The Xander Episode

For the month of October, I’ve opted to shift some key elements of this blog. I’ll be paying homage to my favorite television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer by dedicating each post to reflections on specific episodes of the show. Moreover, to cram in more BtVS ramblings, I’m foregoing my typical every-other-week posting schedule in favor of posting every weekend.

If you’re a fan of the show, I hope you’ll enjoy these looks back, and if you’re not, maybe I’ll incentivize you to give it a shot. If you find yourself someplace in between—e.g., you’re currently watching the show, please note that these posts will include spoilers about the episode(s) they discuss (and sometimes others).

And, if you’re just not interested in Buffy, apologies, but this just isn’t your month. I will be back for a more typical blog post around Halloween, and resume the routine going into November.

For the second post in this series, I’m turning my attention to a far less discussed and largely un-celebrated episode from season two of the show: “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.”

As noted in the previous article, I didn’t get hooked on Buffy straight out of the gate. I watched the two-part premiere when it first aired and though some elements of it stuck with me, I wasn’t convinced enough of the show to stick with it and continue watching in real time. I was intrigued enough, however, to tune in again almost a year later when the episode “Surprise” first aired. Little did I understand the context around this episode when Angel turns evil; though the show caught my attention and the episode stuck with me again, I also felt it was awfully melodramatic, not recognizing the requisite emotional build for one of the most dramatic turns the show would ever have when Angel went bad.

I didn’t revisit Sunnydale again until summer, when one more oddball viewing in those days of cable TV and limited channels on it led me to watch “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered."

The episode is the first episode and one of the few that centers squarely on Xander as he deals with Cordelia dumping him by casting a love spell on her. The spell backfires to say the least as he winds up making everyone in town except for Cordelia fall obsessively, dangerously in love with him. The story to follow encapsulates many of the shows best qualities--combining teen angst, magic, horror, and perhaps above all else comedy into a wholly accessible package that you don’t really need to have watched much of the show to get behind.

It’s these factors and--less than I’d like to admit--Xander’s dorky, unlucky-at-love persona that my teenage self probably over-identified with that hooked me on BtVS once and for all.

So we arrive at a personal, sentimental favorite episode, that nonetheless has its flaws. In the scheme of Buffy episodes, it’s strikingly unambitious for being a mostly stand-alone, low-stakes episode that does little to advance the larger narrative arc of the show. Even Xander-Cordelia breakup winds up undone by the closing credits, and the tease of dissension between Angel and Drusilla is dismissed in largely comedic fashion in a passing moment, less a tease of things to come than filler or a way of working these otherwise important characters into a largely unimportant episode. Even more damning, the boy-crazed female masses portrayed in the episode threaten to undermine the feminist sensibilities so at the heart of Buffy.

For all of these flaws and limitations, though, I’d argue the episode is ultimately more good than bad if only for the deep-dive into the Xander character and exploration of Nicholas Brendan playing the lead role. At his most entitled worst, Xander is a Ross Gellar-style man-child of the nineties who wants to call himself a nice guy, despite utterly losing his shit because the girl he wants to sleep with doesn’t like him. Xander is ultimately better than that synopsis, though, for who he grows into the loyal friend to Buffy, Willow, Giles, and heck even Cordelia. He's certainly flawed, but also learns his lessons—not the least of which is that he’s unexceptional relative to the super-women surrounding him, and that that doesn’t ultimately mean he’s without value. Sure, his treatment of Anya down the road nudges him back toward the icky line, but I venture we ought to cut the guy some slack for moments like saving the world via friendship at the end of season six.

"Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered" gives a lesson learned by exaggerated means--a farce that only BtVS could offer and the episode that started my love affair with this show in earnest.