Daddy’s girl

The following conversation between Buffy’s parents was deleted from the episode When She Was Bad:

Kristine’s favourite episodes

Kristine Sutherland’s (Joyce) favourite Buffy episodes are Ted, Band Candy and When She Was Bad.

Looks like Spike

Some fans claim that in the end scene of When She Was Bad, when Buffy joins Xander and Willow in the classroom, the guy sitting in front of Buffy is James Marsters, who plays Spike (James had not yet joined the cast of the show). It’s definitely not him though he is very similar. The same guy can be seen in the Bronze when Buffy and Xander dance.

Previously…

The first episode of Buffy to feature Anthony Stewart Head’s voice on the opening teaser, rather than the other American narrator, was the season two premier, When She Was Bad.

Regular as clockwork

David Boreanaz was added to the opening credits from When She Was Bad, when he became a regular cast member.

Reused shot

At the very beginning of When She Was Bad, we see a courtyard shot of students. It is reused footage from season one’s Never Kill a Boy on the First Date. The guy walking away in the lilac shirt is Owen from that episode.

Sarah’s hair

Sarah Michelle Gellar had her hair cut shorter, and dyed blonder, for her part in the movie Scream 2, which she filmed in the summer between Buffy’s seasons one and two. Xander comments on her new hair in When She Was Bad.

Brent Jennings

Brent played the vampire Absalom in When She Was Bad. Brent also starred in City of Angels (as Sgt. Baker), ER (as Nat), American Gothic, NYPD Blue, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Miami Vice.

Tamara Braun

Tamara played a vampire named Tara in When She Was Bad and (one of the many) “Frenzied Girl” in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. Tamara played Carly in General Hospital and has been in Party of Five, 7th Heaven and Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane (with Azura Skye, who played Cassie in season seven).

Absalom

Absalom was a religious African-American vampire working for the Anointed One. He attempted to resurrect the Master by kidnapping Giles, Jenny, Cordelia and Willow, and was burnt to death by Buffy in When She Was Bad.

Vamped Tara

Although never mentioned on-screen, the female vampire in When She Was Bad is referred to as Tara in the script. Willow’s girlfriend in season four onwards was named Tara.

Cordy’s bracelet

They’re not close friends so how does Buffy instantly recognise Cordelia’s bracelet after it’s thrown through the window in When She Was Bad?

Dance With You

Xander says to Buffy in Prophecy Girl, “I want to dance with you”. His wish comes true when Buffy dances sexily with him in the very next episode - When She Was Bad.

Inverted cross

At the end of When She Was Bad, when Buffy is chatting with Giles before she goes to class, she is wearing a gold inverted cross necklace. An inverted cross or crucifix is typically a sign of an allegiance to evil, so it is odd to see it on a champion of the powers of good.

Kill them all

In Welcome to the Hellmouth, Angel says about vampires to Buffy, “You want to kill them. You want to kill them all.” In the season two episode When She Was Bad, Angel asks Buffy how she is going to distract the vampires to which she responds, “I’m gonna kill them all.”

Knocked out

In Buffy vs Dracula, Giles falls into Dracula’s basement, where he is surrounded by the sisters. After he falls he says, “Good show, Giles. At least you didn’t get knocked out for a change.” In A New Man, Giles says he has a “tendency to get knocked on the head”. He’s not kidding. Giles has been knocked unconscious in the episodes:

• The Witch (by vampires who want to raise the Master again)
• Never Kill a Boy on the First Date (by Andrew Vorba in the crematorium)
• Prophecy Girl (by Buffy, to stop him from trying to help her)
• When She Was Bad (by the vampires attempting to raise the Master)
• Passion (by Angelus, after Giles attacks him for killing Jenny)
• Becoming (Part 1) (by a group of vampires who take him to Angelus)
• Beauty and the Beasts (shot with a tranquilizer gun)
• Homecoming (by Lyle Gorch and Candy).
• Revelations (by Gwendolyn Post, in his office)
• Gingerbread (by the MOO mob as they come to take Buffy away. When Cordy wakes him up shes says, “I came over here to tell Buffy to stop this craziness and found you all unconscious… again. How many times have you been knocked out, anyway? I swear, one of these times, you’re going to wake up in a coma.”)
• Earshot (he doesn’t get knocked out in this episode - but he does walk into a tree in a very amusing manner)
• Flooded (by the Mfashnik demon as it breaks ino Buffy’s house. Giles later says, “Well, I know I’m back in America now. I’ve been knocked unconscious”).

