3A) "I told you I'm going out for the cheerleading squad." (00:46:00) CINEMATIC LINKAGE: Buffy's decision to join the cheerleading squad is an homage to the original movie from which Buffy was spun off. In the movie, the main punchline was that Buffy was the sterotypical cheerleader, Clueless-esque Valley Girl who turned out to be the Slayer. The idea that Buffy is now trying to reclaim the happy high school life she once had by returning to cheerleading is very fitting, and ultimately, just like last time, does not work out.
3B) "And you'll be stopping me how?" (00:59:00) SLAYER POWER: This line again reinforces the difference between Buffy and other Slayers. She does not blindly follow her Watcher, without questioning his decisions or challenging his authority. She is her own woman, standing on her own two feet. When Giles puts his foot down, she comes right back with this line, which is the essence of Buffy's later revelation in Checkpoint that she does not need the Watcher's Council; they need her. This line also reflects the main theme of this episode, which is basically the relationship between daughters and mothers, or children and their parents or adult guardians, and the child's struggle to live up to the wishes of his or her parent. Whereas Amy has trouble standing up to her mother by letting her know that she has her own life to live, Buffy is very self-assured in this respect. She is her own person. She loves and respects her mother, as well as Giles, but refuses to follow them unquestioningly, or allow them to plan out her life for her. See 3AA.
3C) "But I want to have a life. Something normal." (00:01:14) MY SO-CALLED LIFE: Buffy's struggle to balance a normal life with her slayerly duties is a plotline that reoccurs many times throughout the series, and mirrors the feelings all teenagers, and all people, for that matter, feel--an uneasiness in how to have a successful social and business, or school, life, while at the same time staying true to themselves and their own personal obligations, feelings, or wishes. Buffy, like all people, wants to fit in, at any cost, and have a "normal" life, which, ironically, no one truly attains; everybody has a secret life, like Buffy, although it may not be quite as intense, and everyone wants to hide it. This desire is the major theme of quite a few episodes: Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, Prophecy Girl, and What's My Line, to name a few, and is always lurking beneath the surface. The difficulty of a success in this situation is the reason most (if not all) slayers before Buffy were total self-(and Watcher-) imposed social outcasts.
BUFFY'S
SPIRITUAL LIFE: In
Welcome to the Hellmouth,
Buffy was awakened to her spiritual destiny as Slayer. "But we see her
deny this destiny very explicitly. She is frightened of the cost...Buffy doesn’t
want danger. She doesn’t want risk. She wants normal.
And I suppose its possible that we all want that when we are children. But life
eventually will demand more from all of us, and so it will of Buffy. Growing
up isn’t just about getting a job or paying the bills. Of course there
are material and social responsibilities that will necessarily come to us all
no matter how much we try to resist them. But more importantly, there are spiritual
responsibilities. The world is not simply what we can see, nor made only of
things we can measure. There are more things in heaven and earth. And if we
do not nourish also our spiritual selves, our innermost being, we deny ourselves
and arguably those around us, perhaps even the world, our most valuable and
human possibilities. It is childish to do so. And Buffy, at the age
of sixteen, is at the point where she must put childish ways behind her. That
will utlimately be the story of the season. Its time to put the child to rest
and come alive as a spiritually active adult.
And oddly enough, that is exactly what Witch is about. Catherine is
obsessed with her childhood, unable to let go, unable to move on, unable to
recognize the place that she appropriately occupies in life. She wants to be
a cheer leader, to live the glory days, to relive a time before the bastard
used her and walked out and left her with a boatload of responsibility. And
she is willing to use the strange and magical powers to which she has access
not for nourishing her true spiritual needs, but to negate and deny them.
Other people have commented on the themes of this episode, and one in particular
that caught my eye was that of the pressure of living up to a parent's expectations
(see 3AA, 3BB,
and 3XX). While I agree that the
theme is present and with the points made about it, I have a minor linguistic
quibble with the idea that there is a metaphor of the pressure of living
up to a parents expectations. That is what is depicted. A metaphor
occurs when what you see depicted is really something else. And in this case,
the metaphor is that the witch is Buffy.
It is Buffy that is obsessed with her childhood, unable to let go, unable to
move on, unable to recognize the place that she appropriately occupies in life.
She wants to be a cheer leader, to live the glory days, to remain in a time
before the bastard leaves her and walks out, before she must live a boatload
of responsibility. Catherine is an indicator for us of where Buffy is on her
Spiritual Journey, and it ain’t very far.
But unlike Catherine, Buffy has, even against her own wishes, compassion for
others. Without ever having met Amy, Buffy is able to recognize that it is in
fact Amy in Catherine’s body (see 3QQ).
