We start the show with creepycam, skulking its way around backstage at rehearsals for the school talent show. BreathyEvil McVoiceover is looking forward to being whole. Onstage, Cordelia is singing (very loudly and awkwardly, but points for enthusiasm) "The Greatest Love" – lyrics, "learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all." It's like it was written just for her. Kind of her mission statement, really. I'm amused as hell. Giles, sitting in the audience, is not. In fact, he looks like he's being tortured. The horror and trauma on his face is priceless. He begs the next performer to take the stage, telling Cordelia she can save "the part with the sparklers" for the dress rehearsal.

The gang comes in to razz Giles about the new principal "volunteering" him for director of the annual talentless show, and he glares quite a bit. They're picking on him and he's clearly annoyed, but it's also oddly affectionate. One more glare sends them on their way, but the newly hired Principal Snyder is blocking the aisle.

Wow, he *really* doesn’t like the Scoobies. So far, he's got them for mocking Giles and the show, skipping class, and antisocial behaviour, and he can't think of a better way to whip 'em into shape than mandatory participation in the talent show. They slump back into their seats, defeated. Giles tries not to grin, but his bemused delight is clear. Ah, the sweetness of karmic retribution.

The next kid to rehearse is doing a ventriloquist bit, and the dummy gives Buffy and me the wig. Buffy may not have a good reason, but I specifically remember being traumatized as a child by ads for a movie about some homicidal ventriloquist's dummy going around hacking people to pieces. Euugh. Major wiggins. Anyway, Morgan and his dummy, Sid, start out horridly. Bad material poorly delivered. Until they suddenly break into a little bickering banter. The dummy's got some really funny lines (plus a disturbing reference to edible jockey shorts), and Morgan really looks like he’s embarrassed by the dummy's interruptions and stuff. Even Giles seems to be enjoying the show. Then they go and play some creepy windchime music and show a close-up of the dummy's face, and I get wigged all over again.

Emily, a dancer from the talent show, is in the locker room, getting dressed in the dark. What's with these kids? Always changing their clothes in the dark - turn some freaking lights on! She thinks she hears a noise and (sigh) goes to investigate. And, oh, good! Creepy demon-vision cam is back! Something low to the floor is stalking behind her. Until it rises up and lunges. She screams, the camera cuts to black, and Evil McVoiceover declares "I will be flesh!"

Aaand, we're back from the credits. The gang's miserable, rehearsing a dramatic scene for their part in the show. Xander in particular thinks it's stupid, but they don't have any other better ideas. Willow won't play the piano in front of people, and it's not like Buffy can slay stuff for the audience. Sid and Morgan make with the horny dummy shtick until Buffy politely threatens them, and Snyder and Giles are talking in the aisle. It seems the new principal is aware of Sunnydale High's penchant for mayhem, and he's determined to stamp it out by keeping an eye on the bad element. By which he means Buffy, Willow, and Xander. He's kinda got a visceral hate on for the Scoobies.

Emily's body is found in the locker room. And there's an actual crime scene this time! Buffy wonders if it's another vampire attack, but Giles doesn't think so. Her heart was removed, which could conceivably mean it was a demon, but the huge knife at the scene suggests that the killer is human. Buffy still thinks that what with them living on top of the Hellmouth and all that they shouldn't count out a demon of some kind, but they need to investigate the human angle first. They split up to talk to the other kids who might have seen Emily after rehearsal.

Lisa, the tuba player, didn't know Emily too well because of some infamous dancer/band rivalry, but she thought Emily seemed fine the day before. So did Marc, who’s working – extremely lamely – on his card tricks. Marc and the guy Willow’s talking to saw Emily speaking with Morgan, the ventriloquist, who was acting kind of strange. Lisa mentions that too, telling Buffy that Morgan's always grabbing his head and weirding out and stuff. Oh, and someone thinks they saw Morgan arguing with his dummy. Yeah, Morgan's finding his way to the top of a very short list of suspects.

Cordelia, of course, can't get past how this affects her personally to be of any real help. I love and admire her Cordy-centric worldview.

Buffy enters the auditorium, interrupting a private conversation about who's going to be next. Who's having this conversation? That'd be Morgan and his dummy. Morgan says he was working on throwing his voice. I believe this not remotely. Especially since Sid, the dummy, was facing the back of the stage when Buffy walked in, but when the camera angle changes, Sid's head is cocked to the side like he's listening to Buffy behind him. This is not helping my dummy-fear.

