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2.11 Ted

Xander: "You're having parental issues, you're having parental issues... what? Freud would've said the exact same thing. Except he might not have done that little dance."

Joyce brings home a new boyfriend, Ted, played with extreme creepiness and jovial smarminess by John Ritter. (Just the way he calls Buffy "little lady" makes my teeth hurt.) Ted immediately wins over Buffy's friends as well as her mother, but Buffy is immune to his charms, probably because she's not eating his drugged pizza and cookies. Ted hits some buttons with me; when I was a teenager, my mother actually had a salesman boyfriend who said nasty things to me when she wasn't around. Of course, my mother's boyfriend wasn't a homicidal robot.

The first time I saw this episode, I didn't see "robot" coming; when Ted hit Buffy for the first time, I still thought he was human and I was shocked. I also found his reading her diary and waiting in her bedroom outright creepy. We do get hints that Ted isn't human, though; there is a reference to "Stepford," plus Neal at the office says of Ted, "Nobody beats the machine."

On the romance front, Xander is half-heartedly pursuing Cordelia (at least in the utility closet at school), and she is not running away from him. Jenny is back; Giles approaches her, and she is still cool to him at first. She then follows him out substitute slaying, and accidentally shoots him with a cross-bow. That's one way of getting your boyfriend back, I suppose. (That was a pun.)

There is an interesting parallel. At the beginning of the episode, Buffy walks in on Joyce and Ted, who are kissing. At the end, she walks in on Giles and Jenny, who are kissing.

Bits and pieces:

-- Buffy doesn't bruise easily. We already knew this, but this time it is a plot point.

-- Joyce doesn't find out that Ted is a robot in this episode, but she refers to him as one later in the series.

-- I'm glad they didn't show us what was in the closet.

-- John Ritter (Ted) also played Jack Tripper on "Three's Company" for years. Jack was also a chef.

-- Extremely cool makeup job on Ted at the end.

-- For those of you who are wondering why the Order of Taraka isn't after Buffy any more, we learn that "Angel's sources say the Tarakan contract is off."

-- Obligatory dog reference: Jenny accuses Giles of "making puppy-dog eyes at me." Giles says he doesn't mean to make "dog eyes."

Foreshadowing:

-- Ted says that Buffy is delusional and belongs in a mental institution.

Inconsistencies:

-- In "When She Was Bad," Willow says there is no miniature golf course in town. Guess they just built one, huh?

-- Why didn't the EMT guys realize Ted was a robot?

Quotable quotes:

Buffy: "Vampires are creeps."
Giles: "Yes, that's why one slays them."

Giles: "I believe the subtext here is rapidly becoming text."

Xander: "Can you say 'overreaction'?"
Buffy: "Can you say 'sucking chest wound'?"

Buffy: "Will, I'm not wrong here. Ted has a problem with me. He acts like I'm in the way or something. And Mom's been totally different since he's around."
Willow: "Different, like happy?"
Buffy: "Like Stepford."

Giles: "No, no, really, I don't think it went in too deep. The advantages of layers of tweed. Better than Kevlar."

Joyce: "Do you wanna rent a movie tonight?"
Buffy: "Sounds like fun."
Joyce: "Just nothing with horror in it. Or romance. Or men."
Buffy: "I guess we're 'Thelma and Louise'ing it again."

Two out of four stakes,

Billie





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