14A) Some Assembly Required. WHAT'S IN A NAME?: "The title is a reference to the common phrase used by catalogues and shops when selling flat-packed furniture and other 'kit' goods. From my own experience, it's a euphemism for 'Acquisition of grossly expensive tools, much swearing and several hours of puzzling over the illegible instructions required'.--KdS, Tues, 12/03/02 at 10:13:21
Teaser
14B) ...sitting on top of the gravestone of Stephen Korshak playing with her yo-yo." THE LOVECRAFT CIRCLE: "Here we go again with the Lovecraftian friendship circle (see 5BB). Stephan D. Korshak was a preliminary Hugo nominee for his Hannes Bok (editorial work, I think) book in 1986. A writer in LA, he's quite likely a friend of one of the ME writers...being killed off in the episode for a joke."--Vickie, Sun, 12/01/02 at 23:08:35
BUFFY'S YO-YO: "Buffy's yo-yo makes the first of its rare appearances [here]...it shows up again in [the next episode,] School Hard, and then seems to disappear until Season 5 in Listening to Fear."--Rook, Sun, 12/01/02 at 12:58:57
14C) "I heard you were on the hunt." THERE'S THAT WORD AGAIN: See 12I.
14D) "When you first wake up it's a little disorienting." FORESHADOWY GOODNESS: "Angel tells Buffy something she'll dramatically find out at the beginning of Bargaining, Part Two."--Tchaikovsky, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:04:26
14E) "Is it 'cause I danced with him?" CONTINUITY CHECK: "This links back to the previous episode, When She Was Bad, where Buffy danced provocatively with Xander in front of Angel (see 13HH). Of course, the denouement of the episode was Buffy's reconciliation with her friends (see 13EEE), but Angel's yet to find out that her implied feelings for Xander weren't genuine."--Tchaikovsky, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:04:26
14F) "Does that mean I'm just a kid too?" QUITE AN AGE DIFFERENCE: "In Choices, the [immortal] Mayor's words about his [mortal,] ageing wife[, that she grew to hate him for his eternal young age] is one of the things that convinces Angel to split up with Buffy. Here there is an early echo of that thought. There is always insecurity in the Buffy/Angel relationship which belies the apparent romantic ideal which it is often...suggested to be. The age difference is always an underlying issue to Buffy."--Tchaikovsky, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:04:26
14G) She falls into an open grave with an open and empty coffin at the bottom. LINKAGE: This is only one out of the myriad times Buffy will fall into or be forced to lie in an open grave or coffin in the run of the show. The metaphorical reason for this time is most likely meant to comment on the doomed nature of the Buffy/Angel relationship. See 14FF, 14UU, and 16Kx4.
Act One
14H) "Then if you wouldn't mind a little Gene and Roger..." POP CULTURE TIME: For many years, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, two well-renowned film critics, had a television show where they would discuss recent films, and grant them with a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down." The two rarely agreed, and so a "two thumbs up" was always coveted by filmmakers. Gene Siskel died in 1999 of cancer, and Roger Ebert has continued reviewing films with a new partner, Richard Roeper. Here, Buffy is implying that she is reviewing Giles' "performance."--Sophist, Sun, 12/01/02 at 12:06:25, paraphrased and expanded on by Rob
14I) "Hmm, it actually kinda turns me on." AND HE'S NOT LYING: "By subsequent events, he might not actually be joking. The first laying of groundwork for Xander's affair with Cordelia, and the whole issue of Xander's attraction to assertive, even aggressive women. It'll take a few years before we find out that he's really looking for women who could defend themselves against him if he aged into his father."--KdS, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:18:08
14J) "Oh, thank you, Cyrano." MASTERPIECE THEATRE : "A reference to Edmond Rostand's oft-revived and frequently filmed play Cyrano de Bergerac, dealing with a swashbuckling soldier with an inferiority complex about his looks [he has a rather ungainly nose], who helps a more handsome man woo a woman [Roxanne] who he himself loves." The most well-known scene of the play has Cyrano hiding in the bushes and speaking to Roxanne at her window, pretending to be his friend. In 1987, the story was updated and turned into a romantic comedy film starring Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah, entitled Roxanne. Giles here is sarcastically commenting on the fact that, unlike Cyrano's wooing words, Buffy's suggestion to him is anything but poetic.--KdS, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:18:08, with additions by Rob
14K) "Now, is it time to have a talk about the facts of life?" BIRDS & BEES: "Mutant Enemy always enjoys subversion. This line turns the nascent parental persona of Giles to Buffy, Xander and Willow on its head. It also hints at the gang's belief that Giles has always been extremely innocent and bookish. This notion is belied in Season Two, as Giles' character gains depth through episodes such as The Dark Age."--Tchaikovsky, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:04:26
14L) "Y'know, because that whole stork thing is a smoke screen." WHERE DO BABIES COME FROM?: This refers to the old-fashioned explanation that parents would give children as to where babies come from, in which a stork would fly down to the house of the parents and gently place a baby, wrapped in a blanket, on the doorstep.
