| Written by: | Marti Noxon |
| Directed by: | David Greenwalt |
| Starring: | Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase David Boreanaz as Angel Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles |
| Guest Starring: | Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers Jeremy Ratchford as Lyle Gorch James Parks as Tector Gorch Rick Zieff as Mr. Whitmore |
| Co-Starring: | Danny Strong as Jonathan Brie McCaddin as Cute Girl Eric Whitmore as Night Watchman |
The offspring of a demon turned everyone but Buffy and Xander into pod people.
Buffy and her mother were at the end of a trip to the mall. Just as stores were closing, Buffy was sent to pick up an outfit from "Everyday Woman." On her way there, she noticed a woman talking to someone dressed like a cowboy (Lyle Gorch). Looking in the mirror, she saw just the woman. Buffy caught up with them in an abandoned arcade. Buffy and the cowboy vampire had a fight, wrecking some pinball machines in the process, before he decided that running away would be the best option.
It was sex-ed. time in health class. Xander and Cordelia did their best to answer the wrong questions or to answer the questions the wrong way until a very uncomfortable Willow finally gave an answer that the teacher (Mr. Whitmore) wanted. This led to the class activity of being assigned an egg and pretending that it is a child. Willow assumed that Xander would be her partner, but he went to Cordelia instead. Cordelia rebuffed him so he partnered with an extra.Buffy did not witness these shenanigans as she was busy researching Lyle Gorch. Apparently, Lyle and his brother Tector are fairly vicious; they wiped out an entire village before becoming vampires. However, they were quite dumb. Willow suggested that Buffy patrol with Angel, but Xander thought that they would be too distracted with each other. Buffy denied it.
Of course, the very next shot is of Buffy and Angel kissing while they were supposed to be on patrol. As a result, they did not find Lyle and Tector. Lyle and Tector, however, found Buffy and Angel. Tector did not like seeing a vampire kiss a slayer and wanted to fight them both. Lyle, on the other hand, wanted to wait.
At 2:03 in the morning, Buffy's egg sprouted a tentacle that reached toward Buffy's face. For some reason, she did not wake up. Meanwhile, Lyle and Tector bickered some more about Tector wanting to go after Buffy and Lyle wanting to wait.
The next day, Buffy, Willow, and Xander showed up at the library for research because health class was cancelled when Mr. Whitmore did not show up. Surprisingly, Xander was the most enthusiastic as Buffy and Willow were quite sluggish. Xander speculated that Buffy and Angel spent the night with "big smoochies," but, considering the fact that Willow was equally sluggish, the more likely explanation was the one made by most slash fan fiction writers, that Buffy had the big smoochies with Willow. Xander was willing to suggest that parenthood was the cause of the sluggishness as he tossed his egg around. Apparently he hard-boiled his egg.
Cordelia came in wondering why the group was not thoroughly investigating the Mr. Whitmore's disappearance. She specifically suggested that she and Xander look for him in closets. Even Xander got that hint and enthusiastically left.
A security guard at Sunnydale High noticed that the basement door was open. He went to investigate and found a hole in the basement wall. Then Mr. Whitmore appeared behind him and shoved him in the hole.
Another patrol to look for the Gorch brothers, another night spent kissing Angel instead. When Buffy returned home, she found her egg wiggling. Then some creature completely unrelated to the chicken popped out. It scurried around the room until she stabbed it to death with a pair of scissors. She then called Willow, who claimed that her egg was safely in the refrigerator. As Willow hung up, we saw that her egg was hatched and that Willow simply had a vacant stare.
Joyce eventually investigated the commotion. She was not happy to find Buffy fully dressed and on the phone. She grounded her and insisted that she report to the library immediately after class and stay there until Joyce picked her up at 5:30.
At school, Willow discussed the hatching egg with Buffy. Apparently, Giles wanted to look at whatever hatched from it, so they were all going to meet in a science lab. Meanwhile, Xander decided that he would rather eat his egg than eat a granola bar. He was shocked to find something other than a hard boiled egg inside.
In the science lab, Cordelia's bear backpack started growing tentacles. Then, without warning, she knocked Buffy unconscious with a pole. Willow then knocked Xander unconscious with a microscope. Xander and Buffy were then dragged into a closet as Willow, Cordelia, and others grabbed shovels, pick axes, and other digging tools and proceeded through the hole in the basement wall.
Joyce was fairly upset not to find Buffy in the library. She and Giles had a conversation about the burdens of parenthood when Joyce turned her back on Giles, who promptly placed an egg hatchling on her back. They then marched into the hall with others.
Buffy and Xander woke in the closet with a couple of unhatched eggs. They went to the library to find Giles, but he was already gone. Fortunately, he was taken over just as he found something, as one of the books was already open to the right page. They then heard Jonathan screaming about something attacking him, but he was possessed by the time Buffy and Xander arrived. They decided to follow him to the mother demon (bezoar).
Xander decided to follow Cordelia as she carried a new batch of eggs out while Buffy tried to find a weapon large enough to kill the bezoar. Xander said that he did not want to hurt Cordelia, but punched her out when she smacked him in the same place where Willow hit him with the microscope.
Lyle and Tector decided that this was a good time to show up. They were not sympathetic with Buffy's need to kill the bezoar, so they fought. The fight moved down to the basement, where Willow ordered the other pod people to attack all three of them. Tector found himself distracted by the Bezoar. It decided that he would be good to eat and pulled him into what was probably its mouth.
Lyle was very upset and blamed Buffy. They fought a bit until the bezoar grabbed Buffy as well. She grabbed a pick ax on her way into the bezoar and started hacking. Eventually, the hatchlings all died and dropped from the possessed, who then lapsed into unconsciousness.
