Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode Guide
Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, Season 1, Episode 11: Out of Mind, Out of Sight
by Helen
Cordelia is walking down the halls of Sunnydale High with her
boyfriend and Harmony. They are excited about the upcoming May Queen
Competition which Cordelia is probably going to win. Their conversation is
interrupted when Buffy rushes out of the library and runs into them. Her bag
spills and medieval-looking weapons scatter all over the floor. Buffy
explains it away as a history project, but Cordy and friends aren’t really
interested. They’re too busy mocking her. They walk away leaving a downcast
Buffy sitting on the floor trying to clean up.
That day in English the class discusses the
literary theme of angry outcasts. Cordelia thinks that those who whine about
being misunderstood or looked down upon are completely self-involved, giving
an example where she comes off as pretty self-involved herself. After class
Cordelia stops to ask Ms. Miller, their English teacher, for extra help. Ms.
Miller is pleased that Cordy is involved in the class and agrees to go over
her paper the next day after school. Going into the hall, Cordy meets up
with Harmony to tell her that her dress for the May Queen dance is ready.
Cordy thinks her boyfriend, Mitch, is going to like it. “It’s so great,” she
announces. “Mitch is going to die.”
Mitch meanwhile is getting dressed in the
locker room. He thinks he’s alone until he hears a girl giggling creepily.
He reaches for his baseball bat but before he can grab it an invisible force
picks it up and begins viciously beating him with it, giggling the whole
time.
Cordelia walks through the halls handing
out chocolates with a big “C” stamped on them, reminding people to vote for
her for May Queen. When she gets to Buffy’s locker she starts to hand her a
chocolate and then pulls backs saying that she doesn’t need the loony fringe
vote. Buffy is again feeling dejected when Willow and Xander walk up and
begin mocking Cordelia. Soon their conversation turns to their younger days,
before Buffy knew them. Then Xander starts making fun of people who would
want to be something like May Queen. Buffy tells him she was the equivalent
of May Queen at her old school. The look on her face indicates she misses
that kind of life. Xander feels bad but before long Buffy is left outside
the conversation once again. Suddenly a guy runs down the hall shouting that
Mitch has been attacked.
Soon paramedics bring a conscious but badly
injured Mitch out on a gurney. Buffy runs up to him and asks what happened.
He tells her and Buffy heads for the locker room to get a look at the crime
scene. She’s intercepted by Principal Snyder, who is still suspicious of her
and the way she is always around when bad things happen. Willow and Xander
pull Snyder’s attention away from Buffy, allowing her to sneak into the
boy’s locker room. There she finds the word “LOOK” written in red spray
paint across a row of lockers
Buffy consults with the gang in the
cafeteria during lunch. They decide the most likely suspects are a person
with telekinetic powers, an invisible creature, or a poltergeist. The group
divides up the work of the investigation. Willow is to look up dead or
missing students, Buffy is to talk to Mitch’s friends and Xander is to help
Giles research.
Harmony finds Cordelia on the second floor
balcony of the courtyard. They start talking about Mitch. A flashback shows
Harmony and Cordelia on the same balcony gossiping about Mitch earlier in
the year. The girl from whom’s perspective this is being seen walks up to
the two of them and says hello. They answer disparagingly. Back in the
present Buffy comes out onto the balcony and asks Cordy if she can talk to
her. Cordy is annoyed but before she can answer a force hits Harmony in the
stomach, knocking her down a long flight of stairs. People gather around
her, including Snyder. He asks what happened and Cordy says that Harmony
fell, though Harmony insists that someone pushed her. A girl’s creepy
giggling floats through the air, but everyone is too busy with Harmony to
notice, everyone except Buffy who follows the laughter into the darkened
band room. She slams into someone but as far as she can see no one is
standing there. Then she hears footsteps and noises. Suddenly the noises
stop. Above her head a missing ceiling tile fits back into place, but she
doesn’t see this and leaves.
The gang talks in front of the school, not
noticing two men in dark suits lurking by the trees. Buffy asks what it’s
like to walk into a ghost and Giles tells her they’re amorphous so they go
right through you. Buffy tells him that she ran into their perpetrator but
she was solid. They decide it must not be a ghost but a girl with the
ability to become invisible. They figure that this girl must have something
against Cordelia since she’s attacking all of her friends. Buffy decides to
patrol the school that night because Cordelia is staying after to work on
her May Queen dress. Giles wants to know how Buffy is going to hunt someone
she can’t see and teases her that she might actually have to start listening
to people.
