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ravenya003 · 4 months

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Harvest, S01E02

Here we go, the second half of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s two-part premiere episode, picking up right where the cliff-hanger left off...

Despite having Buffy pinned down in a crypt, Luke is fended off by the cross around her neck. I knew it would come in handy at some point. She rushes outside and saves Willow and Xander, but the vampires manage to drag Jesse away.

Sorry Jesse, but you’re the only character in this scene not to feature in the opening credits, and you know what that means. (Whedon actually wanted to get Eric Balfour included in these credits, just to make his death more of a shock, but there are all sorts of legal issues concerning who gets to be in such things and who doesn’t).

Back at the library, Giles has accepted the presence of Xander and Willow in the Slayer’s inner circle remarkably well, and is filling them in on the show’s mythos. Whedon has commented in the past how surprised he was to get away with the line: “contrary to popular mythology, [this world] did not begin as a paradise,” which is obviously a direct refutation to what the Good Book says, and Giles goes on to describe it as a place where demons roamed the earth – at least until the rise of humans.

We actually learn very little about how/why they left, only that the last demon (or Old One) to leave this reality fed off a human and mixed their blood together, resulting in the first vampire: a human body infected by a demon’s soul.

Again, we don’t exactly learn why the demon did this, though that explanation very much tracks with how vampirism works throughout the course of the entire show. When a person is turned, their body remains but their personality (through their lack of a soul/possession by a demon) is drastically different.

Now vampires drink the blood of humans, occasionally creating more of their kind, waiting for the Old Ones to return.

Okay, I’m going to be a complete nerd about all this, so bear with me. I love trying to parse through rudimentary world-building and pulling questions/possible fanfic scenarios out of it.

If the Earth originally belonged to demons, only to be overcome by humans, does that mean that a war between them took place at some stage? Every decent fantasy story needs a Great Offscreen War in its distant past, right? Think the Battle for the Dawn, the Butlerian Jihad, the War of Power, the War of Wrath, the Great Hyperspace War...

Maybe something similar happened in the Buffyverse: a war for supremacy between demons and humans. Was it the reason the Slayer was created, which (as we find out much later) occurred very early in humanity’s history. Did she have something to do with the demons leaving this reality for a hell dimension, or to wherever they are now?

And who was this unidentified demon that made the very first vampire? And why? It’s not hard to imagine it was intended as a final “fuck you” to humanity if we assume that the demons were forcibly banished from this dimension... but perhaps even as a contingency plan considering this particular band of vampires are trying to bring the Old Ones back by opening the Hellmouth.

In the seven years of this show, none of this ever gets elaborated on. They even move away from the concept that demons are attempting to return to this earthly plane – the Mayor was trying to ascend into a demon, and Glory was trying to get back to her hell dimension by whatever means necessary, though I suppose any attempts (of which there were several) to open the Hellmouth came with the objective of unleashing demons back into the world.

Poor Jesse; he’s completely bewildered by whatever the heck’s going on, even after he’s been “upgraded to bait.” I did, however, appreciate the intelligence of the Master when he points out that the Slayer will come to rescue her friend. No Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, here. This guy is smart enough to understand that heroes are the ones who help other people.

It turns out the Master is trapped in an underground church (more on this later) and I had to chuckle when he mentions his “ascension” out of it. The writers obviously enjoyed that word, as it essentially becomes the Arc Word of season three.

The issue of the existence of a police force within a show that incorporates supernatural elements is raised and just as quickly discarded when Willow suggests calling them, only for Giles to point out that no one will believe their story. Moving on. (That said, I’ll have a LOT to say about how the police – what little we see of them – are portrayed in later episodes/seasons, why they’re such a hassle to deal with in these types of shows, and how they’re connected to the failure of the Initiative as a concept. Stay tuned).

In trying to figure out where Jesse may have been taken, Willow shows off her hacking skills by bringing up a map of Sunnydale’s sewage system – completely illegally of course, making this our first glimpse of Willow demonstrating some hidden depths behind that nerdy exterior.

