Buffy: 2.12 ‘Bad Eggs’

Xander being Xander

Writer: Marti Noxon
Director: David Greenwalt

What's the sitch?

The kids are being taught sex education at school. As part of the course they are each given an egg to take care of as if it were a child. This is to highlight the problem of unwanted teen pregnancy and the consequences. But this being Sunnydale, these are no normal eggs. Soon they start hatching at night and nasty little octopus-things come out and take over the minds and bodies of the students and some teachers. All except for Buffy, who killed hers after it hatched, and Xander, who hard-boiled his to make it harder to break…and also as a handy snack if he gets hungry. The possessed people are drawn to the school basement where they start digging up the egg’s mother, a huge slimy creature who keeps on laying. At the same time Buffy must contend with the Gorch Brothers, two dim-witted Texan vampires out to bag a slayer.

What's the sitch beneath the sitch?

Oh dear! Sometimes a metaphor can go too far. This is obviously about teenage pregnancy and how it turns you in to a slave to your offspring, effectively ending your own childhood. Don’t do it kids. Sex is bad, mmmkay?

Who's giving us the wiggins this week?

Slimy egg monsters and two dumb cowboy vampires

Why it rocks

Uh, not much rocks here.

Ok, there's some nice if obvious movie references. The egg monsters are very much like facehuggers from Alien. Buffy’s showdown with one of them in her room is very similar to the scene in Aliens with Ripley and Newt being locked in the room with facehuggers by Burke. Only nowhere near as good. There is also a dissection scene that is right out of Aliens.

Why it sucks

Pretty much the whole thing sucks.

There's no real story. The people just turn in to mindless zombies and dig up the basement of the school. Great.

The Gorch brothers are crap and appear as if they’ve just been shoehorned in to add something extra to the (lack of) story.

It's Buftastic

Buffy climbs out of the pit, covered in black slime, pick axe in hand after killing the underground beasty, and gives the remaining Gorch brother one heck of a “Don’t you dare f&$k with me!” look. Needless to say he just turns tail and runs.

Dialogue to die for

Buffy: I see your gyuhhhh and raise you a ngyahhh!

And another thing

Marti Noxon wrote this? Really?

And for some reason this was the script that convinced Joss and David Greenwalt to take Marti Noxon on as a staff writer. Go figure.

How many stakes?

Bad, bad eggs. 1.5 (out of 5)