"The Zeppo" is the thirteenth episode of the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the forty-seventh episode in the series. Written by Dan Vebber and directed by James Whitmore Jr., it was originally broadcast on January 26, 1999, on The WB network.
Synopsis[]
ODD MAN OUT — Xander's lack of slaying superpowers has him feeling painfully expendable, but his quest to prove he's cool leads him to an unforgettable night that finds him consorting with fast women, raising the dead and rolling with a dangerous crowd that could put Sunnydale in a world of hurt. Meanwhile, Buffy, Giles and the rest of the crew engage in a furious battle with an all-female apocalypse cult that intends to reopen the Hellmouth and bring about the end of the world.[1]
Summary[]
The Scooby Gang fights demons in an underground nest; Willow performs a spell, Giles helps Buffy immobilize the last demon, and Faith kills it by stabbing it with a sword. Xander finally wakes up from the attack he suffered and his friends suggest he not get too involved in the battles anymore.
The next day at Sunnydale High, when another student throws him a football, Xander misses and it hits Jack O'Toole's lunch, resulting in Jack threatening to beat him up. Cordelia, having witnessed the entire event, mocks Xander for being a useless member of the Scoobies. Meanwhile, Giles informs Buffy that the end of the world is near: an order of demons called the Sisterhood of Jhe is planning to reopen the Hellmouth.
After a discussion with Oz about what makes someone cool, Xander shows up at school driving a convertible, borrowed from his uncle Rory. Meeting Buffy and Willow, he says he is now the "car guy" and looks forward to his new role within the group. He soon finds himself tasked with getting donuts for the gang. Cordelia finds Xander at the Espresso Pump and rubs in the fact that all he does now is errands. Just then, Lysette starts to flirt with Xander for his car and wants to go for a ride. Xander eagerly agrees once he's dropped the donuts off.
Buffy, Willow, and Giles research in the school library. Meanwhile, Oz, in full werewolf form, is agitated in his cage. Willow thinks it's because he can sense trouble. With the Watchers Council refusing to speak to him, Giles leaves to try to contact the spirit guides who exist out of time, hoping they will provide information on the Sisterhood of Jhe.
At the Bronze that night, Lysette talks with Xander about nothing more than cars. Angel is looking for Buffy and dismisses Xander's offer to help, telling him it would be safer for Xander to keep out of the way. As he leaves with Lysette, Xander drives into a parked car. Jack gets out of the car and threatens Xander with a knife. A cop arrives and interrupts, but Xander says the two were "just rassling." Surprised, Jack offers to let Xander cruise around driving him and his friends. Xander agrees and asks where they're going as Jack, Lysette, and Xander get in the car.
In Restfield Cemetery, Jack casts a spell and Big Bob rises from his grave as a zombie. Lysette screams and runs away. Jack raises one more friend, Dickie, before Xander spots Giles, who has unsuccessfully tried to get help from the spirit guides. He begs to help Giles, but Giles tells Xander he is better out of the way. Jack raises his last dead friend Parker before they call Xander to leave.
Buffy visits Willy, who's been beaten up when the Sisterhood of Jhe visited Willy's Bar and thoroughly wrecked it. Willy reveals the Sisterhood is planning to open the Hellmouth that night and advises Buffy to find Angel and consider how to spend her last night on Earth. In the library, werewolf Oz is increasingly agitated, and Giles and Willow decide to move him to a safer location.
Jack and his friends drive around town with Xander. They decide to "bake a cake" and rob supplies from the Decker Hardware store. While Xander waits for them, he spots Willow leaving Uncle Bob's Magic Cabinet shop. He tries to talk to her, but she leaves in a rush to perform a protection spell before telling him she loves him. Jack notices Xander trying to leave, and the zombies decide he would feel more a part of the group if they killed him. Xander points out that Jack isn't dead, but Jack reveals his grandfather had raised him minutes after he died in a drive-by shooting. Xander manages to escape them with his car. Jack and his friends lament about not only losing transportation but their supplies as well.
