| "The Zeppo" | |||
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| Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode | |||
Newly confident after his secret adventure, Xander is untouched by Cordelia's insults |
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| Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 13 |
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| Directed by | James Whitmore, Jr. | ||
| Written by | Dan Vebber | ||
| Production code | 3ABB13 | ||
| Original air date | January 26, 1999 | ||
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes | |||
"The Zeppo" is episode 13 of season 3 on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Makeup in a Series.[1] Feeling left out by the gang, Xander "befriends" a psychotic student named Jack O'Toole. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang are trying to stop an apocalypse.
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While the Scooby gang slaughters demons in an underground nest, Xander manages to get himself hurt. Buffy suggests he stay out of the fighting. Xander is desperate to find his place after his breakup with Cordelia and the alienation from his friends. When another student throws him a football, he misses and it hits Jack O'Toole's lunch, resulting in Jack threatening to beat him up. Cordelia, having witnessed the entire event, tells Xander he is useless: "You're the Zeppo." Meanwhile, Giles informs Buffy that the end of the world is near. A group is planning to reopen the Hellmouth and bring forth the demons it contains.
After a discussion with Oz about what makes someone cool, Xander gets himself a car that he believes will give him something unique. While getting doughnuts for the rest of the researching gang, Xander meets Lysette, who likes his car and wants to go for a ride. As it turns out, the car really is the only thing she's interested in. At The Bronze that night, Xander rear-ends Jack sitting in a parked car. Jack threatens Xander with a knife. A cop shows up, Xander covers for Jack and the two and Lysette leave to go get the rest of Jack's friends - who, being dead, need to be raised from their graves.
At the library, Buffy, Willow and Giles are researching, while Oz - in werewolf mode - is freaking out in his cage. Willow thinks it's because he can sense trouble. Giles leaves to try and contact some spirits and hopefully get their help with stopping the Sisterhood of Jhe, a group of fierce demons (of the same sort as the ones that the gang killed in the cave a few days before) that plans to end the world.
Xander, drafted as "wheelman", takes Jack and his friends to get supplies to "bake a cake", or rather build a bomb. While the dead boys are getting the supplies from a hardware store, Xander spots Willow leaving the magic shop and tries to talk to her, but she hurries off to go help Buffy. When Jack and friends decide to initiate Xander into their club by killing him and then raising him again, he runs and escapes in his car. He rescues Faith, who was fighting off demons, and takes her to her motel room where she seduces him. She kicks him out, clothes in hand, quickly after.
Meanwhile, back at the library, an enraged werewolf-Oz manages to escape from his cage, requiring Willow to sedate him with twice the normal dose of sedative darts. In order to get him away from the Hellmouth, she locks him in the school basement.
Xander, finding supplies in the car that indicate Jack and his friends have built a bomb at Sunnydale High, heads towards the school to stop it. After disposing of Jack's friends, Xander heads down to the boiler room to defuse the bomb. Jack shows up, and they fight. The fight is inconclusive, but delays Jack so that he has no hope of escaping before the bomb explodes. Xander asks Jack who is more afraid of death. Jack points out that he's already dead, but Xander responds that "'walking around drinking beer with your buddies'-dead is a lot different from 'being blown up and swept up by a janitor'-dead". When Jack confronts Xander about dying, Xander merely remarks, "I like the quiet" and stares at him calmly. Jack defuses the bomb with seconds to spare. Xander leaves Jack there swearing revenge, but when he opens a side door he is eaten by the werewolf Oz. Meanwhile, Buffy, Angel, Faith, Giles and Willow are at the library fending off the giant multi-headed monster and members of the group of female demons and successfully close the Hellmouth.
The next day, everyone comes to school as usual as if nothing happened. The slightly bruised Buffy, Willow, Giles, and Oz sit at a table reeling at how close the world came to an end the night before. Oz, despite knowing he was locked up as a werewolf, cannot understand why his stomach feels "oddly full". Just then, Xander comes by to chat with them. After a few seconds of talk, Xander decides to keep his harrowing night to himself aware that his friends will never believe such a story no matter how he tells it. As Xander walks away, he runs into Cordelia who once again taunts him as before, but Xander, newly confident, merely smiles and walks by.
"The Zeppo" is a twist on the show format, which normally consists of an action-packed "A-story" and a character-development "B-story". Here, Xander's feelings of inadequacy develop into the A-story while a stereotypical epic episode of Buffy and the others saving the world is pushed to the background to become the B. Most of the apocalypse story elements come across as background events, happening offscreen, only in small bits, or being talked about afterwards by the characters.
This episode has proved very influential on later television writers. In his "Production Notes: Doodles in the Margins of Time" in 2007, Doctor Who executive producer Russell T Davies cites "The Zeppo" along with Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Lower Decks" as an influence on his 2006 Doctor Who episode "Love & Monsters".[2] The episode provided a television format which came to be known as the "Doctor-lite episode", an annual tradition for Doctor Who since 2006.[3]
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