The theme of this episode is the relationship between growing up and telling the truth, especially to the people you love. The Scooby Gang, being young and idealistic, are of course in favor of the truth. As Cordelia puts it, “Tact is just not saying true stuff. I’ll pass.”
Spike and Drusilla, having been around the block a time or two, are a little more worldly. When Spike becomes annoyed with Dru because she’s spoken to Angel, he points out the cruel truth about the pet Dru’s been talking to.
Spike: The bird’s dead, Dru. You left it in a cage, and you didn’t feed it, and now it’s all dead, just like the last one.
Drusilla begins to whimper, and Spike regrets his blunt honesty. It’s much better to let Dru live in her fantasy world if it makes her happy, so he promptly apologizes.
Spike: I’m sorry, baby. I’m a bad, rude man.
Buffy, on the other hand, still believes that honesty is the best policy (except with her mom . . . and teachers . . . and the police. . . ). So when she sees Angel talking to an exotic, mysterious girl one night, she takes his omission in telling her about it to be a lie. She’s very disappointed in him; when you love someone, you should be truthful with them and tell them everything. The audience, however, already knows the girl was Drusilla, and that their conversation was anything but romantic.
Almost in relatiation, Buffy quickly latches onto a childhood sweetheart who just transferred to Sunnydale, Billy “Ford” Fordham (played by Jason Behr, lately of “Dawson’s Creek,” and next fall’s “Roswell”). Angel is suspicious of Ford, and although Willow attributes his feelings to jealousy, she agrees to research Ford on the Net.
When Angel confronts Buffy with the information Willow had dug up — that Ford is not a registered student at Sunnydale High — she is mad at Angel for being so suspicious and nosey, and also at Willow for not telling Buffy what she was doing. Oddly enough, Buffy is not mad at Ford, giving him the benefit of the doubt, despite the fact that the audience is pretty well convinced by now that he is the one who is really lying to her. Instead, she asks Angel point blank about the girl she saw him with. Since she insists on the painful truth, he tells her how he stalked Drusilla, killed her family, and made her a vampire. Happy now?
Meanwhile, Xander and Willow discover that Ford is the organizer of a club of “wanna-be” vampires. As Spike has said, “People still buy that Anne Rice crap? What a world!” These poor children lie to themselves about the real nature of vampires to comfort themselves in the dark. Ford has promised the wanna-be’s that he will make them vampires, which is another lie, since he intends to serve them up buffet-style to Spike & Co. When Buffy discovers the club, she tries to dissuade the wanna-be’s from their dangerous fantasies, they refuse to believe her. They would prefer to think she’s lying than believe the ugly truth.
It turns out that Ford is planning on turning the Slayer (and the assembled buffet) over to Spike in hopes that Spike will make him a vampire in return. With Buffy and everyone locked in a basement waiting for Spike, Ford finally confesses his plot to Buffy. She can’t understand *why* he would want to become a vampire, especially since he actually sees their true nature instead of a romantic fantasy. It seems that Ford is quickly dying of a terminal illness and sees immortality as a vampire as his only hope. Buffy tries to explain the grotesque truth about how vampires lose their souls and are actually “undead” rather than immortal, but Ford cannot afford to believe her at this point.
In the end, Buffy is able to save most of the wanna-be’s (notably Chanterelle, who becomes the runaway Shelly in the third season opener, “Anne”). Unfortunately, Ford is not among them.
The episode ends with Buffy and Giles at Ford’s grave, waiting for him to rise so Buffy can stake him. Buffy has been forced to grow up a little bit, and she’s lost at least one of her youthful illusions:
Buffy: Does it ever get easy?
Giles: You mean life?
Buffy: Yeah. Does it get easy?
Giles: What do you want me to say?
Buffy: Lie to me.
Giles: Yes. It’s terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies . . . and everyone lives happily ever after.
Buffy: Liar.
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