Alexis’s accent

Alexis Denisof was born on the East coast of America, lived in Seattle and New England and then moved to London when he was a teenager. His accent is an amalgamation of all these places, but when he plays Wesley he uses a British accent.

Deputy Mayor interviewed…

Jack Plotnik, who played the deputy Mayor Allan Finch during season three, spoke about his time on Buffy in an interview with BroadwayWorld.com on January 29, 2006:

Faith dead?

An internet rumour runs along the lines that at the end of the episode Bad Girls, when Buffy goes to talk to Faith, she was supposed to have discovered Faith dead, having hung herself. This doesn’t seem entirely right as the Faith/Mayor relationship is so integral to this season.

Germ warfare

The Mayor of Sunnydale had a fear of germs because Buffy producer David Greenwalt has a fear of germs, and the writers wanted to rib him for it.

Heart of Faith

In Bad Girls, Faith comes to the school, breathes on the window and draws a heart shape. Doug Petrie, who wrote the episode, remembers a similar incident when he was in High School and a girl who was cutting class drew on the glass. He thought it was cool. Faith’s “want, take, have” philosophy was based on something Petrie’s friend’s sister used to say.

Lady Macbeth and Jackie Onassis

In the commentary for Bad Girls, at the end of the episode when Faith is in her motel room, Doug Petrie calls Faith “Lady Macbeth” (a reference to Shakespeare’s play Macbeth) She is washing the blood out of her shirt and he compares them by saying “out, out damn spot!” When Faith lets Buffy in her motel room, Doug Petrie calls Buffy Jackie Onassis because her blue jacket and matching dress look a lot like the clothes Jackie O was known to wear. When Buffy follows Faith into the room, he refers to them as ‘Faith and Jackie.’

Tough loner act

This line of Buffy’s to Faith was deleted from the episode Bad Girls:

Wesley’s origins

The original pitch for the character of Wesley was for him to be a bit like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future (wiry, enthusiastic etc), and so to get on Giles’ nerves in that way. The writers eventually decided to try and make Giles look cooler and rebellious by making Wesley strait-laced. Joss’s original stage directions for Wesley were: “He thinks he’s Sean Connery but he’s actually George Lazenby”.

Wesleyan College

Xander runs through the list of colleges Willow has applied to in Bad Girls. One of them is Wesleyan College in Connecticut, which is also Joss Whedon’s Alma Mater.

Alex Skuby

Alex Skuby, who played the vampire and El Eliminati member Vincent in Bad Girls, also appeared as Harlan in the Angel episode ‘Sense and Sensitivity’. he has also been in Strip Mall and The King of Queens.

Alexis Denisof

Alexis Denisof played the Watcher Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. He later went on to play a much stubblier version of Wesley in the spin-off Angel. Alexis married Alyson Hannigan, who played Willow, in 2003. He was born in Maryland but lived in England for long time, where he acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Alexis can be seen in the video of George Harrison’s ‘Got My Mind Set On You’, the TV series Sharpe and the movies Rogue Trader and First Knight.

Christian Clemenson

Christian Clemenson, who played Balthazar in Bad Girls, has also been in the movies Mighty Joe Young, Armageddon, The Big Lebowski, Apollo 13 and Hannah and Her Sisters. He has been in many TV shows including NYPD Blue, The West Wing, Mad About You, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and The Golden Girls.

Jack Plotnik

Jack Plotnik played the Deputy Mayor of Sunnydale, Alan Finch. He also played a cop in Clerks, Barrett in Ellen and Sammy in Joan of Arcadia. He has also been in Gods and Monsters, Say It Isn’t So, Down With Love and Meet the Fockers.

Allan Finch

Allan Finch was the meek Deputy Mayor of Sunnydale, who was accidentally staked and killed by Faith en route to warn the Slayers of the Mayor’s planned Ascension in Bad Girls.

Balthazar

Balthazar was a bad-tempered demon, long believed dead. The Mayor, Richard Wilkins, had driven Balthazar and his minions, El Eliminati, from Sunnydale one hundred years ago. Balthazar came to Sunnydale searching for an amulet to help him regain his power, aided by his Eliminati soldiers. Balthazar was one of the more memorable demons in Buffy as he was a gigantic blob, sat in a tank of water to stop his skin from dehydrating. Balthazar was electrocuted by Buffy. He warned her about the Mayor before dying.

Vincent

Vincent was a member of Balthazar’s warriors El Eliminati who tried to kill the Mayor in Bad Girls. He was captured and let free to test the Mayor’s invincibility. Vincent was then staked by Mr. Trick.

Wesley Wyndham-Pryce

Wesley was sent to Sunnydale as the replacement Watcher when Giles was fired. He was a weak man who was unable to control Buffy and Faith, who still relied on Giles. He eventually lost Faith altogether to the Mayor. His technique as a Watcher was terrible: he would give orders when Buffy was used to being an equal to Giles, and when he tried to capture Faith she escaped. He also had no practical experience dealing with vampires. Buffy eventually quit the Council under Wesley’s command and he eventually learnt that he wanted to help in a non-Watcher capacity, so aided in the battle against the Mayor’s ascension. He and Cordelia flirted together briefly but discovered that they had no chemistry at all. Wesley left Sunnydale and became a ‘rogue demon hunter’, eventually hooking up with Angel and Cordelia and working with them in L.A. Wesley was killed by Vail (a member of the ultra-evil Circle of the Blackthorn) in the Angel episode ‘Not Fade Away‘.

Drown me

Buffy fights with an Eliminati soldier in Bad Girls. He tries to drown her in sewer water. She says, “I hate it when they drown me”, a reference to her brief death in Prophecy Girl.

Faith’s bow

Faith steals a bow and arrow in Bad Girls, which she uses to shoot the courier in Choices, and Angel in Graduation Day (Part 1).

