Original Air Date: October 5, 1999

Written by Joss Whedon
Directed by Joss Whedon

Summary

During a slow night at the cemetery, Willow helps Buffy pick out her classes for university. Buffy arrives at the university campus and attempts to find Weiserman Hall, she's completely lost and totally alone. Willow eventually finds her and they discuss roommates among other things. Willow's excited about college whereas Buffy remains overwhelmed. They makes their way to the library which is much larger than expected, nothing at all like the library back at Sunnydale High. Later at the campus bookstore, Willow and Buffy are stocking up on text books, Buffy tries to reach the psych text books on a high shelf but they all tumble down and bean a young man on the head. After the initial shock of having books dropped on his head, he introduces himself as Riley, he'll be Professor Walsh's (psych teacher) asssistant for the psych course. Buffy apologizes for the accident and gets tongue tied when she tries to say anything. Willow introduces them calmly. Later on Buffy encounters her roommate in their room. Her name is Kathy, she's WAY too peppy, she's a Celine Dion fan and she snores and mumbles in her sleep, much to Buffy's horror.

During the first day of classes, Buffy gets kicked out of pop culture class for talking and discovers that Professor Walsh isn't such a great teacher; she's tough, gives lots of homework and has been dubbed 'the evil bitch monster of death'. On her way back to her room at night, Buffy runs into another lost student named Eddie. They manage to find their way and end up talking about Professor Walsh, they discover that they're in the same class and decide to help each other out with the course. As they split paths to go to their separate dorms, Eddie gets attacked by a small group of vampires led by a blonde-haired girl. The group of vamps pack up everything is Eddie's room and cart it out, leaving only a note on Eddie's bed. At Psych the next day, Buffy can't find Eddie and decides to visit his room. Someone informs her that he just packed up and left suddenly, the note left behind says that he couldn't handle the pressures of university and was signed by Eddie. The vampire group is in their lair, now going through Eddie's stolen stuff. None of them is too impressed with any of it. The blonde leader suggests killing people that are cool next time.

Buffy visits Giles' home in search of help, only to discover a woman in Giles' kitchen wearing only a shirt. Giles appears and introduces the woman as Olivia, an old friend. Olivia leaves the room to put on some clothes. buffy informs Giles that a student is missing and she needs his help. Giles tell her that she can figure it all out by herself and that he won't always be there to guide her. Buffy, dismayed, leaves his house. While hunting at night, Buffy spots a figure that looks like Eddie, she follows him and discovers that he's now a vampire, she stakes him quickly. Turning to leave, Buffy sees that she surrounded by the blonde vamp's gang. the blonde introduces herself as Sunday. Buffy and Sunday get into a fierce battle and Sunday is easily beating Buffy. Buffy's left arms gets seriously injured and she decides to make a run for it seeing as how she's no longer in any condition to fight. Sunday's gang just watches her run. A pretty banged up Buffy decides to visit her mom at home, the phone rings and she picks it up, but there's not response on the other end.

Returning to the campus, Buffy finds that all her belongings are missing from her room and all that's left is a note supposedly written by herself. Feeling nostalgic, Buffy returns to the Bronze and runs into Xander, who shares his adventures which consisted of the engine falling out of his car and working at a male strip joint. Xander senses Buffy's unhappiness about university and the current situation with Sunday and gives her an uplifting talk, explaining that she's his hero, Buffy thanks him and they get into research mode at the computer lab in the university. They figure out where Sunday's lair is and make their way there. They peer in through a skylight and Buffy becomes outraged that they're going through her stuff and Xander goes back to get some weapons. Suddenly the skylight caves in and Buffy drops down into Sunday's lair. Meanwhile, Willow and Oz discover "Buffy's" note and Willow's shocked. Xander drops in and finds no weapons, he briefly explains the situation and they leave quickly. Buffy and Sunday are busy fighting, Sunday breaks Buffy's class protector award making Buffy get extremely mad. Buffy gains the upperhand in their fight just as Xander and co. arrive to back her up. They dispatch of most of the vamps while Buffy deals with Sunday. Finally knocking Sunday down, Buffy launches a stake at her with wicked precision. With a stake protruding from her heart, Sunday goes pouf with her hands on her hips. The gang packs up all of Buffy's stuff and carts it out. Giles runs up to them, armed with weapons. Giles wants to help, and explains that he was wrong to expect Buffy to do this all by herself.

The last vampire in Sunday's gang managed to escape and is running for cover. Suddenly two electrodes plunge into his chest and electrocute him. Three men dressed in black with sophisticated weapons close in on him.

Summary written by Nika

Quote of the Week

Xander: Do we hug?
Oz: I think we're too manly.

My Rating

2.5/5

My Review

Not a strong episode in my opinion, not strong at all. The Buffy's lost and she doesn't know where to go theme has been before, ie high school and this episode was just a little bit too repetitive of this. The episode started out pretty good, back in the old cemetery so it gave us a sense of familiarity but as soon as we got to the UC Sunnydale campus I started to feel like a newcomer to the show, maybe this was on purpose so that we could sort of feel what Buffy was feeling, but I personally didn't like it. Buffy acting like a complete ditz when Riley was around was absolutely idiotic, you'd think she;d never been around people before! And what was the purpose of her acting like that anyway? Having Cordelia not being there was just too weird, it left a big open gap that I really didn't like, she provided a lot towards the show and I feel the show really needs her there. It was really bizarre that they didn't mention anything about Cordelia or Angel not being there anymore. I would have expected their names to pop up at least one. I really liked that they put the phone call to Buffy's house in there from Angel, it was a really cute tie-in. It wasn't until Xander met Buffy at the Bronze that the show started to pick up, to feel more familiar. I really liked Sunday, she was awesome! I thought she was going to be around for at least a couple episodes, but no, they killed her at the end. Funny how Buffy's hand was suddenly cured, she could barely move it before. I liked Sunday's death with her hands of her hips, very classy. Too bad they killed, I was looking forward to having her around for a while. All in all though, a disapointing season premiere.

Niki's Review

Let me tell you how much I love Xander! I'm so glad he showed up, because when he wasn't in the beginning, I was worried he wouldn't show up until the climax, although I do feel bad that he's not going to college. That new "college" vamp was cool in the beginning, but then began to grate on my nerves, mostly because of her snottish attitude. I didn't like this episode very much, only because I felt I'd seen everything in previous episodes. The wandering Buffy, who doesn't have a clue what is going on, we saw in Surprise/Innoncence. The Buffy who gets beaten up and then triumphs over evil, we saw in Prophecy Girl. It had all been overdone, not to mention I didn't like the part with her arm "hurt, not broken". That confused me a bit, since before she had been favouring her other arm, and then all of a sudden she's fine? This episode was okay, but not the premiere I expect, and I'm looking for a lot more from the upcoming episodes.

Cast