The Town Hall

Sunnydale’s Town Hall, the workplace of Mayor Richard Wilkins III, is actually a chiropractic centre in real life. The town hall is best seen in the episode Choices where Buffy, Angel and Willow broke in to steal the Mayor’s box of Gavrok spiders. Scenes of the town hall was shot on location at 15411 Crenshaw Blvd. in Torrance, California.

Whoop whoop

The stage direction for when Buffy sets off the alarm in City Hall in Choices was: “She grips the box, lifts it off the table and… WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP (there it is) AN ALARM BLARES!”

Jimmie F. Skaggs

Jimmie F. Skaggs, who played the courier in Choices, has also appeared in Catch Me If You Can, Hollow Man, Pink Cadillac, Dragnet and Lethal Weapon. He has made appearances on TV shows including CSI, Curb Your Enthusiasm, ER, Diagnosis Murder, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Miami Vice and The A-Team.

Aunt Arlene

Aunt Arlene was Buffy’s aunt, and presumably Joyce’s sister. She lived in Illinois. Arlene was mentioned a couple of times but never seen on screen. In Choices, Joyce called Arlene to tell her that Buffy was accepted to Northwestern University and in Pangs, Joyce stayed with Arlene for Thanksgiving.

Edna May Wilkins

Edna May was a mortal who married Mayor Richard Wilkins III in 1903. She died old and senile, cursing her husband for his eternal youth. The Mayor told this story to Buffy and Angel in Choices.

April Fools

April Fools is a dress shop in Sunnydale, owned by Mrs Finkle. It specialises in formal wear. In Choices and The Prom, Cordelia briefly worked in April Fools after her father lost all his money through tax evasion. In Family, Harmony comes home to Spike’s crypt laden with bags from the shop, saying everything was on sale.

Badass wicca

Willow says to Buffy in Choices, “And besides, I’ve got a shot at being a badass wicca.” She becomes a really badass wicca in season six.

Bumpy road

In his touching and incisive speech to Buffy and Angel in Choices, the Mayor says, “you two have a bumpy road ahead… and not just because I plan to kill you.” Not just a bumpy road - there’s Angel’s bumpy head to contend with too!

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 knife

The Mayor gave Faith an intricate knife as a present in Choices. She used it to kill one of the Gavrok spiders and Buffy then took it away. Buffy stabbed Faith with the knife to try and cure Angel in Graduation Day (Part 1), then taunted the Mayor-snake with it in Graduation Day (Part 2). In This Year’s Girl, Faith dreamt that Buffy killed the Mayor with the same knife, and also that she still had the knife in her when talking to Buffy whilst making a bed.

Floating pencils

In Gingerbread, Willow says she can make pencils float, seen later in Doppelgängland and Choices. In Triangle, Willow tries to persuade Anya to join her in doing spells by saying, “You could be floating pencils by the end of the day”. In Hush, Willow says she’d like to “float something bigger than a pencil one day”. By the end of the episode, she meets Tara and together they magically move a vending machine.

Manic cackling

In Choices, a van screeches off as a decoy to the Mayor’s vampires, while Buffy and Angel escape. If you listen carefully, you can hear some manic and triumphant cackling, presumably from the van, directed at the vampires.

Mr. Pointy

In Becoming (Part 1), Kendra gave Buffy Mr. Pointy, her favourite stake. Mr Pointy was mentioned in several other episodes: In Helpless, Buffy said, “Or what if I just become pathetic? Hanging out at the old Slayer’s home, talking people’s ears off about my glory days, showing them Mr. Pointy, the stake I had bronzed.” Buffy used Mr. Pointy to interrogate the vampire in the limo in Choices. In The Freshman, Buffy mentioned that Mr. Pointy was her “security blanket”.

Rusty the dog

In Choices, the Mayor told Faith that he once had an Irish Setter dog called Rusty.

Same set

In Choices, when Buffy, Angel and Willow are on the rooftop of city hall, it’s the same rooftop from the season one episode Prophecy Girl, when Buffy faces the master on the rooftop of the school, above the library.

She’s pretty

Buffy and the Mayor meet face to face for the first time in Choices, though they were in the same room in Band Candy and Gingerbread.

Something you don’t see

In Choices, Buffy says, “There’s something you don’t see every day. Unless, of course, you’re me.” This line is echoed in Bargaining (Part 2), when Xander says, “Theres something you dont see every day, unless you’re us.”

