"One Girl In All the World" Re-Watch: "What's My Line?" Parts 1 & 2

 Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The show's first proper two-parter introduces lots of things that will impact not just the season but the remainder of the series. This two-parter also helps the stage for the remainder of the second season. Let's get to it.

"What's My Line" Part 1

Buffy Summers: "I wish we could be regular kids."

Angel: "Yeah, I'll never be a kid."

Buffy Summers: "Okay, then a regular kid and her cradle-robbing, creature-of-the-night boyfriend."

After pilfering the book from the library, Spike reveals that along with some artifacts, he thinks he'll be able to bring Drusilla back to full strength. To keep Buffy out of the way, Spike hires the deadly assassins of the Order of Taraka to try to take her down. At the same time, Buffy is confronted by a young woman who's identity shocks the Slayer.

Finally...

"Buffy" doesn't do a ton of traditional two-parters. There is a season long arc where what happens in one episode impacts the next and so on. There are episodes that are basically two-parters like "This Year's Girl" and "Who Are You?" But a lot of them aren't titled like part 1 and part 2, where part 1 sets up what is resolved in part 2. These two episodes are very much like that and they also introduce lore that  is important to the series going forward. 

It feels like in all teen shows of the 1990's there was an episode that focused on a career fair and "Buffy" was no different. The Scooby Gang are filling out their aptitude tests with Buffy wondering what's the point of her even taking this test since she has this birthright that will either possibly get her killed before she is an adult. It seems like the man reason that she is even participating is because the career fair is the newest thing that Principal Snyder has decided to torture her with. To add insult to injury, when the results of the career fair are revealed, it turns out that Buffy's test matched her with law enforcement. 

The career fair also serves to finally bring Willow and Oz together. Yes, after multiple episodes of just misses and glances from Oz to Willow the two of them finally find themselves in the same room. They are both being wooed by a big shot software firm after taking their aptitude tests. It's so nice to finally see the two of them interact. Alyson Hannigan and Seth Green have great chemistry And you just know that you are maybe being introduced to your new favorite couple on the show.

Speaking of couples, we get some great Buffy/Angel material in this episode. I don't love Angel just creeping around Buffy's bedroom when she's not around, but I do love that he cuddles with Mister Gordo, her stuffed pig, while he is in there. We learn that Buffy went through a Dorothy Hamill phase complete with the haircut that leads the duo to break into an ice rink after hours to spend time together like a normal couple. I'm confused why they had to break in. Is the ice rink only open during the day? Does Angel just not want to interact with anyone? It's a cute date until one of the assassins from the Order of Taraka intrudes and goes after them. Buffy springs into action, saving Angel and killing the assassin with her ice skate.

I always enjoy when Buffy saves Angel. Let Angel be the damsel in distress. Buffy and Angel also enjoy a long make out session while Angel is still vamped out. It's Buffy's way of showing that his vampiric nature doesn't bother her. There's very little talk of Buffy just slitting the throat of a human dude. I guess it's no big deal because he was an assassin and was trying to kill her? It's a gray area here when it is OK to kill a human and when Buffy should be tortured about it.

The Order of Taraka is a group of assassin's that don't stop until they have their quarry and when Angel and Giles find out that they are coming after Buffy they are both extremely freaked out. According to them, Spike has pulled out the big guns in order to keep Buffy from interfering with his plans to bring Drusilla back to full strength. One thing that I don't think the show does a great job of is show us why the Order are so bad ass. Buffy takes down the first assassin relatively easily, so it doesn't make a ton of sense why she's so freaked out, wandering the streets of Sunnydale until she ends up in Angel's apartment.

We get the first appearance of Willy, a sort of seedy bar owner who works with the vampires of Sunnydale. Angel comes to see him to beat some information out of him to find out who sent the Order of Taraka after Buffy and to no one's surprise it is Spike. Angel is attacked by a young woman who snuck into Sunnydale in the cargo hold of an airplane. She leaves Angel locked in a cage in Willy's back room with an east facing window. The woman then heads to find Buffy and the two women fight until she reveals that she is Kendra the Vampire Slayer.

In this installment of "Xander is the worst," Xander spends most of the episode upset that he is a failure and that he will always be a failure. When he goes to Buffy's with Cordelia, he spends the entire time berating her and slut shaming her. He just sucks. When Cordy lets in the mealworm assassin disguised as the make up salesmen, I was hoping that he'd finally put Xander out of our misery.