Buffy asks Morgan about his conversation with Emily the day before, but before he can say much, he sinks into a chair, holding his head. Buffy asks if he's okay, but Sid butts in, all protective mom/lawyer, telling her to back off. Buffy tells Morgan to talk to her himself instead of using Sid, then gets an eyefull of Morgan and Sid bickering at each other. Sheeyeah, that's so very healthy. Not at all indicative of a crazy person.

Morgan lays Sid on his back in a dummy-case, preparing to leave. Buffy apologizes for upsetting Morgan, but he starts to insist he's not upset, that it's Sid who… yeah, not the way to put her at ease, guy. Then just before he closes the case, Buffy looks at Sid again – and sees him staring straight at her! Did I mention that dummies freak me? Yeeshk!

In the Library, Xander insistists that the next time they interview the student body, somebody else has to take Cordy detail, as she tends to bring out the homicidal in him. Seems that everybody's clues led them to Morgan. Xander's all for wearing a wire to try and bring him to justice, but Buffy's still not convinced that the murder was demon-free. Giles is somewhat distracted by his talent show obligations, which the Scoobies think needs to take a way back seat to the investigation, but he points out that with Principal Snyder watching them all so closely, they need to play nice. Which means the show must go on.

Buffy's off to check Morgan's locker for suspicious internal organs. She gives the lock a friendly bashing in and starts to look through his stuff. Then a hand grabs her arm and spins her around. It's Snyder, demanding to know what she's doing. She fumbles that Morgan asked her to get him something, and they go their separate ways. Across the hall, Morgan (and Sid) saw the whole exchange, including the easy lock-popping, which prompts another lovers' tiff.

Morgan rails that he can't do it, but Sid insists that she's the one, given how strong she is. He promises that she'll be the last, that after her, he'll be free, but Morgan won't go along with the plan.

Chez Summers, the gals are getting ready for bed. Joyce is looking forward to seeing the talent show, but Buffy begs her not to come. Joyce can tell there's something else bothering Buffy, but her daughter just says there's a lot going on. They agree it's time for bed, Joyce turns out the light, Buffy crawls under the covers, and SID is Standing Outside Her Bedroom Window!

A little while later, Buffy is awakened by the pitter-patter of tiny feet. Something springs towards her, and she screams, pushing it away as Joyce comes running down the hall. Lights on now, Buffy's dummy-fear gets in the way of her Slayer cool. She tells her mom there was something in her bed, but they can't find anything. Maybe Buffy was just dreaming? Either way, Buffy shouldn't go to sleep with the window open like that. Um, Buffy didn't.

At rehearsal the next day, Cordelia is badgering Giles about having to follow a particular act. He's had about all he can take and finds a brilliant means of escape. He kind of squints his eyes and mentions her hair, and a panic-stricken Cordelia bolts for the nearest mirror. Giles smiles, grateful to Xander for the suggestion, and it's official. Giles is my new boyfriend.

Buffy joins the gang in the auditorium, seriously freaked after the previous night. She tries to tell them about Sid's visit, but they think that what with her dummy-fear, she got spooked over a cat or something. She begs for just a little bit of credit, and Giles spills the week's phlebotinum (Joss & Co.'s term for the weekly exposition about the latest mystical/spooky goings-on). Apparently, there's some brotherhood of 7 demons who can take human form, but they need to take a human brain and heart every 7 years, or they'll revert. They think that maybe Morgan's one of the demons, but they're supposed to be strong. Morgan and his aching head seem to be getting weaker.

Buffy's sitting behind Morgan in history class later. Sid's on his knee, blatantly staring back at Buffy. Poor Buffy looks really afraid. Cordy snarks about what a cute freakshow couple the two of them make, and the teacher calls on Morgan to answer a question. He doesn't hear her, though, because Sid's apparently whispering to him. The teacher takes Sid away and tells Morgan he can have his puppet back after school. He comes back later to collect Sid, but the teacher tries to talk to him first about how detached and distracted Morgan has seemed lately. He's not really interested in the pep talk, holding his head and getting more and more agitated. Finally, he cuts her off, and she goes to get Sid for him. Except that Sid's gone.

I fear an imminent dummy rampage, but Sid's in the library with Xander, who nicked the puppet so Buffy could talk to Morgan alone. He whacks Sid's head on the desk to demonstrate the puppet's wooden status, and I cringe and start waiting for Sid to get fed up with it. So Buffy's gonna go find Morgan, Giles and Willow are going to hit the books, and Xander's gonna Sid-sit and do some homework.

Buffy looks for Morgan in the very dark auditorium. As she looks around the very red backstage area, some curtains rustle, so naturally, Buffy creeps towards them. Suddenly, Principal Snyder is standing right behind her. He strongly suggests/hints that it might not be so safe for a girl like her to be back there alone, thereby landing himself squarely on the suspect list.