When Buffy emerged from the bezoar, Lyle decided that the smart course of action was to flee rather than try to avenge his brother.
The formerly possessed apparently had no memory of what happened. Giles told everyone that it was a gas leak before asking Xander what really happened. Xander assured both Willow and Cordelia that they both hit him.
Joyce was upset that Buffy was not in the library as she was told. She confined Buffy to her room except to go to school or use the bathroom. Later that night, we saw Buffy kissing Angel, at her window in order not to disobey her mother.
I liked the health class scene.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but this is another episode that one can skip without missing anything.
Buffy and Lyle had a brief fight in the mall arcade.
Lyle and Tector decided to fight Buffy just as she was about to kill the bezoar. The fight moved down into the basement, where the pod people attacked all three. It ended with Tector eaten and the bezoar pick-axed from the inside.
The health class was very funny.
The Gorch brothers were probably supposed to be funnier than they were.
This was probably intended to be more dramatic than it was. Most of the drama came from Joyce trying to get Buffy to act more responsibly in her eye while not realizing the fact that Buffy was living up to responsibilities that Joyce did not know about.
Xander and Cordelia overcame their mutual animosity for make-out sessions.
Buffy and Angel's romance is heating up to the point that they spent more time kissing than patrolling when searching for the Gorch brothers.
Joyce believes that Buffy is unreliable and is frustrated in her attempts to get Buffy to be responsible.
Buffy and Angel are now getting so intense in her relationship that they cannot focus on anything else when they are around each other.
Xander helped out, but Buffy gets the MVP for being the one who killed the bezoar and freed the pod people.
Xander gets the award mostly for figuring out that the egg exercise was pointless. Many health teachers in the United States have yet to figure that one out. He also discovered the eggshell in the library and realized that Giles was possessed. Giles discovered the back story on the Gorch brothers and found the reference to the bezoar in his books. Buffy discovered the book open to the bezoar page.
Buffy's kill total shows that vampires should not rush headlong into a fight with Buffy. However, Tector tried to push Lyle into a premature fight. When they got into a fight, Tector let himself be distracted by the bezoar, which was a very dumb thing to do when Buffy is present.
For two people who allegedly do not want anyone to know about their janitorial closet romance, Xander and Cordelia were doing a lousy job at hiding it. Between their bickering about the negative consequences of sex and Xander's desire to partner with Cordelia, I do not see how anyone could not realize that they were involved. I admit that the possibility of Xander being with Cordelia is well beyond Willow's worst nightmares.
We were told that Lyle and Tector Gorch were not very bright. I cannot speak much for Tector Gorch, but Lyle is one of the smartest vampires that we have seen. He fought Buffy once, realized that she was strong, and retreated. He resisted Tector's urgings to attack her and Angel together and waited until he and Tector could gang up on Buffy at a time when she was distracted. When that fight ended with Tector eaten and Buffy emerging from the bezoar, he realized that the wise action was to flee. As a result, he gets listed under Evil Escaped instead of being mentioned as one of Buffy's Kills.
Lyle and Tector Gorch are two characters in The Wild Bunch. In the film, they help massacre a Mexican village, sort of. They actually attack an army platoon in Mexico. Other characters in the film include Pike (the same name as Buffy's boyfriend in a movie that is best forgotten) and Angel.
It is probably a coincidence that the actor who played the night watchman is also a Mr. Whitmore.
"I looked good in it." Buffy
"You looked like a streetwalker." Joyce
"But a thin streetwalker. That's probably not going to be the winning argument, is it?" Buffy
"Don't you ever think about anything besides boys and clothes?" Joyce
"Saving the world from vampires?" Buffy
"Are you saying that you can't look at me when we do whatever it is we do?" Xander
"No, it's not that I can't. It's just more I don't want to." Cordelia
"How many of us have lost countless productive hours plagued by unwanted sexual thoughts and feelings?" Mr. Whitmore
"Yes." Xander
"That was a rhetorical question, Mr. Harris, not a poll." Mr. Whitmore
"It's often difficult to remember that there are negative consequences to having sex. Would anyone care to offer one such consequence?" Mr. Whitmore
"Well, that depends. Are you talking about sex in the car, or out of the car? Because I have a friend, not me, that was in a Miata and parked on the top of the hill and then she kicked a gear shift…" Cordelia
"I was thinking of something a little more commonplace, Miss Chase." Mr. Whitmore
"You wanna talk negative consequence? What about the heartbreak of halitosis? I mean a girl may seem spiffy, but if she ignores her flossing, the bloom is definitely off the rose." Xander
"Like that compares to kissing a guy who thinks the Hoover technique is a big turn-on." Cordelia
"What about having to feign interest in her vapid little chitchat just so you can get some touch?" Xander
"I know we just met, but isn't that Xander Jr. you're holding?" Xander
"Buffy has decided that the problem with English language is all those pesky words. You. Angel. Big. Smoochies." Xander
"I suppose there is a sort of Machiavellian ingenuity to your transgression." Giles
"I resent that! Or possibly thank you." Xander
"Angel, when I look into the future, all I see is you. All I want is you." Buffy
"They [children] can be such a—Oh, I don't want to say, 'burden,' but—Actually I do want to say, 'burden.'" Joyce
"Last time Cordy dragged me in here, it was a lot nicer." Xander
"Did I really hit you?" Willow
"You knocked me out." Xander
"Did I hit you?" Cordelia
"Yes, everyone hit me." Xander
"Good. Well, I don't mean good because I hit you, but I didn't want to be left out." Cordelia
Highlight the space after each question to find the answer. It is strongly recommended that you do not do so if you have not seen episodes through the episode indicated.