Recap / Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E12 "Bad Eggs"

Xander: "You gotta take care of the egg. It's a baby. You gotta keep it safe and teach it Christian values."

Willow Rosenberg: "My egg is Jewish."

Xander: "Then teach it that dreidel song."

Directed by David Greenwalt

Written by Marti Noxon, Rob Des Hotel, & Dean Batali

Buffy and her mother, Joyce, are at a mall discussing Buffy's desire to buy a revealing dress. Joyce and Buffy split up to each do an important errand before the mall closes. On her way to the store, Buffy sees a guy wearing a cowboy hat romancing a girl, but also notices he has no reflection in a nearby mirror. She follows him upstairs, scares the girl off, and fights with him until he runs away. She returns to her mom, but forgot about her errand, frustrating her mother, who then gives Buffy a lecture on responsibility. Joyce thinks Buffy only thinks about boys and clothes. A chagrined Buffy tells her mom that she also thinks about saving the world from vampires, which causes her mother to sigh with exasperation.

The next day, Cordelia and Xander are making out in a closet, fighting all the while. Xander says it will work better if she doesn't talk, and she says it will go better if they keep the light off. Each gets offended that the other doesn't want to see or hear them. Cordy mentions (again) that she doesn't want anyone to know about their relationship, and their tempers cause them to start to leave. They reach for the doorknob, but stop and go back to making out with each other. They fall to the floor and Cordelia reaches up to turn the light off. Later that day in health class, the teacher asks the students to list negative consequences of having sex, and Xander and Cordy list each other's potential faults as consequences, without naming names. Finally, Willow gives the intended answer — pregnancy — and Mr. Whitmore says to learn about parenthood, the students will pair off and each team will take care of an egg as if it is their baby.

Xander and Willow enter the library with their eggs. Buffy, who had skipped health class, is handed an egg ("As a punishment, it's a little abstract...") that she will have to take care of as a single mother. Giles looks up the cowboys —Lyle and Tector Gorch — and suggests Buffy should hunt them with Angel's help. Willow scoffs that there will be little actual hunting going on in such a scenario, but Buffy says they'd never slack off their duty to get lost in romance. However, that night Buffy and Angel make out in the cemetery instead of hunting. The Gorch brothers watch from the cemetery wall, commenting that Buffy wasn't doing much slaying with Angel. That night, while Buffy is sleeping, her egg breaks open and tentacles emerge and attach themselves to Buffy's face.

The next morning when she wakes up, the egg is back to normal, and Buffy is grumpy at breakfast. Back at the library, Giles finds Buffy, Willow, and Xander, who have been excused from Health class because their teacher did not show. Willow and Buffy are tired and sit down on the stairs. Xander begins to toss his egg nonchalantly in the air, as worried looks cross Buffy and Willow's faces. He hits the egg and it goes crashing to the ground, but doesn't break. He then reveals that he hard boiled it. Giles suggests that Buffy should go back to hunting with Angel since last night was a bust. That night, Buffy and Angel are yet again kissing instead of hunting in the cemetery. They stop to talk and the subject of the future, and children, comes up. Angel reveals that he can't have children. Buffy is shocked but that doesn't change how she feels for him—she says when she looks to the future, she only sees him.

Back at school, the night watchman hears some noise and goes to find out what the source was. He finds a big hole in one of the air pipes in a closet. When he goes to investigate, he is pushed in through the hole by someone whose face is not seen.

Late that night, Buffy sneaks back in through her window and sees her egg is moving. She gets closer and the creature inside leaps at her face, then drops and scuttles under the bed. She uses an iron as a mirror to look around and sees nothing. It crawls on the floor some more. She grabs some scissors and stands waiting for it to show itself. It climbs the wall behind her and she kills it with the scissors, stabbing it again and again and again. Buffy calls Willow to warn her, but Willow's egg has already hatched. Buffy's mom then comes in, and sees she is dressed. Buffy is grounded and sentenced to no after-school activities, and to only go to the library until her mother picks her up.

