['Dancing Africa']
I have a weird hypersensitivity to portrayals of bullying.
For some reason I get a deep cringey feeling down in the depths of my stomach whenever I see unwarranted cruelty in movies or television shows.
As a kid Biff Tannen used to give me nightmares.
Until this review I had only watched 'The Pack' once.
Of course that’s also probably a testament to the episode's effectiveness.
'The Pack' begins with a school field trip to the zoo.
Xander jumps in to protect another boy from getting bullied by a clique of students
that look like they’ve been held back for the past 15 years.
In the process, he and the bullies get taken over by the spirits of some rare African hyenas.
Willow acknowledges the torch she’s been carrying for Xander to Buffy as Xander’s behavior degrades
into slow motion walking
and wanton cruelty,
especially towards Willow.
Buffy brings the problem to Giles who doesn’t see anything wrong beyond Xander being a teenage boy.
And then Xander and company eat the school mascot.
Giles checks the books and discovers the likely animal possession.
Meanwhile, Principal Flutie confronts the Xanderless Pack over the mascot murder
...and the Pack attacks
...and eats him.
*record scratch*
Yes.
The possessed students,
EAT Principal Flutie.
Buffy searches for Xander at the scene of the hog homicide
and gets jumped.
"Oh my God. Xander! What happened?"
"I hit him."
"With what?"
"A desk."
Leaving Willow on guard duty, Giles and Buffy go to speak to the zoo keeper who says he’s knows about the magic but hasn’t been able to figure out the ritual.
Giles supplies the missing piece and Buffy goes to bait the Pack back to the zoo.
Giles figures out the zoo keeper was intentionally trying to have himself possessed by the hyenas
and the keeper knocks him out.
Buffy bursts in, pursed by the Pack, and finds the keeper has taken Willow hostage.
The keeper pulls the hyena spirits into himself
and Buffy throws him into the Hyena cage where he gets eaten.
Xander says he can’t remember a thing and all is forgiven.
Giles privately tells him memory loss isn’t a side effect of the ritual but promises to keep Xander’s secret forever.
"Shoot me. Stuff me. Mount me."
It's a tossup whether 'The Pack',
or the upcoming episode 'Nightmares,' is the most effective iteration of the 'high school horror' theme of the first season.
It’s another very literal metaphor for impediments to growing up, in this case, animal packs being like high school cliques.
There are a few genuinely creepy and effective moments.
I have to admit Xander’s rapeyness made me squirm. It's tough watching a character you like do awful things.
Mainly though, it’s Flutie’s death that makes this episode important.
For the first time, it's firmly established that this universe Buffy and her friends live in can have lasting consequences.
Flutie was one of the few regular ancillary characters on the show
and to have him die in such a gruesome and outlandish way raises the stakes for everyone involved.
Things in Sunnydale can change
...permanently.
For what is ostensibly another Xander-centric episode,
it's Willow that gets the best character building bits.
To this point, she’s been a bit of a hesitant character.
Xander's cruelty in this episode devastates her.
But in my favorite scene,
when an imprisoned Xander tries to manipulate her feelings to escape,
we get a glance at the well of her untapped strength and confidence.
"Well, if I'm so dangerous how come she left you alone with me."
"I told her too."
"Why?"
"Cause I know you better than she does."
And I wanted to be here to see if...
"...you were still you."
"Look..."
[Xander pounces]
"Now I know."
A-AH.
EAT IT, EVIL XANDER!
The parallels between Xander’s possession by the hyena spirit
and demon possession, when someone
becomes a vampire, are kind of interesting.
Possessed Xander wasn’t with the rest of the pack when they attacked Flutie
because he was tracking Buffy.
Which means that Xander's wants and desires were in some way still influencing his actions,
in much the same way when Jessie was turned in 'The Harvest'.
The first victim he pursued of his own accord was his human crush, Cordelia.
Does that make Xander then in any way responsible for his actions when possessed?
It's a question that will come up over and over again in later seasons.
It also raises the question whether or not Xander was aware of Willow’s interest in him and just chose to ignore it.
"Until Willow stops kidding herself, that I could settle with anyone but YOU."
I got a little bored with the long slow motion shots of the roving high school pack
and the metaphor was a bit on the nose.
But 'The Pack' is mostly a decent, first season monster-of-the-week episode.
For a little while, it reminded me a bit of some the 80s and 90s teen horror flicks like "The Lost Boys."
['Lost Boys' music]
That is until the bully clique devolves into feral animals. Their mannerisms gave me less a demon dog vibe
and was more like a high school production of 'Cats'.
['Cats' music]