REPTILE BOY
SEASON 2 EPISODE 5
I find it strange that the previous episode is basically "'Insert Monster' Girl" and this episode is "'Insert Monster' Boy". Kind of a two-parter. But not really; this one is quite a bit worse. But it does start out pretty great! We open up on Buffy, Xander, and Willow watching awful Indian soap operas. I can relate to watching awful things; I watched Heroes. Buff comments that things are slow around Sunnydale, which is code for "something's about to happen". And it does! Elsewhere in Sunnydale, a girl breaks out of a big house and is caught by a bunch of guys in robes. The main guy reminds me of a less cool Bradley Cooper.
At school, Cordy is practicing her social skills since she's started dating college guys, by laughing. It's painful. It's the worst laughing of all time. Buffy is having some serious Angel dreams, and Willow suggests that she ask him out for coffee sometime. Giles is mad that Buffy's been taking her training less seriously lately, and this kind of sets Buffy off, so she decides to "dawdle" with Xander and Willow outside after school. When the frat guys come to see Cordy, one sees Buffy and goes over to talk to her. Tom the frat guy seems charming enough, but maybe a little too nice...Meanwhile Xander looks on with a jealous chagrin.
After beating up Giles again during training she goes on patrol and runs into Angel, after finding part of a bracelet. Angel acts uncharacteristically condescending and the conversation devolves into a weird melodramatic argument. I don't like this scene at all; the writing is really over the top. Well now that they've had a fight, Buffy has no problem going to a frat party with Cordy to see charming ol' Tom. Xander is none too happy about this craziness. Then immediately we find out that the frat guys are all evil demon-worshipers. Shocker, they seemed like such stand-up guys.
At the party, Buffy decides to warm the wall after declining drinks from lead creepy frat guy. Then Tom gets her for a dance, and tries to work his charm on her a little further, and it really starts to work. Xander sneaks in and poses as a frat guy, but gets caught, and they treat him like a pledge. I'm not too familiar with fraternities, but I assume this naturally entails being dressed up like a woman and dancing for the frat guys. Sounds like a fun place. Buffy completely downs a drink after Tom toasts to her, and the downward spiral begins!
While Xander dances around, Buffy starts to stumble, and they cross paths several times without actually seeing each other. Something was definitely in her drink, or she's the biggest lightweight of all time. She collapses on a bed, right next to Cordy (who is also unconscious), and big bad lead frat guy comes in, going to have his way with her. He's quickly pulled off by Tom. Could it be that Tom is the frat boy with the heart of gold? Nope, he's actually the leader of the demon-worshipers and doesn't want not-Bradley Cooper to taint the sacrifice. What a catch! Back at the library, Giles and Willow discover the bracelet's wearer, and that she's a girl who went missing from a nearby high school. Willow tries desperately to keep up with Buffy's lie, despite it visibly hurting her. Meanwhile, Cordy and Buffy awaken in the basement, chained up.
Will and Giles call up Angel to come help with the bracelet. Angel explains that they got the bracelet at the cemetery. Willow asks "Angel, how do you shave?" as a funny little off-hand comment. But it actually brings up a really good point. How DOES he shave? I want an explanation! They deduce that the fraternity is responsible for the disappearances and Willow finally breaks down and tells them that Buffy is there right now. Then in a rare Willow moment she explodes at both of them in Buffy's defense, telling Angel to stop brushing her off and Giles to go easy on her training and patrolling. It's the first moment of Willow having a spine, and it's great.
Meanwhile the ritual is taking a long time, mostly consisting of the frat guys just brown-nosing the demon that gave them all their wealth. Also the girl who is tied up with Buffy and Cordy is really annoying. She only has a couple lines, but she's pretty bad. The giant demon comes out of the well in the ground; it's a giant snake. The metaphor of today's episode...men worship and rely on the penis? Or something like that. Question: How does this demon make the frat guys have good fortune? Can he manipulate luck or something? Can he hack peoples' bank accounts? Does he just buy lots of scratch-off games from the gas station and give the winnings to the frat guys? The effect actually looks pretty good...not great, but as good as they could do it.
Willow, Giles, and Angel head to the frat house and meet up with Xander, who has stolen a ceremonial robe. Angel goes vamp-faced at the thought of Buffy in danger. Xander uses the robe to sneak in and Xander and Angel easily dispatch the drunk frat dudes. Even Giles clocks a guy right in the face!
Buffy tears her chains out of the ceiling, grabs a sword and chops the...snake. Hm...What I'm not a fan of is that she doesn't even use a good innuendo one-liner. Is "Let her go, wormy," really the best you can do, Buff? Come on. But Buffy and Giles make up, and all is well. All the frat guys, including alumni suffer from money loss, prison, and some...kill themselves. That's cheerful! But it doesn't matter because Angel shows up to the Bronze and asks the Buffster for coffee.
All in all this is a pretty silly episode with some pretty dumb villains. But really it's kind of a cool take on the whole "maturity" angle, and it's handled fairly well. Still not sure how I feel about the penis demon, but it's an okay episode that moves along Buffy and Angel's relationship a little, at least.
**1/2
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