Season 2, Episode 12

Written by Marti Noxon

Directed by David Greenwalt

Original Airdate: 12 January 1998

Lyle "I told you this weren't over."
Tector "She's so cute. And little. Think we can keep her?"
 

REGULAR CAST

• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers

• Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris

• Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg

• Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase

• David Boreanaz as Angel

• Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

GUEST CAST

• Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers

• Jeremy Ratchford as Lyle Gorch

• James Parks as Tector Gorch

CO-STARRING

• Rick Zieff as Mr. Whitmore

• Danny Strong as Jonathan Levinson

• Brie McCaddin as Cute Girl

• Eric Whitmore as Night Watchman

SYNOPSIS

• Buffy and her mother are at a mall discussing how inappropriate a dress is to wear. Joyce realizes the stores are closing and she still has some necessary shopping to do. She sends Buffy to go get a dress for her while she runs some errands. On her way to the store, Buffy sees a guy wearing a cowboy hat romancing a girl. As she's going down the escalator, she looks in the mirror to see this guy has no reflection: he's a vampire. She follows him upstairs, scares the girl off, and fights with him for a while. He runs away and she heads to her mom. Forgetting to get the dress, Joyce gives her a lecture on responsibility.
  
  The next day, Cordelia and Xander are making out in a closet and then Cordelia starts up on how she doesn't want anyone to know about their relationship. They reach for the doorknob, but stop and go back to making out. They fall to the floor and Xander reaches up to turn the light off. Later that day, Xander, Cordelia and Willow are in health class talking about sex. Xander and Cordelia begin to crack as they start to name off each other's faults as consequences to sex. Finally Willow mentions pregnancy and they get to pair off to take care of an egg. Willow is excited and plans to partner with Xander, but his mind is on Cordelia. Alas, Cordelia has other plans.
  
  Xander and Willow enter the library with their eggs. Buffy is paranoid about the cowboy and then she finds she has to take care of an egg as a single mother! Giles finds the cowboy and his brother in a book. They're called the Gorches. He says that Buffy should go hunting but she may need some help. That night, Buffy and Angel are making-out in the cemetery instead of hunting. They pause for a second to do some hunting then go back to their kissing. The two cowboy brothers are on the cemetery wall watching and talking about how Buffy wasn't doing much slaying with Angel... That night, while Buffy is sleeping, her egg breaks open and an arm of some sort comes out and attaches itself to Buffy's face.
  
  The next morning when she wakes up, the egg is back to normal. Back at the library, Giles finds Buffy, Willow and Xander who have been excused from class because their teacher didn't show. Willow and Buffy are tired and sit down on the stairs. Xander offers to help Giles with some work. Xander begins to toss his egg up in the air, and worried looks come across Buffy and Willow's face. He hits the egg and it goes crashing to the ground, but doesn't break. He then reveals how he cooked it. Giles suggests how Buffy should go back to hunting with Angel since last night was a bust. Buffy and Angel are yet again kissing instead of hunting in the cemetery. They stop to talk and the subject of children comes into play. Angel reveals how he can't have children. Buffy is a little shocked but that doesn't change how she feels for him.
  
  That night, Buffy comes in and sees her egg is moving. She gets closer and the creature inside jumps out at her face. She pushes it onto the floor and it crawls under the bed. She looks, with an iron in her hand and sees nothing. She grabs some scissors and stands waiting for it to show itself. It climbs the wall behind her and she kills it with the scissors. Buffy calls Willow to warn her but Willow 's egg has already hatched. Joyce then comes in and sees that her daughter is dressed. Buffy is grounded and sentenced to no after school activities, and to only go to the library until her mother picks her up.
  
  The next day at school, Willow tries to convince Buffy that her egg must have been a trap set by the Gorches. As they walk, nobody notices Willow's back and the little creature attached to it. Xander, being hungry, decides to eat his egg. He cracks it and when he is about to eat it screams of fear when he sees the creature inside. In the science lab the gang debates over dissecting the creatures. Willow volunteers and moments later, Cordelia's egg wakes up from inside her backpack. She suddenly picks up a rod and hits Buffy across the face with it. Willow grabs a microscope and hits Xander. They are thrown into a closet. Then Willow and the others are seen grabbing hoes and pickaxes.
  
