"They ate Principal Flutie?”
--Buffy
Yes, they ate Principal Flutie. Also, they ate a pig. And Buffy’s croissant.
"The Pack" seems like it’s going to be a rather goofy
episode at first. It’s got kids being possessed by hyena spirits
after all, as well as the Suspicious Zookeeper Guy who seems to have
been lifted straight out of an episode of Scooby Doo, and a clique of
“high school” bullies who actually look like a bunch of
twenty-eight year old advertising executives (and the kid they’re
picking on looks like he’s about thirty-two.) And it’s also
a Xander episode, which is usually a guarantee of goofiness. But the
story veers off into some legitimately disturbing territory as it picks
up steam, while managing to further explore the
relationships between Buffy, Willow and Xander and provide us with a
nice little metaphor about the pack mentality of high school kids at
the same time. Not a bad trick.
The story in a nutshell is this: four Sunnydale High bullies (two guys
and two women--and no, I didn’t say “girls”, I said
“women”, because I’m pretty sure these actresses
haven’t seen high school since Duran Duran were all the rage) are
picking on a nerdy kid during a field trip to the zoo and while
they’re all in front of the hyena cage, some like, magic stuff
sorta just happens? And presto, they’re possessed by hyena
spirits. Or rather, the four bullies and Xander are, because Xander
just happened to decide to intervene on the nerdy kid’s behalf
just before the magic mojo occurred and the nerdy kid was able to make
good his escape from these menacing yuppies. But now Xander’s all
evil, damn it. The difference between Evil Hyena Xander and Good
Xander, at least until things take a disturbing turn toward the end of
the first act, is that he dresses in black and keeps leering at
everyone, and occasionally makes fun of people and sniffs at Buffy. He
also ignores Willow, but so does Good Xander (also known as Dumb
Xander.)
Then things take a turn. They’re playing dodgeball in gym class,
because there’s what appears to be a bad CGI thunderstorm going
on outside, and Xander and the evil advertising executives are part of
one team and Buffy and Willow are part of the other one. The dodgeball
game is apt; there’s no better game to get across the sheer
“us versus them” mentality that really does pervade high
school. (Don’t bother studying in school, kids. Just find a way
to be a jock. Trust me, you’ll be happier when you’re
forty.) It’s a dog-eat-dog world in high school--or maybe a
hyena-eat-pig world. Anyway, Xander pegs Willow with the dodgeball, and
pretty hard too, which is extremely mean so obviously Xander must be
possessed by hyenas. In fact it can be reasonably argued that anyone
who is ever mean to Willow under any circumstances is likely to be
possessed by hyenas. The most interesting moment in the dodgeball game,
though, is when Buffy finds herself the last one standing on her side,
and she’s confronted by Xander and the advertising executives.
They leer at her, but they don’t try to take her down--instead
they all throw their balls at the nerdy kid (inexplicably named
"Lance", but I guess some people in the world must be, and it stands to
reason that some of them are probably nerds) whom they were picking on
at the zoo, and who also happens to be on their team. But he’s a
nerd, and Buffy’s cool. Plus she smells really good. I joke now,
but it gets disturbing later. Watch.
Next up, Xander dumps Willow, telling her that since he doesn’t
care about geometry anymore he now no longer ever needs to look at her
pasty face again, and I want to physically enter the episode and smack
him. But I remind myself that he’s like, possessed? So I let it
pass. Xander rejoins the advertising executives in order to be randomly
mean to people, and then they all eat a pig (Herbert, the school
mascot, who seems to have a crush on Buffy) because they’re
hungry. They also walk around in slow motion to angsty grunge music
while wearing black, which is a sure sign of hyena possession, but
Buffy doesn’t notice the slow-motion walking, she’s more
concerned about Xander’s behavior toward Willow. It’s
disturbing, and a little sad, that Willow actually
thinks, for the moment at least, that there might be nothing wrong with
Xander; sure he’s acting strange, but Willow thinks maybe
it’s just her. Maybe Xander’s picking on her because he
just doesn’t want to be her friend anymore. Maybe he just wants
Buffy, and three’s a crowd. That little moment between Willow and
Buffy shows just how much damage Xander has managed to do to
Willow--not in this episode, not because of the evil hyena spirit
currently gumming up his works, but in all the episodes up until now;
Xander’s single-minded, lunkheaded obsession with Buffy and his
apparent inability to be aware of Willow’s presence even
when she’s standing in front of him doing jumping jacks
while whistling “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy” has hurt
Willow so much that she actually thinks that his being an unremitting
asshole to her in this episode could somehow be her fault. Tara, where
are you? Please come and save Willow.