The next day at school, Willow tries to convince Buffy that her egg must have been a trap set by the cowboys. As they walk, the camera shows the little creature from the egg is hooked to Willow's spine. Xander, hungry, decides to eat his egg. He cracks it open, and when he is about to eat it, screams when he sees the creature inside. In the science lab the gang debates dissecting the creatures. Willow volunteers, and moments later, Cordelia's egg wakes up from inside her backpack. She suddenly picks up a rod and hits Buffy across the face with it. Willow grabs a microscope and hits Xander. They are thrown into a closet. Then Willow and the others are seen grabbing hoes and pickaxes.

Mrs. Summers comes to school to pick up Buffy, and finds herself having a conversation with Giles about Buffy and children in general. Then she is turned into a host by him when he picks up a creature and puts on her back. The two head down to the basement where they begin their work for the mother Bezoar. Buffy and Xander wake up and find two eggs by their side. Buffy smashes them and they head to the library in search of Giles. They find that Giles has been turned into one of these creatures. Just as they begin to find information, Jonathan cries out in pain in the hall. They rush out only to find that he has been turned into a host. They follow and find everyone digging at and pulling eggs from the mother Bezoar. Xander pretends to be a host, while Buffy fends off the Gorches. She hits them several times and then is thrown into the working pit.

Xander follows Cordelia and another guy. As they walk down a tunnel, he smashes the guy's head into the wall. Cordelia stops to swing at him and he ducks. She then hits him right on his bump. He screams in pain and then hits her across the face. Lyle follows Buffy into the basement area where the two attract attention to themselves, and Willow gives orders to have them all killed. Everyone attacks them, but Buffy and Lyle manage to fight them off. Tector stumbles through the hole now that he's collected himself, and is drawn to the mother creature, who grabs him and sucks him in. Lyle blames Buffy for what happened to his brother and throws her to the ground. Joyce takes a swing at her with a pickaxe, and Buffy quickly dodges before she is pulled towards the mother after; luckily, Buffy manages to grab the pickaxe Joyce dropped on the way. She beats up the mother creature and then all the workers fall to the ground.

Buffy comes up and out of the creature covered in black goo, and Lyle runs off after saying "It's over" (referring to his sentiment after their first fight). The next scene shows all the students leaving. Giles explains that it was a gas leak, which Xander tells him to stick with as a cover story while also urging Giles to wait until the next day, when he fills Giles in on what really happened. Buffy finds her mother, who is upset that Buffy had not studied in the library as she was instructed. As a result, Buffy is confined to her room as punishment; however, it immediately cuts to Buffy kissing Angel. While it looks like they're outside, the camera slowly pans out to reveal Buffy is leaning through her bedroom window, claiming that "she's not breaking any rules." Cut to credits.

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Tropes:

