OTH: Buffy the Vampire Slayer- "Showtime" / "Potential"
Let's see these new girls show their stuff! Or not.
Season 7, Episode 11
Aired January 7, 2003
Directed by Michael Grossman
Written by David Fury
Synopsis: Since the previous episode, we’ve received a few more Potentials, with more likely to come at any point, all being cramped up in the Summers house. Buffy comes home with another one, a girl named Rona whose payphone call is interrupted by a Bringer trying to stab her. Unlike the Turok-Han from the previous episode, though, Buffy handily takes him down and welcomes her new roomie. After her recent encounter, Rona is shaken up, a feeling shared by most of the Potentials, who have Annabelle’s recent death on their mind, while Buffy can’t offer them any comfort regarding the First or the ubervamp that’s out there. Giles has an idea, though, thinking that they should call up the Beljoxa’s Eye, an oracle-like creature that can offer them guidance, and Anya has an in to find it with a demon named Torg. The two meet up with Torg and, after some convincing, are able to enter the portal to find the eye. Back at home, Buffy decides to finally unbound Andrew, having no time to watch after a hostage, but threatens to take action if he does anything to cross them. And she has no time to expand on her threat, as Willow receives a call that another Potential is staying at a nearby motel. While Buffy and Xander go down to find her, one of the Potentials, Eve, expresses her doubts that they’ll be protected from the First, given everyone’s lack of experience, which some take more seriously than others. At the motel, they receive no reply when Buffy tries knocking at first, but a close inspection from Xander has him telling her to kick the door down. When she does, they find the girl lying dead in a puddle of blood, her body cold for days, but what they find startles them- it’s Eve. Funny that. The two race home and tell her to leave, and “Eve” wastes no time showing her true colors, promising that she’ll bring something deadly later that evening. The Scoobies have a meeting with the Potentials, as Buffy tries to come up with a plan to beat the Turok-Han, which receives some push back as she’s reminded that she has failed to kill it twice. As the Potentials keep arguing with themselves, Buffy, Willow and Xander convene to the kitchen to set up a new plan, involving Willow trying her hand at magic again to create a barrier. We then cut to the First, still taking Eve’s body, as she tells the Turok-Han to kill everyone except “her”. Spike is still bound up, failing his escape attempt earlier in the episode, as he’s reminded that Buffy won’t come to save him. Returning to the Summers house, a group of Bringers are standing outside, but they’re not here for anyone inside, but rather are there to stop something from coming in, which they fail to when the Turok-Han attempts to break through the barrier. As it nearly does, Buffy tells everyone to escape, weapons in hand, as they head outside and she shares their plan- she’ll stay and fight, while everyone else escapes to a safe place, which Xander leads them to. They arrive at the currently-under-construction public library, where Willow starts a spell for a new barrier before realizing that it’s too late, as the Turok-Han enters. At first, everyone is worried that it killed Buffy, but it turns out that she lead it to them, which Dawn thinks was the plan all along. She’s right, as we flashback to the meeting from earlier, where the core 3 set up this plan telepathically. At first, it looks like she’s losing again, but Buffy comes up from behind the vampire and lands a few good blows, before strangling it with some wire and decapitating the Turok-Han, which turns to dust before riling up the censors. Buffy used this as a tool to show the girls that whatever the First will send at them, they can, in fact, handle. “Eve” saw this as well, and presumably took notes.
In the Beljoxa Eye’s dimension, it tells Giles and Anya that the First is unable to be killed, and it only exists as it does due to the disturbance in the Slayer’s line, with this Slayer still being alive. At first, Anya blames herself, being responsible for resurrecting Buffy, but I’ll remind you all here- that wasn’t the first time she was brought back to life, nor is this her first encounter with the original evil. And the episode ends with Buffy, with a recent scar on her head, finding Spike and freeing him.
Okay, so if we can’t be sure that everyone who we run into is really them and not The First in disguise, the ante must surely be upped.
