Changes: Anne (episode)

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↳ Note: This article is about the episode. For other uses, see Anne.

Anne

Season 3

episode 1

Air date

September 29, 1998

Written by

Joss Whedon

Directed by

Joss Whedon

*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*
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"Becoming, Part Two"	"Dead Man's Party"

Cast

Starring
Sarah Michelle Gellar — Buffy Nicholas Brendon — Xander Alyson Hannigan — Willow Charisma Carpenter — Cordelia David Boreanaz — Angel Seth Green — Oz Anthony Stewart Head — Giles

Guest starring
Kristine Sutherland — Joyce Julia Lee — Lily Carlos Jacott — Ken Mary-Pat Green — Joan Chad Todhunter — Rickie

Co-starring
Larry Bagby III — Larry James Lurie — Teacher Michael Leopard — Roughneck Harley Zumbrum — Demon Guard Barbara Pilavin — Old Woman Harrison Young — Old Man Alex Toma — Aaron Dell Yount — Truck Guy

Uncredited
Beth Aylward — Maggie Jeff Pruitt — Demon Bouncer Mark Garcia — Prisoner

Band
Bellylove

"Anne" is the season premiere of the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer television show, and the thirty-fifth episode in the series. Written and directed by Joss Whedon, it originally broadcast on September 29, 1998 on The WB.

Synopsis

WHERE NOBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME — Trying to escape who she is, Buffy finds herself in a city far from home where she is forced to once again face her destiny to battle a demonic force threatening inner-city kids living on the streets. Back in Sunnydale at the onset of senior year, Willow, Xander, Cordelia and Oz try to keep the vampire population in check without getting themselves killed, while Giles searches for leads on Buffy's whereabouts.^[1]

Summary

In a cemetery in Sunnydale, lacking a Slayer, the Scooby Gang has tried to temporarily take her place. They attempt to slay Andrew Hoelich, a newly risen vampire, but they are very uncoordinated and weak. They discuss Buffy's absence and Willow wonders if Buffy knows school starts the next day. Meanwhile, Buffy is on the beach and Angel finds her and wraps her in his arms. They embrace and he tells her, "I'll never leave. Not even if you kill me". Then, Buffy wakes up. She has taken up residence in Los Angeles where she is living in a tiny apartment and working as a waitress at a diner, Helen's Kitchen.

The next day, school starts in Sunnydale. Willow is disappointed when Oz tells her that he will be repeating his senior year of high school, since he didn't graduate and didn't go to summer school. She doesn't know what to think about it. Giles continues his search to find Buffy, following all the leads he has, only to be disappointed by them. Xander and Cordelia, having been away from each other all summer long, are each separately looking forward to seeing one another. But when they meet, they feel awkward and say only a few words to each other, and walk away angrily.

While working in Helen's Kitchen, Buffy encounters homeless teens Lily and Rickie. They're looking for a meal for the minor change they have, having spent all of their money getting matching name tattoos that together make a heart. After recognizing the girl as vampire-wannabe Chantarelle, Buffy leaves the diner, claiming to not feel well, and heads to her apartment where she just sits, staring at a can of food. Later, she roams the streets in search of solidarity, and passes an elderly homeless woman slumped in a doorway saying "I'm no one." In Sunnydale, Giles gets a lead on Buffy's location after hearing reports of a girl fighting vampires in Oakland and quickly gets ready to catch the next flight to check it out. Xander and Willow remind him this isn't the first time he thinks he's found Buffy, but Giles is determined to try and leave. Willow asks Xander if there's any chance Giles might actually find her. Xander believes Buffy will only show up when she's actually ready to show up.

