Buffy for Beginners 4.5: Beer Bad

By Sabrina Boyer

This isn’t my favorite episode. But it’s the episode where Buffy finally gets over Parker in all of his douchey glory. But he still makes a cameo in her dreams….

Where she’s saving him from vampires galore.  Like, a lot. At once. And she slays them. Easily. As weird techno saving music plays in the background. Like a man who dreams of saving the princess, Buffy dreams of saving Parker and then saying he owes her his life. That he’s gonna do whatever it takes to get her to forgive him.

And then she wakes out of her daydream. Professor Walsh is talking about the id: the pleasure principle.  It wants. Apparently, Parker’s id is not being checked by the ego. So what do we do when we can’t get what we want? Buffy fantasizes about slaying and Parker with flowers and ice cream. We pretend.

Xander is now the new bartender at the new campus pub. Complete with a fake I.D. “This isn’t entirely on the up and up,” Willow says. “What gave it away?” Xander queries. “Lookin’ at it.” And she’s right. Xander with a beard? Screams false. But Xander contends that he’s got the Cocktail thing and the hippy hippy shake down. Meanwhile Buffy thinks Parker has her in his fantasy bubble and is just afraid to pop her out. Willow tries to talk sense to Buffy about stinky Parker. “I think he has intimacy issues because of the death of his father,” Buffy says. “Not listening. Tell the problems to the bartender,” Willow says. Xander is getting told. Told orders that he can’t quite keep up with.

Now at the bar that night, Buffy sees Parker and his latest conquest. Wow is that guy a manwhore. And everywhere. She bumps into Riley who takes up a lot of space. She’s not really interested, and Xander tries to talk up a sorority girl and gets made fun of by an even douchier guy than Parker. The frat boy wannabe thinks he’s Giles. He speaks academese, and tells Xander that “we’re the future of this country and you just keep the bowl of peanuts full.” Xander tries to check his I.D. and the boss man tells him to just give ‘em a beer. And then Buffy has an epiphany moment. She realizes that Parker’s problem with intimacy is that he can’t get enough. And then Buffy bumps into douchebaggery extraordinaire and they offer her some beer to drown away her troubles. Buffy, beer is not the answer. That’s called alcoholism.

Cut to the Bronze, everybody’s place to party and Will and Oz are on a date. And then Oz feels….nothing. Something. A new band is playing at the Bronze, and Oz is immediately attracted to the lead singer. It’s obvious. “Do you know her?” Will asks. “Veruca? I know their drummer, he’s cool.” He knows something else…by the look he’s giving her. Uh oh.

Buffy’s getting her beer on with the boys and (holy crap I just noticed that Kumar is in this episode! Whaaaaaatttttt???) they are spouting Thomas Aquinas and fermentation talk; smarts plus beer. The next morning, Willow sees Buffy all dumb dumb and watching TV with the pretty colors. She’s all about the beer. It’s nice, foamy. In class, Buffy’s id is getting the best of her. She snatches some chick’s sandwich right out of her hands.

And then something evil and ominous is going down. There is a bunch of lab equipment and chemicals going into a Black Frost keg. As Buffy downs even more beer with her caveman friends, they grow more…caveman like. And so does Buffy. She wants beer, she takes things too literally, and Xander tries to tell her that beer is bad. And the boys are wondering where she went after she leaves.

Will runs into Parker in the underground coffee shop and gives him a piece of her mind. He explains that two people just sometimes share brief encounters and shouldn’t have to preface casual sex with “I’ll never grow any older with you.” He says he’s sorry about hurting Buffy and didn’t mean to do so. Yeah, right. Feed me another line, douchebag. And at Xander’s bar the boys are officially back in the caveman days and Xander gets conked on the head by a Cro-Magnon man, complete with Neanderthal like behavior. Let’s see the analogy here. Could it be that drinking too much beer can make you into a pre-civilized early modern human with no language skills? The irony here is not lost on me, especially since the douchebag Mr. Smarty Pants who teased my boy Xander earlier is reduced to “fire pretty.” And when Xander runs and tells Mr. Boss man, his reply? “They had it comin’.” Well, he’s right. But Buffy’s been drinking the beer too. And now she’s a Cro-Magnon female. With slayer strength.

I can’t say that I completely disagree with the bar owner; I hate snotty nosed kids too. I especially hate snotty nosed rich kids. “Beer makes all men the same,” Boss man says. Well, no, actually. Even though the effects will wear off in a day or so, Xander goes running to find Buffy as Cavemen run all around campus getting hit by cars and waving large sticks. Enter Giles who reprimands Xander for giving her beer (she’s underage) and they find Buffy drawing on her wall with clay saying “Parker bad.” Cut to Will still talking to Parker and he’s making a move on her!!! And it looks like she’s buying it until she says, “how gullible do you think I am?” She calls him pleasure principle boy and confirms that “men haven’t changed since the dawn of time” as cavemen rush in.

Meanwhile, Buffy has fun in her twirly chair and wants to watch TV as Giles and Xander watch. “The TV is off,” Giles sort of yells at her. They mention beer and Buffy turns all caveslayer and says “Buffy strong.” She goes in search of beer. The cavemen have set a fire in the underground café where Willow is knocked out. The whole thing catches on fire, naturally, and the caveboys freak. Fire bad, tree pretty.

Buffy sees the smoke from the fire (“fire bad!”) and goes to the rescue. Apparently, there is still some part of Buffy inside. She saves Willow who is still knocked out. Everyone gets out of an upper window while Buffy conks Parker on the head with a big stick. She saves him, and he apologizes. Just like she wanted in her fantasy. He asks for forgiveness. Her response? A conk on the head. Boo yah.

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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.

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