What's My Line, Part One
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| “What's My Line, Part One” | |
|---|---|
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode | |
 |
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| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 9 |
| Guest stars | Seth Green (Oz) Bianca Lawson (Kendra) James Marsters (Spike) Juliet Landau (Drusilla) Armin Shimerman (Principal Snyder) |
| Written by | Howard Gordon and Marti Noxon |
| Directed by | David Solomon |
| Production no. | 5V09 |
| Original airdate | November 17, 1997 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "The Dark Age" | "What's My Line, Part Two" |
"What's My Line, Part One" is episode 9 of season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. See also List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes.
Contents |
[edit] Plot synopsis
[edit] Summary
Buffy, unsatisfied with her options for her future, endures Career Week at school while balancing slaying and dating. Spike, wishing to get rid of Buffy for good so that nothing will impede Dru's recovery, calls in the Order of Taraka, an ancient order of assassins; three strangers subsequently arrive in town. Spike and Drusilla get closer to finding her cure when they find the key to decoding the ancient text, and Angel is imprisoned by an unidentified assailant. Buffy, awaiting his return, falls asleep in his bed. When she wakes, she finds herself fending off Angel's attacker, who identifies herself as "Kendra, the Vampire Slayer."
[edit] Expanded overview
As career week arrives, Buffy feels isolated and apathetic because the students around her are exploring their choices for the future, while her fate as the Slayer is already set in stone. Snyder (who neither knows nor cares about her predicament), however, is forcing her to participate in the activities (his "Hoop of the Week"). Willow, Buffy, and Xander fill out career questionnaires, debating whether or not they like shrubs (Willow comes down on the side of shrubs, and Buffy concurs). Willow asks her if she isn't at all curious about other possibilities and Buffy snaps at her. Xander breaks the tension by joking that with that kind of attitude, Buffy could have "had a bright future as an employee at the DMV."
Spike works on a cure for Drusilla as she lays out Tarot cards. He oversees a transcriber who is working to decode a book that had been stolen from Giles. Spike becomes frustrated and snaps at Drusilla when she interrupts to ask him to dance, then gently apologizes and comforts her. He complains that they are running out of time, and that the Slayer is thwarting his every move. Spike and Dru are then informed that the book is not in a language at all, and that the transcriber doesn't know what to do. Drusilla, examining her cards, tells Spike that the transcriber can't help them without the Key, because it is in code. The cards indicate the location of the Key, and Spike picks Drusilla up and spins her around the room.
When making her rounds at the cemetery, Buffy witnesses the transcriber stealing an object from a mausoleum. She confronts him, but he escapes when she is distracted by another vampire who emerges from the shadows. She enters her bedroom through the window out of habit, despite the fact that her mother is out of town for a few days, and finds Angel waiting to warn her of grave danger, and she notes with irritation that he does this a lot. She apologizes, and they discuss her issues with career week. She confesses that she wishes sometimes for a normal life. He discovers her childhood obsession with Dorothy Hamill (Dorothy dolls, posters, and haircut), and offers to take her ice skating the following day. At school the next morning, the test results are revealed. Cordelia brags that she has potential to be a motivational speaker, and Xander is distressed to learn that the test has pegged him as a future prison guard. Buffy's results predict a future in law enforcement, much to her chagrin. Willow's name was mysteriously absent from the list. Buffy reports to Giles about the previous night's patrol. He is distressed when she tells him about the theft from the mausoleum, and disappointed with her lack of effort to discover the stolen item. She snaps at him and continues complaining about her situation, which frustrates Giles, who wants to focus on the stolen object.
Spike and Drusilla examine a gold cross on a red velvet pillow, and Dru notes that it hums, confirming that it is the one they need. Spike declares that he must get rid of Buffy to ensure Dru's successful recovery. He decides to call out "the big guns", the Order of Turaka (bounty hunters). Back at school, Willow is taken into a secluded lounge area to be recruited by a leading software company, along with Oz, the boy who has been watching her for weeks. Giles and Buffy discuss her future, and Giles encourages her to think of options for a career, as she will need to lead something of a double life. He suggests that she consider law enforcement, earning him a silent glare. At the mausoleum, Giles realizes with concern that duLac (a member of a religious sect that had been excommunicated by the Vatican) is buried there. He puts the pieces together, realizing that the book that had been stolen from his library had been written by duLac. The book, he explains, is full of extremely evil dark spells and rituals, but was written in archaic Latin so that it could not be translated without a key, which he believes is what the vampire took from the tomb.
