Summary & Episode Info


 
Original Airdate: October 10, 2000. This is the third episode of Buffy's fifth season.
Written By: Jane Espenson
Directed By: James A. Contner
 
Guest Stars:
 
Michael Bailey Smith - Toth
Kristine Sutherland - Joyce Summers
Kelly Donovan - Xander Double
Cathy Cohen - Building Manager
David Reivers - Foreman
Fritz Greve - Construction Worker
 
Short Summary: A demon accidentally creates two Xanders. Comic confusion reigns.
 
Long Summary:
 
The episode begins with Buffy, Riley, Xander, and Anya watching a kung fu movie in Xander's basement. They discuss the crappiness of the basement and Xander mentions the possibility of moving. Riley begins massaging Buffy's shoulders; Xander, wanting to be the good boyfriend also, starts doing the same for Anya but as she has a dislocated shoulder the effect isn't quite what he had in mind and Xander ends the scene feeling just as inadequate as ever.
 
The next day Xander, Anya, Willow, Buffy, and Riley are all out together looking at prospective apartments for Xander. They see a very nice one which Xander tells Anya he won't be able to afford because his construction job is ending, and Anya throws a fit. Meanwhile, Giles is preparing to open The Magic Box, which he has just purchased. While sorting through some assorted curses, he is attacked by a large, black cloak wearing demon with weird fluorescent teeth and skin that kind of hangs off. The demon says it is looking for the Slayer and then leaves because Giles it not its concern. The gang minus Anya shows up at the shop a while later and, after doing some research, they discover that the demon which attacked Giles is named Toth. Toth, Giles says, is an unusually sophisticated demon, meaning that he uses tools. Having noticed a strong smell surrounding the demon, Giles suspects that the garbage dump will be the best place to find him. The gang (again sans Anya) heads to the dump and after a brief encounter with Spike face off against Toth, who wields a magical stick of some kind with which he tries to shoot Buffy. Although Xander is hit by a blast from this weapon, everyone appears to be fine and they all go home. Or so it appears: after everyone, including Xander, walks away, we see Xander lying apparently unconscious in the dump.
 
It is there that he wakes in the morning, puzzled. He walks home only to find a person who looks exactly like him in his basement. Shocked, he runs to call Buffy but the payphone eats his quarter. Then just as he is about to get through to Buffy he sees the evil Xander walking towards him down the street and so hangs up the phone and follows him to work, where Evil Xander proceeds to do Xander's job. The foreman calls Evil Xander into his trailer. Xander eavesdrops, expecting to overhear himself being fired, but to his surprise the foreman invites Evil Xander to stay on for the next job. Xander sees that his evil twin is holding some kind of shiny object with which he seems to be hypnotizing or bewildering people into doing his will.
 
Evil Xander's next stop is the apartment Anya had wanted to badly, which he rents from a suddenly very friendly building manager. Evil Xander then calls Anya to ask her to meet him at the apartment. On his way out of the apartment he is attacked by the "real" Xander. Evil Xander runs away to Giles' where we see him telling Buffy, Riley, and Giles about the thing that has assumed his shape. The "real" Xander, who has followed the evil twin to Giles', is stunned to hear that Buffy believes Evil Xander's story. With almost everyone turned against him Xander goes to Willow's dorm. He tries to prove he's really Xander, but his efforts are lost on Willow, who has no idea that there are two Xanders in Sunnydale. He tells her about Evil Xander and his theory that it may be a robot, but Willow deduces that the culprit is Toth. (Buffy makes the same assumption at Giles' flat.) Xander tells Willow his fears that the demon is doing a better job with his life than he ever did, and wonders if maybe he shouldn't just give up and let the demon have it. Then he remembers Anya, and becomes more motivated to keep his life. He runs off to protect her from the demon, who has in fact by this time met up with Anya at the new apartment and is in the process of telling her that he has rented it. She's dubious at first but then is pleased when he says he chose it because he knew she liked it. The two talk about Anya's fear of dying, and Xander says some very insightful things. The "real" Xander then bursts through the door screaming at Evil Xander to stay away from Anya. He pleads with Anya to recognize him but she believes that Evil Xander is the real thing.
 
