Season 3, Episode 4

Written by Marti Noxon

Directed by James Whitmore Jr.

Original Airdate: 20 October 1998

Buffy: "We have a marching jazz band?"
Oz "Yeah, but, you know, since the best jazz is improvisational, we'd be going off in all directions, banging into floats... Scary."

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

• Seth Green as Daniel "Oz" Osbourne

• Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

GUEST CAST

• John Patrick White as Pete Clarner

• Danielle Weeks as Debbie Foley

• Phill Lewis as Dr. Stephen Platt

• Eliza Dushku as Faith Lehane

SYNOPSIS

• While in the library on the night before the full moon, Willow reads from "The Call of the Wild" while Oz is locked up in the cage. Xander shows up to relieve Willow from duty so that she can study, but instead of watching, he snoozes. Faith and Buffy are making a sweep around Sunnydale and talking about boys. Faith's seemingly one track mind continues to bring up anything sex related while Buffy dodges her questions. They talk about Scott and how much Buffy likes him, but she is still planning to take it slow on account of her previous history with men.
  
  At school the next day, Scott finds Buffy, Willow, and Oz. They also meet Debbie and Pete, who are a couple, and are friends with Scott. Buffy brings up that she has to go to see Mr. Platt, the school psychologist. Debbie mentions that she goes to him as well because she's flunking Senior Bio. Oz offers his notes to her on account of the fact that he aced the class. Buffy kisses Scott goodbye and leaves for her appointment.
  
  In the library, Xander and Giles are made aware of a murder the night before. When Oz and Willow come in, they find out that Oz may have been to blame since the window was left open and Xander took a few naps during his watch. Everyone is horrified at the thought that Oz may have gotten out and killed someone.
  
  Buffy goes to visit Mr. Platt who gets her to talk about her life as vaguely as she will allow. She tells him about a relationship, which ended badly, and that she had a fight with her mother and then just left. Buffy goes back to the library where everyone is moping on the stairs. Cordelia bluntly says that Oz ate someone last night. After some reasoning, Oz, who's badly hurt by the thought that he killed someone, tries to leave. Willow stops him though since sunset is coming and he has to be locked up. After he closes the gate, he tells Willow to get away from him - he doesn't want to hurt her, but she takes it harshly.
  
  Buffy goes out to patrol that night only to find that Angel is back, and he's wild. He tackles her and they fight. In the end, Buffy knocks him out and then, after getting some shackles, chains him up in the mansion where he viciously growls at her like an animal. She discovers the spot on the floor scorched by Angel's body as he fell from the sky. Willow, Xander and Cordelia go to the morgue to inspect the mauled body. Xander and Cordelia are both terribly grossed out by the body but Willow seems unfazed. After Willow gets some samples of hairs, she faints.
  
  Faith watches Oz since everyone else had other research to do. She is dancing around the library, listening to music when Buffy comes in and startles her. Instinctively, she punches Buffy who then sends her home so that she can take over the watch. However, Buffy spends the night searching for answers about Angel's return. The next day Giles finds Buffy sleeping in the library, surrounded by books about the Demon dimension and Acathla. She tells him that she had a vivid dream that Angel came back. He tells her that anyone who was strong enough to even survive the return back to Earth from the dimension would most likely become a monster. However, he may or may not be a lost cause. Based on Angel's behaviour the night before, Buffy wonders if he's a lost cause.
  
  Willow arrives in the library with donuts just as Oz wakes up. She informs them that the information she got was not conclusive. However, Buffy is anxious to know if it was Angel who was responsible for the killing. In the cafeteria that day, Buffy sits with Scott, Pete and Debbie with a plate of Jell-O. Pete insults Scott's mother, but Scott ignores it saying that he doesn't even know the pair, and that he just hired them to look like his friends. Buffy goes back to the mansion where she finds Angel huddled in a ball. When she tries to touch him, he jumps at her, and she rushes out, scared.
  
