A Tour of Sunnydale - The Pack

I hear there's been an infestation of wild dogs on the streets recently. Weird how I've never seen one, though. Still, we should look out as we take A Tour of Sunnydale.

The Pack is the sixth episode of Buffy's first season. Written by Matt Kiene & Joe Reinkemeyer, the same duo responsible also only for season 2's Inca Mummy Girl, and directed by Bruce Seth Green who we last saw doing an admirable job with terrible material in Teacher's Pet, this is an episode notable for two things: Being the first proper "character-centric" episode of the show (I don't count the aforementioned Teacher's Pet), starting off the tradition whereupon certain episodes will focus on one particular character (other than Buffy) more, and, more interestingly, being the third most polarizing episode of the show according to The Phi Phenomenon's polarizing episodes page. It also comes in at number 87 on the overall episode rank, meaning that even through the controversy it's on average considered to be in the bottom half in terms of quality.

I myself am one of those people that will defend The Pack to the death. On my first watch-through this was the point where the series first grabbed my attention (though Prophecy Girl was the real turning point), and on every subsequent walkthrough I've very much enjoyed The Pack.

The most striking thing about The Pack is that it's an unapologetically silly episode. In general, I feel like the silly episodes of Buffy are the most underrated ones (with a couple glaring exceptions), as the weak monster of the week often tends to make people forget the strong points, and the fact that The Pack's goofiness lands it in the bad graces of many fans may be the most obvious example. Yes, Xander and a bunch of kids getting possessed by hyenas is incredibly dumb, and a lot of what they get up to is overplayed, but there's also some absolutely fantastic character work here, not just for Xander but for Willow as well. I'd also argue that The Pack is the best directed episode so far, packed with clever but unintrusive camera work and beginning the shift towards the less pitch-black and artificial look of the later seasons. Most notable are Nicolas Brendon and Alyson Hannigan however, both of them putting in their absolute best performances in the series to date, absolutely knocking the material they've been given out of the park.

It's hard to pin down just what the point of The Pack is, and that's most likely among its weakest points. It's obviously centered around Xander, but seeing as how this isn't really Xander, we don't really get to learn much about him in this episode. It does highlight him as having a more dangerous side than the affable goofy kid he's been presented at, but it comes across so heavy-handedly that if that was the objective of the episode it fails miserably. Instead, I think the character we really learn about in this episode is Willow, through the way she reacts to Hyena!Xander's absolutely disgusting behaviour. She's obviously devastated, but she doesn't let it show until she's with Buffy, a friend whom she can trust, and she still stays strong when it becomes obvious she needs to in order to help Xander. Throughout the episode, Willow demonstrates incredible strength of spirit. It was in the Willow moments of this episode that I found the juicy character work, the subtle evolution of my understanding of just who this person is and how they relate to those around them that makes me love Buffy so much.

Despite those moments being unfortunately largely relegated to the sidelines, The Pack is such a well-crafted little monster-of-the-week story that it's relentessly entertaining all the way through. Through its silliness it manages to pack a surprising amount of emotional punch in all the right places: Even understanding exactly what's going on with Xander it's still immensely affecting to see him slowly become awful, and the moments where he so effectively destroys Willow are all incredibly powerful. There's a great amount of tension in the later half, as the Pack chases Willow around the school (and then proceeds to terrorize a family in their car) thanks to the fantastic camera-work emphasizing the malice within these kids. Of particular note is the scene where Principal Flutie gets eaten, which is genuinely unsettling and unpleasant to watch, and places this as the darkest episode of Buffy to date. Also fantastic is the scene where Willow tricks Hyena!Xander into thinking he's tricked her as he's in the book cage: A great piece of audience misdirection, and a demonstration of Willow's intelligence.

The Pack is full to the brim of effective little scenes like these, whether they be goofy in the style of The Pack walking over a table as a badass rock solo plays, or unsettling like their laughter as Lance runs away from them in terror. It's precisely this interplay between the silly and the genuinely effective that makes The Pack work so well for me. It's alternately stupid fun, clever, and scary, and it makes for a hell of a ride. The Pack is decidedly a Season 1 episode, but it represents the ideal version of Season 1, where the somewhat disconnected monsters of the week are all so much fun that I don't really need anything else to properly progress. The Pack is an absolute blast.

Here's ranking and rating: The ranking is of all episodes of Buffy and Angel I've watched so far, with 1 being the best one, and the rating is out of ten in context of the quality of the show: I'm essentially trying to decide what 10% of quality of that particular show the episode belongs in. Because both shows are so good, this means negative ratings are not neccesarily a diss on the episode -  I just think it's one of the show's weaker ones.

Ranking is pretty simple. The only real contender is Witch. I believe the two episodes are about equal in terms of objective quality. In fact, I even am willing to concede that Witch may be an objectively better episode of Buffy than The Pack. Despite this, The Pack has always been one of my guilty pleasures, one of the absolute funnest times I have whilst watching Buffy. The Pack goes in above Witch, snagging the number one spot.

Ranked List

Rating: 6/10. The first really hard rating in the series. I initially went with 7/10, but it was so trivial coming up with 20 episodes I like better than The Pack that I felt I was massively overrating it. I now feel like I'm massively underrating it, but I've decided to stick with it here. The Pack may be a tonne of fun, but the best of Buffy is just as much fun and much better at keeping the story interconnected in the way that makes the show special. I think it's fair to say The Pack is the first hint at some of the greatest Buffy, but it's still severely flawed. Elevating it a whole 3 points above an episode as similarly good as Witch based just on the fact that its silliness makes me like it seems a tad generous.

Side Note 1: Contains Giles Knockout Number 2
Side Note 2: The official story that Principal Flutie was eaten by a pack of wild dogs that snuck into the school (in the middle of a school day, and who were seen by no one) was so silly that it became a running joke between me and one of my friends to blame everything on wild dogs. It's one of my fondest memories of Buffy.
Side Note 3: I love that it's canon that Giles thinks this episode's concept is as dumb as the audience does.