Buffy The Vampire Slayer, “Some Assembly Required" Review (2x02)

Brief Synopsis: “The bodies of several recently deceased teenage girls are stolen from their graves, and most of the parts are discovered in a dumpster on school grounds. From the missing pieces, the gang deduces that someone has collected almost enough parts to build their own girl. Now, all they need is a head, and it has to be fresh.”

"When She Was Bad" (2x01) quick link here                                                                                      "School Hard" (2x03) quick link here


Two quick notes before we get started...

1)    I will be reviewing the episodes in bullet point form. This is because it makes the reviews simple to read, and helps break up the text.
2)    If you are watching the show for the first time along with these reviews, please be warned that there may be a few spoilers for things that haven’t happened yet.

With that being said, let’s get started, shall we?



•    This episode is a zombie version of “Blind Date”. Daryl, a Frankenstein’s Monster-type creature, has to choose which head he wants his zombie bride to have. Who said that romance is dead?
•    I’m not the biggest fan of this episode. While I’m not bored through parts of it like I am with “I Robot...You Jane”, there isn’t a great deal that holds my interest. I find myself drawn to the side stories of this episode rather than the main plot. Giles and Jenny’s blossoming relationship is the highlight for me. Whilst I appreciate what this episode is trying to say, and I admire the fact that “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” has an episode about body image, I find the idea behind it a little too disturbing. I don’t think an episode that involves chopping up dead girls to create the ‘perfect woman’ is the way to go in raising awareness for this issue.
•    When this episode started, I was under the assumption that this episode was going to be about two high school students trying to create the ‘perfect girlfriend’...wait, what? What? WHAT?! Why is there a sewn-up-face-man in the basement?!...
•    When Daryl stepped out of the shadows and into the episode, everything changed. Suddenly the episode had some emotional complexity due to Daryl’s loneliness. I’ve always felt like Eric is the villain of this episode, not Daryl. We’ve already seen in season one’s “Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight” what loneliness can do to someone. Loneliness leads to isolation. As Angel says later in this season, “Loneliness is about the scariest thing there is.” When you really get down to the essence of the episode, Daryl isn’t a bad guy. The only thing you can blame him for is allowing Eric to harvest a live human head. Daryl wanted a girlfriend for no other reason than to have some company and to not be the only ‘freak’ anymore. I can’t blame him for that! Daryl is just lonely. 

•    Angel is having insecurities about Buffy and Xander after Buffy’s sexy dance with Xander in the last episode, “When She Was Bad”. I can understand his insecurities here, as Buffy was intentionally trying to make Angel jealous in the last episode. The problem here is that it comes across as really angsty and whiny, which it shouldn’t. In scenes like this, Spike is right...Angel really is just a fluffy puppy. I think the biggest problem is that the show hadn’t figured out Angel’s character yet. For example, if this scene had taken place in Angel season one, it would have come across much differently. Luckily, Angel’s character becomes much more interesting this season after he turns evil. Even after he has his soul returned (again), his character is vastly improved. David’s acting is also a much higher quality this season, especially after he becomes Angelus.
•    To the readers amongst you from the United States...are open graves with coffins inside a common occurrence in America? Seems like a health hazard to me (see Buffy’s spectacular fall for reference).
•    Giles practising asking out Jenny by talking to an empty chair, and his embarrassment and nervousness that follows is a thing of beauty. Why does this type of thing not happen more often?! Giles being an insecure mess is always a treat...
•    Giles: “So what I’m proposing...and I don’t mean to appear indecorous...is a social engagement. A date, if you will. If you’re amenable...idiot!”
Buffy: “Boy, I guess we just never realised how much you liked that chair.”
                                                          ...........................
Xander: “Now, is it time for us to talk about the facts of life?”
Giles: “I am suddenly deciding that this is none of your business.”
Xander: “’Cause that whole stork thing is a smokescreen...”

I love it when roles get reversed like that. For the past 14 episodes Giles has been the font of all knowledge. He knows everything; he usually figures it all out...he’s the father figure. However, Giles sucks when it comes to dating and hitting on women at this point. There’s finally something that the Scoobies are on equal ground with when it comes to Giles. Also, Giles should never take dating advice from the Sunnydale High version of Xander. Xander is arguably the worst person that we’ve seen at Sunnydale High when it comes to talking to women. Even Jonathan gets a date with Cordelia in “Reptile Boy”!

•    I adore Giles and Jenny together. I think it’s a travesty that they had so little time to be a couple.  Think about it. They have about six episodes together, then take a break after “The Dark Age”. They get back together in “Ted”, then take another break in “Innocence” until just before Jenny’s death in “Passion”. That’s a total of NINE EPISODES TOGETHER!
•    Angelo Spizzirri, the actor who played Chris Epps in this episode, tragically died in 2007 at 32 years old. Rest in peace.
•    I have an unpopular opinion. I slightly prefer “Angel” to Buffy The Vampire Slayer”. I can appreciate that Buffy is a slightly better show, but I prefer the dynamic and the darker tone of Angel. With that being said, hello Angel and Cordelia interaction! This is the first episode where there is a lot of interaction between the two of them. It’s so alien to come back to this point in time where Angel and Cordelia barely know each other! Once both characters move to Los Angeles, they become such close friends. In my eyes they’re every bit as close as Buffy and Xander or Buffy and Willow. Their friendship is one of the most natural, beautiful, well constructed things that “Angel” ever did.

