Just Stake Me! Episodes

First Date (Ep. 7.14)

"Come As You Are"

Dear, dear Jane Espenson. God bless her. After a string of episodes that weren't so much bad as labored, burdened with awkward moments and too-easily predicted conclusions, along comes the punchily written "First Date," a zippy, comedic funfest filled with tons of sparkling dialogue and character moments that are easily up to the level of BtVS at its finest.

And look at what we get! The Principal Wood mystery is finally addressed! Buffy chats with Willow! Andrew stands up to The First! There is funny banter! Demon dating! Possible confessions of love! Giles! Huzzah!

. . . .

Cemetery. Giles is escorting a group of Potentials through the usual patrol paces, and regaling them with the story of his Amazing Escape From Death At The Hands of a Bringer. This is played out for us in full technicolor, picking up where we were left hanging at the end of "Sleeper." In flashback, we see Giles go all kung fu on a robed figure, cutting off the Bringer's head with its appropriated axe. Most impressive! Ever modest, Giles chalks it up to "extraordinary good luck... years of training... instinct and reflexes" and "a sort of wary watchfulness" he'd developed over the years. "It's like another sense," he proclaims.

It's like another sense that doesn't bother to kick in before Spike comes barrelling out of nowhere and tackles him to the ground. Skidding across the wet grass, the two pull back and stare at each other with matching shocked expressions. "You're not in pain!" Giles yells. "You're not The First!" Spike yells back.

A Chip Off His Shoulder
Everyone compares notes, and in short order, we're brought up to date: Anya had told Spike that Giles was The First (presumably by note or phone message - or would she just stir up trouble for fun at this juncture?). Giles then asks how Spike was able to hit him, getting by way of answer some verbal foot-shuffling from both Buffy and Spike ("we were at the Initiative... there was a choice..."), finally circling around to the admission that the chip is no more. Giles is understandably floored by this news, but what struck me were the shared guilty glances between Spike and Buffy, as if the chip-removal operation - firmly established as Buffy's sole decision - were actually some kind of shared responsibility between the two of them. Not really sure how to interpret that.

Giles doesn't know what to make of it either. He approaches Buffy the next morning for a heart-to-heart talk, pointing out that she's "gambling with a lot of lives." Buffy shrugs off his concerns by saying she made her decision on "instinct," reminding him that the chip did nothing to prevent Spike from killing under The First's influence, and that he has a soul now. "He can be a good man, Giles," she says earnestly. "But he's never gonna get there if we don't give him the chance." She then insists that the chip was simply wrong on principle: "it was like having him in a muzzle... you can't beat evil by doing evil."

I hardly need to point out that Buffy's sentiments here are far and away the most concrete she's ever been about her feelings re: Spike, but it's her insistence that the chip itself was "wrong," when she never found reason to question it before, that stands out. To Buffy's mind, caging a possible "good man" is simply unacceptable - it counts as "doing evil," where keeping a dangerous animal in a "muzzle" was perfectly fine. Buffy is not defending the "animal inside" her ex-lover, but the man she thinks he can be... someday. Although encouraging, this reasoning neatly sidesteps the puzzling issue of his pre-soul self-restraint, after his chip stopped working on her, post-resurrection. Wonder if that's ever going to be addressed, or if it's a moot point now?

He's No Good For You
Giles's main worry, however, token protests about the Potentials' safety aside, is Buffy herself. Her confession that she was sleeping with the enemy made him laugh back in "Grave," but he's not laughing anymore. To Giles's mind, this is getting serious.

He tells her he wants "more" for her. He doesn't want "a future with a great deal of pain" for his surrogate daughter. "Your feelings for him are coloring your judgment. I can hear it in your voice," he insists. He's uncomfortable with their shared "connection," irregardless of whether or not they're "physical" with each other. "You rely on him, he relies on you. That's what's affecting your judgment," Giles frowns. There's no question what he's thinking of when he says this: that a repeat of the whole Angel debacle is hovering just over the horizon.

Is it? The differences between Spike and Angel, and Buffy's relationships with each, are profound - the vampire-with-a-soul issue is about the only similarity the two have. This being the case, viewing them through the same lens in relation to Buffy, as if history repeating itself were the only possibility, carries the same message that Buffy's already explicitly stated about vampires: "The animal inside - always the same." Or are we meant to hear a more pointed message: that she thinks all men are the same? Hm.

Jealous? Me?
History repeating itself definitely seems to be the case for another member of the household, Xander, with his "dating demons." Both literally - Insect woman, mummy girl, ex-vengeance demon... even Cordelia, retroactively speaking. - and figuratively, in his stammering get-back-on-the-horse attempts at dating.

The date in question comes about when Xander meets-cute with a beautiful lady (played by pop star Ashanti) at a demo-event at a lumberyard, in which Xander offers his assistance in explaining the difference between different grades of rope. After some amusing back-and-forth - so nice to see Xander's quippy side re-emerging - they make a date to go out for coffee. "Is she evil?" Willow asks when he announces this upcoming event later at Slayer HQ. Xander replies, "Well, she's interested in me, so there's a good chance, but I'm hoping for the best."