14M) "Grave robbing? That's new." HISTORICALLY SPEAKING: "Actually, it's not. Very common in 19th century Britain, particularly in Edinburgh where there was (and still is) a prestigious medical school. Graves were robbed and corpses sold for disection, despite dire penalties. A whole industry grew up around paying for protection of loved ones graves to prevent robbing soon after internment - bodies had to be fresh. Burke and Hare were two nasty chaps who branched out from grave robbing to straight murder in order to supply bodies for the significant wads of cash on offer. Much like Chris and Eric, progressing from digging up dead girls for bits, to [attempting to] kill...Cordy..."--Helen, Mon, 12/02/02 at 09:30:11
SUNNYDALE-ISHLY SPEAKING: "Certainly not new in the world, but possibly new in Sunnydale. Maybe the point is that grave robbing isn't particularly Hellmouthy. Most of the demons we've seen on the show are more interested in all the live, fresh humans walking around."--anom, Mon, 12/02/02 at 17:23:17
14N) "I *know* you meant to say gross and disturbing." RIPPER: "Giles continues to have way too much fun with his job, disturbing his slayer a bit (see 3L). In Phases, he will be thrilled over the prospect of a werewolf. Buffy will suggest he needs a pet."--Vickie, Sun, 12/01/02 at 23:08:15
14O) "...they're making participation in this year's science fair mandatory." SNYDER STRIKES AGAIN: Assumably, the science fair being made mandatory is the work of the sadistic Snyder, who delights in forcing the students whom he hates so much to partake in school events. In the past, he's made the talent show mandatory, in The Puppet Show (see 9C). Future examples include the mandatory parent/teacher night volunteering in the next episode, School Hard (see 15E), the mandatory job fair in What's My Line (see 21J), and the mandatory take-the-kids-trick-or-treating-night in Halloween (see 18N).
14P) "Uh, sorry to interrupt, Willow, but it's the Bat Signal." POP CULTURE TIME: This is a reference to the classic comic book character, Batman, who would be alerted to danger in Gotham City by a large searchlight that would project a symbol of a large bat into the night sky.--Sophist, Sun, 12/01/02 at 12:06:25, paraphrased and expanded on by Rob
14Q) "That Fondren might actually beat Sunnydale in the cross-town body count competition this year?" SUNNYDALE FACTS: "The question of Sunnydale High being the only school in town is settled here." After Sunnydale High is blown up in Graduation Day, Part Two, this may be one of the schools where Sunnydale students are sent, before the new high school is built by the start of the seventh season premiere, Lessons.--Vickie, Sun, 12/01/02 at 23:08:35, with additions by Rob
14R) "Who else likes those little powdered doughnuts?" CONTINUITY CHECK: This is the first reference we get to the gang chowing down on doughnuts, as they pull one of their all-nighters. In The Zeppo, the others send Xander out to get the doughnuts, in order to keep him out of harm's way.
