Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode Guide

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 1, Episode 12: Prophecy Girl

by Helen

            It’s nighttime at the Bronze. Xander is hanging out with Willow, practicing what he is going to say to Buffy when he asks her out to the upcoming dance. Willow is currently playing Buffy’s role and enjoying it, since it involves her sitting there and listening to Xander confess how much he likes her. Xander wishes Buffy would show up so he could ask her out but Buffy’s busy fighting a vampire near school grounds, mere feet away from where Cordelia and her latest boyfriend are making out in a car. The noise of the fight startles Cordelia, causing her stop necking briefly. Buffy slays the vamp, noting that it’s her third that night.

            Giles is working late in the school library, studying the Codex. He becomes excited when he finds the prophecy he is looking for. He begins to translate. “The Master shall rise and the Slayer shall…” Whatever the next word is, it shocks Giles and he stops reading out loud. Suddenly his office starts to shake. An earthquake has hit Sunnydale and is wrecking havoc. The school library cracks all over, the Bronze goes into chaos, and Cordelia’s kissing is once again interrupted. Buffy stands alone in the middle of a field, caught unawares by the quake. The Master on the other hand is thrilled by it. He tells the Anointed One it is a sign. The end is near.

            The next day Buffy goes to visit Giles in the library. He looks as though he has not slept in quite a while and is distracted, searching through his books. Buffy briefly gets Giles’ attention when she mentions that the number of vampires in town is increasing, and she again draws his notice when she jokingly insists that she’s putting her life on the line. Finally Buffy gives up trying to get Giles’ full attention and says she must go meet her terrible face. He spins and demands to know what she’s talking about. She looks deeply upset as she answers, “Biology.”

            After Biology class Xander pulls Buffy aside and asks her to be his date to the Spring Fling. Before Buffy can answer he admits that he likes her as more than a friend and demands to know if she feels the same way. Buffy tries to let him down easily, but he doesn’t take her rejection well and makes a cruel joke about her feelings for Angel before storming off.

            Giles is on the phone in his office asking someone to meet him after sundown when Jenny Calendar walks in. She tells him she been hearing about a lot of weird things going on and to her they sound likes signs of the apocalypse. She also has been contacted by a monk about a prophecy and someone called the Anointed One. Giles is shocked to hear this since as far as he knows the Anointed One is dead. He tells Jenny to contact the monk and find out as much as she can.

            Cordy walks down the hall with her boyfriend, who is promises to pick up everything for the Spring Fling and drop it off at the Bronze for her. She is pleased by how sweet he is being. Then she spots Willow walking down the hall and asks her if she be willing to come to the Bronze at 10 the next morning and hook up the sound system. Willow agrees just as she sees Xander sitting alone in a classroom looking upset. Willow goes to talk to him and he tells her that Buffy rejected him. He thinks she’s still pining after Angel. Almost as an afterthought, Xander asks Willow to the dance only to be surprised when she too turns him down. She tells him she doesn’t want to go to the dance and watch him wishing he were there with Buffy. She seems saddened that he would be callous enough to ask her when she was clearly just a backup.

            That night Buffy turns on a faucet at the school and instead of water rushing out, blood does. Buffy heads to the library to tell Giles only to see through his open office door that he is talking to Angel. At first she is excited but then she notices they seem to be upset and she begins to eavesdrop. Giles is insisting that an immutable prophecy in the Codex says that tomorrow night Buffy will face The Master and she will die. Angel refuses to believe it but the argument is interrupted by a hysterical giggle coming for the office door. Buffy has heard them and she is not taking the information well. She stops laughing suddenly and walks into the main area of the library. Giles and Angel follow her. She begins crying slowly as she asks questions about her death. Angel tries to comfort her but that just makes her angry. She demands to know if Giles was even going to tell her. He says he was hoping he wasn’t going to have to, that he could find a way around it. Buffy tells him she has a way around it. She quits. She won’t face The Master. Angel and Giles try to reason with her but she doesn’t want to hear from them. Giles doesn’t do anything but look up things in book and Angel is never going to die. The men try to tell her that she can’t just quit. No one else can stop The Master from rising and if he rises…But she cuts them off, insisting that she doesn’t care. She looks up at her watcher. “Giles, I’m sixteen years old. I don’t want to die.” Giles doesn’t respond. Buffy yanks off the cross necklace that Angel gave her the first time they met and throws it to the ground before leaving the library.  Nobody has a very good night. Willow attempts to do homework but she is distracted by the picture of her and Xander that sits on her desk. She picks up the phone and calls Xander but he is too busy moping to be bothered with answering it. Buffy meanwhile sits on her bed looking at an album full childhood pictures. Her mother has noticed she is depressed and comes in to talk to her. She thinks Buffy is upset because she doesn’t have a date to the Spring Fling, so she gives her a surprise present. It’s a gorgeous white dress that Buffy was eyeing at the store. Buffy’s mom wants her to wear it to the Spring Fling despite not having a date. She tells Buffy she went to the homecoming dance her freshman year of college without a date and ended up meeting Buffy’s dad. She reminisces about how wonderful that night was. “You had your whole life in front of you,” Buffy comments. “Must be nice.”

