# 1.03 Witch

[Cynni]

Info from Wikipedia.com:

Despite Giles' misgivings, Buffy decides to try out for the cheerleading team. During trials, the hands of a girl named Amber spontaneously combust. Amy seems to be under strong pressure from her winning mother, a star cheerleader in her day, and is crushed when she only makes the substitute list after Cordelia and Buffy. We see a brief glimpse of somebody bewitching Barbie dolls over a cauldron. Next thing, Cordelia cannot see, which she proves the hard way during driving instruction, and is just saved in the nick of time by Buffy.

To prove that Amy is a witch, Buffy, Xander and Willow collect eye of newt and some of Amy's hair during science class, and prove that she has cast a spell. Amy comes home and tells her mother to get with her homework — while she goes upstairs with Buffy's bracelet that she stole while Buffy was collecting her hair.

The next morning, a slightly manic Buffy blows her chance at the cheerleading squad when she tosses another girl through the room, ceding her slot to none other than Amy. Buffy turns out to have something more than just a mood disorder: a bloodstone vengeance spell has destroyed her immune system, giving her only about three hours to live. The only way to cure her and break the other spells is to get the witch's spell book. The ailing Buffy and Giles go confront the mother, only to realize that the real Amy is stuck in her mother's middle-aged body while her mother is reliving her glory days. Giles finds the witch's book and takes Amy and Buffy back to school to break the spells. Buffy is fading fast.

Amy's mother is cheering Sunnydale's school basketball team when she starts getting flashes of what Giles is trying to do. Xander and Willow are unable to stop her from storming into the science lab with an axe, but buy enough time for Giles to break the spells: Amy and her mother switch bodies again and Buffy feels good enough to fight. However, Amy's mother's power is too great, and it is only by kicking down a steel vent cowling and reflecting her last spell can Buffy win the day; the mother vanishes.

When Amy and Buffy talk in the school hall the next day, they pass by the school's trophy collection where the statue to "Catherine the Great" stands. While both girls wonder where Amy's mother ended up, the camera pulls close to the statue's face, revealing the mother's eyes and a muffled voice pleading for help.

[Cynni]

Info from buffyguide.com:

Buffy, in an attempt to bring some normalcy into her complicated life, decides to try out for cheerleader. When she goes to the big tryout, she meets a quiet girl named Amy. As one girl auditions, she gets more and more into her routine, and suddenly her hands begin to smoke. Buffy knocks her to the ground and puts the girl's smoking hands out. Amy tells Buffy that her mother was a cheerleading star and she feels pressure to make the squad. When Amy leaves, Willow says it's a lot more than pressure — she thinks Amy's mom is a tyrant. Neither Amy nor Buffy is chosen as part of the regular squad — both are alternates. Amy is distraught when she is only chosen to be third alternate — with Buffy as first alternate.

In a spooky attic with a cauldron, someone is casting spells with dolls. The next day, snooty Cordelia Chase, who has made cheerleader, is temporarily blinded while taking her driving test. Giles thinks Amy's a witch, but the only way to prove it is to form a potion and pour it on her — if her skin turns blue, she is a witch. Buffy, Xander and Willow join forces to test this theory in chemistry class, and Giles is proven correct. Then another cheerleader has a mysterious accident, and when Amy reacts to it with horror, it makes Buffy doubt whether Amy realizes what she's doing. Amy comes home in a huff to find her mother on the couch watching TV. She tells her mother to write her history report. We see that Amy is holding an ID bracelet which Xander gave Buffy for good luck at the cheerleading tryouts — Buffy will be Amy's next victim.

As first alternate, Buffy is now on the cheerleading squad, and starts acting strangely during practice. When she tosses another cheerleader across the room, it's time for the next alternate to come in — Amy. Buffy suddenly becomes weak, and Giles says the only way to keep her from dying is to get Amy's spell book. Willow and Xander stay at school to keep an eye on Amy. Giles and Buffy force their way into Amy's house, and Buffy discovers that the woman they're speaking to is not really Amy's mother but Amy herself. The mother switched their bodies so she could relive her glory days as a cheerleader.
Amy is getting ready to cheer

Giles finds the spell book, and they all troop off to school, where "Amy" is getting ready to cheer. As Giles chants, "Amy" becomes weaker as the transformation begins. "Amy" charges out of the gym to find Buffy and kill her. Just as she's about to get her, the transformation is complete. "Amy" is now the real Amy, and the mother goes berserk. She starts to cast an evil spell on Buffy, but Buffy deflects it with a mirror and sends it back to the mother, who disappears. Everything seems to be back to normal, until we catch a glimpse of the mother's cheerleader trophy in a school display case. Its eyes are moving...

[Cynni]

Quotes from buffyguide.com:

Amy: Oh, how I hate this, let me count the ways.

Buffy: Hmm, that much quality time with my mom would probably lead to some quality matricide.