Faith’s punching bag

At the end of Bad Girls, Buffy goes to visit Faith to talk about the murder. When Faith goes to hang out her washing, you can see a Faith-made punching bag next to Buffy. There is a face drawn on the bag. Wonder who she thinks of when she’s punching it?!

Jail bait

Faith tells Buffy in Bad Girls, “we can’t save the world in jail”. Faith is put into prison during Buffy’s fourth season for murder, and is broken out by Wesley in season four of Angel to help save the world.

Post-feelings

Wesley gets a bad reception from the Scoobies when he first arrives in Bad Girls (”is he evil?”), because of the events with renegrade Watcher Gwendolyn Post in Revelations.

Sunnydale Press

Sunnydale’s local newspaper was called the Sunnydale Press. It can be seen in the episodes Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, Reptile Boy, Becoming (Part 1), Bad Girls, Consequences, Graduation Day (Part 1), Hush and Once More, With Feeling.

Sweat and eyeballs

In Bad Girls, Faith asks Buffy if she has ever had sex with Xander, since they spend so many sweaty nights working side by side. Her curiosity is obviously sparked by the fact that she had sex with Xander in The Zeppo. Meanwhile, Xander’s eye twitches whenever Buffy mentions Faith.

The plot thickens

In Bad Girls, we discover the Mayor is going to have an Ascension in 100 days and that he is now invincible.

To-Do List

At end of the episode Bad Girls, the Mayor takes out his to-do list. The tasks on his list (the top one is not visible) are: Plumbers Union Reschedule, Meet With PTA, Become Invincible, and Haircut. The Mayor checks off ‘become invincible’.

Wes and Cordy

Wesley and Cordelia are instantly attracted to each other when they first meet in Consequences. Their relationship turns into a solid friendship in the spin-off series Angel, but not before they share an uncomfortable kiss in Graduation Day (Part 2).

When he rises

Balthazar’s last words to Buffy in Bad Girls warn her of the coming trouble with the Mayor: “When he rises, you’ll wish I’d killed you all.”

Wicca girl

Willow refers to herself as a Wicca for the first time, as opposed to a witch, in Bad Girls.

Wilful and insolent

Giles’ first entry about Buffy into his Watcher’s Diary included the comments: “Slayer is wilful and insolent…her abuse of the English language is such that I understand only every other sentence.” His initial impression was probably made in Welcome to the Hellmouth. It’s read aloud by Wesley in Bad Girls.

Curve

The music Buffy and Faith shake their hair to in Bad Girls is ‘Chinese Burn’ by Curve. The lyrics fit Faith quite well, they are as follows:

She burns friends like a piece of wood
And she’s jealous of me because she never could
Hold herself up without a spine
And she’ll look me up when she’s doing fine
Because the rage it burns like Chinese torture
She’s just someone’s favourite daughter
Spoilt and ugly as she willingly slaughters
Friends and enemies they’re all the same
All the same
They’ll burn her name
And crush her fame
She’ll break a promise as a matter of course
Because she thinks it’s fun to have no remorse
She gets what she wants and then walks away
And she doesn’t give a fuck what you might say
Because it cuts her up like Irish mortar
Mother’s pride is what we taught her
Soiled and petty as we happily taunt her
Friend or enemy we’re all to blame
If she sits still like she knows she could
She could win this game and be the queen for good
Save herself up for the cream of the crop
Then she’ll look us up when she’s ready to stop
Because the rage it burns like Chinese torture
She’s just someone’s favourite daughter
Spoilt and ugly as she willingly slaughters
Friends and enemies they’re all the same
To burn her name
Crush her flame
We’re all to blame

El Eliminati

El Eliminati were a fifteenth century duellist cult, thought to be long gone by many, including Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. They became the acolytes of the demon Balthazar but were driven out of Sunnydale in the late nineteenth century by Richard Wilkins. They returned in Bad Girls to retrieve Balthazar’s amulet to make him stronger, but failed when their master was electrocuted by Buffy.

Gleaves

Gleaves helped to expel Balthazar and El Eliminati from Sunnydale one hundred years ago. He took Balthazar’s amulet (the source of the demon’s power) which was buried with him when he died. El Eliminati took back the amulet in Bad Girls.

The Dedication

The Dedication was a ritual The Mayor performed one hundred days before his Ascension. It made him indestructible, proven when he survived when his head was sliced open with a sword in Bad Girls.

Cathy

In Bad Girls the Mayor, Mr. Trick and Deputy Mayor Alan Finch discussed their favourite comic strips. Finch liked Cathy, a cartoon which depicts the life of a young, single career woman.

Family Circus

In Bad Girls, the Mayor says, “I just love the Family Circus! That P.J., he’s getting to be quite a handful.” Family Circus is a newspaper-syndicated cartoon by Bill Keane which has been running since the 1960s.

John Wyndham

Wyndham from Wesley Wyndham-Pryce may be a reference to British science fiction author John Wyndham, the author of Day of the Triffids.

Marmaduke

In Bad Girls, Mr. Trick says, “I like Marmaduke… nobody can tell Marmaduke what to do. That’s my kind of dog.” Marmaduke is a comic strip about a Great Dane who always gets into trouble. It’s written by Brad Anderson, and it began in 1954.

Seen at 08.00 minutes:

When telling Wesley about the three vampires she and Faith killed, Buffy says, “One of them had swords. I don’t think he was with the other two.” All three of the vampires were dressed in the same Eliminati uniform, so why would she think they weren’t together?

Seen at 15.40 minutes:

Buffy pulls herself out of the sewer water and her hair is almost instantly dry.

Seen at 37.02 minutes:

Buffy’s stunt double can be seen clearly when she fights the vampires on the platform.