Master’s skeleton

When the Master is killed in Prophecy Girl, only his soft tissue is dusted: his skeleton stays intact. There is no explanation for this other than as a plot device for the season two premiere When She Was Bad.

Miniature Golf

Ted takes Joyce and the Scoobies for a game of miniature golf. Willow said in When She Was Bad that there no mini-golf courses In Sunnydale, but I guess it’s possible that Ted drove them somewhere else for their game. Mini-golf was also the favoured pastime of season three’s Mayor Richard Wilkins III (he suggested a game in Enemies). Clearly, miniature golf is the game of choice for evil patriarchs.

Rock, paper, scissors

Xander always chooses scissors when playing ‘rock, paper, scissors’ - discovered in When She Was Bad.

Same old trick

Buffy fights Angel in the cemetery in Becoming (Part 1), then realises that she was distracted away from the library so that Drusilla could hurt her friends. In When She Was Bad, the Master’s lackeys used the same trick on Buffy to capture Willow for the resurrection ritual. Angelus says to her when she runs to the library, “And you fall for it every time!”

School Year

In When She Was Bad, Joyce says, “I’ll just be happy if she makes it through the school year.” Buffy is kicked out of school at the end of the school year, in Becoming (Part 2) - making her mother’s fear certain.

Alison Krauss

In When She Was Badm we hear Alison Krauss & Union Station’s ‘It Doesn’t Matter’ as Angel leaves Buffy’s bedroom (from the albums So Long, So Wrong, and Buffy The Album). In Entropy, we hear ‘That Kind of Love’ by Alison Krauss, after everyone argues about Spike and Anya.

Cibo Matto

The band Cibo Matto played their songs ‘Sugar, Water’ and ‘Spoon’ in the Bronze during When She Was Bad. The band features Sean Lennon, the son of John Lennon. Xander and Buffy danced together to the song ‘Sugar, Water’. There is a Cibo Matto poster on the wall behind the Scoobies as they talk at Buffy’s locker.

Revivification spell

A revivification spell is a ritual to bring a dead vampire back to life. The ritual requires the bones of the vampire (if available) and the blood of the humans nearest to the vampire when it was dusted. The Anointed One instructed his lackeys to perform the ritual in When She Was Bad, using Giles, Cordelia, Willow and Jenny who were closest to The Master when he died. Buffy stopped the spell.

Breyers Ice Cream

Willow can be seen eating Breyers Ice Cream at the Bronze in When She Was Bad. She places some of the ice cream on her nose in an attempt to gain Xander’s attention and recreate their moment of almost-kissage at the beginning of the episode

Guess the Movie

Willow and Xander play a game between themselves in the teaser of When She Was Bad where they guess a movie from its tagline. The movies mentioned are: The Terminator (1984), Planet Of The Apes (1968), Star Wars (1977) and Witness (1985).

Joan Collins

In When She Was Bad, Cordelia asks Buffy, “what’s with the Joan Collins ‘tude?”. Later, in season six’s Tabula Rasa, Buffy has amnesia and decides to call herself Joan.

Little Curl

The title of the episode When She Was Bad comes from a nursery rhyme by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). The poem goes:

Planet of the Apes

During their game of Guess the Movie in When She Was Bad, Xander says to Willow, “It’s a mad house! A mad…” Oz repeated this line (from the movie Planet of the Apes) in the fourth season premiere, The Freshman.

