Episode 4: Beauty and the Beasts

Season Three, Episode Four

"Beauty and the Beasts"

We begin this episode with a little narration from Buffy, which turns into Willow reading Call of the Wild to Oz in his werewolf state; which is adorable. She's interrupted by Xander coming in and we learn that he is going to cover Willow's Oz watch because she has to study. Willow, being adorable, tells Xander how to care for Oz as if he's a small child with a taste for rabbits. They both have an awesome moment when Willow tells Xander that there are sheets up for Oz once he's back in his human state:

Xander - "I can handle the Oz full monty. I mean, not handle handle, like, uh, hands-to-flesh, handle."

Willow - "Okay, well, it's not for you. It's for me. Um, 'cause I'm still getting used to half a monty."

Xander - "Oh, good. Half? You and Oz? Which half?"

Willow - "Wouldn't you like to know."

After this little quip from Willow, she exits and Xander barely waits until the door closes before even laying down! What a jerk.

XANDER, Y U NO STAY AWAKE TO HELP WILLOW?!

Now begins the portion of the episode summary where I spew awesome quotes:

Buffy: "No, we're pre-poesy." 

Willow: "He's just being Oz."

Oz: "Pretty much full time."

Scott: "Did I miss flowers?"

Giles: "No need to panic."
Oz: "Just a thought. Poker, not your game”

Back to paragraphs. We learn now that Xander is an ass fell asleep and Oz might have killed someone. Poor Oz is all shocked and concerned; everyone else is pissed at Xander.

XANDER, Y U A JERKFACE?!

Dealing with issues that don't involve Xander being an ass, Buffy goes to see the school counselor and starts the meeting by saying how she doesn’t want to discuss anything. Now, from my studies of learning how to be a counselor, I can tell you that when the person doesn’t say anything, not much can get done. And yes, I’m paying thousands of dollars to learn amazingly complex concepts such as that. No, I’m just kidding. Many people walk into therapy, especially when doing so unwillingly, and pretty much act as Buffy does and says how they aren’t going to talk however, most of the time your problems just seem to come out anyways. It doesn’t take much for the counselor to get information from her and shed a little light on her situation, showing her that she isn’t alone. Even though I doubt the counselor has any experience dealing with the need to send any of his former lovers to hell.

Oz has a sad during the discussion about how he might have killed somebody. He gets up to walk out and Willow stops him. Oz then says, “You know that thing where you bail in the middle of an upsetting conversation? Well I have to do that. It’s a bit dramatic, I know but it’s a necessary guy thing.” However, Oz can’t leave to do his "guy thing" because it’s almost wolf time. So he continues to have a sad in his cage.

"Willow, I need some alone time in my cage while I'm having a sad."

To try and learn more about the cause of death, Willow, Cordelia, and Xander go to the morgue in search for clues. Willow is all calm and with it looking for clues and getting hair samples while Xander and Cordelia are sickened. Right after she’s finished, she passes out. I love her.

Buffy lets Faith off and covers watching Oz. She does this because she just ended up fighting a vampire who turned out to be a shirtless Angel! Giles ends up finding her dozing off while reading about Alfalfa, the demon who took Angel to hell. She asks Giles about Angel saying she “had a dream” about him coming back. Understandably, she’s beyond confused by his return is being cautious about telling Giles. She’s torn because Giles is telling her how he basically lived for hundreds of years in Hell and would most likely not be able to recover and gain some sense of self. She doesn’t know whether or not to tell Giles and she ends up keeping it to herself. I guess we’ll see whether this was the right choice or not later on.

Buffy and Debbie talk in front of their boyfriends about the counselor. Buffy likes him and Debbie keeps talking about how weird he is. Her boyfriend, Pete, chimes in and sounds like a jerk. At this point, Scott says my favorite line of the episode:

“I hope you realize I don’t actually know this people. I just thought you would like me better if you thought I had friends so I hired them.” –Scott 

Buffy chained Angel up, but still left him shirtless because she enjoys the view. She tiptoes around him, questioning whether or not he can hear her. She has a sad.

Now let’s have some fun and parallel Buffy’s experience with Angel to a real world situation. Let’s say you have a happy couple and then one of them is hit by a bus and they wake up in a coma (some Gingerbread humor. If you don’t get it, you will in a few episodes.) Anyways, at this stage, one partner is left feeling guilty and alone and hurt and a wide range of different emotions while the other is stuck and seemingly experiencing no pain. If you can’t tell which is Angel and which is Buffy, I can’t help you. Well now, the person wakes up from the coma and is suffering from memory loss. This takes us to where I believe Buffy and Angel are right now. Buffy wants to be relieved about Angel but ends up becoming more hurt because she doesn’t believe Angel understands her or remembers who she is. For months, all she’s wanted is for him to come back and for them to be whole again and now he’s back but the reality isn’t as beautiful as her dreams. This causes Buffy to have a sad. But hey, at least she gets to see Angel without a shirt again.

Buffy suffers from word vomit when she goes to see her counselor. She says how she can’t tell anyone else what’s going on but she needs help. However, he’s unable to help, on account of him being dead.

