Act Three
10RR) "...faster, but not really safer..." (00:27:45) WILLOW SMART: "Having the principal characters 'split up' as the rising action kicks in high gear is a classic plot device in horrors and thrillers. The writers use it here for comic value. Why would people split up just when things get dangerous? Never made any sense to me, but it happens all the time in horror movies. Cautionary Willow's the only one to see the drawback of this idea."--submitted by ZachsMind
10SS) "He's too strong! I can't fight him!" (00:28:00) A HUMAN EVIL: The reason Buffy is unable to fight The Ugly Man is that this is an evil that she has not yet been prepared to face--an everyday, human evil. The Ugly Man is himself not actually a demon, but an everyday human, who has done a monstrous deed, whose exterior has now been transformed by Billy's nightmares, to match his ugly inside. Interestingly, the first human evil Buffy ever faces occurs only one episode after The Puppet Show, which marked the first time that the Scooby Gang believed that the villain they were searching for might be a human one. In that episode, however, the villain does turn out to be a demon. In a great Buffyverse paralleling, the demon of The Puppet Show took the guise of a human for the majority of the episode, and the evil human of Nightmares is in a demon guise for the majority of the episode. See 9O, 9P, 9Q, and 9R). Interestingly, even the way the people are harmed is more human in this episode than in others. The Ugly Man beats his victims, whereas most victims in Sunnydale are harmed in more supernatural ways. The next human villain will appear in the next episode, Out of Mind, Out of Sight (see 11S).
10TT) "That's how it happens. We hide, and then he comes." (00:28:05) LET'S DO THE TIME LOOP AGAIN: "Billy is trapped in a circular dream loop, similar to the one Buffy found herself trapped in during The Weight of the World...[in which she smothers Dawn with a pillow, over and over again.] This "dream logic," also, that Billy must follow the set of rules of the dream, unquestioningly, is what drives a great deal of the fourth season's dream finale, Restless. Incidentally, Buffy finds herself in a real time loop (in her awake hours) in the sixth season's Life Serial.--submitted by ZachsMind, with additions by Rob
10UU) "I don't wanna go! I'm not even on the chess team!" (00:28:20) FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: "Willow looks around and sees Cordelia. In addition to her bad hair, she is wearing the squarest, clashingest outfit K-mart ever sold. She is being pulled along by a seriously geeky guy, his geeky friends coming along...Willow watches her go off, not without satisfaction."--"Nightmares" by David Greenwalt, story by Joss Whedon, available from Pocket Books, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season One, Volume 2
REVENGE OF THE NERDS: "Cordy doesn't come to terms with this until around the third season, but her great fear is to be seen as just normal or worse, unnoticeable. To her, being a nerd is the worst possible thing. Near the end of the third season Cordy's father loses his money, and Cordy herself finds herself...[like] the Scoobies--an outcast from the social circles of high school. The only ones who accept her are the people she fought so hard not to belong to...[and yet she continually tries to refuse their help.] Then when she runs to L.A. and joins Angel...[in the spinoff series,] she's forced to exist without the vain support structure of her high school life. She's forced to grow up. She's not very likeable here, but moments like this helped lead Cordelia on the path to near god-like status in the fourth season of Angel."--submitted by ZachsMind
10VV) "...with swastikas spray-painted everywhere." (00:29:30) NAZISM AND THE HELLMOUTH: The swastikas here are not only interesting because they fulfill part of the nightmare scenario Xander was jokily describing to Willow earlier in the episode, but also because they continue an underlying theme of the fear of Nazism/Fascism that runs throughout the first season. In I, Robot...You, Jane, one boy's school report is changed by Moloch to a glowing review of Nazi Germany--the character of Moloch himself is a symbol of fascism (see 8W). In The Puppet Show, we are introduced to the Nazi-like Principal Snyder (see 9C). And now these swastikas. These are perhaps all meant to tie into the storyline of the Master himself. The Master, who himself is of German origin (his human name was Heinrich Joseph Nest) and dresses in an outfit that eerily resembles a German S.S. uniform (see 1UU). The Master, whose goals of world domination and dictator-like hold on his vamp minions, is very similar to the concept of Fascism. The Buffyverse always encourages its heroes to fight against powerful enemies who try to suppress their freedom of both life and self-expression, a theme again explored in the third season's Gingerbread. The link between supernatural demons and "human" demons (in the form of the Nazis) is taken even further in Sonneblume, the Rebecca Rand Kirshner-penned short story from Tales of the Slayers, in which a young German slayer in 1938 comes to the realization that the party that runs her society is more evil than the supernatural monsters from whom she is meant to be protecting it. Therefore, she breaks the cardinal rule of slayage, and focuses her attention on slaying Nazis rather than demons, the implication being that the exception in this case is justified. The Nazis were as cruel and soulless as any undead creature of the night.
