Hellmouth Podcast

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 1 Episode 10 “Nightmares”. The Hellmouth Podcast is back with one of my favorite episodes from Season 1. In this episode of the Hellmouth Podcast:

Spiders Hate Wendell

Nazis and Candy

Cordelia’s Bad Hair Day

and Asteroid Billy saves the day…

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• Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 1 Episode 10 – Nightmares

• Open this episode in the Master’s lair.
  • Finally we are back to the master plotline which is the overarching storyline of the first season. The last time we addressed the Master’s plotline was in episode 0107 “Angel”
  • Buffy comes down into the Master’s lair.
  • The Master is stalking Buffy as she walks around.
    • He sneaks up on her from behind.
    • When she sees him she is terrified, frozen
    • She can’t fight back, she is so scared that she just lets him grab her neck and bite her.
    • Then Buffy wakes up, it was just a bad dream.
  • This was not just a cutesy opening scene to reintroduce the Master in this episode. As I talk about/recap this episode, I want you to keep something in mind.
    • This episode is all about solidifying the master as this seasons villain.

• We are in Buffy Summer’s bedroom. Her mom is waking her up to go to school.
  • Buffy realizes that what she saw was just a nightmare, or was it?
  • Buffy’s dad is coming to pick Buffy up this weekend.

• Sunnydale High – Willow and Buffy are discussing her dad’s upcoming visit.
  • Willow asks Buffy why her parents split up, the details are vague, Buffy never asked. She was getting in trouble a lot at the time.
  • Obviously, despite what Buffy says to the contrary there is a part of her that feels responsible for her parents divorce.

• Cordelia is back (We are in class)– Cordelia chastises Wendell for being in her light when she is looking in the mirror. Xander chimes in and mocks the fact that Cordelia is the center of the Sunnydale universe.
  • Xander tells Buffy and Willow about the altercation.
  • Willow asks, “Why is she so Evita-like” – very funny.
  • They are going to be talking about “Active Listening” today
  • During class, Buffy sees a little boy standing in the hallway.
  • Immediately after, Wendell, the light hogging student, opens his text book and spiders erupt out of it.

• Opening Credits

• Master’s Lair – The Master is speaking to the anointed one
  • He says that fear is the most powerful force in the human world, not love, not hate.
  • The master talks about his fear of the cross. I think that the master’s intentional reckoning with this fear is one of the things that makes him so powerful.
  • IMPORTANT QUOTE “If I can face my fear, it cannot MASTER me.”
    • Big neon metaphor flashing here folks. The “Master” is the embodiment of our fears. He is our master when we cannot control our fears.
  • Master mentions some powerful psychic force at work in the world above which is causing a change… for the worse.

• Back at Sunnydale high
  • Buffy’s mom is dropping her off, she didn’t sleep well.
  • Willow and Xander meet Buffy in the hall and want to know if she has talked to Giles about the spider episode in class the other day.

• Library – continuation of hallway conversation.
  • They look for Giles, he stumbles out of the stacks, he was lost.
  • Giles is visibly upset, tells the group that regarding the spiders, they best have a chat with Wendell himself.

• Outside at the picnic tables the group goes to talk to Wendell
  • They ask Wendell if this has happened before, he says “lot’s of times”
  • He doesn’t hate spiders, he loves them. Spiders hate Wendell.
    • I think this is a fantastic T-Shirt slogan.
  • Cordelia walks by and says “I hope you studied for the history test.”
    • Buffy rushes off to take a history test
  • Turns out Wendell had a huge spider collection
    • His brother killed them while he was away at camp one week.
    • Since then he has had the same nightmare – recurring

• History test – Buffy doesn’t know any answers, time flies by before she can even answer one question time is up in class. It is the classic panic while taking a test.

• Some random girl goes down into the boiler room for a smoke break and gets attacked by…
  • Big bad guy beats her.

• Buffy and Giles go to see this random girl Laura in the hospital.
  • Laura recounts what happened
  • Never seen anything like “it”
  • “Lucky 19” the bad guy said this before he attacked her.

• Hospital Hallway
  • Dr. says the first one’s still in a coma
  • It is a little boy.

