Bad Eggs Trivia Quiz

Answer: He's with a girl on an escalator -- but only the girl is present in the mirrored reflection.

Forgetting completely about her mother's errand at Everyday Woman, Buffy pursues Lyle, giving his prospective victim time to scream and run off. They fight inconclusively; before running off, Lyle promises that "This ain't over."

Unfortunately, Buffy's mother is not best pleased when Buffy arrives for dinner in the food court without the dress; now she has nothing to wear for the gallery opening! Buffy is cruising for a major grounding in this episode...

Answer: Cordelia and Xander

Cordelia and Xander have been together -- sort of -- since "What's My Line?", when a heated basement argument devolved into an intense session of kissing (even as a supernatural assassin cooled his heels upstairs). Both are too embarrassed to tell their friends, but NOT too embarrassed to furtively continue their relationship -- the scene before health class finds them smooching in a utility closet in an amusingly hostile way. (Xander: "This would work a lot better for me if you didn't talk." Cordelia: "Well, this would work a lot better for ME with the lights off!")

Naturally, there's too much tension for them to keep quiet in Health class. With a pointed look at Cordelia, Xander expounds on "the heartbreak of halitosis" while Cordelia explains that the "Hoover technique" is not an appealing way to kiss.

Answer: Care for them as if they were infants

These projects abound in high school health classes. My school used baby dolls programmed to cry at random intervals; a friend's school used bags of flour. The idea is that a student forced to care for these objects over the course of a week will think long and hard about the responsibility of raising an unplanned child.

Our heroes are already thoroughly familiar with responsibility, of course, but Mr. Whitmore has a curriculum and he's going to stick with it.

Answer: "As punishments go, this is fairly abstract."

Perhaps it isn't so shocking that Buffy has cut her health class -- but what is shocking is that she cut it to do library research with Giles! They're searching for information on the Gorches, and what they find isn't pretty. She asks Willow if Mr. Whitmore noticed her absence; Willow hands her the egg without further explanation. One can hardly blame Buffy for being confused!

Answer: They weren't vampires at the time.

When Giles discovers that Lyle is "a fellow of repute," he's so excited that he nearly crushes Buffy's egg accidentally with his book. She snatches it away, filled already with parental concern, and he continues to explain that they were not exactly constrained by conscience, even before becoming demons.

It is decided that Buffy should kill the Gorches, and that she should enlist Angel's help. Naturally, their hunts these days involve much more kissing than demon-seeking, so the Gorches go undetected.

Answer: Eggbert

The scriptwriters leave us to speculate on the egg's namesake. It could be Egbert, the king of Wessex from 802 to 839, although given Buffy's history grades this seems unlikely. It could be a reference to the office-based comic strip "Dilbert," where the names of several characters end in "-bert" (e.g. Dogbert and Catbert) -- but would Buffy appreciate a cartoon set in a cubicle? Eggbert is also the star of a mildly successful 1993 computer game, "Speedy Eggbert," but surely his popularity would have waned by 1997.

However it got its name, young Eggbert is certainly a naughty thing. It hatches while Buffy sleeps, extending long, creepy tendrils to attach to her face. The next day she wakes exhausted -- and Eggbert is tucked back into an intact shell. Curiouser and curiouser!

Answer: A pair of scissors

Her first choice of weapon is an iron, but the hatchling doesn't stay still long enough for her to smash it. As it skitters under her bed, behind her furniture, onto her back and back to the wall, Buffy drops the iron, grabs her scissors, and -- with the aid of her Slayer reflexes -- stabs the hatchling (first on the wall, then on the floor) until it stops moving. I'm not sure she'll ever get the stain out of her carpet.

Answer: Willow

Buffy asks Willow if her egg is doing anything strange, and tells her to break it right away. Willow insists that the egg is normal (if a bit refrigerated) and that Buffy's egg was probably a trap specifically laid for her by the Gorch brothers. As Buffy hangs up, we see that Willow's egg has in fact hatched, and that she's staring at the camera in a very unsettling way. Something's not right here!

Buffy's mother enters and agrees with that sentiment: it is absolutely not right, she says, that her daughter is placing phone calls at 2:45 in the morning. In fact, Buffy is grounded "for the rest of your natural life." No hanging out, no Bronze, no extracurricular activities: she's to study in the library until her ride arrives.

Answer: Black

We first discover the bezoar family's black blood in a school utility closet, where the mind-controlled Willow and Cordelia have stashed Buffy and Xander after knocking them out. (Xander was not attacked by a hatchling due to having hard-boiled his egg -- the man plays hardball.) Buffy and Xander wake to find two eggs about to hatch right next to them, and Buffy wastes no time crushing them with a toolbox before they escape. The black spatter is impressive.

Several nice fight scenes later, Sunnydale High's students and faculty are free; Buffy is covered with black goo from dispatching the bezoar; and an extremely intimidated Lyle has fled the building, telling Buffy that "it's over" after all.

Answer: Gas leak

The various cover stories for Sunnydale's supernatural activity are always incredible, although the "gas leak" idea is much better than Principal Snyder's standard-issue "Vampires? Those were gang members high on PCP" line. Amusingly, it's Giles -- just as discombobulated as the others -- who first spreads the gas leak story. Even confused and disoriented, he appreciates the need for secrecy. (Wisely, he lets Xander insist that he get a full night's rest before hearing what really happened.)

Sadly, Joyce Summers is not impressed by the gas leak story, and is furious that Buffy didn't stay in the library. She's now confined to her room! But the impact on Buffy's social life is not so severe after all: the episode ends with Buffy and Angel kissing through her open window, technically not breaking the rules.

Thanks for playing. I hope you've enjoyed the quiz as much as I enjoyed the episode!