Giles: But that's the thrill of living on the Hellmouth! There's a veritable cornucopia of, of fiends and devils and, and ghouls to engage. Pardon me for finding the glass half full.

Willow: Yeah! You're the Slayer, and we're, like, the Slayerettes!

Xander: I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away.

Xander: For I am Xander, King of Cretins. May all lesser cretins bow before me.

Buffy: Mom, I've accepted that you've had sex. I am not ready to know that you had Farrah hair.
Joyce: This is Gidget hair. Don't they teach you anything in history?

Xander: First vampires, now witches. No wonder you can still afford a house in Sunnydale.

Giles: Why should someone want to harm Cordelia?
Willow: Maybe because they met her? Did I say that?

Buffy: Hmm, I know you don't, that's 'cause you're my friend. You're my Xander-shaped friend!

Amy: I'm just happy to have my body back. I'm thinking of getting fat.
Buffy: Y'know, I hear that look's in for spring.

[Cynni]

Extra info from buffyguide.com:

References:

# "Just look at that Amber. Who does she think she is, a Laker Girl?" The Laker Girls are the cheerleaders for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. Charisma Carpenter was a San Diego Chargers Girl cheerleader in 1991.

# "Oh, how I hate this, let me count the ways." Amy is misquoting the most famous of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, a collection of love poems she wrote for her husband Robert, a fellow poet. It is number 43:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

# "It's like the Human Torch... only it hurts." The Human Torch is one of Marvel Comics' The Fantastic Four. Johnny Storm, one of four astronauts caught in a cosmic ray storm, returned to Earth to find he had gained the superhuman power to burst into flame and fly with no harm to himself.

# "So mommie dearest is really... Mommie Dearest." Mommie Dearest was a 1981 film version of Christina Crawford's autobiography, which detailed the harrowing abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her mother, the famous movie actress Joan Crawford. Faye Dunaway starred as Joan Crawford, and Diana Scarwid played the young Christina.

# Farrah Fawcett Buffy (looking at her mother's high school yearbook): "Mom, I've accepted that you've had sex. I am not ready to know that you had Farrah hair."
Joyce: "This is Gidget hair. Don't they teach you anything in history?" "Farrah hair" and "Gidget hair" refer to the trend-setting hairstyles sported by 70's model-actress Farrah Fawcett and by Sandra Dee in the 1959 surf movie Gidget.

# "The test was positive. She's our Sabrina." Sabrina is the name of a teenage witch who has appeared in Archie comics since the 1960s. A sitcom series about the character, without the references to the rest of the Archie comics universe, premiered on September 27, 1996, starring Melissa Joan Hart as Sabrina.

# "Macho Man" The morning the bloodstone vengeance spell takes effect, Buffy bops into the kitchen singing "Macho Man," the first U.S. hit for the Village People in 1978.

Goofs and gaffes

* The whiteboard in the first tryout scene reads "1996 Cheerleading Tryouts." This, put together with the fact that it's the high school basketball season, would seem to imply that the action of the series is taking place in early 1996... a full year earlier than the show's actual airing.

* Amy's mom's trophy has her name on it as "Catherine Madison," which seems to convince Buffy that it's really Amy's mom, implying that Amy's last name is Madison. This is further borne out by Giles, who addresses Amy's mother as "Mrs. Madison." But Amy says that her parents got married right after high school graduation, which means that when her mother won the cheerleading trophy she would still have gone by her maiden name.

* After Catherine Madison is defeated, Giles says, "It was my first casting," but that is later proven to be a false statement by the events of "The Dark Age."

Notes:

* This episode was released on 20th Century Fox Home Video on September 15, 1998, as part of the first Buffy the Vampire Slayer Box Set.

* Buffy's mother says that Buffy "stopped cheerleading just before the trouble," another reference to their life in L.A. which seems to correlate to events in Buffy the motion picture.

* Willow's comment, "Yeah, you're the Slayer, we're, like, the Slayerettes," has led to fans and writers of Buffy fan fiction consistently referring to Buffy's sidekicks as Slayerettes, although the term wasn't repeated again on the show until "The I in Team" in season four.

* Buffy's mother owns an art gallery.

* In the scene where Willow uncovers Xander's embarrassing reading habits, we learn that his full name is Alexander Harris.

* Giles' aging Citroën makes its first appearance in this episode.

*The trophy, with Amy's mom trapped in it, makes a return appearance in the second season episode "Phases," in preparation for the return of Elizabeth Anne Allen as Amy in the following episode, "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered."

* William Monaghan would return to play a pivotal role as kindly biology teacher Dr. Gregory in the next episode, "Teacher's Pet."

* Jim Doughan, who appears in this episode as driver's ed teacher Mr. Pole, had a small role as a party guest in the 1988 film My Stepmother Is An Alien, which featured both Alyson Hannigan and Seth Green.