Buffy the Vampire Slayer : The Dark Age

Season 2, Episode 8

Written by Dean Batali and Rob Des Hotel

Directed by Bruce Seth Green

Original Airdate: 10 November 1997

"Don't be sorry, be Giles. C'mon, we fight monsters. This is what we do. They show up, they scare us, I beat 'em up and they go away. This isn't any different!"
Buffy

REGULAR CAST

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
David Boreanaz as Angel
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

GUEST CAST

Robia LaMorte as Jenny Calendar
Robin Sachs as Ethan Rayne

CO-STARRING

Stuart McLean as Phillip Henry
Wendy Way as Deirdre Page
Michael Earl Reid as Custodian
Daniel Henry Murray as Creepy Cult Guy
Carlese Burke as Detective Winslow
Tony Sears as Morgue Attendant
John Bellucci as Man

SYNOPSIS

A man tries to get into the library to see Giles, but a demon woman shows up and strangles him to death. He falls to the floor, and she turns into a puddle of green slime. At school, Giles tells Buffy to meet him later at the hospital where there will be a blood delivery, which attracts vampires. When Giles gets back to the library, a detective is waiting for him - the dead man had Giles' address on him. Giles identifies the body as an old friend from London. The body has a tattoo on it, which Giles says he can't identify.

Shaken, Giles doesn't meet Buffy at the hospital, and she battles the doctor-dressed vampires alone until Angel shows up. She asks Angel to see that the blood gets to the hospital and goes to check on Giles. When Buffy goes to Giles' house to see what happened, he looks terribly drunk and sends her away. He calls another friend in London and finds out that she's dead, too. As he rolls up his sleeves, he reveals that he has the same tattoo as his dead friend. Meanwhile, the aforementioned friend, Phillip, comes back to life in the morgue, his eyes flashing, and he escapes with little effort.

On Saturday, Willow, Xander, and Cordelia meet with Jenny for a computer class. Buffy shows up to express her concern about Giles' behaviour. Cordelia mentions the police visit to the library, which slipped her Cordelia-centred mind. In the library, Buffy finds Ethan, the costume shop owner and Giles old friend who tried to kill her on Halloween. As she calls Giles, Ethan mentions the "Mark of Eyghon." Giles says she's in danger, and the dead Phillip enters the room.

A panicked Giles shows up and, after a scuffle which leaves Jenny unconscious, Phillip turns into the green goo. Some of it gets on Jenny and when she comes to, she seems normal, but her eyes flash unnoticed. Researching, Willow discovers the "Mark of Eyghon" in a book: Eyghon possesses the body of a dead or unconscious host. They figure out that he's jumped from Phillip's body to Jenny's. A possessed Jenny, looking and sounding like a demon, tries to seduce Giles at his apartment. When Buffy comes to the rescue, Jenny jumps out the window. Giles explains to Buffy that he ran with a bad crowd when he was young, and they used Eyghon as a temporary high, directing him in and out of each others' bodies.

One of the friends died, however, and now with Phillip's death, as well as others, it looks like they're all being taken out one by one. Buffy goes to the deserted costume shop to try to help Ethan but he knocks her out, ties her up and puts the mark of Eyghon on her. He then pours acid on his own tattoo so that Eyghon will take Buffy instead of him. Jenny enters, a complete demon, and Buffy breaks free. Angel enters suddenly and strangles Jenny and the spirit of Eyghon leaves her body and enters Angel's. Since he's really dead, the spirit passes through Angel, and Jenny's is returned to normal. In the confusion, Ethan has escaped.

The next day, Giles attempts to comfort Jenny, who seems scared of him due to his part in the events. Their relationship seems to be on hold for now.

TRIVIA

Robia LaMorte said at a convention that she didn't like playing evil-possessed Jenny Calendar in this episode, even though it was fun to be evil and sexy. Robia would say a similar thing in regards to her role in season three's Amends.

CONTINUITY

When Eyghon leaves Giles' apartment after first possessing Jenny, it says, "Be seeing you." The same line appeared on the card Ethan left at the end of Halloween. This probably means that Eyghon was the reason that Ethan came to Sunnydale this season. The phrase comes from the 60's British show The Prisoner.
Giles's lies in regards his magickal abilities from Witch, are revealed in this episode. He's a great deal more capable than it initially seemed.
Giles's apartment is first seen in this episode and appears throughout the series until season five's Forever.
Xander's Uncle Rory is first mentioned in this episode, and is mentioned several times until he's actually seen in Hell's Bells.

GOOFS

Willow says about the Mark of Eyghon that "any fool" could see that it predates Egyptian iconology. She's wrong, as the Etruscans lived in Italy around 750BC while the first Egyptian dynasty began over two thousand years earlier.
When Giles calls everyone involved with Eyghon, he crosses out Deirdre's name and puts his glasses down near the notebook. The camera zooms in on the list of names and the glasses are now on top of the notebook.
When Ethan uses sulphuric acid to burn the tattoo off his arm, steam comes off his skin before any liquid leaves the bottle.
Jenny/Eyghon pushes Buffy against a dresser with the table and Buffy falls to the floor. When Giles tells Buffy to leave, they show her standing up against the dresser as if she never fell.
Cordelia tells the others that she saw Giles in the library with the police talking about a homicide. But, she came in after the conversation and left before anything else could be said. How could she know what they were talking about?

When She Was Bad | Some Assembly Required | School Hard | Inca Mummy Girl | Reptile Boy

Killed by Death | I Only Have Eyes for You | Go Fish | Becoming (Part 1) | Becoming (Part 2)