That night, Lily finds Buffy on the street and they discuss their previous lives in Sunnydale. Lily asks Buffy if she has any money and if she wants to go to a rave. Buffy says she wants to be alone, but is willing to give Lily the money to go spend with Rickie. An old man walks past them, in a daze, saying "I'm no one." Then, he stops in the middle of the street as an oncoming car drives towards him. Buffy rushes out to him and pushes him out of the way, only to be hit by the car herself. People gather around her and try to call for help, but she claims to be fine and runs off. She runs into a guy named Ken, who's passing out fliers about a teen shelter, Family Home, and accidentally knocks all of his fliers to the ground. As they pick them up, he tries to make friends with her and get her to visit the home. She declines, claiming she is just fine.

Xander, Willow and Oz mope at the Bronze, listening to the music of Bellylove and talking about how terrible their slaying technique is. Xander suggests they use Cordelia as vampire bait.

Giles returns from his unsuccessful trip to talk to Joyce. She's afraid to leave the house in case Buffy calls or shows up. Giles tries to comfort her and tells her not to blame herself. She doesn't, instead blaming him for taking her little girl away and having a secret life with her.

Lily goes to Buffy the next day, telling her that Rickie is gone and she's worried that something bad might have happened. They go to the blood bank, where Lily and Rickie have donated before, to see if they have seen Rickie. The doctor, Joan, tells them she hasn't seen him, and Buffy leaves with Lily to continue their search. Buffy finds the elderly man she had saved on the street, dead, having drunk drain cleaner. She notices he has Rickie's distinctive tattoo on his arm. It is, in fact, Rickie, but he looks as if he's had the life drained out of him.

When Buffy tells Lily, she doesn't take it very well, accusing Buffy of bringing a monster with her that caused this. Lily runs out. When she hits the streets, Ken finds her and convinces her into coming to the family home, telling her that Rickie is already there. Late at night at the blood bank, Buffy goes searching through the files, attempting to find out what happened to Rickie. She notices that many of the patients' files say "candidate" on them. The woman who runs the bank shows up, and after Buffy coerces her, she says that she just gives the names of the healthy ones to "him."

Meanwhile, Ken has gotten Lily to change clothes for the "cleansing" and leads her into another room, where he tells her to enter a strange, dirty pool of water. At the front door of "Family Home", Buffy tries to enter undercover. When that doesn't work, she kicks down the door and finds Ken with Lily over the water. However, it's too late for Lily, as the "pool" is actually a portal. Buffy and Ken fight, Buffy trying to save her friend. Instead, both fall through the black pool and into another dimension where time flows at a different rate. Ken reveals himself as a demon of some sort with a human face glued on, and sends his guards after the girls. The two are quickly caught and told that they will be living there for as long as they can serve as useful slaves. In this dimension time runs differently: a century passes in their dimension, but only a day on Earth. Slaves who are too old to work are returned to their former dimension to die on the streets. Buffy then realizes that this is what happened to Rickie. They have been chosen because they're "no one"—there is nobody to miss them or notice their absence. Buffy says she wasn't chosen, but Ken tells her that it doesn't matter, because he knows who she is — she's Anne, a runaway anxious to get lost and hide in the shadows.

At the Hammersmith Park, Cordelia complains about being chosen as the bait. Oz checks to make sure everyone is "packing" with stakes and crosses, and they move toward their hiding spots. Cordelia follows Xander, attempting to tell him that she didn't miss him over the summer, and accuses him of having a summer fling. Suddenly, a vampire comes up from behind Willow and attacks her, interrupting Xander and Cordelia's quarrel. Oz knocks the vampire off and attempts to stake it, but is thrown off. Xander tries to kill it, and Cordelia tackles the vampire, all three go falling onto the ground. Cordelia's stake impales the vampire in the back, leaving her on top of Xander. The two kiss passionately.