14S) "Zombies don't eat the flesh of the living." XANDER FORGETFUL: "Xander obviously didn't remember this conversation, as Anya had to correct him on exactly the same issue in Bargaining I."--KdS, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:18:08
14T) "Love makes you do the wacky." HOW TRUE: "Possibly the most oft-quoted line in this episode, and a truism of the Buffyverse. How many times have we seen people's judgments impeded by love? This is summed up in the episode Passion where...[Angelus'] voice-over deals with love. With love we feel our strongest emotions, and feel the depths of despair. But without love we are 'hollow'. In the Buffyverse, the gap between rational enquiry, (leading to killing those demons), and emotional instinct, (leading to protect the ones you love above all else), is constantly explored, never with more power than in the Buffy/Angelus arc later in Season Two."--Tchaikovsky, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:04:26
14U) "And he broke Cordy's heart? Thus possibly proving its existence." QUEEN C OF HEARTS: "This concept of Queen C not having a heart...[appears throughout the series.] In Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered, Buffy will ask Xander (regarding the heart locket he intends as a Valentine's Day offering) if she knows 'what one of those is?'"--Vickie, Sun, 12/01/02 at 23:08:35 See 28B.
POP CULTURE TIME: This sentiment of Buffy's is similar to the Tin Man's in the 1939 film classic of The Wizard of Oz, who tells her, when she leaves at the end, that now he knows he has a heart, because it's breaking.
14V) "Call me an optimist, but I'm hoping to find a fortune in gold doubloons." POP CULTURE TIME: This is "[p]ossibly a reference to the film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which involves a hoard of gold hidden in a grave."--KdS, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:18:08
14W) "God, it's you." FORESHADOWY GOODNESS: "I think we start seeing the tragedy which Angel will bring to everyone being foreshadowed pretty early on this season, and it starts here, when we believe that Cordelia is being hunted by the Graverobber in a cat and mouse game in the car park. Phew, it's only Angel! But come Surprise, Willow will find that the predatory creature which toys with her, and gets her to walk toward him wears a very different face. It's only Angel. It's Angelus."--Rahael, Wed, 12/04/02 at 06:59:42
14X) "It just so happens that my night is free." SALTY GOODNESS: References to Cordy's early attraction to Angel continue. See 5GG.
Act Two
14Y) "That's gotta be a first." WRONG, XANDER!: Actually, dishonesty is the last trait one could accuse Cordy of displaying. Which just goes to show how little credit Cordy is given early on in the series. See 11UU.
14Z) "Angel saved me from an arm." ARMS & DECONSTRUCTION: "Angel saves Cordelia from an arm. Later he will pull the Judge's dismembered arm off Buffy [in Surprise--see 25ZZ], and when the Judge is blown to bits [in Innocence], this arm will be the most notable bit left. ME does like the imagery of parts being both disassembled and reconstructed (a metaphor for post-modernism?). This image reaches its pinnacle in season 4 with Adam who is assembled from demon and human, requiring the separate members of the Scoobies to combine themselves to defeat him. See 25ZZ.
A more overt theme in this episode is the objectification of women. Eric is literally breaking girls into separate parts, denying their wholeness, leaving only what he determines as their most sexually desirable components. The Scoobies end up playing with gender roles: Jenny asks Giles out, Buffy mocks stereotypes with her 'men dig the graves, women have the babies' line, and in the end Buffy offers to walk Angel home."--Ponygirl, Mon, 12/02/02 at 12:00:44
CORDY
AS SCOOBY: "Probably the real reason why Cordelia joins the Scooby
Gang. If you tot it up, between Out of Sight, Out of Mind and Reptile
Boy there's only one episode (Inca Mummy Girl) where she isn't
threatened with death or worse. Cordy obviously decided she was safer looking
for trouble with Buffy than waiting for it to come after her on her own."--KdS,
Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:18:08
14AA)
"Karma!" KARMA CHAMELEON: "Karma"
is a Hinduist and Buddhist term that refers to the belief that the actions that
one takes in the present life will affect his or her next life. People who do
good deeds can expect a happy, prosperous future life; bad people can expect
the opposite. Here, Xander is implying that the fact that Cordy isn't a nice
person is the reason why "these terrible things [are] always happening
to" her.
