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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Bad Eggs

Joyce: "A little responsibility is all I ask. Honestly, don't you ever think about anything besides boys and clothes?"
Buffy: "Saving the world from vampires?"

Question: What can you say about a sex education episode that alludes to Aliens, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Wild Bunch?
Answer: This should have been a much better episode.

The theme is that there are serious consequences to having sex. This is very appropriate, since Buffy and Angel are clearly heading in that direction and spend half the episode (the better half) passionately making out. It's very interesting that the consequences to having sex are discussed, in the very episode in which Angel tells Buffy that vampires cannot have children. Sex with Angel must appear as safe as can be.

Xander and Cordelia also need reminders, as they continue to steam up the utility closet at school and exchange veiled banter in front of their friends. Xander even starts pushing for their relationship to not be a secret any more.

I thought Buffy coming up from the pit looked a lot like a Jackson Pollock painting. There's an interesting coincidence here; the word "Pollock" can be found written unobtrusively on the ceiling during one of the monster scenes. Is this deliberate?


Bits and pieces:

— Willow says that her egg is Jewish, confirming that Willow is, well, Jewish.

— Lyle and Tector Gorch, the cowboy brothers, were funny enough, but they really didn't relate to the egg plot.

— All Angel had to do in this episode is show up and kiss Buffy.

— I've always liked the way Buffy just matter-of-factly drops the toolbox on the eggs.

— The whole partner thing in the egg exercise wasn't consistent. Were Xander and Willow partners? If they were supposed to share, why did they each have an egg?


Quotes:

Willow: "He wanted me to give you this." (hands her an egg)
Buffy: "As far as punishments go, this is fairly abstract."

Giles: "I suppose there is a sort of Machiavellian ingenuity to your transgression."
Xander: "I resent that! Or possibly thank you."

Buffy: "So, your egg isn't acting odd or anything?"
Cordelia: "It isn't acting anything. It's an egg, Buffy, it doesn't emote."

One out of four stakes,

Billie
---
Billie Doux reviewed all of Buffy and Angel, so she knows the plural of apocalypse.

25 comments:

  1. I personally believe there are no truly god-awful Buffy episodes. But this one comes pretty close.

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  2. Not a great episode, but the monsters stuck on the back of people has a certain ick factor.

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  3. Not on my list of favorite episodes at all, but I do like all the passion that is simmering, some of it below the surface.

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  4. Okay.

    Hum. Uh huh.

    Thanks goodness there is PLENTY of witty dialogue. Oh my. Oh heck. The good moments saved it : Xander and Cordy in the closet and then in class, and the Alien shout out (on a much smaller scale) when the egg hatched. Oh, and the arms coming out of Cordy's teddy bear made me LMAO too. Hard to take this seriously...

    And I have to quote you Billie : "this should have been a much better episode". I rest my case.

    You gotta love TV shows though : Buffy has great (if not spectacular) hair after a night's sleep (monster or not) and school ends at 2:30. TWO THIRTY !!! 45 minutes before my own high school back in '79 people !!! They have it good SOB !

    The final scene at the window ? So cute. Ah, when you love characters so much than you can forgive the "worse" episodes...

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  5. Amazing that I can write so much about a 1/4 rating !

    I am buffed !

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  6. And I've totally forgotten ! What !? A vampire in broad day light ??? Is it the cowboy hat or the shopping center ??

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  7. This may be the most "filler" episode Buffy's ever done. It wouldn't be so bad if I were watching it during the original run, but I know there's awesomeness coming up shortly and I want to get there so badly.

    Also, I always forget the Invasion of the Body Snatchers episode is the same as the Cowboy Vampires episode.

    The plot is very season one, but the funny is your standard season two. Highly quotable. "As punishments go, it's a little abstract." Plus, it's better than season one by virtue of the chemistry between the cast which only gets better as the series goes on.

    I do love Buffy and Xander attempting to do research sans Willow and Giles. "We look it up?" "In what?" And I always think that it's hilarious when the Gorches help Buffy out in her fight against the possessed.

    Oh and the end is adorable. I love the Scoobies less than perfect attempts to explain away the crazy things that happen in Sunnydale. Gas leak, indeed.

    celticmarc - It was night. All the mall shops were closing.

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  8. CMarc ? Yes ? Typo. Oh !? That, not than. Thanks.

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  9. I'm really not a fan of this episode. Of course its got some great dialogue (Xander and Cordy in particular) but in general it falls a bit flat for me. I do feel for Buffy though, getting into trouble with Joyce when all she's been doing is saving lives left right and centre.

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  10. sunbunny

    yes indeed, you were paying more attention than me (and I saw the 30 second clip on iTunes several times, arrrghhh)

    Giddee yop !

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  11. I love the way Xander and Cordelia relate (or don't) to each other. So many of Xander's lines (one of which is something like "I only like you when you're not talking") would sound horrible in any other context, but obviously are just part of their hilarious back-and-forth here.

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  12. Yes, I agree pretty missable except for the relationships and witty dialogue. It did show us a little bit about Buffy and her mother. Joyce is trying to do the right thing and Buffy responds like a regular teen. Is it really cheating to skip out on your grounding if you are going to save the world. Maybe that should be a new general rule for kids. You may suspend your grounding to save the world!

