S3E5: Homecoming – Slayerfest '98, Cordelia's Spatula, and the Cutest Cold War in Sunnydale

<p>Alan calls it out before the credits even roll: the fact that Scott Hope dumps Buffy the moment a shinier love interest is on the horizon is one more brick in the case that this guy was never any good. From there Jarrod and Alan dig into &quot;Homecoming,&quot; the by-the-numbers-but-a-blast hour where Buffy, freshly single and feeling invisible (a teacher doesn&#39;t even remember the student whose life her class supposedly changed), throws herself into a homecoming-queen grudge match against Cordelia — right as Mr. Trick debuts Slayerfest &#39;98 and sics a roomful of assassins on what he thinks are two Slayers. The guys trace the episode&#39;s real engine, competition as validation, through Trick&#39;s mission statement of a monologue, and they have a lot of fun with the machinery around it: the &quot;Winklevoss twins&quot; hunters, a live video switcher dressed up as spy tech, the return of country-vampire Lyle Gorch, and the most-dangerous-game lineage running back to Richard Connell&#39;s 1924 short story. Along the way, Willow and Xander&#39;s dressing-room kiss finally cracks a seal Alan suspects the writers will have to awkwardly reseal, Oz stays magnificently expressionless, Faith spreads a fake-STD rumor to torch Scott on the dance floor, and Cordelia stakes a vampire with a spatula before verbally reducing Lyle to a cowering boy. There&#39;s a real digression into why theme songs and title sequences are a lost art (blame Lost), a color-theory tangent on why Freddy Krueger&#39;s red-and-green sweater works, and the eternal Buffy question of who cleans up all the bullet holes. It ends on a homecoming-queen tie neither rival wins — and Trick trading up to a job with the Mayor. Band Candy waits next week.</p><p>#WhoWatchesTheRewatchers #BuffyRewatch #Homecoming #BuffyS3E5 #BtVSSeason3 #BuffyPodcast #Slayerfest98 #MrTrick #MayorWilkins #CordeliaChase #ScottHope #LyleGorch #WillowAndXander #Oz #Faith #MostDangerousGame #TheWinklevossTwins #HomecomingQueen #TitleSequences #ColorTheory #SunnydaleHigh #JossWhedon #ScoobyGang</p>