Buffy The Vampire Slayer, "Go Fish" Review (2x20)

Brief Synopsis: "When several members of the Sunnydale High swim team are mysteriously skinned alive, Buffy and the Scoobies take it upon themselves to protect the remaining members, which results in Xander revealing a side of himself that is rarely seen.”


"I Only Have Eyes For You" (2x19) quick link here               "Becoming Part One & Two" (2x21 & 2x22) 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? 



• Before getting started with “Go Fish”, I want to wish each and every one of you reading this review a Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a fantastic time celebrating with your loved ones. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, I hope you’re having a wonderful December anyway. For those of you that are having a tough time at the moment, or that are celebrating Christmas alone, remember that life does get better. I know that the holiday season can be a really rough time for a lot of people...especially if you’ve recently lost someone. With the exception of the anniversary of his death, I know that I miss my best friend more over the Christmas period than I do at any other time of the year. Keep strong, stay safe, and remember that tough times don’t last, but tough people do. What is Christmas if not the season for hope and the celebration that life is a wonderful thing? Even if you can’t see it now, trust me, life’s a gift. With that out of the way, let’s dive into the episode, shall we?...

• For those of you that have read these reviews from the beginning, you’ll know that there have been a few episodes of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” that I love and appreciate more the older I get. Episodes like “Lie To Me” and “I Only Have Eyes For You” are examples of that. In my pre-teen and early teenage years, I didn’t particularly like those two episodes. However, like a fine wine (so I’m told, I’m not much of a wine kind of guy...gimme a shot of whisky any day!) these episodes have gotten so much better with age. “Go Fish” is the exact opposite of this type of episode. When I was a child, I adored this episode! Adored it! It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that I preferred this episode to almost any other episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”! Here I am at 24 years old, and I can find very little in this episode that jumps out at me as memorable. It’s cheesy, it’s camp, the ‘monsters-of-the-week’ aren’t overly memorable, and the story has some gaping plot holes. However, there are still some glimmers of brilliance in this episode. Most of which, shockingly, come from Xander and Cordelia.
• Cameron: “Beautiful...isn’t it?

BLEAUGH! So cheesy. I would be remiss in my duties as a man if I didn’t point out what an absolute douchebag Cameron is. He’s cheesy, manipulative, slimy...he’s exactly the type of guy that I hated when I was in school. Not only because he’s good looking, not only because he’s popular, but because for some reason he still gets the girls! What is that about?! That’s not rhetorical, I’m genuinely asking.

• This episode has a young Wentworth Miller playing Gage! Season two had so many guest stars that went on to be famous, or were really famous when they arrived on the show...Jason Behr, John Ritter, Wentworth Miller...it just goes to show how many people wanted to work on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” even in its early years before it was fully established as a show. I read that John Ritter requested to be a part of the show because he was so impressed with it! That’s high praise!
• Part of the reason why I don’t enjoy this episode so much as an adult is that I don’t understand the theme. What’s the mission statement for this episode? Why are we having it? Is it that authority figures in schools can’t always be trusted? That would be a questionable statement to send out into the world at best. Is it that athletes can be asshats? Doubtful. I just don’t get this episode.
• The sad thing about Snyder forcing (“suggesting”) Willow to change Gage’s grade is that I know stuff like this happens in schools in real life. A lot of the football (that’s ‘soccer’ to some of you) team at my school looked like they had trouble walking and breathing at the same time, yet they all conveniently had passing predicted grades...shenanigans are afoot. While we’re on the subject of Willow, it strikes me as highly unrealistic that she’d still be covering Jenny’s class so many weeks after Jenny’s death. Especially with finals coming up for the Scoobies!

• Cameron: “Are you wearing a bra?”

My favourite moment of this episode, without a doubt, is when Buffy slams Cameron’s face into the steering wheel of his car, breaking it. I’ve never been prouder of Buffy than I am in that moment. To quote a certain swim team member, “man, I love it when you guys mess with her.” Take that you chauvinistic pig. 

• Hello, Berta from “Two And A Half Men”. I always wondered what she did before cleaning Charlie’s house. School nurse seems fitting enough.
• Cordelia: “It's about time our school excelled at something.”
Willow: “Hmm. You're forgetting our high mortality rate.”
Xander: “We're number one!”
• Original Game Boy sighting! I miss the original Game Boy. Bless the ‘90s-ness of this show.

