Hush

"Hush" is the tenth episode of the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and is the sixty-sixth episode altogether. It was written and directed by Joss Whedon. It originally broadcast on December 14, 1999.

Fairytale monsters called The Gentlemen steal the voices of everyone in Sunnydale (including the Scooby Gang).

Synopsis


Professor Maggie Walsh talks about communication in class and then asks Buffy to come and lie on her desk for a demonstration. Riley steps forward and kisses Buffy, then the sun goes down. Buffy hears a young girl's voice and walks out of the classroom and into the halls where a girl holding a small box stands chanting a disturbing nursery rhyme (sung with a similar melody to "Master Of The House" from the musical Les Misérables):




 * Can't even shout, can't even cry
 * The Gentlemen are coming by.
 * Looking in windows, knocking on doors,
 * They need to take seven and they might take yours.
 * Can't call to mom, can't say a word,
 * You're gonna die screaming but you won't be heard.

Buffy wakes up to see she was dreaming in class. As they're leaving, Riley inquires about Buffy's dream and then they talk about their plans for the night. Both make up excuses for their real plans and part ways, visibly unsatisfied.

Giles receives a phone call from Buffy and tries to research the information she gained from her dream about The Gentlemen. Spike makes himself very comfortable at Giles' place and complains about there not being any more Weetabix (despite having eaten it all himself - again), claiming he likes to add it to his butcher's blood sometimes for texture. Repulsed by the mental image, Giles tells him to go and get some himself.

Xander and Anya arrive, arguing about whether Xander really loves her or — because Xander can't vocalize the way he feels — is only interested in her for sex. Her open voice on sex with Xander causes Giles to be repulsed and uncomfortable by it and Spike just finds Xander's situation amusing.

Giles informs Xander that he has to keep Spike with him for a few days because an old girlfriend of his will be coming over from England. None of them are particularly pleased about the arrangement: Xander can't trust Spike to be in the same room as him without restraints, and Spike doesn't particularly want to be around Xander or Anya, especially if they intend to be intimate with him while he is tied to a chair in the same room. The three argue back and forth with Giles wearily in the middle.

Willow goes to her Wicca meeting but soon finds the girls are just wannabe Wiccans with no knowledge of real magicks. One girl, Tara, seems to be interested in magic, but she is shy and quiet, and easily cowed by the other members. After the meeting, Buffy complains to Willow how slowly her relationship with Riley is progressing, while Riley discusses the same with Forrest; both conclude that the reason they cannot progress their relationship is because of their inability to reveal their true identities to each other.



That night, before going to bed, Xander ties Spike down to a chair in his bedroom, even though Spike claims he wouldn't want to bite him even if he could. Spike begins an exaggerated imitation of Anya to annoy Xander. Olivia Williams shows up at Giles' apartment, and after some brief talking they get right to kissing. At the clock tower, one of the Gentlemen opens a box, and the voices of all the people in Sunnydale float out of their mouths and are drawn into the box.



When Buffy and Willow wake up the next morning and find they have no voices, they panic. Leaving their room, they see that nobody else in the dorms can speak, either. Xander, similarly panicked, blames Spike, whose gestured response is very clear. Riley and Forrest try to enter the underground lab, but without his voice Riley cannot activate the voice-based security system on the elevator door. Professor Walsh opens the elevator and they are cowed when she points out a sign saying they should have used the stairs in the event of emergencies.

Buffy and Willow walk through the town, armed with dry-erase boards to write down their words (purchased from a street vendor at an inflated price). Sunnydale is closed down -- except for bars and liquor stores. A doomsayer silently preaches it's the end of the world.

A television news report states that everyone in Sunnydale has come down with a case of laryngitis and the town has been quarantined. The threat of chaos looming that night, Buffy goes out to patrol, and Professor Walsh sends Riley and his team out incognito to maintain order. Riley and Buffy meet while walking out on the streets and as Riley is about to leave, he turns and kisses Buffy for the first time. Later that night, the Gentlemen and their weird minions lurk out into the night. Olivia wakes up in the middle of the night, and through the window she spies one of the Gentlemen, who travel by floating a foot in the air with their demon assistants, the Gentlemen's footmen, following on the ground. Two Gentlemen float through the UC Sunnydale dorms, finding a freshman boy. Their demon assistants hold the boy down while they cut out his heart. The next morning, Olivia draws a picture of the creature she saw, and when Giles recognizes it, and reads about a spate of peculiar murders, he gets out a book of fairy tales.



In a lecture room at the college, Giles tells the story of the Gentlemen through drawings and text on an overhead projector, with musical embellishment. The sound of a real human scream — not a recorded one, despite Willow's suggestion — can kill them, so they take away everyone's voices, allowing them to get the seven human hearts they need. Riley suits up and then goes out to patrol, while Buffy prepares to do the same.

Tara from the Wicca group tries to get to Willow's dorm when the Gentlemen chase after her. She finally makes it to Willow's dorm, and the two girls make a run for it. Riley is attacked by several of the Gentlemen's demon assistants in the clock tower, until Buffy shows up and starts fighting alongside him. The two are first shocked to see each other, but have neither time nor the ability to speak about it.



Spike vamps out while drinking a mug of blood at Giles' house; as he bends down by the sofa on which Anya is sleeping, Xander sees blood on Spike's lip and the unconscious Anya and concludes Spike has bitten Anya. Xander punches Spike several times before Anya and Giles stop him. He then kisses her passionately, and, realizing he does indeed love her, Anya suggests they have sex.