  Pete and Debbie sneak into a room to make-out. Pete discovers that one of his jars has been emptied and he accuses Debbie of drinking its contents. Buffy goes for answers from Mr. Platt, only to find that after she's poured her heart out to him, he has been mauled and killed.
  
  Pete yells at Debbie and then turns into a monster with veins popping out all over. Before he needed the substance to turn into the monster, but now, he can do it on his own whenever he gets mad. He hits Debbie several times and then when she's cowering in the corner, he realizes what he's done and apologizes, turning back into his normal, human face. She forgives him. In the library, Oz and the rest of the gang are relived to find out that the killer wasn't Oz, but they are upset to know that even though Oz (and Angel for Buffy's sake) are cleared, there is still a killer who kills even during the day.
  
  Oz meets up with Debbie and gives her his notes. He notices her black eye, but she tells him she fell and hit it on a doorknob. He let's her know he's there if she ever wants to talk. Pete is watching them though and picks Oz as his next victim. Back at the library, Oz finds out that he's been cleared for the killings, and comes to the conclusion that Debbie is the centre of all of the deaths. Everyone but Oz leaves to go and find Pete and Debbie and hopefully stop any more killings.
  
  Buffy and Willow find Debbie in the girl's locker room and try to get her to talk. But she won't say much more other than the fact that Pete is to blame and that he doesn't mean to do it. Meanwhile, Angel breaks free from the chains in the mansion and leaves. Pete finds Oz in the library and despite Oz' warnings to go away, he turns into a monster and starts to beat up Oz. After taking a beating, the game changes and Oz turns into a werewolf. Buffy and the rest of the gang arrive in time to try and stop the fight, but when Buffy tries to tranquilize Oz she shoots Giles instead because Debbie pushes the gun away. They split to take on the monsters; Buffy takes Pete while Willow and Faith go after Oz with the tranquilizer gun.
  
  After a bit of a struggle, Faith ends up shooting Oz. Buffy follows Pete and his trail of blood from where Oz bit him to a storage room. But, when she arrives, she finds it's too late and that Pete has already killed Debbie. Buffy fights with him, but is knocked down to the ground. Just in time, Angel arrives and beats up Pete with the chains from his shackles. At the end of the fight, he snaps Pete's neck and kills him. Then, he moves to Buffy's side, his human face in place and hugs her, calling her name. They both cry, but Buffy is unsure about who or what he is and is reluctant to hug him back.
  
  The next day, everyone recaps on the night's events and Cordelia is filled in on the details that she was oblivious to. It turns out that Pete was pulling a 'Jekyll & Hyde' because he thought he had to become better for Debbie. Buffy goes to Scott and offers her support, but he doesn't know quite how to handle the loss of two friends. Buffy goes back to the mansion and watches Angel, who is now free of the shackles, as he sleeps through what seems to be a nightmare.

TRIVIA

• In the scene where Buffy inadvertently sneaks up on Faith, who is listening to headphones, Faith whips around and clocks Buffy in the jaw. During filming, Eliza accidentally hit Sarah for real.

• An alternative title for this episode was 'All Men Are Beasts.'

CONTINUITY

• Rather appropriately, Buffy is wearing the jacket that Angel gave to her in Teacher's Pet.

• Giles tells Buffy that he had recurring dreams about saving Jenny, who was murdered by Angelus in Passion.

• Buffy refers to her time in the Hell dimension, which happened in Anne.

GOOFS

• During his fight with Pete, Oz changes quickly into werewolf form. What happened to the long, drawn-out throes that Oz went through in the process of turning into a werewolf in Phases? And where did his clothes go to?

• When Cordelia says, "now I'm going to be stuck with serious thoughts all day", Xander's bag strap is over his collar. In the next shot, it's underneath the collar.

Anne | Dead Man's Party | Faith, Hope and Trick | Beauty and the Beasts | Homecoming

Band Candy | Revelations | Lover's Walk | The Wish | Amends | Gingerbread

Helpless | The Zeppo | Bad Girls | Consequences | Doppelgangland | Enemies

Earshot | Choices | The Prom | Graduation Day (Part 1) | Graduation Day (Part 2)