#s3e03

But let’s start with the tragedy of Mr. Trick. Seasons 1 and 2 both make a point of introducing both a second Slayer (Kendra/Faith) and a self-consciously modern vampire (Spike/Mr. Trick). It is somewhat aggrieving that in both cases it’s the White one who survives to season 7 and beyond and the Black one who dies after only featuring in a few episodes.

But the thing about Trick is that he does actually get to show off his distinctive skills a few times, they’re just not very spotlight-grabbing. In this episode, he assures Kakistos that he’s checking records in order to find Faith… and a little bit later Kakistos turns up at her door. In episode 5 he succeeds at putting at least one Slayer exactly where he wants her to be, for other people to ambush. In episode 6 he brings in Ethan Rayne to organise the whole baby-stealing distraction. I think we can probably assume that he’s the only reason Kakistos was even able to follow Faith to this particular town. He knows how to handle information and put people in the right place at the right time. But in none of those cases is he front and centre, so his role can be easy to miss.

What this brings out is that he’s a schemer, not a heavy-hitter. Schemers need heavy-hitters to go out and hit things, but his problem at the beginning of this episode is that the heavy-hitter (Kakistos) is in charge, and so the schemer can’t properly scheme. Trick needed some heavy-hitting minions, and he never really got that: instead he swiftly falls into the orbit of the mayor, another schemer.

And the other part of why Trick’s arc in season 3 feels sort of disappointing is how it ends. His boss (who clearly would prefer a more simple-minded heavy-hitter, see how much he loves Faith) panics and mismanages him, sending him after Two Slayers at once as if he’s a heavy-hitter. He manages to work some scheming into it - he almost takes Buffy out because he managed to hit her with a cargo crate before ambushing her with a band of minions. But ultimately he dies acting like a minion. Which, honestly, is a waste.

And (if it’s not overly woke to accuse mass-murdering immortal sorcerers of racism) you could definitely look at this as: old White dude falls victim to stereotype and fails to make proper use of his intellectual Black underling, instead treating them like a muscle bound goon.

(Alternatively, you might think the mayor was being very deliberate - a too-smart minion is a potential liability, who knows what too-smart ideas he might get into his head, so send him on a suicide mission. I guess this is an exculpatory reading of the mayor - rather an “I can excuse treachery and murder, but I draw the line at racism” moment...)

Either way, he dies, and because he’s stayed in the shadows so effectively, the protagonists don’t even see it as a big deal when they kill him: it’s secondary to their evolving situationship.

Anyway, focusing back on this episode, Trick is a lot of fun to watch even if he doesn’t quite go anywhere: ordering diet soda and then eating the worker is funny, likewise I love the sun-proof glove for pulling delivery guys through doorways. He’s also a great foil for Kakistos, who’s like an exaggerated dumber version of the Master. A vampire so old even Giles recognises his name!

I will say though, I feel like I remember him being a bit bigger and more imposing than he actually turns out to be: he’s big, sure, but… hmm. I think I somehow got the idea he had horns?

(Also I continue to be unsure what sort of wounds vampires can and can't heal from - presumably Angel's chest isn't still riddled with holes from Darla's bullets and Faith's crossbow bolt, that sort of thing heals up, but then why is Kakistos's eye wound unhealed?)

But also just to zoom out from these particular vampires, it’s notable that this is the first time in a while that Sunnydale has had no big boss vampire around - until now it’s been the Master, then the Anointed One, then Spike, then Angelus, and now finally it’s no-one. The Scooby team over the summer were specifically trying to “keep vampire numbers low”, suggesting that they are in fact low. So this seems to be a relative lull in vampire numbers, at least.

(Not as low as immediately after “Prophecy Girl”: Xander says in S2E01 that the vampire that attacks them is the first one they’ve seen since the Master’s death, though admittedly Angel later in that episode says that the Anointed One “has been gathering forces somewhere in town”.)

