Season 2, Episode 6
First Aired: October 27, 1997
.Credits.
Writer: Carl Ellsworth
Director: Bruce Seth Green
Regulars:
Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
David Boreanaz as Angel
Guest Stars:
Seth Green as Oz
James Marsters as Spike
Juliet Landau as Drusilla
Armin Shimerman as Principal Snyder
Robin Sachs as Ethan Rayne
Larry Bagby III as Larry
Other Cast:
Abigail Gershman as Girl
.Synopsis.
There are lots of tricks but no treats when Giles' old demon-worshipping friend, Ethan Rayne, arrives in Sunnydale and creates chaos by turning everyone into their Halloween costume characters. Spike uses the chance to make a move against the powerless slayer.
.Tricks and Treats.
Traditions - PUMPKINS: The episode starts off with Buffy fighting a vampire in Pop's Pumpkin Patch.
Traditions - DECORATING: The Bronze goes all festive with cob webs, a big spider web, ghost cut outs and there are black and orange balloons everywhere. At Sunnydale High they plaster cut outs all over the place, some of the ones that can be seen include pumpkins, witches, a skull, black cats and a Happy Halloween sign.
Traditions - TRICK-OR-TREATING: Principal Snyder is in charge of the 'volunteer' trick or treating safety program where high schoolers take younger children trick or treating. Xander: "Sign up and get your own pack of sugar-hyped little runts for the night." Buffy winds up with 4 kids, Xander with 5 and Willow with 6 or 7.
Traditions - PRANKS/BOBBING FOR APPLES: Snyder: "Halloween must be a big night for you. Tossing eggs, keying cars, bobbing for apples, one pathetic cry for help after another. Well, not this year missy." As far as Halloween pranks go, tossing eggs is one of the most common, keying cars is not often associated with Halloween pranks, its a more vicious act than usual. However, bobbing for apples isn't in the prank category at all but is a Halloween tradition that dates back a long time.
Spooks - The supernatural: Apparently, vampires and other sorts of demons consider Halloween to be much too crass, they just don't bother going out at all. Buffy: "The one night a year things are supposed to be quiet for me." Xander: "Halloween Quiet? Oh, I figured it'd be a big old vamp scare-apalooza." Buffy: "Not according to Giles. He swears that tomorrow night is, like, dead for the undead. They stay in."
Quip - Buffy: "So! How come Halloween is such a big yawner? I mean, do the demons just hate how commercial it's become?"
Quip - Buffy: "It's just... You're never gunna get noticed if you keep hiding. Your missing the whole point of Halloween." Willow: "Free Candy?"
Costumes - Xander dresses up as an Army Solider. Xander: "I got fatigues from an Army surplus at home. Call me the two-dollar costume king, baby!"
Quip - Spike: "Tomorrow's Halloween. Nothing happens on Halloween." Drusilla: " Someone's come to change it all. Someone new."
Costumes - Buffy is dressed as a noble woman from 1775. Buffy: "Call it a blast from his past. I'll show him I can coif with the best of 'em."
Quip - Buffy: "Look, Halloween is the night that not you *is* you, but not *you*. Y'know?"
Costumes - Buffy almost talks Willow into dressing up all sexy but at the last minute she puts on her ghost costume. When Ethan's spell hits, she becomes a ghost and has to walk around all night in her sexy outfit anyway. Willow: "I'm a ghost!" Giles: "Yes. Um... w, uh, uh, uh, the ghost of what, exactly?"
Costumes - Cordelia dresses up in a leopard print leotard with cat accessories. Oz: "Jeez, you're like a great big cat." Cordelia: "It's my costume."
Quip - Xander: "Okay, on sleazing extra candy: tears are key. Tears will normally get you the double-bagger. You can also try the old 'you missed me' routine, but it's risky. Only go there for chocolate."
Quip - Buffy: "What did Mrs. Davis give you?" (The kids hold up toothbrushes) "She must be stopped."
Spooks - Janus: To work his spell, Ethan Rayne performs a ritual in honor of the god Janus. The two-faced god is actually in Roman mythology, however he wasn't really as bad as this episode would suggest. He was a peaceful god of gates, of doors, and of beginnings and endings, and was worshipped at harvests, marriages, births, and other kinds of beginnings.
Quip - Willow: "Something crazy is happening. I was dressed as a ghost for Halloween, a-and now I am a ghost. And you were supposed to be a soldier, and now I, I-I guess you're a real soldier."
Quip - Giles: "This Halloween stunt stinks of Ethan Rayne."
Other costumes seen in the episode include - Teenagers: chef, phantom, cheerleader, surgeon, Diva, a werewolf and a Hunchback. Kids: princess, ballerina, sorceress, soldier, Scream ghost, medieval princess, 50's girl, bunny, Mr. Potatohead, black widow, pirate, witch, harlequin, fairy, football player, devil, doctor, dalmatian, flower, monsters.