Xander comes across Faith and runs over a Sisterhood demon fighting her. He drives Faith back to her motel room, where they have sex. She kicks him out immediately after, and Xander discovers the material the zombies left in his car was for preparing a bomb. He drives back to the hardware store to find Jack and his gang long gone, laden with supplies.
Xander heads to Angel's mansion to find Buffy, where the couple is arguing about their feelings and sacrifice. Realizing it's a bad moment, Xander leaves. On his way to find Giles in the library, he drives by the zombies. Xander grabs Parker and demands to know where the bomb is located. Parker reveals it's in Sunnydale High's boiler room. Xander asks how to defuse the bomb, but Parker's head suddenly collides with a mailbox, killing him. Xander lets the body go and speeds up to get to the school, with Jack and his remaining gang after him.
In the library, the multi-tentacled spawn has emerged from the Hellmouth. Buffy, Faith, Willow, Giles, and Angel prepare to fight it, as Xander and the zombies run past in the corridor. During the chase, Xander manages to crush Big Bob with a soda machine, and Dickie is ripped apart by the Sisterhood. Xander heads down to the boiler room, where he finds Jack with the bomb. Xander prevents him from leaving, and Jack argues he is not afraid of dying. Xander says Jack is not ready to die in an explosion that won't allow him to come back. The countdown continues and Xander doesn't move. With seconds to spare, Jack defuses the bomb. Xander tells Jack he doesn't want to see him around school and leaves. Jack promises revenge against Xander and opens a different door, from where werewolf Oz jumps and attacks him.
The next day, the Scoobies are sitting on a bench and discussing the previous night's battle. They're all bruised and cut up, Buffy is wearing a sling on her arm and Giles has a cast on his left wrist. They mention that Angel was knocked out during the fight and Buffy feared he was dead. When Xander stops by, Willow comments that he should be glad he wasn't at school last night. He offers the group a snack, and Oz, feeling "strangely full," declines. As Xander walks away, he runs into Cordelia, who taunts him again for doing nothing exciting. He smiles and continues walking, leaving Cordelia confused.
Continuity[]
- This episode is the third apocalypse the Scoobies face directly, after "Prophecy Girl" and "Becoming, Part Two."
- The multi-headed demon is the same one that appeared in the library when the Master's ascension opened the Hellmouth in "Prophecy Girl," as Buffy and Willow recall.
- Giles is still reluctant to involve Willow in dangerous magic. At this point, she has made a potion in "Witch," performed a revoke invitation ritual in "Passion," and the Ritual of Restoration in "Becoming, Part Two."
- Xander asks Oz if it is hard to play guitar. In his dream in "Teacher's Pet," he was playing a guitar solo on stage at the Bronze. In "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," he has an acoustic guitar in his room.
- Xander loses his virginity to Faith in this episode. He will reveal it to the Scoobies in "Consequences," believing to have a connection to Faith, and compare it to Anya's "more romantic" approach in "The Harsh Light of Day." Faith will tease him about it in "Who Are You?" and "Empty Places."
- Xander is the penultimate member of the current Scooby Gang formation to have sex. While Giles is overall implied, Oz is established as already having had sex ("Amends"), Cordelia implies it as well in "Bad Eggs," and Buffy lost her virginity in "Surprise." Willow will lose her virginity in "Graduation Day, Part One."
- Sunnydale High is almost destroyed by an explosive in this episode. It will be blown up for good by the Scoobies themselves in "Graduation Day, Part Two."
