Here is the Hellmouth Podcast for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Series, Season 3 Episode 4 – Beauty and the Beasts (mp3 version here).

A reminder to all of you to send in your suggestions for the new Angel Podcast that we will be starting soon. We will be voting on the name for the new podcast in the coming weeks.

Don’t forget to check out the OMWF Project page and start sending in your submissions to be included in the project.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:25 — 15.3MB)

HMPC 0304 “Beauty and the Beasts”  – Buffy The

Vampire Slayer

• Hello Sunnydale and welcome to the Hellmouth Podcast for the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Series, Season 3 Episode 04 titled “Beauty and the Beasts”
• For those of you who may be new to the podcast, here are all of the ways that you can be a part of the show.
  • Twitter @hellmouthcast
  • Facebook page – search for Hellmouth Podcast
  • as always you can email me at hellmouthpodcast@gmail.com
  • www.hellmouthpodcast.com
• 2 Minute Buffy
  • Episode starts with Buffy narrating from Call of the Wild
  • Oz is having a particularly wolf-y night.
  • Xander has come to relieve Willow for Oz-watch so she can study.
  • Buffy and Faith are walking through the cemetery talking about… you guessed it Scott.
  • Buffy, Willow and Oz run into Scott, Pete and Debbie at school.
  • Debbie and Oz are old Jazz Band buddies.
  • Buffy has a meeting with Mr. Platt the school counselor, the rebel with a psyche degree.
  • Oz agrees to lend Debbie his notes for biology
  • Back in the library, Giles and Xander are trying to figure out how Oz escaped the cage last night with Xander on sentry duty.
  • There was an animal-like murder and Oz could be a suspect.
  • Mr. Platt surprisingly seems to be an effective and genuinely interested counselor. Even more astounding is that he seems to be ‘reaching’ Buffy.
  • Back in the  library, Buffy gets the sit-rep on why everyone had glum faces.
  • Cordelia manages to sum it up nicely ‘Oz ate someone last night’
  • Oz bails in dramatic fashion only to be reminded its time to get in his cage.
  • Buffy on patrol that night runs into Angel, the big reveal to Buffy that Angel has returned.
  • Willow, Xander and Cordelia make a trip to the morgue and we get our sighting of the infamous Scooby lunch box.
  • The group is trying to prove that Oz didn’t kill anyone.
  • Buffy puts Angel in shackles and chains back at the old mansion.
  • Buffy relieves Faith from duty on Oz-watch. She can’t sleep and she wants to do a little research.
  • Buffy tries to innocently quiz Giles about the possibilities surrounding a return from a hell dimension. Its pretty much all bad news.
  • At lunch Pete gets upset at the praise Debbie is giving Mr. Platt.
  • At Buffy’s next appointment with Mr. Platt she finds him dead.
  • Pete is furious with Debbie for destroying all of his evil potions. He hits her.
  • Debbie has a black eye when she goes to meet Oz and get his notes.
  • Pete sees the two of them together and goes beserk.
  • Now that the group knows Oz is not the killer they start to realize that all of the victims so far have Pete and Debbie in common.
  • Pete must be the killer.
  • The group splits up to find Pete. Pete finds Oz in his cage.
  • Pete is going to kill Oz and goes into crazy-mode.
  • He starts to toss Oz around and then the sun goes down.
  • Great Oz quote, ‘Time’s up. Rules change.
  • Oz turns into a werewolf and fights Pete.
  • Both Oz and Pete run off.
  • Faith darts Oz
  • Pete has the upper hand on Buffy in their fight until Angel bursts in and kills Pete.
  • He looks up and says Buffy? Then falls at her feet hugging her.
• This episode somewhat revolves around Oz and his werewolf-ism. We haven’t seen too much of Were-Oz since the Phases episode near the end of Season 2.
  • Think about Oz, calm, stoic, man of few words. Oz is always in control. Then you have were-Oz, the total opposite, animalistic, acts purely on instinct. No control, no regrets, no memory most of the time just a raw, angry creature.
  • This is really an example of two totally opposite creatures inhabiting the same body. At this point in the series Oz is exerting his control of that side of himself by locking himself up on the nights of the full moon.
• So the big reveal in this episode is that Buffy sees Angel, sees that he is back from the hell dimension. We the watchers, get it, watchers, already knew that he was back because we saw it at the end of the Faith, Hope and Trick episode.
  • You can see that Buffy is a complete mess. Her emotions must be like a tornado inside.
    • I think that there is a lot of relief and joy that Angel is back
    • Fear and sadness that he might not be the Angel she remembers
    • Guilt that she is going to have to face him, knowing that she stabbed him with a sword.
    • Fear of what her friends will do if they find out.
• Pete and Debbie – I really didn’t like this aspect of the episode. This for me is one of the let-down episodes of season 3. Again I think this episode has some after-school special moments.
  • The thing that I didn’t like was the whole Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde aspect of the story. The fact that Pete took this potion and it made him angry and he hurt Debbie then apologized.
  • I just felt like it lacked creativity. Now maybe that was the point, maybe they didn’t get too creative with the plot because they wanted to focus more on the issue of abuse and not have it clouded with all kinds of crazy supernatural stuff, but then Pete fights a werewolf and gets killed by a vampire and I just think it… I don’t know, it just didn’t really work for me.
• Rate the episode
  • Bonus point because of the were-Oz aspect that I only just noticed for the first time today.
  • Bonus point for Keeping the Angel story moving forward and not getting stagnant.
  • Bonus point for the Oz quote ‘Times Up. Rules Change.”
  • Bonus point for Giles getting shot with the tranq gun. That’s right I had to mention it.
  • Lose a point for the Pete/Debbie plotline
  • Lose a point for killing Mr. Platt way too early.
  • Bonus point for Cordelia summation of Oz’s situation.
  • This episode starts at a 2 for me and after the bonus points, ends up at a 5
• Weekly Poll –
  • Faith was not bad until she killed a human, that pushed her over the edge.
• Listener Emails
  • Beth – Oddly enough, I have a comment about Scott Hope! (Hey, you guys brought him up).  Initially, I mildly enjoyed this storyline in that it portrayed a very typical adolescent relationship — pursuing someone relentlessly only to dump them when they finally reciprocate.  But if you want to, you can retrospectively read more into this.  We learn in Conversations with Dead People that Scott Hope is gay (and in fact spread rumors that Buffy was gay, I guess as a reason for breaking up with her).  So maybe he and Buffy are drawn to each other for the same reason — to hide their secrets and to try and fit in and be conventional.  Buffy wants to date a normal boy and therefore seem normal herself; Scott wants to date a girl and appear straight.  But it won’t work for either of them.  Ok, ok, I know I spend way too much time thinking about Buffy.

