Getting Buffed
The final part of our Buffy guide: a look at seasons three and four.
      by Lisa Kincaid

Buffy's never truly helpless... she can always reply upon her keen fashion sense.

"Helpless"
Summary: Buffy's turning 18, and it's a definite turning point in her life, not just because she's now a legal voter, but because she seems to be losing her Slayer powers. She finds herself weak and unable to fight vampires like she used to, and goes to Giles for help. Unfortunately for her, he wasn't the one to turn to: during lessons on crystals, Giles has been hyponotizing her and injecting her with a drug that strips her super-strength away. The test is a Watcher's Council tradition in which a Slayer who turns 18 is stripped of her powers and tossed into a closed environment for a deathmatc against a vampire. If she lives, she passes. Giles finds the practice barbaric but despite his objections goes along with it. Buffy finds out about the plot when the vampire busts loose from Council control and kidnaps her mother; she confronts Giles, who tells her about the test, and then goes to save her mother. She manages to save Joyce despite her lack of Slayer strength, but her relationship with Giles may never recover. The Watcher's Council, meanwhile, is unhappy with Giles' treatment of the situation: the test was as much for him as for Buffy, and he failed his portion by telling his Slayer about the test; Giles is fired and the Scoobies must face the inevitability of his replacement eventually arriving.
And the moral is: Just say no to drugs!

Mmmm, Zeppo-alicious.

"The Zeppo"
Summary: Xander's the only one in his group of friends who has no special powers: Buffy's the Slayer, Willow's a witch, Oz is a werewolf, Angel's a vampire, and even Giles has the whole former-Watcher thing going for him. When this fact is painfully pointed out by Cordelia, Xander decides he's going to get a little excitement and do more to help Buffy than just make donut runs. He borrows his Uncle Rory's classic car, but he ends up having a run-in with the school psychopath, Jack. When he doesn't rat Jack out to a passing cop, Jack enlists Xander to drive him around to local cemeteries, where he uses old family voodoo to raise his somewhat recently deceased friends from their graves. Somewhat uncomfortable with his new group of friends, Xander's also dismayed to note that none of the Scoobies -- who are busy with the impending opening of the Hellmouth -- seem to have noticed he's been gone at all. Xand finally decides he's had enough when he sees that Jack is dead, too -- though much fresher than his friends -- and Xander's new buddies want to bring him into the gang by killing him. He takes off in his borrowed car and gives Faith a lift away from some demons; they end up back at her motel room, where they make wild monkey love, and Faith promptly kicks Xander out when she's done. Xander figures out that the gang's planning on planting a bomb in the high school, and Xander faces down Jack in the school basement. While Buffy and the others fight against the opening Hellmouth up in the library, Xander and Jack's showdown ends with Jack defusing the bomb. He vows revenge as Xander leaves, but wanders through the wrong doorway and is eaten by OzWolf. The next day, Buffy and friends are recovering from their ordeal of fighting the Hellmouth beast, and no one even realizes that Xander saved the day as well. But he doesn't seem to mind, and even Cordelia's taunting can't kill his good mood.
And the moral is: Everyone's important, and everyone is a beautiful individual, just like a tiny snowflake. Awww.

The new Watcher, Wesley Wyndham-Price.

"Bad Girls"
Summary: Buffy and Faith get an uptight new Watcher, Wesley Wyndham-Price, and they aren't happy with the change. The new Watcher sends them on a mission to find Balthazar's amulet, which he believes a new group of duelist vampires are looking for. Buffy finds the amulet on her own, but she's interrupted by the vampires, who take the amulet and leave. Faith appears, insisting that they follow the fleeing vampires underground, where they discover a new bad guy in town: Balthazar himself, the Jabba the Hutt of the demon world, and his cadre of loyal sword-fighting vampires. They report back to Wesley and Giles, but Buffy and Faith are getting too into their Slayer job: Buffy ditches classes to slay with Faith, and both girls begin behaving more erratically, eventually being arrested for breaking into a sporting goods store to steal weapons to fight Balthazar. They escape the police by using their Slayer-strength to cause an accident. The Mayor, meanwhile, is planning for his Ascension, which is certainly not anything good for the locals, and is plotting to help Buffy and Balthazar kill each other. The Deputy Mayor, Finch, has a fit of conscience and tries to go to Faith and Buffy to tell them about the Mayor, but in the heat of battle, Faith mistakes him for a vampire and stakes the man. Wesley and Giles are captured by the vampire deulists and brought before Balthazar, where Wesley proves himself to be a big ol' coward, but Buffy and Angel bust in and take the bad guys down. The Mayor performs a ritual that makes him immortal until his Ascension, and when Buffy goes to see Faith, the other Slayer doesn't seem to care that she's killed a man.
And the moral is: Vampires should always sport their wrinklies so they can be easily identified in a fight, like undead team jerseys.

