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Review: The Harvest
by Carl
Lefler
August 2, 2002
Spoiler-free quick review: A
pretty good follow-up to Welcome to the Hellmouth as Buffy and her new friends
attempt to rescue Jesse from the clutches of The Master. This episode
has a good blend of suspense and comedy bits.
Spoiler- Heavy Point-by-point Review: This episode picks up where Welcome to the Hellmouth left off. Luke is about ready to bite Buffy, but she is saved at the last second by the crucifix on her neck. She kicks Luke away, but by the time she's on her feet again he has mysteriously vanished from the mausoleum.
She hurries out of the mausoleum and arrives just in time to save Willow and Xander from a group of hungry vampires. She stakes a couple of them, but one or two get away. And Buffy and her friends only have one thing left to worry about, where's Jesse?
Returning to the high school library, they are filled in to the way of the world by Giles. According to Giles the world began as a habitat for demons. They inhabited this plane of reality for eons before losing their hold in this dimension. The last demon to walk the Earth bit a human and infected him with the demon's essence. The vampire that was created by that action in turn sired other vampires throughout the ages that followed.
As
Giles recounts the history of demons and vampires, Luke
and Darla take Jesse to be brought before The Master. After having relayed their encounter with a
powerful young woman they figure she must be a slayer. They prepare to use Jesse
as bait to lure the Slayer into a trap.
Buffy, meanwhile tries to figure out where the vampires took Jesse. She figures they must've taken him underground and Xander tells her about an electrical tunnel that runs underneath the entire town. Willow uses the computer to hack into the city plans and gets a schematic of the tunnel system. Buffy figures the access to the tunnels is through the mausoleum where Luke attacked her and starts to head out to rescue Jesse. Xander offers to help but she insists on going it alone. Willow stays and helps Giles research the Harvest on the computer.
Buffy heads off to save Jesse but is stopped from leaving school grounds by Principal Flutie. He closes the gate and won't accept the excuse that she's going to purchase a book for Giles. She jumps the gate anyway after Flutie wanders off.
She reaches the graveyard and enters the mausoleum. There's a metal gate, which is locked, but before she can break it Angel shows up again. I'm not much of a fan of Boreanaz as an actor, especially in these early episodes. He always seems too much of a poser, like he's more concerned with coming off as cool or cocky. Anyhow, he's not much help here except to giver her directions on heading east.
As she sneaks around through the tunnels, Xander shows up. She tries to get rid of him by telling him it's too dangerous. But Jesse is his friend and he insists on staying to help. Unfortunately he hasn't brought anything useful with him to help so she gives him a wooden cross to use.
Back at the high school Cordelia and Harmony are struggling to get through a computer class project. But mostly they're gossiping about what a psycho Buffy is. After all she tried to kill Cordy in the last episode. Willow defends Buffy by insisting that she's not crazy & that Cordy doesn't even know her. Naturally Cordy takes the opportunity to tear into her verbally as only Cordelia can. Willow does get back at her soon after though with her little computer tip.
We
then rejoin Buffy and Xander in the tunnels as they find Jesse chained and
helpless. Buffy breaks the chains and as the vampires arrive the trio retreats.
Jesse leads them in a different direction and soon they reach a dead end. As the
vampires have them cornered and are closing in we see that Jesse too is now a
vampire.
In order to protect himself from his former friend, Xander uses the wooden cross that Buffy had lent him earlier. They toss Jesse out through the doorway and slam the big steel door and proceed to escape out through a vent in the roof. Note to vampires: If you're going to lure victims into a trap make sure that a) there are no large steel doors b) that said dead end is actually escape proof.
And so Buffy and Xander make their escape by crawling through the air ducts and out a manhole cover into daylight. A pursuing vampire tries one last ditch effort to pull Buffy in but we see our first example of vampire skin in the sunlight. The hand starts sizzling and smoking as soon as the light touches it.
The
Master is understandably irritated by the vampire that planned the trap. And he
quite literally points out the disadvantages of disappointing him. As with Darth
Vader you do not want to fail when working for this guy.
Before long the Master and his gang are performing the ritual of the Harvest. There are lots of candles lit and Luke bows before the Master. He feeds from the Master's wrist, linking them both. Luke will now serve as a vessel in that every bit of blood he sucks will feed the Master and allow him to go free.
Buffy and Xander return to the library where they're filled in on the history of their little town. The Master came to Sunnydale 60 years ago and attempted to open the portal that exists there between Earth and the demon dimension. The opening of this portal, called the Hellmouth, caused an earthquake that buried the Master and swallowed a good portion of the town. Now the Master is caught between the dimensions and only the Harvest will free him. The Harvest comes only once every hundred years. Xander figures that the best place for the vamps to find so many bodies gathered at one place at that time of night would be at the local club, The Bronze. So they all get prepared to go there and stop them.
Buffy stops off at home to gather supplies but is interrupted by her mother. Principal Flutie had called and told her that Buffy had missed some classes and Joyce is pretty much annoyed at her daughter's behavior. Buffy tries to explain her way out of it without revealing she's the slayer but ends up getting grounded. After Joyce leaves she gathers her weapons and jumps out of the window.
We
then shift over to The Bronze and get to hear Cordy give a pretty funny speech
to her group of stuck-up followers. Soon she's on the dance floor approached by
Jesse who she rebuffs but he now carries himself differently, puts her in her
place and they dance. Outside Luke, Darla and the other vampires make their way
inside the Bronze, grabbing a large bouncer and sealing the exit.
The vampires keep the crowd hostage in the club as Luke takes the stage. The crowd is terrified as Luke drinks the blood of the bouncer. Meanwhile the Master's strength begins to grow as Luke's efforts transfer energy to him. But he still needs more power to break free. Darla brings Cordy up onto the stage as Luke's next victim.
Buffy and the Scoobies arrive at the Bronze, Buffy breaks in through the second floor and the Gang tries to break through the front door. Buffy comes through a window on the second level and tosses a vampire there over the railing. She hops down to floor level and slays a vampire with a pool cue.
The
Scoobies finally break through the door and start freeing the crowd while Buffy
fights Luke. Jesse is after Cordelia and in an ironic twist of fate Xander is
the only one there to stop him. Her fate now rests in the hands (and teeth) of
the two losers she's insulted for years. Xander though just can't bring himself
to kill his pal but he ends up receiving some unintentional inducement as the
hand with the stake is bumped and Jesse is no more. Willow saves Giles by
throwing a jar of holy water into Darla's face and the vampire with the
schoolgirl look runs screaming out the front door.
Luke is about to feed off of Buffy, whom he has overpowered and is seemingly unconscious. But she suddenly head butts him and knocks him off balance. Buffy grabs a microphone stand and tosses it through the frosted over window bathing Luke in light from outside. The light from an outside streetlamp momentarily distracts Luke and allows her to stake him ending the Harvest and putting a stop to the Master's plan.
For now.
Xander believes that everything will change now. That such a shocking event will affect high school life and everything will be different. It's not. Most, it seems, have odd views on what exactly happened that night. And life goes on in Sunnydale...
...for now.