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  13. The episode was fine, but only because the relationships were so great. The sex-ed class was hilarious--too bad it didn't quite live up to all it's potential. All that making out reminded me just how exhausting it was to be a teenager in love...

    Plus, It's always fun to watch good characters go bad (even if only for a little while). I really loved Giles at the end telling everyone not to worry, it was just a gas leak. He had no idea what had happened so he fell back on "gas leak." Of course, poor Buffy still got in trouble with her mother for not being where she said she would be.

    I also liked that Buffy saved the day. It's great when the whole "gang" works together, but I also like the moments when Buffy saves everyone by herself. She looked so deadly and pissed when she crawled out of that pit covered in the Pollack-esque alien/monster/demon/whatever blood.

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  14. Sex ed class. There are consequences. I'm sorry, but kneeing the horn at the drive-in is the worst. Um, what?

    I realize I'm in the wrong generation (see drive-in, above) but do teens really do the egg thing? I don't understand how it works. You leave it overnight in the car and it's all over, right?

    Eggs. The White Stuff (you thought I was going to say the yolk's on you, but I'd never go for the cheep joke).

    "You boiled your young?" (I would totally have done that. The exercise is seriously lame.)

    Then Cordelia and Xander start talking about closets. I'm assuming they mean they want to find a quiet place to make out, but fanficland is exploding with other possibilities.

    And we have a hatching! It's a mini-alien. A wrinkled Sigourneylet. But Buffy is going to put the perfect crease in it, with a real iron.

    Is this the first time Xander ever hit anyone? Cordelia.

    So how did Buffy kill the egg monster? I wanted to see Bubbavamp do the honors.

    And Joyce establishes herself as the worst mom ever when she grounds Buffy for no reason at all.

    Then there is the obligatory Angel cameo just to remind us that Buffy is supposed to be a Vampire Slayer. Smooch smooch. But I'm still not seeing any chemistry between Angel and Buffy.

    Roll credits.

    M-kay. And I think I'm finally caught up.

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  15. And pucklady made my day...again.

    Oh ! Drive-ins. Memories are coming back now. Ouch.

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  16. I've gotta agree, not a great episode. Which is too bad because it's based on the premise of an old Robert Heinlein book I really liked, "The Puppet Masters."

    A couple of things I did like though:

    I love how bossy Willow gets when she is possessed!

    Also Xander and Cordelia's love/hate fest.

    And, even though I'm years too old to get that high school thrill, Buffy and Angel's sweet little Romeo & Juliet scene at the end made me go awwww!

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  17. Jane, I've always wondered about that book: was Heinlein the one who started the "body-snatchers" idea?

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  18. That would be The Puppet Masters. There was a Star Trek episode that ripped it off, too. I'm not sure if it was the first, but Heinlein gave us a lot of firsts.

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  19. Jane, do you know if this was one of his firsts? I didn't mean to butt into the conversation. I've just always fantasized about reviewing all of Heinlein's works someday. Maybe far in the future, when I'm retired. :)

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  20. Josie, I don't know if he was first, but he did it very well. He had writer characters that espoused the idea that you could make a story your own by "filing off the serial numbers" and freshening it up for your audience. It was made into a movie that didn't really thrill me but had a good (chilling) performance by Donald Sutherland.

    Billie, I think it was pretty early on - 1950's? It's a good tight story without some of the indulgences of his later stuff. I've reread it a number of times over the years and it still holds up.

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  21. The Body Snatchers movie with Donald Sutherland was a remake of the original film (60's?)

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  22. Okay, so my thoughts on this one: yes, you're right. It did kind of suck. But with the caveat that I don't think it was the worst one I've seen yet (I think the praying mantis one is the worst so far). What saved it was that I've always enjoyed Invasion of the Body Snatchers stories. I enjoyed when they did it in Star Trek (both TOS and TNG) and I loved the Faculty, so when I realized they were doing that, I enjoyed the episode that much more.
    The sex education thing really annoys me, because every show has to focus on that like sex is the end all be all of human existence, which I suspect is why so many people are obsessed with it. I like sex as much as the next guy, but it's just one small part of life, and there are plenty of things more fun and more important to do. And by the end of this episode, I was so fed up with Buffy making out with Angel, I was getting ready to fast forward through those scenes.
    Billie, since you said the second half of the second season is amazing, I am looking forward to it. I'll keep you posted.

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  23. Watching Buffy for the first time. Found this site while doing an Agents of SHIELD rewatch. Turns out, it has heartfelt commentary without all the re-hashing of plots! With Buffy, like with AoS, my habit has become to first do a sneak peak at the Doux rating (what's the stakes?), then watch the episode, and then read the review/comments. It's a nice way to watch, and cozy, what with the atmosphere on this site. So thanks for all the reviews!

    Going to comment on a few reviews I think.

    Surprised I didn't see anyone in the comments for this episode mention one thing about the egg monster's eyes/looks: I thought the monster looked rather like a submerged Jabba the Hutt! Was half expecting it

    Found it to be a pretty OK episode, the Gorch brothers were great and I loved the teaming up to defeat the egg monster. A lot of shows (like AoS) have a "the goodies have to team up with the baddies to defeat a bigger bad" episode, always like this. I hope there's a Buffy episode in store where this is more developed.

    It's good that these reviews contain the english episode titles. The dutch-subtitled version of this episode changed the name "bad eggs" to (translated back to english) "bad apples". Which... really doesn't make sense with the plot.

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