Mark Watches ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’: S02E03 – School Hard

In the third episode of the second season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, HOW IS ALL OF THIS HAPPENING IN THE THIRD EPISODE? Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Buffy.

NO SERIOUSLY HOW IS THIS EPISODE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. HOW IS THIS AT ALL POSSIBLE. WHAT IS GOING ON AND HOW ARE THERE STILL ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE MORE OF THESE TO GO. NONE OF THESE ARE QUESTIONS. THEY ARE FRUSTRATED STATEMENTS AND DEMANDS.

My god, what a fantastic, riveting, and game-changing episode for the whole series. And, yet again, HOW IS THIS A THING THAT HAPPENED AND WAS MADE REAL???? The cold open alone was enough to get me interested, setting up a pair of plots that collided so brilliant and chaotically for nearly twenty minutes straight. Buffy gets stuck with the lovely Sheila Martini preparing for an upcoming parent-teacher conference because Principal Snyder is an evil human being. To be fair, he’s comical in his dedication to being awful to everyone around him, and I kind of enjoy how ridiculous he is as an antagonist. He’s played specifically so that we hate him, and every time he makes an appearance, it’s one giant guessing game to determine when he’s going to die. He can’t last six full seasons! I think Whedon and company know that, too, because there’s certainly some tension that comes from his existence, at least for me. On top of that, the show is constantly finding new ways to tell stories about mainstays of American high school culture, and the dreaded parent-teacher night is certainly one of them.

It’s also in “School Hard” that I believe I have met the actual Spike, who I knew was a character on this show. I had no concept of who he was on the show, except that he was good enough to warrant the fact that people spoke about him. This episode gives me a great idea of what his character arc might be like, and I think that season two is going to set him up as the main antagonist, like the Master, for Buffy to fight. That’s exciting in and of itself, but it’s the character of Spike that intrigues me the most. He’s got a lot in common with Angel and not just because they were once…friends? I guess Angel was Spike’s “sire,” which I don’t even understand. But he’s introduced in a way to specifically play off of Angel, but Whedon takes him in a different direction. Like Angel, he is meant to be a sexual symbol of sorts, and his past and aggressive nature probably caused a whole lot of blushing. Personally, he doesn’t do anything for me. (Yet.) But I do understand that his arrogance and personality is essentially Angel but taken to another extreme. He’s completely and totally full of himself, a vampire who knows he is good and has no problem telling others. I mean, he just waltzes into Sunnydale to confront the Anointed One, and he doesn’t spend a second acting like any of the other minions. I find that SO FASCINATING.

This episode really just leads to the confrontation between Spike and Buffy, and it was the one thing I was waiting for. I did not, however, expect it to happen so fast. I think Spike did this on purpose, first of all. The two contrasting plots–Spike’s mission to kill Buffy, and Buffy dealing with parent-teacher night–are so far from having anything to do with one another that I believed they wouldn’t collide in any way. Plus, I think it’s why Spike chooses to do what he does in “School Hard.” He sees that the Slayer is, by all appearances, an ordinary school girl. Why not tease her while she’s studying?

On top of that, I love how easy it is to discern Spike’s character at this point because it’s so well-defined. I know that it’s in character for him to refuse to kill Buffy the first time he meets her (outside the Bronze) just so he can tease her with the idea. I mean SERIOUSLY. He had the opportunity to go after Buffy in that alley, and he chooses to taunt her instead. Oh, he’s gonna be an interesting villain this season. And not just because he’s already given such an interesting entrance either; his past is what gives him a clever dynamic for the show. I found myself laughing at the scene where Angel shows up to the library to tell the group that Spike is bad news, and then promptly leaves without any further information. So…he gives Angel the creeps? He worries Angel? Is Angel jealous or something? I don’t quite understand this yet, but I can see that this new character is not someone who is very disposable. Yet, that is. He’s not a main character, so he could die at any time! THIS IS WHAT I KNOW TO BE TRUE.

Oh, right, Spike also used to be known as “William the Bloody” and he got his nickname from torturing people with railroad spikes. THIS IS GOING TO BE A SUPER FUN, UPLIFTING SEASON.

