As I mentioned before Buffy's friends each individually have a symbolic relationship to her,
but the one I actually find the most interesting is Cordelia.
Seemingly there only to provide Buffy an antagonist,
Cordelia struck me as a bit two-dimensional when I first watched the show.
A tired retread of the popular alpha schoolgirl trope we've seen over and over again.
"Are you sure they're real lemons?"
"Yes." --- "Well, I'll tell you what.
I'll buy a cup, if you buy a box of my delicious Girl Scout Cookies. Do we have a deal?"
"Are they made from real girl scouts?"
"You love him and he totally complimented you. That is so fetch."
"Gretchen. Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen. It's NOT going to happen."
"Why are you dressed like that?" --- "Like what?"
"Like you're going to a funeral? Why are you dressed like somebody died?"
"Wait."
"So what are you going to do, Heather?"
"Take the two shots or send me out?"
"Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?"
"Cordelia!"
"God! What is your childhood trauma?"
But over the course of the early episodes Buffy mentions a few interesting things:
First, she was a cheerleader at her old-school.
Second, she used to be really popular.
She at one point even compares herself to Cordelia.
"Before I was the Slayer I was...
well I...I don't want to say shallow"
"but...let's say a certain person who will remain nameless"
...we'll just call her 'Spordelia', looked like a classical philosopher next to me."
Cordelia is for Buffy the path not taken.
She is what Buffy might have been had she not been given the Slayer powers
...her metaphorical path to adulthood.
'Never Kill a Boy On The First Date' is a watchable episode featuring the welcome
return of the Master.
He describes a prophecy in which there will come an ally for him called
the Anointed One.
"...and in this time shall come... the Anointed."
"The Master's great warrior."
"And the Slayer will not know him,
will not stop him,
and he will lead her into Hell.
The Master's minions then attack a bus filled with women, children,
and one southern nut bar.
"Are you willing to stand with the righteous?"
Meanwhile, Buffy gets a date with a 'sensitive' boy-next-door named Owen.
But Giles has found out about the prophecy and makes her skip it to go sit in the graveyard with him
...waiting for the Anointed One to rise.
"Well, you know what they say: Ninety percent of the vampire slaying game is...is...waiting."
When no one does, Buffy heads to The Bronze to find Owen dancing with Cordelia.
The next morning, Owen asks her out again and Xander sports his jealous pants.
Buffy goes to The Bronze on her date
while Giles having discovered the bus disaster heads to the morgue to investigate.
But the Master's minions are there to get the Anointed One.
On their date, both Cordelia and Angel try and get between Owen and Buffy.
When Xander and Willow show up to tell her Giles is in trouble, Buffy lies to Owen and heads to the morgue
only to find out Owen tailed her.
He sees the southern nut bar rise as a vampire before being knocked out
along with Giles.
Buffy, thinking Owen is dead, goes crazy-town on the vampire and kills him.
"You killed my date!"
[Nut bar roasting on an open furnace]
The next day, Owen has a danger-jones for what Buffy represents and asks when they're going out again.
She realizes there's no way she can have a relationship with him and breaks it off.
Giles and Buffy console themselves with the notion that they destroyed the Anointed One...
...but in his underground layer we see the Master overjoyed by the arrival of
the REAL Anointed One:
the child from the bus.
Overall, this is a very watchable first season episode.
It was nice to go back to the Master story line and the switcheroo at the end actually worked on me.
The actors feel like they're starting to settle in a bit.
You see the chemistry developing between the leads...
...especially Giles and Buffy.
"Do you have anymore copies of Emily Dickinson? I need one."
"Buffy...
"...while the mere fact of you wanting to check out a book would be grounds for a national holiday..."
"...I think we should focus on the problem at hand."
The only problem with the episode is Owen himself.
It was just the last episode that Buffy and Angel were undressing each other with their eyes.
"Oh, boy."
And here a new boy gets retconned in for the sake of a plot.
"That was Owen." --- "Yes, I remember."
But Owen doesn't actually feel like a real person to me.
He isn't sensitive...
"She's just so incredibly morbid. A lot of loss. A lot of death. It gets me."
His fascination with Emily Dickinson isn't for the quality of her poetry or its depth
but rather for the morbidity of her writing.
Owen thinks that death and sadness are inherently more meaningful.
So he's an Emily Dickinson reading,
pocket watch carrying,
death-obsessed teenager
who looks like the boy next door quarterback?
It's like the writers picked from a grab-bag of random traits and pulled one each from
neck beard, goth and jock.
He's also kind of a douche.
"I didn't think I'd find you here...
"I just find most girls pretty frivolous."
"Are we gonna see a dead body?"
But more confusingly WHY are we supposed to believe Buffy is interested in this D-bag?
They have zero chemistry.
Just compare the gravitas of Angel and Owen in this scene.
"Where do you know Buffy from?"
"Work."
Or for that matter, why would Cordelia throw herself from atop the
high school food chain at some poetry reading loner?
Unless of course she was just trying to do that to piss off Buffy for...
Ohhhh-kay. I follow.