaten until Angel shows up, for some reason, telling the kid to run home. It's obvious that the two have a history, and that Angel, Spike, and Dru are all connected. Buffy happens to (conveniently) be in the area and see the two talking, and naturally gets suspicious.

At school Jenny is planning a secret date for Giles and he keeps bugging her as to what it is. It's good to see that their relationship is moving along, even if a lot of it is offscreen. Later on, Buffy is pretty mopey about Angel and Dru, while Willow and Xander try to cheer her up to no avail. Then Buffy's old friend Billy Fordham from LA shows up, having just transferred to Sunnydale. Buffy and Ford immediately hit it off again, trading stories, while Xander and Willow sort of just politely nod as he intrudes in on their Bronze plans.

"I moped over you for months, singing that Divinyls song 'I Touch Myself'...of course, I had no idea what it was about..."

That night at the Bronze, Buffy runs into Angel, who, like Xander, is jealous of Ford. He's also lying to Buffy, and homie don't play that. I love Xander's dialogue in this scene; he hates Ford so much that even when he concedes to Ford being right, he has to say "you're not wrong". Buffy and Ford go for a walk and Buffy sees a vampire, so she sends Ford back to the Bronze and takes care of business. But when she's done she finds out that Ford already knows she's the Slayer. Even later that night, we see Ford step into a Nine Inch Nails video as he meets up with his dorky LARPer friend Marvin/Diego. He's obviously got some sort of plan to turn himself into a vampire, and there's this really weird scene where he lip syncs the 70s Dracula playing on the TV. Oh sure, I do that all the time.

This is the first time I think that we see Willow's, at least in this form. We see it in I Robot, You Jane, but I think it's maybe a different house. Just as she's getting ready for bed, Angel knocks on her door, needing to talk. Angel/Willow is a strange combination; they're probably the least developed relationship out of all the main characters up to this point, and it never really changes. They get a couple scenes here and there but this is one relationship I felt could have been stronger. Willow is adorable though in her absentmindedness in remembering vampire rules, and not being allowed to have boys in her room. Angel really wants to get Willow to do a background check on Ford, and she obliges, immediately finding that he never transferred to the school.

The next day at school, Willow is super suspicious, and her nervous laugh is perfect. Way better than Cordelia's. That night she and Ford are touring the campus and they get ambushed by two vamps, one of which distracts Buffy, leaving Ford alone with the other one. Buffy kills hers pretty quickly, and Ford threatens his for info and then lets it go, telling Buffy he killed it. Xand, Willow, and Angel find his NIN vampire club. They meet a goth-y girl who takes offense when Angel says they know nothing about real vampires. And then a man dressed exactly like Angel walks by. I love really broad jokes like this; they're used so infrequently that they're really hilarious when they do pop up.

Meanwhile at the library, Buffy brings Giles and Jenny in from their date, in which Jenny took him to see monster trucks. Giles at a monster truck rally is probably the funniest mental image of all time. When looking through books there, Buffy sees a picture of Drusilla and puts two and two together. Then the vamp that Ford said he killed bolts out of the library carrying a book.

Jenny: We could have just left.
Giles: And miss the nitro-burning funny cars? Couldn't have that!

Meanwhile at Spikes's, there's another twisted scene of Spike and Dru showing affection. It's great, because even though they're both totally psychotic, they obviously care about each other a great deal. Ford then stumbles in, in awe of the crappy abandoned factory they live in. He almost gets himself killed, but eventually he piques Spike's interest in a trade: vampirism for himself, and he gives Buffy to Spike. Dun dun dun!

Later at Buffy's, she confronts Angel about Drusilla and he spills his guts. He killed her whole family and tortured her until she became a nun, then made her a vampire. Pretty dark stuff, man! He also says that Ford can't be trusted, so the next day she lets Ford lead her right into his trap...sort of. Actually she kind of just shows up at the club before the trap is supposed to take place. The vampire wannabes lock her up in the club, and the only way in is from the outside, so she's stuck. This climax is way more long-winded than I remembered, but it's still pretty good; it delves into Ford a lot, showing how he compares everything to a movie. Then he hits Buffy with the bombshell that he's dying from a brain tumor and his only chance is to become a vampire. It's not REALLY a great reason, but the actor is really good in this scene, so it totally works. She almost gets through to him, but in the end, he's too far gone to be saved.

Spike, Dru, and their vamps all charge on the place, but Buffy catches Dru off-guard and uses her as a bargaining chip to escape and get everyone but Ford out. Ford stays locked up with the vamps and gets eaten all up by Spike. Later Buffy goes back to get Ford's body and they have a burial for him. Buffy and Giles are there at the grave talking, waiting for him to rise. Buffy asks if life ever gets easy, and Ford rises; she kills him without a moment's hesitation. Giles doesn't know how to answer, so Buffy tells her to lie to him.

This is a Joss Whedon episode and it shows. It's got so much going on emotionally that it's hard to really fit into a couple page recap. Though really no long-term character development takes places with the exception of fleshing out Angel's past, it's still a fantastically written episode that actually provokes questions about life and death. It's one of the most serious episodes thus far, and also one of the best up to this point.

****