Debbie is involved in an abusive relationship with Pete. Because we live on the Hellmouth, a boy beating his girlfriend literally turns into a monster. And after he turns back into a human, Debbie comforts him like a child.

Oz is off the hook because they learn that the killings happened during the day meaning that Oz wasn’t a wolfy killer. The gang discusses this and then ponder over where Oz is since it's almost wolf time. Oz was with Debbie, giving her his notes, and witnessing her beautiful new black eye first hand. We know the start of something bad is going on when we see Pete watching over them like a creeper. However, Oz goes back to the library to get in his cage because:

“[He] may be a cold blooded jelly donut but [his] timing’s impeccable”

After some talking, they realize the common factor in all the victims is Debbie and after Oz shares with them the state in which he found her, everyone goes off in search of her. Buffy and Willow try and get Debbie to talk to them but she won’t admit to anything. This frustrates Buffy but because of her experiences with Angel as of late, she understands. While it seems easy to admit that someone is hurting you and that isn’t love, she knows that it isn’t black and white. They end the scene with Debbie rocking back and forth telling herself that he loves her. Willow tells Buffy that “[she] think[s] [they] broke her” to which Buffy answers  that “[she] think[s] she was broken before this.”

During this time, Pete ends up finding Oz before the others find him and threatens to kill him. They fight for a few minutes and then the sun sets and, as Oz says, the "rules change."

Now, this episode has been so entertaining and awesome that I totally haven’t noticed Cordelia and Xander aren’t here. WHERE ARE THEY?!  *Jumps in* Kali hopes they died. *scuttles way*

Back to the fight, Faith and Willow chase after Oz while Buffy goes for Pete. Debbie finds Pete first and hugs him and tells him he has to leave Sunnydale because Buffy knows. Pete's angry, thinking Debbie told Buffy by "opening her big mouth." He tells her that she’s nothing but a waste of space and kills her. Then Buffy comes in to kill Pete, but Angel ends up doing the work for her. Still shirtless…

After his killing of the Pete monster, he walks up to Buffy, loses his vamp face and whispers her name. He then gets on his knees, holds her, and cries. Buffy gets a sad.

The gang is all back together talking about the incident and how it’s all around school. They also talk about what exactly is going around school which is funny. Oh, high school gossip mill, how funny you are. Cordelia admits to believing one of the rumors and asks where she was which is exactly my question! Xander responds by saying she was in her “special place” which irks me because 1) it sounds like he’s talking down to her and 2) WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU, XANDER?!?!

“Great, now I’m going to be stuck with serious thoughts all day” –Cordelia

Buffy goes to comfort Scott who just lost his two best friends and he tells Buffy that he’s known them since before they started school. This gives me a sad because we kind of see that these deaths to him are like if Willow and Xander were to die for Buffy.

We close the episode with more narration from Buffy while she sits and watches Angel, still shirtless. What will become of this very strange couple? Only time will tell but this show is written by Joss Whedon so it can't end well.

-Sarah

Kali's Notes:

- I feel the need to point out again that this show does narration extremely well. Here we have Buffy and Willow read from The Call of the Wild. I'm not a book reviewer so I'll spare you from a detailed explanation, but suffice it to say that it's about a dog that finds his true place in the world going from a civilized "pet" to a wild animal running with the wolves. You can see how this could apply to the main 3 male characters of this episode: Angel, Oz, and Pete.
- For the second time in her life, a teacher/counselor takes interest in Buffy and ends up dead shortly after. My favorite quotes comes from what the counselor says however, "Love becomes your master, and you're just its dog." This is again a throwback to The Call of the Wild, and the theme of love being your master will be addressed in a few episodes.
- Every episodes so far of Season 3 has made me think of a song and when Buffy runs into feral Angel, my brain started singing, "My boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble..." I might continue relating each episode to a song.
- I like what Giles says about how some monsters want to be redeemed and some are void of humanity.
- Lolz at Giles getting hit with the dart gun and at Willow pulling Werewolf Oz's tail to get his attention.
- Here is where Kali gets serious and talks about Battered Woman Syndrome. In this episode, we see that Pete drinks a "potion" that makes him angry and beat his girlfriend, Debbie. Given more time, it reaches the point where he no longer needs the potion to go into a man-rage and beat his girlfriend. As we've seen in other cases of BWS, he apologizes for what he did and his girlfriend actually comforts him. We even see how women can blame themselves for what men do to them. Eventually, Debbie ends up being killed because of Pete beating her. What I thought throughout this episode was how Buffy and Willow relate in some ways to Debbie. Obviously, Oz and Angel are not like Pete in most ways, but there are a few similarities, especially when it comes to "the man beast within". Oz struggles with his werewolf side and Angel with the demon inside of him, and they both care deeply about not hurting the women they love, but sometimes it happens because of their lack of control.
- Lastly, we'll address Buffy keeping Angel a secret more in the future. (Obviously someone will find out. These things don't stay hidden for long.) For now I have to say that I understand why she is keeping him a secret. Even if he came back normal, some people (AX) would immediately want to stake him. Right now he is in this feral animalistic state, and is quite possibly responsible for the murder of several people. Buffy does reach out to someone about her situation, but he is tragically dead. So, not knowing what to do, she keeps it to herself until she understands more about what happened and why Angel is back.