In the meantime, the assassins begin to arrive. A large, intimidating man exits a bus, and a generic-looking man walks down the sidewalk past Buffy's house and up to her next-door neighbor's door. He knocks, and gains an invitation inside by offering the lady of the house free beauty products. The door closes, and she screams. A young woman attacks an airplane worker in the cargo hold of a plane, escaping with little difficulty.
In the library, Giles tells Buffy, Xander, and Willow that duLac had invented the "duLac Cross", which can be used to decipher certain texts. He shows them a picture of the gold cross that Spike and Drusilla now have, which is the only one of its kind. Giles, wanting to figure out exactly what is in the book before the thieves do, enlists the gang for help with research, but Buffy, looking to Willow for help, evades research duties for her ice skating date with Angel. She arrives first, and begins skating alone. She is soon attacked by one of the assassins, and Angel arrives in time to help her fight him off. When the assassin puts a chokehold on Angel, Buffy slices his throat with the blade of her skate. Drusilla, turning a tarot card, can sense the assassin's death, but she and Spike are confident that the other assassins will be successful, or that they will decode the manuscript in time. Angel, recognizing the assassin's ring, asks Buffy if she knows what it means ("I just killed a Super Bowl Champ?"), and then warns her that she should leave Sunnydale and hide. He tries to turn away when she reaches for his wounded forehead, finally admitting that he doesn't want Buffy to have to touch his vampire face. She assures him that she hadn't even noticed, and kisses him as the female from the plane watches from above. Back in the library, Buffy shows the assassin's ring to Giles, who recognizes the mark of the Order of Turaka. He echoes Angel's recommendation that Buffy hide, warning her of the very serious threat that the Order poses to their targets; they have no earthly desires other than taking out their target, and they will just keep coming until the job is done.
The assassin posing as the beauty salesman has settled in the house of the woman he killed, where he can watch Buffy's house through a window. His body parts disintegrate into hundreds of writhing worms, feeding on the dead body of Buffy's neighbor, and reshape themselves into limbs at will. Back at school, Buffy is paranoid and jittery, suspicious of each person who passes by in the hallway. As Oz passes her, she panics and pins him against a locker. Oz declares her to be a "tense person" and walks off. On her way home that evening, Buffy contemplates entering her dark and empty house, but she reconsiders and heads off in another direction. In the library, the research continues and Giles and Xander are concerned about Buffy's safety. Buffy arrives at Angel's empty home and falls asleep in his bed waiting for him to return. He goes to Willy's bar for information and ignores Willy's protests that he doesn't want to be a snitch. Willy finally confirms Angel's suspicions that Spike is behind the assassins, but before Angel can leave he is attacked by the mysterious female. They fight, and she locks him in a metal cage in front of an eastern window, with only a few short hours until sunrise.
Back at the library, Giles continues worrying about Buffy. He encourages Xander to call Cordelia for a ride to Buffy's house, and awakens Willow, who had fallen asleep ("Don't warn the tadpoles!" she exclaims, subsequently explaining that she has "frog fears"), and shows her a description of the missing manuscript, which is a ritual to restore a weakened vampire back to health. They realize immediately that Spike and Drusilla are the most likely culprits. In the meantime, Spike's transcriber completes his work on the text. At Buffy's house, Xander and Cordelia trade insults and try to find a way in. Xander climbs through a window and opens the door for Cordelia. Xander searches the house for Buffy while Cordelia waits downstairs. She hears a knock at the door and lets in the centipede assassin, again appearing as a make-up salesman promising free samples. In Angel's bedroom, Buffy awakes to find herself being attacked by the mysterious woman. They fight, and the woman tells Buffy that her name is Kendra, the Vampire Slayer.
[edit] Production details
- The hold of the plane in which Kendra arrived in Sunnydale was used as a sewer tunnel in later episodes.
- The ice rink is called Iceland, it's found at 8041 Jackson Street in Paramount, California. This is around 25 miles from where Buffy was filmed. Sarah Michelle Gellar is a fan of ice skating in real life.
[edit] Music
- Vivaldi - "Spring" from "The Four Seasons".
[edit] Cultural References
- Dorothy Hamill - When Buffy talks about a “Dorothy Hamill phase”, she means ice-skating since Hamill was an American ice-skater who won a gold medal in the 1976 Winter olympics.
- Seattle-Tacoma International Airport - The software recruiter says to Willow “The jet was delayed by fog at Sea Tac but he should be here any minute.”.
- The Simpsons - Buffy says to Giles “Have a cow Giles.” She is playing on The Simpsons phrase used by Bart Simpson, "Don’t have a cow" (which means 'don’t get worked up').