Faith is seduced by the power of the Dark Side.

"Consequences"
Summary: At the end of "Bad Girls", Faith says that the dead Deputy Mayor won't be a problem, as she's dumped the body, but the truth comes out in "Consequences", and Finch's body is found. Buffy isn't able to keep the secret of what happened to him. After Wesley tells the Slayers to investigate the murder, Buffy and Faith speak privately: Buffy's unwilling to keep the secret, though Faith warns that they're both in deep. Angel and the Mayor both suspect that Finch was killed by a Slayer, and the police question both girls, while Buffy and Faith find out that the Mayor isn't the happy good guy he pretends to be... he's a happy bad guy instead. Buffy confesses what happened to Willow, then tries to go tell Giles, only to find that Faith has beaten her there and is telling their former Watcher that Buffy killed the man. Giles sees through the lie, though, and the gang plans an intervention to help Faith, at which point it comes out that Xander had sex with her. Xander goes to talk to Faith alone, thinking they have a connection, but she nearly strangles him. Xand is saved by Angel, who busts in and knocks Faith out. He takes her to the mansion, where he chains her up and hopes to rehabilitate her, but Wesley enters with a group of Watcher's Council thugs and steals her away, to be put on trial back in Britain. She escapes them, and the gang pursue her to the docks, where Buffy fights with Mr. Trick. Trick nearly wins the round and kills her, but Buffy's saved by Faith, who stakes the vampire. The Scoobies think that Faith can still be redeemed, but in secret she meets with the Mayor, offering to take over Trick's job.
And the moral is: If you suddenly find yourself experiencing a strong urge to kill people, get your ass into rehab.

Vampire Willow doesn't dig on her zany new world.

"Doppelgängland"
Summary: Anya pleads with her former demon bosses to give her back the power she lost in "The Wish", and when that fails, she approaches Willow asking for help with a spell. Willow's been bullied into tutoring a school jock and is unhappy with her friends' perception that she's just "Old Reliable", so she agrees to do the dangerous spell, not knowing that Anya is trying to recover her power center. As they're performing the spell , Willow starts getting flashes of things that happened in that other universe, and some of the spell ingredients pour on her hand, which messes up the spell. She leaves, uncomfortable with what she saw, and the spell seemingly has no effect... but in the factory, the vampire version of Willow suddenly appears, pulled from the other dimension. Meanwhile, the Mayor has set up Faith with a cool new apartment, and she tells him that Willow's been trying to hack into his computer files, so he decides to send some vampires to kill her. Evil Willow's confused by the lack of vampire control in the new town and quickly starts bringing other vamps under her control. Her friends see Evil Willow at the Bronze and think their friend is dead and turned, but human Willow shows up and sets them straight. She's nearly kidnapped by her vampire counterpart, but manages to tranquilize the other Willow and switch clothes. Human Willow, dressed up as her vampire self, goes to the Bronze, where a group of vampires are holding everyone hostage, and tries to defuse the situation, but it quickly turns into a battle. Evil Willow escapes the book cage thanks to an unwitting Cordelia, and is nearly staked by Buffy, but instead, Willow forces Anya to help her perform a spell to send Evil Willow back to the right dimension. She jumps back into her world just in time to be staked, just as she was in "The Wish".
And the moral is: Don't meddle with the dark arts. Unless you like kinky leather-clad vampires. If that's the case, go right on ahead, but promise you'll conjure up a Spike for me.

"Enemies"
Summary: While they're out on patrol, Buffy and Faith run into a demon who offers them a bargain: he wants to sell them the Books of Ascension for $5000, and assures them that it's an item they'll want very much to keep from the Mayor. But unbeknownst to Buffy, Faith has been in the Mayor's employ for some time, and later on she finds the demon again, kills him, and steals the books, and she's got more planned than that. She goes to Angel, claiming to want help with redemption, but tries to seduce him instead in an attempt to free him of his soul again. When that doesn't work, she and the Mayor bring in a soul-stealing demon to take Angel's soul away. Buffy and Xander go to find the demon, and Faith insists on coming along; they discover the demon in his hotel room, brutally murdered. Faith goes to see Angel and pretends she wants to apologize, but she's actually helping in the ritual to steal Angel's soul. The demon brought in by the Mayor works his magic, suddenly Angelus is back, and Faith's promising to hook him up with the big bad players in Sunnydale. Back at the ranch, the Scoobies go down to the Hall of Records to research the Mayor and find that he's really old and really nasty. At City Hall, Angelus and Faith meet with the Mayor and form a plan to kidnap Buffy and torture her to death. A captured Buffy eggs Faith into spilling some of the Mayor's plan, and then suddenly slips out of her chains. Angel reveals to Faith that he's been faking having lost his soul, and the two Slayers fight to a stand-off, at which point Faith runs off. She's firmly in the Mayor's camp now, and though her plan to de-soul Angel failed, she did manage to cause some strife: there's a sudden tenseness in Buffy and Angel's relationship, and Buffy calls for a time-out on couple-ness.
And the moral is: If Angel were truly evil, there probably would've been more leather pants. Remember that for next time.