• Admiring the Abomination: Tector Gorch digs this. First he wants to keep Buffy because she's cute and little. Then he stops to admire the mother Bezoar. Then the mother Bezoar eats him.
• Alien Episode: The crew fight a nonparanormal parasite — one of earthly origin, but decidedly alien-like.
• Attack of the Killer Whatever: Killer eggs!
• Auto Erotica: Cordelia says that "her friend" was doing this, but that in the midst of all the excitement, the gear shift was jerked out of "Park" and well..
• Badass Adorable: Tector re Buffy. "She's so cute. And little. Think we can keep her?"
• Battle Discretion Shot: The audience only hears Buffy fighting the Mother Bezoar.
• Beard of Evil: Lyle Gorch.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Taken up to eleven with Xander and Cordelia's Bizarro!World smoochies.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The Mother Bezoar and the Gorch brothers.
• Breather Episode: A light episode right before Angelus shows up.
• Butt-Monkey: Xander again.
  Willow: Did I really hit you?
  Xander: You knocked me out.
  Cordelia: Did I hit you?
  Xander: Yes. Everyone hit me.
  Cordelia: Good. Well, I don't mean good because I hit you, but I didn't wanna be left out.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes":
  • Joyce re children.
    "They can be such a... oh, I don't wanna say burden, but, uh... actually, I kind of *do* wanna say burden."
  • Xander fighting possessed Cordelia.
    "Cordelia! I don't wanna hurt you... some of the time."
• Calling Me a Logarithm:
  Giles: I suppose there is a sort of...Machiavellian ingenuity to your transgressions.
  Xander: I resent that. Or possibly thank you.
• Chronic Pet Killer:
  Buffy: [about the egg experiment] I can't do this. I can't take care of things. I killed my Giga Pet. Literally. I sat on it and it broke.
  • This was part of an arc that drew parallels between her and Drusilla, so probably an afterthought rather than normal characterization.
• Combat Tentacles: On the mother creature.
• Conversation Cut: Joyce finds Buffy in her bedroom fully dressed, having just got back from patrolling.
  Buffy: I had a bad dream?
  Joyce: Oh, no, you're about to have a bad dream! A dream that you are grounded for the rest of your natural life!
  (Cut to the next morning in their Jeep pulling to a stop in front of the school.)
  Joyce: Which means: no after school socializing, no Bronze, no nothing. Not until I say so. Do you understand?
• Covered in Gunge: Buffy crawls out of the crevice covered in the Mother's Bezoar's blood. Badass vampire Lyle Gorch takes one look and runs.
• Creepy Monotone:
  Willow: Kill them.
• Dating Catwoman: The Gorches are puzzled as to why 'Angelus' is pashing the Slayer.
• Department of Redundancy Department: After Xander/Cordelia's I Need to Go Iron My Dog scene.
  Willow: Are they getting weirder? Have you noticed the weirdness of them?
  Buffy: They're weird.
• Distracted by the Sexy: What Joyce thinks Buffy's reason is for forgetting her dress. Played straight with Bangel kissage.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: After Lyle Gorch's first We Will Meet Again, Buffy mock-gripes, "Oh, sure. They say they'll call..."
• Dumb Muscle: The Gorches are not the sharpest vampires in the Hellmouth shed. Before they became vampires, they were infamous hilljack mass murderers, but even then they were simply known for bouts of random trouble.
  Giles: The good news is that they're... not amongst the great thinkers of our times. I doubt if they're up to much. They're probably just drawn here by the, uh, Hellmouth's energy.
• Egg Sitting: Xander cheats by boiling his egg so it won't break. Lucky for him, because the eggs turn out to host demon parasites. He was also going to eat his egg, before he learned it had a demon parasite in it.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Mother Bezoar.
• Enemy Mine: When Lyle Gorch and Buffy are fighting, they find themselves surrounded by the Bezoar's brainwashed servants. They temporarily postpone their fight to team up and fight them off.
• Failed a Spot Check: Buffy and Angel snog passionately, stop to take a quick glance around for the Gorch brothers (who they're supposed to be hunting), then return to snogging again. The camera pans to show the Gorches sitting up a tree, watching them.
• Foreshadowing: For the next episode "Innocence".

  Angel: You really don't care what happens a year from now? Five years from now?

  Buffy: Angel, when I look into the future, all I see is you! All I want is you.

  (camera pans to a gravestone marked IN LOVING MEMORY)

