ANNE

First televised September 29, 1998 (1ère diffusion en France le 9 octobre 1999 sur M6)
Guest Starring Kristine Sutherland (Joyce Summers), Julia Lee (Lily), Carlos Jacott (Ken), Mary-Pat Green, and Chod Todhunter; Written and Directed by Joss Whedon; Edited Regis B. Kimble
Intro: Xander, Willow, and Oz unsuccessfully battle Sunnydale vampires. They don't know where Buffy is. Tomorrow is the first day of school. Buffy dreams of being reunited with Angel; she wakes up in a crime-ridden slum apartment. Act 1: Buffy is working as a waitress under the name "Anne." She waits on young lovers Rickie and Lily. Lily thinks she recognizes Buffy. Giles is worried about the safety of Willow and friends fighting vampires. Cordelia asks Willow about Xander. Oz has to repeat his senior year. Xander and Cordelia talk awkwardly. Giles flies to Oakland, hoping to find Buffy. Buffy walks the streets and isapproached byLily,who usedtocall herselfChantarella ("Lie To Me" in season 2), the former vampire-worshiping cult membE
before that "Sister Sunshine"). Lily thanks Buffy for saving her. ("Anne" is Buffy's middle name.) Buffy pushes a bum out of the path of an oncoming truck and gets hurt herself.

Act 2: Buffy is okay and flees the scene. She runs into Ken (literally), who gives her a flyer for a runaway home. At the Bronze, Willow and Xander are depressed. Giles visits Joyce to tell her that Buffy wasn't in Oakland. Joyce blames Giles for Buffy's disappearance. Lily asks Buffy to help her find Rickie, who has disappeared. He hasn't been to the bloodcenter. Buffy and Lily split up to look. Buffy finds an old man,apparently dead, lying out on the street-it's Rickie (identified by a tattoo).

Act 3: Later, Buffy tells Lily that Rickie is dead, though she can't explain how the life got "drained out of him." Lily wonders if Buffy brought the strange occurrences with her. Ken finds Lily on the street-he says Rickie is at the Family Home. Buffy sneaks into the blood bank and discovers Rickie's file marked "candidate." A nurse admits she "gives them the names ofthe healthyones." As Ken leads Lily through "the cleansing," Buffy interrupts. Lily gets sucked into a black pool; Ken and Buffy follow. They're in an underground building. Ken is a monster; other monsters attack. Buffy and Lily find a huge factory; kids are being used as slave labor. Ken knocks out Buffy.

Act 4: Xander, Cordelia Willow, and Oz fight a vampire. Lily thinks she's in Hell-the total absence o hope. Buffy had wanted to disappear-she got her wish. On the way to work detail, Buffy leads a revolt. Buffy distracts the monsters while Lily leads the others to safety. Buffy fights lots of monsters. Lily pushes Ken off a ledge. Buffy finishes him off for good; the kids escape. Buffy gives Lily her apartment and job. Buffy returns home.