Hiding in a laundry room, Willow and Tara try to push a vending machine against the door to block it, but they're not strong enough. Willow then tries to move it using magic, but she can only shake it a bit. Tara understands what she's trying to do, and clasps Willow's hand so they can combine their power. As soon as they hold hands, the vending machine slams against the door. Buffy gets caught by the Igor-like Footmen and the Gentlemen are about to cut into her when Riley shoots them with bolts of electricity. They fight and one of the demons grabs Buffy as she spots the box of voices on the table and recognizes it from her dream. She points it out to Riley and, after one false try, he smashes the box. Everyone's voice is returned, and Buffy lets out a loud and long scream, which causes the Gentlemen's heads to explode in a shower of green slime.

The next day, Willow and Tara talk about being real witches, while Giles and Olivia talk about how many scary things there really are and her reluctance to be part of Giles' world. Riley goes to Buffy's dorm to talk, but they sit in silence as neither knows what to say.

Continuity

 * The first appearance of Tara Maclay. Tara becomes a major recurring character in Seasons Four, Five and Six of Buffy, finally being made a series regular in the episode "Seeing Red" (6x19). Tara will have a huge effect on Willow's life, bringing Willow to the realization that she is gay, and the two enter a long-term relationship.


 * After the Gentlemen are defeated, Giles asks his girlfriend, Olivia, if she can deal with the dangers in his life, and she replies that she doesn't know. She is never seen again (with the exception of Giles's dream sequence in "Restless"), although Buffy refers to her a few episodes later in "Who Are You", still as his girlfriend. The audience can assume that she had decided to stay away, and that the decision was either not shared with Buffy, or made after "A New Man".


 * This episode features the first kiss between Buffy and Riley.


 * In this episode, viewers get their first glimpse of Giles's use of gore and graphic artistry. His works will make another appearance in Season 7's First Date, when he frightens Chao-Ahn so badly she locks herself in the bathroom.

Body Count

 * A freshman boy, heart surgically extracted by The Gentlemen
 * Unidentified student, heart surgically extracted by The Gentlemen
 * At least three other civilians, their hearts seen in jars
 * One footmen, neck snapped by Buffy
 * The Gentlemen, heads exploded by Buffy when she screams after the voices are returned

Production

 * Joss Whedon created this episode after hearing repeatedly that the crucial part of his series was the dialogue and because according to fellow writers he enjoys "scaring himself".
 * Joss Whedon believes The Gentlemen are the scariest thing ever to appear on Buffy.
 * The silence began exactly 14 minutes and 03 seconds into the episode.
 * Joss Whedon wanted "The Gentlemen" to be very nightmarish, hoping that they would be monsters that viewers would remember being scared of later in their lives.
 * Andy Hallett, an actor and former personal assistant to Joss Whedon, appeared as an extra in the opening classroom scene of this episode. He would later go on to play Lorne on Angel.
 * The two more prominent Gentlemen are played by Camden Toy, who will play other monsters during the show (e.g. Gnarl, the first Turok-Han etc.), and Doug Jones (as the leader), who would later play the Faun in the Oscar-winning movie Pan's Labyrinth.
 * The actors actually deliver all of their lines as normal, and the dialogue was muted so that the lip reading early on was identifiable. With a high enough volume on a television set Alyson Hannigan can be heard to say the first part of her line "I've gone deaf." when she and Buffy are in the dorm.
 * Several scenes in this episode are filmed on the same street used in Desperate Wives. Many of the characters noteable homes can be seen.
 * Joss Whedon originally planned to produce the musical episode "Once More, with Feeling" in place of this episode. However, "Xena: Warrior Princess" had recently shown a musical episode so the idea was put on hold. This episode uses composed music in place of Dialogue. By contrast, "The Body" uses no music and puts focus on dialogue.
 * The original airing of "Hush" received 6.6 million viewers, the highest rated episode of the season and earned Buffy its first Emmy nomination (for best original writing), but did not win.

Deleted Scenes

 * This exchange was cut:
 * Cheryl: "Well, you missed last week. We did a healing chant for Chloe's ankle. She said the swelling went right down."
 * Nicole: "What's she doing on a mountain bike anyway?"
 * Cheryl: "She was trying to impress Justin."
 * Willow: "I was actually talking more about real spells."

Pop Culture References

 * The Bible passage written on the chalkboard during the silent church service is Revelations 15:1. The "seven plagues" it refers to may be a reference to the seven hearts taken by the Gentlemen.

Music

 * Camille Saint-Saëns - "Danse Macabre"
 * Christophe Beck – Suite from "Hush": Silent Night / First Kiss / Enter the Gentlemen / Schism
 * Christophe Beck – "Demon Got Your Tongue"
 * Christophe Beck – "Golf Claps"
 * Christophe Beck – "The Princess Screams"

Goofs, Bloopers & Continuity Errors

 * In one shot the Gentlemen are hovering by the college garden. A small white cart used to make them appear levitating can be briefly seen.
 * In Tara's dormroom just before she leaves to see Willow, a book is left open with a chapter on spells related to speech and sound. If looked at closely, it can be seen that the passage in book is about astrology.

Other

 * For "Halloween Horror Nights 15", Universal Orlando created a haunted maze based off this episode titled "Body Collectors". The Gentlemen's masks and costumes along with the Footmen (or Workers, as they were titled) were all practical copies of this Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, however the storyline revolved around the men collecting bodies instead of voices and dismembering them.


 * The electro/shoegaze group, The Very Hush Hush, has alluded in interviews to receiving inspiration for their name from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, rather than the more obvious source: L.A. Confidential ("Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.").


 * Some of the incidental music from this episode is used on the episode's main menu sequence of the Season 4 DVDs.


 * This is the last episode to feature Marc Blucas as a guest star. From now on, he will appear as either a regular ("Doomed" until "Into the Woods") or a Special Guest Star ("As You Were")