Season Two, Episode Four
12/20/08
A Joyous Yuletide Season to you, Hellmouthers! Is it a messenger bag or a purse? SHE thinks it’s a bag, while HE believes it’s a purse. In this episode, we learn about ancient Hebrew scrolls, collector plates, and the erotic appeal of the Twinkie.
The Mummy
HE: Buffy says that there will be danger in her house within three days. It’s like Benjamin Franklin said—fish and visitors go bad after three days.
SHE: And unfortunately for Buffy, she does have danger within three days. Because she boards the bad guy.
HE: You’d think Joyce would have sniffed that one out, her being from Peru and all.
SHE: Joyce isn’t from Peru.
HE: Pardon my dangling participle.
HE: Rodney Munson shouldn’t be touching the masks. Why is he touching the masks?
SHE: Why is he touching anything? And what’s a megillah?
HE: It’s some sort of Jewish expression. Because Xander is Jewish, don’t you know.
SHE: I thought Willow was Jewish.
Editor’s Note: It’s the Hebrew word for scroll. Certain books of the Old Testament are read in their entirety on certain Jewish holidays. The Book of Esther is read on the Feast of Purim, and although the holiday is a happy one, sitting through Esther can be a trial, as it is tedious in all its detail. (Thanks to World Wide Words.) So to hear “the whole megillah” is to listen to a long, tedious story. It has nothing to do with the following:
HE: Look! a collector’s plate protects the mummy! Some do not gain in value!
SHE: I like the predictability of the mummy grabbing Rodney when he breaks the plate. I do that to guests who break my plates.
HE: I don’t understand Rodney. His sole purpose here seems to be to get the plot wagon rolling. He’s touching stuff he’s not supposed to, and generally acting bizarre for no reason.
SHE: In the beginning, all we know about Rodney is that he isn’t smart. He wasn’t malicious in his intentions. To get the story going, bring in a dumb person.
HE: Joss could have had Xander break the plate.
SHE: That would have been cool.
HE: And in keeping with his character, as he tends to bring most of his trouble on himself. Then you could have had economy of characters by eliminating Rodney.
Looking for Rodney
SHE: Look! A dance at the Bronze! That rarely happens.
HE: The S.H.S. World Cultural Dance. What does S.H.S. stand for?
SHE: Are you serious?
HE: Yes…?
SHE: You really don’t know. Are you ready? Sunnydale High School.
HE: I was thinking…maybe Symbionese Hilarity Society, or…
SHE: Stop.
HE: “I’m so stuffy, give me a scone.” Buffy should add that to all her exchanges with Giles, like the Arabs append “Death to Israel” to all their speeches, regardless of the content.
SHE: I like scones.
HE: That’s not true. No one likes scones.
SHE: I baked some a while ago, and you liked them.
HE: That’s because they weren’t authentic British scones. Authentic British scones taste like rocks. Everyone knows that.
HE: Here Oz makes his first appearance.
SHE: Yes. He does. It’s kind of a crazy introduction. You’re just looking at Oz, and he’s talking about girls with some other guy, and it’s like, here’s a new character. Look at him.
HE: You know Oz will be important because Joss does a close-up on his face. Several times.
HE: Here comes Willow, all ready to paint the library.
SHE: She isn't wearing one here, but there will be lots of hats in this episode. I'm dreading it, really.
HE: Lots of atrocious hats. The most atrocious hats Willow has worn to date.
SHE: You gotta feel bad for her, because she wants to be attractive, but every morning she ruins it by putting on a flipping hat.
HE: A character who will not last long is the poncy guy with the knife.
SHE: He seems like an “unbudger.”
HE: In all fairness, the Bush administration was packed with unbudgers.
SHE: That was bad.
Empada
HE: Ampata, Empada? I wish they’d make up their minds up on his name. On the DVD menu, it’s Empada, but on the closed captions, it’s Ampata.
SHE: I’d like to know how the mummy knew to go to the bus station to pick him up.
HE: I’d like to know how the mummy learned such perfect English while being stuck under a concrete slab for 500 years.
SHE: That was another thing I was going to marvel at. Maybe the Incan priests put some Berlitz courses in there for when she got bored.
HE: I’d also like to know where the mummy learned to master verbal irony. It leaks out in nearly everything Ampata says. How are things where you come from? Cramped and dead. Oh ho ho, I get it!
SHE: Just a skosh of dramatic irony thrown in there, too.
HE: By the way, the actual exchange student’s sleeves are way too long for him.
SHE: But when she wears the shirt, it fits.
HE: And it’s hot.
Editor's Note: It turns out that Ampato is a dormant volcano in the Andes of Southern Peru, as is Sabancaya, a larger, active volcano. Sabancaya is the god the Incas were trying to appease by their virgin sacrifices, you might recall.
