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Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Some Assembly Required
| Some Assembly Required | |
| |
| Season 2, Episode 2 | |
| Airdate | September 22, 1997 |
| Production Number | 5V02 |
| Written by | Ty King |
| Directed by | Bruce Seth Green |
| ← 2x01 When She Was Bad |
2x03 → School Hard |
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Season Two | |
Some Assembly Required is the second episode of the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the fourteenth episode overall. Buffy literally stumbles across an open grave and realizes that something, or someone, is stealing corpses of the recently dead out of their graves.
Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy Summers), Nicholas Brendon (Xander Harris), Alyson Hannigan (Willow Rosenberg), Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia Chase), David Boreanaz (Angel)
and Anthony Stewart Head (Giles)
Guest Starring: Robia La Morte (Jenny Calendar), Angelo Spizzirri (Chris Epps), Michael Bacall (Eric), Ingo Neuhaus (Daryl Epps), Melanie MacQueen (Mrs. Epps)
Co-Starring: Amanda Wilmshurst (Cheerleader)
Contents |
Plot Overview
The Scoobies discover open graves that are the result of a collective grave robbery. After happening upon the bodies with missing parts, they find out that someone is trying to construct a woman. With no missing heads, Buffy races to stop the wannabe Dr Frankenstein from taking a fresh one and completing their twisted science experiment.
Notes
Monster of the Week
Daryl Epps was a running back for the high school football team and was generally lusted after by the entire school population. He died when he fell during rock climbing and broke his neck, which sent his brother Chris into a state of delusional obsession. He sought to bring his brother back to life and succeeded. However, the episode mainly revolves around the creation of a mate for his undead brother.
The general plot of this episode is clearly inspired by Frankenstein, the classic science-fiction horror story written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley in 1818. In the novel, a brilliant scientist named Victor Frankenstein dabbles in a taboo science of reanimating the dead. He succeeds, but is disgusted by the hideousness of his creation. Eventually, the creature confronts his creator and demands that he create a companion for him. Victor abandons his project and the two enter into a series of revenge killings that destroys them both. The monster resigning itself to suicide instead of living alone is a parallel which ends both the novel and the episode.
There are also elements of the film and television series Weird Science, which is built around the idea of two geeks making the perfect woman. She wasn't constructed out of corpses, however.
Body Count
| # | Whom | By Whom | How | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vampire | Buffy | Staked | Cemetery |
| 2 | Daryl | Himself | Burned | Warehouse |
Arc Advancement
Happenings
- Horror Lore: When Xander mocks Cordelia for caring more about cheerleading than the possibility of zombies eating her flesh, Giles corrects him. According to him, zombies do not eat living flesh, which is contrary to just about every popular depiction of zombies in film and television.
Characters
- Angel: As of this episode, by his own admission, Angel is 241 years old. This would make his birthdate sometime in 1756.
Referbacks
Trivia
The Show
- As of this episode, Anthony Stewart Head narrates the intro instead of the old WB announcer.
Behind the Scenes
Allusions and References
Memorable Moments
Quotes
- Angel: Is this a bad time?
- Buffy: Are you crazy? You don't just sneak up on people in a graveyard. You make noise when you walk. You stomp or... yodel.
- Buffy: Are you jealous?
- Angel: Of Xander? Please. He's just a kid.
- Buffy: Is it 'cause I danced with him?
- Angel: "Danced with" is a pretty loose term. "Mated with" might be little closer.
- Buffy: Don't you think you're being a little unfair? It was one little dance, which I only did to make you crazy, by the way. Behold my success.
- Angel: I am not jealous!
- Buffy: You're not jealous? What, vampires don't get jealous?
- Angel: See, whenever we fight you always bring up the vampire thing.
- Buffy: You just say, "Hey, I got a thing, you maybe have a thing, maybe we could have a thing."
- Giles: Oh, thank you, Cyrano.
- Xander: Now, is it time to have a talk about the facts of life?
- Giles: You know, I'm suddenly deciding this is none of your business.
- Xander: You know, because that whole stork thing is a smoke screen.
- Willow: This shouldn't take long. I'm probably the only girl in school who has the coroner's office bookmarked as a favourite place.
- Buffy: I'm an old-fashioned gal. I was raised to believe that men dig up the corpses and women have the babies.
- Buffy: And he broke Cordy's heart? Thus possibly proving its existence.
- Willow: By the way, are we hoping to find a body, or no body?
- Xander: Call me an optimist, but I'm hoping to find a fortune in gold doubloons.
- Cordelia: It was horrible. Angel saved me from an arm. God, there were so many parts, they were everywhere. Why are these terrible things always happening to me?
- Xander: (cough) Karma!
- Angel: What I saw didn't add up to three whole girls. I think they kept some parts.
- Buffy: Could this get yuckier?
- Willow: They probably kept the other parts to eat.
- Buffy: Question answered.