            The next morning Cordy complains to Willow because her boyfriend Kevin flaked out on her and didn’t deliver the sound equipment to the Bronze. Now she and Willow are at the school to pick it up themselves. But Cordy likes Kevin so much that she’s not mad at him; she actually thinks it cute. Glancing into the AV room the girls think they see Kevin and his friends watching cartoons. They don’t realize that they are actually lying in the room bloody and dead. Cordy opens the door and is shocked when Kevin’s lifeless body topples into the hallway. He has vampire bite on his neck. As Cordelia bends over Kevin, Willow walks into the room and sees a gruesome sight. Her classmates are strewn about the room like discarded wrappers. On the TV two happy cartoon characters dance, their cheerful demeanors made grotesque by the bloody handprint that covers the screen.

            Buffy tries on her dress and finds that it looks amazing on her. She is starting to cheer up when her mother rushes in. Willow is on the news. Buffy goes to see Willow at her house and finds her badly shaken. Willow has seen a lot but this is different. She knew the victims, she went to the AV room everyday. Worst of all it looked liked the vampires who did this had fun. She asks Buffy what they’re going to do and Buffy answers. “What we have to.” She makes Willow promise to stay in that night and gets up to leave. As she starts to go Willow calls out to her. “Buffy, I like your dress.”

            Giles packs weapons in the library as he explains to Jenny what is going on. The Master is going to escape his mystical imprisonment, which will open the Hellmouth and release all the old demons, who will then overrun the world. Buffy is the Slayer. She is supposed to face The Master. Then he asks Jenny if she got in contact with the monk and she tells him the monk has disappeared but not before sending out a Bible verse that references a small child leading animals. This reminds Giles of the prophecy about the Anointed One that says the Slayer will not know him and he will lead her into Hell. The monk must think the Anointed One is a child. If this is true the vampire Buffy thought was the Anointed One wasn’t actually and the real one is still around. Jenny tells Giles to warn Buffy but he insists he is not going to involve Buffy at all. He is going to face The Master himself. Buffy vetoes this plan. She has just walked in the door and is ready to fight. Giles insists that nothing she says is going to persuade him to let her go out there and die. So Buffy punches him in the face and knocks him out. Then she picks up her cross necklace, puts it back on, grabs a crossbow and heads out for battle. Walking out of the school Buffy almost immediately encounters the Anointed One. She tells him she knows who he is and he takes her hand and leads her off to her fate.

            Back the library Giles has regained consciousness, gathered the gang together and told them what’s going on. Everyone is intent on rescuing Buffy from certain death, except Jenny who is more concerned with the apocalypse. Xander insists he knows how to find Buffy and rushes out of the library. Buffy meanwhile follows the Anointed One through the sewers.

            Angel is pacing his apartment when he hears a frantic knocking on his door. He opens it to find Xander standing there. Xander tells Angel that Buffy’s gone to fight The Master and asks Angel to take him to The Master as well so he can help Buffy. Angel insists Xander is way out of his league at which point Xander gets angry. He tells Angel that he doesn’t like him. As far as he is concerned Angel is just another vampire, but Buffy thinks Angel is a person and now would be the time to prove her right. Angel realizes than Xander is in love with Buffy. Xander is not annoyed by this statement. He simply responds. “Aren’t you?”

            The rest of group sets to researching. They need to find out how powerful The Master is going to be if he reaches the surface and they need to determine where exactly the Hellmouth is going open.

            The Anointed One and Buffy finally reach the entrance to The Master’s lair. The Anointed One points Buffy in the right direction and then leaves. Buffy walks in and is greeted by The Master’s voice before he appears out of the shadows. She immediately fires her crossbow at him but he catches the arrow right as it is about to go through his heart. Xander and Angel meanwhile are trekking through the sewers heading off to try and save Buffy. Buffy goes to reload her crossbow, but The Master insists that she won’t be able to kill him with it. Then he disappears. His disembodied voice tells her that she is not the hunter, she is the lamb.

            Back in the library Giles, Jenny and Willow are trying to figure out what The Master’s plan is. They believe that large numbers of vampires are heading for Sunnydale to serve as The Master’s army. They recall that the last time The Master attempted to rise he sent a bunch of vampires to the Bronze to gather fresh food. Then they remember that the Spring Fling is going on at the Bronze that very night. Jenny and Willow rush off to warn the people at the dance while Giles stays behind to continue researching.

