Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Him

Him
Season 7, Episode 6
Airdate	November 5, 2002
Production Number	7ABB06
Written by	Drew Z. Greenberg
Directed by	Michael Gershman
← 7x05 Selfless	7x07 → Conversations with Dead People
Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Season Seven

Him is the sixth episode of the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the one-hundred and twenty-eighth episode overall.

Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers), Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn Summers), James Marsters (Spike)

and Alyson Hannigan (Willow)

Guest Starring: Thad Luckinbill (R.J. Brooks), Brandon Keener (Lance Brooks)

and DB Woodside (Principal Wood)

Co-Starring: Yan England (O'Donnell), Angela Sarafyan (Lori), David Ghilardi (Teacher), Riki Lindhome (Cheryl)

Plot Overview

Dawn falls in love with football player R.J., becoming totally obsessed. When Buffy tries to control the situation, she finds herself falling for R.J. as well. And the Summers aren’t the only girls that seem to be falling for the jock at first sight.

Notes

Monster of the Week

• Anonymous Demon: Although it barely gets any play in this episode, the demon that D'Hoffryn sent to kill Anya is the only monster to appear in this episode. He is unnamed and is not identified in the demon database. Not that it matters, because Buffy makes short work of him anyway.

Body Count

#	Whom	By Whom	How	Where
1	Anonymous Demon	Buffy	Axed	Anya's home

Music

Several songs are played in this episode.

• "Theme from A Summer Place" by Percy Faith played when Dawn saw R.J. on the bleachers.

• "Handsome Drink" by Aberdeen played while she was pacing outside the stairwell.

• "New Slang" by The Shins played before Dawn's cheerleading tryout.

• "School Blood" by King Black Acid plays while Dawn is moping in her room.

• "Little Fury" and "Son of Three" by The Breeders play at the Bronze.

• "Warning Sign" by Coldplay plays during the scene when Buffy takes R.J. into an empty classroom.

Arc Advancement

Referbacks

• 4x03 - The Witch: Buffy was a cheerleader for all of about five minutes in an episode in the fourth season.

Buffy: You shredded my outfit.

• 5x02 - Real Me: Dawn's crush on Xander was first explained during her first appearance in which she narrated most of the episode.

Xander: Remember when she used to have a crush on me? I miss the much cuter "me" crush.

• 2x16 - Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered: Xander fondly recalls the time when a love potion gone wrong caused the entire female population of Sunnydale to mob him, even though the time nearly killed him.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• The Spanish Inquisition: Dawn quotes a line from Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British sketch comedy show. The sketch was about a movie being filmed about the real Spanish Inquisition, but the actors kept fouling up dialogue. The actual Spanish Inquisition was used in order to drive the Jews and Moors from Spain so that Catholicism would thrive.

Dawn: No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

• Anna Nicole Smith: Anna Nicole Smith is a former model and Playboy Playmate who is notorious for her marriage to a 90-year-old billionaire, J. Howard Marshall, who died a mere 14 months after they were wed. Smith was also the star of her own reality show called, aptly, The Anna Nicole Show.

Buffy: Anna Nicole Smith thinks you look tacky.

• Mr. Wizard: Before Bill Nye: The Science Guy, there was Watch Mr. Wizard, a show about science that aired on NBC between 1951 and 1965. The show featured Don Herbert as Mr. Wizard, a man who performs science experiments of an unusual variety on television for children. A revamped version of the series was also aired on Nickelodeon called Mr. Wizard's World.

Buffy: Not the homework, Mr. Wizard.

Goofs

• When Xander and Spike are standing in front of the electronics shop waiting for R.J., Spike's reflection can be seen in the store window.

Quotes

• Spike: I'll go. This can't work.

Buffy: It will. It already is. Okay, you know, you've been out of the basement for half an hour, and you've already stopped talking to invisible people.

Spike: Bollocks.

Buffy: Okay, so there was that one episode in the car, but -

Spike: No, bollocks to the whole thing. I don't need your mollycoddling.

Buffy: It's not coddling. Now go to your closet.

• Dawn: I mean, none of it makes sense. First you say Spike disgusts you, but secretly you two are doing it like bunnies. And then Spike says he'd die for you, but he tries to rape you.

Buffy: For the record, Spike knew how wrong it was. That's why he went away.

Dawn: But to get a soul? Like that would make him a better man? Xander had a soul when he stood Anya up at the altar. And now he says he still wants her? I just don't think it's the school basement that's making people crazy.