14BB)"Great! I'll drive?" CONTINUITY CHECK: "Cordelia is clearly implied…to have invited Angel into her car here. This is capitalized on in another episode written by Ty King, Passion, where Cordelia's main worry is that she might get hurt by Angelus in her car (see 29L)."--Tchaikovsky, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:04:26
14CC) "...this search is completely unauthorized." HYPOCRITICAL SCOOBIES?: "Although everyone gets very upset about locker searches in Gingerbread, it's OK when the Scoobies do it. It's all right. They're the Good guys." To be fair, the situations are different: in this episode: here, the Scoobies search only the particular lockers of the few suspects they have, in order to stop a crime, while in Gingerbread, all of the students' lockers are searched in a witchhunt to find any implication of any of them doing any magical acts. Both are invasions of privacy, but MOO's assault in Gingerbread is more insidious.--KdS, Sun, 12/01/02 at 11:18:08
14DD) "My girl..." MUSICALLY SPEAKING: "Eric is singing a [classic Motown] song by The Temptations."--Sophist, Sun, 12/01/02 at 12:06:25
14EE) "People want the dream. What they can't have." ISN'T IT IRONIC?: "The usual double dose of irony on BtVS. Xander is talking about Buffy, not even realizing his words apply to himself," and that they apply to Willow's feelings for him, as well. Xander makes a similar argument in I Was Made to Love You.--Sophist, Sun, 12/01/02 at 12:06:25, with additions by Rob
14FF) "We were talking about the reanimation of dead tissue." LOVE AND THE HELLMOUTH: "Well, Xander could be forgiven for mistaking Love for the reanimation of dead tissue in the Buffyverse surely. I think the main attraction of this ep is its subtle wittiness/ play with words and imagery. On one level, we have Buffy sparring with Angel, and Giles with Jenny. On both occasions, we know it is a prelude to sex, to attraction. It's play fighting. It's Beatrice and Benedick [from William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, whose playful insults hide the love they truly feel for each other].
There's a real darkness underneath, but the real impact of what it foreshadows is left to the rest of the season. I think it's a commentary on Buffy/Angel. The first scene is with them, in a graveyard, and that's the way it ends too. Where Angel confesses that he is jealous of Xander because he gets to share Buffy's daylight hours, and he only gets to see her at night, in graveyards. Buffy says she doesn't look all that good in direct light. The final shot is that of a tombstone. In this case it's for Daryl Epps, but it might as well show the open grave, lying there, empty waiting for the body of the B/A ship. As Buffy says: 'I wish people wouldn't leave open graves laying around like this.'
Something else struck me. And that's the preservation of the dead as a living thing. Or the very opposite of "Let the Dead bury the Dead". Chris Epps brings back his brother because he can't accept the idea of death. Neither can his mother, who keeps her dead son alive, perserved in a kind of emotional formaldehyde in her life. She doesn't leave her house. She spends her life among the 'dead'. She can't even see the living anymore - she neglects the one son she has left. She doesn't even take her eyes of the tv, where we see an video of Daryl playing football, to notice what Chris is saying to her. She has Daryl preserved in time. And Daryl Epps, when he gains his unnatural life, immediately starts reconstructing the dead girl of his dreams.
Again
and again we become conscious of how Buffy herself is in love with a dead person.
How she dwells in the night. For all the 'icks' she and her friends express
when they slowly find out what Chris and his friend are doing, Buffy is also
looking to mate with the dead. As Cordelia points out: 'Eww! Why is it that
every conversation you people have has the word corpse in it?' But the irony
is that Cordelia promptly falls for Angel!!... And when Angel finally departs...[Buffy]
will preserve him, and their love in emotional formaldehyde. Stuck on that moment
of the grand passion.