At Giles' flat, Willow has arrived and told the others that the "real" Xander is the one that came to her. Everyone is confused until Giles discovers the truth: that both Xanders are Xander, neither is a demon and neither is evil. The demon Toth's plot, he says, was to split Buffy into two parts, one that would have all the Slayer's characteristics, and one that would have only Buffy Summers' characteristics. The Slayer half would be extremely powerful, but the Buffy half would be quite killable. The two halves could not survive without each other, Giles explains, so all Toth would have had to do was kill the Buffy half in order to eliminate the Slayer half. In Xander's case, he was merely divided into stronger traits and weaker ones, hence the "real" Xander's (who will now be referred to as Scruffy Xander) extreme silliness and bad luck, and Evil Xander's (now known as Suave Xander) uncharacteristic adultness. Back at the new apartment, Scruffy Xander and Suave Xander continue to assume that one of them is evil and are about to kill each other, which would result in both their deaths. Scruffy Xander pulls out a gun and points it at Suave Xander, but Anya rushes between them to protect her Xander. Buffy and Riley (who on their way to Xander's talked about whether Riley would have liked Buffy's Slayer half to be gone -- he says not) arrive just in time to prevent a disaster and explain that both Xanders are real. The two Xanders reluctantly believe it, although neither one can see anything of the other in himself. When he learns that the shiny object Suave Xander had been playing with all day is actually a quarter, Scruffy Xander finally accepts that Suave Xander is not brainwashing people into doing his will. Just as all are about to head over to Giles' to reunite the two Xanders, Toth rejoins the story and tries again to attack Buffy. She defeats him, though.
 
At the Magic Shop, the two Xanders stand side by side. The girls examine them, fascinated by the fact that they are completely identical. Anya suggests that the two should be left separate for one night of fun, but Scruffy Xander says that would be wrong. Scruffy Xander asks Suave Xander how he managed to get a promotion if he wasn't putting a whammy on people. Suave Xander replies that, actually, they had simply earned the promotion. Willow stands the two next to each other and speaks a simple incantation, and the Xanders are reunited.
 
The episode ends with Riley, Buffy, and Anya helping Xander move out of the basement. With Buffy and Anya out of the room, Xander comments to Riley that Anya can always make him feel Suave Xander has left the building. Riley responds that Anya is obviously very much in love with Xander, and Xander replies that he still envies Riley sometimes for Buffy's relative normality. Riley tells him that he knows how lucky he is, but he also realizes that Buffy doesn't really love him.
 
Trivia
 
- Kelly Donovan, who played "Xander Double," is actually Nicholas Brendon's twin brother. That explains why the "special effects" looked so real. :) Brendon and Donovan are actually the brothers' middle names: their real last name is either Schulz or Schultz.
- Willow refers to the time her evil twin showed up in Sunnydale in this episode. That, of course, happened in season 3's "Doppelgangland." Later on in season 5, Buffy also falls victim to evil twin syndrome in the episode "Intervention" when Spike unleashes the BuffyBot on the world. Xander makes a reference at that time to this episode: "Hey, I know this! They're both Buffy!" Ironic, since he was convinced that his own double was a robot.
- From BuffyGuide.com: "We're told there's a similar Star Trek episode called 'The Enemy Within,' in which Kirk is split into an aggressive, violent half and a meek, wimpy half. The aggressive half starts rampaging through the ship, and Spock and the meek half come up with a possible plan to rejoin the two parts." Is this why the Xanders say, "Kill us both, Spock!"? Possibly. But according to BuffyGuide.com's Star Trek experts there could be another explanation for that: "Some viewers consider this line a reference to the aforementioned episode, 'The Enemy Within,' wherein the meek Kirk suggests to Spock that if they cannot be rejoined, he kill them both. Others consider it a reference to the episode 'Whom Gods Destroy,' in which a shape shifter impersonates Kirk, and the real Kirk says, 'You must shoot both of us - it's the only way to ensure the safety of the Enterprise.'"

Info page courtesy of Meaghan!

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