The new slaves are being inducted into their life in the new dimension. A demon berates them and tells them that they don't matter. He insists that they say "I'm no one" when asked who they are. When it is Buffy's turn, she introduces herself sarcastically and starts a fight with the guards. After many rounds, she is stopped when Ken holds Lily at knife point. Pushing Lily behind him, Ken launches into a speech, giving Lily the perfect opportunity to push him off the platform. Buffy tries to escape with all the others through a large iron gate. Ken catches up with her as she moves past the gate, and pushes her through. The gate falls, and he gets his calves impaled by the gate's stakes. Buffy smashes his head in, impersonating a version of Gandhi "if he was really pissed." After the others are safely above ground, the black pool vanishes, leaving an empty, tiled basin behind.

After leaving Lily her identity as "Anne", complete with an apartment and job at Helen's Kitchen, Buffy heads back to Sunnydale. Back at home, Buffy's mom hears a knock on the door, and opens it to find her daughter. After a few moments, they hug.

Continuity

This episode is the first time the Scooby Gang are shown patrolling as a team sans Slayer, and Willow leads the gang in Buffy's absence. This dynamics will be seen again during her death in "Bargaining, Part One", though by then they will be more skilled at the job.
In Buffy's dream, Angel describes their relationship as "forever". The real Angel will state years later that what he and Buffy had was a "forever love", in "The Girl in Question".
Buffy works as a waitress for the first time, a job she'll have again in Doublemeat Palace ("Doublemeat Palace") and Pick Me Up (Last Gleaming, Part Five).
Time passing differently in alternate dimensions is introduced here; it will become more relevant with Angel's ("Faith, Hope & Trick"), and later Buffy's ("After Life"), return.
While trying to get into the mission to find Ken, Buffy says, "I just suck at undercover." However, in "Enemies", she does a lot better when she goes undercover to trick Faith.
This marks the first of two times in which Buffy refers to herself, or is referred to, as "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer". The second time is in "Help".
Buffy uses a hunga munga, the weapon of choice as well for a Lubber demon in the Angel episode "Happy Anniversary".
Lily's character first appeared as Chantarelle in "Lie to Me". She adopts Buffy's persona at the end of this episode. "Anne" would later appear on Angel as the social worker Anne Steele ("Blood Money"), helping Angel on a few occasions.
The montage depicting the teen runaways will be used again in the Angel pitch tape. The image of the teenage girl with the large skirt alone in the street will be used in the credits of Angel.

Appearances

Individuals

Organizations and titles

Species

Locations

Weapons and objects

Death count

Rickie Thomas, death by drinking drain cleaner.
Aaron, bludgeoned to death by a demon slave driver.
Andrew Hoelich, accidentally pushed by Cordelia Chase into a stake held by Xander Harris.
Guard, bludgeoned by Buffy.
Guard, impaled by Buffy with a spiked club.
Guard, killed by Buffy.
Ken, skull smashed by Buffy.

Behind the scenes

Production

Seth Green appeared in the opening credits for the first time.
This is the first use of the remastered Buffy theme. It will be heard in the opening credits through the remainder of the series.
The official Buffy logo appeared for the first time in the main title.

Deleted scenes

The following line was cut from this episode for length:^[2]

Willow: "Oh! That reminds me. I asked around about Andrew Hoelich, our gymnastic vampire, and apparently he used to like to hang out in Hammersmith Park and pick up grilles! Or, okay, that could be girls."

Pop culture references

During this episode, Lily wears a white t-shirt underneath a green sweater. The visible part of the t-shirt says, "Dent" and has a red heart with the words "Home of" visible inside the heart. This is most likely a nod to the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, in which a billboard is visible in a graveyard. On the billboard, there is a large red heart with the word "Denton" above it and the phrase "The Home of Happiness" inside it.
At one point in the battle with Ken's henchmen, Buffy wields both a hammer and a sickle. The factory setting, hard labor, and the hammer and sickle not only shows a theme of communism, but more importantly, the unification between peasants and workers to reach a better goal, seen here when everyone unites to defeat Ken's men.
A poster for the band Phish is seen on the wall behind Xander and Willow in the Bronze.