She sees dead people. No, wait, she just hears living people's thoughts. That's not as cool.

"Earshot"
Summary: When Buffy kills a mouthless demon, she's infected by its blood, and finds out she's taken on an aspect of the demon: its ability to read minds. At first it's a pretty cool skill, but soon it weirds her friends out so much that they don't want to be around her, and eventually the noise of all those minds becomes too much for her -- but not before she nears a single, ominous thought that threatens the school. By lunchtime tomorrow, someone promises, all the students will be dead. Unfortunately Buffy's hearing such a clamor of thoughts that she doesn't know who was thinking it, and when she's incapacitated by her new "gift", the Scoobies take matters into their own hands to find out who might want to kill everyone. Meanwhile, Angel works to get a cure for Buffy's telepathic nightmare, which requires the heart of the second demon that escaped Buffy before. He gets her the cure and delivers it in daylight, and Buffy quickly begins to recover. The Scoobies think they have it narrowed down to the editor of the school paper, but when they finally find him, they rule him out and instead focus on quiet Jonathan, a student who's always been picked on. Buffy finds Jonathan in the school clocktower weilding a rifle, and she confronts him, but it turns out he's not up there to hurt anyone else; he's planning on killing himself. With time running out, the Scoobies fan out to find the real culprit, and Xander ends up taking a detour into the cafeteria to steal some desserts. That's when he notices the lunch lady, who's pouring rat poison into the day's meal. She tries to kill him with a knife, but Buffy comes to the rescue and beats the lunch lady senseless.
And the moral is: Sometimes you really can help the situation by stopping for a tasty snack.

"Choices"
Summary: Everyone's making choices about their futures: where to go to college, what to do with themselves, and where their lives are taking them. The Mayor gives Faith a big scary-lookin' knife as a present, Buffy and Angel express doubts about whether their relationship has a future, and Joyce is pressuring Buffy to leave Sunnydale to go to college. A courier arrives in town with a big box chained to his wrist, and Faith kills him, cutting off his hand to get the box free. Buffy sees Faith taking the box back to the Mayor, and reports back to the rest of the gang. She decides that it's time to take the offensive against the Mayor, and with Angel and Willow's help, busts into City Hall and steals the box away. But there are casualties; unbeknownst to Buffy and Angel, Faith has captured Willow and taken the teen witch to the Mayor. She escapes for a time and gets a look at the Books of Ascension before being caught again by Faith and returned to captivity. Over Wesley's protests, Buffy and Giles arrange to trade the box for Willow, but Principal Snyder and the police break up the exchange, thinking there's a drug deal happening at the school. One of the police officers opens the box, inadvertently releasing some huge, scary-ass bugs, which proceed to kill one officer and try to kill the Mayor. The box is closed, with a couple billion more bugs still inside, and the Mayor takes his prize and leaves, along with Faith.
And the moral is: Don't ever chain anything to your wrist. You're only begging to lose a limb.

Angel dreams of marital bliss, but for Buffy it's just the prom. Maybe he's getting ahead of himself.

