Doppelgangland
Doppelgangland
Season 3, Episode 16 (Episode 50 of entire series)
Well, we had a look into Xander in The Zeppo, now it's Willow's turn. And may I just say, it rocked! When Willow gets fed up with "the doormat treatment" she's been getting, she thinks about taking a trip on the wild side. A little mojo gone wrong, and she gets a taste of what she'd be like if she went vampy...This episode features the return of Anya, some good continuity from Go Fish, The Wish, and great dialogue all around!
Show opens with Anya in front of some Moloch-y looking demon. She's pleading her case about getting her powers back since the loss of her necklace has rendered her mortal and powerless. Horned demon guy tells her tough luck, she'll have to deal with it. Anya vows to get her power back, and since he won't help her, she'll find someone who will....
Cut to Buffy and Willow relaxing (um, sort of) on the lawn of Sunnydale High. Apparently, the Watchers Council is evaluating Buffy and Faith, and Buffy's on the lawn doing situps. Will's making a pencil spin. It is odd that no one stops by to see what's up with that, but I guess the students are a wee bit self-involved or something? Um, okay. Yeah! Anyhoo, Willow tells Buffy that pencil spinning's all about emotional control, with a little bit o' magic. Turns out Willow doesn't have as much control as she thought..when Faith's name is brought up, the pencil goes out of control and flies into a tree. Oh well. It returned from whence it came..
Next we see Willow in Snyder's office, with some other kid. Snyder's basically doing the "I'm forcing you to "tutor" our point guard" and he mentions the whole swim team debacle from last year. Laughworthy. Very. So Willow tells Buffy that she's tired of Snyder's bullying folks. Okay, I wrote that part a few days ago, and now I'm sick, so bear with me for a semi-short episode recap here. Anyhoo, Giles asks Willow to get on the dread machine to poke around in The Mayor's personal files. Faith and Wesley come in from Faith's obstacle course, etc., testing. Wesley's winded (hence the last name? Wyndam?) and Faith's all hey, it was fun, sort of. Buffy goes off with Wesley to take the test.
Meanwhile, Faith sidles up to Willow and asks her what she's doing. Willow's short with Faith..it's almost painful to watch Willow have to interact with Faith. Poor Will. Anyway, Faith learns that Willow's trying to get into the Mayor's files, and next thing you know, we see Faith in a cool pad, courtesy of The Mayor. She tells him what Willow's up to, and he orders Willow killed, but decides that it should be a staged vamp attack. The Mayor also tells Faith to keep her room at the fleabag motel in case she needs to see her friends. Then he gives her a Playstation. Fun. I bet she gets to bone up on Street Fighter, if they make that for Playstation. I liked being Dhalsim or whomever, the rubbery guy that can breathe fire...um..anyway..
Back at school, Willow sees Oz and learns that his band had a gig in Monterey. She's upset that she didn't know about it, but Oz tells her he didn't think she wanted to miss school, and he thought she did know. So Willow starts thinking she's boring and all that. Outside, she catches up with Percy West, the kid she's supposed to tutor in history, and he gives her the brush-off, saying that she's supposed to do his work for him. Peeved, Willow sits down, ready to eat her banana, even though it's not lunchtime. Very laughworthy. When Buffy and Xander catch up with her, she gets miffed when Buffy calls her Old Reliable, and storms off, saying she may change her look or something.
Okay I yammered too long. Basically, Anya finds Willow, asks for her help in doing a spell, and Willow agrees. When Willow gets a glimpse of the hellish reality that was seen in The Wish, she freaks out and tells Anya she's not helping her anymore. What no one knows is that the spell dropped Vamp Willow in from that reality. Vamp Willow's a bit disoriented, and can't figure out what's the deal with this new world.
When The Mayor's vamps approach her, she overpowers them, and they become her henchmen. They plan to kill folks, and all.
Before that, though, Vamp Willow was at the Bronze, scaring Percy, and shocking Buffy and Xander, who believe that Willow's dead, and..a vamp. Buffy and Xander go to the library to tell Giles about it, and they're all majorly upset, declaring that Willow was the best of all of them, yada yada. The Real Willow walks in, everyone's confused, and they wonder what's up.
Back at the Bronze, Vamp Willow comes in to scare the folks, kill Sandy, and majorly freak Oz out. He tells Angel to go get Buffy. Angel, the ever-helpful vamp, goes to the library and tells the gang that Willow's dead, then he sees the Real Willow. All of them, save Willow, go back to the Bronze to stop the uber-chaos.