That night, Buffy peaks into the room where
Cordelia is trying on her dress for all of her friends. The room looks warm
and everyone in it is smiling and laughing. Buffy, standing alone in the
dark hallway, is at first pleased by what she sees but then grows sad, no
doubt reminiscing about when her life was more like that. Suddenly
melancholy flute music fills the hall. In the library, Giles also hears the
music but it stops suddenly. Then he hears a door creak. Looking around he
faces a glass cabinet where he sees his own reflection. He turns to find
Angel standing right next to him. Angel’s lack of reflection reminds Giles
that Angel is a vampire, albeit a vampire who doesn’t feed on humans. Giles
asks Angel if he’s come to see Buffy but Angel insists it’s too hard causing
Giles to comment on the irony of a vampire being in love with a vampire
slayer. Angel has instead come to warn Giles that The Master has set
something in motion and to ask how Giles’ research into The Master is coming
along. Giles says he’s read all the Slayer lore but the best volumes of
Slayer prophecy have been lost. Angel tells him one, The Codex, hasn’t been.
Angel knows where it is and he can get it. Giles is very pleased by this and
the conversation turns to talk of the current case. Angel tells Giles he
doesn’t know much about invisibility and Giles says he doesn’t either but by
all reports it’s an excellent power to have. Angel disagrees. He thinks
looking into the mirror everyday and seeing nothing there is an overrated
pleasure. As he says this he stares at the glass cabinet; so does Giles.
Only Giles’ reflection stares back.
In another flashback a girl stands alone in
a bathroom. Cordelia and her friends come in and surround her. They are
gossiping about a particularly bad teacher. The girl tries to join in but
they won’t let her. Cordy repeats what the girl has just said, and the
minute it comes out of Cordy’s mouth, all her friends find it extremely
funny. The group moves on leaving the girl standing alone, clearly upset by
the incident.
In the present, Cordy wins the May Queen
title and immediately proceeds to give a long speech in the school
courtyard. Buffy watches from a distance to make sure nothing happens to
her. Xander and Willow find Buffy and present her with the list of missing
and dead kids of Sunnydale along with their school files. Willow notices the
two creepy men from the day before watching Cordelia and assumes that Cordy
has hired private security. Buffy looks through the list and is interested
by the latest case. A girl named Marcie Ross went missing six months ago.
She was in the band and played flute. She seems to fit with the evidence so
far. Neither Xander nor Willow knew Marcie, so Buffy heads back to the band
room to investigate. There various clues lead her to a small living area set
up in a crawl-space in the ceiling. Sitting on a makeshift bed is flute and
yearbook with Marcie Ross’ name in it. Buffy is so busy examining everything
she doesn’t hear the heavy breathing behind her or see the free-floating
knife poised at her neck. At the last moment the knife drops and the
breathing gets less tense. Buffy crawls out of the ceiling unharmed, taking
Marcie’s yearbook with her.
That day after school, Ms. Miller is
sitting at her desk when she hears footsteps. Then she hears a girl
giggling. Suddenly a plastic bag goes over her head and is pulled tight. She
starts suffocating. Cordelia shows up to her extra-help session to find Ms.
Miller half-unconscious with the bag still over her head. Cordy takes it off
of her and Ms. Miller begins to breathe again, saying she was attacked.
Suddenly disembodied chalk starts writing on the chalkboard. It spells out
the word “LISTEN.”
Buffy meets with the gang in the library
and shows them Marcie’s yearbook. Every single person who signed it wrote
“Have a nice summer,” and nothing else. The kids explain to Giles that
that’s what you write when you have nothing to say to a person. If that’s
all people put then she must have had no friends. Buffy asks Xander and
Willow if they’re sure they hadn’t met her. They’re sure. Buffy points out
that they both signed her yearbook. Willow is shocked and checks Marcie’s
file. Xander and Willow both had four classes with her the year before.
Apparently absolutely no one noticed this girl and now she’s invisible. This
reminds Giles of an idea in physics that reality only exists because we
perceive it. Combine this idea with the magic that the Hellmouth spews all
over the area and it’s perfectly possible that Marcie became invisible
because everyone perceived her as invisible.
Another flashback shows Ms. Miller asking
the class a question. Several people, including the girl Cordy’s group
ignored in the bathroom, raise their hands. Ms. Miller calls on Cordelia,
then Willow, then Xander. She continues asking questions and continues
calling on people for answers. The girl keeps raising her hand but Ms.
Miller so much as glances at her. Frustrated, she looks at her hand as
though to make sure it’s really there and to her horror realizes that it is
becoming translucent.
Back in the present Buffy is realizing that
Marcie’s invisibility isn’t some great power that she has but something that
was done to her. Now the gang understands why she is angry. They also
realize that their theory about Cordelia was right. The yearbook has a page
featuring a large picture of Cordelia and Marcie has drawn angrily over it,
giving Cordelia a crown and scribbling all over her face. Just then Cordelia
rushes in asking Buffy for help. She’s more observant than the gang would
have thought. She insists that the attacks are all about her and for once
she is right. She’s also noticed that Buffy is very strong and always
present when weird things happen and the owner of many weapons. Buffy tells
her what’s going on and shows her Marcie’s yearbook picture. Marcie is
indeed the girl featured in all the flashbacks, but Cordy insists that she’s
never seen Marcie before in her life. Marcie meanwhile is up in her
crawlspace mumbling angrily to herself about Cordy. She seems to be getting
ready for another attack. This time she pulls out rope. Back in the library,
Cordy has told the gang what happened to Ms. Miller and they decide that
Marcie is upset about the May Queen thing and is sending a message to
Cordelia. The safest plan is to keep Cordy away from her coronation at the
Bronze that night but Cordy refuses to go along with it. She insists that if
she isn’t crowned May Queen then Marcie’s won. Buffy agrees and points out
that continuing with the May Queen activities will be the best way to draw
Marcie out. Giles, Xander and Willow hit the books again, while Buffy goes
with Cordy to put on her dress. What none of them realize is that Marcie is
watching and listening to them. Cordelia mentions how terrible it would be
to be as lonely as Marcie must have been. Buffy snidely comments that Cordy
doesn’t know anything about being lonely but Cordy insists that’s not true.