- What's My Line? - Was an American game show which ran from 1950 to 1963. Contestants had to guess what unusual jobs or products were linked to mysterious guests from clues given by the host (John Charles Daly). The UK version featured the mystery guests miming their jobs.
- My Fair Lady - After Dalton has a success, Spike says "By George, I think he's got it," playing on Henry Higgin's (played by Rex Harrison) singing line "By George, she's got it! I think she's got it!"
[edit] Translations
- Italian title: "L'unione fa la forza - I parte" ("Togetherness is strength - Part 1")
- German title: "Die Rivalin" ("The rival (fem.)")
- Japanese title: "バフィーの運命 パート１" ("Bafī no Unmei Pāto 1" - "Buffy's Fate, Part 1")
[edit] Quotes and trivia
- Kendra is the first vampire Slayer besides Buffy to be featured on the show.
- Buffy fights two vampires, she dusts one before seeing the other run away, "One down, one… gone.". The same situation plays out with two demons in "Earshot".
- The spectacled vampire, Dalton, also later appeared in "Surprise".
- It is revealed there are forty-three churches in Sunnydale.
- On the table in Angel's apartment there are two ashtrays, although he is never seen smoking while good.
- Buffy and Oz's rather violent first encounter will not be recalled by either on them on later occasions, although when he first sees her slay a vampire at her birthday he comments that it "Explains a lot".
[edit] Continuity
[edit] Arc significance
- Darla had asked Angel (in the episode "Angel"), if he thought that Buffy would ever be able to kiss his 'real face'. She did in this episode.
- Willow and Oz finally properly meet, having almost done so in two previous episodes, "Inca Mummy Girl" and "Halloween".
- Willy’s Place is seen for the first time. The bar also appeared in many other episodes including "Amends", "The Zeppo", "Goodbye, Iowa" and "Family".
- The term, “Scooby Gang”, is used for the first time (by Xander), "C’mon, Cordelia. You want to be a member of the Scooby Gang you gotta be willing to be inconvenienced every now and then.". Previously Xander and Willow had both used Scooby merchandise such as T-shirts, and a lunch box.
[edit] Timing
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
| Location, time (if known) |
Buffyverse chronology: Fall 1997 - Spring 1998 (non-canon = italic) |
|---|---|
| Sunnydale, fall 1997 | B2.01 When She Was Bad |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | Tales of the Slayers: Broken Bottle of Djinn, 1997 |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | B2.02 Some Assembly Required |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | Tales of the Vampires: The Problem with Vampires |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | Buffy graphic novel: Spike & Dru: The Queen of Hearts |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | B2.03 School Hard |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | B2.04 Inca Mummy Girl |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | B2.05 Reptile Boy |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | Buffy graphic novel: Dust Waltz |
| Sunnydale, October 1997 | B2.06 Halloween |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | B2.07 Lie to Me |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | Buffy book: Keep Me In Mind |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | Buffy book: The Suicide King |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | Buffy book: Colony |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | Buffy book: Night Terrors |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | B2.08 The Dark Age |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | B2.09 What's My Line, Part One |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | B2.10 What's My Line, Part Two |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | Buffy book: After Image |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | Buffy book: Carnival of Souls |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | B2.11 Ted |
| Sunnydale, 1997 | B2.12 Bad Eggs |
| Boston, December 1997 - June 1998 | Buffy book: Go Ask Malice: A Slayer's Diary |
| Sunnydale, 1997/8 | Buffy book: Blooded |
| Sunnydale, 1998 | B2.13 Surprise |
| Sunnydale, 1998 | B2.14 Innocence |
| Sunnydale, 1998 | B2.15 Phases |
| Sunnydale, 1998 | B2.16 Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered |
| Sunnydale, 1998 | B2.17 Passion |
| Sunnydale, 1998 | Buffy graphic novel: Ring of Fire |
| Sunnydale, 1998 | B2.18 Killed by Death |
| Sunnydale, 1998 | B2.19 I Only Have Eyes for You |
| Sunnydale, 1998 | B2.20 Go Fish |
| Sunnydale, spring 1998 | B2.21 Becoming, Part One |
| Sunnydale, spring 1998 | B2.22 Becoming, Part Two |
| Sunnydale, spring 1998 | Buffy graphic novel: Spike & Dru: Paint the Town Red |
[edit] External links
- What's My Line?: Part 1 at the Internet Movie Database
- Soulful Spike Society analysis of What’s My Line Part 1