Then we get a fun deconstruction of Behind the Black. This is a trope in which a character doesn’t notice something obvious because it’s not visible to the camera. It’s usually used when villains need to sneak up on our hero, or for comic effect when a character talks about someone even through they’re standing right there.

In this case, the average viewer will be forgiven for thinking that Luke sneaking up on Buffy at the end of the last episode was a case of Behind the Black. She didn’t notice him until he grabbed her neck because it’s just more dramatic that way. It’s such a prevalent trick that most probably wouldn't have even questioned it.

But as it turns out, it wasn’t just a standard use of this trope, but a plot-point. Buffy thinks about how she was facing the mausoleum door and realizes that Luke came up behind her – which means that the vampires must have doubled-back with Jesse and gone through a secret passage located in the building. Nicely played, Whedon.

Xander wants to go with Buffy and when she shoots him down he commends: “I’m less than a man.” Urgh. I realize that Xander coming to terms with his perceived emasculation in the face of Buffy’s strength is a significant part of his character arc, but in this case it was enough for him to just be disappointed that he can’t help his friend. Make Jesse his motivation, not a desire to protect his manhood.

In my last review I observed that the writers got lucky when they only shot scenes of Angel at night (having not yet decided that he was a vampire), a comment I may have to retract considering he’s clearly standing in sunlight in this next scene. Muted sunlight, but sunlight nonetheless.

And his personality is still so weird. David Boreanaz is playing Angel as that “smarmy know-it-all smartass” character type, not the wounded, broody soul who was so moved by Buffy’s plight that he decided to join the good fight after a single glimpse of her through a window. He actually reminds me of Whistler here.

Buffy says to Angel: “I’ve got a friend down there – or a potential friend. Do you know what it’s like to have a friend?” He’s stumped by this question. Oh Angel, just you wait...

Ah, the Absurdly Spacious Sewer, another classic of the genre.

Back at school in the computer lab, Willow does research for Giles while Cordelia struggles with the assignment. And look – it’s Harmony! At this early stage she’s depicted as a complete airhead (okay, I suppose that never truly changes) and a sycophantic member of Cordelia’s girl-posse (a dynamic that does change – quite profoundly).

Fun fact: if we count this premiere as a single episode (they did originally air together on the same night) then David Boreanaz and Mercedes McNab are the only two actors to appear in the very first episode of Buffy and the very last episode of Angel.

This scene is mostly filler, were it not for the aforementioned introduction of Harmony, and that fact that Willow stands up for Buffy in the face of Cordelia’s malicious gossip. Already she’s starting to grow a backbone and not just scurry away.

Buffy and Xander finds Jesse, and one of them (I forget who) utters that most beloved line of all screenwriters: “we’ve gotta get outta here.” We already know it’s a trap, so it’s no big surprise when vampires start to emerge from the shadows to cut off their escape route – but to this day it’s a considerable gut-punch when Jesse reveals his new vampiric state.

They fend him off with a crucifix and manage to escape through a manhole to the surface. I love the scene when Xander tries to pull Buffy away from the vampire that’s grabbed her ankle, only for the sunlight to burn its skin and drive it back underground.

More filler when the Master hears of Buffy’s escape and pokes out a minion’s eye.

Giles and Willow compare notes, and Willow has come up with some pertinent information: in 1937 there were a rash of murders in Sunnydale that match the profile of vampiric activity, only for them to cease when an earthquake hit the town. When Buffy and Xander return, Giles hypothesizes that sixty years ago the Master tried to open a mystical portal that the Spanish called “Boca del Infierno,” the Mouth of Hell. Or more colloquially, the Hellmouth. His goal: to bring about the apocalypse.

Yay, more mythos! I just love made-up supernatural history.

But I have more questions, because CLEARLY this isn’t the whole story. Obviously, the Master failed in his attempt to open the Hellmouth, because now he’s trapped in a buried church behind a mystical barrier after an earthquake prevented him from going through with his plan. So there’s no way that earthquake was a coincidental natural occurrence. And that invisible barrier is magical, dammit! That means someone had to have put it there.