First Day of School
HE: Sven is hilarious. Dolph Lungren in a sweater.
SHE: I didn’t get the comedic value of Sven. If you could speak English, why did you stand there like a doofus?
HE: It’s easy, for two reasons: 1) he was a one-note rimshot later on, and 2) he got caught in the Cordelia maelstrom, as we all do.
HE: What’d you think of Oz with the soul patch?
SHE: It’s not a soul patch. He has some fuzz on the chin, too.
HE: A lot redder than later on, too. And the zebra van makes its debut. We’ve got these peripheral figures flitting about like satellites in Season Two, Oz and Spike…
SHE: That’s what was missing in this episode. Couldn’t let Spike in because you let Oz in. I wonder if it’s an either/or. I’ll keep track of it.
HE: Sweet Jesus WTH is up with Willow’s homeless hat?
SHE: It’s constant hattage for Willow. I guess it’s to make us feel sorry for her.
HE: I don’t feel sorry for anyone who chooses to put that garbage on her head.
SHE: To me it says mental illness, hence my sympathy.
HE: Hence my nausea.
HE: Giles figures the only way he can translate the plate is to get a teenager to translate it. This is the best plan he could come up with? It’s the equivalent of assuming the black student can teach him how to execute a pick and roll. Or asking an Asian kid for help with quadratic equations.
SHE: He’s desperate. There’s a mummy roaming around killing people. There’s no good reason for it.
HE: Giles is just being lazy. He’s mailing it in. But I suppose he can’t be “on” all the time.
SHE: Maybe the theme in this episode is stupidity. If he hadn’t asked her, he would have gotten it right.
HE: Xander’s wearing his man purse again…please make him stop.
SHE: It’s a messenger bag.
HE: Is Xander on a bicycle at any point in this episode?
SHE: No…but that doesn’t change the fact that is a messenger bag. I’m just happy he’s not wearing a patterned shirt. Any time he does, it is fugly.
HE: It’s because he comes close to a romantic role in this episode. Can’t take someone seriously when they’re wearing textile barf.
SHE: And so we should not take Willow seriously in this episode because they keep slapping a hat on her head. Thank you for illuminating me.
The Mummy’s Power
HE: You know, that Twinkie probably dates from Ampata’s time period. Because they’re supposed to last forever.
SHE: Yes. I get it.
HE: Ampata probably could have deep-throated that thing if she wanted to. That’s just a guess.
SHE: Yuck! At the very least she sucked the life out of it.
HE: I could have done with a longer shot of the Twinkie eating.
SHE: You wanted to watch Xander eat that Twinkie? This episode is doing bizarre things to all of us.
HE: Willow says she has two choices. Of course, Willow has a third choice. Abandoning guys altogether. If you know what I mean, and I think you do.
SHE: Okay…
HE: Because later she turns gay.
SHE: Yeah, I got that.
The Bodyguard
HE: This bodyguard sucks at his job. He’s 0-2 already.
SHE: He’s not good. He does make a good stalker, though.
HE: Yes. No one ever sees him coming. Not Rodney, not Ampata, not…Buffy!
SHE: Chalk another up. Even though she doesn’t wig out like she usually does.
HE: Find the other pieces of the seal? That’s brilliant! It only took half the episode to come to that conclusion.
SHE: Watchers can’t be on all the time. I once tried to boil an egg in the microwave, and I’m a fairly good chef.
HE: I guess you’re right. In all fairness, there are a lot of distractions everyone has to deal with in this episode. Although I’m not really sure what Giles’s problem is, because Jenny is nowhere to be seen.
HE: Hey, you want to know what Xander’s big secret is?
SHE: What?
HE: His secret is that that is actually a girl’s purse.
SHE: It’s a messenger bag. I’m going to beat you up.
Already Dead
HE: This bathroom scene proves what we said. The bodyguard is excellent at stalking, and basically a sucky bodyguard, because he gets waylaid by a teenage girl.
SHE: She sucks him dry. And we’re talking beaucoup bucks moisturizer dry.
HE: She says, “Gimme some sugar” to her bodyguard. And then he does. All of it.
SHE: And when she comes out of the bathroom, she looks fabulous, because she just ate a man.
HE: She sucked the creamy filling out of his Twinkie.
SHE: Eww!
HE: Why is Buffy so anxious to unpack Ampata’s crap?
SHE: She’s tired of loaning her everything.
HE: Wait ‘til she gets a sister.
The Chosen One
SHE: Ampata is really sweet when she’s not sucking men dry. One could overlook the death stench on her.
HE: I'm sure her breath is extremely horrible. I like Xander’s costume with the hat and the gaucho poncho.