Meanwhile, Vamp Willow meets Real Willow at the library. There's neck-licking, scuffling, shooting of a tranquilizer gun, and the word "bitch." The gang's back and they help drag sedated Vamp Willow to the cage, where they lock her inside. How handy is that? Who of the gang has been in the cage...Oz, Xander, Vamp Willow, Giles (in the alternate reality)..um, okay back to the plot here...The gang comes back, Willow freaks out about her alter-vamp-self, saying she's skanky and kinda gay, and Buffy proposes that they dress Willow up as Vamp Willow to defuse the sitch at the Bronze. The others will remain outside unless they hear Willow yell. This is quite hysterical...Real Willow-as-Vamp-Willow is a hoot. Can't do it justice.
Back at the library, Cordy comes in in a fetching night-on-the-town outfit to "return a book" or something. She sees Willow (it's Vamp-Willow-dressed-as-real-Willow) in the book cage and goes to get the key to let her out. But Cordy decides to have a talk with Willow first, about Xander, and boyfriend stealing, and all that. Too funny. She finally lets "Willow" out, and Willow hunts her down to eat her. Cordy's saved by Wesley, who holds a cross out and produces a bottle of holy water. Gads. I tell you, this guy's only in it due to some form of nepotism. If all Watchers sucked this much, the Council was way stupid to fire Giles. Well, come to think of it, they were way stupid to fire Giles. But hey.
Vamp Willow leaves and goes back to the Bronze, where there's a melee already in progress. Anya's figured out that Vamp Willow is a fake, and Willow screams. In comes the cavalry, fighting and stuff ensues. Vamp Willow tries to strangle Real Willow, and as Buffy's poised to stake V.W., Willow shouts out for her not to.
The gang goes back to do the spell to send Vamp Willow back to her reality. There's some Vamp-Willow, Willow bonding, complete with a hug. Unfortunately for Vamp Willow, she goes back to her reality only to find herself in the middle of being impaled.
Next day at school, Willow tells Buffy that she doesn't want to walk on the wild side after all...she feels like staying at home doing homework and dying a virgin. Enter Percy, with two outlines on Roosevelt (the subject of his history paper), and an apple for Willow. Sometimes being bad has its benefits, eh?
Okay, well I just want to say that this episode completely rocked, again. Very hysterical. Cool to see Willow get fed up with her being old faithful-doormat-person-homework gal persona. Even if she didn't break out of her mold herself, she got to see what she'd be like if she succumbed to..well, less reliable types of things. Like Oz said in Band Candy, "That's a sobering mirror to look into."
Vamp Willow and Real Willow really aren't terribly different. When Real Willow goes into the Bronze, she says she killed Real Willow and sucked her blood, as vampires do. In the library, Vamp Willow tells Cordelia that she locked herself in the cage while looking at books, she likes books, 'cause she's shy. And she calls herself helpless. Kinda funny how they both use the "this is the way I am" kind of thinking to help fool their audiences. Okay, I'm shutting up now. Remember I was sick when I wrote this.
1. Willow-as-Vamp-Willow sent a few minions out of the Bronze to get staked.
2. Buffy, Angel, Xander and Giles took out most of the vamps at the Bronze; some by cue sticks, some by regular stakes, etc.
3. The gang plus Anya did the temporal fold thing to send Vamp Willow back to the hellish reality from whence she came.
1. That I have a longer version of that flowered skirt Willow had on...um..I'm sharing.
2. Cordy's a giver.
3. Vamp Willow is a lot more fun to watch in this episode than she was in The Wish.
4. It's unanimous..the Slayerettes agree that Willow is the best of all of them.
5. Humans can scream.
6. And often do.
7. Tranquilizer guns work on vamps, too.
8. Willow and Xander are sensitive to wrong touching. (I had to quote Principal Flutie!)
9. Oz and Vamp Willow share a fondness for black nail polish.
10. Willow likes bananas.
11. Willow's getting good with the tranq. gun.
12. Willow really is an evil mastermind?
Willow: "It's horrible. That's me as a vampire? I'm so evil, and skanky. And I think I'm kinda gay." -- to the gang, after they've dragged Vamp Willow to the cage.
Coming Soon! Oy. Too many to choose from.
1. Sunnydale High School
2. The Bronze
3. Faith's new pad, courtesy of the Mayor
4. Some streets
1. Buffy
2. Willow
3. Xander
4. Giles
5. Cordelia
6. Angel
7. Faith
8. Oz
9. The Mayor
10. Wesley Wyndam-Price, The New Watcher
11. Anya
12. Devon
13. Sandy
14. Principal Snyder
15. Percy West
16. Vamp Willow's Main Henchvamp
Check out the Dingo Action! Results -- your answers to some ridiculous questions & your point o' view ...about this episode.
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