Episode 5 of season 4, "" is an episode of the
Television Series ''
Buffy The Vampire Slayer '' that packs a double moral. It was written by Tracey Forbes and directed by David Solomon. (See also
List Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Episodes .)
Xander gets a job bartending at the college pub; Buffy drowns her sorrows over Parker by drinking with some upperclassmen at said pub. Turns out that the bar manager is spiking the beer with some supernatural mojo, causing the targets (Buffy's new buds) to revert to caveman mentality. Of course, Buffy is affected, too, although not quite as drastically, since Xander finally cut her off. When the cavemen start a fire, Cave Buffy's Slayer instincts kick in and she saves the day — and knocks Parker over the head to boot.
Buffy is still hurting because
Parker dumped her after a night together. In a
Daydream during one of
Professor Walsh's classes (pointedly, about the role of the
Id in
Freudian Psychology ) she saves Parker's life and he swears to do anything to get her back. A dialog with
Willow later shows how much Buffy is not over him yet.
In the real world,
Xander gets a job as a
Bartender with
Fake ID , and has to endure the
Insult s and taunts of the
Student s. He gets to test his
Empathy skills with none other than Buffy who then proceeds to get drunk on "Black Frost"
Beer with four college boys.
Oz and Willow are in
The Bronze together, but he feels a strange attraction to the singer Veruca when she gets on the stage with her band Shy.
The next morning, Willow doesn't only have to cope with Veruca having called her a "groupie" when Oz introduced them and the feeling that Oz is mentally absent, but also with Buffy who seems to be suffering from "Black Frost" in more than the usual way: She seems to be
Lab set up and is putting more into the beer than just malt. Xander finally sends Buffy home, and when her four drinking buddies turn into violent
Neanderthals , he finds out that the owner of the pub has been brewing something as revenge for 20 years of college kids taunting him. While the boys escape to the streets of
Sunnydale , Xander gets Giles to help. They find Buffy drawing
Cave Painting s on her
Dorm wall saying "Parker bad!". Giles and Xander are unable to keep Buffy in her room when she gets a craving for more beer.
Meanwhile, Willow confronts Parker with what she says he has done to Buffy. When he turns his charm on her, there is a moment when we think he has turned her, too, but then she reveals she has been playing along with a rant about how primitive men are — just when the four Neanderthal students burst into the room. They knock Willow and Parker unconscious and
Start A Fire that rapidly burns out of control. Xander catches up with Buffy and when they see smoke from the Neanderthals' fire, they rush to help. Though afraid of the flames and unable to figure out how to use an
Extinguisher anymore, Buffy saves Willow and — after hitting him — Parker. In the end, Parker thanks Buffy for saving his life, and apologizes just the way she had dreamt — just to get knocked unconscious again, much to the approval of the rest of the gang.
Willow proves again that she can't be sweet-talked, something we first learned in
"
The Pack ".
"Beer Bad" is written with a classic frame structure — Buffy's dream — that emphasizes her
Development ; hitting Parker with a stick qualifies as
Poetic Justice . The college students are crude sketches at best.
However, the most striking feature of "Beer Bad" is the twin , producer
Doug Petrie admits this freely: "Well, very young people get unlimited access to alcohol and become horrible! We all do it — or most of us do it — and live to regret it, and we wanted to explore that."
This plot was written with the plan to take advantage of funds from the
Office Of National Drug Control Policy available to shows that promoted an anti-drug message. [http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38ed1e0d67c6.htm] Funding was rejected for the episode because "[d]rugs were an issue, but ...
was otherworldly nonsense, very abstract and not like real-life kids taking drugs. Viewers wouldn't make the link to [the ONDCP's message." [http://www.commercialalert.org/news-archive.php?article_id=720&month=01&year=2000&day=13th]
According to several online surveys, this is the least popular episode of ''Buffy'' and some even disavow it from the continuity of the series.
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"Beer Bad" only gets worse when translated, mainly because
American attitudes towards
Alcohol are not shared in most other countries (for example,
Germany - which has one of the highest number of ''Buffy'' fans in the world - has the age limit of 16 for beer and wine, and 18 for all other alcoholic beverages; and both the
UK and
Ireland have the age limit of 18 for all alcoholic beverages). In cultures where
Binge Drinking is not the endemic problem it is in the US and where you don't have to be 21 to drink like in
California (the reason Xander has to fake his ID card), the episode is widely seen as a heavy-handed
Morality Play and an example of how American
Puritanism is transported even in shows that otherwise dare to "defy the norm".
- "My mother always said that beer was evil." — ''Buffy giving us the moral''
- "I can't believe you served Buffy that beer." — '' Giles repeating it''
- "Freshman girl not able to hold the beer. Shouldn't have it. Get into trouble." — ''Xander making sure we got it''
"Beer Bad" is the episode where Buffy gets over Parker: At the beginning, she is pining for him, at the end, she is hitting him over the head with a branch, thus clearing the way for Riley. In a fashion similar to " and willingness to face danger to defend her friends. Oz' attraction to Veruca is built up further, setting the stage for the following episode "
Wild At Heart ". Willow gets a few things about men off of her chest in a way that gives us more clues that she will be giving them up for good sometime soon.
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