Scooby Doo

The cartoon Scooby Doo has several ties with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander calls Buffy’s group of friends the “Scooby Gang” for the first time in What’s My Line? (Part 1) as they have similarities with the young crime-fighting sleuths in the Scooby Doo cartoon. He says to Cordelia, “C’mon, Cordelia. You want to be a member of the Scooby Gang you gotta be willing to be inconvenienced every now and then.”
In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Willow wears a white Scooby Doo t-shirt in this episode and in Beauty and the Beasts we see that she keeps her forensic tools in a Scooby Doo lunch box. In When She Was Bad, Xander wears a red Scooby Doo t-shirt.
Sarah Michelle Gellar appeared in two Scooby Doo movies, and Seth Green (Oz) appeared with Sarah in Scooby Doo: Monsters Unleashed. Sarah’s Buffy stunt double, Michele Waitman, also doubled for Sarah in Scooby Doo: Monsters Unleashed.
More Buffy/Scooby Doo trivia: In the movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back there is a spoof scene of Scooby Doo’s gang. The part of Fred was played by Marc Blucas (Riley Finn), Shaggy was played by Matthew James (who played the demon Merle in Angel) and Velma was played by Jane Silvia (who played the “conservative woman” in The Freshman).

Star Wars

George Lucas’s Star Wars films are a cult phenomenon. They are referenced numerous times in the Buffyverse. The original trilogy included the movies Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return Of The Jedi (1983) and the movies The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005) were made later on.

• In When She Was Bad, when Xander and Willow play Guess the Movie from the tag line (Willow: “Use the Force, Luke.”,
  Xander: “Do I even have to dignify that with a guess?”)
• In School Hard, Spike told Angel that, “You were my Yoda!” Yoda was the ancient Jedi master who became the mentor and teacher for both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker.
• A visual reference to Star Wars can be seen in The Zeppo, when Xander runs into the corridor and runs back out with the gang members chasing him. Han Solo does the same thing in Star Wars.
• In Choices, Buffy says that Faith has turned to ‘the dark side’.
• In The Freshman, Xander confuses the Star Wars Jedi code quoted by Yoda in The Phantom Menace. (”Hate leads to anger…no wait…Fear leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side”). Also in that episode, the old frat house that the vampires are holed up in is the Psi Theta house. If you write those two greek letters together, and pronounce them together, you get Sith.
• In Fear, Itself, Xander says to Oz, “Sensing a disturbance in the Force, Master?”
• Buffy using the chain to choke Sobek the snake-demon in Shadow is reminiscent of Princess Leia killing Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi.
• In Forever, Ben calls Glory’s minions “Jawa rejects” after the small hooded and robed creatures in Star Wars.
• In Life Serial, Andrew paints a Death Star from Star Wars on the side of the gang’s van. It’s the Empire’s revised design from Return of the Jedi, which Jonathan says is flawed.
• In the episode Two To Go, Andrew says, “We’ve got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds us all into to Jawa burgers and not one of you bunch has the Midichlorians to stop her.” These are all Star Wars references: Darth is a title given to a Sith Warrior (such as Darth Vader); Jawas are the hooded creatures who live on Tatooine, and Midichlorians are micro-organisms which exist in all living things. Andrew says, “Laugh it up, Fuzzball” which is a quote from Star Wars. Andrew also later says in Two To Go, “…in a galaxy far, far away” - yet another Star Wars reference.
• In All the Way, Tara and Willow see a couple dressed as Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker kissing in the Bronze. Willow asks, “Do they know they’re brother and sister?”
• In Smashed, we see that the three nerds own a mint condition (though out of its packaging) 1979 Boba Fett action figure. Though Boba Fett was first introduced in The Empire Strikes Back (made in 1980), the earliest Boba Fett figure was made in 1979, before the film was released.
• In Dead Things, Jonathan and Andrew play fight with green light sabres.
• In Entropy, Warren calls Jonathan “Padawan”.
• In Conversations with Dead People, Jonathan and Warren have the following conversation: Warren: “Come on, “If you strike me down…” Andrew: “I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine…That boy is our last hope.” Warren: “No, there is another.” These are all quotes from Star Wars.
• In Potential, Xander says to Andrew, “Say Skywalker, and I smack you.” He is, of course, referring to Star Wars‘ Luke Skywalker.
• In Showtime, Andrew says, “I’m bored. Episode I bored.” He’s referring to George Lucas’s disappointing movie Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
• In Never Leave Me, Warren/The First says, “I’m like Obi Wan”. He also says to Andrew, “We’re right in the trench, and the exhaust port’s in sight.” This is a reference to the scene in Star Wars in which the Death Star is under attack.
• In Bring on the Night, Andrew says, “I’m like Vader in the last 5 minutes of Jedi with redemptive powers minus a redemptive struggle of epic redemption which chronicles…” He’s referring to the last scenes of the final Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi.
• In Storyteller, there are two framed Star Wars comics on the wall in Andrew’s opening scene.
• In Dirty Girls, Andrew says, “But like so many tragic heroes, Faith was seduced by the lure of the dark side.”