Goofs, bloopers & continuity errors

When Buffy bursts in on Lily and Ken in the "cleansing" room, Lily is wearing red lipstick and black eyeliner. Later, when Buffy and Lily stumble upon the factory workers, Lily is no longer wearing the lipstick nor eyeliner. Then, in the cell with Buffy, she's again wearing lipstick.
During the battle with Ken's henchmen, when one of the extras is thrown off the side, an overhead shot shows him landing on a visible gymnastic mat.
After Buffy says "Anyone who's not having fun here, follow me," you can see that her purple camisole has briefly turned green.
While escaping the hell dimension, Buffy's shoes change from flat-burlap shoes, like Keds, into tennis shoes, like Nikes.
When Buffy lifts the portcullis, you can see the position of her hands change between shots.

Music

Bellylove — "Back to Freedom" (Plays as the gang discusses slaying and the absence of Buffy.)
Christophe Beck — "Deliverance"

International titles

Armenian: "Էննի" (Anne)
Czech: "Anne"
Finnish: "Anne"
French: "Anne"
German: "Gefangen in der Unterwelt" (Trapped in the Underworld)
Hungarian: "Anne"
Italian: "Identità Segreta" (Secret Identity)
Japanese: "アン" (Anne)
Polish: "Anna"
Portuguese (Brazil): "Anne"
Romanian: "Anne"
Russian: "Энн" (Anne)
Spanish (Latin America and Spain): "Anne"

Adaptations

The script for this episode is collected in "The Script Book: Season Three, Volume 1".
A figurine from Buffy and Angel Figurine Collection Magazine replicates Buffy in this episode.

Other

Guest star Carlos Jacott who played Ken is one of only five actors to appear on Buffy, Angel, and Firefly. He appeared in "Bachelor Party", the seventh episode of the first season of Angel, and the pilot episode of Firefly.
Buffy's temporary neighborhood of residence is in the area around 11th Street on the south side of downtown Los Angeles; the intersection where she is hit by a car is the corner of 11th and Broadway, and the leaflets for the Family Home give its address as 1123 S. Hill Street, just around the corner.
The demons who run the hell dimension and Family Home are identical to the demons who make up The Scourge in the Angel episode "Hero", differentiated only by color. The demon portrayed by Harley Zumbrum is nearly identical to Trask.

Gallery

Promotional stills

Quotes

Giles: "Well, for God's sake, be careful. I mean, I appreciate your efforts to keep the vampire population down until Buffy returns, but if anything should happen to you, you should be hurt or killed, I shall take it somewhat amiss."

Oz: "Well, it's kind of a funny story. Y'remember when I didn't graduate?"

Willow: "Well I know you had a lot of incompletes but that's what summer school is for."

Oz: "Yeah, well. Y'remember when I didn't go?"

Xander: "I can't wait to see Cordelia. I can't believe I can't wait to see Cordelia.

Willow: "I wonder what our first homework assignment's gonna be. Hey, you're excited over Cordelia, okay? We've all got issues."

Oz: "Oh, I don't know. I think we're kinda gettin' a rhythm down."

Xander: "We're losing half the vamps."

Oz: "Yeah, but... rhythmically."

Xander: "You don't hide. You're bait. Go act baity."

Cordelia: "What's the plan?"

Xander: "The vampire attacks you."

Cordelia: "And then what?"

Xander: "The vampire kills you. We watch, we rejoice."

References

↑ "The Mortuary". Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Archived from the original February 15, 2001. Retrieved July 25, 2019.
↑ Nancy Holder, Jeff Mariotte, Maryelizabeth Hart. The Watcher's Guide, Volume Two. Pocket Books, 2000.

[1] "The Mortuary". Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Archived from the original February 15, 2001. Retrieved July 25, 2019.

[2] Nancy Holder, Jeff Mariotte, Maryelizabeth Hart. The Watcher's Guide, Volume Two. Pocket Books, 2000.

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