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Episode 3.18: Earshot | Episode 3.20: The Prom
Characters:
| Buffy | Angel | Xander |
| Willow | Giles | Cordelia |
| Oz |
Overall (6/10)
Buffy:
Ah, the choices we make.
We saw earlier in the season that Buffy had received very good SAT scores in Lover's Walk. In this episode, we find out that she has a shot at a pretty good school.
The main difference now being that Faith is bad and Buffy is the sole Slayer-on-duty now. She literally has no choice but to stay in Sunnydale.
She does try, though, to break away from that. However, by the end of the episode, she realizes that it's just not possible for her to go away.
Her desire to rid herself of the Mayor problem so she can go away does prompt her to discover about the freaky box thing with the spiders. Thanks to a little Mission Impossible-style infiltration, Buffy and Angel manage to snatch the box.
But curses! Willow got left behind!
She's faced with another choice. She can destroy the box and possibly condemn Willow to death. Or she can trade the box back for Willow.
Now, realistically, there are numerous other options open to her. She can destroy the box while staging a separate rescue mission to get Willow back. They could use a decoy to trade back for Willow. However, for the purposes of the story, they don't consider anything else but the strict either/or as I described in the previous paragraph.
Buffy makes the only decision that she realistically can. Is it the smart, tactical thing to do? Not really. But it's the human thing for her to do. Buffy doesn't abandon her friends.
In the middle of the trade, though, she is given a lecture by the Mayor concerning her relationship with Angel. The Mayor brings up issues that Buffy seems to have had lurking in her mind already. After all, at the beginning Buffy commented on the fact that she'll age while Angel won't.
However, Buffy refuses to think about those issues. We see her firmly in the land of denial at the end of the episode.
Angel:
Angel gets to play back-up to Buffy in this episode. We'll find out in the next episode that he was more affected by the Mayor's words then he's letting on.
But that's a discussion for The Prom.
Xander:
We find out that Xander's not even going to worry about college. He's gonna be Bohemian-guy and go on a road trip. We'll find out in S4's The Freshman that he has little success in doing so. But he gives it an honest go.
In contrast to Buffy, Willow has every opportunity in the world to get away from Sunnydale. However, when she makes her final decision, she chooses to stay there to fight evil.
This is actually a big change for Willow, who had wanted to pursue the best academic career possible. But now, she has decided that fighting evil is the most important thing to her. She's not turning her back on her smarts, but she's wanting to apply that to the Slaying.
Willow shows great courage after having been captured. She manages to dust a vamp with a pencil (Look, ma, no hands!). Then she stands up to Faith. This is all a result of the events in Doppelgangland. It's a pretty safe bet that without that episode, Willow wouldn't have near the confidence to take that sort of action.
She manages to bring back some information about the Ascension to make up for the fact that they lost the box.
Giles very clearly steps back and lets Buffy take the lead in this episode. He still guides her when needed, but he's recognizing her growing leadership ability.
He's also still quite firmly ignoring Wesley. His rebellious streak against the Council becomes more pronounced in each episode.
Cordelia is an interesting case here. Like Willow, she has a lot of choices of good schools that she's been accepted to. But we'll find out that, like Buffy, she can't actually go to any of them.
She's working in the clothing store and dreaming of the perfect prom dress. We'll find out in the next episode that her father lost all of his money.
As the Scoobies are arguing over whether to trade for Willow or not, Oz takes control and reminds everybody of the human side of the conflict. He loves Willow. Obviously, he's not gonna sit around while she's been captured. Good show, Oz.
There's a box with some spiders that the Mayor needs for his Ascension. Willow gets captured (and bitch-slapped by Faith).
The Mayor and Faith
Definitely an arc episode. The Mayor is one step closer to Ascension. Plus, we have the first face-to-face meeting between the Mayor and our Scoobies.
A solid episode that highlights the choices one must face at the end of high school. I don't really have many complaints on this one, but it's not one of the stronger episodes of the season.
Special performance award goes to Sarah Michelle Gellar for the Mission Impossible-acting.
6 out of 10.
Willow's explanation to Buffy as to why she's staying in Sunnydale. It really is something that can be said by all the Scoobies as to why they stick around when they'd be a hell of a lot safer just walking away.
Episode 3.18: Earshot | Episode 3.20: The Prom
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