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

< Buffy the Vampire Slayer‎ | Recap‎ | S1


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

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

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?

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