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 21 years ago.

Beer Bad

• Like many episodes, we open in a graveyard. Buffy’s fighting a vampire.
• Wait… what’s Parker doing there?
• Gotta be a dream.
• Buffy manages to stake three vamps and saves Parker’s life.
• And he’s super apologetic about the way he treated her.
• Reality: Buffy’s in class. She’s daydreaming. While Parker sits a few rows away, flirting with a girl.
• Meanwhile, Professor Walsh teaches the class about the id, ego, and superego. That’s probably going to be important to this very special episode of Buffy.
• Oh, and I’m not going to count those slayings on the body count. Because they’re dream slayings.
• P.S. – Buffy… get over this guy already!
• Xander visits the girls on campus. He lets them know he’s gotten a job as a bartender.
• Wait… Xander’s too young to be a bartender.
• Okay… I’m tired of Buffy rambling about Parker. This is pathetic.
• Buffy ends up visiting the pub where Xander is working. Parker’s there.
• But so is Riley. He tries to give Buffy advice about guys like Parker, but she’s too busy staring at Parker. Ugh.
• As Xander serves a girl, a guy who fills the role of Ponytail from Good Will Hunting comes along to make Xander look stupid.
• He then gives Xander a speech about how, because he’s smarter and in college, he’s the future of this country, not guys like Xander.
• Good luck with that, college guy. Speaking as someone who was a sophomore in college when this episode originally aired, you’re looking at mountains of student loan debt and a bachelor’s degree that probably won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on when it’s all said and done.
• I mean… yay, college!
• Xander tries to demand the guy’s ID for his pitcher of Black Frost. But the head bartender just tells Xander to give it to him.
• Buffy talks to Xander, seems to finally come to the understand that Parker’s problem with intimacy is that he can’t get enough of it.
• As she goes to leave, Buffy runs into Ponytail’s friend, spilling his beer. They invite her to drink with them.
• Ugh… underage drinking. This will lead to all kinds of no good.
• Willow and Oz are hanging out at the Bronze. A nice, normal place to hang out.
• Oz is distracted. By the girl singing with the band.
• It’s the same girl that turned Oz’s head back in Living Conditions. Her name is Veruca.
• Back at the bar, Buffy and the douchey beer guzzlers are still guzzling beer. At least she calls them out on how they really like to hear themselves talk.
• The next morning, Buffy seems super hungover. And monosyllabic.
• In psych class, Buffy snatches a girl’s sandwich out of her hands and starts eating it.
• Something’s up. A mad scientist’s chemistry set pouring something into a keg of Black Frost tells me that the beer isn’t just beer.
• Buffy and the guys are all back at the bar. Drinking more beer. They’re becoming less evolved with each sip.
• Trouble is brewing with Oz and Willow. Oz wants to go check out Veruca’s band again. Willow’s not so much into that idea. We’re being set up for heartbreak.
• At the bar, Xander cuts Buffy off. He just assumes she’s had one too many, telling her to go home and sleep it off.
• The other guys just keep on drinking.
• Willow goes to visit Parker at some secluded coffee shop. She confronts him. And he doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
• Xander gets the drunk guys to settle up. And they’re basically turning into cavemen.
• They attack Xander and he scares them off with his lighter. Fire bad.
• Xander’s boss doesn’t seem shocked. “They had it comin’.”
• Guess we know who our mad scientist is.
• He brags about how his brother-in-law is a warlock who showed him what to do. Then he says it’ll wear off in a day or so.
• One of the cavemen gets hit by a car. He’s hurt, but it doesn’t kill him.
• The other three attack the car. Then they chase after a couple of pretty girls. Probably going to bonk them over the head and drag them back to their cave.
• Xander gets Giles (who rightly admonishes Xander for serving the underage Buffy beer at all) and they find Buffy in her room.
• She’s cave painting the wall. And hitting the figure she painted with her open palm. “Parker bad!”
• Little Miss One Track Mind.
• Parker is still talking to Willow… trying to subtly seduce her. She sees through it, and compares him to a caveman.
• And then the cavemen show up.
• They start a fire in the coffee shop. But, being cavemen, they don’t know how to control it. And it quickly gets out of control.
• Willow’s lying unconscious on the floor. So this is gonna turn out well for everyone.
• Buffy gets away from Giles and Xander. Her quest for more beer has taken over.
• Buffy smells the smoke from the fire and heads toward it. Even though fire bad.
• Always the hero.
• She grabs the fire extinguisher. And throws it into the flames. Yeah, that’s not how that works.
• She sees Willow on the other side of the fire. She manages to save her. And she even goes back for Parker and saves him… after knocking him out with a big stick.
• Everyone gets out alive.
• In the aftermath, Parker finds Buffy and tries to apologize for how he treated her.
• So she knocks him out again.
• Body count: Everyone lives!