• Sunnydale High
  • Willow and Xander are walking through the halls talking.
    • They are trying to put the pieces together between Wendell’s nightmare coming true and laura getting attacked.
  • They turn to walk into class and when they get in class, Xander’s clothes are gone.

• Library – Giles is pouring over a table full of newspapers saying “this can’t be happening” What is happening?
  • He is trying to do research but he can’t read.
  • Buffy picks up the newspaper and sees the little boy that she saw in the hallway, Billy. He is the boy in the coma.
  • Buffy catches the lucky 19 reference as being Billy’s number on the baseball team.
  • Just then – Buffy’s dad shows up in the library to talk to her.
  • Buffy’s dad wants to speak to her privately.

• Buffy and her dad are walking across the Sunnydale campus
  • Buffy’s dad proceeds to tell her that the reason her parent’s split up was because of her. That she got into trouble, embarrassed them. Wasn’t as smart as he thought she would be. Then he tells her that getting emotional is immature that he is just trying to be honest.

• Xander and Willow show up in the library, Xander is finishing dressing.
  • They tell Giles about Xander’s fashion episode in front of the class and the pieces start falling together. The key is nightmares, which if you didn’t put that together from the title of the episode then…
  • Willow: “Why is this happening?”    Giles: “Billy”    Xander:”Well, that explanation was shorter than usual.” – Favorite Quote this episode.

• Now Cordelia’s nightmare – bad hair day

• Buffy is wandering campus trying to process what happened with her dad.
  • She sees Billy wander into the gym. Buffy follows.
  • In the gym she talks to Billy
  • She asks him if something bad happened to him after his game.
    • She asks leading questions and he remembers getting beat up by the ugly man.
  • Ugly man shows up and fights with Buffy.
  • Buffy gets away.

• Library
  • Giles thinks it is imperative that they find her, because of the nature of dreams that Buffy has, and probably all slayers, he is concerned what will happen if she gets sucked into the nightmare world.
  • The group decides to split up and find her.

• Buffy tells Billy that she needs to find her friends

• Nightmares
  • Xander’s nightmare
    • Swastikas everywhere
    • Run-down school
    • Finds candy on the floor, lots of candy
  • Buffy’s nightmare
    • Looks across the school and sees kids playing baseball
      • Billy starts to open up about what happened.
      • They lost the game because of Billy, the coach blamed him and beat him up.
    • Ugly man finds them, they go through the bushes into a cemetery
  • Willow’s nightmare
    • She is an opera singer in a kimono
    • Up on stage and she doesn’t know any of the words
  • Xander’s nightmare
    • Finds a chocolate hurricane, hasn’t had one since his sixth birthday.
    • Evil clown – again one of my personal fears.
  • Buffy’s nightmare
    • They are in a cemetery looking at a freshly dug grave
    • The Master shows up, this is THE master, really him.
    • I am free because you fear it.
    • Turns out the grave is Buffy’s
    • Buffy says that this is a dream, master says no this is “real life.”
  • Xander finds Willow, they find Giles
  • Giles thinks they have to wake Billy
  • They go to the cemetery to find Buffy
    • They are in Giles’ nightmare, Buffy is dead
    • Buffy comes up out of the grave. She is a vampire.
    • Turns out this isn’t Giles’ nightmare, it’s Buffy’s
  • Giles tells Buffy that waking up Billy will fix everything.

• Hospital – trying to wake up Billy
  • Asteroid billy is standing next to his real body.
  • Buffy fights the ugly man – breaks his club arm
  • Once he is defeated, Billy walks over and removes the mask/face of ugly man to reveal…
  • Billy wakes up.
    • It was important that Billy take the final step, controlling his fear. Going back to what the master said at the beginning of the episode.

• Everything is back to normal
  • I had the strangest dream, wizard of oz reference.
  • Coach shows up, when he calls Billy lucky 19
    • Buffy tells him Billy is awake
    • They confront the coach
    • He tries to run
    • Xander gets major man-card points for manhandling the coach when he tries to run

• Back at school
  • Buffy’s dad is there to pick her up from school, he is happy to see her, all is well
  • When Buffy was a vampire, Xander was still attracted to her.