And the message she sees is that if you stay obsessed with remaining a child,
you really will lose your youth, and you will wake up one day and realize that
you are still a child, just one that is trapped in an old and spiritless body.
It is important to note that Buffy does not kill Catherine. She merely shows
Catharine the true reflection of herself and it destroys her, trapping her forever
in a memory of childhood that she realizes only too late is not where she belongs.
And that is why Joyce, for all her difficulties with the dismount (see 3BB),
gives Buffy the parenting Buffy needs. When asked, Joyce admits that she would
never go back, not even if it would help her understand Buffy. Joyce knows where
she belongs, and Buffy is able to recognize in her a healthy model (see 3XX).
So in the spiritual arc, the episode is right on point. Buffy gets her first
glimpse that the desire to remain a child is pathological, and it is the openness
of her heart, her ability to connect to others, that allows her to overcome
this first obstacle. At least she is able to set cheerleading aside."--manwitch,
Fri, 06/27/03 at 20:35:45 See
1D, 1*2,
3E, and Appendix
B.
3D) The witch. (00:01:40) MAGIC: In this episode, we meet our first Buffyverse witch, and she stands as a testament to the dangers of a sorcerer or sorceress allowing the powers to control them, rather than the other way around. Magic, like a recreational drug, can become very addictive, and yet, unlike recreational drugs, can also accomplish great good. Catherine becomes enraptured with her own great powers, and utilizes them for evil. For a long time, it seemed that this witch had little in common with other Buffyverse witches, since, for most of the second through fifth seasons, magic was shown as a mostly positive thing. Tara and Willow were two examples of good, benevolent witches. Now, we see, though, that any witch, even Willow, is capable of losing control of her own powers, and turning to the dark side, and Catherine is our first warning.
3E) "Here's a little good luck thing for the tryouts." (00:02:29) PUPPY LOVE: "In the first two episodes, we were immediately aware of Xander's crush on Buffy. When Xander gives her the bracelet, however, we get our first signs that this may be a little more than a mere crush--that he may truly be in love with her. Although Buffy and Willow and Xander are all best friends, the underlying feelings of love Xander feels for Buffy, and Willow feels for Xander, add rich, emotional subtext to the group and lead to some very interesting twists and turns in the future.
SYMBOLIC GIFT: "Xander, the metaphor for Buffy’s heart, gives her a bracelet saying 'yours always'. So the metaphor is saying Buffy’s heart will always be Buffy’s. She wants her heart to always stay directed towards herself, attracted to what she already is, stuck on herself if you will, rather than directed outward towards what she might become. Again, this parallels the theme of the entire episode perfectly. And her explanation of why the bracelet pleases her so is that Xander is one of the girls (see 3OO). While we know this is not true literally in the plot, metaphorically speaking it seems the message is that Buffy’s desire to remain always in this narcissistic condition has no creative potential. As one of the girls, Xander’s love of Buffy, which is Buffy’s love of herself, can produce no spiritual offspring. It’s a dead end. Willow is pleased of course to hear that Buffy thinks Xander is one of the girls, because it means that there is still a chance Xander will wake up and turn towards her, still a chance that someday the heart might fall for the spirit. Its gonna take a lot of episodes, but its going to happen eventually."--manwitch, Fri, 06/27/03 at 20:35:45 See 1D, 1*2, 3C, and Appendix B.
3F) "What is that?" (00:02:31) PUPPY LOVE: Here is another example of Willow's love for Xander, which goes completely unnoticed by him, whether she drops her voice, as she does in The Harvest (see 2R), or says it pretty loudly, as here. Xander is obviously too busy being ignored by Buffy to notice Willow! Most interesting, perhaps, is the reason behind this ignorance: the fact that each can't see the other as anything other than a friend, and in fact, doesn't regard his or her sex as being an issue at all. This happens two times in this episode: Xander tells Willow that he sees her as a guy, and Buffy tells Xander that she seems him as a girl. This desexualization becomes a constant source of frustration for these characters throughout their high school years. The person Xander loves the most, and the person Willow loves the most, see each of them as safe and sexless--as friends. See 3X and 3OO.
3G) "Who does she think she is, a Laker girl?" (00:02:44) POP CULTURE TIME: A "Laker Girl" is a cheerleader for the basketball team, the Los Angeles Lakers. The Laker Girls is one of the hardest cheerleading teams in the world to get on. The girls are extremely skilled, and very sexy, to boot.