Which reminds me of Passion where Angelus kills Jenny, and lays her
out on Giles' bed, complete with stirring music from La Boheme, and
roses and champagne downstairs. The consummation of a romance which starts to
get underway here, in this ep. A romance which is constantly counterpointed
with B/A here in this ep. The relationship which dwells in the night, and the
relationship which dwells in the daytime, in the land of dates, and Mexican
food and football games and all the promise of a future life together. Something
which B/A doesn't have. And B/A will cut out the life from Giles and Jenny's
relationship..."--Rahael, Wed, 12/04/02 at 06:59:42 See 14UU.
14GG) "Do I deconstruct your segues?" SPEAKING OF WHICH...: A "segue" is a musical term referring to a transition that moves a musical piece from one section to another. It can also be used, in conversations, to mean a smooth transition from one are of discussion to another. Willow implies that "And speaking of love..." was anything but a smooth transition from their previous topic of reanimating dead tissue. "Deconstruction" is a form of literary analysis whereby the characters, themes, etc of a literary work are delved into by symbolically breaking them apart, piece by piece, and analyzing each fully. Xander is implying that Willow was over-analyzing his segue.
14HH) "Ms. Calendar's my father." GENDER REVERSALS: This episode continues the show's mission statement of subverting expected gender roles. Here, "Jenny turns a young man's phrase about his father on its head for humorous effect." Throughout the episode, Jenny continues to take the "man"'s role, asking Giles out, announcing that there will be another date, etc.--Vickie, Sun, 12/01/02 at 23:08:35, with paraphrasing by Rob
14II)
"...what if that poor girl is walking around?" BUFFY'S
ETHICS: "Many of the themes and character development ideas from
this episode are played out in more detail in two episodes in season 5: I
Was Made to Love You and Intervention: Buffy: "What if that
poor girl is walking around" This sympathy is well mirrored later in IWMTLY,
when Buffy becomes quite sympathetic towards April...[the robot version Warren
Mears had created of his ex-girlfriend, Katrina]. And Buffy's overall attitude
that it's 'sick'...is mirrored again in Intervention when she calls
the robot...[of herself] 'gross and obscene.'...
As disgusted as she is by the creations, and she's willing enough to slay them
if nesessary, she also exhibits deep sympathy for what was done to them. In
many ways, viewing the attitudes toward the 3 creations (Bride of Darryl here,
April and Buffybot in S5) gives insight into Buffy's overall attitudes about
the demons she faces. She's willing to kill them, but she feels for them to.
And so, when one tries to rise above its nature (Spike, Angel, Anya), she has
a tendency to give them the benefit of the doubt, at least enough to refrain
from slaying them while they're making an effort to behave."--Rook,
Sun, 12/01/02 at 12:58:57
MORE ON THAT: "Does Buffy identify on some level? Obviously with April, Buffy, still recovering from the aftermath of Riley, connected with April's self-blame for her abandonment, but maybe Buffy also can appreciate the perspective of someone whose purpose or destiny is determined by another. --Ponygirl, Mon, 12/02/02 at 12:00:44
14JJ) "You promised me, little brother." FAMILIAL BONDS: "The Frankenstein monster here has a close fraternal bond. Adam (the season 4 Frankenstein monster) has a similar bond (or perceived one) with Riley. Mary Shelly's Frankenstein monster had no such bond. Even Victor Frankenstein (the scientist, parallel to Chris and later to Maggie Walsh) had only a very much younger brother William...who fell victim to the monster."--Vickie, Sun, 12/01/02 at 23:08:35 See 14UU.
HOW WAS CHRIS ABLE TO RESURRECT DARYL?: "He is obviously a brilliant high school student. But even if he is Doogie Howser, MD, his surgical equipment can't be the best. As Willow points out, Chris will not only have to stop the natural decay of the dead girl's body cells, but combine their body parts, and reanimate them. Normally this shouldn't be doable, but they live on the Hellmouth, where mystical energy can give physical forces an extra boost. An electrical current combined with an adrenaline boost might do it."--Masquerade, "Some Assembly Required" Analysis from http://www.atpobtvs.com