Appearances[]
Individuals[]
- Angel
- Cordelia Chase
- Dickie
- Rupert Giles
- Grandpappy (Only mentioned)
- Alexander Harris
- Rory Harris (Only mentioned)
- Doug Jeffries
- Faith Lehane
- Mike with the Mercedes (Only mentioned)
- Mike with the Mustang (Only mentioned)
- Jack O'Toole
- Daniel Osbourne
- Parker
- Dave Peck (Only mentioned)
- Willow Rosenberg
- Robert Schroeder
- Buffy Summers
- Lysette Torchio
- Uurthu (Only mentioned)
- Willy
- "Demon Mama"
- Hellmouth spawn
Organizations and titles[]
- Dingoes Ate My Baby (Only mentioned)
- Jackals (Only mentioned)
- Scooby Gang
- Sisterhood of Jhe
- Slayer
- Spirit guide
- Sunnydale High cheerleading squad
- Sunnydale Police Department
- Sunnydale Razorbacks
Species[]
Events[]
- Apocalypse (Only mentioned)
Locations[]
- Sunnydale
Objects[]
- Books of Pherion (Only mentioned)
- Faith Lehane's sword (The Zeppo)
- Hebron's Almanac
- Katie
- PST735
Rituals and spells[]
Death count[]
- Two unidentified Jhe sisters killed shortly before Willow's clouding spell.
- Unidentified Jhe sister, impaled by Faith.
- Parker, beheaded by a mailbox that Xander drives past.
- Dickie, killed by the Sisterhood of Jhe.
- Big Bob, crushed by a vending machine pushed by Xander.
- "Demon Mama" and two unidentified Jhe sisters, killed shortly after the Hellmouth opened.
- Jack O'Toole, devoured by Oz in werewolf form.
Behind the scenes[]
Production[]
- Whitney Dylan, who portrays Lysette in this episode, returns as Marelda in the Angel episode "There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb."
Broadcast[]
- "The Zeppo" had an audience of 4.1 million households upon its original airing.[2]
Deleted scenes[]
- This comment was cut:[3]
- Jack: "That's it. No way am I bringing him back after I kill him."
Pop culture references[]
- Both Xander and Cordelia compare Xander to Jimmy Olsen, the photographer for the Daily Planet, who often tags along with Lois Lane and Clark Kent in the Superman Universe. Like Jimmy Olsen, Xander relates to being an unappreciated sidekick without any special powers.
- Xander mentions Michael Jackson's song "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" (1982) when Jack coincidentally says the title.
- Cordelia calls Xander "the Zeppo" in reference to Zeppo Marx, the "straight man" among the Marx Brothers and long considered to be the most unexceptional member of the act.
- When Buffy realizes that the Sisterhood of Jhe celebrate victory in battle by eating their foes, she comments in disgust: "They couldn't just pour Gatorade on each other?" referencing the tradition in athletic competitions to celebrate by pouring buckets of the beverage over the coach.
- Jack assures Bob that he taped every episode of Walker, Texas Ranger during the eight months Bob was dead.
- Parker suggests his friends to hang out at a Taco Bell fast food restaurant.
- When Faith is coming on to Xander in the hotel room, in addition to referring to himself as being "up" (sexually aroused), he says that he's "never been up with people before," meaning that he's a virgin. Up with People is a Christian musical performance group founded in 1968.
- Upon seeing the bomb in the boiler room, Xander says, "Hello nasty," which was the name of the Beastie Boys' recently released album of the same name.
Goofs[]
- In the cafeteria scene while Xander can be heard talking to Oz, the camera pans up from the food being served to momentarily show Xander, Willow and Buffy sitting together. The food and their seating arrangement are from the episode "I Only Have Eyes for You."
- In the showdown scene with Xander and Jack, the bomb's timer fluctuates. When the camera pans down from Jack's face to the timer, it has counted down to 10 seconds. In the following cut, the timer then reads 13 seconds. In the next cut, the timer is counting down normally, now at 7 seconds.
Music[]
- Sound Stage Music Library — "Dodgems"
- Supergrass — "G Song"
- Tricky Woo — "Easy"
- Christophe Beck — "Dead Guys with Bombs"
- Extreme Music Library — "For the Glory"
International titles[]
- Armenian: "Անօգուտը" (Useless)
- Czech: "Outsider" (Outsider)
- Finnish: "Piru irti" (Devil Loose)
- French: "Zéro pointé" (Nought)
- German: "Die Nacht der lebenden Leichen" (Night of the Living Corpses)
- Hungarian: "A Zeppo" (The Zeppo)
- Italian: "Il giorno dell'Apocalisse" (The Day of the Apocalypse)
- Japanese: "ツェッポ" (Zeppo)
- Polish: "Fajny gość" (Cool Dude)
- Portuguese (Brazil): "O Zé Ninguém" (The Nobody)
- Romanian: "Zeppo-ul" (Zeppo's)
- Russian: "Бесполезный" (Useless)
- Spanish (Latin America): "Falta de Carácter" (Lack of Character)
- Spanish (Spain): "Zepo" (Zeppo)
Adaptations[]
- This episode's original soundtrack is featured in the albums Original Music from Season Three and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Soundtrack Collection.