3H) "Oh, how I hate this, let me count the ways." (00:03:07) POETIC JUSTICE: This is a pun on Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous sonnet, "How do I love thee, let me count the ways!"--Sophist, Sun, 04/14/02 at 12:26:23, paraphrased by Rob
3I) "She trained with Benson." (00:03:28) COSMIC COINCIDENCE?: The cheerleader who bursts into flames is named Amber; Her coach's name is Benson. In the fourth season of the show, the much beloved character, Tara, joined the show, played by--Amber Benson! Coincidence? You be the judge! See 13T.
3J) "Enough with the hyperbole." (00:04:10) DANSE MACABRE: This instance of spontaneous human combustion brought about by dancing, and its symbolic reference to the Danse Macabre, reoccurs again as the driving force behind the sixth season's Once More, With Feeling.--suggested by Rahael
Act One
3K) "I've been slaying vampires for more than a year now." (00:05:31) CONTINUITY CHECK: This is a quick reminder that Buffy's calling occurred approximately a year before she entered Sunnydale High.
3L) "Well, that is the thrill of living on a hellmouth." (00:06:03) GILES: This line again highlights Giles' youthful excitement about this whole Watcher gig, and reinforces the fact that Giles is not the stereotypical stuffy, old British expositor. He has almost a gleeful delight regarding the horrific beings he and the Scoobies face each week. See 2Y.
3M) "Like the Human Torch, only it hurts." (00:06:28) POP CULTURE TIME: The Human Torch is a classic superhero from Marvel Comics who had the ability to burst into flame, without harming himself, like a biblical burning bush. Only his enemies could be hurt by his fire. Xander wryly conjectures that Amber had the ability to set herself on fire, like the Human Torch, but unlike him, hadn't mastered the art of not having the pain thing.
3N) "At last something I can do." (00:06:37) WILLOW POWER: It's kind of sweet and touching to hear the joy in Willow's voice that she can finally utilize her own brand of super-skills to help solve the problem. Willow is always itching to get in on the action, while at the same time shy about it at the same time, and unable to fight. When she is going on-line, hacking, etc, however, she is fully in her element and can do some real good.
3O) "You're the Slayer, and we're the Slayerettes." (00:06:48) SCOOBY POWER: "The Scooby Gang first begins to function as a unit in...[The Witch]. This episode also establishes the formula for the remainder of Season 1. A catalyst event, such as the discovery of a body at Sunnydale High (a staple of the series) pushes the gang into action, the gang goes to the library to do research, and based on the new knowledge gained confronts the baddie." It's also interesting to see here how Buffy is still uneasy about putting her new friends in danger, having been so used to having her calling separate her from other people her age. But her newfound friends refuse to abandon her. They are outsiders as well, understand her, and want to help out as much as they can. --Rattletrap, Tues, 12/11/01 at 09:21:16, with some additions by Rob
3P) "You know, this girl, Amy, trains with her mom like three hours a day." (00:08:42) In this scene, we see that Buffy, on some level, wishes that her mom did have more time to spend with her, or could understand her better, like Amy's mother seems to do for her. It is not until she realizes the full implication of Catherine's demented behavior that she can appreciate her mom for who she is. See 3BB.
3Q) "Jeepers." (00:08:58) MOTHERHOOD: Buffy's exclamation at seeing the rather well-endowed fertility statue is an example of a recurring theme on the show, "Buffy's fear of her own possible maternal role in the future." This theme crops up again in the second season's Bad Eggs and in Buffy's attempts to raise Dawn in the fifth and sixth seasons.--Rahael, Sun 04/14/02 at 12:26:23, partly paraphrased by Rob
3R) "Catherine the Great." (00:09:55) HISTORICAL ALLUSIONS: Catherine the Great was a Russian empress, Catherine II, who lived from 1729-1796. She and her husband, Peter III, had great animosity towards each other and she is "down in the popular imagination as having lots of lovers and being tyrannical," the latter of which is historically undeserved (a). "...[O]ne of her numerous lovers, Gregory Orlov, was involved in the coup against her husband Peter III...[in which Peter was killed]. Like Catherine the Great (who was not even Russian) Catherine the mom is something of a usurper, and they were both immensely more talented and popular than the person whose place they took" (b).--(a) Rahael, Sat, 04/13/02 at 10:57:10; (b) Cactus Watcher, Sat, 04/13/02 at 12:17:22; some additions by Rob
3S) "She and my dad were homecoming king and queen, got married right after graduation." (00:10:05) TINY NITPICK: If Catherine married Amy's father after graduation, why is "Madison" printed as her last name on the tropy? There are only two options besides a mistake: (1) Catherine didn't change her name after marrying her husband, and Amy took it as well, or (2) Catherine's maiden name, by coincidence, was the same as her husband's last name.