Grade: B+

"What's My Line?" Part 2

Buffy Summers: "It's your lucky day, Spike."

Kendra: 'Two slayers."

Buffy Summers: "No waiting."

After learning that Kendra is a fellow vampire slayer, Buffy halts the fight and they go see Giles. It turns out when Buffy briefly died in the season one finale, Kendra was called. Willy turns Angel over to Spike because in order to return Drusilla to full strength, her sire must be sacrificed. Can Buffy and Kendra learn to work together to save Angel before its too late and stay one step ahead of the Order of Taraka?

Double trouble.

We officially meet Kendra the Vampire Slayer in this episode played by the ageless Bianca Lawson. If you watched teen dramas in the late '90's and early '00's, then you've seen Bianca Lawson. She was playing teenagers well into her early 30's on shows like "Pretty Little Liars" and "The Vampire Diaries." And it was believable. Lawson doesn't age. When I saw her on "PLL," I was like, that's Kendra and she's still a teenager and that makes sense to me.

A lot of this episode is focused on the differences between Kendra and Buffy when it comes to vampire slaying. Kendra is the textbook vampire slayer. In fact, she has closely followed the Slayer handbook, which apparently Giles tossed out the window when he me met Buffy. Kendra points out all the things Buffy is supposedly doing "wrong." She has let people in on her secret identity. She's concerned about having a social life. She's not reading Giles's stuffy books. Her parents didn't give her to Giles when she was born so she could only focus on her training. She's dating a vampire. OK, well maybe that last thing she's right about.

But jokes on you, Kendra! Those differences that you are trying to shame Buffy about are what make her a great Slayer! And she can talk to boys unlike Kendra, so there. I'm just joking. Yes, this is a pretty predictable way to deal with the two Slayers, but it is entertaining to watch Buffy and Kendra meet and butt heads and come to understand each other throughout the course of the episode. It's great to watch them team up and go rough up Willy with Buffy being the good cop. Or during the final battle, it is great to watch them be in sync and switch up opponents midway through. It is nice when they part and Kendra sort of affirms that Buffy is doing what she is meant to do. But no hugs.

Willy turns Angel over to Spike because Angel is the missing component of the spell to restore Drusilla. While they wait to take Angel to the church where they will perform the rite, Spike allows Drusilla to torture Angel with holy water. The entire time Drusilla reminds Angel of all the awful things that Angel did to her and her family before he turned her. It's easy to see Angel as this brooding, soft boy but he was a vicious vampire and while torture is no bueno, he maybe has it coming? And it's good to remind the audience that Angel has down awful things that there may be no atoning for. We see glimpses of Angelus when Angel is trying to goad Spike in to killing him to save Buffy. He's talking about how Spike isn't satisfying Dru with a lot of coded sex talk and it made me feel a little icky.

The Order is still a thorn in Buffy's side. A female assassin disguises herself as a police officer and goes after Buffy during career day. She starts shooting into the crowd of students. I have to remind myself that this episode came out pre-Columbine, when school shootings weren't as common as they are today. So, watching this episode again, definitely made my stomach churn which is what happens anytime I see gun violence in school in television now. Oz gets shot in the arm saving Willow.

We get a great final action sequence with Buffy again being the Tuxedo Mask to Angel's Sailor Moon. There are some fun moments like when Buffy beans Spike in the head with an incense burner. The church starts to burn down so the Scoobies have to make their escape. If you thought that was the end of Spike and Dru, well you clearly haven't watched television before. A renewed Drusilla shows up at the end of the episode to retrieve Spike's battered and unconscious body from the ruins of the church. This sets up a new dynamic with a strong Drusilla taking center stage and it will be interested to see where that goes.

We get the beginnings of Xander and Cordelia's relationship in this episode. They do the whole yelling and disdainful thing and then start making out. I don't love this trope and I don't love this storyline. I'm just warning y'all now. They decide they aren't going to continue this, but of course, are making out in a classroom by episode's end. In better new relationship news, Willow and Oz continue to be freaking adorable. Willow thanking Oz for saving her and Oz doing cute voices for animal crackers. This I do love.

Grade: A-

Next up, Buffy is not a fan of Joyce's new boyfriend and there is something wrong with the eggs that the kids of Sunnydale High are using to simulate child rearing.

What do you think of these two episodes? Are you a fan o Kendra? Are you excited to see a stronger, more bad ass Drusilla? What relationship do you prefer: Buffy and Angel, Oz and Willow or Cordelia and Xander? Let me know in the comments.