It’s just minutes after this scene, though, that “School Hard” becomes something special. Episode placement isn’t always that important, but in a long form narrative like a season of a television show, writers tend to hold on to the best stuff until the end. The most “real” shit isn’t stuff that comes right at the beginning. And yet, as Buffy is concerned with dealing with the ramifications of her mother meeting Principal Snyder, this particular episode decides to take every bit of her problem and throw it off the top of a building. That worry she had about what her mother might do if she discovered how Principal Snyder felt? Yeah, that’s the least of her worries at this point.

I honestly expected that the writers would find a way to get Snyder, Joyce, and anyone else out of the building so that Buffy and company could go after the vampires without Buffy’s identity revealed. (Well…and the revelation that there are fucking vampires in Sunnydale, but somehow, that wasn’t as urgent to me as Buffy’s identity.) Instead, THE EXACT OPPOSITE HAPPENS. What might have just been an interesting story turns into a thrilling disaster. Buffy not only has to kill Spike and his minions, but she has to protect the students and staff left behind, INCLUDING HER OWN MOTHER, and somehow make sure no one discovers what is really going on. It’s a sign of how well this is written that I felt overwhelmed by the last third of “School Hard,” but I was never confused. There really is a whole lot going on, but it’s not difficult to follow it.

That being said (and this is a complement), THIS IS SO CHAOTIC. A group of adults are in the science room and they just witnessed Buffy climb out through the goddamn ceiling, and then one of the teachers is ripped out of a window in front of Joyce and Principal Snyder and all I can wonder is HOW ON EARTH ARE ANY OF THESE PEOPLE GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS? The writers take much more care this time around to cleverly avoid any confirmation that vampires are at work here. Joyce makes a comment about the vampires’ faces to Buffy, and Principal Snyder may have seen more than he would have liked when his coworker was murdered. But I found the way this was wrapped up far more believable than when a similar end came about in season one.

And even amongst all of this action, there’s still room for these characters to grow and interact with one another in intriguing ways. I felt Angel and Spike’s confrontation scene was properly awkward (how could it not be???), giving us all just a hint of what possible storylines could come from this. (It also pretty much guaranteed to me that there are a couple million Spike/Angel fics in the world and I’ve read not a second of Buffy fanfic. Yet I know this is true as I know that I breathe oxygen.) Of course, there’s the weird “sire” and “Yoda” lines. So Angel…..created Spike? Maybe? Perhaps? LOOK IDEK.

But let’s just be real here. “School Hard” is a great episode of Buffy, one of my favorites so far. Shit gets real, Whedon brings, it’s funny, it’s frightening, and it’s only the third episode of this season. But two things happen at the end of this episode that launch it far into the stratosphere. First of all, I must immediately call the Joyce Summers Fan Appreciation Club into session. Y’all, we must talk about her, and we have to talk about how wonderful that moment is with her and her daughter after Joyce cracks Spike over the head with a fire axe. Clearly, badassery runs in the family! But it’s more striking to me that Joyce takes the time to tell Buffy that while she acknowledges that Buffy may be having problems at school, she knows that her daughter is a good person, that she cares about others and will risk her own life to protect them. Look, I just have a lot of feelings and these feelings are just everywhere, okay? Ugh, Joyce Summers, how are you so perfect?

As if all of what we’d just seen in the episode didn’t satisfy Whedon’s desire for brain explosions, though, he had one last trick up his sleeve. Did all of you, like myself, believe that the team of the Anointed One and Spike would influence the myth-arc of season two? So, did all of you, as I did, completely lose their shit when Spike kills the Anointed One because he’s bored of following rules?

Yeah, I take it back. Shit hasn’t even gotten close to real at this point.

A note on commenting about this particular episode: I know you are going to want to call Spike “crazy” to describe his behavior or characterization, so I’m going to just go ahead and ask you not to. First of all, if you’re not familiar, it is considered a slur and I don’t allow it on the site to be used except in a reclamation sense. I don’t care if you use it in your life and I’m not interested in telling anyone how to talk in their own life or own communities. But this is a large, public community here and it’s fairly diverse. I’m just trying to look out for those who might be marginalized. Can we all try to do this around here? THANK YOU I LOVE YOU ALL YOU’RE THE BEST.