3T) "So Mommie Dearest really is...Mommie Dearest." (00:11:15) POP CULTURE TIME: Mommie Dearest refers to a book written by Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of screen legend, Joan Crawford (1905-1977), detailing the horrific tales of abuse she and her adopted siblings received at the hands of their adopted mother. To the world, Joan Crawford was a glamorous, world-famous movie star; behind closed doors, she was a monster. This book brought into focus the fact that no one knows people's true personalities, once they are out of the spotlight and in their own homes. In 1981, Mommie Dearest was turned into a movie, starring Faye Dunaway, which has become a cult classic due to the melodramatic histrionics and scene-chewing acting.--Assembled by Rob from data at The Internet Movie Database. See 3SS.
3U) "We used to hang in Junior High." (00:11:20) WILLOW'S PAST: This is one of the few tidbits about Willow's pre-Buffy life that we have been given throughout the years on the show. The fact that Willow and Amy used to be such good friends is one of the reasons she can find solace in her company when she saves her from rat-dom in the sixth season's Smashed.
3V) "We have to achieve our dreams, Amy, otherwise we wither and die." (00:12:30) FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: In Dana Reston's script, Cordelia is described as saying these words in a "chillingly kind" tone.--"The Witch " by Dana Reston, available from Pocket Books, Inc. as Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Script Book, Season One, Volume 1
3W) "Except without the hugging or the kissing or her knowing about it." (00:13:10) NAUGHTY WILLOW: Yet another funny, off-hand comment Willow makes to diffuse the pain she feels over Xander's ignoring her as a viable romantic partner.
3X) "Oh great. I'm a guy." (00:13:22) POETIC JUSTICE: "Xander tells Willow she's just like a guy, only to get his comeuppance later when Buffy tells Xander he's one of the girls. This type of ironic twist is a recurring theme in the series."--Sophist, Mon, 04/15/02 at 10:37:53 See 3F and 3OO.
Act Two
3Y) "I'm not ready to know you had Farrah hair." (00:15:47) POP CULTURE TIME: The hairstyle to which Buffy refers is the style that Farrah Fawcett wore, and many teenagers of the time copied. She was a pop culture icon in the 1970s for her role in Charlie's Angels, a hit show about three secret agents working for a millionaire named Charlie. In 2000, it was made into a hit movie starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu.--suggested by Rahael, some information compiled from the Internet Movie Database
3Z) "This is Gidget hair." (00:15:49) POP CULTURE TIME: This hairstyle is modelled after the way Sally Field wore her hair when she starred, at the age of 19, in Gidget, a hit 1965 show about a young teenage girl and her pastimes of surfing and dating. The show itself was a spinoff of the 1959 film starring Sandra Dee.--suggested by Rahael, some information compiled from the Internet Movie Database
3AA) "This just in: I'm not you." (00:16:20) MOTHERHOOD: This line echoes Buffy's earlier line to Giles that he couldn't stop her from cheerleading. She is respectful of her mother, but at the same time makes it very clear that they are two different people, and she will not live out her mom's dreams. Granted, Joyce's suggestion about Buffy joining the yearbook staff was meant in a far more helpful, friendly manner than Catherine's tyranny in forcing Amy to follow in her footsteps, and, in part, was a reaction to Buffy hurting her a bit by calling the yearbook staff lower than nerds. Buffy and Joyce have a far more healthy relationship than Catherine and Amy, even when they hurt each other, because they have a far more equal relationship. They are each allowed to voice their own opinions, likes and dislikes, but always make up in the end. See 3B.
3BB) "Great parenting form. Little shaky on the dismount." (00:16:40) MOTHERHOOD: "In The Witch, two mothers are contrasted: Joyce, and Catherine Madison. Joyce may make mistakes, but we see that she genuinely wants the best for Buffy. Catherine Madison believes she *owns* her daughter. Owns her mind, owns her body and owns her life. Her attic is full of little dolls, and that's what people are like for her. Her own daughter is a doll that refused to stay doll-like and baby-like. She started growing up and out of her mother's control. Joyce talks wryly of her 'great parenting form' but we see throughout the episode that her anxiety is to try and be a better mother for Buffy. Her astute comment to Buffy saying that Amy's mother spent 3 hours helping her train was that "her mother had too little to do". Joyce isn't interested in suffocating Buffy. She misunderstands why Buffy gets into trouble, but which parent wouldn't be concerned with having a child who inexplicably burnt down the school gym?"--Rahael, Sat, 04/13/02 at 10:57:10
3CC) "Worse, I'm just part of the scenery, like an old shoe..." (00:17:02) ISN'T IT IRONIC?: Interestingly, Xander's description of how Buffy regards him is identical to how Willow feels he treats her...Always there to chat with, or to help him with math homework (see 1G), like one of his guy friends. See 3F, 3X, and 3OO.
