This episode is sort of Buffy's ode to "I was a teenage werewolf" and "teen wolf" and whatever other teen werewolf b-movie stories there are out there. It was a good episode! Any episode with more Seth Green is great and in this episode we find out Oz has become a werewolf. I really like the way it's written. He's not savagely attacked, instead his infant cousin has bitten him and he comes to find out the infant is a werewolf. As he realizes this it's played against his burgeoning romance with Willow. Willow herself is showing much more strength as a character, despite still being dressed like she's in elementary school. Seriously at one point she is wearing bright yellow overalls. Everyone else is appropriately 90s fashion but yeeesh, Willow's outfits are atrocious!
Anyway, there's a series of werewolf attacks, a random werewolf hunter and high school hijinks but it's pretty good over all. There's a subplot with Larry, the school jock, coming out as gay to Xander when Xander questions him about being a werewolf (he's not). It's pretty edgy stuff for the time and Laurel and I discussed how the show could get away with this stuff because it flew under the radar, being just a show for teenagers that adults didn't care about. It's also nice to see that the gay stuff didn't make it "A Very Special Episode" and instead was treated like nothing. The show will obviously delve deeper into gay subtext and text in the future without making a big deal of it.
Hey Laurel here...Mark did a pretty good job of wrapping it up, I'll just second his comment about coming out. I didn't make any note of it watching it the first time as a "young adult" because it just seemed like the way it was supposed to be, but in hindsight the show was pretty groundbreaking in terms of how they include LGBT issues without making a huge thing out of it. I guess if you extrapolate the show is making a comment on diversity in general, because you are allowed to be a werewolf, a vampire, a witch, a nerd, a cheerleader, etc and still just be part of the gang, but I especially appreciate the inclusion of LGBT characters when I'm rewatching the show as a grown adult. Pretty forward thinking stuff for the time.
Also just wanted to give Cordelia some props because she did some serious stunt driving this episode! We first meet the werewolf when Cordelia and Xander are making out in her car. The werewolf pounces on top of the car and punches through the roof to try and eat them. Cordelia has the where-with-all to throw the car in reverse, slam on the brakes to hurl the werewolf off the roof, and makes a clean getaway. Way to go Cordelia! You are not my favorite but I was not ready for you to die just yet!
In conclusion, we give this one 4 stakes!
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