'Bad Eggs' is the worst rated episode of 'Season 2'.
In fact, according to Internet Movie Database it's actually one of the three worst rated episodes in the entire series.
beaten only by the two 'Season 4' episodes
'Beer Bad'
and 'Where The Wild Things Are'
which is pretty funny to me because I...
I kinda like it.
It's a candy episode for me.
Maybe because the episode crips on one of my personal favorite science fiction stories,
'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'
...if rather inelegantly.
In the story, pods fall from outer space
and have the ability to replicate human beings
stealing their memories and destroying them in the process
the aliens become perfect copies of humans but devoid of any emotion.
Any passion.
There's an interesting little bit thrown in at the beginning of 'Bad Eggs'.
Buffy is writing an escalator and has a spidey sense moment
where for no obvious external reasons *She sees a mirror on her right in the escalator and that the vampire isn't there (this whole bit is now negated).
she seems to realize there's a vampire near her
It's the first reference I remember seeing the show make to her having any kind of innate ability to spot vampires in hiding.
When she was standing on the balcony in 'Welcome to the Hellmouth',
she used a logical deconstruction of a guy's outfit to pick a vamp out of a crowd .
Buffy saves the girl but loses the vampire.
Cordeila and Xander and are still going at things pretty strongly
regretting every step of the experience.
"That's just dandy. "
"We're repulsed by each other."
"We-we hide from our friends--" --"Well, I should hope so.
"Please!"
Typically, relationships on the show are intended to reveal some sort of deeper meaning or intrinsic message.
It's possible that Cordelia and Xander and are being driven purely by hormones.
Then again, if, as I've suggested, each of the characters
are in some way significant of aspects of Buffy herself,
then maybe there is a more interesting metaphorical reason for their relationship.
We've covered the fact that Cordelia is intended to be a representation of Buffy's path not taken or shadow self.
When Buffy does as Cordelia does, bad things happen.
Take for instance, her Cordelia-like behavior in 'When She Was Bad' putting her friends in jeopardy.
"You're really campaigning for Bitch of the Year, aren't you?"
"As defending champion, you nervous?"
Or going to a college party with Cordelia in 'Reptile Boy'
and ending up in a sex dungeon of a frat house chained to a wall
facing off against a giant reptile penis monster.
Cordelia represents Buffy without the Slayer power
but in the metaphorical language of the show the Slayer power is adulthood.
Responsibility.
Selflessness.
Xander is Buffy's strength or heart
So connecting these two then,
might we read Buffy's heart tangling with her shadow self
as a premonition of something bad about to happen?
The classroom session is a little more thematically self-evident.
Sex and consequences.
The Sex-Ed teacher hands out a bunch of eggs that the students are supposed to keep alive
thus teaching them about the heavy responsibility that comes from sex.
I love that here we have the teacher using the metaphor of the fragile egg to stand for a baby
in an episode that is hammering the overall metaphor of the season.
METAPHOR-CEPTION
Consider the implications too about Buffy being absent from a class about the ramifications of sex.
The eggs turn out to be weird alien thingies
that drain everyone's energy while they're asleep.
The only Scooby whose energy levels haven't been affected
...is Xander who happens to have boiled his.
Buffy finds enough energy for Angel time though who mentions he's unable to have kids.
Being turned a vampire is automatically sterilizing.
Buffy shrugs it off and Angel seem surprised.
"So you don't think about the future?"
"No."
You can see the ramifications of their relationship are weighing on him a bit as well.
They kiss and the camera passes
very deliberately over a tombstone.
Another portent.
In the basement of the school, a hole has opened up in the wall and something wicked seems to be happening
"From beneath you, it--"
Wait, wait, wait.
Nope, that's later on.
Buffy comes home and her egg hatches
...a little rubber mind-control drone bug
...which she dispatches.
Turns out Willow was already under the spell.
Xander can't stand his breakfast bar...
"Please leave my home now."
...and goes to eat his kid
which leads to one of my favorite lines of the season.
"Can I just say..."
"...gyeurgh!"
"I see your gyeurgh,"
"And raise you a..."
"...nyargh!"
Cordy's egg hatches and takes her over
and she and Willow lock Xander and Buffy up in the closet with two unhatched eggs.
Turns out most people are being controlled
and the drones are trying to dig up...
a giant, wet, egg-producing vagina monster...
out of the school's basement.
Buffy goes to stop them and the hillbilly vampire morons attack her.
One of them gets tossed into the demon mouth
Buffy gets pulled in after him and does Buffy things
allowing everyone to return to normal.
Joyce confines Buffy to quarters and we end on
"Besides, I'm not breaking any rules."
[smoochy loophole]
In a show that has to this point borrowed so heavily from other material
the fact that this one feels a little derivative is REALLY saying something.
Plus there's no denying how clunky the writing is.
The opening in the mall feels very out of place
and the two Monster of the Week hillbilly vampires are totally superfluous
even if I find them stupidly entertaining.
I never really know why they're in a scene.
They're dumb antics certainly don't add any tension like a scheming Spike or Master rubbing their hands together in the shadows.
Given they only interact with Buffy twice, once in the beginning and the end
they don't MacGuffin our main characters in any useful situations like the Order or the Three.
It's hard to ever even see them as bad guys given we never confuse them as the ones pulling the egg plan.
It would have made so much more sense to just embrace the 'Body Snatchers' plot completely .
The most affecting scene in the episode is when we don't know Giles has turned and he puts a drone bug on Joyce.
Rather than immediately showing us Willow was controlled
they could have built the same tension throughout the episode,
never letting us know for certain who has changed and who hasn't .
You could have had the kids suspect Snyder the whole time
only to find out he was never infected...
but is just an ASS.
Or they could have milked the
"don't fall asleep" aspect of the story which would have built even more tension
But a candy episode is not a rational thing, my friends.
It doesn't win you over with logic.
I love Buffy's conquering hero shot as she climbs from the Sarlacc pit and scares the pants off the remaining vampire.
As pointless as they are...
I find the vampire brothers amusing which is...
maybe their point.
As usual, Xander gets his fair share of great lines.
The fact that he managed to save himself from the initial bug infection by cheating is absolutely perfect.
And of course, Buffy managing to not break the rules while making out with Angel is absolutely adorable.
And once again, I just love the dread inherent to the 'Body Snatchers' story.
It's been done to death and often better than it has here
...but never with characters I adored this much.
'Bad Eggs' is not a great episode
...but it doesn't deserve a place at the 'Buffy' Bottom Five.
Still, I won't say I'm not more excited to
get to what the episode is foreshadowing.
"...gyeurgh."
"...gyeurgh,..."
"...nyargh!"
"OOOOHHH!"