Surely the Watchers Council would have had records if a Slayer had been involved in all this, so if it wasn’t her, who was behind the Master’s entrapment back in 1937? Honestly, I don’t think Whedon ever had it mapped out; at this stage the point was simply to set up the mechanics and get on with the story at hand. That’s fair enough, but it’s still interesting to ponder these gaps in the history.

Giles has also figured out how the Master plans to escape his prison: by making one of his disciples the Vessel, which will allow him to draw enough strength from the blood that his servant drinks to break through the magic that keeps him trapped underground. We’ve already seen the first stage of this ritual take place: Luke drinks from the Master’s wrist and gets a three-pointed star rendered in blood on his forehead.

Xander realizes that the most obvious locale for the second stage of the ritual to take place is the Bronze, filled with all those fresh young bodies, and the gang heads out as a team for the first time. However, Buffy takes a short detour home to grab some supplies, and Joyce confronts her with the fact Principal Flutie called her to say she’d missed some classes.

Joyce tries her hand at discipline but the moment she’s out of the room Buffy promptly grabs her bag of weapons and slips out the bedroom window. This is kind of cute actually, since Buffy having to sneak out of the house without her mother knowing is a reasonably big part of these early episodes, but not a factor at all in the later ones. (Also, the episode never returns to this development – as far as we know, Joyce never realizes that Buffy left the house).

Vampire!Jesse approaches Cordelia at the Bronze, and she’s immediately struck by his more assertive persona. This is a fascinating first glimpse at the allure of vampires: as a human, Jesse was a complete loser, now all he has to do is stare at Cordelia and she turns to deferential pudding.

Yeah, you can feel the nasty subtext of Whedon’s “nice guys finish last” mentality at work here (especially since Jesse gets Cordelia to dance with him by telling her to shut up) but it’s also consistent with how vampires will be portrayed in episodes to come. In many ways, they serve as an unsubtle allegory for sexual predators: attractive and magnetic on the surface, only to reveal their monstrous true faces when they attack.

I love the slow-motion approach of the vampires to the Bronze, especially with Darla merrily skipping as she leads the way.

Just in case Buffy wasn’t able to notice the symbol etched on Luke’s forehead that identifies him as the Vessel, he helps out by taking the stage and making a speech in which he will not shut up about this fact. Warm bodies are brought to him and he starts to drink, though just before he bites into Cordelia, Buffy makes her presence known.

The rest of the team help the civilians escape, and then it’s Buffy versus Luke, Xander versus Jesse, and Giles versus Darla – at least until Willow comes along and throws the vial of holy water that Buffy gave her into her face. Darla rushes off – screaming in pain, but with the opportunity to return another night.

The same can’t be said for Jesse, who is mocking Xander on his inability to kill him, only to be pushed into Xander’s stake and dusted by a panic-stricken girl rushing to escape the building. It’s a deliberately anti-climactic, killed-in-mid-sentence death that sets the tone for how characters (even the beloved ones) are going to be dispatched across the course of this show. Get used to it.

Buffy distracts Luke by making him believe it’s sunrise and breaking a window behind him, then stakes him as he tries to figure out what’s going on. The other vampires gather round only to flee at this zoom-in:

Oh yeah.

Outside, Angel watches the vampires run for it, and says “she did it – I’ll be damned,” the most serendipitous line since Uncle Owen said “that’s what worries me” to Beru’s “he’s too much like his father” in the first Star Wars movie, well before anyone working on the production knew that Vader would turn out to be Luke’s father. (In this case, the writers had not yet realized that Angel was a vampire himself, and therefore already literally “damned”).

Giles takes off his glasses and cleans them for the first time, and the following day Buffy is bemused to hear Cordelia pass off the situation as gang warfare, while her friend declares: “I wish I’d been there.” Xander expresses his disbelief at how people have rationalized everything, and the phrase "Sunnydale Syndrome" is born – at least in the fandom. I don’t think it’s ever uttered on the show.