3DD) "Let's not drive it through my head with a railroad spike." (00:17:17) FORESHADOWY GOODNESS: This throwaway line of Xander's is a case of unintentional foreshadowing, since, in the second season, we are introduced to Spike, whose nickname was allegedly derived from his propensity for torturing his victims with railroad spikes!--suggested by Sophist
3EE) "We can pick this up later, you don't mind, do you?" (00:18:01) JUST A FRIEND: The next time Xander will make a true attempt to ask Buffy out on a date will occur in Prophecy Girl, the first season finale (see 12M). Her answer, as to be expected, is that she has never thought of him that way before, as a result of him being in the "friend zone," as Joey from the hit NBC show, Friends, called it in the first season episode, The One with the Blackout. The "friend zone" is the point after which the woman can never see the man in a sexual light, since their friendship has already been established for so long. See 3F.
3FF) "Cordelia, it's okay, you're gonna be...Oh, God!" (00:20:00) JOSEPH CAMPBELL & THE HERO'S JOURNEY: "Cordelia, as I have already suggested, fulfills the role of Threshold Guardian, an obstacle that must be overcome before the Hero can set out on her path...Cordelia serves as the symbolic reminder of the life that Buffy has forsaken. Threshold Guardians are rarely enemies to be defeated; instead the Hero must often co-opt or assimilate them as part of the group. Buffy does just this. She saves Cordelia's life several times during the first season, and by the end of that season, Cordelia can no longer deny Buffy's ability." This will not truly begin to occur until the season's penultimate episode, Out of Mind, Out of Sight.--Rattletrap, Tuesday, 12/11/01 at 09:21:16, with some additions by Rob See 1Q, 1S, 1Y, 1JJ, 1TT, 2T, 2RR, 11GGG, 12LLL, 27CCC, 35XXX, and Appendix A.
3GG) "If you're not a picture perfect carbon copy they tend to wig." (00:20:53) OK, WE GET THE POINT!: This is just another one-line sum-up of the theme of this episode, which I thought was good to point out since similar lines are repeated throughout the episode.
3HH) "If a spell has been cast in previous 48 hours, witch's skin will turn blue." (00:22:20) BUFFYVERSE METAPHYSICS: This potion's existence is very interesting, because it implies that, when a witch performs a spell, some of its metaphysical residue will remain, invisible, on the witch's skin for up to 48 hours after it has been completed. Magic is a very real, physical force in the Buffyverse, and its effects are never completely swept away, even after the visual aspects of the spell have been long finished.
3*1) Willow grabs the frog and takes out its eye. FROG FEAR?: See 16AAA.
3II) "Wow, you've got a killer streak I've never seen before." FROM THE ORIGINAL SHOOTING SCRIPT: This brief exchange, from the original shooting script, was taken out of the actual episode. Although this episode is still very early in the run of the show, and even though Xander meant this line as a joke, it comes off as eerily prescient, considering Willow's dark and sometimes violent reactions to people "crossing her," seen first in the fourth season's Something Blue, and then in the latter part of the fifth season (beginning with Tough Love), and in the end of the sixth (from Villians and on). Some may see this line as being merely coincidental, and for all intents and purposes, it is, but, at the same time, it speaks to a side of Willow that has always been there. Underneath her meek, helpless exterior, she has a fire burning inside of her, most of which has found its outlet in doing such unethical things as computer hacking in order to solve problems. Even her voracious appetite for this sort of science and dissection implies a certain bloodthirstiness buried deeply under the surface. Willow, at many times, is a "means-justifies-the-ends"-type gal. If some good can be accomplished or some wrong avenged by doing an action, even if it is not totally honest, she will usually be for it, although at the same time act shocked when others behave unethically. This inborn hypocrisy leads to many fascinating character twists and turns throughout the course of the series.
3JJ) "She's our Sabrina." (00:24:31) POP CULTURE TIME: This "Sabrina" reference refers to Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a popular character from Archie Comics that was later spun-off into a popular television series starring Melissa Joan Hart and Caroline Rhea.
3KK) "I got a history report due tomorrow. Write it." (00:25:17) PLOT TWISTAGE: This is one of the first examples of the type of incredible plot twist for which Buffy is famous. This one, in fact, becomes a twist within a twist. At this point, we think that Amy's mother isn't the evil, controlling one, but the victim of her malevolent daughter. Only later do we find out that their original suspicions were correct: Catherine was the evil one, and had switched bodies with her daughter. See 3QQ.