Buffy the Vampire Slayer · Season 3
“The Zeppo” · Season 3
In this episode: Xander Harris (5), Buffy Summers (2), Faith Lehane (2), Willow Rosenberg (1), Cordelia Chase (1), Oz (1)
Xander, one of these days, you're gonna get yourself hurt.
Or killed.
Or both. And you know, with the pain and then the death, maybe you shouldn't be leaping into the fray like that. Maybe you should be fray-adjacent.
Excuse me? Who, at a crucial moment, distracted the lead demon by allowing her to pummel him about the head?
Yeah. That was real manly, how you shrieked and all.
I think you'll find that was more of a bellow.
It must be really hard when all your friends have, like, superpowers. Slayer, werewolf, witches, vampires, and you're, like, this little nothing. You must feel like Jimmy Olsen.
I happen to be an integral part of that group. I happen to have a lot to offer.
Oh, please.
I do!
Integral part of the group? Xander, you're the-the useless part of the group. You're the Zeppo. "Cool." Look it up. It's something that a sub-literate that's repeated twelfth grade three times has, and you don't.
[Cordelia turns and walks away.]
[to herself] There was no part of that that wasn't fun.
Do you remember the demon that almost got out the night I died?
Every nightmare I have that doesn't revolve around academic failure or public nudity is about that thing. In fact, once ... I dreamt that it attacked me while I was late for a test and naked.
She got me really wound up. A fight like that and, no kill. I'm about ready to pop!
Really? Pop?!
You up for it?
Oh, I'm up. I'm suddenly very up. It's just, um, I've never been up with people before.
Just relax. And take your pants off.
Those two ... concepts are ... antithetical.
Don't worry. I'll steer you around the curves.
Did I mention that I'm having a very strange night?
[Thinking he's alone, Xander discovers a bomb in basement of the school]
[to bomb] Hello, nasty. [to himself] Less than two minutes. Dumb guy. Little bomb. How hard can it be?
[Jack, leader of the zombie gang, knocks him to the floor]
And it just got harder.
I'm not leaving 'til that thing's disarmed.
Then I guess you're not leaving. I'm gonna carve you up and serve you with gravy. You piss me off, boy. Now you pay the price. First the eyes, then the tongue. I'm gonna break every one of your fingers.
You gonna do all that in forty-nine seconds?
[Jack looks at the bomb's clock, then the door, then Xander.]
I know what you're thinking. Can I get by him? Get up the stairs, out of the building, seconds ticking away. I don't love your chances.
Then you'll die, too.
Yeah, looks like. So I guess the question really is: Who has less fear?
I'm not afraid to die. I'm already dead.
Yeah, but this is different. Being blown up isn't walking-around-and-drinking-with-your-buddies dead. It's little-pieces-being-swept-up-by-a-janitor dead, and I don't think you're ready for that.
Are you?
[tired smile] I like the quiet.
But ... it's just that it's bugging me ... this cool thing. I mean, what is it? How do you get it? Who doesn't have it? And who decides who doesn't have it? What is the essence of "cool"?
Not sure.
I mean you, yourself, Oz, are considered more or less cool. Why is that?
Am I?
Is it about the talking? You know, the way you tend to express yourself in short, non-committal phrases?
Could be.
No, you're in a band! That's like a business class ticket to cool with complementary mojo after takeoff. I gotta learn an instrument. Is it hard to play guitar?
Not the way I play it.
Okay, but on the other hand, eighth grade: I'm takin' the flugelhorn and gettin' zero trim. So the whole instrument thing could be a mislead. But ya need a thing. One thing nobody else has. What do I have?
An exciting new obsession, which I feel makes you very special.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Buffy the Vampire Slayer pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
