Season One: Episode Six
"The Pack"
This episode deals with a classic high school dilemma: how do you handle bullies? At the beginning with Lance, he does the “right” thing in order to help his social standing by not tattling. Xander, once again, does the “correct” thing by stepping in himself instead of calling upon a teacher or principal Flutie. And now here comes Joss’ supernatural twist. Xander, the boy who’s trying to help, ends up getting pulled into the gang via hyena possession. This happens a lot within high school shows and movies where someone starts out fighting for good and ends up crossing the line and going bad; think Means Girls with hyenas.
“Did I do something?” – Willow. As much as I adore her, I really dislike her Xander crush because it causes her to do things like this. She’s in a threesome of friends plus Xander has been away from both her and Buffy yet still, when Xander is acting strange, she immediately thinks it’s her fault.
The next scene withXander acting up and throwing the textbook away while going over math with Willow shows another normal consequence that comes from joining the wrong crowd: neglecting your responsibilities. Xander isn’t the smartest, but he usually tries, but since joining the “cool group” he no longer sees the point in schoolwork and ends up ditching Willow after proclaiming how he’ll “never get it.” This action pushes him further into the group because he’s cutting off all his other outlets (i.e. school and the start of losing Willow.)
Wilbur (which is how I will from now on refer to Herbert the pig) freaks the heck out when Xander walks by giving us our second indication that something is weird with Xander (the first being his weirdness at the Bronze.)
The third occurs now in gym class with mob mentality being shown by the hyena gang. And where the heck is the gym teacher when they all are throwing balls directly at Lance who is curled on the floor in a fetal position? High school is evil.
"I feel no need to stop these children from behaving like animals"
And now Xander continues to destroy everything outside of his new gang by being a complete ass to Willow. And, is it just me or does the hyena gang look like the Cullens?
"I know I look like Alice Cullen. I can see your future, and it ain't lookin' to good"
And now here comes sadness, Wilbur was so cute and they’re going to eat him D=
The hyena gang are now the big bullies on campus and everyone is aware of their presence. Xander looks up at Willow and Buffy and stares at them. Then we move up to listen in on Willow and Buffy’s conversation; again Willow jumps to her being the problem. Buffy is being rational about this while Willow is pulled into the high school drama and thinks that she’s the problem and that Xander is acting like this because she’s not hot like Buffy
Buffy goes straight to Giles who says one of the best lines in the whole episode: “It’s devastating, he’s turned into a 16-year-old boy." He’s also taking the typical adult approach by believing that Xander is acting stupid because of testosterone and not investigating to see if anything is actually wrong, like it generally is on this show.
And now is Principal Flutie serious? These four teens just ATE A PIG and he’s inviting them into his office to give them detention. They just ATE A PIG! Need I say it again? They ATE AN EFFING PIG!
And now Xander shall attempt to rape Buffy. This is a parallel to people believing that they are so cool and now everyone must want them. And you know he’s crazy because he thinks that being with Willow would be settling!
After Buffy hits Xander with a desk, her and Giles are off to investigate at the zoo where they meet Mr. Creepo. Mr. Creepo tells them about "creepy guys" who tried to experiment and such with hyena possession and tells them to bring the pack to reverse the affects. He then tells them that the pack will search for their missing member once they've rested, meaning Willow is not safe.
“Yeah, creepy guys not like me at all”
And now the school gets torn apart while Willow tries her best not to be killed. Have you ever thought about what it must be like to be a teacher at this school? You can leave your classroom all nice and put together and go back the next day and have desks tossed everyone and your desk a mess. It’s like an OCD teacher’s nightmare.
Buffy and Giles save Buffy and part ways with Buffy drawing the pack to her and Giles and Willow going to the zoo. Then Giles, being insanely intelligent, leaves Willow alone again, that always works out well.
"You stay here, by yourself and vulnerable"
However, we soon learn that it's Giles who isn't safe alone with Mr. Creepo, who looks like he's about to wrestle. Mr. Creepo is the one who has been wanting to be possessed by hyenas (who wouldn't?) and he's angry that these teenagers stole his thunder.
Willow comes after Giles and Mr. Creepo beings to tie her up. She needs to learn to never let a guy tie her up. Tara, however, can.
The episode now ends with Xander learning of all hyena!Xander has done, even though we learn from Giles that he should have suffered no memory loss. Very funny, Joss
I bring the lulz
Favorite Line: (while talking about Angel) “Some girls might find him good looking…if they have eyes”- Buffy
See you all on Monday!
-Sarah
Kali’s Notes:
Sarah pretty much covered all the major topics here. Bullies are bad. Getting sucked into the wrong crowd is bad. If you do, you might eat a pig alive.
Interesting side note, the book Giles talks about Malleus Maleficarum, in Latin, means "The Hammer of Witches" and was a real book. The main purpose of the Malleus was to attempt to systematically refute arguments claiming that witchcraft does not exist, discredit those who expressed skepticism about its reality, to claim that witches were more often women than men, and to educate magistrates on the procedures that could find them out and convict them. Several people and universities discredited the man that wrote it, but persecution of witches became more brutal following the publication of the Malleus, with witchcraft being accepted as a real and dangerous phenomenon. The book wasn't solely responsible for the witch-hunt craze, but it is a possible contributing factor.
Now you learned something today! Although I doubt this is the actual book Giles references in this episode.
A couple things that I want to mention about Xander. Even though Xander is possessed and being a predatory jerk, he now has the balls to tell Buffy how he feels. We also learn that he's aware of how Willow feels about him, he just pretends like he doesn't to avoid rejecting her. That’s really pretty sweet and heartbreaking at the same time. Also, Xander is once again a big hypocrite. While he in no way gets the upper hand, he tried to rape Buffy (even she mentions sexual assault)! He's possessed so obviously it’s not Xander that’s doing it, but when Spike does that with no soul its worse somehow. We’ll get into greater detail when that episode comes around, but I had to point that out.
Last thing I want to mention is how AWESOME the scene with “The Pack” walking up to the school is. The song Job’s Eyes by Far is just amazing and fitting in its 90’s grunginess plus it’s just a freaking badass song.
Favorite line is again from my boyfriend for this season, Giles:
"Testosterone is the great equalizer, turns all men into morons."
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