• Willow’s interrogation of Jonathan is a joy to watch. She also interrogates him in similar fashion during season three’s “Earshot”. Both times he’s innocent...with a twist. In this episode Jonathan isn’t the perpetrator of the swim team deaths, but he did pee in the pool (“Ewwww!”). In “Earshot”, Jonathan isn’t the person who intends to kill everyone at Sunnydale High, but he did intend to kill himself in the clock tower...OH GOD! I have to review that soon. I’m gonna be a puddle of manly tears. Also, if this isn’t foreshadowing to season four’s “Superstar”, I don’t know what is... “So, you delved into the black arts and conjured up a hellbeast from the ocean’s depths.”

• Xander, and his ridiculous Speedos, give us most of this episode’s amusing dialogue and exchanges.... 

Xander: “I’m undercover!”
Buffy: “You’re not under much.”
                                                             .................................... Willow: “When you’re nude?!...I meant to say changing....”

I would like everybody (after you’ve finished on my blog, of course) to go and watch the clip of Willow delivering this line, then come back and tell me that Willow isn’t the most adorable character in the history of television.

• Xander needs to brush up on his copy of ‘The Bro Code’.  You do not talk to other men in the sauna! Not ever. It’s an unwritten guy rule. Barney Stinson is so not impressed with you right now.
• Considering this originally aired in 1998, the visual effects of Gage shedding his skin are pretty spectacular.
• On top of the unclear theme of the episode, another reason why I can’t get into it too much is that nothing important seems to happen at all to any of the Scoobies. The closest we get to growth in this episode is when Cordelia thinks that Xander is a ‘fish monster’ and tells him that she’ll stay with him anyway. Awww, romance isn’t dead after all. This is coming from the same character that was repulsed by Xander just a few episodes ago.
• Another point to mention is that the placement of this episode feels weird to me. I understand the need to break up the season’s arc, but I feel like we’ve already reached that quota with “Phases”, “Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered”, and “Killed By Death”. This episode suffers because, frankly, very few people care about this story. We want to know what’s happening with Angelus, and Spike, and Drusilla! What’s Angelus planning now? This episode sometimes feels like an unwelcome distraction. I know I’ve complained about certain points of this episode a lot, but it isn’t without merit. A genuinely comedic episode is nice to see amongst all of the chaos of season two, I just wish that it took place earlier in the season. I think “I Only Have Eyes For You”, “Becoming Part One”, and “Becoming Part Two” would have been a much more satisfying run to end the season on.
• On the plus side, I thought that this episode did a terrific job of exploring the dangers of teenage steroid abuse, especially in relation to taking them to try and perform better in an athletic setting. While being a successful athlete in school does come with certain perks (popularity, preferential treatment, etc.), it also comes with a lot of responsibility and pressure. “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” sends this message out to the audience with the supernatural spin of the ‘fish monsters’. I also appreciate the fact that Coach Marin was so supportive of the students taking steroids so that they performed better. It’s a vicious cycle. The coach (and the students) want to be more successful, they turn to steroids to help give them an advantage, this comes with a ton of side-effects, but the steroids are helping the school achieve better results, so the cycle continues.
• How the hell did Coach Marin, a high school coach, get his hands on documents from the Soviet Union about experimenting with fish DNA? Are we really supposed to buy that? Unrealistic, thy name is “Go Fish”.
• I’m surprised that one of the ‘fish monsters’ never reappeared in a later episode. It would have been cool to see one in the Initiative cells in season four or something.
• Everybody grab some popcorn and some tissues...“Becoming Part One” and “Becoming Part Two” will be uploaded together on Boxing Day (December 26th) as a little Christmas treat for you all! See how nice I am to you all?


Quote Of The Episode

Buffy: “Any demons with high cholesterol? You’re gonna think about that later mister, and you’re gonna laugh.”



Honestly, there’s not a great deal of memorable dialogue in this episode. However, this line, and the look on Giles’ face as Buffy delivers it...I can’t, I just can’t...


FINAL SCORE: 3.5/10

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

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