The Bible

The Bible is referenced a few times in the Buffyverse. In the episode Angel, the Master says, “out of the mouths of babes”, which is from Psalms 8:2. Absalom, the religious vampire in When She Was Bad, was named after a character in the Bible. Absalom was the third son of King David. He turned against his father and challenged him for the kingdom of Israel. The story is told in the second book of Samuel (2 Samuel 13:20 - 19:10).
The title of the episode Faith, Hope and Trick is from the Bible verse 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Love has been replaced by Trick.
In Hush, as Buffy and Willow are first walking through town after their voices have been stolen, they walk past a group of Christians reading from the bible. The verse they’re reading is Revelations 15:1: “Then I saw another portent in heaven, great and wonderful: seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for in them the wrath of God is ended.”
In Never Leave Me, Quentin Travers quotes Proverbs 24:6: “Proverbs 24:6. O, by wise council, you shall make your war”.
In Dirty Girls, Caleb says to Faith, “Well you’re the other one. The Cain to her Abel. No offence to Cain, of course.” In the Bible, Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain murdered Abel out of jealousy.

The Burning Man Festival

Jenny attended The Burning Man Festival in the summer after the events of Prophecy Girl. She mentions this to Giles in When She Was Bad. The radical arts festival is held every summer in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. The festival’s climax is the burning of a forty foot tall Burning Man effigy.

The Terminator

The conversation in Living Conditions about Parker’s interest in Buffy, (Xander says “Hasta” and “Buffinator” and Oz says “He’ll be back”) is a reference to The Terminator movies, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by Jame Cameron.
In This Year’s Girl, Buffy called Adam “the Terminator without the bashful charm” and in When She Was Bad, Willow and Xander referenced the movie when playing “Guess the Movie”. In Primeval, Adam has an arm-gun (”I’ve been upgrading”). This is reminiscent of the gun the Terminator has in the movie trilogy. In All the Way, Janice calls her mother “The Mominator”.
In Billy, Cordelia says, “You can’t barge into a police precinct and go all Terminator.” At one point in the original Terminator movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character drives into a police station and shoots up the place killing most of the police inside.

The Three Musketeers

In When She Was Bad, Cordelia says, “Oh look, it’s the Three Musketeers.” The story of The Three Musketeers was written by Alexandre Dumas in 1844, and has been retold many times.

The Three Stooges

The Three Stooges are mentioned by Xander in When She Was Bad, “I would have gone with Stooges.” The Three Stooges were a slapstick comedy team whose film shorts were made between 1934 and 1959.

Witness

In When She Was Bad, Xander and Willow play Guess The Movie. Xander gives the clue, “You’re Amish! You can’t fight back… ‘cause you’re Amish! I mock you with my ice cream cone, Amish guy!” , referring to the film Witness.Brent Jennings who played Absolom in When She Was Bad, starred in the movie Witness as Det. Sgt. Elden Carter.

Seen at 01.56 minutes:

What happened to Xander’s ice cream cone? If he threw it on the ground when the vampire attacked, it’s certainly not there when he, Willow and Buffy walk away after the credits.

Seen at 14.23 minutes:

When Buffy’s mother drives her to school the morning after her nightmare, Buffy is wearing a pink top. However, when she gets to school, she is wearing a white top. The next day, she is wearing the pink top again.

Seen at 39.10 minutes:

At the end of the episode, when Buffy is smashing the Master’s bones with a sledge hammer, she is seen smashing his rib cage to bits, in another shot, the rib cage is magically back and we see her smash it again.