The Watchers' Rewatch

It's Buffy's birthday, so it's time to... what's the word.... celebrate? No, that's not it... Prepare! That's the one! Prepare for horror and bloodshed that is. Of course.In a remarkably "on the nose" assessment of patriarchal power structures Buffy is having her physical agency reduced so that she can prove she's worthy of said physical agency. Or something. It's entirely barbaric and unnecessary so let's not waste time working out the actual purpose. She is to be locked in a building with an insane vampire and use her wits to defeat him. Until the whole plan goes sideways, said vampire creates a minion and goes out into the world. With the whole scenario compromised, the council scraps it and calls in help to deal with the now out of control vampire.... this just in... no they don't do that at all, they just let her walk into an even more dangerous situation, including an innocent hostage...For goodness' sake.

Joyce is witness to something terrible, but after seeing "Mr Sanderson from the bank"'s vampface she discovers what appears to be two children who have died in some sort of ritual. This develops into strong civic-mindedness from Joyce. This develops into fear-mongering and persecution of anyone outside what is considered normal. Because that playbook isn't tired enough in *real* life.Also, Pat gets a run for her money from Willow's Mum. Argh, PAT!

Angel is having visions of his past, and we're not talking whimsy here. They follow him through both the waking world and his dreams, giving him no rest. The First Evil is pushing him to do something terrible, but he eventually decides to make himself the victim in order to avoid bringing harm to anyone else, with the exception of anyone who rewatches this episode and sees his various hairstyles and/or facial hair. Then the greatest video game ever made saves his life... oh sorry a Deus Ex *Machina* saves his life. My mistake...

Cordelia decides that Buffy is the reason bad things happen to her. Cos without Buffy, all those world-ending or Sunnydale-threatening villains wouldn't exist.... oh wait...Enter new girl Anya, totally not Anyanka: Vengeance Demon extraordinaire. And an alternate reality where Xander and Willow are *still* together. Yeesh.

Angel is back and everyone is about to find out, from bad Xander to "I statements" Willow and also dodgy former watch.... I mean totally legit and current Watcher who you *should not do a background check on* Gwendolyn Post. Sparks will fly when we have Slayer on Slayer action, but that's partly just this week's MacGuffin...

Important! This is *chocolate*, not *candy*. Hill. Dying on.The adults of Sunnydale end up under Ethan Rayne's nefarious influence by way of magical cand... I mean chocolate! We also discover just how bad Buffy is at driving, but how absolutely epic she is at finding a car parking space (that car is RIGHT OUTSIDE THE BRONZE).

It's the race for Homecoming Queen, as well as... Slayerfest '98? All bets are off as both competitions seem to feature Buffy paired with Cordelia. Oh, and Scott breaks up with Buffy. It's fine, even she completely forgets about it by next episode...

There's a bestial killer on the loose. Is it Oz? Is it a returned Angel? Or is it the character only in this one episode who's a douche to Buffy about mental health..... yeah, it's Pete. I mean, at least it's not Pat..... eurgh, Pat.