Buffy for Beginners 3.1: Anne
By Sabrina Boyer
So, the last time we encountered the Scoobies, Buffy had to murder Angel almost immediately after his alter ego, Angelus, began to suck the world into hell by pulling out the sword of Acathla. Buffy freaked as any girl would at having to kill her one and only true love, and skedaddled all the way to L.A. to live as Anne, a timid waitress who ignores her sacred duty of slayerdom. Poor Buffy. I mean, Anne.
As the ep opens, we see a vamp freshly born from the grave and hungry. But who’s there to slay him? Buffy? Nope. “That’s right big boy. Come and get it.” It’s Willow. And Xander. And Oz. How many Scoobies does it take to slay a vampire? Also, come and get it big boy? The slayer always has a quip or a pun and it throws the vampires off; we took her punning for granted. And school’s about to start, senior year, Buffy’s still gone, Will’s pumped about her first homework assignment and Xan’s excited to Cordelia. And oh yeah, Buffy got kicked out of school. To deal with her lack of love, her kicked out of schoolness, and her mother telling her never to return, she’s trying to heal. She dreams of Angel. “I’ll never leave, not even if you kill me,” Angel whispers. Obviously the girl’s got issues. So what’s the world supposed to do without the slayer? Welcome to season three my friends.
The slayer is putting her superpowers to good use by waitressing to country bumpkin truckers who sexually harass her and slap her ass. But…she does nothing. We know she’s not her usual self. She ends up waiting on a table with a couple of homeless kids, and the girl, Lily, seems to recognize her. Meanwhile, the Scoobies are doing Buffy’s dirty work. Cordy and Xan awkwardly say hello and Will explains to Giles that part of their mission statement is “don’t get killed.” Oh, and Oz is a senior. Again. And Will is a little freaked about Oz’s repeating a grade thing. While the gang settles in Buffy sits depressed in her tiny apartment, wandering the streets on her way to work and sees a homeless woman muttering “I’m no one.” Giles is hopping around California trying to locate Buffy; everyone’s in search of someone. “You don’t think he might find her?” Willow asks. “I think he’ll find her when she wants to be found,” replies Xander.
Buffy’s found out by the girl from the diner, if you remember Chanterelle, the girl who was friends with Ford, Buffy’s old elementary crush who turned out to have a big ‘ole brain tumor. She promises not to tell anyone about Buffy’s secret identity; Chanterelle, now known as Lily, is homeless and changes identities like we change clothes. An old man bumps into them on the street and walks out into traffic mumbling “I’m no one.” Buffy saves him and ends up getting hit by a car. Of course, she’s fine cause she’s the slayer. And then she bumps into a weirdo, Ken, who’s passing out flyers about some hope house. Then we get this cheesy montage about homeless kids; it’s meant well, but kinda lame. It shifts to a nice montage at the Bronze to Xan and Will, who’s glad they showed up for depressing night. Xan laments about Cordy and his awkward reunion and begins to plan to use Cordy as vamp bait.
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Giles visits Joyce who proceeds to blame Giles for Buffy’s fleeing, which, in my opinion, is extremely uncalled for. She’s the one who kicked her out; Giles may share some blame, but so does Joyce. She’s jealous of Giles’ relationship with Buffy that they’ve shared behind her back. “I didn’t make Buffy who she is,” he says. Meanwhile, Lily seeks Buffy’s help cause her boyfriend, Ricky, is gone. “Can you help me?” she asks. “But that’s who you are, you help people. You know how to do stuff.” Buffy is forced back into slayer mode, whether she likes it or not. While they search for him at the blood bank, there’s something fishy going on with the blood bank lady. The girls split up and Buffy finds Ricky in one of their hideouts, aged about sixty years, dead, with a bottle of liquid Drano empty next to his head. He has the tattoo that he shares with Lily. Buffy tells Lily about what she found, and she doesn’t believe him and falls for Ken’s hope house bullcrap. She urges Lily to accept what’s happened, and it’s ironic because Buffy needs to take her own advice.
Turns out, Ken is some kind of evil alternate dimension demon who recruits homeless teens as workers. The thing is, time passes differently in his dimension than on Earth. A day passes on Earth, and it can be one hundred years in Ken’s ‘verse which gives us one of the ripest scenes for deconstruction in the whole series. I’ve used this scene plenty of times. Additionally, the show uses Ken’s character and religious reference as a commentary on some of the hypocritical natures of those who claim they just want to help.
Buffy figures Ken is the one who’s the big bad and goes to help Lily only to be sucked into a literal hell of worker bees, complete with fire and brimstone and a loss of identity. They break them down, use them up and spit them back out. Sound familiar? In the face of capitalism perhaps? An example of workers used as commodities, this is a very Marxist reading of the current face of capitalism, particularly concerning issues of globalization, outsourcing, and sweatshops for the sake of profit. The kids are used until they’re too old, and are forced to work until they die.
Buffy and Lily wake up in a factory, or in other words, hell. The total absence of hope. Doesn’t that describe the lot of us? Don’t buy this reading yet? The new workers are lined up and told to forget their old life. They are asked, “Who are you?” The appropriate response is “I am no one.” It seems all Buffy needed to do to disappear was to get a job at a sweatshop. As she’s asked who she is, in true Buffy fashion, she reclaims her identity as the slayer. And in the nick of time. “Who are you?” “I’m Buffy, the vampire slayer, and you are?” Yeah! The punning is back.
Buffy encourages the workers to revolt, and as we can see, the workers outnumber the oppressors, and when they realize that, they save themselves. The lesson? The workers have the power. Buffy creates a diversion and fights off the baddies, using, what else? A hammer and Scythe. Ring a bell? The Worker’s Party? Oh yeah. And up comes one of the best fight scenes, in my opinion, in the history of the series. Buffy’s a worker bee who’s just not gonna take it anymore. Lily steps it up and helps the rest of the workers escape, and see, everyone can be empowered. As Ken says, “Humans don’t fight back. That’s how this works.” So for it not to work? Fight back. The master’s tools won’t dismantle the master’s house, but the workers tools will.
Oh, and Lily pushes Ken off the ledge. That’s her moment of change. Buffy lifts the gate for the workers to escape, and slams them into Ken and then, with a big bat like weapon, pummels him. “Hey Ken, wanna see my impression of Gandhi?” She kills Ken. “Gandhi?” Lily asks. “Well you know, if he was really pissed off.” Revolution, my friends, is sometimes necessary. In the end, Buffy gives Lily her apartment and job, and heads back to Sunnydale. Welcome home Buffy. We missed you.
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About Sabrina Boyer: As a kid my dad would sneak scary movies past my mom and let me indulge in his horror movie fetish. I grew up watching V, Alien Nation, The Thing, The Fog (all originals) and then, in 1992 when Buffy the movie came out, I became obsessed with vampires, girl power, and all things gothic. I once stayed home from school, faked sick, and watched BTVS: the movie 6 times in a row. I know the beginning cheerleading dance by heart (still). Currently, I’m obsessing over Laurell K. Hamilton novels, and dream about Anita Blake being my best friend.
