The Freshman

"The Freshman" is the first episode of season 4 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. While Willow blossoms in the college environment, Buffy has a difficult time adjusting and her Slaying suffers because of it.

Plot

Episode one of season four marks the first year of college for Buffy and the Scoobies where they attend the fictional U.C. Sunnydale campus.

The episode opens with Buffy and Willow on patrol in the cemetery discussing which classes Buffy should take for her first semester at college. They are so engrossed with this that they don't notice when the vampire they are waiting to awaken quietly slips away when he sees they are carrying an arsenal of vampire killing gear.

The day before classes shows Buffy being handed flyers by the various campus groups, frats, and general student protesters. Buffy meets up with Willow and Oz and reveals that she feels overwhelmed by the new experience and disoriented. Willow, on the other hand, is very excited by the new surroundings, and Oz is not fazed and even seems to know several people that walk by.

Buffy and Willow tour the library. During the trip they reveal that Giles is now "a gentleman of leisure" (since the Sunnydale High School library has been destroyed) and that Xander left Sunnydale for the summer to go on a cross country trip.

Buffy and Willow go to the campus bookstore for supplies. When Buffy tries to get the "Intro to Psychology" texts, she knocks them off the shelf onto the head of Riley Finn. (This is Riley's first appearance in the series.) Riley introduces himself as a TA for Professor Walsh's Psych 105 "Intro to Psychology" class.

Buffy arrives at her new dorm room in Stevenson Hall. She has already moved in, and her new roommate Kathy is in the process of doing so. Kathy tells Buffy that she can tell that she is cool and thinks the upcoming year will be "super fun". As she says this to Buffy she hangs a poster of Céline Dion, much to Buffy's chagrin. During the night Buffy has trouble sleeping because Kathy snores, laughs, and smacks her lips in her sleep.

The first day of classes, Buffy gets humiliated in front and ejected from a class by a professor when she tries to find out if there is still room to sign up for it. With Willow and Oz, she attends Psych 105 taught by Professor Maggie Walsh and her TA Riley Finn.

That night she meets another freshman student named Eddie; they are both lost. Buffy and Eddie discuss their need of a "security blanket" in their unfamiliar surroundings. Eddie tells Buffy that his security blanket is the novel Of Human Bondage, which he has read ten times and keeps by his bed. Buffy and Eddie then go separate ways and Eddie runs into a group of vampires. The vampires kill Eddie and turn him in to a fellow creature of the night. They also go to his dorm room, steal all of his belongings and leave a fake note supposedly signed by Eddie saying that he couldn't handle school and he had to leave.

The next day Buffy looks for Eddie in psych class but does not see him. She goes to his dorm room to find the note and empty room. She notices that the novel Of Human Bondage is still in his nightstand. She knows that he would not leave that behind and suspects something is wrong.

Buffy visits Giles to find a half-dressed female visitor at his flat and David Bowie's "Memory of a Free Festival" playing in the background. The woman is Olivia visiting Giles (she refers to Giles as "Ripper" at one point). Buffy tells Giles of the mysterious disappearance and Giles is reluctant to help. Buffy tries to remind him that he used to be her Watcher, but he responds by telling her that officially she no longer has a Watcher and that while he will always be there for her, he feels she is old enough and experienced enough to handle it herself.

That night, Buffy runs into Eddie in a deserted part of campus. Eddie tries to attack Buffy and she stakes him without trouble. The group of vampires that turned Eddie are watching, though, and the leader of the group, named Sunday, attacks Buffy. Buffy is soundly thrashed by Sunday while the others watch. Her confidence shattered and arm sprained, she runs.

Buffy is shaken by the fight and goes home the next day for some comfort from Mom and familiar surroundings. She finds her mother surprised to see her home so soon and has converted Buffy's room to storage space for her gallery.

When Buffy returns to her dorm room, she finds all of her belongings missing and a note similar to that found in Eddie's room. Buffy goes to the Bronze and mopes around, feeling even worse when she sees a man who reminds her of Angel. However she gets a pleasant and welcome surprise when she meets up with Xander. Xander reveals that his car broke down in Oxnard and his tour of America didn't happen. He spent a month and a half washing dishes at the fabulous "Ladies' Night" club earning money for repairs (which came to a merciful end when one of the male strippers fell sick, although Xander won't go any further with the story). Xander also says that he now lives in his parents' basement and pays them rent. Buffy tells Xander that she is overwhelmed by the new college experience and wonders if she can hack it. Xander pumps her up by telling her of course she can, and that she is his hero.

Buffy and Xander find the vampire lair, which is a condemned frat house. Buffy elects to watch the vampires, while Xander rounds up Willow and Oz, but is discovered and is forced to fight. When Sunday breaks the Class Protector award she was given at her senior prom, Buffy is angered enough to regain her confidence and soundly trounces the vampires, taking out Sunday with a backhand throw of a broken tennis racket. Buffy collects up her belongings and the four leave, only to be met by Giles armed with weapons. He apologizes to Buffy for his earlier dismissal of her and tells her that they can hunt the evil and fight it together. Buffy simply tells him it's cool, and the four walk away.

