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Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 3, Episode 12
Air date January 19, 1999
Written by David Fury
Directed by James A. Contner
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"Helpless" is the twelfth episode of season 3 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

As Buffy turns 18 the Watchers Council makes her take a test.

 

Contents

Synopsis

Buffy and Angel go a few rounds of fighting until Buffy pins him and holds a bread-stick to his heart. Afterwards, Buffy reveals her plans to go to an ice show with her father for her 18th birthday. That night in the library, Giles quizzes her on crystals, demanding that she focus her attention on them. Later, while on patrol, a vampire nearly kills her with her own stake as her powers unexpectedly fail her.

Back at the library, Buffy tries at a target, but misses terribly. When Giles walks in, she asks if he knows what might be happening to her.  Meanwhile, Quentin Travers, the head Watcher, is setting up a "test" for the Slayer, assisted by two men named Hobson and Blair. She is to be locked up in a building, without any powers and defeat a powerful and insane vampire--Zachary Kralik. Giles meets with the head Watcher, and tries to convince him to stop the test, but it does no good. At home, Buffy is disappointed to find that her father can't come and take her to the ice show for her birthday. While she tries to get Giles to take her to the ice show, Giles has Buffy stare into another crystal to "find the tiny flaw at the center."  When she falls into a trance, he injects her with a syringe filled with muscle relaxants and adrenal suppressors.

In the school yard, Buffy tries to rescue Cordelia from an aggressive suitor, but he knocks her down.  At this point, Buffy really begins to worry, and enlists the help of her friends to figure out what's wrong. Buffy visits Angel and he gives her a book for her birthday. She tries to sound enthusiastic about it, but losing her powers has really begun to bother her. He tells her about how he saw her before she was the Slayer and how he loved her from the second he first saw her.

At the Sunnydale Arms, where Kralik is being held, the vampire manages to rip the seams of his strait jacket.  While Blair is getting his pills and water, Kralik kills him and turns him into a vampire.  When Blair wakes up, he frees Kralik.

Giles goes to find Quentin at the Sunnydale Arms building, but instead finds Kralik free and Hobson dead. While walking home alone, Buffy is first confronted by two men looking for a lap dance and then Kralik. Blair chases her until Giles drives by and picks her up. At the Summers' home, Joyce hears a noise out front and goes to check it out; she then finds Kralik wrapped up in Buffy's jacket.

Giles tells Buffy that she's lost her strength due to the injections he'd been giving her, and about the rite of passage. Buffy is very angry and tells him she doesn't know him anymore--that he should stay away from her or she'll kill him. Giles assures her that the test is invalidated because of what he has told her.  Cordelia shows up and drives Buffy home, where she finds a picture of her mother in the hands of Kralik.

Quentin seeks out Giles at the library.  Giles explains that the test should be canceled because Buffy has been told of it.  Quentin replies that it is too late for that because Buffy has already entered the field of battle.  Giles expresses himself about the Council's orders and leaves to find Buffy, hoping to help her.

At the Arms building, Blair attacks Buffy, but she pushes a bookshelf over on top of him and escapes. Kralik finds and chases her until his need for his pills becomes unbearable. Buffy steals them away, and slides down a laundry chute, where she finds her mother tied up. Kralik breaks through the door, looking for his pills and water. After he downs the water, he's surprised to find out that Buffy replaced his regular water with holy water. After he explodes, Buffy tries to free her mother, but cannot because the knots are too tight. Blair reappears and lunges at Buffy, but Giles also shows up and stakes him.

Back at the library, Quentin congratulates Buffy on her accomplishment, and then Buffy tells Quentin that he should leave town before she gets her powers back. Quentin tells Giles that he's fired because he's grown too close with the Slayer--his relationship with her is as more of a father than a Watcher. The next day, Buffy celebrates her birthday with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and her close friends. When Buffy, minus her strength, can't open the peanut butter jar, Xander offers to help, but he can't do it either.

Cast

Starring

Guest Starring

Co Starring


Trivia

  • This story had the working title "18" as it is set around Buffy's eighteenth birthday.
  • David Fury reveals in the commentary of this episode that the name "Zachary Kralik" came from his own nephew's name.

Continuity

  • This episode marks the beginning of Buffy's father's estrangement. Eventually Hank begins a relationship with his secretary and severs all ties with his former family.
  • Buffy is disappointed by both of her father figures in this episode - her father does not follow through on their tradition of attending the ice show, and Giles betrays her trust.
  • Giles reveals his parental feelings towards Buffy.
  • The book Angel gives to Buffy for her birthday is Sonnets From the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
  • Head of the Watchers Council Quentin Travers is seen for the first time. He will reappear several times, usually in opposition to Buffy's methods and activities.
  • Giles being fired from the Council makes way for Buffy's own rebellion towards the Council and her decision to operate outside their authority. The separation of Council and Slayer - and Giles' own situation with the Council - will not be solved until "Checkpoint".
  • This episode shows for the only time what happens when a vampire drinks holy water.
  • The 12th or 13th episode of each season is traditionally when Buffy celebrates her birthday; her birthday takes place in episode 13 of Season Two ("Surprise"), episode 12 of Season Four ("A New Man"), episode 13 of Season Five ("Blood Ties") and episode 14 of Season Six ("Older and Far Away"). Buffy's birthday is not shown celebrated in Season One (it presumably occurred before the beginning of the half-long season) or in Season Seven.

Music

  • Christophe Beck - "A Father's Love"
  • Christophe Beck - "Betrayal"
  • Christophe Beck - "Kraliks House"
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