Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Some Assembly Required - S02E02 Review

SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
SEASON 2 EPISODE 2

We start out with Buffy waiting for a vamp to rise and Angel showing up, still jealous of Xander from Buffy's sexy dance. The vampire rises while the two are chatting and she dusts him; this scene is very indicative of graveyard fight scenes to come. The fighting this season is way more kinetic than last season, and it's something that persists through the rest of the show. Then Buffy does a pratfall into an open grave, and Buffy sees that a grave robbing has taken place.

The next day at school, Buffy and Xander walk in on Giles practicing to ask Jenny out on a date, while being super Giles-y. Much teasing ensues, mostly from Xander. Buffy tells Giles about the grave robbing, and he finds it rather interesting instead of creepy, much to her chagrin.

"Now is it time to have a talk about the facts of life? You know, that whole 'stork thing' is a smokescreen!"

Meanwhile Willow talks to our characters of the week: there's creepy Eric, who takes pictures of girls around school. In real life, he'd get beat up really REALLY quickly. Then there's his friend Chris, the quiet, yet normal-seeming one. The two flirt a bit before heading off to the meeting of the minds at the library. The thing I don't like about this scene is that it IMMEDIATELY ruins the mystery of who the grave robbers are. It's Eric and Chris; there ya go.

In the library, Cordy mentions Chris's dead brother Daryl, who she used to date. Later that night after cheerleading practice, Cordy gets scared to death by Angel (what is he wearing, by the way?) while hiding in a dumpster. This is actually a really interesting relationship, although not explored until much much later. It's interesting to see their very superficial relationship now compared to how close they become later. They find a severed hand in the dumpster, and take it to Buffy.

The gang deduces that the robbers kept some of the parts. They find all sorts of creepy things in Chris and Eric's locker. This scene is ridiculously grainy too, one of the worst; it's pretty much just a glob of pixels in a couple shots. Meanwhile, Chris and Eric are working on a Frankenstein-like women, picking parts from different women to sew together.

The next day Giles finally gets a date with Jenny, albeit inadvertently. Giles is hilarious when he's being super awkward. At the science lab, Xander makes some awful jokes with a model skull, and they find out that the two boys still need to find a head. Meanwhile Chris and Eric are talking about killing a girl for a good head, and suddenly the reanimated body of Daryl steps out of the shadows. Total Bride of Frankenstein scenario; Chris and Daryl do have a nice relationship, but I'm not a big fan of this plot as a whole. Eric is psycho just for the sake of being psycho, and Chris agrees to killing a girl way too soon. And why is Daryl crazy? Does dying and coming back make you evil? I don't know, the villains are lacking.

Buffy goes to Chris's house and finds that the plans to make the woman involve getting Cordelia's head. At the game, Cordy is ambushed by Chris and Eric, and Buffy, somehow teleporting there, saves her by kicking Eric right in the face. Buffy persuades Chris to help, but Eric and Daryl take matters into their own hands to find Cordy.

At the football game, Xand and Willow interrupt Giles's date with Jenny, to his disappointment. There's a moment where we're supposed to feel sorry for Daryl, but he's crazy...I'm not buying it, no matter how much pretty piano you play over it. The two kidnap Cordy and plan to do the procedure, then Buffy and the gang show up to save her, with Xander successfully getting her away from the danger. The lab gets set on fire and the female body gets all burned up, then Daryl decides to stay in the burning building because he doesn't want to live like a freak alone. Kind of a weak ending, but whatever.

The wrap-up includes more Jenny and Giles flirtation, Cordelia thanking Xander for saving her (which he completely ignores, hilariously), and Buffy and Angel reconciling. Angel's outfit is really odd in this episode; pretty out of character, at least from a wardrobe standpoint. But they share a nice moment, bad clothes and all.

Overall, while this episode isn't the best plot-wise, it's very sharply written. It's got a plethora of great lines, and a pretty decent emotional core to the episode. It doesn't really do anything to further the characters other than some Jenny and Giles stuff, but it's a very good standalone episode.

***1/2