Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 2, Episode 9 Review: What's My Line, Part 1

What’s My Line, Part 1
Original Airdate: November 17, 1997
Writer: Marti Noxon and Howard Gordon
Director: David Solomon

As the season tackles largely with Buffy’s dream to live a normal life, it’s fitting that they devote two episodes to where Buffy’s future will take her. With Sunnydale High in the midst of “Career Week”, Buffy has to deal with the fact that even if she makes it to adulthood (an idea her friends politely left out), her career was decided when she became the slayer. Anything she does will have to relate to slaying, like Giles can be a librarian and watcher. Unfortunately, law enforcement, the field most connected to slaying, doesn’t appeal to her at all.

There is an emphasis on Buffy’s isolation, with her mother being out of town and moments like the shot of Buffy’s reflection where Angel can’t appear or the scene where Buffy and Giles talk between the huge stacks of books. Even Angel’s sweet gesture to take her skating goes awry when her slaying duties take priority.

Unlike Buffy, Willow’s future has many options because of her academic record. As Marti Noxon points out in the DVD commentary, the burgeoning computer world (it’s easy to forget this was before Windows 98) was a timely place for her prosperity to take her, not to mention she is able to do things on ten-year-old computers that modern machines can’t. This piece isn’t so important for now, but sets up the stage for when they approach graduation.

Xander on the other hand, doesn’t have much ambition, as the career paths he has are unfortunate. Like Willow’s story, this serves more to establish where Xander will head towards graduation and the future.

This episode shows the first instances of Oz interacting directly with the group. Even though the computer subplot is quickly forgotten, it lets Willow and Oz have their first conversation. Plus Buffy pining him to the wall, suspecting he is one of the people sent to kill her, made a memorable first meeting.

The book Spike’s minion stole in “Lie to Me” becomes more important than initially believed. It turns out this book contains the piece that will cure Drusilla’s sickness. Of course, if they could read it properly, then Buffy would be helpless to stop it. However, the need for them to decode the ancient text (I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as archaic Latin) and to keep Buffy from foiling them propels the main plot.

With assassins (bounty hunters really isn’t the most applicable term here) out for her, it’s expected that Buffy would be a little paranoid, even when passing by innocuous people like obnoxious door slammer and inopportune hair comber. As the slayer, this is the type of fear she would likely experience all the time, but it’s fitting at this time when Buffy is feeling restless about her chosen one position.

While many cults and groups on “Buffy” have some ideological motivation, The Order of Taraka are contract killers who will focus on nothing but destroying their target. It’s a clever move not to show us all three of the assassins in one episode. With one unknown, it revs up the suspense for the next episode, when one will reveal him or herself.

It isn’t clear why Bug Man heads toward Buffy’s house when he had no confirmation of her being there. It is possible that they left out a scene where it confirms he had no idea what she looked like and confused Cordelia with her, but why would they cut out that piece? Having Xander and Cordelia seek shelter in the basement gives them a space for them to deal with the rising tension in their dynamic, similar to the classic trapped in a room sitcom device.

From her introduction after Biker guy and Bug guy to her following Buffy and Angel and later attacking them, there’s great misdirection leading us to believe Kendra is one of the three assassins out to get Buffy. It would seem fitting to have a diverse group of hitmen include someone Buffy’s age, which in a way has the twist staring the viewer in the face but still unaware.

The twist where Kendra reveals herself to be a slayer marks the payoff to what happened in “Prophesy Girl”. Buffy died, albeit briefly, but even a short death allowed Kendra to be called in her place. It is an interesting repercussion, one that has consequences throughout the series. Kendra is, as we’ll see, an effective reference point to Buffy’s current status.

It’s a little odd that Drusilla’s tarot cards happen to match with what Spike and his crew are out to accomplish. However, we do know Drusilla has some degree of clairvoyance, and that is likely scrambled because of her insanity. Clearly the fallen angel tarot card symbolizes Angel. With the guilt we learned Angel had towards making Drusilla the monster she is, being a part of something to heal her would intensify said guilt. Of course, they better get moving with the sunshine ready to permeate through that cage.

This first part effectively throws most of our heroes, besides Giles and Willow, in some form of high stakes peril. After spending most of the episode dealing with the lonesome life of slayerdom, Buffy suddenly learns there is another. This episode contains some moments that set up turning points in the season, as well as things that become more important down the road.

Overall Score: 8/10