SHE: Too bad it doesn’t reflect a real culture.
HE: It reflects the culture of Leone. Sergio Leone, not Sierra Leone.
HE: I nearly shat myself when Joyce popped out of nowhere for her cameo.
SHE: I was startled. Suddenly, there’s Joyce.
HE: I thought I was going to have to add to the Buffy Surprise-o-Meter.
SHE: She does it again for her other line.
HE: Freaky! This disembodied head pops in to say something maternal. Shiver!
SHE: It’s like a reverse Keyser Sozhe. And poof! she was there.
The Trunk
HE: Dingoes Ate My Baby makes its Buffy debut. What do you think of the band?
SHE: Four Star Mary wrote their music.
HE: Who the hell is Four Star Mary?
SHE: They’re the ones who wrote their music.
HE: Cordelia looks great as a Hawaiian.
SHE: Yeah, she does. And she brings a man with horns on his head.
HE: Sven as a Viking…how original. Clearly that was Cordelia’s idea. You know, this event may have been misnamed. Willow as an Eskimo. Some dude dressed as a Hasidic Jew. I think this was actually Dress as Your Favorite Cultural Stereotype Night.
SHE: What possessed Willow to pick that outfit?HE: Maybe she was planning to match what Xander was originally going to wear.
SHE: He was coming as a whale?
HE: Sometimes you wish the show was longer. Then we wouldn’t have questions like these.
HE: Oz gets a lot of face time here. And by face time, I mean FACE time.
SHE: He takes up the whole screen. I think the writers want us to know he’s going to be a new character.
HE: Oz is one of the ones who was supposed to be killed off, but because of his popularity, wasn’t.
Dance with the Dead
HE: Oz has been hit with the lightning bolt. Or harpoon as it were.
SHE: The Willow-Xander thing must have been boring the writers.
HE: Is it wrong to say love-harpoon?
SHE: Yuck!
HE: Ampata should go ahead and kiss Xander…she put enough lipstick on. He should be safe.
SHE: Instead, we watch the video montage of falling in love without kissing.
HE: How very conservative! As most horror tends to be.
SHE: Then she freaks out and goes to make out with Jonathan backstage.
HE: Maybe it was the boner in Xander’s pants that freaked her out.
SHE: We’ll never know, will we?
HE: Oh, I think we know.
Kiss of Death
HE: Jonathan gets to the Inca mummy girl first! Hooray for him.
SHE: What culture was Jonathan from?
HE: He was a cowboy.
SHE: But he was wearing shorts!
HE: Maybe he was from the Village People. They’re a culture.
HE: This scene is very beige-colored. And dang these close-ups are extremely close-up in this show. I mean, Ampata’s head doesn’t fit in the screen they’re so big.
SHE: But you enjoyed Xander being sucked up, I’m sure.
HE: I about feel sorry for him. Ampata’s like, Oh, screw it—she can’t resist her urges anymore. An allegory for teenage lust.
SHE: And just think, if Rodney had been brought up to behave, none of this would have happened.
Empada’s Last Chance
HE: Here’s Giles doing all the scholarship he should have been doing all along.
SHE: Is that mystical rubber cement?
HE: That’s an excellent point. I’m sure when that collector’s plate shattered, there were tiny bits that didn’t make it back onto the reassembled plate.
SHE: Meaning?
HE: Meaning that mystical seal isn’t going to be 100% effective. Some Inca Mummy Girl might leak out.
HE: Oz misses his chance at Willow: “Who is that girl?” First time he says it, not the last.
SHE: And we’re all wondering, “Who are you?” We all know who that girl is.
HE: Oh! Is Ampata going to kiss Buffy? Hot! No, just threw them in the tomb. Oh! Is Ampata going to kiss Willow? Hot! No, here comes Xander. Dang, this scene sucks.
SHE: I’d like to point out that in this scene Buffy is seriously dressed down.
HE: I don’t think they wanted someone competing with Ampata.
SHE: She’s supposed to be the radiant one.
HE: Sorry, Xander, for tearing the limbs off your date!
SHE: That was gross.
HE: I like how they didn’t muck up the denouement with a lot of talky-talky. The less said after an incident like that, the better.
SHE: They didn’t even mention how Xander cann’t get a normal date.
HE: Too soon. Besides, he does that himself in the next scene.
Gypped
HE: That is an atrocious skirt Buffy is wearing.
SHE: I hate the white one she wore in the beginning much more.
HE: “Sucking the life out of people.” That’s a coincidence. Buffy has the same problem with Angel.
SHE: If this is love, why I can’t I fit your whole head in my mouth?
HE: That seems to be the nature of these all-consuming loves, as it were.
SHE: Har har.
Next time: Season Two continues with “Reptile Boy.”
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