is episode 8 of season 1 of
Buffy The Vampire Slayer . See also
List Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Episodes .
A demon is unleashed onto the Internet and charms several people, including Willow Rosenberg.
Willow has a new boy friend she met on the Internet and Buffy and Xander are worried about who he is. Also it seems that when doing some scanning Willow accidentally released a demon trapped in a book into the Internet and now he is causing havoc with files and recruiting helpers. After two of his goons attempt to kill Buffy she becomes suspicious that he may be Willow's new friend. Giles does a binding spell with the computer teacher, Miss Calendar, while Buffy and Xander track down Willow who has now gone missing. The spell works and the demon is trapped in a robot body that has been built for him but he doesn't last long as Buffy electrocutes him.
The episode begins in a castle in
Cortona ,
Italy , in
1418 . We see Carlo, a young Italian man, looking at
Moloch , a lizard-looking demon, his master. Moloch promises Carlo everything if he gives Moloch his love, and as Carlo promises his love, Moloch kills him. In a church, a few priests form the sacred circle of Kayless to trap Moloch in a book. The book is sealed in a box, with the head priest expressing his hope that the book will not be read, or the demon Moloch will once again walk the world. The scene cuts to
Buffy opening the box in which the book is kept, and is told by
Giles to put it in a pile.
Ms. Calendar and Giles trade jibes about the need for modern technology. As the class leaves,
Willow tries to convince
Xander to help her scan. As he leaves, she scans in the book Moloch is trapped in. As Willow leaves, the text "Where am I?" is displayed on the computer screen.
A week later, at school, Buffy questions Willow about her missing a few classes. Willow confides she has an online relationship with a boy named Malcolm. As Buffy tries to warn Willow about the dangers of rushing into a relationship with someone she has not seen, Fritz (a computer geek) is instructed by Moloch, via the computer he is working on, to keep watch on Buffy. Ms. Calendar questions Fritz about the unusual amount of time he and Dave are spending on the computer, and receives an ambiguous answer. Later, when Xander asks Willow is she will accompany him to the Bronze, she passes, wanting to talk to Malcolm.
Buffy accuses Xander of jealousy, and Xander denies vehemently, claiming he is just worried about Willow, because they have no idea if Malcolm is who he says he is. The scene cuts to Fritz mumbling "I'm jacked in" as he scars himself in the form of the letter "M". As Willow is late on the next day, Buffy finds that she blew off classes to talk to "Malcolm". When Buffy asks for Dave for help finding out Malcolm's real identity, his angry response causes her to think that he is Malcolm. When Buffy asks Giles for help, he confesses he cannot help her much as he finds technology to be intimidating. His only idea is for Buffy to tail Dave. As Buffy follows him to the CRD building, a security camera points at her, and a message appears on a computer screen Fritz is looking at: "kill her".
When Buffy goes back to Giles and Xander, Xander unexpectedly knows that CRD is "Calax Research and Development", a hi-tech company which shut down. When Xander assures Buffy that it is suspicious since he would know if CRD re-opened, they decide to break in. When Ms. Calendar interrupts them, Xander and Buffy leave. Willow becomes suspicious of Malcolm after she learns he knows Buffy was kicked out of her old school, and logs off the conversation. Back at the library, Giles's and Ms. Calendar's verbal sparring leads them to discover the Malcolm book is empty.
Outside of school, Dave tells Buffy that Willow wants to talk to her in the girl's locker room, as a plot to electrocute Buffy. Dave changes his mind at the last minute, and his warning combined with Buffy's slayer reflexes save her. When Moloch hears of it, he begins writing Dave's suicide note on the computer, and Fritz kills Dave. Buffy, Xander and Giles reconvene in the library, where Giles gives the exposition on how books were used to imprison demons, but if the books were read, the demons were set free. Together, they realize that Moloch has gotten into the internet, and is wreaking havoc from there. When Buffy tries to delete the "Moloch" file, his face appears and tell her to stay away from Willow, and Buffy realizes Malcolm is Moloch.
Buffy and Giles explain that there is no limit to the amount of damage a demon in the internet can do. After they find Dave's body, Xander and Buffy are off to Willow's house and Buffy tells Giles to ask Ms. Calendar for help, hoping that between his knowledge of demons and her knowledge of computers, they can reimprison Moloch. Willow is kidnapped by Fritz. At the library, Giles is surprised that Ms. Calendar understands demons, as she is a "techno-pagan". Buffy and Xander, guessing that Moloch had Willow kidnapped, rush off to CRD. Buffy calls Giles, and they co-ordinate plans. Inside CRD, Moloch's robotic body is prepared, and is happy to see Willow. Moloch kills Fritz as a demonstration of his power. Buffy and Xander break into CRD as Giles and Ms. Calendar start preparing the binding spell. The binding spell does not complete, but casts Moloch out of the internet and traps him inside his robotic body. Moloch crashes through a wall and backhands Xander, but Willow hits Moloch with a fire extinguishier. As Moloch tries to kill Buffy, he punches an electrical power line and dies.
The next day, Buffy, Willow and Xander jokes about how the Hellmouth is screwing with their love life, then realizing how serious it is.
- Fears about online dating are explored in this episode.
- The character of Jenny Calendar was originally named Nicki, but was renamed to avoid confusion with Nicholas Brendon 's nickname on the set.
- The title references two works: '' of the Tarzan movie series.
- Xander appears to know the Beatles song With A Little Help From My Friends when he refers to Dave's pseudo-suicide.
- Willow has a photo of her and Giles in her locker.
- This is the first episode that shows the inside of Willow's house.
- Computer viruses apparently do not work as well in the Buffyverse as in movies like Independence Day .
- Moloch is either the name of a god or of a kind of sacrifice historically associated with Phoenician-related cultures in north Africa and the Levant. An alternate name for the god, Milcom, may explain the demon's choice of the alter-ego 'Malcolm' on the show.
- Molochs are also spiny lizards of the Australian outback, which the demon resembles physically.
- The lead monk in the opening is called Thelonious .
- Read about the confusion about her birthdate at Buffy Summers .
- This episode is considered a black sheep in the show's seven-year run. Fans and crew alike have poked fun at it in interviews over the course of the series. Another such episode is '' Beer Bad ''.
- Jenny's claims that Giles only wants "middle-class white men" to read at the library are completely unfounded; are proved to be totally wrong in the season 4 opener, '' The Freshman '', where we see Giles with a black girlfriend, who used to be librarian herself.
- Jenny was originally going to be called 'Nicki' but was changed to avoid confusion on the set as Nicholas Brendon is generally called Nicky
- On the computer, Buffy's school profile reads: that her birthdate is 05-06-79, GPA is 2,8, with only one absence for the slayer which we must believe is from the two-part series premiere when Joyce asks Buffy about missing school that day.
- When Moloch is looking for Buffy's record there is a student named "Howard Fine". Could this be a reference to Moe Howard and Larry Fine of the 3 Stooges?
- This Willow-centric episode has Willow again Seizing The Moment to disastrous consequences.
- A budding romance develops between Giles and Ms. Calendar, ending tragically in Passion .
- Buffy defeats a stronger opponent with her wits as she so often does.
- The conversation at the end foreshadows the many failed relationships throughout the series, and the Hellmouth is often to blame.
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
