season three > The Prom

So, like, that bitch SP invited me over, all “margaritas! Potatoes! Fun!” I naively trotted on out to the boonies, for verily does she live in the boonies [um, no, I do not. I just live near nature. It's peaceful here. -SP], and while the potatoes were a lie, being non-existent and all, I was plied with margaritas. And then, somehow, by the end of the evening, I was being forced to watch The Prom and informed that I would be recapping it.

The moral here? Don’t trust someone who lies about potatoes. [But, I made you egg rolls! with avocados! And they were even deep fried! See if I ever cook for you again. -SP] See, I hate this episode. More than I hate stupid fucking dues ex machina snow and Cynthia Bergstrom’s fashion sense. That odd, fuzzy green sweater Willow wore with matching fuzzy earrings? Way better than this episode. So as you can see, there’s a lot of hate here. A lot. And I wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for SP’s margaritas. Fucking tequila.

Why do I totally hate this episode? Maybe it’s the fact that Joyce steps completely out of character and guilts the overly guiltastic Angel into dumping her little twit of a daughter because it’s not fair to the Vampire Slayer to date someone who can’t, like, go on daytime picnics and stuff. Because it’s not like she’s not expected to stay awake all through the night, hanging out in graveyards and shit. Or could it possibly be that Giles seems to care that Angel dumped Buffy and is seemingly ecstatic when he shows up at the prom? Giles hates Angel! Despises him! There was the whole crossbow and “try it bitch” attitude in Amends! Giles hasn’t gotten laid in years, mainly because Angel offed the only potential nooky he’d found in forever and placed her in his bed! There is no love there! And don’t bring up Joyce! Joyce doesn’t count! Sex on top of a cop car doesn’t count! Not if you were possessed by candy! Then again, maybe Giles is just happy that Angel is sad. Like Spike said, if you remember that ole broody pants can’t get any, it makes it funnier.

And I myself will be wearing pink taffeta as chenille would not go with my complexion. Can we please talk about the Ascension?

But then, maybe it’s because the fucking umbrella is so fucking stupid. I really dislike that umbrella, man. [Oh, it gets snapped in two pretty soon at least. -SP]

Anyway, whatever. As you may or may not recall, and as we may or may not have recapped because I can’t really recall at this point what we have and have not recapped and in case you hadn’t noticed we tend to skip over things that bore us, the Mayor took time out of plotting world domination in Choices to warn Buffy and Angel about the dangers of an immortal brooder dating a blond, under-aged strumpet. Mainly because she gets old and bitter and less hot while he stays, in theory, young and buff. Buffy and Angel think the Mayor’s full of shit because he’s evil, and no one seems to take into account that it doesn’t matter, because what are the chances of Buffy living long enough to become more bitter than she already is?

Children? Can you say jumping the gun? I kill my goldfish.

Anway, they continue to flaunt their unnatural love in the face of the Mayor and do romantic couple things like hunting for vampires in sewer systems before heading back to his place to spoon in nonsexual bliss until it’s time for her to head off to remedial math. This idea of heaven is interrupted by Joyce knocking on Angel’s door one sunny day after her daughter has skipped off to first period. As previously hinted at in my rant, she gives Angel crap for dating her daughter because it’s not fair and blah blah blah. Fuck it. This is dumb. We all know if he hadn’t gotten his own show, I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit. [Yes, but at least this means he leaves. Although, in his place, we get Riley, so not exactly better. -SP]

Angel, despite his well established issues with authority figures, kowtows to Joyce’s wishes, because he realizes it is so totally not fair that Buffy can never get laid again while dating him, so he decides to break up with her in the midst of all her excited chatter about the prom.

The prom, by the way? Stupidest high school tradition ever. So I have no sympathy for her horror at being dumped before prom. But, really, what’s worse? Going stag, or showing up with a man old enough to be your great-great-great-great-great grandmother’s piece of tail? Tough call, that.

It's not his fault. He's 243 years old. He doesn't exactly get the prom.

This whole scene leads into a bunch of scenes involving moping and tears. At one point, Buffy sobs into Willow’s lap that gosh, Angel’s right but it, like, still totally sucks. Look Buffy, any guy that’s going to listen to your mother, especially when he’s got seniority over her, isn’t worth the time. Personally, I would have found this all a whole lot more bearable if he merely dumped her after finding the “buffy and angel 4eva” she had scribbled all over her notebook. Because we all know how immortal vampires fear commitment and being tied down. So that, at least, would be fitting to the character. Also, he was probably still pretty pissed about her opening up the curtains during their sleep over and frying his hair. Angel loves his hair. He strikes me as the over protective type when it comes to his excessively gelled coif. So maybe his whole "tortured soul, Joyce is right" act is more about him needing an out that sounds better than ‘you messed with the hair, bitch.’ Or maybe I’m just fanwanking, because I hate this episode so much. [Really? I hadn't noticed? -SP]

Meanwhile, back in the land that does not revolve around Buffy/Angel histrionics, Xander discovers that Cordelia is now a nametag wearing working girl whose father is in jail for tax evasion. At nearly the same time he discovers hell dogs that attack people in tuxes. Coincidence? Hm. Somehow one assumption leads to the other during an emergency Scooby meeting called to watch the surveillance tape, and the gang figures out that some bitter loser is going to sic hell dogs on people in formal wear at prom. Yeah. I don’t really remember how that happens. I’d like to say I care, but. You know. I was drinking tequila.