I become sad, but Buffy points out that this still doesn’t
explain why Xander is suddenly hanging with evil twenty-eight year old
yuppies whom he’s always hated before so she’s off to find
Giles for some serious mystery-solving. However, Xander acting like a
dick (and also scaring Herbert the soon-to-be-eaten-pig when he passed
by him in the hallway) isn’t interesting like spontaneous
combustion or werewolves, and also high school boys are sort of just a
bunch of dicks anyway? (it’s the testosterone) so Giles basically
waves Buffy off, but Buffy’s sticking to her guns, and once again
showing us how smart she is when she parlays a random comment by
Giles--“Boys can be cruel, they tease, they prey on the
weak”--into the solution to the mystery. Buffy remembers that The
Suspicious Zookeeper Guy also mentioned preying on the
weak--specifically, in reference to hyenas, and Xander started acting
like a dick right after going into the hyena exhibit. The evidence is
circumstantial, yes, but she hasn’t decided Xander’s a giant
praying mantis or anything, just that there’s something very
weird going on, and that Giles should go be Book Man. When Willow runs
in a second later with the news that Herbert has been eaten, Giles
agrees that, yes, Book Man should perhaps put in an appearance. Also,
Willow should probably try to wrest some information from the dread
machine.
The Scooby Gang, minus Xander, who is currently evil, gets cracking
(but it’s cool, all the lack of Good Xander really means is no
donuts), and Giles learns that the Masai tribe in Africa is big into
animal possession and Buffy learns that Noah didn’t let hyenas
onto the Ark because they looked shifty, and Willow wants to know why
Xander couldn’t have been possessed by a puppy, or some ducks?
And wins the cutest moment of the episode award. I hope it boosts her
confidence. She needs validation. Xander’s being mean to her.
Things get much, much darker from this point onward and the episode
gets that much more interesting. We cut back and forth between two
disturbing scenes, in fact the two most disturbing scenes we’ve
yet been presented with in the series to this point. In the first
scene, Xander corners Buffy in the faculty lounge as she’s
looking for clues around Herbert’s cage, and, to quote Buffy as
she sums it up later for Giles and Willow, “he tried his hand at
felony sexual assault”. It’s a disturbing scene not only
for the dark sexual overtones but also for the simple reason that
Xander, under the control of the hyena spirit, may actually be capable
of pulling it off: he’s nearly as strong as Buffy and he manages
to pin her down. “You like your men dangerous,” he says, as
he’s pinning her. “Dangerous and mean, right? Like Angel.
