I think it’s going to be difficult for me to explain why I love this episode.
Kathy is...
...annoying.
A suffocatingly passive aggressive,
tooth-numbingly sweet
pain in the ass
who you can’t imagine spending thirty seconds with
let alone an entire semester.
Aaand that’s why I love the episode.
Buffy and Kathy are suffering the effects of insanely close quarters
and Kathy’s suffocating passive aggressiveness.
“--I noticed that some of my milk was missing.
"Did you?"
"Oh!"
"Yeah, actually I did."
"I, uh meant to--."
"No, it’s totally okay."
"I was just wondering.”
(teeth clenching) If it’s fine, then why did you ASK?
Willow stops by Oz’s room and we see the two of them were being followed
...by a glowy-eyed demon of some sort.
Kathy turns up on the walk uninvited.
The glowy-eyed demon attacks.
Buffy tosses Kathy into some brush to keep her safe and handles the demon easily.
From the shadows, two of the demons discuss the possibility of “her” being the one.
The next day, Giles is now jogging and getting motorcycle magazines.
“Okay, you’re not having one of those midlife things are you,"
"cause I’m still going 'ish' from the last time you tried to recapture your youth.”
"Buffy!"
Giles’ reproachful and dignified word indicates,
yeah,
that was a joke about Joyce and him.
Back at the room, Kathy helps herself to one of Buffy’s sweaters
and happens upon Buffy’s bag of Slayer paraphernalia.
In line at the cafeteria, Buffy sees Kathy and goes to avoid her,
cutting in front of...
“Ex-boyfriend or loan shark?”
(deep breath)
...Parker.
Parker gives her a rundown on how to cheat the cafeteria system,
which elicited in me quite a bit of nostalgia.
I used to shove enough food into a ToGo box to feed myself and three of my off campus friends.
At the lunch table, Buffy seems a little short with Xander to me,
her irritability with Kathy spilling over into the Scooby circle.
Xander is pitiable in these early episodes.
High school has ended
and he has no job,
no direction
and no idea what he’s doing with his life.
In each scene, he’s so ready to assemble the Avengers just to have something to do.
Kathy jumps the Scooby table and Buffy’s intro has some serious teeth.
“You all know my roomie, Kathy.”
Buffy pops a blood vessel seeing that Kathy is wearing her sweater.
Kathy takes a bite of her chicken burger
and we get this brilliant horror movie cut.
Honestly, I think it speaks volumes that this bit is something I always remember when I think of the show.
Beck’s thriller riff and the extreme closeup are stupid funny.
And later that evening Buffy is venting to Willow on the phone,
who is clearly in a worse roommate situation.
I actually love revel in Buffy’s selfish bit in this episode.
Kathy has now labeled everything in the fridge,
and Beck’s score in this scene makes a ballet of Buffy and Kathy’s simmering cauldron of hatred.
The gum is uncalled for if you ask me.
The lights go out and Buffy has a vision of something being sucked out of her chest.
That evening, Buffy and Kathy drop the passive and go at it openly.
"I'm cold!"
"Well, I'm hot!"
"Deal with it!"
“It's share time now!"
(slow motion "--share time now!"
[Horror music and cuts]
Oz agrees to patrol with Buffy and make sure things are all right.
On his way to Stevenson to meetup with her he passes some strangers and...
...something happens.
"--"it’s share time",
"and I’m like,"
"Oh yeah."
"Share this!”
That’s adorable.
Buffy’s anger is escalating to the point of being dangerous and Oz is worried.
She decides that Kathy is a demon and steals Kathy’s toenails to bring to them to Giles.
"Toenails?"
"EVIL toenails."
As demon nails continue to grow after being removed from the body.
Willow tells Buffy to take Kathy’s evil toenails to Giles
and Giles has the boys capture her at his place.
Buffy insists Giles measure the toenails.
He leaves to do so
and Buffy baits the boys into a letting her escape.
I uh....
I'm pretty sure Xander would be the little spoon.
At the dorm, she and Kathy attack each other and Kathy’s face comes off in her hands.
Demon Kathy and Buffy have a pretty great fight in the room, as that cauldron boils over.
Giles performs a ritual to restore Buffy’s soul
and when she does
Kathy’s Dad appears to take her home.
Willow is Buffy’s new roommate and even though Buffy’s soul is totally restored
Willow steals and sandwich and we see....
There are so many brilliant comedic bits in this episode.
My favorite is the cold war roommate standoff where Kathy is cutting her nails.
Cut to a high speed shot of the nail spinning into the air and landing on the carpet.
The exaggerated sound effects emphasizing their simmering hatred for each other.
It’s so artfully assembled
it actually reminded me of the scene in 'Insomina' where Al Pacino has started to lose his mind after no sleep.
Beck’s score here is, as usual, on point.
Playful and teasing about the gathering storm.
But one of the things I enjoy about the episode the most
is how completely culpable Buffy is for what’s going on.
After all, don’t forget, she DID take Kathy’s milk.
Without asking.
Who DOES that?
And that was PRE-soul stealing process, mind you.
That nefarious act spun into a spiral of evil deeds
that dragged both Kathy and Buffy into a soulless mire of mutual loathing and hatred.
A place where goodness dare not travel.
(super evil slow motion) "--Share time now!"
Roommate situations are so hard.
You get to come face to butt with your own selfishness that YOU bring to the table.
I was an intolerable mooch in college so I took great joy in seeing Buffy’s flaws here,
something that in all honesty we don’t get a lot of in the series.
Of course, Kathy turns out to be a soul-tampering demon in the end
but that doesn’t negate the side of Buffy we got to see.
A sentiment reinforced by the thriller cut to Willow’s sandwich thievery at the end of the episode.
Hilarious as the situation is, Buffy’s reaction here does raise some curious questions about character and the growing pains she’s experiencing.
Her insecurity in the previous episode
lead to her defeat at Sunday’s hands.
Xander helped her restore her sense of self
and she won the day.
Here, while the soul sapping Kathy was performing on her no doubt exacerbated her aggression,
we do see her acting entitled and immature
and certainly immaturity is an impediment to growing up.
Also, note the current situations of Buffy’s Scooby satellites.
Giles with his midlife crisis.
Xander with no clue what’s next in his life.
At least Oz and Willow are sound.
The rocks of this season
...hopefully.
It’s not a particularly deep episode
(Kathy is LITERALLY the roommate from Hell)
but this one is WAY too good to be called a candy episode.
It’s a fun romp and, as with the premiere,
I loved the portrayals of the college experience.
College dorms are such a bizarre thing,
shoving two strangers in a room together and forcing them to abandon their privacy to each other.
Maybe the reason I like this episode so much is I identify.
My roommate freshman year was a shy born again who took karate.
He got mad and tried to karate kick me once
and me with my no belt,
caught his leg
and threw him into his own closet
...accidentally.
For some reason, the rest of the semester, we never spoke again.
[Cher's 'Believe' music]
"--It's share time now!"
(slow motion) "--share time now!"
[---saaaaaaadd tha--]
[Horror music and cuts]
[I really don't think you're strong enough, no]