Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode Guide
{{Previous episode | Next episode}}
Anne
Season 3, Episode 1 (#3ABB01)
Original aired September 29, 1998
Synopsis
Now living in the big city, Buffy helps a woman whose boyfriend has mysteriously disappeared, while back in Sunnydale her friends battle the forces of evil on their own.
Season two closed with Buffy leaving town, distraught over sending Angel to hell and expelled from Sunnydale Highschool. Season three opens three months later with a vampire clawing his way out of a grave to face ... Willow, with Oz and Xander backing her up. Though it's obvious they can't match Buffy for slaying power, they continue to try. Soon school starts again, and Cordelia joins them on patrol. Between the four of them, their success rate improves, but only slightly. Meanwhile, everyone remains worried about Buffy, each handling it in their own way. Giles follows up on even the barest leads to her location (to no avail), and Joyce waits anxiously at home for her return.
Buffy has rented a small studio in the big city and taken a job a waitress in a diner. Her name tag reads, "Anne" - her middle name. She lives her days like sleep walker, and her nights are filled with dreams about Angel. While taking an order for a teenage couple, Rickie and Lily, they ask "Anne" her opinion of their new matching tattoo's of each other's names. "It's nice... Nice and permanent." Lily thinks she recognizes "Anne" and begins to pry. Spooked, Buffy beats a hasty retreat, but Lily figures out who "Anne" really is. She tracks Buffy down, to thank Buffy for saving her life by breaking up the vampire worshipping cult she was a part of. As they're talking, a senile old man shoulders past them and wanders into the street. Buffy saves him from getting hit by a car but she herself gets hit instead. Uninjured by the accident and afraid of the crowd it attracts, she flees the scene, eventually running into Ken. He operates a local shelter and seems a decent, caring guy, trying to help the runaways and street kids all too common in any major city.
The next day Lily appears at the diner. Rickie has disappeared, and Lily needs help finding him. Buffy tries to blow her off, but Lily is lost and forlorn. "I don't know what to do." They split up, arranging to meet up later. Buffy ends up finding Rickie in a flop house, or more specifically she finds a very old dead man with the same tattoo as Rickie. When Buffy tells Lily, Lily refuses to believe her. Now, it's Lily's turn to run away. She soon meets up with Ken, who on hearing she knows Rickie, tricks her into coming with him to the shelter.
Buffy finds Lily there just in time to see Lily get sucked through a viscous black portal. She follows Lily through into alternate dimension, which looks like some kind of factory using forced labor. "Ken", now visibly a demon, tells them they're in "Hell" and time moves more quickly here - over 100 years to a day on earth - so they'll be old and gray before anyone misses them. Due to their meeting earlier, Ken thinks Buffy is just another runaway. This lets Buffy surprise some guards and organize an escape of her fellow new recruits (including Lily). She distracts a large portion of the guards with pain and mayhem, until Ken theatens to kill Lily. Buffy surrenders, but Ken underestimates Lily and mid-victory speech, she pushes him over a ledge to a very long fall. Buffy then pummels her captors, and her group finishes escaping. That dimension has obviously had enough of them: immediately after they escape, the portal closes behind them. Realizing she can't run from who she is, Buffy leaves her studio, her job, and her middle name to Lily, and returns home.
Written and Directed by Joss Whedon
Guest Stars
Quotes
- Buffy: This'll probably go faster if we split up.
Lily: (nods in agreement) Can I come with you?
- Buffy: Want to see my impression of Ghandi?
(Buffy introduces the bad guy to the business end of a spiked club)
Lily: Ghandi?
Buffy: Well, if he was really pissed off.
Addtional Notes
- While not the most quotable episode, it starts the season off in a solid and interesting manner. It also proves once again that getting your lover's name tattooed on you body is the death nell of any relationship.
- Lily first appeared as "Chantarelle/Joan" in "Lie To Me" in the second season . She appears again, as "Anne Steele" in "Blood Money" and "The Thin Dead Line", two episodes from the middle of the second season of Angel.
- The diner where Buffy works is called "Helen's Kitchen", reminiscent of "Hell's Kitchen" of Daredevil fame.
- As of this episode, the voice-over in the opening credits disappeares, never to return. It's music only from here on.
- Seth Green is part of the title sequence for the rest of this season.
- Look for the long tracking shot with no edits on the first day of school. Cool!
- At one point, Larry talks to friend about the Sunnydale High football team's great prospects - as long as there are fewer "mysterious deaths." These comments are echoed in the special award Buffy receives near the end of the season in "The Prom".
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode Guide
{{Previous episode | Next episode}}
Sources:
Booklet text from Buffy the Vampire Slayer:Season 3 (DVD)
www.imdb.com