Halloween
Halloween
Season 2, Episode 6 (Episode 18 of entire series)
This episode totally rocked! Buffy loses her slaying ability when a spell turns people into the personas (or monsters!) of their costumes; Willow takes charge of the situation, and Cordy begins to notice Xander a little more. This episode marks the return of Oz, the appearance of Larry and Ethan, and foreshadows Giles's dark past. Great lines abound..and good continuity from Inca Mummy Girl.
After she's finished, Buffy goes to meet Angel at the Bronze, but feels bad when she spots him at a table with Cordelia. Turns out Cordy'd been stood up by Devon, so she moved on to keep Angel company. Angel spies Buffy about to leave and makes his way over to her. Cordy follows and insults Buffy before leaving them alone. Angel tells Buffy she looks fine, but Buffy feels bad that she's not all girly and that she has to think of beheading tactics all the time.
Next day at school, Buffy's hanging with Willow and Xander. Xander's trying to get a soda from the machine but it's jammed. Meanwhile, Larry comes up to ask Xander if he's seeing Buffy. Some good quotes out of this, and basically Larry says he heard Buffy was fast. A fight almost ensues, but Buffy comes to smack Larry up against the soda machine and he leaves. The impact on the machine causes the soda to come down. Xander's embarrassed that Buffy had to save his hide, and he leaves.
Willow tells Buffy that they could sneak a look at the Watcher Diaries for info. on Angel, so Buffy distracts Giles in the library while Willow sneaks in to get the book. They're looking at it in the bathroom, and Buffy's remarking on how wonderful it must have been to be a noblewoman, what with the gowns and ladylike type things. Willow doesn't agree. Cordy comes in to make Buffy feel terrible about the Angel thing, and the chicks try to tell Cordy that Angel's a vampire. But Cordy doesn't believe them.
If it wasn't mentioned before, you should know that Principal Snyder made everyone sign up to take kids trick-or-treating. And they have to dress up in costumes, too.
So next thing we know, Buffy, Willow, and Xander are looking at costumes. Willow goes for the "time-honored classic" Ghastly Ghost costume, even though Buffy keeps telling her that Halloween's the one time that "not you is you; it's the perfect chance for a girl to get sexy and wild with no repercussions." But Willow's in it for the free candy and tells Buffy that "...wild on me equals spaz."
Anyhoo, Xander gets a prop gun 'cause he's picked up Army fatigues --"Just call me the two-dollar costume king, baby!"-- and Buffy's entranced by a foo-foo-looking gown. The costume proprietor makes her a deal she can't refuse, so Buffy gets her chance to be a noblewoman, after all! Later, Buffy and Willow are finishing getting dressed, and we see that Willow's dressed up very sexy-like. She freaks at the last minute, though, and puts on her ghost sheet.
The gang's at school to pick up their kids, and Xander has another run-in with Larry. Meanwhile, Ethan's doing some Latin incantation thing, with candles and the whole nine yards. Yeah, I probably could shut up. Okay, let's just say that his spell turns all of the folks into whatever their costume represented. So Willow dies and is a ghost, Xander's a dogface, Buffy's a clueless noblewoman. Cordelia's just herself in a cat costume, though, 'cause she got her costume at PartyTown, not Ethan's.
Xander and Buffy sort of have "amnesia" and don't know who they are or who Willow or Cordy or Angel are. Later, Buffy freaks out when she sees Angel vamped out, and she flees from her house.
Buffy gets trapped in an alley with Larry the Pirate. He's about to ravage her when Xander knocks Larry around.
Meanwhile, Willow's been to see Giles at the library, and told him what's going on. They go to Ethan's costume shop, and Giles tells Willow to leave once Ethan appears. Willow splits and catches up with the gang; unfortunately, the gang's being pursued by Spike and the devil-children.
Turns out Giles knows this Ethan guy, and Ethan makes allusions to Giles's dark past. He calls Giles "Ripper" and tells Giles how to break the spell after Giles beats the heck out of him.
Once the spell's broken, everyone reverts back to their normal selves, and we learn that Buffy and Xander were conscious of what was going on, but they couldn't get out of the situation and be themselves. Talk about your foreshadowing! (see Innocence. Xander's military stint is also mentioned again in Graduation part 2.).
When Willow wakes up, she discards her ghost sheet and struts across the street with her new-found confidence...it's here that Oz notices her for the second time! And Buffy learns that Angel wasn't at all impressed with the noblefemmes of his youth. Things seem decent..except for one last ominous note: Ethan leaves Giles a note that reads: Be seeing you.
1. Giles smashed the bust of Janus to break Ethan's spell.
2. Buffy fought Spike and he fled.
3. Xander used his army gun to fend off the monsters.
1. Giles enjoys cross-referencing.
2. Cordelia doesn't believe that Angel is a vampire.
3. There's a club called Shelter in Sunnydale.
4. Drusilla knew that "Someone's come to change it all."
5. Vamps stay in on Halloween.
1. Sunnydale High School
2. Pumpkin Patch
3. Buffy's house
4. Ethan's Costumes
5. The Bronze
6. An alley, some streets
7. A loading dock facility-type place
8. Neighbors' houses
9. The Warehouse (Spike & Dru)