  Joyce comes to the school to find Buffy but is instead infected by one of the creatures by Giles who puts a creature on her back. The two head down to the basement where they begin their work for the Bezoar, a mother creature for the parasites infecting everyone. Buffy and Xander wake up and find two eggs by their side. Buffy smashes them and they head to the library in search of Giles. They find that Giles has been turned into one of these creatures. Just as they begin to find information, Jonathan cries out in pain in the hall. They rush out only to find that he has been transformed. They follow him and find everyone digging at and pulling eggs from the mother Bezoar. Xander pretends to be a host while Buffy fends off the Gorches. She hits them several times and then is thrown into the working pit.
  
  Xander follows Cordelia and another guy. As they walk down a tunnel, he smashes the guy's head into the wall. Cordelia stops to swing at him and he ducks. She then hits him right on his ass. He screams of pain and then hits her across the face. The Gorches follow Buffy into the basement area and attract attention to themselves. Willow gives orders to have them killed. Everyone attacks them and Buffy and the Gorches manage to fight them off. Tector Gorch, the dim-witted brother, comes out and is drawn to the mother creature. She grabs him and sucks him in. Lyle blames Buffy for what happened to his brother and throws her to the ground. She is sucked into the mother but grabs a pickaxe on the way. She beats up the mother creature and all the workers fall to the ground.
  
  Buffy comes up and out of the creature covered in black goo. She scares off Lyle Gorch. Later, the students are lulled into believing a cover story as Giles explains that it was a gas leak. Xander talks to Willow and Cordelia about how they hit him. Buffy comes over and talks to Joyce. She gets into even more trouble. Now, she's not only grounded, but she's also confined to her room. That night, Buffy and Angel are kissing. Angel is standing on the roof outside her bedroom window and hence she hasn't left the house.

TRIVIA

• This episode confirms that Willow is Jewish. This is cemented further in Passion, where she worries how to explain her crucifix to her father, and again in Help, where she leaves stones at Tara's grave as a mark of respect.

• There are a couple of in-jokes aimed towards Buffy's strong internet community in this episode. In the science lab during the dissection, the words 'Posting Board' can be seen on a blackboard - for those who go to the main Buffy forum. Then, when Joyce enters the library, the words 'website coming' and 'BVS brats talk' can be seen on a signboard.

• Angel confirms that a dead body cannot have children in this episode. Someone clearly hasn't seen Angel season three, where Angel and Darla conceive a child, Connor. This is a mystical birth however, and doesn't technically count.

CONTINUITY

• Cordelia smashes Xander across the head with a microscope. Spike does the same thing to him in Lover's Walk.

• The pinball machine that Buffy pushes Lyle into at the beginning of the episode is moved, as Buffy pushes Andrew into it during Gone.

• Lyle Gorch will return in Homecoming as part of Mr, Trick's hunting party for SlayerFest '98.

GOOFS

• How did Lyle go on a date in the daytime to the Mall without turning to ashes?

• Lyle's date has a bag which moves up her arm between shots.

• The pinball machine Lyle Gorch's girlfriend was playing wasn't turned on.

• Buffy's egg quadrupled it's size within seconds of hatching.

• Cordelia's hair changes with every different shot in her conversation with Buffy outside the school.

• In the library, Buffy puts her egg near a chain, which changes position several times without being moved.

When She Was Bad | Some Assembly Required | School Hard | Inca Mummy Girl | Reptile Boy

Halloween | Lie to Me | The Dark Age | What's My Line? (Part 1) | What's My Line? (Part 2) | Ted

Bad Eggs | Surprise | Innocence | Phases | Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered | Passion

Killed by Death | I Only Have Eyes for You | Go Fish | Becoming (Part 1) | Becoming (Part 2)