The episode ends with one of the vampires escaping Sunday's lair and being hit with a taser. Three masked men dressed in camouflage fatigues approach the vampire with guns of some sort. This is the first hint of the existence of the Initiative, which plays an important role in this seasons' episodes. This vampire is not seen again until episode seven of Season Four, "The Initiative."

Acting

Starring

• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
• Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
• Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
• Seth Green as Oz
• and Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

Guest starring

• Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers
• Marc Blucas as Riley Finn
• Dagney Kerr as Kathy Newman
• Pedro Balmaceda as Eddie
• Katharine Towne as Sunday
• Lindsay Crouse as Maggie Walsh

Co-starring

• David Boreanaz as Angel's lookalike at the Bronze
• Mike Rad as Rookie
• Shannon Hillary as Dav
• Mace Lombard as Tom
• Robert Catrini as Prof. Riegert
• Scott Rinker as R.A.
• Phina Oruche as Olivia
• Denice J. Sealy as Student Volunteer
• Evie Peck as Angry Girl
• Anil Raman as Earnest Fellow
• Jason Christopher as Nonserious Guy
• Jane Silvia as Conservative Woman
• Mark Silverberg as Passing Student
• Walt Borchert as New Vampire

Production details

Music

• David Bowie - "Memory of a Free Festival Part 1"
• Moby - "Everloving" (Promo)
• Sound Stage Music Library - "Freaky soul"
• Splendid - "You and Me"
• Stretch Princess - "Universe"
• The Muffs - "I Wish That I Could Be You"

Translations

• French title: "Disparitions sur le campus" ("Disappearances on campus")
• German title: "Frischlinge" ("Freshmen", literally: "Piglets")
• Italian title: "La matricola" ("The freshman")
• Spanish title: "Los alumnos de nuevo ingreso" ("The freshmen")

Quotes and trivia

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Buffy the Vampire Slayer#The Freshman

• The original storyline for the character of Sunday was that she was a former Slayer turned vampire.
• Buffy references Mr. Pointy, the stake left to her by former friend and late Slayer Kendra.
• The yearbook seen in this episode, the Sunnydale High Yearbook, was released as a tie-in product after this episode aired.
• The college vampires have a tally of Gustav Klimt versus Claude Monet posters they have stolen from the freshmen they kill. A poster of Klimt's painting, The Kiss is found in Eddie's belongings.
• This is the first ever episode not to feature Sunnydale High. It was blown up in episode 22 of season 3 "Graduation Day, Part Two", and the characters are now starting college.
• When Buffy sees the back of a man's head who she thinks might be Angel, the man is actually played by David Boreanaz until his face becomes visible.
• Starting with this episode, Buffy was filmed in 16x9 widescreen; this would be the case for the next three seasons. However, Joss Whedon never intended for it to be shown this way, so while the widescreen version is shown on Sky One in the United Kingdom, all American showings are in 4x3. DVD releases of the final four seasons have followed the same pattern, with European (Region 2) discs displaying the episodes in 16:9 widescreen format and North American (Region 1) discs not.
• Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia) and David Boreanaz (Angel) are no longer series regulars and have been removed from the opening credits.

Cultural references

• Planet of the Apes - Oz quotes the famous line "It's a madhouse. A madhouse!" in the beginning of the episode to describe the crowd at the college. The line was previously quoted by Xander in "When She Was Bad".
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - During the pep talk Xander gives Buffy at the Bronze, he uses Yoda's "Fear leads to anger..." quote, and mangles it several times.
• Scarface - Xander also attempts to quote Scarface during his pep talk, but he stops himself before finishing the quote.
• The Avengers - Xander further makes references to the Avengers when saying "Avengers Assemble" referring to getting the gang together to help Buffy. This is a line that Captain America uses.

Continuity

Arc significance

• Crossover with Angel: Buffy answers the telephone, but hears nothing, not even breathing. The reason is explained in "City of", which was broadcast immediately afterward. Buffy also imagines seeing Angel's side-profile at the Bronze, but it isn't Angel (although David Boreanaz does appear).

• This episode marks the first appearance of Riley Finn, Professor Walsh and the Initiative, the group of military commandos that fight demons and vampires and gives rise to this season's Big Bad.

• Buffy's roommate Kathy plays a bigger role in "Living Conditions", revealing powers Buffy did not yet know she had.

• The show will explore the transition from high school to the more complicated college life, which offers significantly more freedom and thus opportunities for mistakes. This episode showed Buffy's loneliness and self-doubt as a small fish in a big pond.

• Giles begins his mid-life crisis following the destruction of the Sunnydale High library and Buffy's new life away from him.

• Xander has the line, "Once more, with even less feeling" which is later played upon on the Season Six episode, "Once more with feeling"

External links

• "The Freshman" at the Internet Movie Database
• "The Freshman" at TV.com

Reviews

• Peripheral Visions Review
• Swing the Sickle Review