Original Air Date: October 12, 1999

Written by Marti Noxon
Directed by David Grossman

Summary

After listening to 'Believe' by Cher one too many times, Buffy decides to go out to hunt, Kathy stops her and asks her if she took some of her milk, Buffy confesses and says she's going to get some caffeine. While out hunting, a wrinkled orange demon with glowing eyes slowly stalks Buffy. Suddenly, Kathy shows up, apparently she's looking for some caffeine as well. Buffy, decidedly displeased with Kahty's appearance, follows Kahty away from the woods. Suddenly the demon appears behind them, Buffy shoves Kathy into the bushes and fights the demon, he gives up and runs away. Buffy warily leads a disheveled Kathy away. The demon stares after them, muttering that she must be the one.

The next day, Buffy visits Giles and admits that she's hiding out at Giles' until Kathy heads off to classes. She gives him the details on the orange monster and Giles says he'll look into it. Back at the dorm, Kathy is cleaning off her dirty sweater but the stain won't come out. She walks over to Buffy's closet and picks out one of her sweaters and puts it on. She notices Buffy's weapon bag, opens it, shrugs and moves on. At lunchtime, Buffy gets in the lunch line and makes fast friends with a guy named Parker. He clues her in to the ways of the lunch room. Buffy then joins Xander, Willow and Oz at a lunch table. Kathy joins them and Buffy gets pissed because Kathy's wearing her sweater. Of course, Kathy then proceeds to spill ketchup on the sweater and Buffy gives her the evil eye. Kahty returns to the dorm room after Buffy has finished griping to Willow on the phone about Kathy. Buffy goes to put her apple in the fridge when she notices that Kathy has labelled all her food with her name. Miffed, Buffy gets up and opens the window that Kathy had just closed. Finally, they settle into bed. Buffy dreams of the orange demons pouring blood into her mouth, of scorpions crawling all over her and of the demon sucking some sort of light out of her. She wakes up the next morning to find Kathy grumbling about Buffy making noises while she sleeps.

Later on Buffy relates to Giles and her friends about her dream. Kathy appears and, after introductions, tells Giles about her dream as she had overheard that they were discussing dreams. Buffy rolls her eyes and shoos her off to class. Giles says that if Buffy and Kathy are sharing dreams, then there must be a connection somewhere. At night, in the woods, the orange demon that Buffy fought meets with another demon who looks exactly the same, they say that were correct and that they are ready to summon Taparich. They begin their summoning and the earth shakes.

Buffy returns to her dorm to find Kathy and Parker talking deeply. Parker gives Buffy some Ziploc bags for the cafeteria food and says that they should go out some time. After he's left, Buffy, obviously miffed about Kathy horning in on Parker, snaps a lock on her closet, opens the windows and chugs down Kathy's milk. While Oz is out looking for Buffy, on Willow's request to make sure that Buffy hasn't gone over the edge regarding Kathy, he passes three people. One girl in particular catches Oz's gaze. Oz catches up with Buffy and she continues her tirade about Kathy, and ends up breaking a bench because she gets so acted up about Kathy. After her hunt, Buffy returns to her dorm room and finds Kathy's toenail clipping to make too much noise for her to study so she gives up and goes to bed and dreams of the orange monsters again.

The next day, Buffy finds Willow talking with Kathy and is none too pleased. Buffy is convinced that Kathy's a demon, she pulls out Kathy's toenails and says that they grew overnight. Willow thinks she's lost it and tells her to go see Giles. At Giles' house, Buffy gets ambushed by Oz, Xander and Giles. They tie her up while Giles checks out the toenails that Buffy shows him. They all think that she's been possessed by the orange demons that she encountered. Buffy manages to escape and knocks Xander and Oz out cold. She makes her way to the dorm and confronts Kathy. Buffy antagonizes her and Kathy punches her in the face. After some struggling, Buffy pulls off Kathy's face and exposes an orange skined demon beneath, Kathy says she wishes she could have finished the ritual she was doing on Buffy (Buffy's dreams were real) because she ran away from her dimension to go to college. Basically, she was stealing Buffy's soul because she needed it to remain in this dimension. Giles, having figured out what Kathy is, does a spell to return Buffy's soul from Kathy. He succeeds with the spell and in the midst of their fight, Buffy's soul returns. Two seconds later Taparich appears in their dorm room and whisks Kathy away to their dimension.

The next day, Buffy helps Willow move her stuff into their room. They're finally going to be roommates. Buffy's glad that it was Kathy's demony ways making her go crazy because she always thought that she was an easy-going person. Willow takes a bite of Buffy's sandwich and Buffy gives her the evil eye.

Summary written by Nika

Miscellaneous Info

 

Quote of the Week

Xander: Buffy, this hurts me more than it hurts you.
Buffy: Not yet, but it will.
Xander: Oh, don't say that. Oh, please don't say that.

My Rating

4/5

My Review

Well this episode more than definitely beat out the season premiere. A pretty good episode, most credit is given to the two roommates, Kathy and Buffy. They were absolutely priceless together. Kathy was absolutely hysterical because she's basically everyone's horror of a roommate (well her, or Willow's roommate). After listening to Cher one too many times, I can't really blame Buffy for wanting to kill Kathy. They evil eye close ups were awesome and could not have been done any better. Buffy's never breaking smile at the beginning of the show was wonderful (can't you just tell she's about ready to snap?). The one scene that bothered me to no end was the Buffy-chugging-milk scene. That was disgusting, and I'm sorry but there is no way that Buffy would do that just to prove a point, that whole part was completely out of character. Anyone else notice that Parker Abrams looks a heck of a lot like the first season Xander? Very strange... I thought Riley was the new romantic interest... Well, it's not like I'm complaining. The very ending was the only problem I had with this episode, I felt cheated when Taparich arrived and yanked Kathy off to the other dimension. I don't really know how they could have changed the storyline there but I wasn't too pleased with the ending. My only other comment is on the girl that Oz saw on the streets at night. Who is she? A fellow werewolf? Or maybe a love interest in the future?

Niki's Review

There is one thing this Buffy episode had going for it: I liked it a lot better than the last one. It was funny, with the exaggerated close-ups and the pure bitchyness of the two girls. Except for when Buffy chugs down the milk, I couldn't really watch that scene since I was too grossed out. My favourite scene was in the cafeteria, it was played out really well, especially when Xander eagerly asks if they need to assemble the Scooby Gang, since most of the Scooby Gang was already there as well. I do wish, however, that they would get Xander into college. The writers have ensured enough Xander time for me, but it just lacks the whole Xander-college perspective. I love the Oz/Buffy bonding scene, it's so funny how he rationalizes everything and always remains unflappable Oz. I liked the demon angle this week, except for at the end when Kathy is talking to her superior (dad, maybe?) and she's whining about hating the other dimension, it kind of cheapened the whole suspense thing for me, since right when the demon guy rose from the ground, I figured out that they were coming for Kathy, not for Buffy. An average episode, but if they keep getting better like this one did, then soon we should have the old, familiar Buffy that we know and love.

Cast