Lies My Parents Told Me (Buffy episode)

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
“Lies My Parents Told Me”
Image:Buffy717.jpg
Episode no. Season 7
Episode 17
Guest star(s) Anthony Stewart Head
   (Giles)
Tom Lenk
   (Andrew)
Iyari Limon
   (Kennedy)
Indigo
   (Rona)
Caroline Lagerfelt
   (Anne)
K.D. Aubert
   (Nikki)
Juliet Landau
   (Drusilla)
DB Woodside
   (Principal Wood)
Writer(s) David Fury and Drew Goddard
Director David Fury
Production no. 7ABB17
Original airdate March 25, 2003
Episode chronology
← Previous Next →
"Storyteller" "Dirty Girls"

"Lies My Parents Told Me" is the seventeenth episode in season 7 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. See also List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes.

Contents

[edit] Plot synopsis

[edit] Summary

The gang investigates Spike's trigger; Principal Wood and Giles team up without Buffy.

[edit] Expanded overview

New York, 1977: Spike is fighting an African-American slayer in a park at night in pouring rain while her son watches from his hiding place behind a bench. Spike has the opportunity to kill her but the kid distracts him and he lets her go with the promise that they'll meet again. "Love the coat," he adds with a smile, before he leaves. When he's gone, a clearly troubled Nikki Wood finds her son and calms his fears by telling him, "The mission is what matters."

Willow mends a wounded Dawn after Spike's sudden attack in the basement.
Enlarge
Willow mends a wounded Dawn after Spike's sudden attack in the basement.

The scene switches to an alley in present-day Sunnydale. Buffy, Principal Robin Wood and Spike are fighting a bunch of vampires. Buffy and Spike manage to kill their quarry, but a vampire has knocked Wood to the ground, and is about to kill him. Spike saves Wood by killing the vampire from behind, then helps him up. Wood thanks him, but the camera zooms in on the stake he's holding and we see blood dripping from his hand. He still seems determined to have his revenge, only not just now . . .

Previously, the First Evil had programmed Spike with a post-hypnotic suggestion in his mind that allows it to turn Spike violent using an old song, Early One Morning, as a trigger. This way the First was able to command him to kill again. Buffy wants to find out how to turn it off so that she can fully trust Spike against the First, but Giles opposes Buffy. In his opinion, Spike's dangerous and must be contained (aka disposed of).

With all that happening the Scoobies go to the basement of Buffy's house, where Willow makes a spell with the Prokaryote stone, a magical artifact that penetrates Spike's mind and makes him more conscious of how the trigger works. In this way, we learn about his past, his sick mother and how he turned her into a vampire only to be cruelly rejected by her later. The song that his mother used to sing makes him relive the whole episode and switch into his evil, soulless self. He unwillingly hurts Dawn in the process and scares them all, except Buffy.

After the scene, Wood privately convinces Giles that Spike must die. Giles learns that Wood is the son of Nikki, a Slayer now dead, and that Spike murdered her. After a brief chat they make a plan. Giles is to distract Buffy while Wood takes care of Spike. Giles takes Buffy on patrol and begins asking her indirect questions and making obscure references to her role against the First.

Spike and his mother Anne, newly a vampire.
Enlarge
Spike and his mother Anne, newly a vampire.

In the meantime, Wood takes Spike to his hideout with the promise to protect him, but this feeling is clearly undermined as soon as they enter and it is revealed that the walls are covered with crosses. Wood reveals to Spike that he knows he murdered his mother and that he's going to kill the monster inside him. Wood then goes to his computer and starts "Early One Morning" in iTunes. This triggers Spike's violent, monstrous self and the two fight. As the fight progresses, Spike continues to relive the events that transpired between him and his mother on a more conscious level, due to the Prokaryote Stone. Wood defeats Spike and prepares to stake him when Spike regains control of his own mind, having faced his own anger and regret on turning his mother into a vampire and then being forced to kill her. Spike then decisively defeats Wood, and demonstrates that the song has no more power over him as he appears to bite into Wood's neck in revenge.

All the while, Buffy had been fighting a vampire at the cemetery and talking to Giles, when she suddenly realizes that Giles is trying to distract her while Wood kills Spike. She kills the vampire, leaves Giles and rushes to Wood's place. Buffy finds Spike at Wood's place, with Wood badly beaten, but alive. Spike tells her that he spared Wood out of respect for his mother, but if Wood tries anything again, he'll kill Wood. Buffy goes inside, and tells him that she needs Spike alive and that she has no time for personal vendettas. She promises him that if he tries anything like this again, she'll LET Spike kill him. "The mission is what matters," she says firmly, and Wood winces to hear his mother's words repeated all over again, by a different Slayer.

Once at home, Buffy tells Giles that his and Wood's plan failed. In spite of that, he tries to pick up from where they left off earlier, and continue the interrupted lesson. But Buffy says icily that she already knows everything he can teach her. And with that, she closes the door in his face.

[edit] Writing and acting

[edit] Production details

[edit] Music

  • When William's mother sings "Early One Morning" to him she sings it incorrectly. The first 2 lines are;
"Early one morning,
just as the sun was rising"

Whereas she sings

"Early one morning,
just as the sun was shining."

[edit] Quotes and trivia

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  • In the graveyard where Buffy is fighting a vampire while discussing Spike, Giles admits that he has killed a human before. (Giles killed Ben in the Season 5 Finale, "The Gift", so Glory could not return) However, his confession was cut from the episode.
  • Spike's brainwashing trigger, based on a troubled relationship with his mother, is reminiscent of the brainwashing trigger used in "The Manchurian Candidate." In the John Frankenheimer film, Raymond Shaw is triggered to kill by the Queen of Hearts, which he associates with his mother. Both "Lies My Parents Told Me" and "The Manchurian Candidate" hinted at mother-son incestuous desires.

[edit] Continuity

[edit] Arc significance

  • Crossover with Angel: During this episode Willow receives a telephone call from Fred, causing her to go to Los Angeles in "Orpheus".

[edit] Timing

  • Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
Location, time
(if known)
Buffyverse: January 2003 - Spring 2003
(non-canon = italic)
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.11 Showtime
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.12 Potential
L.A., 2003 A4.11 Soulless
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.13 The Killer in Me
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.14 First Date
L.A., 2003 A4.12 Calvary
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.15 Get It Done
L.A., 2003 A4.13 Salvage
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.16 Storyteller
L.A., 2003 A4.14 Release
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.17 Lies My Parents Told Me
L.A., 2003 A4.15 Orpheus
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.18 Dirty Girls
L.A., 2003 A4.16 Players
L.A., 2003 Angel book: Nemesis
L.A., 2003 Angel book: Book of the Dead
L.A., 2003 A4.17 Inside Out
L.A., 2003 A4.18 Shiny Happy People
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.19 Empty Places
L.A., 2003 A4.19 The Magic Bullet
L.A., 2003 A4.20 Sacrifice
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.20 Touched
L.A., 2003 A4.21 Peace Out
L.A., 2003 A4.22 Home
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.21 End of Days
Sunnydale, 2003 B7.22 Chosen

[edit] External links

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