The Zeppo

"The Zeppo" is episode 13 of season 3 on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Makeup in a Series.^[1]

Plot synopsis

Summary

Feeling left out by the gang, Xander befriends a psychotic student named Jack O'Toole. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang are trying to stop the apocalypse.

Expanded overview

While the Scooby gang slaughters demons in an underground nest, Xander manages to get himself hurt. Buffy suggests he stay out of the fighting. Xander is desperate to find his place after his breakup with Cordelia and the alienation from his friends. When another student throws him a football, he misses and it hits Jack O'Toole's lunch, resulting in Jack threatening to beat him up. Cordelia, having witnessed the entire event, tells Xander he is useless: "You're the Zeppo." Meanwhile, Giles informs Buffy that the end of the world is near. A group is planning to reopen the Hellmouth and bring forth the demons it contains.

After a discussion with Oz about what makes someone cool, Xander gets himself a car that he believes will give him something unique. While getting doughnuts for the rest of the researching gang, Xander meets Lysette, who likes his car and wants to go for a ride. As it turns out, the car really is the only thing she's interested in. At The Bronze that night, Xander rear-ends Jack sitting in a parked car. Jack threatens Xander with a knife. A cop shows up, Xander covers for Jack and the two and Lysette leave to go get the rest of Jack's friends - who, being dead, need to be raised from their graves.

At the library, Buffy, Willow and Giles are researching, while Oz - in werewolf mode - is freaking out in his cage. Willow thinks it's because he can sense trouble. Giles leaves to try and contact some spirits and hopefully get their help with stopping the Sisterhood of Jhe, a group of fierce demons (of the same sort as the ones that the gang killed in the cave a few days before) that plans to end the world.

Xander, drafted as "wheelman", takes Jack and his friends to get supplies to "bake a cake," or rather build a bomb. While the dead boys are getting the supplies from a hardware store, Xander spots Willow leaving the magic shop and tries to talk to her, but she hurries off to go help Buffy. When Jack and friends decide to initiate Xander into their club by killing him and then raising him again, he runs and escapes in his car. He rescues Faith, who was fighting off demons, and takes her to her motel room where she persuades him to sleep with her. She kicks him out, clothes in hand, quickly after.

Xander, after realizing Jack built a bomb at Sunnydale High, heads towards the school to stop it. After disposing of Jack's friends, Xander heads down to the boiler room to defuse the bomb. Jack shows up, and they fight. The fight is inconclusive, but delays Jack so that he has no hope of escaping before the bomb explodes. Xander asks Jack who is more afraid of death. Jack points out that he's already dead, but Xander responds that "'walking around drinking beer with your buddies'-dead is a lot different from 'being blown up and swept up by a janitor'-dead." When Jack confronts Xander about dying, Xander merely remarks, "I like the quiet" and stares at him calmly. Jack defuses the bomb with seconds to spare. Xander leaves Jack there swearing revenge, but when he opens a side door he is eaten by the wolf. Meanwhile, Buffy, Angel, Faith, Giles and Willow are at the library fending off the giant multi-headed monster and members of the group of female demons and successfully close the Hellmouth.

The next day, Xander decides to keep his harrowing night to himself. Cordelia taunts him as before, but Xander, newly confident, merely smiles and walks by.

Writing

"The Zeppo" is a twist on the show format, which normally consists of an action-packed "A-story" and a character-development "B-story." Here, Xander's feelings of inadequacy develop into the A-story while a stereotypical epic episode of Buffy and the others saving the world is pushed to the background to become the B. Most of the apocalypse story elements come across as background events, happening offscreen, only in small bits, or being talked about afterwards by the characters.

Acting

Starring

• 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
• Seth Green as Oz
• Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

Guest starring

• Saverio Guerra as Willy the Snitch
• Channon Roe as Jack O' Toole
• Michael Cudlitz as Bob
• Eliza Dushku as Faith Lehane

Co-starring

• Darin Heames as Parker
• Scott Torrence as Dickie
• Whitney Dylan as Lysette
• Vaughn Armstrong as Cop

Production details

Cultural references

• Michael Jackson - After Xander runs into Jack during lunch, Jack asks, in threatening manner, "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'?". Xander, referencing the popular song by Michael Jackson, begins to sing the lyrics in order to lighten the tension between him and Jack.

• Gatorade - When Buffy is reading about the Sisterhood of Jhe and how they celebrate victory in battle by eating their foes, she comments in disgust, "They couldn't just pour Gatorade on each other?" referencing the tradition in athletic competitions to celebrate a victory by pouring buckets of the sports drink over the coach.

• Jimmy Olsen - Both Xander and Cordelia compare Xander to Jimmy Olsen, the photographer for the Daily Planet who often tags along with Lois Lane and Clark Kent in the Superman Universe. Like Jimmy Olsen, Xander relates to being an unappreciated sidekick without any special powers.

• Zeppo Marx - The title of the episode refers to Zeppo Marx, who was the straight man among the Marx Brothers and long considered to be the most unexceptional member of the act. Xander is treated in the same way in this episode.

Music

• Beastie Boys - "Putting Shame In Your Game"
• Christophe Beck - "Dead Guys With Bombs" played during the scenes in the highschool with the zombies chasing Xander
• Extreme Music Library - "For the glory" played in the last scene, with a smiling Xander walking away from Cordelia
• Sound Stage Music Library - Dodgems"
• Supergrass - "G-song"
• Tricky Woo - "Easy 09"

Translations

• Italian title: "Il giorno dell'Apocalisse" ("The day of the Apocalypse")
• German title: "Die Nacht der lebenden Leichen" ("The night of the living corpses"); Episode 3x02 has a similar German title: "Die Nacht der lebenden Toten" ("The night of the living dead")
• French title: "Le zéro pointé" ("The Total Zero")
• Japanese title: "ツェッポ" ("Tseppo" - "Zeppo")
• Spanish title: "Falta de carácter" ("Lack of character"); also "Zepo" (sic.)

Quotes and trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (December 2007)

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

• The executive producer of Doctor Who; Russell T Davies, mentions the Buffy episode "The Zeppo" as a possible influence on the Doctor Who episode "Love & Monsters", the format of which would later be mirrored in Torchwood's "Random Shoes", and repeated in Doctor Who episodes "Blink" and "Turn Left", becoming an annual tradition.

• At the beginning of the cafeteria scene where Xander and Oz discuss the concept of cool, as soon as the camera cuts up from the cafeteria food (shredded carrots included) you can see Willow and Xander dressed in clothes from an earlier episode for around a second.

• Nicholas Brendon cried when he read the script for this episode because he was "so delighted with it, and its meaning for [his] character."

• In the showdown scene with Xander and Jack when the bomb is ticking down, the timer is off. In the close up scene where the camera pans down from Jack's face to the timer, it counts down to 10 seconds. In the very next cut, the timer then reads 13 seconds. In the next cut, the timer is counting down normally, now at 7 seconds.

• When Xander finds the bomb, he greets it by saying 'Hello Nasty'. This is the title of the fifth studio album by the Beastie Boys. Hello Nasty features the song Putting Shame in Your Game, which is heard in this episode.

Arc significance

• Xander loses his virginity to Faith, but the boost to his self-esteem is undermined by Buffy's statement about Faith in "Consequences".

• The multi-headed monster is the same monster that attacked Giles, Willow, Cordelia and Jenny in the library when the Master's ascension opened the Hellmouth in "Prophecy Girl." The Master's death caused the monster to retreat back into the Hellmouth.

References

External links

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

Reviews

• Soulful Spike Society analysis of The Zeppo
• Peripheral Visions Review
• Swing the Sickle Review