Helpless (Buffy episode)
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"Helpless" is the twelfth episode of season 3 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. See also List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes.
Plot synopsis
Summary
Buffy feels weak and is unable to carry out her duties as a slayer. When she goes to Giles for help he seems distracted. This is because he is, on the orders of the Watcher's Council, preparing her for the Cruciamentum, a test the Watchers put every slayer through on her eighteenth birthday. She must be weakened and left alone to beat a vampire, to test her resourcefulness. When the vampire escapes before the test can start Giles reveals the test to Buffy who still goes to fight the vampire as he has kidnapped her mother. In defiance of the Council Giles goes to help Buffy, but she has already killed the vampire. She passes the test but Giles is dismissed from his job as Watcher for being too close to his slayer.
Expanded overview
Buffy and Angel go a few rounds of fighting until Buffy pins him and holds a breadstick to his heart. They talk, and Buffy reveals her plans to go to an ice show with her father for her 18th birthday. That night in the library, Giles is quizzing her on stones and having her concentrate on staring at them. Later, while on patrol, she's nearly staked by a vampire with her own stake when her powers suddenly stop playing to her advantage.
Buffy's worried about her powers, and talks to Giles about it while trying to throw knives at a target but missing terribly. Meanwhile, Quentin Travers, the head Watcher, is setting up a "test" for the Slayer, assisted by two men named Hobson and Blair. She is to be locked up in a building, without any powers and defeat a powerful and insane vampire--Zachary Kralick. Giles meets with the head Watcher, and tries to convince him to stop the test, but it does no good. At home, Buffy is disappointed to find that her Father can't come and take her to the ice show for her birthday. While she tries to get Giles to take her to the ice show, Giles has Buffy stare into a rock where she then falls into a trance and he injects her with a muscle relaxant to take her Slayer powers away temporarily.
After Cordelia saves the day where Buffy was supposed to, Buffy really begins to worry and enlists the help of her friends to figure out what's wrong. Buffy visits Angel and he gives her a book for her birthday. She tries to sound enthusiastic about it, but losing her powers has really begun to bother her. He tells her about how he saw her before she was the Slayer and how he loved her from the second he first saw her. Kralick has the chance to break out of his strait jacket while Blair is getting his pills and water. He then turns Blair into a vampire and when he wakes up, Kralick is completely freed from his restraints.
Giles goes to find Quentin at the Sunnydale Arms building, but instead finds Kralick free and Hobson dead. Buffy, walking home alone is first confronted by two men looking for a lap dance and then Kralick. Blair chases her until Giles drives by and picks her up. At the Summers' home, Joyce hears a noise out front and goes to check it out where she then finds Kralick wrapped up in Buffy's jacket. Giles tells Buffy everything that he did, and everything about the rite of passage. Buffy is very angry and tells him she doesn't know him anymore--that he should stay away from her or she'll kill him. Cordelia shows up and drives Buffy home where she then finds a picture of her mother in the hands of Kralick.
Buffy goes to the Arms building, beats Blair into unconsciousness and then is chased by Kralick until his need for his pills becomes unbearable. Buffy steals them away, and slides down a laundry chute where she finds her mother tied up. Kralick breaks through the door looking for his pills and water. After he downs the water, he's surprised to find out that Buffy replaced his regular water with holy water. After he explodes, Buffy tries to free her mother, then Giles shows up and stakes Blair before he can hurt anyone.
Back at the library, Quentin congratulates Buffy on her accomplishment, and then Buffy tells Quentin that he better be gone by the time she gets her powers back. Quentin tells Giles that he's fired because he's grown too close with the Slayer--his relationship with her is as more of a Father than a Watcher. The next day, Buffy celebrates her birthday with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and her close friends. When Buffy, minus her strength, can't open the peanut butter jar, Xander offers to help, but he can't do it either.
Writing and acting
Production details
This story had the working title "18" as it is set around Buffy's eighteenth birthday.Music
- Christophe Beck - "A Father's Love"
- Christophe Beck - "Betrayal"
- Christophe Beck - "Kraliks House"
Quotes and trivia
Buffy is disappointed by both of her father figures in this episode - her father does not follow through on their tradition of attending the ice show, and Giles betrays her trust.
The book Angel gives to Buffy for her birthday is 'Sonnets From the Portuguese', by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Continuity
Arc significance
- Giles reveals his now parental feelings towards Buffy.
- Giles being fired from the Council makes way for Buffy's own rebellion towards the Council and her decision to operate outside their authority. The separation of Council and Slayer - and Giles' own situation with the Council - will not be solved until "Checkpoint".
Timing
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
| Location, time (if known) | Buffyverse chronology: January 1999 - Spring 1999 (non-canon = italic) |
|---|---|
| Sunnydale, 1999 | Buffy graphic novel: Uninvited Guests (Buffy comic)>Uninvited Guests |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | Buffy comic: The Final Cut (Buffy comic)>The Final Cut |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | Buffy graphic novel: Bad Blood (Buffy comic)>Bad Blood |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | B3.11 Gingerbread (Buffy episode)>Gingerbread |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | Buffy comic: Food Chain (Buffy comic)#Bad Dog>Bad Dog (by Doug Petrie) |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | Buffy graphic novel: Crash Test Demons (Buffy comic)>Crash Test Demons |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | Buffy graphic novel: Pale Reflections (Buffy comic)>Pale Reflections |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | B3.12 Helpless (Buffy episode)>Helpless |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | B3.13 The Zeppo (Buffy episode)>The Zeppo |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | B3.14 Bad Girls (Buffy episode)>Bad Girls |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | B3.15 Consequences (Buffy episode)>Consequences |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | B3.16 Doppelgängland (Buffy episode)>Doppelgängland |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | Buffy book: Doomsday Deck (Buffy novel)>Doomsday Deck |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | Buffy book: Immortal (Buffy novel)>Immortal |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | B3.17 Enemies (Buffy episode)>Enemies |
| Sunnydale, 1999 | Buffy graphic novel: |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: Prime Evil (Buffy novel)>Prime Evil |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: Revenant (Buffy novel)>Revenant |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | B3.18 Earshot (Buffy episode)>Earshot |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | B3.19 Choices (Buffy episode)>Choices |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: Power of Persuasion (Buffy novel)>Power of Persuasion |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | B3.20 The Prom (Buffy episode)>The Prom |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: Resurrecting Ravana (Buffy novel)>Resurrecting Ravana |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy books: The Gatekeeper (Buffy novel)>The Gatekeeper [Trilogy] |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: Return to Chaos (Buffy novel)>Return to Chaos |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: Visitors (Buffy novel)>Visitors |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: Unnatural Selection (Buffy novel)>Unnatural Selection |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: Obsidian Fate (Buffy novel)>Obsidian Fate |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: Deep Water (Buffy novel)>Deep Water |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: Here Be Monsters (Buffy novel)>Here Be Monsters |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy book: The Book of Fours (Buffy novel)>The Book of Fours |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | B3.21 Graduation Day, Part One (Buffy episode)>Graduation Day, Part One |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | B3.22 Graduation Day, Part Two (Buffy episode)>Graduation Day, Part Two |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Sunnydale High Yearbook (Buffyverse)>Sunnydale High Yearbook |
| Sunnydale, spring, 1999 | Buffy comic: Food Chain (Buffy comic)#Double Cross>Double Cross |
External links
Reviews
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