A review of Help

by Nepthys

~*~

"What if their problems are all weird and tricky? What if I can't help them?" -- Buffy on her new job as a student counsellor

"Power, control; it's a tradeoff." -- Xander, sending anvils our way regarding this season's theme

~*~

The subject matter of "Help" is exactly what the title says. It's going to be Buffy's first week working as a student counsellor. While she's quite expert in knowing the fastest way to kill demons, she worries about not being qualified enough to help kids with their problems.

Well, she shouldn't worry--at least some of their problems turn out to be familiar ground. There's Amanda, who beat up the boy who used to pick on her. Matthew, who's new in school and is having trouble making friends. Tomas is worried about his brother joining the Marines. And of course, Josh and Peter, who are just bored respectively looking for a hot older woman to date.

The real challenge proves to be a girl named Cassie, who isn't doing her homework. Cassie confides that the reason why she doesn't bother is because she believes she's going to die soon. Buffy assumes the girl's being threatened by someone or feeling suicidal, but Cassie says that isn't it, she just knows she's going to die. Before leaving, she also tells Buffy to put on a sweater so that the shirt doesn't get stained.

A worried Buffy goes to see Principal Wood to tell him about Cassie. As they are talking, she spills coffee on her shirt. Whoops. Guess she should've taken Cassie's advice, after all.

Back at Casa del Summers, Willow searches for online information on Cassie and finds a home page with paintings and poems, many of them about death. She also finds mentions of Cassie's alcoholic father in the Sunnydale Police Records. Accompanied by Xander, Buffy pays him a visit to investigate. But despite his failings, he seems to genuinely love his daughter, and Cassie herself says he's not the one.

Buffy's getting desperate, and seeks out Spike to ask him if he knows anything about it. He's clearly in pain, mumbling about "hurting the girl." Calls himself a bad man and beats on himself. He too is in need of help, but she's pressed for time and has to leave again.

The next day in school, Principal Wood is doing a locker search to see if there's any leads to what threatens Cassie. A pile of coins are lying on the floor having fallen from an open locker. Buffy interrogates the owner of the locker, as she remembers Cassie having referred to coins earlier. The boy claims he doesn't know, there are just some guys that he knows that want to mess with her mind.

Later that evening, we see a group of robed figures gathered around a circle of coins. Cassie is also present, tied up and gagged. The robed figures are students planning to sacrifice Cassie to a demon. As they perform the spell, Buffy takes off her robe and begins to mock them for trying to raise a demon with a spell that isn't even working.

Except it did, and Buffy's left trying to fend it off. Just as it looks the demon has the upper hand, Spike appears to the rescue, burning the demon with a torch. Buffy takes the torch to continue fighting the demon, while Spike goes to save Cassie. One of the boys is trying to cut her with a cleaver, but is knocked to the ground by Spike, who continues to punch him despite the pain the chip's sending him.

As evidenced by numerous attempts to attack humans, he's never been able to withstand the pain long enough to hurt anyone before. Either it's case of sloppy writing here or the chip isn't working as well as it used to anymore. Hoping it's the latter, as it's about damned time the chip's neutralized, one way or the other.

What's interesting is that Spike can barely hold it together in the basement, yet he seems considerably more sane fighting alongside Buffy in the library. Either what's down in the basement makes him worse, or it's easier for him to suppress the soul while he's fighting. It was apparent that he badly wanted to save a girl for once instead of hurting one, yet looming over the boy, gritting out "I'm a bad man," he also seemed to feel an urge to take some of the pain/self-hatred/punishment out on "bad people."

His efforts to save Cassie aren't without reward. As he removes her gag, she looks at him and says: "She'll tell you. Someday she'll tell you." No doubt that it's Buffy that she referred to--but exactly what she'll be telling him is the question. Will it be:

A) "I love you."

B) "The leather coat's in the closet, you can have it back."

C) "Close your eyes," followed by melancholic Sarah McLachlan music and Spike sent to a hell dimension.

Whatever it might mean, Spike's taken aback, and leaves when Buffy comes over to check on Cassie. The last person we see asking Buffy for help in the episode is one of the boys summoning the demon, as he is bleeding from his arm. "Sorry. My office hours are ten to four," Buffy retorts, leaving the library together with Cassie.

On their way out, Buffy remarks, "See? You can make a difference." Cassie smiles, reaching up to brush a stray hair from Buffy's face. "And you will," she says softly, then drops to the ground, dead.

We find out that Cassie was indeed fated to die. Unbeknownst to her, she had a heart condition that only her mother knew about. Which seems somewhat incongruous - a girl with a serious heart condition would be regularly checked by a cardiologist, but plot apparently comes before plausibility in the Jossverse, so we'll let it slide.

Other notable parts of the episode: Willow paying a visit to Tara's grave. Nice to see mentions of Tara, as well as Willow placing a pebble on the gravestone as per Jewish tradition. Her conversation with Xander merits closer attention as the word power came up a lot. All in all, an enjoyable episode, but it suffers from not enough Anya, providing much-needed comic relief and not enough Spike, providing... well, he's simply much-needed. <g>

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Nepthys