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"Helpless (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)"

"Helpless" is the twelfth episode of season 3 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Plot synopsis

Summary

Buffy feels weak and is unable to carry out her duties as a slayer. When she goes to Giles for help he seems distracted. This is because he is, on the orders of the Watcher's Council, preparing her for the Cruciamentum, a test the Watchers put each slayer through on her eighteenth birthday. She must be weakened and left alone to beat a vampire, to test her resourcefulness. When the vampire escapes before the test can start Giles reveals the test to Buffy who still goes to fight the vampire who has kidnapped her mother. In defiance of the Council Giles goes to help Buffy, but she has already killed the vampire. She passes the test but Giles is dismissed from his job as Watcher for being too close to his slayer.

Expanded overview

Buffy and Angel go a few rounds of fighting until Buffy pins him and holds a breadstick to his heart. They talk, and Buffy reveals her plans to go to an ice show with her father for her 18th birthday. That night in the library, Giles is quizzing her on stones and having her concentrate on staring at them. Later, while on patrol, she's nearly staked by a vampire with her own stake when her powers suddenly stop playing to her advantage.

Buffy's worried about her powers, and talks to Giles about it while trying to throw knives at a target but missing terribly. 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 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 a rock where she then falls into a trance. He injects her with a needle filled with muscle relaxant and adrenaline suppressors.

After Cordelia fights off an aggressive suitor who had knocked Buffy down, 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. Kralik has the chance to break out of his strait jacket while Blair is getting his pills and water. He then turns Blair into a vampire and when he wakes up, Kralik is completely freed from his restraints.

Giles goes to find Quentin at the Sunnydale Arms building, but instead finds Kralik free and Hobson dead. Buffy, walking home alone, 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 where she then finds Kralik wrapped up in Buffy's jacket. Giles tells Buffy that she's lost her strength due to the injections of muscle reaction 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. Cordelia shows up and drives Buffy home, where she then finds a picture of her mother in the hands of Kralik.

Buffy goes to the Arms building, beats Blair into unconsciousness and then is chased by Kralik until his need for his pills becomes unbearable. Buffy steals them away, and slides down a laundry chute where she finds her mother tied to a chair. 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, then Giles shows up and stakes Blair before he can hurt anyone.

Back at the library, Quentin congratulates Buffy on her accomplishment, and then Buffy tells Quentin that he better be gone by the time 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. He tells Buffy that a new Watcher will be assigned to her and warns Giles not to interfere before finally leaving. Buffy, grateful that Giles lost his job for her, allows him to tend her wounds. 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.

Acting

Starring

• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
• Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
• Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
• Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
• David Boreanaz as Angel
• Seth Green as Oz
• Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

Guest starring

• Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers
• Jeff Kober as Zachary Kralik
• Harris Yulin as Quentin Travers

Co-starring

• Dominic Keating as Blair
• David Haydn-Jones as Hobson
• Nick Cornish as Guy
• Don Dowe as Construction Worker

Production details

This story had the working title "18" as it is set around Buffy's eighteenth birthday.

Music

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

Quotes and trivia

• 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.

• The book Angel gives to Buffy for her birthday is Sonnets From the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

• David Fury reveals in the commentary of this episode that the name "Zachary Kralick" came from his own nephew's name.

• The vampire "Kralik" is played by Jeff Kober. He later reappears as the warlock "Rack", Willow's dark magic "dealer" in Season 6.

• In the Charmed Episode "The Power of Two," Jeff Kober plays the ghost Jackson Ward, whom the sisters lure into a trap with a polaroid photo, much in the same way that Kralik lures Buffy.

• This episode shows for the first and only time what happens when a vampire drinks holy water.

Translations

• Italian title: "Compleanno di terrore" ("Birthday of terror")
• French title: "Sans défense" ("Helpless")
• Japanese title: "無力なバフィー" ("Muryoku na Bafī" - "Helpless Buffy")
• Spanish title: "Indefensa" ("Helpless")
• German title: "Reifeprüfung" ("Final examination". The German term "Reifeprüfung" refers to the final examination of German secondary schools qualifying for university admission. "Reifeprüfung" is also the German title of the movie "The Graduate" starring Dustin Hoffman.)

Continuity

Arc significance

• Giles reveals his now parental feelings towards Buffy.
• 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".
• 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.
• This episode marks the beginning of Buffy's father's estrangement.
• 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.

Timing

• Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:

External links

• "Helpless" at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com episode

Reviews

• Peripheral Visions Review
• Section 31 Review
• Swing the Sickle Review