COMMENTS: This episode, pretty good in arid of itself, seems better because ofthe boldness of its being a season premiere.. It is similar to season two's opener, "When She Was Bad (also written and directed by Joss Whedon), in that a dark, grim tone dominates, proving that the show is more than what non-watching critics think-a silly high school/monster escapade. Obviously the producers are riot using season premieres as easy jumping-on points I - or new viewers, and this year the Nielsert ratings dropped oil' noticeably for the following episodes (perhaps new viewers tuned in and quickly tuned out).
The thematic subtext of "Anne" deals with identity, and Wheclon is clever about how he incorporates this into the episode. Bully has fled Sunnyclale to sonie unnamed city (whose identity is wisely onlitted, because it represents her state of mind and being, not a physical location-it is simply 7iol-St2nnydale) in an attempt to escape her problems, emotional turmoil (mainly the-supposed-death of'Angel), and fate, which of course is tied directly to her identity as the Slayer.
By switching her name to ANNE (Butfy's middle name) and her job to waitressing, she is attempting to carve out for herself a new identity. a new direction for her life. Deep down, does she think it will work? it's hard to say-her protestations to Lily seem a little too forceful, as if-by saving them loudly enough she will eventually convince herself. In any event, changing her name can no more alter her identity than Lily's constant name changes can alter hers-she was Sister Sunshine, then Chantarella, then Lily, and soon she will be Anne. Yet she still is "riot great at taking care of her self.-
The critical difference between Lily and Bully is that the latter I ias a core identity and mission, whereas Lily (foes not (or at least has not found if)-when Buffy asks what Lily is called at home, Lily remains silent. When Lily asks Buffy to help her find Rickic, she says, "That.'s who you are. You help people. You know how to do stuff." And later, when Buffy is in the monster's factory, a guard tells the kids, "Whatever you were does not matter. You are. no one now .... Who are you?" One boy gives his name and is struck down. Lily answers the question with, "No one." When the guard comes to Buffy, she smiles and says, "I'm Bufly. The vampire slayer. And you are-?"
On one hand the idea of Buffy's core identity gives her character a solid foundation (and as such a kind of freedom and psychological security), but there is a dark, deterministic undercurrent, as if she is trapped by fate and unable to chart her own course. Taken this way, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a kind of tragedy, at least until Bufly's desires and fate begin to match up. This does begin to happen slightly as the third season progresses; if the two ever totally coincide, the series will become a completely different entity from its early years.
Aside from the thematic concerns of the episode, Whedon brings some other interesting elements to the table. There is, for instance. a powerful scene in which Joyee Summers, Huffy's mom, tells Giles that she blames him for Buffy's disappearance. Anthony Head's performance here is quite good as Joyce's words sink in.
More striking, however, is Bufly's battle scene at the end, in which virtually single-handedly she has to face an army of monsters (and just what are those things, anyway?). Making such scenes interesting requires more than just filling a room full of people and having them throw fake punches-there should be a rhythm and flow to the proceedings.
Whedon-whom we've praised before for his visual flair on the episodes he's directed-shows once again how to rill the screen with more than interesting stories, but interesting images.
Whedon also includes an amusing visual joke during the teaser. In an incident that is practically a satire of his own show (not to mention every other TV show that includes wild battle scenes), Oz picks up a stake and throws it at the back of a fleeing vampire. The dramatic cliche would have the vampire impaled, but, consistent with Oz's character (he is. after all, a guitar player, not an athlete), the stake clanks harmlessly on a tombstone, getting nowhere near its target. "That really never works," notes Oz.
Despite the overall high quality of "Anne," it is not really an extraordinary episode, and certainly not among Wliedon's best.

The whole evil -evangelist routine is a tired cliche that we would not expect of' a writer of Whedon's caliber. The allegory is hardly subtle: religion, led by monsters wearing pleasant masks, grabs kids when they're young and confused, removes their individual identities and turns them into mindless drones, works them to death, and spits them back out old and used. Perhaps the story is not a commentary on religion as a whole. but only the weird, wacko cults, but if so the series needs to be more clear about exactly what role religion plays. In a show that regularly includes battles against demons and orations about the struggle against evil, its silence about religion creates a cosmology-namely metaphysical cosmology-that is exceedingly confused. It has been this way since the first episode. and the third season complicates things even more. In our conimentary for the pilot (Spectrum 13, reprinted in Spectrum Special Edition 3), we wrote:
This first episode also establishes a cosmology for The DuUy universe that inverts the traditional Judeo-Christian world of an original paradise that became corrupted. In Buffy there was no Eden. In
stead (as Giles explains in act 5), the world began as a place of evil ruled by demons. Man entered the scene later and conquered them .... [I]t appears to be merely a plot device for the episode and not some slight against traditional faith. Eventually, however, this alternate creation mythology should impact the characters and events in some salient way.
This still has not happened, as the stories generally veer away from such therries. Perhaps Whedon thinks the Buffy audience is not ready for a more complete explanation, but television certainly is. Tom Fontaria's bold work on Homicide a couple of years ago detailing Det. Frank Perribleton's struggle over his lapsed Catholicism ("God and I aren't on speaking terms right now," he says in the episode "Crosetti") shows that such topics can be addressed by quality writers, which Whedon certainly is. Buffy is coming up on its fourth season this fall. It's time for Whedon to start fleshirigout his metaphysical mythology-and in fact this season begins this process, especially in "Amends" and "Gingerbread."
That aside, the underground "Hell" ruled by monsters is interesting but could have used a bit rnore explanation. Who are they, and what are they doing down there? Perhaps Whedon intended it to work symbolically. representing Bufty's damaged psyche. but this seerns a stretch.
By the way. this episode bears a passing resemblance to "Hard Landing." the second-season premiere of La Fernme Nikita (airing in January 1998) in which Nikita escapes from Section One and tries to keep a low profile by working as a waitress.