- The book The Xander Years, Volume 2 includes a novelization of this episode.
- The episode script is included in The Script Book: Season Three, Volume 2.
- This episode is included in The Slayer Collection: Xander DVD.
- The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Adult Coloring Book features an illustrated based on this episode.
- The comic issue Buffy the Vampire Slayer #11 has a tribute variant cover to this episode.
- This episode is the basis for Joss Whedon's writing style in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He described: "This is basically a TV series of 'The Zeppo', which was a very deliberate deconstruction of a Buffy episode in order to star the person who mattered the least. The people who are ignored are the people I've been writing as my heroes from day one."[4]
- Doctor Who executive producer Russell T. Davies was inspired by "The Zeppo" when writing the 2006 episode "Love & Monsters,"[5] which started an annual tradition for an episode with little involvement of the lead cast.
Gallery[]
Promotional stills[]
Behind the scenes[]
Advertisement[]
Quotes[]
Buffy: "What should we do with the trio here? Should we burn them?" |
Willow: "I brought marshmallows! ...Occasionally I am callous and strange." |
Xander: "But... It's just that it's buggin' me, this 'cool' thing. I mean, what is it? How do you get it? Who doesn't have it? And who decides who doesn't have it? What is the essence of cool?" |
Oz: "Not sure." |
Xander: "I mean, you yourself, Oz, are considered more or less cool. Why is that?" |
Oz: "Am I?" |
Xander: "Is it about the talking? You know, the way you tend to express yourself in short, noncommittal phrases?" |
Oz: "Could be." |
Xander: "I know! You're in a band! That's like a business-class ticket to cool with complementary mojo after takeoff! I gotta learn an instrument. Is it hard to play guitar?" |
Oz: "Not the way I play it." |
Faith: "She got me really wound up. A fight like that and, no kill. I'm about ready to pop!" |
Xander: "Really? Pop?!" |
Faith: "You up for it?" |
Xander: "Oh, I'm up. I'm suddenly very up. It's just, um, I've never been up with people before." |
Faith: "Just relax. And take your pants off." |
Xander: "Those two... concepts are... antithetical." |
Faith: "Don't worry. I'll steer you around the curves." |
Xander: "Did I mention that I'm having a very strange night?" |
Giles: "There's something... different about this... menace, something in the air... The stench of death." |
Xander: "Yeah, I think it's Bob." |
Xander: "I know what you're thinking. Can I get by him? Get up the stairs, out of the building? Seconds ticking away... I don't love your chances." |
Jack: "Then you'll die, too." |
Xander: "Yeah, looks like. So I guess the question really is... who has less fear?" |
Jack: "I'm not afraid to die. I'm already dead." |
Xander: "Yeah, but this is different. Being blowed up isn't walking around and drinking with your buddies dead. It's little bits being swept up by a janitor dead, and I don't think you're ready for that." |
Jack: "Are you?" |
Xander: "I like the quiet." |
References[]
- ↑ "The Mortuary." Buffy.com. Archived from the original on February 15, 2001.
- ↑ "Nielsen Ratings for Buffy's Third Season." Nielsen Ratings for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, & Firefly. Archived from the original on July 5, 2008.
- ↑ Dan Vebber et al., The Script Book: Season Three, Volume 2. Simon & Schuster, September 2003.
- ↑ "This Week's Cover: Joss Whedon and his 'Agents of SHIELD.'" EW.com, August 21, 2013.
- ↑ Rob Buckley, "Review: Doctor Who – 2×10 – Love and Monsters." The Medium is Not Enough, June 19, 2006.