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

 

 

 

 

 

That's the thrill of living on the Hellmouth. There's a virtual cornucopia of fiends and devils and ghouls to engage! Pardon me for seeing the glass half full.

season one  >  the witch

 

Buffy wants to be a cheerleader. I told you this normal girl thing would be recurring, right?  Giles thinks with the whole "sacred birthright" thing, Buffy should concentrate on more important things, like the slayage.

 

Cut to cheerleading tryouts, all normal stuff here. Scantily clad girls, bouncing around, getting caught on fire... er, OK, maybe the spontaneous combustion part? Not quite so normal.

 

Buffy does not choose to see this as a sign that nothing she will ever do can be normal (she apparently hasn't read ahead in the scripts) and she keeps with it. She meets Amy, another wannabe cheerleader, who's mom was like queen of all cheers back in the day. They gaze at the trophy her mom won for the school. Don't forget the trophy. It has great import. No. Really.

 

Blah, blah, tryouts, blah blah, Buffy and Amy are alternates. Which OK, maybe I get that, but Buffy was all big time cheerleader, ruler of the land back in LA, so maybe all the slaying's made her lose her edge. Or something.

 

We, as the ever-watchful audience, know that a witch is causing all the trouble, because we were tipped off by the bubbling caudron and the spells. But who's the witch? The gang suspects Amy, so they do a little test and confirm, that yep, she's getting other cheerleaders out of the way to make up for her lack of talent. Sneaky.

 

First vampires, now witches. No wonder you can still afford a house in Sunnydale.

 

Next thing ya know, Cordelia's all blind just in time to go to driver's ed. And then another cheerleader joins the horror victim brigade.

 

And all that tragedy can only mean one thing. That's right -- Buffy's made cheerleader. And of course, she's the next target. She starts nearing death's door as Amy happily takes her place atop the pyramid. Giles says they can reverse the spell if they can find Amy's spellbook. So, they head on over to her house.

 

Where we find out that Amy's mom is really Amy. And Amy is really her mom. You got that right? No? OK, let's see, it's Amy's mom who is the witch, and wanting to relive her glory days as cool popular cheerleader, she switched bodies with her daughter. Kind of Freaky Friday meets Bewitched with a little Mommy Dearest thrown in.

 

Anyway, they have to bring Buffy to the school to do the spell. Why can't they just do it there, where Amy's mom did the spells in the first place? Why, so Amy, uh, Amy's mom in Amy's body (AMIAB) will be close by when she charges in after them, and she's at the school cheering. Just stick with me here. I'll get there.

 

Giles does the spell to change back their bodies, and I guess reverse the other spells too. Buffy gets better. AMIAB starts to figure out something is up. She rushes over to where Giles is, wham bam body switcheroo, and Amy's mom, now not in Amy's body (AMNNIAB) gets huffy. She casts a big spell at Buffy who deftly protects herself with a mirror. The spell casts itself back on AMNNIAB and imprisons her in her own cheerleading trophy forever.

 

And Buffy and Amy decide they prefer brownies to cheering anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

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