The Pack
This is one of my favs of season
1. It starts off with Buffy walking through a Zoo, people are
everywhere. Four people, four bullies, come up to her and start
harassing her, "Look, it's Buffy with all her friends!"
Buffy and the group of trouble makers (consisting of Kyle, Rhonda,
Tor, and Heidi) exchange one liners before they hit Buffy with
a series blow and move on. Willow and Xander run up telling Buffy
of how she'd missed the Zebras mating. Xander notices Buffy isn't
in a happy mood and tells her. It's because at her old school
they'd done the zoo trip each year - "Same old, same old."
Xander reminds her what the whole thing is about, "not being
in class" and the whole thing is made better. They walk off.
Meanwhile the trouble makers are harassing the geek Lance. Principal
Flutie comes up and wants to know if they're causing trouble -
Lance says "They weren't doing anything wrong, we were just
playing around." He walks off telling the group that he was
going to keep an eye on them.
The gang congratulate Lance, "Way to go Lance!" telling
him how Flutie has been wanting to get them for a while. Here
you can witness the some of the worst acting in the whole season
of Buffy *shudder* It is a bad, bad scene. Well, anyway the group
get Lance to come in with them to the Hyena House which is closed
off which is "where lies the fun." Xander, Willow and
Buffy see them go in and Xander decides to follow telling Buffy
that no actual slaying was required. He disappears and Buffy asks
Willow if he'll be ok. She tells her that they were all talk ....
most of the time. They move to go in when Zoo man comes and asks
if they're blind. He tells how the Hyenas were just shipped over
and were in quarantine and says that anyone who goes in there
is in trouble.
Inside the gang are trying to put Lance in with the animal before
Xander appears and tells them to "pick on someone their own
species." Lance moves away and they Hyena sends its soul
or something into Xander and the gang of four. The gang turn to
look at Lance and they start cackling insanely. Xander turns and
smiles in a twisted way - he is obviously the leader, all sophisticated
and suave.
Back at school they move around in a pack with Xander in the lead.
Xander is cruel to Willow and attacks Buffy at one stage. The
pack consume the new mascot, a pig and later one the gang eat
Principal Flutie before they manage to get the soul into the zoo
keeper who is thrown into the Hyena's cage and is eaten.
Xander pretends not to have remembered anything from when he was
possessed but Giles knows this isn't true. He tells Giles not
to tell anyone and walks off stressed out from what he had done.
One thing from this episode that
bugs me is that somewhere, I can't remember where (in The Watcher's
Guide I think), it says that Xander never knows that Willow likes
him but in this episode he, with his acute hearing must have heard
Willow and Buffy talking about his behavior and she makes it clear
in the conversation that she likes him and Xander likes Buffy.
He remembers everything from his animal experiance therefore must
have remembered this.
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