Giles is excited about what they might face next (again, I’m mildly astonished that he puts up no protest at all that Willow and Xander are involved in this) and the trio walk off, jabbering nonsense to each other.

The last line is Giles muttering: “the Earth is doomed” and my mind flashforwards to the reiteration of this scene in the show’s very final episode. I take a deep breath. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us, but it’s going to be these three friends who’ll be standing there at the finish line.

Miscellaneous Observations:

Jesse is a perfect example of a Forgotten Fallen Friend, even though he should have been a huge part of the show going forward. And I don’t mean in the sense he should have been spared (though I can also envision an arc in which Xander spends the entirety of the season gearing himself up to killing his former friend) but that he could have been touchstone on the brutal nature of death in this show; a reminder that no one is safe, whatever their proximity to the Core Four.

He should have been the ongoing source of Xander’s hatred for vampires; a sobering reminder that Buffy can’t save everyone; someone who was mentioned frequently as the “first one down.” Did this kid have parents? Was there a funeral? Everything is swept under the rug instead of mined for maximum angst potential.

Apparently there were plans to have Eric Balfour return in season seven as an aspect that the First took in "Conversations with Dead People", though as cool as that could have been, it also had the potential to be completely baffling since – as stated – no one ever speaks about this guy after his death.

And at this point it occurs to me that Buffy essentially comes along and takes Jesse’s place in that particular triad of friends.

For a hot second I considered the possibility that the demon who created the first vampire was meant to be the Master, but no – supplementary material makes it very clear he was once a human called Heinrich Joseph Nest who was turned into a vampire six hundred years ago. And that’s all the background we ever get on him. Makes you wonder who turned him into a vampire all those centuries ago, especially when you consider that he’s the “grandsire” of Darla, Angel, Drusilla and Spike – the four most famous vampires in this entire franchise.

Whedon is quite clever in giving the Master two separate goals, which allows him to be defeated in this episode, while still keeping him around as the season’s Big Bad. The Harvest is designed to free him from the underground church, but the opening of the Hellmouth is something else entirely, and won’t be attempted until the final episode. Nicely done.

Towards the end, we get the vague implication that killing a Slayer is considered a great trophy for vampires, and that her blood is particularly powerful. These hints will certainly become more explicit plot-points later on in the show.

A quick theory on how crucifixes work on this show: they’re regularly used to ward off vampires, even when used by people who aren’t affiliated with Christianity. In fact, the concept of Christ and Christianity is never explored – or even discussed – in any detail at any point during the show’s run.

This is unsurprising given Joss Whedon’s lack of faith, and I can only assume he simply felt obliged to keep that specific bit of vampire lore in. I’ve always supposed that in this context the crucifixes work a bit like metaphysical negatively-charged magnets in how they can deflect vamps. They symbolize the fact that many people believe Christ died and came back to life by the grace of God as a living, breathing human being. Vampires on the other hand, die and come back to life as members of the undead; soulless and filled with demon blood. The same process, but fundamentally different. As such, a crucifix repels them because they symbolize the complete inversion of what they went through.

Or something, I don’t know.

Best Shot: This wide shot of Buffy and Xander on the ground, having just escaped the sewer system:

Best Line: Giles telling Xander: “Jesse is dead. You have to remember that if you see him. You’re not looking at your friend, you’re looking at the thing that killed him.”

Most Random Scene: This surfer dude who pops up out of nowhere and the fact that Cordelia seems friendly with him:

Best Subversion: Even if you had Jesse pegged for death, you probably didn’t see his accidentally-get-pushed-into-Xander’s-stake real death coming.

Death Toll: Jesse as a human, and then Jesse as a vampire. The bouncer at the Bronze, and another clubber. Two vampires at the Bronze. Luke.

Grand Total: Four civilians, five villains.

#buffy the vampire slayer #rav's watching log #rav's buffy rewatch #buffy season one

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