It’s still evident that the First can only take the form of those who have died, including Buffy, who has been returned to her life thanks to Willow’s magic, but a case like Eve’s, where she was really killed before meeting up with the Slayer and Potentials, is still entirely within the realm of possibility.
Freaky, right? How can you be so sure that you’re talking to a real person, and not the embodiment of evil? “Showtime” touches on that, but its highest concern is proving that nothing is too powerful for Buffy to handle. Or rather, any of the Scoobies and their newly-added Potentials, if they work together and listen to her.
While the Turok-Han took a second episode to knock out, she was able to accomplish victory with the help of Willow and Xander, who have the advantage of working together for multiple years at this point. With Buffy’s strength, Willow’s magic and Xander’s fast-thinking (I’m being nice here, calling him a distraction just sounds mean), they’ve been able to take on everything from strange combinations of man, demon and machine to literal gods, which proves what a strong, long-lasting bond can do.
The problem that Kennedy and the other Potentials have is that they don’t have the time to build as strong of a connection as these three have, but as we saw in the previous episode, even the tightest-knit friendship can’t always help you. Sometimes dumb luck is all it takes, but you need to be prepared for the worst.
“Showtime” is a good episode, with a cathartic last act, yet there’s still a long way to go before we’re through.
Season 6, Episode 12
Aired January 21, 2003
Directed by James A. Contner
Written by Rebecca Rand Kushner
Synopsis: The Potentials are taking to their training, even if Buffy’s a little too firm. Spike, on the other hand, is quite popular as a dummy, and has the girls want to improve themselves. While they’re getting in a groove, Willow receives a call to inform them that a new Potential is located right there in Sunnydale and may be someone that they know. She has no other intel, but she agrees to stay and use a locator spell to find her. At first, it looks like this was a wash, since the spell comes out smelling extra rank and takes its time forming itself, but it soon latches onto the right person- Dawn. Willow and Xander are excited, although Anya keeps bringing up the likely statistics of Dawn’s life as a Slayer, while the youngest Summers has multiple thoughts rushing to her head, like her encounter with her “mother”, who said that she and Buffy will be teared apart. Dawn asks if they keep the news from her sister for the time being and runs to her room, although the other three (well, four- Andrew joined in) keep talking, and she can hear their every word. Dawn escapes through her bedroom window and runs into Amanda, the girl with a penchant for violence who Buffy had a meeting with earlier in the episode. Dawn notices a scratch on Amanda’s head, which she says came from a vampire at the school. She came over to the Summers house due to the rumors she’s heard about Buffy, but since she’s busy, Dawn offers to take her place and the two head to Sunnydale High. A classroom that Amanda said was previously locked is now open, and as they enter, a vampire is waiting for them at the front of the class. He chases the girls across the hall, while Dawn is able to temporarily stun him by hitting the vamp with a fire extinguisher as they return to the class. They barricade the door with a bookshelf. That keeps them safe from the vampire, but the Bringers jump in and attempt to kidnap Amanda. Realizing that this is a chemistry class, Dawn starts a fire to stun the Bringers, while Amanda finds a stake and dusts the vampire. At the same time all of this is going on, Buffy and Spike show the Potentials around town, first to a pit stop at Willy’s to familiarize them with popular demon haunts, and then inside a crypt where a vampire’s leftover awakens. Buffy fights the new vampire and leaves it paralyzed, but not defeated, only to then lock the Potentials inside without her or Spike as she hopes that they can handle this vamp themselves. The episode ends with the girls succeeding and welcoming in their newest Potential, who slayed a vampire all on her own. Dawn learns that when the locator spell came for her, Amanda was right outside the door, and gives her the moment. While she feels unimportant at first, Xander can relate and offers the moment to reveal to her that he’s always found her extraordinary. Dawn appreciates this coming from her longtime crush and names his power, the ability to see what’s really going on with his loved ones, barriers be damned.