            Buffy searches for The Master underground, her vision limited by the shadowy candlelight that serves as the cavern’s only illumination. The Master’s disembodied voice continues to speak to her. Suddenly he appears behind her. Buffy tries to fight him but he easily knocks the crossbow out of her hands and grabs her by the throat. Jenny and Willow are running out to Jenny’s car when they realize the vampires are not heading for the Bronze, they’re heading for the high school. In fact a huge group of vampires has just surrounded them. Buffy manages to get out of The Masters chokehold and starts to run away. But The Master grabs her with an invisible force, preventing her from moving. Paralyzed, Buffy can do nothing when The Master comes behind her and whispers into her ear about how noble it was of her to come despite the prophecy. Then he tells her something the prophecy didn’t bother to mention. Buffy is the one that sets The Master free. If she hadn’t come, he couldn’t have gone. Then he takes the key to his escape. He bites Buffy on the neck and sucks her blood. Dropping the paralyzed Buffy facedown in a pool of water he tells her that he likes her dress before heading to the mystical barrier that until now has kept him trapped. With Slayer blood running through his veins, he is able to puncture it. Angel and Xander hear the noise of the barrier breaking and rush the last few yards into the lair. The Master is gone and Buffy is still in the water. Angel rushes to pull her out, but she is already dead. Xander starts performing CPR. Back at the school the vampires are drawing closer to Jenny and Willow when a car screeches up. Cordy is driving and tells them to get in. Xander continues performing CPR, but still there is no change. Eventually Xander accepts that it is a lost cause and stops. Just then Buffy’s eyes open and she starts coughing up water. Willow and Jenny jump in Cordy’s car and Cordy tells them that she was sitting where she and Kevin used to park when all of a sudden these things start coming at her. Willow tells her to get to the library so Cordy heads for it the fastest way she can, by driving her car into the school. The vampires chase after them. Parking outside the library, Willow, Jenny and Cordelia rush into the library and, along with Giles, begin barricading the doors against the vampires. Nobody notices that the floor of the library has broken open and the tentacle of a large beast is poking out. Meanwhile The Master has made his way to the roof of the school, right next to the large glass portion that covers the library. Below ground Angel and Xander help Buffy up. She tells them she feels strong and different. Back in the library the vampires start trying breaking in through the back room that holds the stacks. Willow and Jenny run to barricade that door with bookcases. They don’t notice a tentacle slowly making its way towards Willow’s ankle. Giles hears the vampires breaking in through his office and runs to barricade that door. This leaves Cordy holding the barricade on the front door by herself. A vampire breaks through the window in one of the doors and grabs Cordy’s arm. She screams, “Somebody help!” And help is, indeed, on the way. Buffy is walking towards the school confidently with Xander and Angel right behind her. Xander asks her how she knows where The Master is going. She answers simply, “I know.” A vampire tries to block her way but she knocks him out with a single kick. Buffy heads to the door in the school marked “Roof Access.” It’s already been broken into. Buffy tells Angel and Xander to guard the door and keep the other vampires off her. Back in the library Cordy bites the arm of the vamp grabbing her. “See how you like it!” she yells. Just then the tentacle seizes Willow’s ankle and starts pulling her. Jenny grabs her and shouts for Giles. He comes out of his office just in time to see the floor of the library completely burst open and a monstrous beast with many heads and even more tentacles burst out. Giles realizes where the Hellmouth is. They’re standing on it. The Master watches all this from above, staring through the library’s glass ceiling. His joy is interrupted when Buffy shows up. He puts his invisible hold on her again and begins pulling her towards him. Down below Giles attacks the hellbeast with an ax. The Master places his hand around Buffy’s neck, ready to kill her again but then Buffy punches him, hard. His hypnosis no longer works on her. They begin to battle and Buffy appears stronger then ever. Giles and the hellbeast are battling too but Giles is not doing so well. The beast knocks Giles through a table, which splits in half jaggedly. One end of it topples over, its spiky edge pointing up like a large wooden stake. Meanwhile the vampires find Xander and Angel and begin attacking them. The hellbeast menaces both Willow and Giles, as Buffy continues to fight The Master on the roof. He again gets the better of her and grabs her by the throat. Buffy glances backwards through the glass roof and sees the wooden spike sticking up. Buffy surprises The Master by grabbing his throat and in his moment of confusion she flings him through the glass roof and onto the wooden spike. It is so large it punctures his whole chest, heart included, and he dusts. The hellbeast immediately starts to retreat.

            With the fighting over, everyone regroups in the library. The vampires have left, the Hellmouth has closed and The Master is dead, although unlike most vampires his bones didn’t dust along with the rest of him. Instead his skeleton lies where he died, the spike still puncturing his chest. Not knowing what else to do the gang decides to celebrate its victory by heading for the Spring Fling. As they all leave Angel turns to Buffy and tells her he really likes her dress.

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