Help

"Help" is the fourth episode of the seventh and final season of television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Cassandra "Cassie" Newton, a student at Sunnydale High, goes to the new counselor Buffy with an alarming prediction: She is to die on Friday. Her warning to Buffy about a soiled blouse soon convinces the new school employee that this is something worth looking into. Buffy recruits Dawn into learning more about the teenager who is obsessed with death. Dawn learns that a male friend of Cassie's has been rejected numerous times. Meanwhile, Buffy learns that Cassie's father is a destructive alcoholic, but when she makes an unwanted late-night visit to the estranged parent, she found a man who loved his daughter. It turns out that another student, Peter, had organized a group of demon-raising males who gather in the basement to sacrifice Cassie. Buffy has infiltrated the group, however, and beats them, but Cassie suffers a heart failure and dies, leaving a distraught Buffy to wonder yet again what she could do when she did not seem to be able to help after all.

Quotes and trivia

 * Cassandra's name is an obvious reference to Cassandra. In the world of Greek/Roman mythology, she was a seer whose visions would always came true. However, after rejecting the advances of the god Apollo, he placed a curse on her that ensured that her prophesies would never be heeded. This is reflected in Cassie's various predictions, which are in time realized, regardless of the surrounding people's doubts and disbelief.


 * When Buffy says that heavy metal music is the key to "raising lame demons", she means to refer to Blue Öyster Cult instead of "Blue Clam Cult".


 * Cassie: "You think I want this? You think I don't care? Believe me, I want to be here! Do things! I want to graduate from high school and I want to go to the stupid Winter Formal. I have this friend and it'd be fun to go with him, to dance and hear lame music, to wear a silly dress and laugh and stuff. I'd like to go. There's a lot of stuff I'd like to do. I'd love to ice skate at Rockefeller Center, and I'd love to see my cousins grow up and see how they turn out, because they're really mean and I think they're going to be fat. I'd love to backpack across the country or... I don't know... fall in love? But I won't. I just never will." - Cassie's view on her omen.


 * When Cassie tells Spike, "Someday she'll tell you", it alludes to the finale when Buffy says to Spike that she loves him.


 * This episode has two actors, Glenn Morshower, as Mr. Newton, and DB Woodside as Principal Wood, who would later star together in 24.


 * Willow: "I'm over you, sweetie." - Willow confirms that her romantic feelings for Xander are over.


 * Willow: "Have you Googled her yet?"
 * Xander: "Willow, she's seventeen!" - Xander puts an interesting spin on the verb 'google'.