Buffy the Vampire Slayer Re-Watch: The Witch (Season 1 Episode 3)

When a teenage vampire slayer also goes to high school, things can get quite magical.

Buffy Summers is the chosen one; the one girl in all the world who can kill the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness.

In this installment of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we get a really great look at the “forces of darkness” portion of the slayer story, and we get a glimpse into some of the lighthearted heroic fun that would help cement the WB hit into its place in pop culture history.

While the two-part series premiere relied heavily on the show’s fundamental premise, slaying vampires, Joss Whedon takes a sharp left turn in its follow up episodes where he reminds the audience that while Buffy is a kick-ass heroine, she’s also a sixteen year old girl in high school.

Sunnydale High is a rich backdrop for the series. Students and teachers of all kinds attend the fictional hallowed halls, and some of the more mystical ones present Buffy with the unique challenges of balancing her slayer duties with her strong desire to live a normal teenage life.

Part of that normal life involves becoming a cheerleader.

Giles: You have a sacred birthright, Buffy. You’ve been chosen to destroy vampires, not to wave pom-poms at people!

Something strange is happening to the cheerleaders at Sunnydale High. Some are losing their sight, others are losing their mouths, and some are on fire…literally. It’s left a few openings on the squad, and a new mystery for the Scooby gang to solve.

Enter Amy Madison, one of Buffy’s classmates who is trying out for the Sunnydale cheer leading squad alongside the vampire slayer. Amy is a bit of a wallflower and we know nearly immediately that something is off with her. Her constant remarks about her seemingly overbearing mother give major clues into what’s actually happening to the cheerleaders.

Amy’s mom, Catherine, pulls a Freaky-Friday with her. They’ve switched bodies so that Catherine might recapture her glory days as a cheerleader. Due to Amy’s poor showing at tryouts however, Catherine needs to use her witchy skills to eliminate a long list of alternates in order to land Amy a coveted spot on the squad, including Buffy.

Buffy and her mother Joyce have a parallel story to the one between Amy and Catherine. While Amy and Catherine can’t communicate because Catherine is full of selfish ambition, Buffy and Joyce are having difficulty because of Joyce’s attempt to try and start fresh in Sunnydale and make this move successful.

Joyce is in a state of parental denial, one that we can partially understand because of the context clues we’ve been given about Buffy’s history in “Welcome to the Hellmouth.” Buffy’s slayer duties are a mystery to Joyce, who just thinks her daughter gets mixed up with the wrong crowd.

Joyce finds ways to distract herself in order to avoid seeing the obvious in front of her: Buffy is inherently a good kid, one who’s really trying her best, and what she really needs is to come home at the end of the day to a supportive mom.

Unfortunately, she’s going about it all wrong, and Buffy is mistaking it for Joyce trying to mold her into a miniature version of herself. Joyce finally sits down with Buffy and admits that she doesn’t understand her. These two can’t find a middle ground. It’s a conflict that will continue, so long as Buffy keeping slaying vampires a secret from Joyce.

Interestingly enough though, this episode DOES mark Buffy’s admission of being a vampire slayer to Joyce. Buffy is also in the middle of a spell shutting down her body and Joyce brushes it off as Buffy babbling nonsense. Oh, Joyce…the answer was right in front of you!

Elsewhere in “The Witch,” Xander admits to Willow that he has a crush on Buffy. I guess he and Willow aren’t spending very much time mourning the loss of their good friend Jesse. How close were they, that he is so easily replaced by Buffy in the span of just a few days? Obviously not very.

A Xander and Buffy romance seems like a bad idea waiting to happen. First off, Buffy is a slayer. A human boyfriend would only serve as a distraction from her duties, and odds are, he’d end up as bait. And we like Xander too much to see him end up in a similar “bait” boat as Jesse. (Seriously dude, RIP.)

Willow’s jealousy of Xander’s crush is telling. She’s obviously still got eyes for her bestie that aren’t going away after the big Barbie breakup. Luckily for her, Buffy just sees Xander as “one of the girls,” and with that, we can all let out a sigh of relief that Buffy and Xander are not going to happen. (At least not in the near future.)

Giles is a giddy little schoolboy about living on the Hellmouth. His excitement about witches and magic reminds me of waking up on Christmas morning to find a slew of toys under the tree, all with my name on them. Giles easily steps into spell-casting and reversing Catherine’s spells…it’s almost as though he’s done it before, though he says that he hasn’t. I’m scratching my head on this one!  *wink wink*

This also marks the first time we see Giles show genuine concern for Buffy the person and not just Buffy the slayer. His anger at Catherine/Amy and urgency in reviving Buffy show a bond that feels deeper. His disdain for cheer leading and cautioning of Buffy’s extra curricular activities show that he’s starting to care for Buffy beyond just being her Watcher.

He’s becoming the parental figure that Joyce can’t be in the supernatural world.

“The Witch” is a perfect lighter follow-up to the vamp heavy start to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It looks like Sunnydale isn’t safe day or night.

Pop Into Pop Culture:

• Mommy Dearest is a biography of actress Joan Crawford
• Sabrina is a teenage witch made famous from the Archie comics. (And the TGIF series, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which premiered just a few months earlier.)
• “Farrah hair” refers to the late Farrah Fawcett’s iconic feathered haircut.
• “Gidget hair” refers to the Sally Field’s sitcom about teen girl, Gidget, who also had an iconic haircut of her own.
• “Macho Man” is a classic song by the Village People (they also sing the party favorite, “YMCA.”)

Today’s Music Was Brought to You By:

• “Twilight Zone” by 2 Unlimited was a club and radio staple in 1997. (Side note: I can remember doing my own cheer leading routine to this tune in the 6th grade.)

Cordelia”isms”:

• When Willow says the Amber is on fire, Cordelia replies with, “UGH, enough of the hyperbole!”
• “If your supreme klutziness out there today takes me out of the running, you’re gonna be so very beyond sorry! Have a nice day.”
• “I’m really sorry you guys got bumped back to alternate. Hold it, wait… No I’m not!”

Angel Watch:

Angel doesn’t make an appearance in “The Witch.” Perhaps he didn’t feel the need to mysteriously show up and warn Buffy about an angry mom switching bodies with her teenage daughter?

Stay tuned for the next installment of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Re-Watch, where we’ll be looking at Season 1 Episodes 4 & 5, and discussing sex and dating in the Buffyverse.