A secret experiment by the school coach starts to turn members of the swim team into aquatic monsters. Xander goes undercover to find out what’s going on. The coach tries to kill Buffy when she discovers his secret and he is thrown to the monsters he created to be killed.
| Airdate: | 5 May 1998 |
| Writer: | Elin Hampton + David Fury |
| Director: | David Semel |
| Cast: |
Buffy: "Great. This is just what my reputation needs: that I did it with the entire swim team."
Behind the Scenes Trivia
Kept slaves
When Willow corrects Xander in Go Fish, saying that it was Jefferson who wrote that all men are created equal, Cordelia says, “Kept slaves, remember?”. However, her lips clearly say something else: “Kept slaves. Got any more?”, according to the script book. Cordelia’s line was dubbed in post-production.
Cast and Crew Trivia
Charles Cyphers
Charles played the swim team coach in Go Fish. Charles has been in loads of cult movies and TV shows. He’s appeared in many John Carpenter films such as Escape from New York, Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13 and The Fog. On TV he’s been in shows including The Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels, The Dukes of Hazzard, Airwolf, and The New Adventures of Superman.
Conchata Ferrell
Conchata Ferrell, who played Nurse Greenleigh in Go Fish, played Susan Bloom in LA Law, and was in True Romance, Erin Brockovich, Network and Edward Scissorhands. She plays Berta in Two and a Half Men.
Jeremy Garrett
Jeremy Garrett, who played the sleazy Cameron in Go Fish, played Todd Wilkins in the TV version of Sweet Valley High. The part was previously played by Ryan Bittle who played Mitch in Out of Mind, Out of Sight.
Shane West
Shane West, who played Sean in Go Fish, has also appeared in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, A Walk to Remember, and Dracula 2000. He plays Dr. Ray Barnett in ER.
Wentworth Miller
Wentworth Miller played Gage Petronzi in Go Fish. He has also been in the vampire film, Underworld and can be seen as Mariah Carey’s love interest in her music video’s It’s Like That and We Belong Together. He plays the lead character in US TV show Prison Break.
Character Trivia
Cameron Walker
Cameron was a member of the school swim team. He had a date with Buffy, tried to grope her and ended up with a sprained wrist and bloody nose. He was the second member of the team to turn into a sea beast in Go Fish.
Coach Carl Marin
Coach of Sunnydale High’s swim team who adapted Soviet research to dose his swim team with fish DNA, which eventually turned the boys into sea beasts. When the school nurse tried to stop him, the coach fed her to the sea beasts. He attempted to give Buffy to the beasts to satisfy their “other needs” but he ended up being attacked by the monsters himself (Go Fish).
Dodd McAlvey
Dodd was the student who bullied Jonathan at a party (he dunked the nerd’s head in a bucket of water) at the beach and was stopped by Buffy. He was the best swimmer on the swim team, and the first to turn into a sea beast, after the Coach gave the team special steroids. Dodd’s ‘body’ was identified by the distinctive tattoo on the arm of the skin left behind when the monster erupted from him in Go Fish.
Gage Petronzi
Gage Petronzi was a member of the school swim team, who Buffy tried to protect as she thought he may turn into a sea monster. Attacked by Angelus but the vampire let him go because he didn’t like the taste of the steroids in Gage’s blood. Gage was the third swimmer to turn into a sea beast in Go Fish.
Nurse Ruth Greenleigh
Nurse Ruth Greenleigh was the school nurse who helped the swim team coach to experiment on members of the swim team. She tried to stop him when she realized that the drugs were turning the boys into sea beasts but Coach Marin fed her alive to the creatures in Go Fish.
Shaun
Shaun was the last of the swim team members to become a sea beast, due to the Coach giving them steroids in Go Fish.
Continuity
Asthmatic Jonathan
In the episode Two To Go, Xander, Dawn, Jonathan, and Andrew are running from the Magic Box, when Jonathan stops and says “I just need to breathe.” This could be a reference to Go Fish, during which Jonathon states that he is asthmatic.
Beach
We discovered in Go Fish that Sunnydale has a beach. That episode and the season five opener Buffy vs Dracula are the only episodes where the Scoobies were seen on the beach.
Buffy’s grey outfit
The grey trousers and black top which Buffy wears in Go Fish are seen again in Becoming (Part 2).
Something to fall back on
Willow taught Jenny’s computer science after she died in Passion and continued to do so in I Only Have Eyes For You, Go Fish and Becoming (Part 1).
Willow the bad cop
In Go Fish, Willow questioned Jonathan about the Swim Team and he admitted to peeing in the school swimming pool. In Earshot, Willow interrogated Jonathan again, whilst questioning him about the threat on the school.
Music Trivia
Naked
We hear Naked’s “Drift Away” playing in the background when Cordelia breaks up with Xander in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. In Go Fish, we hear Naked’s song “Manns Chinese” being played at the beach party.
Nero’s Rome
The song “Got the Love” by Nero’s Rome plays as Xander walks through the school halls in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. In Go Fish, we hear their song “If You’d Listen” as Buffy watches Gage at The Bronze. Both songs are from the album The Average White Band.