Your Mystery Guy. Well, guess who just got mean.” Xander may be
possessed by a predatory spirit that’s impacting his judgment,
but he’s still Xander somewhere under there: he’s still
jealous and resentful of Angel, and that makes the scene that much more
disturbing, because it reinforces the fact that this is Xander
who’s doing this to Buffy, not some brainwashed version of
Xander. We cut back and forth between this scene and Principal
Flutie’s swan song: he’s dragged the evil advertising execs
to his office for a stern talking-to because he believes, rightly, that
they ate Herbert, and probably also that they should have all graduated
a decade ago, and though the scene starts off rather light, since
Flutie is after all Flutie and he is funny and ridiculous at all times,
it very quickly turns very dark, as the advertising execs, who I should
probably stop making fun of because they’re creepy and disturbing
in this scene and they remain creepy and disturbing for the rest of the
episode, surround him like...well, a pack of hyenas, slowly building up
their courage, slowly working themselves up to killing him. They
don’t immediately attack him; they stalk him first, and push him
around. They’re hardly talking anymore by this point; their
interaction with Flutie is mostly body language, the kind of dominance
displays animals engage in. They sniff at him, and corner him, and test
his resolve; and, finally, the moment arrives when one of the pack--and
it’s an apt term for them now--scratches Flutie’s face,
drawing blood. The blood seems to drive them into a frenzy after that,
as well as confirming that Flutie is indeed not capable of defending
himself: he’s prey. So...well...they eat him.
I’ve always been amazed at just how much Buffy the Vampire Slayer
was able to get away with over the years. Whether it was because the
show aired on the WB and UPN, the two upstart networks that not very
many people were watching, or whether it was because of the
show’s fantasy setting, they were able to do things you just
didn’t see anywhere else. Willow and Tara’s kiss, the
steamy sex scenes between Spike and Buffy, Caleb the evil misogynist
preacher, attempted rape, cannibalism...this series might have dropped
the ball on occasion, but never due to a fear of taking risks. If
anything, I wish the writers had taken the safer route on a couple of
occasions. But this episode isn’t one of those times.
Xander’s attempted sexual assault of Buffy and the gruesome way
in which Flutie was dispatched serve as effective reminders that this
series would be all kinds of things, but it would never be safe.
One thing I'd like to note here is that Flutie was rewarded, in this
last appearance, with a line of actual human being dialogue as opposed
to the humorously irrelevant Flutiebabble he engages in at all other
times. While giving Buffy a speech about the good old days and how back
in his day they had school spirit (Buffy is holding Herbert the mascot
pig, who has a crush on her--and can you blame him?--while Flutie is
making this speech) Flutie seems to have a moment of clarity in which
he realizes he's been a parody--albeit an entertaining one--of a person
for five episodes now and he is apparently determined to change that,
or at least take a break from it. "Of course when I was your age, I was
surrounded by old guys telling me how much better things were when they
were my age," he says. Aw, Flutie. You were a good guy. I'm gonna miss
you.
After Buffy captures Xander and locks him in the very flimsy
library cage (which couldn’t possibly hold someone who’s
almost as strong as a Slayer, and in fact probably couldn’t even
hold me, and can someone tell me what a library’s doing with a
cage anyway?) and Giles then brings her the news of Flutie's death,
Buffy goes with Giles to see The Suspicious Zookeeper Guy, because
principals being eaten means this whole situation is just getting out
of hand, and the Suspicious Zookeeper Guy seemed very knowledgeable
about Masai tribes and hyenas and so forth the first time Buffy and
Willow met him, and Willow volunteers to stay with Xander.
Unfortunately, the pack, who are sort of dozing on someone’s
front lawn and licking their lips when they see scrumptious-looking
babies, pick this time to wake up and come looking for Xander because
he’s their homie. Willow smartly gets right the hell out of there
the second she sees the pack outside the library window, and then ends
up playing a dangerous game of hide and seek with the pack, until Buffy
shows up and saves her in the nick of time. Watching Willow being
hunted through the school after dark was disturbing--there’s that
word again--not just because one of the people hunting her was Xander,
but because human beings committing atrocities are always scarier than
monsters committing atrocities. Vampires are people wearing makeup and
prosthetics, and they just aren’t very scary. But human beings are
scary, and the four actors cast for the pack all did a very effective
job of portraying a slow, steady loss of humanity, as the animals in
them took over. All four of them were talking at the beginning of the
episode, but by this point they have almost no dialogue at all;
everything is conveyed through body language. Also, creepy hyena-like
laughs. They still look ten years too old to be in high school, but
they can certainly be creepy.