.Dialogue To Die For.
Drusilla: "Do you love my insides? The parts you can't see?"
Spike: "Eyeballs to entrails, my sweet."
Willow: "No, no, no. I don't get wild. Wild on me, equals spaz."
Xander: "Buffy! Lady of Buffdom, Duchess of Buffonia, I am in awe! I completely renounce spandex!"
Cordelia: "Is Mr. I'm-the-lead-singer-I'm-so-great-I-don't-have-to-show- up-for-my-date-or-even-call gonna be there?"
Oz: "Yeah, y'know, he's just going by Devon now."
Willow: "Okay, your name is Cordelia, you're not a cat, you're in high school, and we're your friends. Well, sort of."
Cordelia: "That's nice, Willow. And you went mental when?"
Spike: "Well, this is just... neat!"
.Dialogue To Bury.
Why would broody Angel even pretend to be interested in this conversation?:
Cordelia: "So I told Devon, 'You call that leather interior? My Barbie Dream Car had nicer seats!'"
Buffy as eighteenth-century-girl is a bit over-the-top:
"I would never wear this, that low apparel, and I don't like this place, and I don't like you, and I just wanna go home!"
.Pop! Goes the Culture.
Cordelia: "My Barbie Dream Car had nicer seats!"
Mattel made many of miscellaneous accessories for Barbie, one of them was the dream car. I myself had the van, limo and the Jeep with ski jets.
Buffy: "Well, she said that you were a... hunk of burning... something or other."
"Hunka hunka burning love" was the chorus of "Burning Love," the Dennis Linde composition that was Elvis Presley's last top 10 hit in 1972.
Cordelia: "Like a Care Bear with fangs?"
The Care Bears are a series of collectible teddy bears initially introduced by Hasbro in the 1980's and quickly spun off into a huge entertainment empire including clothing, comic books, cartoons and a movie. In the early 2000's they began to make a comeback and are currently all over again. The Care Bears are supposed to represent all that was good and pure and fluffy and saccharine in the world. When I was a kid, my Care Bear of choice was Sunshine Bear, others in the role-call include Bedtime Bear, Cheer Bear, Funshine Bear, Share Bear and Tenderheart Bear.
Ethan: "I feel quite moved to make you a deal you can't refuse."
In the 1972 film The Godfather (based on Mario Puzo's 1969 novel), "an offer you can't refuse" is a phrase used by Don Vito Corleone, the title character. It meant an offer of help from his extensive crime family, usually illegal, and refusal would most likely result in retribution against the person to whom the offer was made.
Buffy: "But wait till you see . . . Casper."
Willow chickens out and covers up her sexy costume with a modest ghost costume, ghost costume, prompting Buffy to call her Casper. A sweet, cuddly little ghost, Casper was a cartoon character invented in 1945, who went on to have a long career on television, in comics and movies.
Willow: "She couldn't have dressed up like Xena?"
Xena is, of course, the super-tough title character of the campy adventure series Xena: Warrior Princess, played by Lucy Lawless. The producers of Xena were so touched by this reference that in a later episode Xena mentions a play called 'Buffus, the Bacchae Slayer'.
Cordelia: "I was just attacked by Jo-Jo, the Dog-Faced Boy."
A real person, JoJo was amongst the human oddities exhibited in the 1880s by P T Barnum. He suffered from hypertrichosis, or abnormal hair growth, which caused him to grow long locks all over his face.
Xander: "Catwoman, you're with me."
In DC Comic's Batman series, Catwoman is the sexy cat-burglar alter ego of Selina Kyle. In 2004, hot new movie version of the character emerged played by Halle Berry.
Buffy: "Honey I'm home!"
'Honey, I'm home' is a famous phrase - mainly remembered from the cartoon The Flinstones.
Prop: Note - Reads "Be seeing you"
The card that Giles finds in Ethan's shop at the end uses a catchphrase used in the cult 1967 British paranoia drama, The Prisoner. Each episode, prisoner Patrick McGoohan would attempt to escape from the surreal Village, often only to find himself tricked by illusions. Despite it's outwardly friendly nature, the phrase's consistent use by the agent's captors gave it a distinctly sinister tone.
.Goofs, Gaffes and Nitpicks.
When Buffy and Willow are in the bathroom reading the stolen Watcher's diary, they say that there is no name for the girl they are looking at. If you look at it close, it does have the name Sarah something-or-the-other by the picture.
While reviewing the tape of Buffy's kill from the beginning of the episode, Spike orders the vampire holding the remote control to rewind the tape. When Spike gives the order, you can see that both Buffy and the vamp are still standing and fighting. However, after the tape has finished "rewinding" and resumes playback, the vamp is lying on the ground and Buffy is raising the wooden sign post over the vamp for the death blow. Perhaps the vamp just got the remote control buttons confused?