The Mayor’s speech

The Mayor shakes up Buffy and Angel’s relationship in Choices by making a speech about how he saw them:
“What kind of a life can you offer her? I don’t see a lot of Sunday picnics in the offing. I see skulking in the shadows, hiding from the sun. She’s a blossoming young girl and you want to keep her from the life she should have until it has passed her by. My god! I think that’s a little selfish. Is that what you came back from hell for? Is that your greater purpose?”
His insight makes the couple break up in the next episode, The Prom, and also encourages Angel to look at his “higher purpose”, which leads to his Investigation Agency in Angel.

Xander goes to Oxnard

In Choices, when the Scoobies are discussing college options, Xander asks if Cordelia had heard about Willow getting into Oxnard. Willow quickly corrects Xander’s misfire of the name of the exteemed Oxford University. It is worth noting that Xander headed out on the road after this, and ended up in Oxnard himself (mentioned to Buffy in The Freshman).

Breath of Entropics

The ritual the Scoobies would have used to destroy the Mayor’s box of Gavrok in Choices is called the Breath of Entropics. The spell includes the ingredients essence of toad and twice-blessed sage.

Gavrok

In order to proceed with his Ascension, the Mayor of Sunnydale had the Box of Gavrok flown from Central America in Choices. Buffy and Angel stole the box but Faith kidnapped Willow and they were forced to return it. The box contained 50 billion Gavrok spiders, which were large, black and powerful.
The Mayor ate the spiders in Graduation Day (Part 1) as an essential part of his ascension: “My god, what a feeling! The power of these creatures… it suffuses my being. I can feel the changes begin. My organs are shifting, merging, making ready for the Ascension. Plus these babies are high in fiber. And what’s the fun in becoming an immortal demon if you’re not regular, am I right?”

Vampire vision

When the lights go out in the prisoner exchange scene in Choices, Angel says he can see fine, implying that vampires have good night vision. This doesn’t explain why Angel’s looking off to the side when the doors slam open though.

Clearasil

In Choices, Cordelia calls M.I.T. (Massachussets Institute of Technology) “a Clearasil ad with housing.” Clearasil is a cleansing product for acne/spots. Nicholas Brendon made his television debut in a Clearasil commercial.

Jack Kerouac

In Choices, Xander is reading Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel On The Road, a stream of consciousness novel about a group of young people travelling across the US. This came into play in The Freshman, when Xander left for the summer for a road trip but ended up working in a club after his car broke down.

McDonalds

In Becoming (Part 2), Spike calls humans “Happy Meals with legs” after the McDonalds children’s meal. In Choices, Buffy calls the Mayor “Mayor McSleaze”, referring to the McDonalds character Mayor McCheese.

Nancy Drew

In Primeval, Spike says to Buffy, “Look at little Nancy Drew”. He’s referring to fictional teen detective Nancy Drew, whose stories were written by Carolyn Keene. Many books, TV shows, films and video games of the character have been made since the first book was written in 1930. Nancy was mentioned previously in Choices. Faith caught Willow nosing through the Mayor’s Books of Ascension at City Hall and said, “you just can’t stop Nancy Drew-ing, can you?”

Northwestern University

Buffy was accepted at Northwestern University in Choices. The University is in Evanston, Illinois.

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 Godfather

Ethan Rayne says to Buffy in Halloween, “I feel quite moved to make you a deal you can’t refuse.” This is a reference to the 1972 movie The Godfather, in which Don Vito Corleone often uses the phrase, “an offer you can’t refuse”. In Choices, Faith tells the Mayor, “I made him an offer he couldn’t survive”, paraphrasing the famous line.
In Fredless, Lorne says, “But it turns out massacres are a lot like sitting through Godfather 3: once is enough.”

Seen at 14.04 minutes:

When the gang is in the library looking at the map of City Hall, Buffy points to a location using her right arm. In the next shot, she’s using her her left arm.

Seen at 18.36 minutes:

When Buffy, Willow and Angel are on the roof of City Hall, Buffy hands Willow a book to begin her spell. You can see that she opens the book twice in different shots.

Seen at 20.24 minutes:

Sarah and David’s stunt doubles can clearly be seen in the fight at City Hall.

Seen at 24.48 minutes:

When Willow, who is being held captive in the Mayor’s building, stakes a vampire with a pencil, the pencil is nowhere near his heart.

Seen at 34.04 minutes:

When the Gavrok spider jumps on Buffy’s back, you can see Nick Brendon laughing at Sarah Michelle Gellar in the next shot.

Seen at 38.01 minutes:

As Willow and Buffy talk about staying in Sunnydale at the end of the episode, the lip-synch on Buffy’s mouth is way off time in the long shot.