Again showing she is more observant than she lets on, she points out that
many of her friends only hang out with her so they can be popular too. None
of them really know her and she’s not sure if they even like her. Buffy asks
why she works so hard at being popular if that’s true and Cordy responds
that’s better to be lonely and surrounded by people than to be lonely all by
yourself.
Back in the library the gang hears flute
music again. They decide that maybe they can reason with Marcie and follow
the sound of the music. Buffy meanwhile finds a safe-looking mop closet for
Cordelia to change in. Giles, Xander and Willow follow the music into a back
room of the basement, where they find it is coming from a boom box. They
realize it’s a trap but before they can get out the door slams shuts and
locks. Then they hear a hissing noise. Buffy stands outside the mop closet
trying to have a heartfelt talk with Cordy through the door, but Cordy is
back to being her annoying self. Buffy asks Cordy to stop talking and to her
surprise Cordy goes silent. Then Buffy hears Cordelia’s muffled screams. She
breaks into the locked mop closet to see Cordy being pulled up through the
ceiling. Buffy follows. Back in the basement Giles realizes that the hissing
noise is gas. The shutoff valve has been broken and they can’t risk breaking
open the door because its metal and so much as one spark will set the gas
aflame. Buffy finds Cordelia in Marcie’s crawlspace. She’s unconscious.
Suddenly a fearsome force shoves Buffy. She flies backwards and crashes
through the ceiling. She is too dazed from the fall to react when a bag
drops after her, opens and syringe floats out. The syringe stabs Buffy in
the neck, her vision goes fuzzy and she too falls unconscious. She wakes up
backstage at the Bronze tied to a throne. Cordelia is next to her and also
tied to a throne. She is fully conscious but her face is numb. Written in
glitter on the curtain in front of them is the word “LEARN.” Back in the
basement, Giles manages to close the gas valve a bit but isn’t strong enough
to turn it off completely. At the Bronze Marcie rolls out a covered cart.
Cordelia asks what she’s done to her face. She tells Cordy that she’s going
to give her what she’s always wanted: a face that nobody will ever forget.
She uncovers the cart to reveal a variety of surgical tools. In the basement
Giles and Xander attempt to break down the door by covering a crowbar with
Giles’ jacket and ramming the lock with it. On the stage Marcie prepares to
cut up Cordy’s face. She’s numbed it so Cordy can be awake for the whole
thing. In the basement the gang starts blacking out. Cordy tries to reason
with Marcie but only succeeds in enraging her. Marcie slashes Cordy’s face.
Buffy meanwhile has loosened her ropes. She kicks the cart at Marcie and
knocks her over. Buffy wiggles out of her bindings and is trying to get
Cordy out of her’s when Marcie attacks her. Just as it looks as though there
is no hope for Xander, Willow and Giles, Angel opens the door from the
outside and rescues them. He was entering the school through the basement to
bring Giles The Codex when he smelled the gas. Giles takes the book and the
kids and leads them out of the basement while Angel goes to shut off the
gas. Buffy tries to fight Marcie, but Marcie easily gets the upper hand.
Cordelia starts freaking out but Buffy gets an idea. She tells Cordy to shut
up and then goes very still herself. She hears a squeak and punches in its
direction. She hits Marcie in the face and knocks her into a curtain. Now,
with a curtain covering her, Marcie is visible. Clearly not used to being
socked in the face, she collapses. Before Buffy can subdue her however, the
creepy men in the dark suits burst in. They have guns and identify
themselves as FBI. Quickly collecting Marcie they make it clear that this is
not the first time this has happened. They claim they can make her a useful
member of society again.
The next day in school the gang walks down
the hallway talking about what happened. Buffy asks how they got out of the
gas-filled boiler room and Giles lies to her, saying that a janitor found
them. Just then Cordy runs up. She thanks them for helping her and seems to
be much nicer than before, but then Mitch walks over and demands to know why
Cordy is talking to such losers. Cordy immediately gets mean again and
leaves with Mitch. Xander wants to know where an invisible girl is when you
need one.
The answer is: in a government facility.
Marcie is led to a classroom full of other invisible students. Her teacher
tells them to open their textbooks to page 54. It’s the beginning of chapter
titled “Assassination and Infiltration.” Marcie is pleased.
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