Welcome to Rewatching Buffy, the part of the blog where I rewatch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Each Tuesday evening, you’re invited to join me as I attempt to rediscover what made me love this show 20 years ago.

This week we come to the end of season one! Which is kind of great, because Buffy, I think, really hit its stride in season two. But we’ll get there next week.

Nightmares

• Buffy’s in the Master’s lair. How did Buffy find the Master’s lair?
• I feel like there should have been build-up to this.
• The Master has Buffy in his thrall. Uh-oh…
• Things do not look good for our heroine.
• She screams, “No!” just as Joyce wakes her up for school.
• It was just a nightmare. I guess I should have paid attention to the episode title.
• Apparently Buffy’s dad is coming to town to take Buffy away for the weekend.
• Buffy and Willow discuss Buffy’s parents’ divorce. That’ll probably be important later.
• In class, Buffy sees a little kid who probably shouldn’t be there. Because little kids don’t go to high school.
• Suddenly, Wendell, a kid we’ve never seen before, opens his textbook and giant spiders crawl out and all over him.
• It’s like someone’s nightmare.
• See what I did there?
• The Master is lecturing the Anointed One on fear. They sense something happen on the surface.
• Next day, Buffy seems worried that her dad won’t show up. Is Buffy’s dad a deadbeat dad?
• In the library, Giles claimed that he was lost in the stacks. That’ll probably be important later.
• Hey, let’s see how Wendell is. Turns out, he doesn’t hate spiders. He loves them. He collects them.
• Backstory: While Wendell was away at camp, his brother left a heat lamp on and it killed all his spiders. Now he has nightmares about spiders coming out of his books.
• Cordelia was extremely helpful in telling Buffy she’s got a history exam. Right now.
• She’s extremely ill prepared. And her pencil broke. And time is moving way too quickly. And her teacher is creepy.
• Wait, there’s that kid again.
• Random high school girl goes to the basement to take a smoke break. Is this a thing kids do?
• Statistically, kids smoke in groups. It’s a social thing.
• Why would anyone go into the basement at Sunnydale High?
• Ugly monster attacks the girl. He’s beating her as he shouts, “Lucky 19!” That’ll probably be important later.
• If she’d gone smoking with a friend, this probably wouldn’t have happened.
• She survived, so that’s a nice change of pace.
• At the hospital, Buffy and Giles find out that smoking girl is not the first victim. The first victim is still in a coma.
• Tough guys at school are being tough. Then one of their mothers comes in to embarrass them.
• Xander walks into class and is suddenly in his underwear.
• Giles is suddenly illiterate.
• But Buffy is able to read the newspapers he’s gathered. The kid in the coma is the kid that Buffy’s been seeing around the school.
• Buffy’s dad shows up in the library unexpectedly.
• He needs to talk to Buffy about the divorce. He drops the bomb that it’s Buffy’s fault.
• He goes on and on, pretty much saying everything that a child of divorce dreads hearing.
• Willow figured it out! People’s nightmares are coming true!
• This one’s good… Cordelia has awful hair.
• Buffy follows coma kid into the gym. But she’s not exactly getting a lot out of him.
• Except that the ugly man calls him Lucky 19.
• And the ugly man attacks Buffy. Timing is impeccable.
• Willow gets separated from Xander and Giles, then follows a disembodied voice to the basement.
• Again… Why go to the Sunnydale High basement? Especially if you’re Willow, who knows all about the bad things in Sunnydale.
• Xander enters a part of the school that looks post apocalyptic. And he’s finding random candy bars on the floor. He should probably follow them. I’m sure they lead to rainbows and sunshine.
• Meanwhile, Billy explains that he was playing baseball and the team lost. He blames himself. Because someone else told him it was his fault. That backstory is just trickling in…
• Willow’s about to go on stage. In an opera. An Italian opera.
• Xander’s still eating chocolate. And then is attacked by a clown. Yeah, that seems about right.
• Buffy’s made her way to a cemetery. Also, it’s night. And the Master is there.
• Slayer and Master, face to face for the first time.
• The Master buries Buffy alive.
• Xander reunites with Willow and Giles. They’re all running from the clown. Until Xander decides to punch the clown.
• Punching a clown is always the best option.
• They get to the cemetery, where it’s somehow night, and find Buffy’s grave.
• Buffy rises. Uh… she’s a vampire.
• The theory is, if Billy can wake up, all the nightmares will go away.
• Buffy takes down the ugly man. But Billy has to be the one to face him.
• Billy wakes up and, sure enough, everything’s back to normal.
• Who should happen to visit but Billy’s coach. Who refers to him as Lucky 19.
• Abusive coach is going down.
• Buffy’s dad shows up for real. All is right in the world.
• No deaths this episode. Buffy’s nightmare death didn’t count.

