Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 1, Episode 12
Directed by: Joss Whedon
Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendon, Alyson Hannigan
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Mr. Pointy’s
Season one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a dream. A midseason gamble. A WB experiment, pieced together from a half-forgotten early 90’s movie no one was really asking to revisit. From the network that brought us 7th Heaven and, to a lesser extent, Unhappily Ever After, they decide to dip their toes into the teenage drama landscape, with the same vapid character types that made Beverly Hills, 90210 a hit, but give this one a supernatural edge. And somehow, it lands. It finds its people. Grows teeth. Gives us six more seasons, a spin-off, and later a comic book continuation that refuses to let it die.
But it all starts here. Small. Contained stories. High school halls. The same graveyard set. A nightclub that admits teenagers on a school night. And it ends, the first chapter, with the world cracking open. An apocalypse. A prophecy. The Master rises. And the Slayer? Well, she’ll die.
But before any of that, Sunnydale High has other plans. The Spring Fling. Not just an event, but the big social event of the season. Hormones. Bad decisions. Everyone pretending this night matters more than the rest. And if this goes wrong, it’ll be the end of the world.
And for Xander, it is. He’s been orbiting Buffy all season, with hopeful wolf eyes. So, he asks her out. It’s a big swing. And at the same time, a big miss. She turns him down. It’s meant to come across as gentle, but it settles into his stomach like a gut punch.
He spirals. It’s quiet at first, but then seeps into his public life. It’s the way high school heartbreak usually goes. And that’s because Buffy is looking somewhere else entirely. Someone way out of her league. We’ve all had one of those. The crush that doesn’t make sense. The one you can’t win. It’s usually someone older. And in Buffy’s case, he’s way older. A vampire. It’s the perfect recipe for a pair star-crossed lovers.
But none of that sticks. Prophecy doesn’t care about dances or dates. And Buffy wants out. A full break-up. No slaying. No destiny. No Sunnydale. She reaches for something normal; a weekend getaway, just her and her mom. Joyce clocks it right away. “It’s about a boy, isn’t it?”
She’s close, but it’s more than that. Worse. Like, actual death.
