Season 2, Episode 8

“Dark Ages”

When I first saw this episode, I was very excited to finally get some Giles back-story. We get to see that he isn’t just a “fuddy-duddy” and becomes a more two-dimensional character.

The episode opens with ZOMBIES!! I love me some zombies. These zombies have some connection to Giles and we later come to learn that he used to be friends with them. Then we cut to the trio talking about how boring and bookish Giles is, which makes it pretty obvious that later in the show we are going to see how wrong of a statement that is.

Next we get into some hot and steamy dialogue between Giles and Ms. Calendar. Although I always thought they made a weird couple, I still wanted to see Giles find someone since he just seems so lonely. Ms. Calendar is dropping anvil-sized hints about her intentions for this weekend that comes down to:

Giles is gonna get some lovin’

However, Giles is distracted by his past. The police come to question him about his association with the dead body found on campus and HE LIES TO THEM. Did you hear that? GILES LIED. Obviously shit is gonna get real when Giles starts lying. With his past coming back to haunt him, Giles forgets that he is supposed to meet Buffy at the blood bank to prevent vampires from stealing a shipment. Luckily Angel comes to steal the blood rescue Buffy. She is concerned about Giles being missing, so she leaves Angel to drink deliver the blood. I like how she gives him a look here implying that she isn’t quite sure that she trusts him to take the blood to the hospital and not drink it.

Buffy checks on Giles, but he tells her to scram and leave him alone until Monday. She then tells rest of the Scooby Gang and Ms. Calendar about this strange behavior. A single middle-aged man home alone drinking? And he wants to be left alone for the weekend? Call the newspapers! Then Buffy tries to get to the bottom of this using her usual method of violence. Let’s punch people until they talk!

Buffy is finally able to confront Giles after a zombified version of his friend attacks everyone. I really love this journey into Giles past and it’s similarity to drug-use in your youth. While I am not an expert in the subject, the tattoo on Giles arm reminds me of the tattoos that you see on IV drug users that help them to find the vein in their arm. This and Giles description of summoning the demon as an “extraordinary high" makes this comparable to drug-use in people’s early 20’s. I like that relationship between the two things, about how Giles fell in with a bad crowd, a friend died because of what they were doing, and this led him to stop and become a better person from it.

Things go from bad to worse when Ms. Calendar gets possessed by the demon and tries to bone Giles because of it. Ethan captures Buffy so he can tattoo her and remove his mark in order to trick the demon into killing her. For a bad guy, I kind of like Ethan. I’m not sure why, it could be because he is British or it could be because he is more of a prankster than just plain evil. Anyways, bad stuff is going down and the sidekick Scoobies need to come up with an answer.

Research in the library time! I really love Xander threatening to give Cordelia a beat-down mostly because I’d like to kick her ass myself. I know that her character was originally designed to be the “foil” for Buffy, to have a “valley girl” persona, and to pretty much be Miss Sassy-pants to the group, not to mention the fact that she is usually the damsel in distress. What I don’t get is why is she helping them? Why is she hanging out with them instead of her stupid little group of friends? I wish Joss had explored her motivations for helping them because it just seems so out of character for her and that’s always bothered me. PLEASE EXPLAIN.

Anyways, Xander and Cordelia argue when Willow screams at them to knock it off. I love it every time when meek, little Willow goes off the deep end and puts people in their place.

Willow gets the idea to go ask Angel for help. The demon possesses him and his own inner demon kicks Eyghon’s ass. Demons battling inside you seems very uncomfortable. We end the episode with Ms. Calendar being very standoffish with Giles. Poor lonely Giles, no lovin’ for you. Sad face.

Favorite Line:

Buffy (about Giles): "He probably sat in math class thinking 'There should be more math. This could be mathier.'"

Sarah's Notes

-“He probably sat in math class thinking ‘there should be more math, this could be mathier’”- Buffy. (same favorite line as Kali because it's made of awesome.)

-LOL at them imagining Giles and Jenny getting together

-Jenny is hilarious messing with Giles about dogearing and spilling coffee on his book; He about has a heart attack

-This is the first time we see Giles as something other than stuffy librarian, Watcher guy. It’s kind of weird. Like when you see your teacher outside of school wearing a revealing outside.

-“What are we going to need computers for real life, anyways?” LOL THE 90’S!

-“I feel pretty good about it. Does that make me a sociopath?” – Xander

-Dropped out? Fell in with the wrong crowd? Wtf, this sounds nothing like Giles!

-Willow is a BAMF again.

-It’s ridiculous that Buffy has to pay to get that tattoo removed; Giles should have paid for it.

-I feel bad for Giles, he really feels like he lost Jenny. He should have just been upfront with everyone instead of trying to hide his past.