Dirty Girls (Buffy episode)
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"Dirty Girls" is the 18th episode of season 7 of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. See also List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes.
Plot synopsis
Summary
A group of Bringers chase Shannon, a potential, in the woods at night. She reaches a road and stops a passing car for help. The driver, a priest who introduces himself as Caleb, helps her escape. However, as they talk in the car it becomes clear that the man is strange at best. After calling her a dirty girl and burning a mark in her neck with a red-hot ring, he stabs her in the stomach and throws her out of the car. Willow and Faith, who were following close behind in another car, pick her up and take her to the hospital unconscious. Faith is back in Sunnydale (in case you hadn't noticed).
Willow stays at the hospital while Faith finds Buffy in a cemetery, where she begins a fight with Spike by mistake. Back home, she is introduced to the potentials and arrangements are made for her to stay. Giles and Dawn are not amused.
Back at the hospital Shannon wakes up and tells Willow and Buffy that Caleb had a message for her: he has something of hers. Buffy, deciding not to let this new player get too confident in town, plans to go face him directly. She gathers the potentials and tells Willow and Giles to stay home with the less prepared while she takes Spike, Xander, Faith, Kennedy, Molly, Rhona, Amanda, and some more potentials to fight Caleb.
They find him at the basement of a vineyard, protected by some Bringers that attack them upon entering. They deal with them well enough, but when Caleb himself makes his appearance things turn out quite badly. He renders Buffy unconscious with a single blow, hurts Kennedy, defeats Spike, disarms Faith and kills two potentials (one of which is Molly). He nearly kills Buffy when Xander intervenes in time to save her. To everyone's horror, though, Caleb grabs Xander and forces his thumb into his left eye, leaving him half blind for the rest of the series.
They all finally manage to escape and the survivors are taken to a hospital, but they look very scared. Caleb really seems a dangerous and difficult foe and things don't look good. Buffy seems to realize she's made a mistake by rushing into Caleb's territory.
Expanded overview
Chased by the Bringers, a young girl, Shannon, runs through he woods until she arrives at a dirt road and a preacher in a truck stops to help her. The preacher, Caleb, questions the reason behind those cloaked figures chasing her and suggests that she's a dirty girl. He starts to scare her and she tries to get out of the truck, but can't. After he indicates that the Bringers work for him, he heats up a ring on his finger with the cigarette lighter and burns the Shannon's neck. He gives her a message, stabs her in the stomach with a large knife and then kicks her out of the car. Fresh from their misadventure in Los Angeles (on the series Angel), Willow and Faith drive up seconds later and find the girl in the road.
Xander dreams about the Slayers in Training wanting him sexually, but his dream is cut short as in reality, the girls need him to fix the toilet. Willow and Faith watch as the young potential they found on the road is worked on in a hospital. Putting the pieces together herself, Faith questions why she wasn't notified that there was such a threat to the Slayer line. She explains that while in jail, she was attacked by someone with a large knife and until now, didn't realize what it meant. Faith starts to leave to update Buffy on the latest, but Willow questions whether meeting Buffy yet is a good idea. Faith takes off anyway, leaving Willow to wait for Shannon to wake up.
A girl runs through the cemetery until she's grabbed and knocked down by Spike. Faith intervenes before he can do much more and despite his introduction of himself, Faith considers him a threat and continues to attack until Buffy stops her. After the confusion is cleared up, the girl wakes up and shows herself to be a vampire, who Faith promptly disposes of. Back at the house, Faith encounters a cold reception from both Dawn and Giles for her previous encounters with them years ago. But Spike explains that it was partially because of the latest tension between Giles and Buffy. Meanwhile, Caleb drinks from a barrel of red wine while speaking of his past as a preacher to the First in Buffy's form. It takes a moment, but Caleb soon realizes that the First is in the appearance of the Slayer he's after.
Andrew narrates a montage of Faith's history since her start on the show, but the story takes a sci-fi twist as Faith fights with a Vulcan and Andrew's story comes to an abrupt halt. The Potentials correct Andrew's story, but he continues to stress the threat that Faith is. Yet, the girls look at Faith exercising in the back yard with fascination and curiosity. At the school, Buffy goes to check in with Principal Wood in his office. She reiterates her earlier point about his issues with Spike and they agree to be on good terms again. Robin then fires her on the spot, citing the need for her to be focused on the mission as the reason. Buffy doesn't take the news well, but Robin's confident that she needs to be focused on saving the world.
Faith sneaks down into the basement for a cigarette and an escape from the Potentials whom are apparently still wanting to hear more stories from her about past experences in Sunnydale and elsewhere. But, Faith finds Spike down there as well. The two smoke and talk about their common dangerous pasts. Faith reminds him on how they met the first time when she was in Buffy's body and Spike subtly lets the brunette know that Buffy's no longer as uptight as she was years ago. Buffy comes downstairs and finds the two lounging on Spike's bed. Before Buffy's jealousy gets too obvious, Dawn calls to her with news that Shannon is awake. At the hospital, Shannon explains what happened with Caleb, shows off the burn on her neck and relays a message to Buffy: that Caleb has something of Buffy's. Later at the house, Buffy gives a speech to the gang gathered in the living room about Caleb and how they're all going to get whatever he has of hers.