Out of Mind, Out of Sight

• We’re getting a lot of Cordelia right out of the gate. Guess it’s a Cordelia-centric episode.
• Fitting, since she basically believes the world revolves around her anyway.
• Cordelia’s current boy toy is alone in the locker room. So he thinks.
• He hears a girl laughing.
• Then an invisible person beats him with a baseball bat.
• Buffy investigates the locker room. Someone spray painted “LOOK” on the lockers.
• Could be a ghost…
• Cordelia’s friend, Harmony, falls down the stairs. But she swears she was pushed.
• Buffy hears a girl laughing.
• She follows invisible girl to the band room. But misses the moving ceiling tiles above her.
• Shifty looking men in black hanging out on campus. Like I wouldn’t notice them.
• Angel shows up at the library and meets Giles for the first time.
• He can get a book about the Master that Giles is missing. That’s helpful.
• Flashback to, I assume, invisible girl’s past. She’s constantly ignored by Cordelia and her flock.
• Willow noticed the men in black, too.
• Marcie Ross disappeared six months ago. Buffy thinks it’s her. Xander and Willow don’t know her.
• The girl was practically invisible before she became literally invisible.
• Buffy finds Marcie’s ceiling hideaway. And finds her yearbook.
• Uh oh… there’s a knife floating behind Buffy.
• Guess Marcie has second thoughts. She doesn’t attack. Even though Buffy takes the yearbook.
• Instead, Marcie goes to attack Cordelia’s favorite teacher. Puts a plastic bag over her head.
• Cordelia gets there in time to save the teacher and witnesses chalk writing the word “LISTEN.”
• “Have a nice summer” is what you write when you have nothing to say. It’s all over Marcie’s yearbook.
• Cordelia seeks Buffy out because she’s genuinely afraid now.
• The gang follows the sound of flute music. It’s a little Pied Piper-ish.
• It’s also a recording. The gang is now trapped in the basement. And there’s a gas leak.
• Cordelia is abducted. Buffy’s on the case.
• Buffy and Cordelia both get knocked out and are moved to The Bronze.
• Cordelia’s face is numb.
• They see the word “LEARN” on the wall.
• Marcie wants to carve up Cordelia’s face.
• Meanwhile, Angel saves the others from the basement.
• Buffy figures out how to use her senses to fight Marcie.
• Here come the men in black. They claim to be FBI. They’re taking Marcie into custody.
• The next day, Cordelia is grateful to the Scooby Gang. But then when her boy toy shows back up, she’s back to her old self.
• BTW, invisible girl is in a school for invisible assassins.
• No deaths. Again. Am I even watching the right show?

Prophecy Girl

• Xander is asking Willow out on a date.
• No… he’s practicing for when he asks Buffy out.
• I got partially excited for Willow for a second.
• Buffy’s facing a vampire in the park. She slays him pretty handily.
• Giles is burning the midnight oil, researching the Master using the book the Angel brought him.
• “The Master shall rise, and the Slayer…” Oh, dear.
• There’s an earthquake.
• I’d say it’s an omen of the coming apocalypse, but it’s southern California.
• But the Master says it’s a sign of the coming apocalypse, so it probably is. Then he asks his minions if they think it was a 5.1.
• Did the Richter Scale exist before the Master was swallowed up by the ground in the 1930s?
• According to Wikipedia, the Richter Scale was developed in the 1930s. I stand corrected.
• Xander asks Buffy to the Spring Fling. He’s coming clean on his crush.
• Buffy doesn’t want to spoil their friendship. Her feelings are just not the same.
• Giles calls Angel as Jenny Calendar appears. She’s on to the omens.
• Willow talks to depressed Xander. Then Xander asks Willow to the dance. She says no, too.
• “You think I want to go to the dance with you and watch you wish you were at the dance with her?” Good point.
• “That’s okay. I don’t want to go. I’m just gonna go home, lie down, and listen to country music. The music of pain.” Good plan.
• Buffy turns on the sink and the water has turned to blood. That’s not a good sign.
• She walks in on Giles and Angel discussing the prophecy from Angel’s book.
• Tomorrow night, Buffy will face the Master, and she will die.
• Buffy reacts with laughter. Not expected.
• Okay, now she’s upset. She doesn’t want to die. So she quits being the Slayer.
• Uh… I’m not sure that’s something one can just quit doing.
• Buffy tries to convince her mom to take her away for a few days.
• But Joyce got Buffy a dress for the Spring Fling.
• Cordelia and Willow, in trying to set up for the Spring Fling, come across a room full of dead bodies. I counted five, though I suppose it could have been more.
• This one hits Willow hard. It’s like the whole season has finally hit her.
• Giles is getting ready for battle while Jenny sums up the Master’s story arc.
• Giles claims that he’ll face the Master so Buffy won’t have to.
• So Buffy knocks Giles out. “Tell him… I don’t know. Think of something cool. Tell him I said it.”
• Buffy’s hoping that she can take the Master with her when she dies.
• The Anointed One shows up to take Buffy to the Master.
• Xander wants to go help Buffy. So he goes to Angel, figuring he knows where to find the Master’s lair.
• The Anointed One points the way then leaves. He doesn’t want to see how it ends? What else does he have going on?
• So it turns out that if Buffy had not gone to the Master, he wouldn’t be able to escape his underground prison.
• The Master feeds. The Slayer’s blood gives him the power to leave.
• He drops her in a pool of water and compliments her dress.
• He’s just the nicest super villain.
• Angel and Xander get to Buffy in time to find Buffy. She drowned.
• CPR! That’ll do the trick. Xander has to do it because Angel has no breath.
• He’s doing it all wrong, BTW.
• But he’s able to revive her.
• Meanwhile, Willow and Jenny are saved from a horde of vampires by Cordelia, who drives them back to the library.
• And some kind of tentacle is reaching up through a crack in the floor of the library.
• Buffy heads up to the library’s roof, where the Master is surveying the world he thinks he now rules.
• Tentacle monster breaks out of the Hellmouth. Kinda looks like the thing from Tremors.
• The Master is really caught off guard by Buffy’s appearance on the roof.
• Angel dusts a vampire.
• And Buffy throws the Master through a skylight.
• He lands on a broken table and is impaled. He turns to dust.
• But his bones are left behind. That’s weird.
• His death closes the Hellmouth. Tentacle monster retreats.
• Body count: Humans – 6 (Yes, I counted Buffy. It becomes important later next season. You’ll see.); Vampires – 3

Well, that’s season one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I hope you’ve enjoyed these last twelve episodes. I thought about doing a season-end body count, but that could get complicated in future, longer seasons. If there’s a demand based on comments, I’ll come back and update with a full body count. So let me know, commenters.

Come back next week as we begin season two!