10WW) "Someone else's loss is my chocolately goodness." (00:29:40) FRACTURED FAIRY TALE: Xander following the trail of chocolate bars is reminiscent of the classic German fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel, but this version plays out in reverse. "In the story, Hansel lays down crumbs so he and Gretel can find their way home out of the forest (away from...[danger]). Here, Xander follows the trail towards the monster clown." Another link is that the children in the fairy tale grow mercilessly lost when birds swoop down and eat their trail of breadcrumbs; they eventually find a house made out of candy, where an evil witch lives. They hungrily devour the candy, unaware of the danger, just as Xander does here. This is not the only fairy-tale reference in this episode. See 10EEE.--Vickie, Mon, 10/14/02 at 19:24:23, with additions and paraphrasing by Rob
10XX) "You missed one ball and the whole game was your fault?" (00:30:40) PSYCHOANALYZING BILLY: "Buffy's words are echoed in Billy's dialogue later on. Buffy's often able to argue through dilemmas and other people's irrational thought processes by stating the obvious and running with it. Billy blames himself for the loss of the game because The Ugly Man told him it was his fault. While earlier in the episode Wendell suffered from introjection, Billy is the victim of projection. The Ugly Man blamed Billy for the loss of the game, when it was really beyond his power to control the entire outcome. Again, the contrast of Wendell's introjection to Billy's being a victim of projection is quite telling of the variety of fear the writers are exploring in this epiosde. Notice that Billy is almost experiencing introjection himself, blaming himself for the loss of the game, but it's subtly different from Wendell's fear..."--submitted by ZachsMind See 10Y.
10YY) "What just happened?" (00:31:15) SHORT DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT: "As they run away from Billy's fears, they run smack dab into Buffy's world of fears. Billy can't face his own fears so he's examining the fears of others in Sunnydale, perhaps in an unconscious desire to learn how they handle their fears, so he can learn to conquer his own."--submitted by ZachsMind
10ZZ) "But I...I didn't learn the words." (00:31:55) PREPARE ME : Willow's being at a loss for words, due to the fact that she has not learned her lines, ties in to Giles' loss of words, his inability to read (see 10II), and to Buffy's loss of words--being unable to complete the test (see 10AA). All of these nightmares spring from the fear of being unprepared.
10AAA) "My turn?" (00:32:45) FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: "The orchestra swells, Willow takes a big deep breath, opens her mouth and...what emerges is the tiniest, most pathetic "squeak" you ever heard.--"Nightmares" by David Greenwalt, story by Joss Whedon, available from Pocket Books, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season One, Volume 2
MUSICALLY SPEAKING: Willow is here meant to be portraying Cio-Cio-San, the main character of Puccini's classic opera, Madame Butterfly. Aldo is playing the part of Pinkerton.
THE METAPHYSICS OF STAGEFRIGHT: See 9OO.
