Helpless
Written by: David Fury Directed by: James A. Contner
Cast : Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers, Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris, Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg, Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase, Seth Green as Oz, Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles.
Main guest stars : Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers, Jeff Krober as Zachary Kralick, Harris Yulin as Quentin Travers, Dominic Keating as Blair, David Haydn-Jones as Hobson.
Original broadcast date : January 19, 1999
In the mansion, Buffy trains with Angel she succeeds in mock-staking him with a French baguette. As they rest a bit, Angel asks what her plans are for her 18th birthday. She answers that she has a date to the ice show with a man she calls Dad.
Later at the library, Giles is having Buffy concentrate on an assemblage of stones set on the table, and tries to get her to name them. But Buffy isn¹t in it; she¹s itching to burn some energy, and finally goes on patrol. But as she fights a vampire, she suddenly has a dizzy spell that almost gets her killed before she manages barely to dust it.
The next day, Buffy¹s worries increase when, at the library, she throws knifes at a target and misses horribly. She confides to Giles about her close call of the previous evening, but he tells her that it may be nothing, probably just a bout of the flu.
At lunchtime, Buffy¹s upcoming birthday is again the subject of discussion. When Buffy talks about the ice show she goes to with her father every year, Willow remarks that once when she was little, she got so scared at Snoopy on Ice that she threw up on Woodstock. Xander then says he hopes there¹ll be a birthday party, but Buffy dismisses the plan, reminding him how badly her birthday parties usually go.
When she gets home, Buffy sees a very nice bouquet waiting on the table for her with a card from her father, telling her he can¹t make it for the ice show. Joyce offers to take time off work to go with her, but an obviously very disappointed Buffy turns her down.
Elsewhere in Sunnydale, someone is preparing other birthday plans for the Slayer. In an abandoned building, the leader of the Council of Watchers, Quentin Travers, is overseeing workers setting up the “test” He notes that it is almost ready, while looking at a large, human-sized crate.
At the library, Buffy tries to convince Giles to go with her to the ice show, but he¹s strangely one-track minded he wants her to concentrate on the crystals once again. She does, and falls in a trance. Giles quickly takes out a syringe, rolls up her sleeve and injects her with something. Then, he takes her out of the trance, and she calls it a night, totally ignorant of what has just happened.
The next day, as Willow and Buffy talk about toys for Amy the rat, they witness Cordelia being roughly manhandled by a guy. Buffy tries to intervene, only to find out that her strength is gone. Cordelia fends off for herself, and Buffy, now thoroughly alarmed, goes to see Giles once again. However, he evasively shrugs the whole thing off.
At the old abandoned building, Giles is trying to talk Travers out of the “test”, but the Council leader answers that the Cruciamentum is a time-honoured tradition for the Slayer on her 18th birthday. However, Giles argues that locking her in the building, weakened and defenceless, and unleashing “that” on her is cruelty. After he leaves, having failed to convince his superior, a wail is heard from another room. It¹s a vampire, tied up in a straightjacket against the wall and looking quite insane. And indeed, two Council workers carefully feed him some pills
Later that night, the vampire clamors for his pills again, and one of the two workers, Blair, gets up wearily to give them to him. However, the creature manages to lure him closer, until he can bite him and drain him At the mansion, Angel is comforting Buffy. She¹s worried about not being able to cope with not having powers anymore, afraid that she¹ll know too much about what goes bump in the night, but won¹t be able to do anything about it. Angel confides to her that he saw her called, that day at Hemery High, when her first Watcher, Merrick, came to meet her. He tells her that he loved her from the very first sight.
At the abandoned building, the vampire is licking the blood off his fingers and humming a tune, as Blair wakes up, now a vampire. Of course, the first thing he does is free his sire. The two of them set out to find Buffy and play the game by their own rules
Buffy is walking home alone when Blair and the other vampire chase after her. She barely gets away, but must abandon her coat to them. She¹s saved by Giles, who stops by in his car and tells her to get in. In the library, a defeated Giles shows Buffy the organic compound of muscle relaxants and adrenal suppressants he used on her, and tells her about the test she was to pass being locked in a house with an insane vampire and relying only on her natural skills to fight him. As he tells her that the test is now void, since the vampire Kralick, a mass-murderer has escaped, she angrily throws the syringe box at him. Tearful, she tells Giles that she doesn¹t know him anymore, and asks Cordelia who arrives at just the right moment, as always for a ride home.