Buffy makes a date too, with Principal Wood - partly to investigate him, she later confides in Willow, but also because of his general good looks (no argument there), solidness, and seeming normality... does any of this sound familiar? "I don't want to only be attracted to wicked energy... or what if he is wicked, in which case, is that why I'm attracted to him?" she frets.

Willow agrees that Buffy's date is a good idea, despite the possible evil "ambiguity," commenting that it'll help her "move on." Buffy rolls her eyes. "Why does everybody in this house think I'm still in love with Spike?" she blurts.

It's been hinted around repeatedly this season that Buffy actually is a little bit in love with Spike, and this little Freudian slip seems to confirm it as true, at least in hindsight. Pointedly, she even brings up the topic as answer to a question Willow didn't even ask: it's clarified that by "move on," Willow actually meant, "move on from this imposed super-self-reliance. Let somebody get close." Apparently, the only one questioning whether or not her relationship with Spike is "over" is Buffy herself.

As for other people who are not yet "over," Anya is overwrought at the idea of Xander on a date. "Observe my bitter ranting. Hear the shrill edge of hysteria in my voice!" she wails to Buffy as they hover together over the bathroom sink trying to get a bloodstain (or possibly pizza sauce) out of one of Buffy's nice shirts. Poor Anya. Left alone at the altar and for some reason, called upon to scrub stains out of other people's clothes. Put her in a play and call her Lady MacBeth.

Unable to console Anya and giving up on the ruined blouse, Buffy exits the bathroom for a reprise of the same scene with her own ex, Spike. In an exchange that resembles nothing so much as a reverse of she's-a-nice-attempt-at-making-me-jealous-and-yes-it's-working conversation at Xander's not-wedding, Spike claims that he's fine, while Buffy puts on a fairly fake smile and suggests that he should see other people too (pointedly mentioning his wedding date). Message received. Not over then. Still not over now.

Now That's Graphic!
Meanwhile, we also get an update on what's happening at the homefront with Giles and his new charge, a Chinese Slayer candidate who speaks no English. (I was wondering when that problem might come up.) Giles attempts to solve the problem by speaking to her LOUDLY in simple English, and even more outrageously, drawing up some hideously lurid flash cards of the style we saw him use in "Hush" - marker-drawn stick figures oozing gouts of inky blood. The Chinese girl is downright hysterical from all this, and Giles soon goes ballistic as well once he realizes that half the house has gone out for romantic evenings. "For God's sake! How can anyone think about their social life?" he rails. "We are about to fight the original primal evil. These girls are in mortal danger. Didn't you see the flashcards?"

My Mother? Let Me Tell You About My Mother
On said dates, now in progress. Buffy discovers, much to her surprise (and an unplanned vamp attack on the way to the restaurant), that what's weird about Wood isn't that he's evil or a demon, but that his mother was a Slayer - one who was killed when he was four years old... by a vampire. Okay. Given Wood's age as a starting point and counting down the few non-white characters we've ever seen appear in this show, it's not hard to put this puzzle together. "I went through this whole 'avenging son' phase in my twenties, but I never found him," Wood says. Don't think he'll be able to say that much longer.

At any rate, Wood fills in his history: he was raised by his mother's Watcher, he dusts vamps for a hobby, and had himself placed at Sunnydale High because he knew that "we're headed for something big... and I need to be here when it happens... I have to do something." "So, you didn't hire me for my counseling skills?" Buffy asks. He laughs, just like Willow did earlier when Buffy suggested that maybe the date was because she was "up for a promotion." Confirmed: Buffy's not all that as a counselor. Yep, it's funny.

Meanwhile, Xander's date starts out alright, although one tip I might give is to not talk copiously about your ex on a first date, no matter how nice the sentiments. ("Our anniversary's coming up - I mean, it would have been our anniversary. And maybe I shouldn't be allowed to forget it. I did - it was a bad thing, and it hurt her real bad.") However, Xander's curse is still holding - yes, Ashanti is indeed a demon. She somehow lures him down into the school basement, trusses him to the same torture wheel that Spike was lashed to in "Never Leave Me," and winches him up to the ceiling for pretty much the same purpose. "Is this because I'm friends with Buffy?" he tries asking. She shrugs, "You just seem like a nice guy, that's all." Well. That explains everything.

Please Speak Directly Into The Hidden Microphone
Back at the homestead, more intrigue (this one's just full of plot stuff, didn't I tell you?) Andrew is confronted by The First, back in the game in the form of Jonathan. The First's pitch is that Andrew should kill all the Potentials, using the gun Willow bought last episode. "You know we're headed toward a fight, don't you? What do you think the world's gonna be like after that? Newsflash. There's not going to be a Slayer gang anymore. But there is going to be Evil. And as long as there is Evil, I live. And as long as I live, you can dwell at my side," it oozes.

