This ep starts out with buffy daydreaming about rescuing parker from a vampire. I love how we get a little insight into her mind like this, and I think xander's rock star daydream in s1 is the only other time we get to see inside someone's mind like this (not counting the weight of the world). Then we snap back to reality, and professor walsh is talking about the ID, and asks "what do we do when we can't have what we want?" Cut back to buffy daydreaming about an open-shirted parker with flowers. I love the writing on this show.
^ Actually looking back that opening was probably the best part of the whole episode.
The rest of the ep is one big anti-beer message. It's one of those metaphor episodes where something supernatural represents something people might deal with in the real world, and in this case the ep is about beer, which represents... beer. How clever. It's also very 'mundane', in the sense that there's no supernatural elements until halfway through the episode, and no threat (or giles for that matter) until the ep has about 15 mins left.
There's a minor subplot about willow being concerned that oz has taken an interest in veruca, which is an adequate setup for the next episode. I wasn't especially interested, but this subplot didn't take up enough time for me to get bored of it. There's also a cameo from riley, who by the way will be appearing in every episode from this point on, until he leaves in 'into the woods'.
The main story though is seen from xander's point of view, and it's good to get a xander episode every now and then, even if it doesn't have the character building moments like in 'b, b & b', 'the zeppo' or 'the replacement'. And like all xander eps this one's a comedy, or at least I think it was supposed to be, though it doesn't seem any funnier than the average ep. Though I did enjoy the 'rough day' running gag, and xander shouting 'Nothing can defeat the penis!'
So xander becomes a barman, and gets picked on by some bullies... including kal penn! White house politician, 'harold and kumar' star, 'house' actor kal penn! And he does little more than sit in the background, making grunting sounds. At least when he appeared in 'that vision thing' he had a cool death scene.
Buffy and the bullies drink the beer, and slowly become stupider. I must admit, I did enjoy some cave-buffy moments, like when she steals someone's sandwich, and how she learned her lesson at the end that beer is... foamy.
I can't say I can make much sense of the plot though. So the barman uses scientific lab equipment to make a magic beer, to get 'revenge' on the college kids who've been annoying him for the past 30 years.
- Why is he only starting to take revenge now? Why is he not watching what happens to the kids when they revert to cavemen, why is he taking no interest in it?
- What kind of bizarro revenge involves making the people you don't like stronger and angrier, not to mention make them never want to buy your beer again when they return to normal?
- Why can't he just do a spell to make them stupider, and not make them cavemen, or at least cut off the beer once they start being a threat to others?
- Out of everyone in the bar, why were only buffy and the bullies affected? Are they the only ones who like beer?
- Why is it they seem to be changing gradually, then one of them suddenly changes, becoming hairier and with a neanderthal-like face? And why do the others watching suddenly become lucid upon watching the guy change, as if they were returning to normal... then they became cavemen too?
- Why would the barman suddenly confess to xander everything he's done? He doesn't seem the least bit worried that xander might stop him.
- Should he even be talking about warlocks anyway? Has sunnydale become a town where you assume everyone you meet knows about the supernatural and won't think you're mad when you mention your brother is a warlock?
- At one point a guy runs one of the cavebullies over, and gets out of his car, only to run away when he sees them acting threatening. Did it not occur to him that it would be faster to get back in the car and drive away, rather than run?
- Why did the cavebullies kidnap two girls, and not molest them? Not that I want to see any molestation, but they ep made a big deal about how the cavemen/the id acts on the pleasure principle. The girls were kidnapped for one reason, and it seems strange that they would be plonked down and mostly forgotten about.
- It's also very convenient that they would suddenly wake up just as the plot required them to escape a fire by climbing out of a window.
- And was I the only one who found it strange that the recuperating girls and cavemen would be grouped with each other and left alone together?
And then there's the parker subplot. Buffy is still hung up on him, so willow tracks him down and gets revenge by... letting him tell his side of the story, only to reveal at the end she hasn't fallen for his manipulation. Hah, sure showed him! Was that her plan going in, to waste his time?
Did the parker subplot have to be dragged out this long? Not that I had a big dislike for it, I just wasn't especially interested in parker, or his subplot. Though I did enjoy the symmetry of his apologizing at the end just like in the daydream at the start, and the closure that came when buffy whacked him with a stick. Not that that really made sense, I mean she didn't want revenge before, all she wanted was for them to be back together, so what made cavebuffy change her mind? Why do none of the pleasure principle/drunk kids on the show want sex?
Upon rewatching, I've found a few more flaws that I've noticed before, but my feelings toward this ep haven't changed. I think as a comedy episode it fails in comparison with other comedy eps, the plot is full of holes, and the overall message is blunt. Is beer really that bad? They even drink it in later episodes without consequence!
However, it's still an entertaining episode, there was an average amount of comedy, metaphors are always appreciated no matter how obvious (or wrong), and cave buffy was always fun to watch.
Six!