10BBB) ...and a clown suddenly bursts through. (00:33:20) SCARY-ASS CLOWNS: Clowns are "a common fear among today's young children. Ironic, when the purpose of clowns is to make children laugh. The triggers for laughter and fearful shock are sometimes very similar. A laugh is caused by mental stimuli which surprises the mind, making it look at things in a new way. Fear can do the same thing. Clowns used to be very popular but in the latter half of the twentieth century the view of clowns as vindictive or unrespectable has increased. The novelty song Kinko The Clown comes to mind, as does the horror novel, IT written by Stephen King...[in which one of the manifestations of a supernatural evil force is a murderous clown with fangs and claws,] the character Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons TV series, and the B-movie, Killer Klowns from Outer Space.--submitted by ZachsMind, with some additions by Rob
10DDD) "So! This is the Slayer! You're prettier than the last one." (00:34:00) ALL TALK...: Of course, the Master is just baiting Buffy here, because there's obviously no way he could have seen the last Slayer himself, having been trapped in the underground church for the past sixty years (see 1VV). It's also important to note here that, although it is never explicitly stated, the greatest likelihood is that this is not really the Master, but merely Buffy's nightmare version of him, just as Hank, earlier in the episode, was not the real Hank. We know this, because, at the end, Hank has no knowledge of ever having been at Sunnydale High earlier that day. If we go under the asuumption that this is merely a dream version, it makes sense that so soon after Buffy had met someone who had known previous slayers, thus reminding her of the short lifespan of most slayers (see 9H and 9HH), she would again conjure up this disturbing thought. All of these clues, of course, foreshadow and lead up to the climactic events of Prophecy Girl.
10EEE) "A dream is a wish your heart makes." (00:34:30) MUSICALLY SPEAKING: The Master is here quoting from a song of the same name, from Walt Disney's classic animated version of Cinderella. Of course, that song does not refer to nightmares, but to dreams of the happy kind. This is not the only fairy tale reference in this episode. See 10WW.--Cactus Watcher, Thurs, 10/10/02, at 19:42:25, paraphrased by Rob
10FFF) "How 'bout being buried alive?" (00:34:45) DREAM COME TRUE: Buffy's major nightmares eventually do come true, again proving the prophetic nature of her dreams: her father does eventually abandon her, she does die...twice!...the first time, killed by the Master (Prophecy Girl, The Gift); the second time, she is revived after she has already been buried, thus she was buried alive (Bargaining); after this resurrection, she fears for a long time that she has "come back wrong," possibly as part-demon, linking with this episode, where she rises from the grave as a vampire. The nightmare of Buffy having to dig her way out of a grave is also a theme that is repeated in Fear, Itself, Bargaining II, and Grave. The idea that Buffy has prophetic dreams was first explored in Welcome to the Hellmouth (see 1D), and is a recurring theme on the show.--Shadowkat, Fri, 10/11/02 at 06:33:33, with some additions and paraphrasing by Rob
FORESHADOWY GOODNESS: In a classic Jossian twist of irony, when Buffy actually is buried alive in Bargaining, it is not out of the fault of an archnemesis, as it is here, but of that of her closest friends.--Cactus Watcher, Thurs, 10/10/02 at 19:42:25, paraphrased by Rob See 16Kx4.
Act Four
10GGG) "Remember my sixth birthday party?" (00:35:10) WILLOW AND XANDER: Yet another reminder of just how long Willow and Xander have been friends (see 6X). Interestingly, Willow kiddingly pays Xander back for his mocking of her fear of spiders (see 10U), by giggling when she first remembers his clown-fear.