A young woman walks down into the vineyard and meets with Caleb. He talks to her about why she came to him and then as the two walk into the darkness, the woman gasps and falls to the ground, her stomach cut open. The body quickly morphs into Buffy and the First rises. Caleb makes a request for another form for the First to take and they talk about how good he is at baiting girls into traps. Buffy tries to convince the others that her plan of attack is the right one, but most of them are hard to sell. Buffy tells Willow and Giles to stay behind with the inexperienced girls and protect them. On a recon mission, Buffy and Faith follow a Bringer through the woods and talk about Faith's intentions and her recent issues with Angel.
Xander directs the Potentials on the methods of attacking in battle. Rona speaks up, claiming that Buffy and her plan are crazy, but Xander promptly steps up with a beautiful speech in Buffy's defense. Buffy and Faith return home in time to hear Xander's speech and then they all get ready for battle. At the vineyard's entrance, Buffy explains the plan and then moves underground with her team. The Bringers quickly surface and a fight breaks out. The fighting goes well at first until Caleb emerges from the dark shadows and after a brief lecture, knocks Buffy across the room with one powerful punch. Spike too is tossed aside and into a barrel of wine then the fighting begins again. Rona is grabbed by Caleb and has her arm broken, but before a Bringer can stab her, Xander and Faith arrive with the other team.
Faith goes up against Caleb, but even she is eventually kicked into another barrel and knocked unconscious. Caleb then grabs another Potential and breaks her neck before setting his sights on Molly. Buffy gives the order for them to retreat but it's not soon enough to stop Caleb from stabbing and killing Molly. Xander stops to get Kennedy and walks right into Caleb. Observing that Xander's the one who can see everything, Caleb stabs his thumb into Xander's eye to effectively put an end to that. Spike tackles Caleb out of the way and then helps Buffy carry Xander out of the vineyard. Caleb narrates a story about Buffy as Buffy walks through the hospital past the beds of badly injured potentials and her best friend Xander and then at home, past the other Potentials tending to their wounds. Alone and distraught, Buffy walks through the empty streets as Caleb tells the First, in Buffy's form, about the good guy's destruction in the near future.
Writing and acting
Production details
Music
- Robert Duncan - "Something About Buffy"
Quotes and trivia
– Faith (to Buffy, about Spike): "You're protecting vampires? Are you the bad slayer now? [pause] Am I the good slayer now?"
- Nathan Fillion played Malcolm Reynolds in Joss Whedon's short lived space western Firefly.
- Xander's comment about Matthew Broderick killing a "big dumb lizard that was not the real Godzilla" refers to the American made film Godzilla, and how its treatment of the Godzilla character (later officially named "Zilla" by Toho Studios) was not well received by fans and its creators.
Continuity
Arc significance
- Crossover with Angel: Willow met Faith in Los Angeles in "Orpheus".
- This episode really sparks off the seriousness of what the potentials have to face in the up-coming and un-avoidable battle against the first evil. This episode also drastically begins the mistrust of Buffy as a leader by the potentials and even the Scoobies as a result of the outcome of the battle against Caleb at the vineyard.
Timing
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
| Location, time (if known) | Buffyverse: January 2003 - Spring 2003 (non-canon = italic) |
|---|---|
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.11 Showtime (Buffy episode)>Showtime |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.12 Potential (Buffy episode)>Potential |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.11 Soulless (Angel episode)>Soulless |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.13 The Killer in Me (Buffy episode)>The Killer in Me |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.14 First Date (Buffy episode)>First Date |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.12 Calvary (Angel episode)>Calvary |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.15 Get It Done (Buffy episode)>Get It Done |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.13 Salvage (Angel episode)>Salvage |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.16 Storyteller (Buffy episode)>Storyteller |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.14 Release (Angel episode)>Release |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.17 Lies My Parents Told Me (Buffy episode)>Lies My Parents Told Me |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.15 Orpheus (Angel episode)>Orpheus |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.18 Dirty Girls (Buffy episode)>Dirty Girls |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.16 Players (Angel episode)>Players |
| L.A., 2003 | Angel book: Nemesis (Angel novel)>Nemesis |
| L.A., 2003 | Angel book: Book of the Dead (Angel novel)>Book of the Dead |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.17 Inside Out (Angel episode)>Inside Out |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.18 Shiny Happy People (Angel episode)>Shiny Happy People |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.19 Empty Places (Buffy episode)>Empty Places |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.19 The Magic Bullet (Angel episode)>The Magic Bullet |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.20 Sacrifice (Angel episode)>Sacrifice |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.20 Touched (Buffy episode)>Touched |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.21 Peace Out (Angel episode)>Peace Out |
| L.A., 2003 | A4.22 Home (Angel episode)>Home |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.21 End of Days (Buffy episode)>End of Days |
| Sunnydale, 2003 | B7.22 Chosen (Buffy episode)>Chosen |
External links
| Buffyverse | ||
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| Places | L.A. | Sunnydale Bronze | Caritas | Hellmouth | Hyperion | Library | Magic Box | Pylea | Sunnydale High | |
| Music | Complete Tracklist | Use of Music in Buffy & Angel | Dingoes Ate My Baby | Film | | | Once More, With Feeling | |
| Key Terminology | "Demon" | "Slayer" | "Vampire" | "Watcher" | "Werewolf" | "Witch" "Child of Senior Partners" | Shanshu | Sunnydale Syndrome | Tro-Clon | |
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