The Harvest (Buffy episode)
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"The Harvest" is the second of a two-part series opener of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy learns of The Master's bloody plan from her new Watcher. See also List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes.
Plot synopsis
Summary
In this "part 2" episode, Buffy escapes from the vampire Luke, and returns the next day to find that Jesse was used as bait and turned into a vampire. Meanwhile Giles has discovered that the Harvest is a ritual in which The Master, a vampire trapped in the Hellmouth, can draw power from one of his minions to free himself. Buffy and her new friends find Luke, the chosen minion, at The Bronze and put a stop to the Master's plan.
Expanded overview
This episode picks up where the series premier left off. Luke is about to finish off Buffy, who is trapped in a stone coffin, but he is repelled by the silver cross that the dark stranger gave her.
Buffy escapes the mausoleum and saves Xander and Willow from vampires in the graveyard. Darla has taken Jesse, however. She and Luke inform The Master that there is probably a Slayer in town. The Master decides to use Jesse as bait.
Giles and Buffy give Xander and Willow a brief introduction to the world of vampires, demons and Slayers. Willow accesses the city council's plans for Sunnydale's tunnel system. In a flashback, Buffy realizes that there must be an access to it in the crypt. Xander is hurt when Buffy declines his help and follows her anyway.
Willow is researching the Master in the computer lab when Cordelia trash-talks about Buffy and insults Willow again. In a fine show of nerd revenge, Willow convinces Cordelia to press the DEL key to "deliver" her assignment. This erases Cordelia's hard work.
The dark stranger appears just as Buffy is about to enter the tunnel system in the crypt. He is named Angel. He gives her directions to The Master's lair, but only wishes her luck after she is out of earshot.
Xander catches up with Buffy. They meet Jesse, who leads them into a trap. They barely escape, with Xander pulling Buffy out of a manhole. Underground, the Master is unhappy about their escape and punishes the vampire Collin by poking his eye out. Luke drinks the Master's blood, making him the Vessel. All the blood Luke now sucks will give the Master more strength to break out of his confinement.
Buffy and Xander return to the library. Giles explains that the Master arrived 60 years ago to open the Hellmouth, a portal to another reality, but was swallowed by an earthquake. He is now hoping to escape with the help of a Vessel in a once-in-a-century opportunity called "The Harvest." To prevent the Master from escaping and opening the Hellmouth, they must kill the Vessel. Xander suggests that the vampires will be at The Bronze.
On her way there, Buffy swings by her house to get weapons, and is promptly grounded by her mother, who has been called by the principal about Buffy skipping classes. Buffy grabs her weapons from a secret compartment of a chest and climbs out of the second-floor window.
Luke and other vampires burst into the Bronze and start the killing. Buffy arrives in time to save Cordelia. She also notices the Vessel mark on Luke's forehead. Xander ends up staking Jesse with a fleeing man's unknowing help. Willow pours holy water on Darla when she is about to bite Giles. Buffy tricks Luke to win her fight. The other vampires flee. Outside the Bronze, Angel realizes that Buffy has done it. "I'll be damned," he says -- if only he knows how true it is.
The next morning, Cordelia exemplifies the denial most Sunnydale residents undergo after paranormal encounters. Giles warns the budding gang of more battles ahead, which they accept more nonchalantly than he would like.
Writing and acting
- The small, seemingly quiet town of Sunnydale is similar to the settings of many a horror movie.
- Buffy shows a tendency to give gory details about slaying in this episode while later she tends to be very reluctant to burden her friends with any aspect of her calling.
- The Master's assertion, "My soul is your soul," is not a continuity error. Giles explained earlier in the episode that a demon's soul exists in modern-day vampires. Also see "Living Conditions".
- That Jesse the vampire does not get to keep Cordelia is representative of the rank-of-file in real-life gangs.
Cast and crew
- David Boreanaz as Angel
- Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
- Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
- Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
- Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
- Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers
Production details
- Joss Whedon said on DVD that he had hoped to put actor Eric Balfour in the title credits to shock viewers when Jesse dies. This idea was eventually deemed too timely (having to develop alternative opening credits for use with just this one episode) and was dropped. However, he later did it for Angel.
- Only one school hallway was built in the first season.
- Certain scenes in the opener, such as the one between Giles and Buffy on top of the stairs in the library and when she first faced Angel in the alleyway, were re-shot eight months after the first episode was recorded. Whedon and Gellar decided to make her character less angry and more vulnerable.
- Some versions of this episode have a "previously" re-cap of the Part One's events at the beginning, others do not.
- Mercedes McNab (Harmony, one of Cordelia's group), originally auditioned for the part of Buffy.
- "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest" were released together as the original feature-length episode on September 15, 1998 as part of the first home video box-sets
Music
- Dashboard Prophets - "Ballad for dead friends"
- Dashboard Prophets - "Wearing me down"
- Sprung Monkey - "Right my wrong"
Translations
German title: "Die Zeit der Ernte" ("The Time of Harvest")
Goofs
In the scene in the graveyard where Buffy returns to rescue Xander, she is not wearing the cross pendant.
Quotes and trivia
Giles: "The Earth is doomed." ''He will make an even more definite statement in the series finale ("Chosen").
The word "Hellmouth" is first uttered in this episode. Angel spoke of a "mouth of hell" in the last episode. It also contains the first reference to the Old Ones in the Buffyverse.
Brian Thompson, who plays Luke, later played the Judge in "Surprise" and "Innocence".
According to the script, the Master's former name was Heinrich Joseph Nest.
Harmony Kendall is introduced.
After this episode, Jesse is never mentioned again despite being Xander's best friend.
Continuity
Arc significance
- By the end of this episode, the core four of what Xander will later call the Scooby Gang has been formed. Buffy the Slayer, Giles her Watcher, the tech-savvy Willow and the loyal Xander have met the first of many killers in Sunnydale.
- "The Harvest" fleshes out the characters that were left rather stereotyped in the first part. We are shown how Buffy, for all her talk about putting her life ahead of slaying, defies her principal and her mother to save mere acquaintances. This character trait will surface again and again, even when she has lost her memory as in "Tabula Rasa" or is reduced to Neanderthal intelligence in "Beer Bad".
- Willow and Xander are shown rising to the challenge of helping the Slayer: Xander goes with Buffy to try to save Jesse, Willow sticks up for Buffy against none other than her tormentress Cordelia in computer class, and both fight the vampires to the best of their abilities. Giles remains the most stereotyped character after the first two episodes and will stay that way until his history as "Ripper" is fully revealed in "The Dark Age".
- In this episode we learn from Giles that demons came before man, a theme about which we learn a lot more in Season Seven.
Timing
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
External links
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