When Buffy arrives at her house, she finds out that Kralick has kidnapped her mother. She packs her weapons and leaves, obviously straining under the weight of her knapsack.
At the building, Kralick is busy taking pictures of Joyce tied up to a chair, and making plans to turn Buffy into a vampire and having her bite her own mother. Meanwhile, Buffy arrives, manages to knock out Blair, and goes after Kralick. They play cat and mouse until he badly needs his medication and takes out the bottle of pills. Buffy, seeing an opportunity, snatches the bottle and runs, an angry Kralick chasing her; she slides down a laundry chute and finds her mother.
Kralick arrives and demands his pills, which Buffy gives to him, along with his glass of water which he downs, not knowing she¹s replaced it with holy water. He poofs up, and Giles shows up to stake Blair and untie Joyce Buffy doesn¹t have the strength to do it.
In the library, Quentin Travers congratulates Buffy for passing the test, but a seething Buffy accuses him of putting her mother in danger, and tells him he better get out of town before she gets her powers back. Travers obliges, but not before he informs Giles that he¹s fired he¹s grown too close to the Slayer, whom he loves like a father would.
The next day, Buffy is home discussing the events with Joyce, Willow and Xander. As Willow expresses her outrage at Giles¹ firing, Buffy tries to open a jar of peanut butter and fails. She passes it to Xander, who gloats about being a man before also failing to open the jar.
Summary by OttsFiveByFive.
Episode Ratings
Mac - “Giles gets canned. That’s about as interesting as this ep gets.”
DJ Angelus -
“When will Buffy learn her B-day is a bad thing to celebrate.”
Quotes
Key: B=Buffy, G=Giles, X=Xander, W=Willow, C=Cordelia, O=Oz, A=Angel, J=Joyce, PS=Principal Snyder, T=Mr. Trick, M=Mayor, Q=Quentin Travers, K=Zachary Kralik
B: Got ya! A: Uh, right in the heart. B: Satisfied? A: I’m not sure that’s the word.
B: We’re not having satisfaction in the personal sense.
B: Actually, I do have a thing. A: A thing? A date? B: Nice attempt at casual. Actually, I do have a date. Older man. Very handsome. Likes it when I call him Daddy. A: Your father. It is your father, right?
G: This one? B: Amethyst. G: Used for? B: Breath mints? G: Charm bags, money spells and for cleansing one’s aura. B: Okay, so how do you know if one’s aura’s dirty? Somebody comes by with a finger and writes “wash me” on it?
G: Since it is part of your training, I would appreciate your glib-free attention.
G: Faith is not interested in proper training, so I must rely on you to keep up with yours. B: I hate being the good one.
B: Wow, that was funny looking. Could you do it again? Vamp: I’ll kill you for that. B: For that? What were you trying to kill me for before?
Vamp: Let me know if I’m not doing this right.
B: I’m way off my game. My game’s left the country. It’s in Cuernavaca.
B: No, I just need to spend a little more time training. //crash// I’m gone. G: Thank you.
X: An ice show. A show performed on ice. And how old are we again? W: I went to _Snoopy on Ice_ when I was little. My dad took me backstage, and I got so scared I threw up on Woodstock. B: I know you guys think it’s just a big, dumb, girlie thing, but it’s not. I mean, a lot of those skaters are Olympic medal winners. And every year, my Dad buys me cotton candy and one of those souvenir programs that has all the pictures– and okay, it’s a big, dumb, girlie thing, but I love it. O: It’s not so girlie. Ice is cool. It’s water, but it’s not.
X: Some of us still love to relish celebrating the birth of the Buff. B: I don’t know. I think it might be time to put a moratorium on parties in my honor. They tend to go badly. Monsters crash, people die. W: But it’s a big one, Buffy. I mean, you can vote now. You can be drafted. You can vote not to be drafted.