Andrew agrees... but later we find that he was simply playing along to try to get information, incidentally asking some pretty good questions. "Are you made out of the evil impulses of humans, so if everyone was unconscious at the same time, you would fade away?" he bluffs. He also asks why it isn't using Spike for this task, getting the answer that "It's not time for him yet."

Then, in a scene that's simultaneously creepy and funny, The First catches onto the ruse, and takes out its wrath on Willow and the other girls in the next room, trying to listen in via cop-show-style "wire." "You think you can trick the First?" it rages, then plays on Andrew's guilt. "Jonathan suffered. He was your friend, and he trusted you, and now he spends eternity in pain because of what you did," it tells him, his borrowed face begining to rot away, American Werewolf in London style.

Andrew stands up for himself, stating firmly: "Stop looking like Jonathan. You're not him. You're the First, and you're trying to get me to shoot innocent girls, but I won't do it. I'm good now. When the fight is over, I'm gonna pay for killing Jonathan." The First answers that he's gonna pay for more than that because: "The biggest, baddest First Evil in the world's angry with you." Not a reassuring thought.

Some Issues To Work Out
As this all goes down, Xander somehow managed to send Willow a "code" signal on his cell phone (let's not worry about how; it's one with why demon chicks are into Xander, okay - it's a thing). Debate ensues about what to do. Spike insists on going to get Buffy because, yet again, she's forgotten her own cell phone. This ends up placing him tableside at the romantic little French bistro just in time to see Buffy getting spoon-fed dessert by Wood. "Oh, my God! That might be the best thing I've ever had in my mouth!" she flirts, tongue extended, batting bedroom eyes. Gah. And she had the nerve to call her sister a skank. Blank-faced, Spike alerts her to the Xander problem.

A tense car ride to the high school follows. Buffy looks deeply uncomfortable in the passenger seat beside Wood, and Spike slouches in the back. Wood eyes his rear-view mirror suspiciously and asks how they know each other. "He works with me. Uh, you know, in the struggle against evil," Buffy answers, a little too fast. Wood's suspicions, none too hard to guess, are then confirmed in the basement battle: Spike morphs into vampire face while fighting the Ashanti demon, which Buffy then kills. He also observes Buffy fuss in concern over said vampire, before even checking on the perforated-and-bleeding Xander. At the group exits the basement, Wood favors Spike with an icy glare. I doubt these two will soon be friends.

The party limps home to Casa de Summers. Bandaged and looking worse for wear, Xander is in a high dudgeon. "I'm going gay," he announces, telling Willow to "gay me up. Come on, let's gay!" he barks, saying that he's "mentally undressing Scott Bakula right now," which gets a wistful sigh from Andrew, and a wisecrack from Buffy: "What if you just start attracting male demons?"

Giles blows his top. "There isn't time for fun and games and quips about orientation," he shouts, and lofts one of his hilariously gory flashcards, intoning with grave import: "These aren't a joke.... It's time to get serious." Did I mention I love Jane Espenson? And oh, Anthony Stewart Head, you are a comic genius. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Be My Convenient Valentine
Two more scenes remain. Later that night, Buffy and Spike share a brief moment alone in the living room, where he asks her if she heard about The First's visit, and its mention that "it wasn't time" for him yet. "I should move out. Leave town before it is time for me," he offers, reminding her that with Wood around, she now has another demon-fighter on the team. Buffy disagrees. "That's not why I need you here... I'm not ready for you to not be here," she claims.

Since Buffy is back in a turtleneck sweater for this conversation, something that's been used so often as a device (specifically in S6) that I think I can state unequivocally that it's a metaphor for her "covering up," you can't help but read extra layers into Buffy's "not ready" statement. Buffy is "not ready" to give Spike a real reason to stay, only a vague suggestion that he would be hurting her by going. Nor is she willing to explain how the principal fits into the scheme of things when he asks. Typical for Buffy, she is holding her emotional cards close to the chest, but I'd say odds are good she's going to have to turn them face up pretty soon.

How Come You Never Call Me?
Finally, we check back in with Principal Hottie, er, Wood, back at his apartment. And yes, sure enough, we discover that he is indeed the son of Nikki, the Slayer killed by Spike in the subway car in 1977, as seen in "Fool For Love." We find this out thanks to his being visited in her form by The First, who gleefully hands over the information on who killed her. "Thank you," Wood murmurs, eyes serious.

But what's most striking about this scene is how unsurprised Wood seems to see his dead mother reflected in his bathroom mirror. Not to mention the fact that he knows it's not her. "You're not my mother," he says firmly, then establishes that he knows good and darn well he's talking to The First. Hm. How many times has this happened before?

So, now we know who Principal Wood is, and certainly what he's going to do - go all "avenging son" on the vampire who killed his mother. And yet his casually chatty attitude with The First makes me wonder if his situation is as cut-and-dried as it seems. There might yet be layers to peel back on the mysterious principal, mark my words.

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