Anyway, Buffy tells all of her bestest buds to go have fun at prom or she will literally kill them, and then she and her perky hair head off to the local butchery to inquire of the head butcher type dude if anyone’s been buying cow brains en masse lately. Yeah. See…if I was a butcher type guy, and some creepy teen kept coming in asking for cow brains I might, you know. Ask why. Or something. But whatever. Buffy very easily gets an address. She ends up at his house where she notices a bunch of tapes like Carrie and Pump up the Volume and you know, maybe here she deduces that the hell dogs are going off to prom. That certainly would make more sense, right? Okay, that’s what we’re going to go with.

I'm going to give you all a nice, fun, normal evening if I have to kill every single person on the face of the earth to do it.

So she has the prom epiphany while strong arming Andrew’s big brother, who looks nothing like Andrew I’ll have you know, and he sort of mocks her and is all “ha! You think you’re on time? You fool! Fooooooooooooooool!” Buffy realizes that there are many empty cages and takes off in the patented girly run of the Slayer. She really should get a car. I find myself wondering what one does with someone so unbalanced as to breed and train hell beasts. Do you turn them into the cops? And if so, what do you tell them? Do you quickly and subtly drop the hell beast bit into the conversation, or do you just say he’s harboring really hairy and violent pets? Or do you leave him tied up with an electrical cord in his basement, punished to a lifetime of Christian Slater pumping up the volume over and over and over? Or do you just sort of slap him on the wrist and make him write “I will never breed hell dogs for nefarious and selfish purposes again” a hundred times on the blackboard? I mean, they can’t keep him in their own little prison in the library’s cage, that’s where Oz hangs out.

Whatever. Every maladjust has his reasons. Luckily for me, you're an incompetent maladjust.

Luckily her super duper running gets her to the school at the same time as the hell beasts [they've got a pretty girly run too]. She takes them all out and changes into her really ugly prom dress and goes on in to enjoy the punch. Some bad music is played, Cordy and the blueberry scone Wesley dance [and eww], Giles stands on the sidelines gazing adoringly at his underage brood like a lonely perv, Buffy drinks the aforementioned punch by herself and people dance as if they are having seizures while I ponder the lack of really big prom hair and taffeta. Then the awards come and Xander loses class clown to an unnamed extra. I weep. He really should have seen season seven coming, shouldn’t he? And just when you think you might make it out of the episode relatively unscathed, Jonathon - the Jonathon who tried to off himself with a rifle larger than himself just a few short episodes ago, steps up to the mike and gives Buffy a class protector award. Delivered with a really long speech about how they know Buffy’s saved them many times. Shoot. Me. Now.

Let’s just pretend that this doesn’t take away some of the whole "working in underappreciated secret so you feel downtrodden and unloved" onus that Buffy bears on those tiny little shoulders and focus on the fact that it means that the kids are unappreciative assholes. You know she’s the reason you have the lowest mortality rate, and you treat her like an outcast? You give her a tacky umbrella with some shit glued on it? What? I’m sorry, and I don’t know what kind of school you went to, but if a hot little blond had super powers and kicked undead ass in short skirts and heels? She would’ve been homecoming queen faster than you can say “Spike is stupid” AND we would have bought her something nice and shiny that cost more than $5.00.

To rub salt into my sucking chest wound, Buffy sentimentally tells Giles that she loves the umbrella and that sometimes people surprise you, (yeah, like thanking you for saving their lives with a cheap fucking umbrella – it’s the thought that counts my ass) and he gets all misty eyed and steals her umbrella and is all yeah and Buffy looks up and $^@$^&$%@#! [I think the translation for that is "you've got to be fucking kidding me". Although I don't recall exactly what ST said at this moment in the episode. I too was drinking tequila. -SP]. It’s Angel, walking slowly towards her in a tux, taking her for one last spin around the dance floor before he leaves her ass crying in a tub of ice cream. How’d he get in there? Are there no chaperones actually doing their job at the door? Clearly the man is no student! Kick his overage ass out! Stupid show.

I don't really know what to say. Um, I understand that this sort of thing requires ice cream of some kind?

[Don't forget the part where Anya asks Xander to the prom since after all, it's all his fault she's a high school girl wanting to go to the prom in the first place, and the part where Xander is all sweet and buys Cordelia the dress she has on layaway since her parents are now in tax jail or something. Or the part where Xander actually goes to the prom with Anya, thus beginning the romantic relationship that ends with him dumping her at the alter and her becoming a vengeance demon again. True love makes me so sniffly. -SP]

So what did we learn today, kids? Well, training hell dogs to maul prom goers because someone turned you down for the prom is bad, mmkay? Dumping someone right before prom is totally cool, if you show up anyway for one last, mind-fucking slow dance. And if you’re going to train hell beasts? Order your cow brains on the internet like everybody else.

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