B: So, how’s it going with Amy the rat? W: Good. She loves her new exercise wheel. She runs around, her nose wiggles– B: I meant, how’s it going, changing her back into a human being? W: Oh. Still working on it. But I just got her the cutest little bell..
Guy: You made me look like some kind of dork in front of my posse. C: First of all, posse? Passe. Second of all, anyone with a teaspoon of brains knows not to take my flirting seriously. Especially with my extenuating circumstances. Guy: What circumstances? C: Rebound! Look it up.
B: Okay, I just got swatted by some no-neck, and rescued by Cordelia.
B: I throw knives like… G: A girl?
W: Aha! A curse on Slayers. Oh, no, wait. It’s lawyers. X: You know, maybe we’re on the wrong track with the whole spell, curse, and whammy thing. Maybe what we should be looking for is something like, um, Slayer kryptonite. O: Faulty metaphor. Kryptonite kills. X: You’re assuming I meant the green kryptonite. I was referring, of course, to the red kryptonite, which drains Superman of his powers. O: Wrong. The gold kryptonite’s the power-sucker. The red kryptonite mutates Superman into some sort of weird… B: Guys. Reality.
B: It’s sweet and thoughtful, and full of neat words to learn and say like“wilt” and “henceforth”.
B: What if I just become pathetic? Hanging out at the old Slayer’s home, talking people’s ears off about my glory days, showing them Mr. Pointy, the stake I had bronzed.
B: Before I was the Slayer, I was… Well, I don’t want to say shallow, but… let’s say a certain person, who will remain nameless, we’ll just call her Spordelia, looked like a classical philosopher next to me.
A: It was a bright afternoon out in front of your school. You walked down the steps. And I loved you. B: Why? A: ’Cause I could see your heart. You held it before you for everyone to see. And I worried that it would be bruised or torn. And more than anything in my life I wanted to keep it safe, to warm it with my own. B: That’s beautiful…. Or taken literally, incredibly gross. A: I was just thinking that, too.
B: Hummers. Big turn-off. I like guys that can remember the lyrics. K: You know, I wish I could, but my mind just isn’t what it used to be.
C: What’s going on? Oh god, is the world ending? I have to research a paper on Bosnia for tomorrow, but if the world’s ending, I’m not gonna bother.
B: I don’t know you. C: Did something take her memory? It’s Giles. Gi-iles. He hangs out here a lot.
C: If the world doesn’t end, I’m gonna need a note.
K: Mother. May I call you Mother? My own mother was a person with no self-respect of her own. So she tried to take mine. Ten years old, she had the scissors. You wouldn’t believe what she took with those. But she’s dead to me now. Mostly because I killed and ate her.
K: She’ll go to sleep, and when she wakes up, your face will be the first thing she eats. I have a problem with mothers. I’m aware of that.
G: I’ve told Buffy everything. Q: That is in direct opposition to the Council’s orders. G: Yes. Interestingly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the Council’s orders.
B: If I was at full Slayer power, I’d be punning right about now.
Q: You think the test was unfair? B: I think you better leave town before I get my strength back.
Q: We’re not in the business of fair, Miss Summers, we’re fighting a war. G: You’re waging a war. She’s fighting it. There is a difference.
Q: Congratulations again. B: Bite. Me. Q: Yes, well, colorful girl.
O: So, how did you manage to kill Kralik? J: Oh, she was very clever. You go ahead and tell it, dear. You tell it better.
W: Now, when you say fired, do you mean fired? X: You’re not cruising past that concept any time soon, are you? W: Well, it’s just– I mean, he’s been fired. He’s, he’s unemployed. He’s between jobs. B: Giles isn’t going anywhere, Will. He’s still librarian. W: Okay, but I’m writing an angry letter.
B: You know, nothing’s really going to change. The important thing is that I kept up my special birthday tradition of gut-wrenching misery and horror. O: Bright side to everything.
B: Just feel better when I get my strength back. X: Give you a hand with that, little lady? B: You’re loving this far too much. X: Admit it, sometimes you just need a big, strong man…. Uh, Will, give me a hand with that?
Credit: The Sunnydale Slayers