10HHH) "You are a lousy clown!" (00:35:45) XANDER THE HERO: Interestingly, Xander is the only Scooby able to defeat his nightmare in this episode. Sure, when Billy is awakened, all the other nightmares go away, but he is the only one who actively fights off and beats his monster before the spell is broken, which speaks to one of the most interesting aspects of Xander: how he is both "Zeppo" and "Hero" at once. This was most fully addressed in the fifth season's The Replacement, when his brave side and Zeppo-ish side actually are split into two different people. Xander has always had trouble reconciling the side of himself that is strong, self-assured and self-reliant, with the side of himself that is self-doubting, unconfident, and fearful. Both aspects of himself are what make him such a realistic figure. On the whole, he usually leans more towards the Zeppo, because that's the role he's created for himself, that he slips into most easily, but every now and then this stronger Xander peers through and really proves himself. This is the solid, dependable Xander that is showing more and more of himself as the show progresses, the Xander who runs his own construction team in the fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. But as together as he seems to be now on the show, his Zeppoish self is still always a part of himself, evidenced in his breakup with Anya. This episode was a very prophetic one, and therefore, perhaps this brief glimmer of Xander-as-a-hero, which was rare in the early days of the show, can be seen to foreshadow the man he is today. It stands as encouragement to him that he would get past the age of not knowing his true place in the world, and finally find his way. See 10QQQ.
10III) "It's mine." (00:36:30) DREAM COME TRUE: "The greatest fear of any Watcher is to lose his charge--the death of his Slayer. However, this is also a known inevitability. No Slayer prior to Buffy has outlived her Watcher. It's assumed the Watcher's Council trains all their Watchers to face this fear and accept this inevitability, but it's something Giles never really overcomes, even though his Slayer's died twice and come back swinging."--submitted by ZachsMind
NITPICKY MUCH?: This very sad moment also could lead to an interesting question...Just a short while ago, Giles had said that he had lost the ability to read. So how is he reading the gravestone? The only possible explanation is that, just like Willow and Xander's dreams, the dreams do not remain constant. If they did, Willow would still be stuck singing opera, Xander would still be naked, and being chased by a clown, and Giles himself would still be stuck wandering in the stacks--Etrangere, Fri, 10/11/02 at 15:27:16, with some additions by Rob
10JJJ) "I should have been more c...cautious. Taken more time to train you." (00:36:55) PREPARE ME: Again the theme of being unprepared is brought up (see 10AA and 10ZZ). Giles fears that he has faltered in his duty, by not taking the time to train Buffy enough. He adds that the reason he did not was how incredibly gifted Buffy was. One of the instances on the show where we have seen Giles forego training Buffy in a certain area due to her enormous talent was in Angel, when Giles allowed Buffy to graduate immediately to the crossbow, despite the fact that he had not officially trained her on the quarterstaff (see 7N).
10LLL) ...a hand reaches up through the dirt. (00:37:15) POP CULTURE TIME: Besides foreshadowing Buffy's hand bursting out of the ground as she digs her way out of her grave in Bargaining II, this moment is a reference to the ending of the horror movie, Carrie, based on the short novel by Stephen King. This scene, in which a girl has her wits scared out of her by a hand shooting out of a freshly dug grave and grabbing on to hers, did not occur in the book.
10MMM) "Buffy, your face!" (00:37:35) ISN'T IT IRONIC?: Although turning into a vampire is one of Buffy's greatest fears, it actually works to her advantage, because it is "the only way Buffy could have come back from death (if not exactly to life) in the context of this episode."--anom, Mon, 10/14/02 at 21:07:42
WHITHER SOUL?: Another interesting question raised by Buffy's stint as a vamp here is whether she is now the second Buffyverse vampire to have a soul, the first being Angel and the third being (at the conclusion of the sixth season), Spike. "She certainly acted as if she still had her soul; maybe this is what a vampire with a soul would be like if s/he didn't have a whole bloody history to torment her/him the way Angel and Spike do."--anom, Mon, 10/14/02 at 21:07:02 See 7NN and 7OO.