(But lower than in the mild lull between season 3 and season 4 - Buffy comaplains in S4E01 that “It's been a very slay-heavy summer. I just haven't had a whole lot of time to think about life at UC Sunnydale.”)

So in terms of vampire numbers, this might be the most depopulated the town’s been in a while - there are a few around, but with no-one to lead them, actively recruit/sire more, or help them hide and build up strength undetected. So right now this might actually be a relatively easy place for Kakistos and Trick to move into and take over.

Except that there is a big boss, in the form of the mayor… except that he was mayor during the last two years too, and that didn’t stop vampire bosses bossing the vampires around. So my read is something like: the mayor prioritises secrecy first, stability second. When there’s a boss vampire, that both provides a way to stabilise and monitor vampire activities, and also makes it more costly to intervene - fighting them for control would draw too much attention. When there’s no boss vampire, then taking direct control is both easier and more necessary to maintain stability. So for the last few years he’s been happy to manipulate from the shadows, but now this year he steps in to take more direct control. And as the Ascension approaches he's more willing to take risks to secure control. Maybe if his Ascension clock had been pushed back by one year, we could have ended up with a season of Mr. Trick as the boss vampire?

(This also raises some interesting questions about the shift you start to see in this season, with less danger from vampires and more from obviously inhuman demons… much to dwell on for an aspiring diablo-ecologist…)

A few other loosely-connected thoughts:

Joyce hates knowing that Buffy is in near-constant physical danger and has temporarily died. You’d think she might also be a little worried that her friend Pat also died and didn’t even properly come back, and that she lives in “zombies might crash your party”-dale. As Mr. Trick says, the murder rate here is exceptionally high, and “ain't nobody saying boo about it.” Which is in some ways a cheap shot about the overly-episodic nature of the show, but also does sort of get to the heart of the issue. Buffy being the Slayer in itself doesn’t add any danger to her life: it removes danger (it lets her defend herself when zombies crash her party). What adds danger is going out to hunt monsters, and the reason she does that is to reduce the danger that random Bronze-goers and regular women like Pat (and Joyce!) would otherwise be in. The danger doesn’t come from Buffy, it comes from the fact that there are monsters everywhere, and there’s something a bit blinkered about Joyce ignoring that to focus on the danger that falls specifically on Buffy.

Which… again, to some extent I’m just pointing out that an episodic show is episodic, Joyce has to be somewhat blinkered and overly-protective to play her appointed role. But I also think this is sort of going to be the tension between them all season, that Joyce sees monsters and vampires as a Buffy thing, and latently as a Buffy problem, rather than adjusting her view of the entire world and then recognising Buffy as responding rationally and responsibly to that (utterly utterly terrifying) new world. Which is pretty relatable, actually? You make people aware of a systematic problem, and their perception is that you are the problem…

But maybe, Joyce suggests, Buffy could hand over the responsibility of dealing with that world to Faith? (As Buffy said after meeting Kendra, “maybe I can say, Kendra, you slay, I’m going to Disneyland.”) I think this is a really interesting idea, and there’s both a logic to it - Faith “loves” slaying, Buffy often complains about it - and a fairly ugly undercurrent. The nice middle-class girl shouldn’t have to put herself in danger - she has college to go to! Wouldn’t it make more sense for the girl from the broken home, with the storied past and the loose morals, who’s not going to college anyway, to do it? Isn’t she more suitable, more… dispensable? Of course that’s sort of the ugliness of the whole Slayer gig, she dies so that others don’t, but at least there you’ve got a mathematical justification for it: one Slayer can save many many lives. When it’s just one life for one life it does convey a lot more about whose life matters more, and of course Joyce can be forgiven for prioritising her own daughter's life but…

And I sort of wish that Faith had heard more of this planning, at some point, because I think she would pick up on that undercurrent and… i don’t know if she’d be enthusiastic (replacing Buffy!) or resentful (doing Buffy’s dirty work!) or both, probably it depends on exactly what state she’s in when she hears it.