Mythology Trivia
Tainted blood
There’s some discussion in Go Fish that Angel can’t drink the blood of the swim team as it’s contaminated. This is first shown in School Hard when Spike talks about being at Woodstock and drinking from a drugged hippy there.
References
Abbott & Costello, Yankees, A Team
Xander says in Go Fish, “Swim team. Hardly what I call a team. The Yankees, Abbott and Costello. The A. Those were teams.” He’s referring to the comedy pairing of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, the baseball team The Yankees and 80’s action TV series The A Team.
Creature from the Black Lagoon
The Creature from the Black Lagoon is a B-movie directed in 1954 by Jack Arnold. It’s is about a group on expedition to the Amazon who are menaced by a half-man, half-fish creature. In Go Fish, Cordelia called the swim team monsters the “creature from the Blue Lagoon”, Xander corrected her saying it should be the “Black Lagoon”. The monsters that the swim team turned into in Go Fish look as if their design was influenced by the movie.
Anya also referenced the movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon in Doppelgängland (Anya said, “If she’s a vampire then I’m the Creature from the Black Lagoon”).
Jaws
Steven Spielberg’s 1975 shark movie Jaws is alluded to a few times in Buffy.
In Go Fish, Xander says, “This was no boating accident” - which is a line from the first Jaws movie.
In Graduation Day (Part 1), Xander and Giles open a page of a book to see a giant monster they may have to face. Xander says, “We’re going to need a bigger boat”, which was the phrase used by Brody (Roy Scheider) in the movie when he first sees the size of the great white shark he’s hunting.
In the episode Anne, Oz suggests that Willow uses the phrase “This time it’s personal” as it’s a “classic”. He’s quoting from the fourth Jaws movie.
Anya makes an explicit reference to the movie in End of Days when she suggests killing demons with gas cylinders, “They’d only be useful if something big was attacking, and then we could shove one down their throat and blow ‘em up like Roy Scheider did with that shark in Jaws.”
In Empty Places, Xander mentions the abysmal third movie in the Jaws series, made in 1983. After he loses his eye, Xander says, “Oh, you know what the best part is? No one will ever make me watch Jaws 3-D again.”
In Soul Purpose, whilst dissecting Angel in his dream, Fred holds up a Mexican license plate saying, “Hmm. Came up the gulf stream, huh?” This is a reference to the first Jaws movie,in which Hooper opens the dead shark and says, “Ah. Just like I thought. He came up with the Gulf Stream - from southern waters” before holding up a licence plate from Louisiana.
Oreo cookies
In Go Fish, Willow says Oreo cookies have “chocolately-goodness”. This may be an in-joke as she once did a commercial for Oreo.
Twisted Sister
The band Twisted Sister is mentioned in Go Fish (Gage calls Buffy a “Twisted Sister”). Mark Metcalf, who played the Master, played the father in Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” video.
Goofs
Seen at 02.27 minutes:
Why does Jonathan cry “help me” when he is being harassed by the swim team, but shout at Buffy for helping him?
Seen at 10.50 minutes:
In Go Fish, when Buffy is in the library telling the gang about what heppened with Cameron her hands change position depending on the camera shot. When we see the back view, Buffy’s hands are by her side and when we see the front view, her hands are on her hips.
Seen at 16.29 minutes:
While Buffy is ’stalking’ Gage, she is reading a magazine. At first the back of the magazine is white, in the next shot it’s black. It appears she had it upside down and flipped it between shots.
Seen at 18.11 minutes:
When the board at the Bronze is first seen, it is blank, but when Buffy rushes out to find Angel, it reads ‘DJ 2NITE-NO COVER’.
Seen at 18.22 minutes:
When Buffy is at the Bronze we see her drinking from a red cup. We then see a shot of her and the red cup is on the table. In the next few shots the cup has disappeared.
Quotes
Xander: "It's a slap in the face to every one of us that studied hard and worked long hours to earn our 'D's."
Xander: "Xander, I know you take pride in beng the voice of the common wuss."
Xander: "But the skin's the best part!"
Xander: "It's officially nippy. So say my nips."
Cordelia: "It's about time our school excelled at something."
Willow: "Hmm. You're forgetting our high mortality rate."
Buffy: "Any demons with high cholesterol?... You're gonna think about that later, mister, and you're gonna laugh."
Cordelia: "God, this is so sad. We're never gonna win the state championship. I think I've lost all will to cheerlead."
Buffy: "I'm a swim groupie. Oh, yeah, you know, there's just something about the smell of chlorine on a guy. Oh, baby."
Xander: "I'm undercover!"
Buffy: "You're not under much."
Xander: "He's putting his sneakers on. But it's not the Velcro kind, so give him a couple extra minutes."
Buffy: "I think we'd better find the rest of the swim team and lock them up before they get in touch with their inner halibut."
Buffy: "Great. This is just what my reputation needs: that I did it with the entire swim team."