Shelly – Hi Brian!

This is Shelley and I am no longer listening to you from the future.

Thanks so much for reading my e-mail during your “Dead Man’s Party”

podcast.  I have been enjoying  listening to you day and night so I

could catch up especially since you will soon be up to some of my

favorite episodes in the whole series..  BTW I loved your interview

with Juliet Landau and it was also great to hear a familiar voice -

Stephanie from Potential Cast .

I also loved Faith, Hope and Trick although I agree with you about

Scott and the ring.  Actually, that’s one of the few scenes in all of

Buffy that makes me cringe.  But I love Faith and re-watching I’m

impressed that she had all of  her mannerisms  and unique way of

speaking from the very beginning.  Great writing!

My daughter and I also plan to participate in the OMWF project

• OMWF Project – reminder

• Simon – My girlfriend and I first saw buffy when it was aired on the bbc over here in england, the only problem with that was some was edited due to the times it was shown,  rumour has it so many people complained that they started to show an unedited version late at night after we saw these we was hooked.The series cliff hanger at the end of series 2 was too much for us so I started to buy the VHS box sets (before DVD’S) for my girlfriend as presents and we would spend whole weekends watching them then rewatching when they came on T.V, then introducing my sister to them too (she is also a huge buffy & angel fan now).  Recently joining the addition of Buffy and Angel fans is my 7 year old daughter Jessica-Roma, (of which she is only allowed to watch certain episodes), and having Spike as her favourite character so much so she named her goldfish Spike.
• Breanna Voicemail
• Names for the Angel Podcast – reminder
• Thanks to everyone for tuning into another episode of the Hellmouth Podcast.
  • See you guys next time for the episode titled “Homecoming”, Stay Classy Sunnydale.