Why can’t Dawn be a Potential? There’s no evidence that Slayers are hereditary, but Dawn is no ordinary sister- she was brought to life with the same blood that pumps Buffy full of life, after all. If anyone has the potential to be a, well, Potential, it should be her, right?
Obviously genetics aren’t everything. Jim Belushi isn’t nearly as funny as John, after all (although he is a decent dramatic actor- supposedly even John said this to his little bro’s face before passing). And at the end of the day, while she’s able to learn many of Buffy’s vampire-slaying tactics for herself, Dawn just wasn’t gifted with her sister’s powers. That doesn’t make her any less of a person. Being annoying can make you a little less of a person, but hey, she’s no longer the most annoying person in the crew, now that Andrew is kind of a part of the Scoobies.
I liked Dawn’s character arc with her potential of, well, being a Potential. First, like many in Campbell’s hero’s journey, she refuses the call, thinking that this was a mistake and tries to heed the warning she received from her mother (even though she was the First in disguise), before eventually jumping in when running into a scared and confused Amanda, ending with disappointment that she wasn’t accepted. She had a taste of the power, liked it, but ultimately wasn’t invited into the world.
It’s almost the exact opposite from Kennedy and the Potentials, who have been told that they have the ability to become incredible warriors but have seldom proved it. Until the last act of the previous episode, none of them had seen a vampire in person. But now Buffy is ready to take the kiddy gloves off and have them face one without her or Spike’s guidance, but we don’t see their journey for as long as we focus on Dawn’s this week.
That’s ultimately for the best, as hers and Amanda’s story is more engaging (it helps that Trachtenberg and Sarah Hagan are stronger actors and have better chemistry than any of the other Potentials), especially as their time together almost recalls the show’s earliest years, when the scariest creatures in Sunnydale loomed inside the high school. Seeing the girls use their environment to handle the vamp was a welcome return, and was particularly highlighted by strong blocking and use of lighting throughout, proving Contner as one of the show’s sharpest directors.
“Potential” is another solid episode in a long line of good, but not great story pieces. As of now, I’m not crazy about the inclusion of the Potentials and think that they’re almost dragging the story down, but we’re still in pretty watchable territory.
Watcher’s Guidebook:
Oh wow, I definitely don’t like Kennedy. Summer house in the Hamptons with “just” one wing my ass.
Oh my god, little Felicia Day! Oh no, I recall a story that Whedon yelled at her on her first day and nearly made her shit herself. But as we know, that story didn’t end up too horribly for Miss Day, who went on to play Penny in Dr. Horrible, as well as become the Queen of the nerds for a good few years. Hell, I liked The Guild, myself.
I hope Dawn wasn’t lying about being allowed to kill Andrew. He deserves it.
But in terms of his references, I caught that he was talking about the pilot to the Justice League cartoon. Which is not a great episode for a great show.
Wait, Buffy has seen Beyond Thunderdome? The worst Mad Max?
I love the look Buffy and Spike share when she tells the Potentials about the yak urine available at the bar.
Also love when Buffy outs her history with Spike when she calls his old crypt “comfy”.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles: It’s always nice to have Angelus back… as a viewer. He allows David Boreanaz to recall some of his best acting techniques and portray real menace on screen. “Soulless” spends a lot of time with him, with Angel Investigations interrogating Angelus one by one in hopes of finding a way to kill the Beast. That doesn’t quite work out, though, but the episode is most interesting for being the directorial debut of Samwise Gamgee himself, Sean Astin. He doesn’t return for “Calvary”, but that’s okay as things get bigger here, anyway. In this one, the group learn that the Beast is working for something bigger than Wolfram & Heart, much bigger, but they don’t know what, exactly, and Angel’s soul isn’t readily able to return. Or rather, it’s Cordelia, as something in her comes out at the end and she kills Lilah, the show’s best original character. Booooo.
Next Week: The First may be someone in the Scooby’s ranks, and we finally learn what Principal Wood’s deal is.