Back in the library, Willow finds a book that suggests an alternate to the demon brotherhood theory: namely that sometimes a doll that's consciously aware will harvest human organs in order to become real. It doesn't say how these dolls are mysteriously "already possessed of human consciousness," just that sometimes they are. That's reassuring.

Xander's actually doing some homework. He gets up to check a dictionary, and suddenly, Sid is gone! Unaware, Xander returns to the table and gets back to work. The windchimes of imminent doom start to tinkle. There’s a low "Xander's about to get stabbed by something under the table" shot, which pans up until he happens to look to the side and notice the suddenly vacant chair. He shouts, and Giles and Willow come running. When they emerge from the stacks, Xander is standing on the table. At his alarming news, they do some healthy freaking out themselves, and then the camera switches back to Buffy...

Who is still wandering around the now very blue backstage. I'm wondering why she's so convinced that he's hiding alone, backstage in the dark, as opposed to, say, out on the quad or something, but I guess Buffy knows best because she finds a very dead Morgan lying on the floor. She backs away slowly, noting sadly that the demon's got a brain now, when suddenly, an iron chandelier comes crashing down on top of her.

Pinned and dazed, Buffy sees something skittering above her. She tries desperately to move the chandelier, but Sid is there, knife flashing towards her head. She pushes him away with her free hand and wiggles out from under the heavy fixture. She mashes Sid against the wall, her arm against his throat, and he concedes defeat. At which point they kind of berate each other for being such a reprehensible demon, and the whole scene ends with a "Wha-?!"

Cut to the Library, where Giles, Xander, Willow, and Buffy all sit in open-mouthed (and hysterical) astonishment as they listen to this wooden prop tell his story. Apparently, normal human guy Sid got cursed by an ornery demon and has to kill these organ-harvesters as a living dummy. Man, that's harsh. Not to mention, an amazingly specific curse. He says that he should have taken Morgan's suggestion and teamed up with Buffy from the start, but he had her pegged for the demon. Hence all those creepy looks Sid was giving her. He's already killed 6 of the 7 demons, and when he nails the last one, he'll finally be free. Unfortunately, the demon already has the heart and brain it needed and gets to keep its human form for another seven years. Still, they all agree it was probably someone in the talent show, so if they can just see who's not there, then that's probably the… Giles snaps his head up in panic. The show! It's about to start, and he's not there!

Buffy puts Willow & Xander on research duty, telling Willow to find the addresses of the kids in the show. Sid tells Giles to do some wacky pre-show warm-up jazz to gather all the kids in one place, so they can see who's missing. So while he runs around and tries to get the backstage chaos under control, Sid and Buffy watch from the catwalk overhead. Buffy finally explains to Sid that she’s the Slayer, and he waxes nostalgic about a Slayer he hooked up with in the '30s, pre-dummy days. Buffy correctly surmises that when he kills this last demon, his curse will be lifted, but with no body left to return to, his freedom means his death. He's not upset about that – after all, he's lived a long time, especially for a demon hunter (or a Slayer, for that matter). Of course, if Buffy wants to "console" him… he puts his hand on her knee, which she promptly removes. His hand. Not her knee. She still needs her knee. But you probably already got that.

So Giles has the group assemble onstage and gives the lamest pep talk in history. They all disperse again, and Buffy leaps down from the catwalk to join Giles. Confusion-time – nobody was missing. Giles has to hurry and get the show rolling, and Buffy will go tell Willow & Xander (apparently, the crisis means they're excused from talent show duty?). Then Buffy looks up, and Sid is gone.

Snyder and Giles have a seriously creepy, silent moment backstage, and Buffy looks for Sid. Strange how there's absolutely *nobody* there now. I mean, it was erupting mayhem not 30 seconds earlier, but all the kids have miraculously vanished. Anyway, Buffy's getting dripped on by something, and when she reaches up to grab whatever it is, she's the very proud finder of one very squishy human brain! Eeewwww!

Back from commercial, Buffy's doing her best "Lady M" impression, vowing never to stop washing her hands. Xander thinks it's awfully convenient that Sid disappeared right before the brain turned up, but Buffy's sure it wasn't Sid. What she doesn't get is why the demon rejected Morgan's brain if he was the smartest kid in school. Hmm… anything to do with the way he was constantly moaning and clutching his head? Why, yes! Poor Morgan had brain cancer, which means the demon still needs a healthy brain, preferably one that's chock full o' smarts.