10NNN) "And I'm one of them." (00:40:05) WHAT IS THE SLAYER?: Just imagine how powerful Buffy is here, now that she not only has her regular Slayer powers, but the vampire powers as well. And since, there are implications that the Slayer's power is demonic in origin to begin with (see 9FF), this is like having the demon powers squared! Now, this leads to another interesting question, namely, "Why don't the vampires try to turn the Slayers into vampires?" My answer to that would be that perhaps it has been attempted before, but it didn't work out well, for whatever reason. On the lesser end of the spectrum, it's possible that it just can't work, for the same reason that a werewolf can't be turned into a vampire. Already being one type of demon, the creature cannot be turned into another. Maybe the Slayer's demonic powers preclude her ability to be changed. Or maybe a Slayer vampire would just have the same powers as any human turned into a vamp--if we go with the assumption that she can't have demon powers on top of demon powers, then her powers as a vamp would be the same as any human turned into a vamp. Or perhaps the demonic powers in the Slayer reject a new, evil demon force trying to invade them, like Angel's demon expelled the demon in The Dark Age, and perhaps the brunt of this rejection would fall on the vamp attempting to turn the Slayer. On the opposite end of the spectrum, maybe, assuming the Slayer and vamp powers could be combined, the power would be so unbridled, uncontrollable and great that it would destroy everything both good and bad in the world. Obviously, this is all just speculation, since there is no way to truly know, but there seems to be good reason that such Slayer-turnings aren't attempted on a regular basis, and more often than not, the vampire either doesn't drink from the Slayer (Spike snaps a Slayer's neck in Fool for Love) or doesn't drain her (Prophecy Girl). It's important to note, here, of course, that this case doesn't prove how a Vamp/Slayer would turn out, since this is merely a dream based on Buffy's fears about this happening to her.
10OOO) "I had the strangest dream. And you were in it, and you..." (00:41:55) POP CULTURE TIME: Almost word for word, this line of dialogue parallels that of Judy Garland's character, Dorothy, upon waking up from her dream of Oz, in the classic 1939 MGM version of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. All of the friends that Dorothy made in Oz were in fact dream versions of the farmhands who worked with her Uncle Henry, and, so when she wakes up, she tells them that they all played parts in her dream, which she insists is not a dream but "a truly live place."--Cactus Watcher, Thurs, 10/10/02 at 19:42:25, paraphrased by Rob
10PPP) "I'm just glad he's behind bars where he belongs." (00:43:15) SLAYAGE VS. THE COURT SYSTEM: See 9R.
10QQQ) "But that was kinda heroic, Xander, grabbing him and all." (00:43:20) XANDER THE HERO: "Xander's heroism shows up in little ways. Crayon breaky Willow ways. He knows to toot his own horn when those moments come, but sometimes he does it a bit much. He probably deserves to pump up his ego, because it's in those moments when his low self-image needs a little inflation. In the seventh season episode, Same Time, Same Place, Dawn sarcastically teases Xander about this weakness in his psyche, when she playfully encourages him to yet again tell them the story of how he saved the world from Dark Willow's rage by just talking her down. Xander's ego inflates and deflates practically every episode." Speaking of which, the idea that Buffy saw him as "kind of heroic" probably sent Xander to Cloud Nine.--submitted by ZachsMind, with some additions by Rob See 10HHH.
10RRR) "I'm sick. I need help." (00:44:00) CONTINUITY CHECK: Xander's attraction to dangerous women is a recurring theme on the show, which we have seen ever since his crush on the fake Natalie French in Teacher's Pet. In the second season, he carries on a relationship with Cordelia, "who at the time was about as nasty as one could get without actually being truly evil. Then he has a one night stand with Faith of all people in the episode, The Zeppo. Finally he courts, gets engaged, and almost gets married to the vengeance demon Anyanka..." although, admittedly, for the span of the relationship, she is pretty harmless.--submitted by ZachsMind, with some additions by Rob
POP CULTURE TIME: This line "matches in tone and pacing the insincere tag-line of the alcoholic, drug-addicted, sex-addicted character Bob from Night Stand!," the sitcom/trashy talk show parody which ran from 1995-1997 in syndication.--d'Herblay, Thurs, 10/10/02 at 15:59:10