beginning | blinding torment | boils | lies | making me bitter | evil compounds evil | blah blah bity blah

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, okay - you know what's a good day to break up with someone? Any day besides Valentine's Day.

 

season two   >   bewitched, bothered, and bewildered

 

Xanderoo, lover of macking on Cordy, has his heart broken when she dumps him. On Valentine’s day. After he gave her his “hey, we work together” speech and a V-day necklace. So what does the lad do? What any red-blooded, horny teenager would do—blackmail the school witch into casting a love spell for him.

 

Xander, benevolent saver of the world though he is, cannot resist his hormonal urge to force Cordelia to be in love with him so much that she can’t sleep or eat or think. Not so that he could have her for eternity. Oh no. So he can break her heart. It’s really kind of romantic, yes?

 

Amy, the aforementioned witch [referred to in the script as "AMY, daughter of the cheerleading trophy" hee! -SP], doesn’t think it’s such a hot idea, but she really doesn’t relish the idea of redoing all that homework she only pretended to turn in to her teachers, and because yeah, I’m sure the school would believe Xander if he marched on in to English one day and said “hey, Amy’s a heinous cheat and has been using witchcraft so you’d think she was turning in papers.” Anyway, she needs something of Cordy’s, so Xander goes and asks for the necklace back. Which Cordelia was wearing under her high, tacky collar. Aaaah, isn’t that touching! She still likes him! And she only broke up with him because the Cordettes mocked her. Which just goes to show you that Cordy never really knew how to pick ‘em. A good social snob would have surrounded herself with proper sheep who instantly glom on to whatever she deems cool. I hope Cordelia learned a lesson from all of this. Not that it matters now, or anything. What with her being Mother Teresa on crack and all over on Angel.

 

They do the spell in the school science lab, I believe. Xander tests his studliness out on Cordelia, and gets promptly shot down in a very public spectacle. He goes to the library and very thoughtfully bitches about his life sucking because he was dumped, because that is so much worse than getting evil flowers from your evil ex who nails puppies to trees. Buffy is remarkably caring. Uncharacteristically so. She asks to hang out with the Xandman, for comfort, fun and hey. Maybe a lapdance. Sadly, he is interrupted by Amy. She, too, has realized that she likes Xander, which is all well and good. Know what’s good about these scenes? Nick Brendon. There’s tentative joy and disbelief on his face as Buffy begins talking about how you start to realize you like someone, and it spreads slowly to sadness when he realizes out in the hall that Amy’s saying the exact same thing. He’s so crushed when he realizes that Buffy only loves him because of a spell. Sure, I could be annoyed with him for being so willing to drop the Cordy thing at the merest hint from Buffy that she likes him, but this scene was written pretty well. So I’m going to let it go.

 

Wackiness ensues. Every female, including the breast woman herself, falls madly in love with Xander Harris. Except for Cordelia. Giles, being a prissy bitch, yells at Xander for his carelessness and refuses to allow Ms. Calendar to cop a feel. Amy and Buffy prepare to fight over him, with Buffy in nothing but heels and a raincoat and suntan nylons, but Amy cheats and turns Buffy into a rat. [Thus beginning years and years of future cheese jokes!] Oz punches Xander because Xander turned down Willow and made her cry. The women of the school turn on Cordelia for breaking Xander’s heart. There’s an angry mob, some beating, and then Xander rushes in and saves the day. Meaning he grabs Cordy and runs like a girl.

 

Somehow they end up at Casa del Summers. It just seemed like a good idea at the time, to lock themselves up in her house while a group of a crazed, axe-wielding mob of chicks hunts them down. Buffy’s house proves fruitless, however, because Joyce also wants to mack on the stud. They lock themselves in Buffy’s room, where Xander stupidly leans out the window and is pulled out by Angelus. I guess since Buffy doesn’t have a puppy he’s got to settle for nailing Xander to a tree.

 

Angelus’ romantic plans are put on hold by a love struck Drusilla, who wants to vampify Xander and make him her very own buttmonkey [because she luuuuuuuvs him too!]. You know, Dru gets all the action. She’s got Spike and Angelus at her beck and call, fighting over her, and now she’s got little Xanderoo. Sadly for Xander, the angry, axe-toting mob comes by just about that time and isn't too pleased about Dru taking their guy. He runs away from all of them back in the house. The mob tries to follow, and Dru graciously breaks down the door for them, even though she herself can’t go in. You may have eternal live and craziness, Dru, but damned if being a vampire didn’t just slap you in the face, eh?

 

 

This is good. How close we are now? I feel very comfortable with this amount of closeness. In fact, I could even back up a few paces and still be happy… See?

 

Cordy thinks Xander’s a perverted doof for using black magic to get women to love him, until she finds out it was only meant for her. The mob gets into the basement, beats them a bit more, miraculously no remove body parts are removed with axes, then everyone wakes up and wonders why they are there. Cordy stupidly says something about a scavenger hunt and everyone goes away.

 

And keep your mom-aged mitts away
from my boyfriend… Former!

 

Why be did everyone wake up, you ask? Because while Xander was runnin’ from some hot lovin’, Giles was forcing Amy to reverse the spell on Xander and Buffy’s rattiness. One wonders why Buffy was changed back so easily when it took three years for Amy to changed back. Did Giles repress this memory? Was the sight of the evil gypsy seducing Xander too much for his fragile, prissy brain? Whatever. He fixed it. Moving on. [One also wonders how it is that Amy screwed up such an easy spell, when just moment after she was rat free, she was turning guys into cage dancers and playing pool with her invisible eye rays. Not that I'm bitter or anything. Even though when she first screw it up, she says that she's still pretty new with the whole thing and yet when she becomes a real girl again, she knows about all the good magic dealers and can instantly make a girl go for Willow with a flick of her wrist. Even though she screwed up this whole spell of making Cordy like Xander using all kinds of complicated potions and incantations. Flick of her wrist and the girl is Willow's personal slut girl! Maybe I should rethink that bitter thing.]

 

 

The next day at school Cordy and her Cordettes pass Xander. They snark on Xander. Cordy finds her backbone and tells them to shut up, that she’ll date whomever she wants whenever she wants then goes off, arm in arm with Xander. Aw, ain’t they cute? [Maybe they'll be together forever! With Cordy being snarky to everyone for all of her days!]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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