Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S1/E09 The Puppet Show

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Unto every generation is born one who must run the annual talentless show. You cannot escape your destiny."

Something is killing the school Talent Show contestants and taking their body parts. The Slayerettes suspect a classmate and his dummy.

First appearance of Principal Snyder.

Snyder: There are certain things that I will not tolerate. Students loitering around school after hours, horrible murders with hearts being removed, and smoking.

Snyder: This place has quite a reputation. Suicide, missing persons, spontaneous cheerleader combustion. You can't put up with that.

  • Bait and Switch: The dummy is actually a cursed demon hunter who believes that Buffy is the demon after seeing her Slayer strength.
  • Credits Gag: The Scoobies 'talent' performance is shown during the credits.
  • Demonic Dummy: Averted; the dummy is in fact hunting the demon himself.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Sid by Buffy.

Look at you -- you're strong, athletic, limber, nnnnubile....(twigs out for a moment) I'm back!

  • Double Entendre: Sid has plenty in his act. It turns out Sid isn't acting though, he really is horny.

Sid: (to Willow) How about you and I do a little rehearsing on our own, honey? You know what they say: once you go wood, nothing's as good!

Snyder: From now on you're gonna see a very different Sunnydale High. Tight ship, clean, orderly...and quiet.
(Cut to Screaming Woman who's just found Emily with her heart cut out)

Cordelia: It's just such a tragedy for me. Emma was, like, my best friend.
Xander: Emily.
Cordelia: All I can think is, it coulda been me!

Xander: We can dream.

Cordelia: I, I can't go out there. All those people staring at me and judging me like I'm some kind of... Buffy! What if I mess up?

Giles: Cordelia, there, uh, there-there's, uh, uh, an adage, uh, that, uh, if you're feeling nervous then, uh, you should imagine the entire audience are in their underwear.

Cordelia: Eww! Even Mrs. Franklin? Uhhh!

Giles: Perhaps not.

Cordelia: Yeah.

Giles: Well it's a welcome relief to have someone else explain these things.

Xander: The dummy tells us he's a demon hunter.... He takes off, and now there's a brain. Does anybody else feel like they've been Keyser Sozed?

Snyder: Kids today need discipline. That's an unpopular word these days, 'discipline.' I know Principal Flutie would have said, 'Kids need understanding. Kids are human beings.' That's the kind of woolly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten.

  • Throw It In: Willow running away in the middle of the final scene. It's worked in perfectly.
    • Nicholas Brendon screaming "REDRUM!!!" while playing with the puppet was shot between takes.
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: The Scoobies have just defeated the Monster of the Week when the curtain rises exposing them to the audience. Buffy is cradling a ventriloquist dummy. Willow is holding a hatchet. Xander and Giles are next to a guillotine with a decapitated demon lying on it.

Snyder: I don't get it. What is it, avant garde?

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer/Recap/S1/E09_The_Puppet_Show?oldid=1479143"