|
||||||
Review: Prophecy Girl
by Carl
Lefler
August 5, 2002
Spoiler-free quick review: A great job by series creator Joss Whedon who wrote and directed this episode. The actors have all settled into their various parts really well and Mark Metcalf is great as the Master. Buffy has to face her fear and her destiny as a prophecy telling of her death at the hands of the Master is about to come to pass.
Spoiler- Heavy Point-by-point Review: As the episode opens Xander is rehearsing, with Willow's help, asking Buffy to the upcoming Spring Fling dance. We see that Willow is completely entranced even though Xander's pickup lines are humorously dreadful. Willow looks lovely in the scene; they've come a long way in fixing her up compared to how she looked in the first episode of season one.
We then switch over to Buffy facing off against a vampire while Cordelia and her boyfriend make out in a nearby car. The sequence is done really well and we are treated to some slow motion slayage.
Meanwhile
Giles is pulling an all-nighter studying from the codex that Angel got for him.
As he researches a prophecy about the Slayer, an earthquake hits. Down below, in
his cavern prison, the Master is overjoyed. Mark Metcalf is great in this scene
as the Master turns to the Anointed One. "What do
you think? 5.1?"
The next morning Buffy pops into the library to warn Giles that the number of vampires she's dealing with has been increasing. Giles is acting very strange, which she notices right away. He continues to be very distant even after she informs him that she killed three vampires the previous night. Buffy is noticeably disappointed in his lack of interest. After all she did break a nail in the line of duty.
After a really boring classroom lecture, Xander signals Willow to leave so that he can ask Buffy to the dance. Unfortunately Buffy doesn't think of him in that way and tells him she's not interested. Xander's reaction is pretty hurtful and he admits he doesn't deal with rejection well.
Giles
is on the phone in his office, obviously calling Angel. Jenny Calendar shows up and wants to
know what's up. She's been receiving messages from her contacts in the occult.
The messages deal with strange supernatural occurrences pointing towards some
apocalyptic event. Giles brushes her off at first but when she mentions a monk
emailing her about an Anointed One it gets his attention. He tells her
rather rudely to get more information from the monk about the Anointed One, who
Giles assumed had been killed.
In the school hallways Cordy is walking with her new boyfriend and acting incredibly sweet. And she's even nice towards Willow (more or less) while asking her for a favor. Willow agrees but she's a bit distracted by the sight of the gloomy Xander off by himself. Xander lets Willow know that Buffy rejected him without going into the specifics. He asks Willow to the dance instead but she turns him down too. She doesn't want to go with him to the dance and watch him mope about not being with Buffy. And so Xander decides to go home and listen to country music, the music of pain.
We then turn
to Buffy, who is in the bathroom at school, she goes to run some water in the
sink and checks herself in the mirror. When she looks down she sees blood
pouring from the faucet. She goes to alert Giles to this freaky occurrence
and overhears him talking to Angel. They talk about the prophecy and how she
will go to face the Master and die. She starts to laugh but then gets upset.
There's a good moment between her and Giles when she asks him if he'll train the
new slayer. Buffy decides to circumvent the prophecy by quitting. It's a natural
reaction, she is only sixteen and doesn't want to die. She rips the crucifix
from her neck, throws it to the floor and storms out of the room.
Willow calls up Xander to see if he's all right. Xander's at home, lying in bed, listening to Patsy Cline sing "I Fall to Pieces". He picks up the ringing phone and hangs it back up without answering.
At the Summers' house, Joyce comes to talk with Buffy about what's troubling her. Buffy asks her mom if they can go away out of town for the weekend. Unfortunately the art gallery is open on weekends and Joyce can't get away. She encourages Buffy to go to the dance and shows her the new dress that she bought her. She tells her about how she met Buffy's father at a college dance years ago.
The
next morning at school Cordy and Willow are accompanying each other down the
hallway. Cordy comments on how her relationship with her boyfriend has made her
less like... well, less like her usual spoiled self. She should be annoyed since
he stood her up the night before at the Bronze. She goes to visit the guys only
she and Willow find that the guys were killed by vampires. A small bloody
child's handprint was left on the TV set.
Buffy goes to see Willow, who is very upset by the massacre. The horror of it really got to Willow, who visits the room where the killing took place all the time. Buffy now realizes what she has to do and makes Willow promise to stay in that night.
Down below the town the Master knows that he'll be free soon. The Anointed One leaves and starts to head up to the surface.