"The Prom"
Summary: The Prom is coming up and everybody's hyped on it; despite the problems they've been having lately, Buffy plans on going with Angel, and Xander is asked out in a strange and roundabout way by former demon Anya. But all's not well in Sunnydale; during the day, Joyce pays Angel a visit and lets him know in no uncertain terms that his relationship with Buffy is doomed, and if he really loves Buffy he needs to let her go. Using the pages Willow stole from the Books of Ascension during her time as the Mayor's prisoner in "Choices", Giles discovers that the Ascension will turn the Mayor into a pure, large, scary demon. Angel's nightmares and the words of those around him convince him that his relationship with Buffy needs to end, so he calls it quits that night. Their break is painful and anything but clean, and he insists that after they beat the Mayor, he's going to leave town. Xander spots Cordelia in a clothing store and goes in to give her a hard time, only to find that she's working there -- her parents lost all of their money for tax fraud, and she had to get a job in order to buy a dress for the prom. Their conversation is interrupted when a demonic creature busts into the store and attacks the kids trying on formalwear. Reviewing the store's security tapes, the Scoobies notice a boy outside the window with some kind of controller who appears to be manipulating the Hellhound inside. Concluding that the creatures have been trained to attack people in tuxedos and prom dresses, and that they'll be unleashed on the dance, Buffy skips the prom and goes after the student who's been breeding the creatures, then kills the Hellhounds before they can get at any of the dance-goers. She then goes in to enjoy the dance herself, and is named "class protector" by her peers. Angel shows up in a tux, and they share one bittersweet dance, knowing that eventually the night will end and Angel will still have to leave town.
And the moral is: High school will spawn quite a few deranged individuals with a burning need to get even. Watch out for these people, because their pets just might be demonic dogs.

Ascension draws near for the Mayor.

"Graduation Day, Part 1"
Summary: The Scoobies are trying frantically to prepare for the coming Ascension, which they already determined would be happening on Sunnydale High's graduation day. But the Mayor's preparing, too -- by eating those big-ass bugs from the box in "Choices" -- and it's essential that he keep Buffy from finding out anything else about the Ascension. He sends Faith to kill a professor who might've been able to offer some information about the Ascension. But as it turns out, the gang has another source in Anya, who witnessed a previous Ascension during her demon days. As they're discussing how to stop this from happening, the Mayor himself walks in, threatening the group, and doesn't even flinch when Giles stabs him with a sword. Anya plans to blow town during the Ascension, and Buffy is likewise trying to get her mom to take an out-of-town vacation until the danger's clear, but Joyce refuses to go. Oz and Willow have sex for the first time (no doubt scarring AmyRat for life), and Buffy and Angel have an argument in the street, until it's cut short by Faith, who shoots Angel with an arrow from a nearby rooftop. Back at the library, Buffy's patching Angel up as the others discuss the Ascension, but there's obviously something wrong; the arrow Faith shot Angel with was poisoned. When the Watcher's Council refuses to produce a cure for the toxin that's going to kill Angel, Buffy officially quits the Council. The rest of the Scoobies discover what the poison is, but the only cure is the blood of a Slayer. Buffy goes to get Faith to use her blood to cure Angel, and they have a showdown at Faith's apartment. They end up on the roof, where Buffy stabs Faith with her own knife. Faith jumps off the rooftop and ends up in the back of a passing truck, out of Buffy's reach.
And the moral is: Don't shoot people with poison when the only cure is your blood. Honestly, it's just not good business.

Angel and Wesley lead the student body into battle against the demon Mayor.

"Graduation Day, Part 2"
Summary: Xander, Cordelia and Giles continue to research the Ascension, while Oz and Willow watch over a dying Angel. Buffy enters the mansion and asks her friends to leave so she can be alone with Angel. She failed to bring Faith to him so he thinks he can't be cured, but she urges him to feed off of her instead. When he refuses, she hits him until he can't control his vampiric reaction and bites her. He rushes her to the hospital, placing her in the doctor's care, then finds a payphone to call her friends. In the next room, the Mayor's come to look in on Faith, who ended up at the hospital and in a coma. When the Mayor overhears a nurse talking about another patient, he realizes it must be Buffy, and when no one's looking, goes into her room and tries to smother the unconscious Slayer. Angel busts in and saves her, facing the furious Mayor down, and the other man leaves, vowing his revenge with the Ascension. Angel is berated by Buffy's friends for feeding from her, and he retreats to hide from the coming day, while Buffy has strange dreams of Faith. When she wakes, she's found the key to defeating the Mayor, and the Scoobies begin to plan their defense. There will be a solar eclipse during the Ascension, which puts Angel back in the game and also makes vampire henchmen useful to the Mayor. The Scoobies visit their classmates and get them in on the act, and when the time finally comes, as the Mayor begins to turn into a giant snake, the graduating students pull weapons from underneath their robes, ready to confront the Mayor and his vampire gang. As the students battle the vampires under Scooby leadership, Buffy taunts the Mayor with Faith's knife, playing on his apparent love for Faith and getting the snake-Mayor to pursue her through the school building. Once he's trapped inside, Buffy exits the building and, using explosives procured by Xander from the Army base, blows up the school and the Mayor with it. In the aftermath, Angel leaves quietly, without saying goodbye, and Buffy can do nothing but watch him go.
And the moral is: Don't get mad -- get blown into snake-chunks.

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