Season 1, Episode 5

Written by Rob Des Hotel & Dean Batali

Directed by David Semel

Original Airdate: 31 March 1997

"Alright, I-I'll just jump in my time machine, go back to the twelfth century and ask the vampires to postpone their ancient prophecy for a few days while you take in dinner and a show."

Giles

REGULAR CAST

• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers

• Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris

• Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg

• Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase

• Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

GUEST CAST

• Mark Metcalf as The Master

• David Boreanaz as Angel

• Christopher Wiehl as Owen Thurman

• Geoff Meed as Andrew Borba

CO-STARRING

• Paul-Felix Montez as Mysterious Guy

• Robert Mont as Bus Driver

• Andrew J. Ferchland as The Anointed One
   

SYNOPSIS

• After Buffy slays a vampire and Giles critiques her technique, he discovers a ring left behind by the vampire that was slayed. The next day, at the library, they research the markings on it and discover its significance to The Order of Aurelius. Then, Owen, a shy but cute student, comes into the library looking for a book by Emily Dickinson. In the cafeteria, Buffy gossips with Willow about Owen and her encounter with him in the library. While trying to avoid the topic of the green stuff on their lunch trays, Buffy opts to go sit next to Owen, who's all by himself. Cordelia also gets this great idea and ends up knocking Buffy and her tray to the ground.
  
  Cordelia asks him if he'd like to come to the Bronze with her. However, Owen blows off Cordelia and asks Buffy if she'd like to come with him. She accepts but the problem of a prophecy is getting in the way of Buffy's social life. So, Buffy is stuck waiting in the graveyard with Giles that night waiting for the Anointed to rise. The Anointed is one who will rise from the ashes of five to lead the Slayer into Hell.
  
  After Giles and Buffy wait for what seems like forever, nothing happens. Giles lets her leave to go meet up with Owen, but when she gets there, she finds that Cordelia has taken advantage of her absence and is dancing very closely with Owen on the dance floor. Buffy is discouraged and leaves. Meanwhile, a shuttle bus holding five people crashes into a vampire in the middle of the road. As the driver gets out to check on the vampire, not knowing it's true identity, he steps into their trap. All are killed by the vampires.
  
  The next day, Owen finds Buffy and asks her out. Xander watches on, upset by this. As Buffy is about to leave for the Bronze, Giles shows up with a newspaper, and the headline announcing five dead people. He insists that they go check it out, but she refuses and ends up going on her date with Owen. Giles goes to the funeral home alone and is met by a couple of vampires. He keeps them off with a cross, runs into the funeral home and barricades himself inside. Willow and Xander find him and he gives them instructions to go get help while he tries to stay alive.
  
  The two go off to find Buffy and get help. At the Bronze, Angel shows up, wondering why she's not with her friends and why she isn't doing something about the threat of the Anointed. Finally Xander and Willow find her and subtly tell her that there is trouble at the Funeral Home. Owen wants to go, but she tells him to stay. Owen follows them anyway and Buffy's unable to shake him at the Funeral Home. She puts her friends in charge of watching him and hides the three of them in a Observatory, hoping they'll be safe. Meanwhile, Buffy finds Giles hiding on top of a corpse in a storage case in another room and tries to explain the situation to him.
  
  After barricading the door shut, Xander, Willow and Owen discover a strange man from the bus is also in the room, as a vampire. They promptly remove all the furniture from the doorway, as the vampire has now broken down the only thing between them: a glass window. Running out, they find Buffy and she tells them to get out while she tries to take care of the so-called Anointed. When she gets to the storage room where Giles is for a weapon, she finds the vampire has followed her. He knocks Giles out and throws him at the incinerator. The fire is lit as Giles hits the button and crashes to the ground, unconscious.
  
  Buffy fights with the vampire and is caught. But just then, Owen comes in and tackles him, setting Buffy free. The vampire slams Owen's head against a metal door of a storage case and lets him fall to the ground, supposedly dead. Buffy is furious that the vampire killed her date and fights with all her Slayer strength. She finishes him off by throwing him onto a slab and pushing him into the incinerator. It turns out that Owen wasn't really dead, just hit hard on the head. Buffy offers to walk him home, but he refuses and Willow and Xander make sure that he gets there safely.
  
  The next day, Owen approaches Buffy wanting to go on another adventure. When she realizes he only wants to date her for her Slaying, she turns him down, unwillingly. After he walks away, Buffy finds Giles and he tells her about how he was told he'd be a Watcher. Apparently he wasn't too keen on the idea and had much better plans in life. Thinking that they ruined the Master's fun by killing the Anointed, Buffy and Giles are satisfied. What they don't know is that the Anointed One did rise, and they didn't kill him. In the Master's lair, the Master welcomes a young boy... the Anointed.

TRIVIA

• This episode sees the first appearance of the Anointed One. His ultimate purpose is apparently to become the heir to the Master, but he doesn't do anything other than lead Buffy into Hell in the season finale Prophecy Girl. In his role in the series, actor Andrew J. Ferchland is credited as 'Boy,' and his character's true name: Collin.

• In the Bronze, Buffy mutters "Bite me". The camera then cuts to Angel giving Buffy a strange look. Could this be a foreshadowing of his true nature as a vampire?

• A discrepancy in vampire mythology is shown at the beginning of this episode. When Buffy stakes the vampire, he leaves a ring behind, but in all other cases when a vampire is staked everything turns to dust including clothing and jewellery.

CONTINUITY

• This episode is the first occasion where we see Giles get knocked unconscious. He's knocked unconscious nine times in the series, with the next occasion being in Prophecy Girl.

• Giles tells Buffy that's there's no guide book to being a Slayer. In What's My Line? (Part 2), Kendra says that she has one and Giles suggests that it would have been useless to Buffy.

• Buffy won't realise until Prophecy Girl that the vampire she killed in this episode wasn't the Anointed.

GOOFS

• When Buffy reaches out to grab her pager, there is nowhere she could have picked it up from. Was it floating in mid-air? Plus, Buffy never uses the pager after this episode. She gets one when she joins the Initiative in season four and says "I always wanted one of these".

• The inside bus lights are turned on at the first shot of the airport shuttle bus. When the scene cuts to the inside of the bus, the lights are off.

Welcome to the Hellmouth | The Harvest | Witch | Teacher's Pet | Never Kill a Boy on the First Date

The Pack | Angel | I Robot, You Jane | The Puppet Show | Nightmares | Out of Mind, Out of Sight | Prophecy Girl