  • Likewise the discussion in Teen Health on the "negative consequences" of having sex.
  • Willow watches with a puzzled expression over how Xander and Cordelia are getting stuck into each other in Sex Ed class. When she finds out what's going on in "Innocence", Willow says she knew something was up because they were arguing far too much.
• Gardening-Variety Weapon: A line of possessed students and teachers march into the groundskeeper's shed, each taking an axe, hoe or shovel off a rack.
• Gas Leak Cover-Up: Spoofed when the Scoobies come up with this as a completely implausible explanation as to what happened.
• Generation Xerox: Buffy is dismayed to find she hasn't been partnered with someone for her Egg Sitting. "You mean I'm a single mother?"
• Gilligan Cut:
  Willow: Maybe you could get Angel to help you find the Gorches.
  Giles: Good idea. Strength in numbers.
  Xander: Oh yeah. I see a lot of hunting getting done in that scenario.
  Buffy: Please. Like Angel and I are just helpless slaves to passion. Grow up!
  (Cut to Buffy and Angel making out in the cemetery)
  Buffy: You know, this isn't hunting in the classical sense...
• Gratuitous Italian
  Cordelia: What is it?
  Xander: We don't know what it is, Cordelia, that's why we're here. Capisce?
  Cordelia: 'Capisce'? What are you, world traveler now?
• Groin Attack: Buffy punches Lyle Gorch in the family jewels.
• I Have This Friend: Cordelia has a friend, not her, who was involved in the Auto Erotica accident.
• Improvised Weapon: Lots of them, including Willow clocking Xander with a microscope, and Buffy killing the Mother Bezoar with a pickaxe.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Xander and Cordelia looking for an excuse to go make out.
  Cordelia: (about someone no-one else in the episode has registered as in danger) Well, his body could fall out of a closet somewhere. So we should check out some closets to see if he's in a closet?
  Xander: You're right. There could be a closet. Let's go.
• It's a Long Story: Played straight for once.
• Indy Hat Roll: Lyle's hat falls off when Buffy knocks him down. He scoops it back onto his head before fleeing.
• Kill It Through Its Stomach: Though it's not clear if Buffy was actually eaten.
• The Law of Conservation of Detail: A surprising aversion is all the shots of the boiler room with its red lights and HIGH VOLTAGE signs, apparently setting up a Chekhov's Gun involving the Monster of the Week being killed by electricity. Doesn't happen.
• Make-Out Kids: Xander/Cordelia and Buffy/Angel can hardly keep their lips off each other; the latter foreshadowing Buffy's decision to sleep with Angel in the next episode.
• Mandatory Motherhood
  Buffy: Oh, I told you, that faux parenting gig we're doing at school. Like I'm really planning to have kids anytime soon.
  Angel: I wouldn't know. I don't... Well, you know, I, I can't.
  Buffy: Oh. That's okay, um... I-I figured there were all sorts of things vampires couldn't do. You know, like work for the telephone company, or volunteer for The Red Cross, or... have little vampires.
• Mêlée à Trois: A fight breaks out between Buffy vs. Lyle Gorch vs. a horde of innocent bystanders under mind control by a demon. Buffy and Lyle don't actually team up, but they do take a break from fighting each other to focus on the bystanders. A person just tuning in might think they were on the same side.
• Missing Reflection: While riding an escalator, Buffy politely looks away from a couple kissing...and sees in the wall mirror that only the girl is visible.
• Mood Whiplash: Buffy and Xander hear Jonathan shrieking in terror "Get this thing off me!", but when they rush out he says in a Creepy Monotone, "I'm fine, I slipped" then walks off. Our heroes use the opportunity to follow him back to Mummy.
• Monster of the Aesop: Children take over your lives like some kind of mind-controlling Eldritch Abomination. Or was it mothers take over their children's minds?
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: Xander avoids the problem of cracking his egg by hard-boiling it.
  Willow: You boiled your young?
  Xander: Yeah! I know it sounds cruel, but sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind! I mean, you can bet that little Xander here is thick skinned now.
  Giles: Technically that would be cheating, yes?
  Xander: No! It's like a short cut. You know, when you run a race?
  Buffy: That would also be cheating.
• Not Himself: Averted; there's no sign that Willow and Cordelia have been taken over by the eggs until they start hitting their friends with blunt objects.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Cordelia and Xander using Teen Health class as a chance to snark at each other.
• Orifice Invasion: Buffy's egg sticks its tentacles in her ears and eyes. Gnyaah!
• Outlaw: The Gorches got their reputation by massacring a Mexican village. That was before they were vampires.
• Prat Fall: Xander urges Buffy to be careful when going into the dark scary cave, then promptly falls over.