They look at Willow as the next likely target, but the camera cuts to Giles, who's onstage with Marc the Magician, explaining how to calibrate the weights on his guillotine trick. Marc is impressed. Marc thinks Giles is smart. Marc wants Giles to do him a favour. Me wants Giles to run like hell. Giles doesn't listen to me. Marc asks Giles to fill in for his missing assistant, but he won't tell Giles how the guillotine head-chopping trick works. And why is Marc being so vague? Smart money says it's got something to do with the alarming scales that have appeared on the back of his hand.

Buffy & Co. had counted out anybody involved in the talent show, but that was before Buffy found the rejected brain. That puts the show's participants all back in the suspects column, which means that "chock full o' smarts" Giles might be with the demon as they speak. The 3 Scoobies bolt from the Library (past a lurking Snyder) as we see Giles being loaded onto the head-slicer trick. Marc locks Giles down, then admits that there really isn't any trick – it's just a plain old head-slicer/brain-remover. Oops!

Marc grabs a very dull hatchet and starts chopping away at the rope that's holding the blade up. He gets most of the way through it, but Buffy comes sailing across the screen to tackle him. While they duke it out, the frayed rope finally snaps. Enter hero #2: Xander! He reaches out to grab the rope in time as hero #3 – aka Willow – starts to hack at Giles' restraints with the hatchet.

Buffy pummels Marc until he falls back into his "disappearing assistant trick" box. She looks for a way to lock him in, but in the 2 seconds he's been in there, Marc has finally gone all demony. He busts out to grab Buffy by the neck as Willow finally gets Giles free, and suddenly Sid jumps up on the MarcDemon's back, kitchen knife a-stabbing. Buffy takes this opportunity to drive Marc backwards and onto the decapitat-o-matic. Thanks goodness he falls against it perfectly! Head lined up just so, it's time for Xander to let go of the rope. Which he does. The MarcDemon and its head go their separate ways. Then a solemn Sid approaches, explaining that it's not enough. Being headless isn't enough to make the thing dead – it also needs a good heart-stabbing. Buffy gently offers to do it, but Sid is ready to go. He stabs the demon, then falls over. Buffy cradles the now-lifeless dummy in her arms and tells the group it's all over.

Which is the curtain's cue to rise and unveil the grotesque, surreal tableau onstage to all who've gathered to see the talent show. Buffy with a dummy in her arms, Willow with a hatchet, a headless demon in a guillotine… Snyder just doesn't get this fancy modern art.

As the end credits roll, we get one final scene, and it's a gut-buster. Buffy, Xander, and Willow in makeshift togas, acting out their "dramatic scene" for the talent show. Good lord, these kids are horrible. Buffy's all about not giving a damn, Xander can't remember his lines, and poor Willow just bolts from the stage.

Thoughts

I absolutely loved this episode. Snyder is a great addition to Sunnydale High, making a convenient and convincing possible suspect as well as a brilliant foil for Giles & the Scoobies. Sid just plain scared the hell out of me, and I loved the bait and switch when the freaky little dummy turned out to be a good guy. The whole ep was creepy yet funny, with a heaping helping of whodunnit thrown in for good measure, and the “dramatic scene” during the end credits was just plain hysterical.

Quirks

If the show starts with demon-cam, why is Marc in the shot?

Willow seems disturbed that Morgan talks for his puppet, but that’s kind of how it’s supposed to work.

Buffy’s black tank top is adorable, but in the history class scene, her bra straps just can’t decide where they want to be. One minute, they’re all nicely tucked away, the next, they’re halfway down her shoulders, then in the next shot, they’ve crept back up again.

I'm just wondering - Sid tells Buffy that Morgan suggested he team up with her instead. Does that mean Morgan was onto Buffy?

Sid’s kitchen knife vanishes after he stabs the demon.

Can I just ask - where the hell did everybody go?! Giles is in a panic because the show’s about to start, he assembles all the kids, they go off to wait in the wings… then it’s like the talent show gets sucked into some kind of black hole where it waits for the rest of the episode to unfold. Buffy wanders around the now-deserted backstage and finds a squishy brain. Marc is still getting his stuff set up, chatting to Giles about assisting him. There’s a big, noisy fight with heads a-rollin' and a talking dummy stabbing a demon – and absolutely nobody seemed to notice. So where did everybody go?!

And on a related note… who opened the curtain?

Body Count

Emily, the dancer - heart removed by the MarcDemon
Morgan - brain removed by the MarcDemon
MarcDemon - decapitated by his own guillotine and stabbed through the heart by Sid
Sid - expired naturally when freed from his wooden body

Haiku

Avant garde tableau
Headless demon on the stage
Snyder is confused

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