Buffy: I should really get back. You coming with?

Dawn: I just don't see why people bother. I mean, you put all this energy into chasing and having and brooding and I just don't understand these relationships where you all do insane things.

Buffy: Bye, rant girl.

• Anya: Well, I guess you guys could use my help. Willow's not very good with the practical strategising... except when she's evil. And Dawn-- she's not really good for anything.

• Xander: It's the jacket. It's true. Something about the big letter on the chest makes girls get all swoony and crushy. I saw it all the time in school. And you couldn't just pin any old felt letter to your coat and get play. Not that I tried.

• Xander: Well, Spike definitely seems a little more cogent, less bl-bl-bl-bl-bl. I'm just saying... once you get back the soul, doesn't that mean you start, like, picking up your own wet towels off the floor?

Willow: No, but maybe you start to feel really bad about leaving them there.

Buffy: At least he's showering and that's a refreshing and delightful change.

• Buffy: I think that's the guy.

Willow: What guy?

Buffy: The one who, according to Dawn, is the quote smartest, funniest, coolest, hottest, and having the thickest boy eyelashes boy in school unquote.

• Buffy: (to Dawn) So, do you have plans later, or are you just gonna go down to the docks and wait for the fleet to come in?

• Principal Wood: How about if you try doing your own homework for a change, alright? No more getting these young, impressionable women to do it for you. Avoid detention, R.J. Sound good?

R.J.: Whatever.

Principal Wood: Oh, sweet infectious enthusiasm.

• Xander: Dawn? What's wrong? Is this... Did that guy in the jacket...

Dawn: Uh! I don't even want to hear his name anymore!

Xander: I just called him "that guy in the jacket."

Dawn: That's what I used to call him in my head before I knew his real name!

• (Xander walks in on RJ and Buffy)

R.J.: Hey, guy. It's called knocking.

Xander: I'm sorry. It's just checkout time was an hour ago. We were hoping to make up the bed. And also, it's a classroom, you chowder-head! Now get off the boy, Buffy. We're going home.

• Buffy: Dawn, please stop crying. Please? Crying isn't going to make his love for me go away, you know.

• Buffy: I betrayed you? You're the one that constructed this elaborate fantasy about you and my lover.

• Willow: Damn love spell. I have tried every anti-love spell spell I could find.

Anya: Even if you find the right one, guy would probably just do an anti-anti-love spell spell... spell.

• Willow: But you don't even know him!

Anya: Yes, I do. I looked into him and saw his soul.

Willow: He was walking away, so unless his soul was in his ass...

• Buffy: Willow, you're a gay woman - and he isn't.

Willow: This isn't about his physical presence. It's about his heart.

Anya: His physical presence has a penis!

Willow: I can work around it.

• Buffy: Xander, be honest. You didn't, you know, think about slipping that jacket on just a little bit?

Xander: I refuse to answer that on the grounds that it didn't fit.

• Anya: It was a spell. You were helpless. We're not responsible for anything we did morally or, you know, legally.

Xander: True. You fell for a mystical, ancient curse. Who hasn't made that mistake seven, eight times?

• Willow: Hey, Anya, you never told us what you can't believe you almost.

Anya: Almost who, now?

Willow: No, you can't be the only not embarrassed one. What did you do?

Anya: I, uh, wrote a poem. An epic poem... comparing him to a daisy and a tower and a lake.

Radio Announcer: And now the latest on Sunnydale's late-night bandit who is still at large. A masked thief held up a number -—

Anya: (quickly turns off radio) Okay, great. Ice cream. My treat?

Reviews

• Overall Grade: D
• Review Breakdown: A+: 0 A: 0 A-: 0 B+: 0 B: 0 B-: 0 C+: 0 C: 0 C-: 0 D: 1 F: 0

• Lord, where do I even start. This episode takes every annoying teen drama convention that a show like Buffy has spent so much time to cast aside and shoves it into this single terrible episode. It spends the majority of this episode setting up Charmed level teen drama garbage like the absurd love triangle, the use of popular music to transform scenes into melodramas and yet another stupid love potion plot. The only reason why this episode doesn't merit as a complete failure is because of the intensely amusing last quarter of the episode, from Buffy trying to kill Principal Wood forward. D --IndieRockLance 21:01, 3 April 2006 (EDT)