Meanwhile Giles and Jenny have figured it all out. When the prophecy is fulfilled the Master will go free and the Hellmouth will open letting all the demons back onto the Earth. Jenny though is still surprised about Buffy being the slayer in that she's so small. The monk that warned Jenny of the Anointed One sent a final email before going into hiding. He sent an email quoting from Isaiah 11:6: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." They deduce that the Anointed One is really a child rather than the vampire that Buffy killed earlier in the season. Giles has decided though that he'll be the one to go and face the Master. Buffy shows up, having overheard the part about the kid being the Anointed One, and she and Giles argue over which one will go and face the Master. Buffy knocks Giles out and heads off to face her destiny. And that if she's going to die, she'll take the Master down with her.
She heads off in her prom dress, crossbow in hand. The Anointed One shows up asking her for help. She tells him she knows who he is and takes his hand as he leads her to the Master.
Xander and Willow show up at the library and are finally filled in on the whole prophecy thing. Xander insists on going to help Buffy and takes off to find out where she's headed to. By that time Buffy has already made it down into the sewer system. Xander goes to visit Angel and informs him that Buffy's gone to face the Master. Xander insists that Angel show him the way to where the Master is. Xander pulls out a cross and forces Angel to take him. Angel now realizes that Xander is in love with Buffy.
Jenny Calendar brings up the point of where the Hellmouth will open up. There's an odd scene where Willow doesn't respond to a question. It's hard to tell if it was written to play out that way or if it's a blooper where Alyson Hannigan missed her cue. Or there could be something missing where FX cut a small piece out of the episode. I'll have to revise this review after buying the season one DVD.
Back to the episode where Buffy arrives in the Master's cavern full of candles. She finally comes face to ugly face with the Master. She fires her crossbow at him but he easily catches the arrow and breaks it. She goes to reload but the Master has disappeared.
There's a humorous scene with Xander and Angel where Xander accuses him of looking at his neck. Angel insists he wasn't and Xander says that he should've ate before they left.
Giles, Jenny and Willow have deduced that the Hellmouth will open up at the Bronze. With the Spring Fling dance going on, Jenny and Willow go there to try to save as many as they can.
Back underground the Master has overpowered Buffy. She tries to escape but he uses mind control to stop her and she's helpless. He tells her that she's the key that will set him free, and that if she hadn't come he never could have escaped.
As Jenny and Willow leave the school building they notice the vampires heading their way. They realize that the Hellmouth is under the library but are soon cut off from escape and can't get back into the building either.
The
Master, holding Buffy motionless, feeds off of her. He tells her he likes her
dress and then drops her face first into a pool of water. He turns and breaks
through the barrier. Xander and Angel feel the release of energy and know what
must've happened. They rush as fast as they can into the cavern. The Master has
gone up to the surface. Angel pulls Buffy from the water but it's too late.
She's dead.
Angel immediately tells Xander to perform the CPR because Angel has no breath. And so Xander quickly sets to performing CPR on Buffy.
Meanwhile at the high school Cordy pulls up in her car just in time to save Willow and Jenny from the group of vampires headed for the school building. With the vampires closing in Cordy guns the engine and smashes through the doors and hauls ass down the hallway towards the library.
Back
in the Master's cavern Xander's CPR does the trick and Buffy comes back to life.
She coughs up some water and is helped to her feet. They try to get her to
regain her strength but she says she feels really strong... feels different.
Back at the school the vamps are closing in fast on Cordy and the others but they make it into the library and barricade themselves inside. The vampires are trying to get in and a tentacle emerges through the fissure in the floor created by the earthquake at the beginning of the episode.
The Master emerges on the roof of the school building. He's happy to be free after spending several decades trapped below ground. Below him in the library the vampires are coming though and they try to stop them from coming in through the book stacks and Giles' office. The tentacle grabs Willow by her ankle and a demon emerges from the fissure. Giles grabs an axe and starts hacking at the demon.
Buffy arrives at the school, takes out a stray vampire and heads for the roof. Up on the roof, the Master is happy as he watches the demon through the skylight. Buffy shows up and he's shocked to see her alive. He tries to use his mind power on her but this time it doesn't work. Buffy tells him that he has fruit punch mouth and commences to beating on him. She does a flip over him and he turns and grabs her by the neck pushing her back towards the skylight. She tosses him over her and he crashes through the skylight and is impaled on a piece of broken wood. The demon descends back down as The Master dies and the Hellmouth closes up.
In the aftermath of the battle Buffy and the Scooby Gang look at the library in disarray. The Master's skeleton is left impaled on the jagged piece of wood. The teenagers decide to go to the Bronze to party and unwind from the events of the night.
Overall it was a really strong episode. As far as the first season goes I liked it even better than "Welcome to the Hellmouth". Joss Whedon does a great job as writer and director and he's only gotten better over the years.