When Buffy slams Larry against the pop machine, a Diet Dr. Pepper falls into the drop slot. However, Diet Dr. Pepper is not a choice according to the buttons on the panel. Of course, I can't rule out the possibility that some incompetent putz just loaded the wrong drinks into the machine.
Someone ask Principal Snyder how the hell bobbing for apples is considered a prank.
Since their only reason for going out on Halloween was to take little kids trick or treating, I dont think it was such a good idea for Buffy to tell Willow to dress up all "Sexy and wild."
Although vampires can't enter a house without an invitation, a kid-turned-vampire attacks Buffy and Angel in her kitchen, with no explanation as to how he got in. Of course, he's not technically a "real" vampire, so it could be argued that the rule doesn't apply.
It is established that Ghost Willow can't touch anything (she couldn't turn the pages of a book), yet when Giles tells her to leave Ethan's shop, you can see her shoulder brush the curtain in the doorway, and you can hear the door open and close, despite the fact that as a ghost she should just walk through it all.
.Creep Show.
Before this season of BtVS, Sarah Michelle Gellar appeared in 2 scary movies, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream 2. As a plug for Scream 2, there is a kid dressed in the ghostface costume that the killer wears in the movie series.
When Alyson was just a young teenager, she was a regular in the cast of a short-lived series called Free Spirit who also did a Halloween centric episode.
One of Nicholas Brendan's first roles ever was as a basketball player in Children of the Corn III.
Back when he was just a young kid in 1990, Seth Green was in the horror movie It, which was based on Stephen King's best selling novel.
Larry Bagby was also a bully in the Halloween themed movie Hocus Pocus, starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Bette Midler.
This was not guest star Robin Sachs' first encounter with the bloodsucking undead. A much younger Sachs starred as Heinrich the vampire acrobat in the 1971 British horror film Vampire Circus.
.Misc Notes.
This episode begins on October 29th, 1997 and ends with the last and only scene on November 1st, 1997.
Buffy: "Gosh, I'd love to sign up, but I recently developed carpal tunnel syndrome and can tragically no longer hold a flashlight." Carpal tunnel syndrome is a condition that causes pain or tingling in the fingers, hand or wrist. Recently the ailment has become generally known as a type of repetitive stress injury that can be caused by typing.
Larry is played by Larry Bagby III who is a Mormon. The religion does not condone homosexuality, however in a later episode, we find out that Larry is in fact gay when he confides in Xander.
Buffy: "So! How come Halloween is such a big yawner? I mean, do the demons just hate how commercial it's become?" In the Charmed Halloween episode, All Halliwell's Eve, they also mention how Halloween has become so commercialized.
A WP sticker can be clearly seen on the lockers in scene where Cordy stops by Oz's locker. You can see other WP stickers on the lockers, but they're blurry. The letters stand for Widespread Panic, a band which has never performed on or for this show. However, posters and stickers have been seen on notebooks, walls of the school, in character's rooms and at the Bronze. Usually bands that performed on the show would add some stickers here and there to sets but in this case it was a set designer that was a big fan of the band.
Ethan's preparation prayer is:
"The world that denies thee, thou inhabit. The peace that ignores thee, thou corrupt. Chaos. I remain, as ever, thy faithful servant."
Ethan's spell that causes all the chaos, translates as follows:
"Janus, I invoke your spirit. Hear my plea. Seize the night for your own reason. Come, appear and show to us that which is infinite power. The mask transforms itself into flesh and blood. Your holy presence curdles the heart. Janus! Take the night!"
Xander's army training from his stint as a soldier due to his costume in this episode is long referenced in the rest of the series, as well as used in order to defeat several supernatural enemies and to take command.
The van that Oz is driving at the end of the episode has its steering wheel located on the right side and is painted in Zebra print. According to set decorator David Koneff, "We would have found a lot more about Oz if you had seen the inside of the van. It was just like a little sugar shack, a love shack, with black light and a mirror ball, black light posters on the ceilings and a bean bag chair and the whole van was carpeted and wild."
Alyson Hannigan had makeup wiz Todd McIntosh do her up as a vampire for a Halloween party in 1997.
.Music.
THEME: Nerf Herder
SCORE: Christophe Beck
Video: View it on YouTube
"Shy" by Epperley
Album: Epperley, Triple X Records, 1996
Scene: This song plays at The Bronze while Cordelia talks to Angel.
"How She Died" by Treble Charger
Album: From Maybe It's Me, RCA Records, 1997
Scene: At the end of the episode as Oz watches Willow walk home and once again wonders who she is.
Hope you liked this!
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