The pack leaves to look for easier prey, and Buffy leaves to find them
and lead them to the zookeeper so they can be reverse-possessed or
whatever, while Willow and Giles head for the zoo to be captured by the
zookeeper, who, it will come as no surprise, is evil. (He wanted to be
possessed by the hyenas himself, but those damned meddling kids ruined
his spell.) Buffy catches up to the pack as they’re smashing
their way into a car to attempt to eat people, then she leaps up onto
the roof of the car, stands there displaying herself with her hands on
her hips, and tells Xander, “Come on. You know what you
want.” Luckily for her, the pack is dumb: she runs for the zoo
and they chase her the whole way there. I can see why Xander and the
two guys are chasing her; I’m not too certain why the two female
members of the pack are chasing her though. Xander doesn’t want
to eat her after all, he wants to have sex with her. Maybe the two
women are just coming along for moral support. Or maybe the pack is
planning on eating Buffy after having sex with her. Okay, that was a
really weird sentence? So I’m just going to move on
now. Giles gets knocked unconscious by the evil zookeeper--and Giles
should get used to it, it’s going to be happening a lot from now
on--and Willow gets captured and tied up. The pack arrives, and the
zookeeper steals their evil mojo for himself by saying some funky
words, but now that it’s Buffy versus one
almost-as-powerful-as-a-Slayer-hyena-possessed-person rather than five,
she makes short work of him and throws him into the hyena cage, where
he is promptly eaten. Also, newly-non-possessed Xander has a nice
moment when he immediately rushes to save Willow from the zookeeper.
Giles doesn’t have a nice moment, as he was knocked unconscious and he just now woke up. The lesson here?
Cannibalism is gross. And don’t be mean to Willow. The next day
at school, Xander pretends not to remember any of the ridiculous
crap he said, did, or ate when he was possessed, and who can blame him?
And Buffy reaffirms that non-evil Xander is the correct Xander and
there shall be no other Xanders, and Willow is very cute. Also, Buffy
wore a really weird funky hat, and I think she might have been on
her way to cut a rap album? But I'm not sure.
This was a good episode, and it took some risks, which I
appreciate. It presented Xander in an extremely unflattering light: he
may have been possessed by hyenas when he tried to assault Buffy but
the reasons he tried to assault her had to do with who he is rather
than what happened to be possessing him. The episode was unflinching:
it was a story in which students were possessed by the spirits of
predatory pack animals and they acted like it, right down to eating a
live pig, and the principal, and attempting to eat some other
people. I enjoyed the metaphor, heavy-handed as it was, for the actual
jockeying for social position that goes on amongst teenagers in high
school, or in this case, twenty-eight year olds in high school. The
episode deepened the Willow/Xander relationship and thankfully brought
the subplot of Xander’s tedious unrequited crush on Buffy another
step closer to resolution. The actors cast as the pack members may have
been much too old-looking, but they were effective at conveying people
who were being slowly stripped of their humanity and they lent the
episode a nice, creepy atmosphere. But I miss the banter: this episode
was the first in which the writers didn’t seem to make much of an
attempt at the “Buffy style”; it just wasn’t very
funny, and there weren’t very many clever bits. There were a few
(I liked how Willow knew Xander’s exact blood pressure, because
she keeps track of those things, and I liked how the gym teacher
explained the rules of dodgeball: “The rules are as follows. You
dodge.”). But unlike, say, "Teacher’s Pet",
which tried to be clever and mostly failed, "The Pack" had other
things it wanted to accomplish. And it did accomplish those things,
with guts and style, but it would have been nice if we could have
gotten a bit more snark to go with it. Not a classic episode, and not a
great one, but a good one. And hey, they ate the principal.
You just don’t see that kind of stuff anywhere else and it really
should count for something. And for what it’s worth, Flutie, I
miss you.