• Pretend We're Dead: Xander pretending to be taken over.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The Bezoar, a prehistoric parasite whose offspring attach themselves to other creatures and control their motor functions.
• Rage Breaking Point: Buffy encounters Cordelia wearing a teddy bear backpack.
  Buffy: Nice bear. Listen is your—
  Cordelia: Hey, I'll have you know that my father brought this bear back from Gstaad years ago. Then all of a sudden these trendoids everywhere started sporting them. So I'm totally not wearing it. Then I thought, hey, I'm the one who started this nationwide craze! What am I ashamed of?
  Buffy: Okay, Soliloquy Girl, I just wanted to ask about your egg.
• Red-Headed Stepchild:
  Lyle: I'm gonna beat you like a red-headed stepchild.
• Reduced to Ratburgers: The Gorches have to hide out in the sewers instead of a No-Tell Motel until the Slayer is taken care of.
• Reveal Shot:
  • Joyce grounds Buffy at the end of the episode, forbidding her even to leave her room. Cut to Buffy apparently kissing Angel outside, only it turns out Angel is leaning in her bedroom window and the trees are in the background.
  • A more serious example is when Buffy rings Willow to warn her about the eggs, only to be told by Willow that she put hers in the fridge. Pan down to reveal the egg broken open in front of her.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Mr. Whitmore is lecturing his Teen Health class.
  Whitmore: The sex drive in the human animal is intense. How many of us have lost countless productive hours plagued by unwanted sexual thoughts and feelings?
  (Xander puts his hand up)
  Whitmore: That was a rhetorical question, Mr. Harris. Not a poll.
• Sarcastic Confession
  Joyce: Honestly, don't you ever think about anything besides boys and clothes?
  Buffy: Saving the world from vampires?
  Joyce: I swear, sometimes I don't know what goes on in your head.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud
  Xander: Can I just say, 'gyegh!'.
  Buffy: I see your 'gyegh!' and raise you a 'gnyaah!'.
• Saying Too Much:
  • Willow suggests one of the missing people has returned to the Mother Bezoar, even though the Scoobies have no idea what the Monster of the Week is called.
    Buffy: What's a bez—(possessed Cordelia knocks her out)
  • Possessed!Cordelia and Willow knock out Buffy and Xander and dump them in the closet, the same one Cordelia and Xander were smooching in earlier.
    Xander: (groaning) Last time Cordy dragged me in here it was a lot nicer.
    Buffy: What?
    Xander: Uh... (fully awake now) Huh? Nothing. Uh, crazy talk. Head trauma.
• So Happy Together: Buffy and Angel. In fact, this happiness turns out to be an important plot point in the next episode.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • Tector can't resist leaning in for a close look at the Giant Eye of Doom.
  • Lampshaded when Xander and Buffy discover the dark tunnel that's been carved out of the back wall of the SHS power room.
    Xander: Do we really wanna go in there?
    Buffy: We really don't. (they do)
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  Joyce: (notices the books lying on the catalog) 'Bristow's Demon Index', 'Hell's Offspring'?
  Giles: (takes the books) A hobby of mine, uh, but, uh, having nothing to do with Buffy in any way.
• Swallowed Whole: Buffy fights her way out from inside the Mother Bezoar. Tector Gorch is not so lucky.
• Tap on the Head: Buffy and Xander, who gets annoyed when Possessed!Cordy hits him again on the same bump.
• Terse Talker:
  Giles: How did the, um... hunt go last night, Buffy?
  Buffy: No go.
  Giles: Uh, 'no', 'no' you didn't go, or you were unsuccessful?
  Buffy: No Gorches.
  Xander: Apparently Buffy has decided the problem with the English language is all those pesky words. (looks at her) You... Angel... big... smoochies?
  Buffy: Shut... up.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Done humorously with the vampire Lyle Gorch, who keeps saying "This ain't over!"... until he sees Buffy hack a giant underground tentacle-monster to death with a pickaxe.
  Lyle: Alright, it's over. (flees)
• Violence Really Is the Answer:
  Giles: But the good news is that [the Gorches are] not amongst the great thinkers of our time. I doubt that they're up to much, just drawn here by the Hellmouth's energy.
  Xander: 'Nuff said! I propose Buffy slays 'em. All in favour?
  Willow: [she and Xander raises their hands] Aye!
• The Virus: Students participating in a health project raise eggs as if they were children. The eggs end up hatching and the demons inside of them take control of whoever was supposed to take care of them. All of the egg-demons are controlled by the "mother" demon below the school.
• Walk-In Chime-In: Lyle Gorch is about to munch on the girl he's picked up.
  Lyle: Well, ain't you just got the prettiest little neck I ever did see.
  Buffy: Boy, you guys really never come up with any new lines, do you?
• Where Were You Last Night?: Joyce catches her daughter doing an Enter Stage Window, and since Buffy can hardly admit she's been out vampire slaying or saving the world, she ends up grounded.

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