The Freshman (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

"The Freshman"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
Buffy, now a college freshman, explores the campus feeling overwhelmed
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 1
Directed by	Joss Whedon
Written by	Joss Whedon
Production code	4ABB01
Original air date	October 5, 1999
Guest stars
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 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
Episode chronology
← Previous "Graduation Day" Next → "Living Conditions"
List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes

"The Freshman" is the first episode of season 4 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The episode was written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon. The narrative follows Buffy Summers as she attempts to fit into her new college environment at UC Sunnydale. She first encounters several problems (getting kicked out of lectures for talking) and struggles with her feelings of isolation: Willow is blossoming with Oz in the environment; Giles has his "friend" Olivia over and doesn't aid Buffy, telling her she should become "self-dependent"; Xander is on his tour of America, in which he intends to visit all of the States. Her situation is not helped by the vampire Sunday haunting her new Campus.

Plot

Buffy, Willow and Oz begin attending the University of California at its fictional Sunnydale campus. Buffy feels overwhelmed and disoriented by the new experience, but Willow is excited by the bigger library and the opportunities to advance her learning, while Oz seems typically unfazed. Meanwhile, Giles is a retired "gentleman of leisure" now that the Sunnydale High School library has been destroyed, and Xander is still out of town on his much-anticipated cross-country road trip.

Buffy and Willow go to the campus bookstore for supplies, where Buffy accidentally knocks a pile of psychology textbooks onto the head of Riley Finn, who introduces himself as a TA for Professor Walsh's Psych 105 "Intro to Psychology" class. Buffy then goes on to her new dorm in Stevenson Hall, where she has already moved in and her new roommate Kathy is in the process of doing the same. Kathy expresses her belief that the upcoming year will be "super fun", but Buffy is unconvinced when she sees Kathy hanging a poster of Céline Dion on the wall. During the night Buffy has trouble sleeping because Kathy snores, laughs, and smacks her lips in her sleep.

On the first day of classes, Buffy is humiliated at being ejected from a class by a bullying professor in front of dozens of other students, and in the next class she feels overwhelmed by the heavy workload promised by Professor Walsh, wondering how she will find the time to both study and slay vampires. Feeling increasingly lonely and isolated on campus, she is relieved to strike up conversation with a fellow freshman student named Eddie (who is also taking Psychology with Professor Walsh) when they are both lost. They discuss the need for a "security blanket" in unfamiliar surroundings, and he says that the novel Of Human Bondage serves this purpose for him. After Buffy and Eddie separate, he is killed by a group of vampires and this group then go to his dorm room, steal all of his belongings, and leave a fake note from Eddie claiming that he decided he couldn't handle the stress of college and went home.

The next day, Buffy is disappointed to find Eddie missing from class. She goes to his dormitory, finding it empty but for the note and the novel "Of Human Bondage", which is still in his nightstand. Considering their conversation of the previous day, she does not believe that he would leave the book behind, and goes to Giles for advice. However, Giles is in his dressing gown with a half-dressed female visitor called Olivia, and seems reluctant to offer Buffy any active assistance because he is no longer her Watcher and feels she is capable of handling the situation herself.

That night during a patrol, Buffy comes across Eddie in a deserted part of campus and is horrified to realise he is now a vampire. The group of vampires that turned Eddie are watching and now attack. Buffy is soundly thrashed by their leader, spraining her arm and causing her to flee for her life. Buffy's confidence is greatly shaken by this encounter, and she decides to visit her Mom and some familiar surroundings. Joyce did not expect to see Buffy home so early in the semester, and because of this she has been using her daughter's room as extra storage space for the gallery.

When Buffy returns to her dorm room on campus, 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 with a pronounced physical likeness to her former boyfriend Angel. However, she is greatly cheered by the appearance of Xander, who reveals that his tour of America never happened because his car broken down in Oxnard and he spent the rest of the summer washing dishes at the fabulous "Ladies' Nightclub" to earn money for repairs. Now he has returned home, where he lives in the basement of his parents' house and is expected to pay rent. Buffy tells Xander about her negative early experiences of college, and expresses a fear that she cannot adapt to the college experience, but Xander greatly moves her by describing her as "my hero" and explaining that he always thinks "What would Buffy do?" whenever he is in a bad situation. They then agree to track down the vampire lair and reclaim Buffy's stolen belongings.

Using the college computer system, the pair locate the vampire gang in a disused frat house. While Buffy angrily watches the vampires using and abusing her belongings through the glass roof of the frat house, Xander leaves to round up the assistance of Willow and Oz. Unfortunately, the roof breaks and Buffy lands on the floor in front of the vampires. They fight and she is once again losing, in part because of her sore arm from their previous encounter, but seeing Sunday damage the Class Protector award she was given at her senior prom angers Buffy enough to regain her confidence and soundly trounce the vampires, taking out Sunday with a bankhand throw of a broken tennis racket. As Buffy and friends return to the dorm with her belongings, Giles makes a belated appearance with weapons, apologising for his earlier dismissal of her fears and promising that they will fight the evil together.

Meanwhile, one of the vampires from Sunday's gang is hit with a taser by three masked men in camouflage fatigues.

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

Trivia

• 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 (although the school's charred remains will feature occasionally this season, and it will ultimately be rebuilt for season seven).
• 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 16:9 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 4:3. 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.
• The David Bowie song "Memory of a Free Festival" plays in the background as Buffy enters Giles's apartment.

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 V: The Empire Strikes Back – 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.
• A Gentleman of Leisure - Giles's new definition of himself - according to Willow - is to be a "Gentleman of Leisure", referring to English P. G. Wodehouse's novel.
• When Buffy meets Giles in company with a lightly dressed Olivia in his flat, she compares him with Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy Enterprises.

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".
• 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.
• Willow tells Buffy that she believes their old High School library didn't have the best selection. However in the first episode upon meeting Buffy she says she believes the library to have a great collection. It is likely that as she grew up her thirst for knowledge could not be satisfied with the library's books.
• In the University's bookstore, Buffy says, "I can't wait for Mom to get the bill for these books. I hope it's a funny aneurysm." Joyce Summers dies in the fifth season episode "I Was Made to Love You"; in the following episode, "The Body", the cause is revealed to be an aneurysm.

External links

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