•    Chris and Daryl’s mother breaks my heart. This particular part of this episode resonates with me so much on a personal level. It’s no secret that I lost my best friend just before I turned 18 years old. By the time he passed I’d become very close with his family, and considered them a second family. After his death, his mother just gave up on life, much like Daryl’s mother in this episode. This ultimately ended with her committing suicide a year later. I think that might be one of the reasons why I don’t like this episode so much. Half of the story doesn’t hold my interest a great deal and the other half brings up far too many real memories for me.
•    Xander: “People don’t fall in love with what’s right in front of them. People want the dream, what they can’t have. The more unattainable, the more attractive.” 

Xander is more intelligent than he gets credit for. I like the parallel between Daryl and Xander. Xander knows by this point that he can never have Buffy, but he wants her anyway. He knows that even if she liked him back it would inevitably end in sadness because she’s the Slayer and will almost definitely die young, but he wants to date her nonetheless.

•    If Giles had taken Buffy’s advice and asked Jenny to bless his laptop, I may have died from laughing. Literally.
•    Xander: “For the love of God, can somebody scratch my nose?!”
•    Eric is what makes this episode a little better for me than the likes of “Reptile Boy” and “Doublemeat Palace”. Eric is one of the very first instances of the show heading into a grey-area. Eric is human, but evil. The show is starting to setup the premise that not all monsters are evil, and not all humans are wonderful and good. Could you imagine how boring the show would be if it was always the monsters being bad and the humans being good? It would get old very quickly. Eric has no problem kidnapping a high school student. He has no problem with killing a live human female. It was certainly an interesting change of pace for the show to create a one-episode human character that was a budding psychopath.
•    Charisma’s screams of horror at seeing the body of Daryl’s girlfriend are a wonder to behold. Seriously talented screamer!
•    Another thing that this episode does well is that it constantly reminds the audience that even the idea of viewing females as nothing more than parts is very wrong. If this point was handled with less care, the episode would have been an utter disaster.

•    Considering this is the late ‘90s, the make-up and prosthetics for Daryl aren’t that bad. They’re certainly more believable than some of the costumes this season (I’m looking at you giant-penis-costume, “Machida”, and you, terribly unconvincing werewolf costume).
•    Since starting these reviews, I’ve noticed that the better the episode is, the more I have to say. Episodes like “Prophecy Girl”, I could write about for pages and pages, whereas this episode leaves me struggling for interesting things to talk about. Where’s the emotional complexity for any of the main characters?! This episode does a wonderful job with Daryl and Chris Epps, but it doesn’t do anything for the characters we’ve grown to care about. While “Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight” was also about loneliness, it also held character development for Cordelia and Buffy. This episode does not.
•    One thing that strikes me about this episode is how depressing it is! If it wasn’t for Giles and Jenny, this episode would be nothing but misery. Like I mentioned before, the problem is that this misery doesn’t relate to any of the main characters. Then we get to the heart of the episode...Daryl choosing to die rather than continue to be alone. That is so sad that you just want to hug a pillow and rock in a corner forever...I know that I over-empathise with characters going through depression or feelings of loneliness because I was there for so many years myself. Where’s Doug Sanders when you need him? (Shangel note: Give yourself 100 points if you get that Angel reference).

•    My favourite part of this episode (except the hilarious Giles-talking-to-a-chair part) is Xander and Willow wondering why they can never find love, then Cordelia comes over to be nice (revel in that character development for a moment) to Xander, and Xander blows her off completely. I just adore that moment. Firstly, we get adorable Xander-Willow interaction, which I can never get enough of. Secondly, Xander is so oblivious to how females work that it makes me chuckle incessantly. Perhaps you can never find love because the person who is perfect for you is sitting right next to you and is your best friend?! Seriously, back in the high school era of the show,  I thought Xander and Willow would have been great together!...until I saw how badly the show handled their fling in season three. Then I realised that I’d rather keep them as just friends because their friendship is beautiful and I didn’t want it ruined.
•    The introduction of Cordelia into the Scooby Gang was really well done. I know that she’s still not technically a part of it yet, but you can see that the ground work has already been laid for her to join very soon. What made it realistic to me is that Cordelia slowly became less bitchy and more compassionate. It wasn’t rushed. If she had come back in season two after finding out that vampires are real and was suddenly nice, it would have been a disservice to the character that we’d met in season one.
•    Angel: “He gets to see you in the sunlight.”

This is something that is going to become the Kryptonite to Buffy and Angel’s relationship. Buffy is a human (well, super-human), and Angel is a vampire. They can never work together properly as a couple. They can never go out into the daylight together (I know they do in “I Will Remember You”, but that was special circumstances). Buffy will age and die, whereas Angel, in theory, will live forever. I can never see Buffy and Angel (or Buffy and Spike) working in the long-run unless Buffy becomes a vampire with a soul, or Angel Shanshu’s.
•    To conclude, this episode is a mixed-bag for me. On the one hand, you have Giles and Jenny’s hilarity, and the wonderful characterisation of Chris and Daryl Epps. On the other hand, there is very little substance to this episode outside of the Epps brothers.  I just find myself uninterested in the plot itself.


Quote Of The Episode

Giles: “I just think it's rather odd that a nation that prides itself on its virility should feel compelled to strap on forty pounds of protective gear just in order to play rugby.”

I’m English (“welcome to the nancy tribe”), and I beamed with affectionate love for Giles when he said this.



FINAL SCORE: 5/10



So what are your thoughts on "Some Assembly Required"? Did you enjoy this episode? Dislike it? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments section below!