Wild at Heart (Buffy episode)

Plot Summary

Episode six of season four, we find Buffy running across the U.C. Sunnydale campus chasing a vampire. Buffy thanks the vampire for relocating to a more secluded location so that she may now slay him. She warns the vampire that if he eats this late, "you're gonna get heartburn", before plunging Mr. Pointy through his undead heart. Our heroine is feeling witty tonight. She laments that the vamp didn't appreciate her pun before becoming a big pile of dust and walks away into the night. As the camera zooms out, we see Spike has been watching the whole thing. He threatens to soon take out the slayer to no one in general, when he's hit in the back with a taser and drops to the ground. We see the same mysterious figures in fatigues and masks that we've seen several times thus far this season drag him sliently away.

At the Bronze, Xander, Oz, Willow, and Buffy are appreciating how they feel like big shots at their favorite club because they are now in college. They're all surprised when Giles nonchalantly sidles up to the table and offers to buy a round of lattes. The gang is at first shocked, then supportive. In their effort to make Giles feel welcome, they instead imply he is an anachronism in the young crowd, thoroughly disappointing the ex-Watcher. As they are talking, Veruca begins to sing on stage with her band. Oz takes notice and is a little entranced by her, much to Willow's dismay. She tries to talk to Oz, saying that she's a good singer, but Oz says she's just ok in a distracted way. Buffy tries to support Willow by saying Veruca doesn't sound that good, but Giles is impressed and says she has a presence beyond her years.

The next morning we find Willow and Oz in bed. The incredibly cute Willow is talking in her "sleep" faking a dream. She wants to hang out with Oz later that night, but he reminds her that tonight is the night before the full moon. Willow says that she wanted to attend a meeting of the campus Wicca group to check it out. Oz tells her she should go and that he can lock himself up that night before he becomes the wolf.

Buffy and Willow are in Professor Walsh's psych class. Buffy is handed her paper by Prof. Walsh and receives high praise for her work. She's asked to lead a discussion group in the next class. Buffy's got brains to go with the brawn it seems. She even got a higher grade than Willow on the paper. All of this makes Willow jealous momentarily. Willow invites Buffy to eat with her and Oz. Buffy says she has to see a TA first, but will catch up with her soon.

Outside Oz is walking through an outdoor eating area with tables scattered about. He sees Veruca sitting alone with a big plate of food. He stops and stares at her and she returns the look. She invites him to sit and he tells her he's meeting his girlfriend. She says there's plenty of room for everyone. Oz sits and compliments her band. They start to talk music when Willow approaches. She stops for a moment as she sees who Oz is sitting with. She's uncomfortable, but ever the trooper, wants to be supportive of Oz's new "friendship", even though we can tell she thinks it's wrong. She sits down and Oz and Veruca continue to talk music, mainly ignoring poor Willow. Willow tries to join in with the conversation, but is made to feel she made a fool of herself. Awkwardness overcomes Oz and he quickly "bails", leaving Willow and Veruca sitting alone. Veruca says she too must leave and subtly mocks Willow about her loud shirt before walking away. Buffy arrives at this time. Willow is sad that Oz finds Veruca sexy. Buffy tries to cheer her up by saying Oz can check out girls from time to time, but he still loves Willow. Buffy tells her that Oz is not the kind to stray.

As the sun is starting to set we find Oz in the cemetery locking himself in his cage. He transforms to the wolf and later that evening slams into the cage door until it breaks. The wolf is loose in Sunnydale...

Professor Walsh is leaving class and walking out to her car when she hears something behind a long row of bushes. Out the other end, jumps Wolf-Oz in full attack mode. She turns and runs with the wolf in hot pursuit when she comes across a second wolf. Wolf-Oz sees the second and instead of attacking the professor they attack each other. Professor Walsh escapes unharmed.

The next morning we find Oz back in human form with a woman's arm wrapped around him. As he awakes totally befuddled by how he got out of his cage and why someone is sleeping next to him, he turns to see Veruca. They're both covered in scratches. Veruca is happy, Oz is upset. He doesn't remember anything about their night together and wonders why she is with him. She jokes she's a werewolf junkie, then seriously tells him, "you know what I am. You've known since the first time you saw me" (in Living Conditions). She comes on to him, but he's visibly shaken by what he knows he has done.

They raid a laundry room in one of the campus dorms to steal some clothes. Oz wonders how they got out of their cages. Veruca is floored to hear that Oz has a cage. Oz is surprised that she doesn't have one. He says he puts himself into a cage to prevent harming innocent people and it's not so bad since he's only the wolf three times a week. Veruca says maybe he's the wolf all the time and his human face is only a disguise. Veruca embraces her wolf nature and doesn't understand why Oz rejects it. She says she feels more free and alive than normal humans. Oz is disgusted with her and his actions last night and asks, "free to kill people?" and leaves. She knows she'll be seeing him again.

Buffy finds out that Professor Walsh was attacked by two huge "dogs" last night. Buffy knows that reports of huge dogs appearing the night before a full moon is not a good sign.

Willow arrives at Oz's dorm room. She's dressed much more sophisticated than normal wearing leather pants and nice blouse. She's trying to be more of what she thinks Oz wants. As she hugs him, he very limply hugs her back. She apologizes about being weird at lunch yesterday with Veruca. She tries to seduce him and as she's coming on to him, she lifts his shirt and we can see the cuts on his back from being with Veruca. As she kisses him, he pulls away. When she asks what's wrong, he uses the famous want-no-sex excuse, "I'm tired". She knows something's wrong and feels the rejection. She very quickly exits, obviously deeply hurt.

Buffy goes to see Giles. He's bored and watching a quiz show on TV. When Buffy arrives he's very happy she's there on business. She tells him about the "wild dog" attack and knows it must be werewolves. But two? There were no news reports about any other attacks. Buffy says she'll talk to Oz to see if he knows anything and Giles says he will try to find out if there were more wolf sightings.

Willow goes to Xander's basement apartment for advice. She wants to know what it means if a guy rejects sexual advances from a girl. Xander says that it could be legit, but happens rarely. He feels more likely the reason has to do with Willow's feeling weird about Oz's attraction to Veruca. He recommends that she and Oz talk about it and things will be ok again.

Buffy finds Oz welding his cage door back into the frame. She knows he got out and tells him about what Prof. Walsh said. He lies by says he doesn't know anything about a second wolf, since he can't remember anything when he's in wolf form. She knows something's not quite right and he's probably hiding something. She says if she finds wolf #2, she's taking it out.

That evening as the sun in setting, Oz is waiting by his cage when Veruca enters the crypt. Apparently he called her asking her to come over. He says he wants her to get into the cage with him so they won't hurt anyone and also to protect her from Buffy. She approaches and they stand in the doorway of the cage. She tells him that she's wanted him before she even saw him, that she sensed him and wants to know if he feels the same. As the sun sets, he pulls her into the cage passionately kissing her, he shuts door as they both turn into wolves.

The next morning Willow arrives at the crypt to find a very naked Oz and Veruca curled up together sleeping on a mattress in the still locked cage. She drops the breakfast she brought for Oz and they wake up. Oz quickly gets dressed while Veruca takes her time, silently taunting Willow that she just slept with her boyfriend. He tells Willow that Veruca is a wolf too and he had to get get her into the cage so she wouldn't hurt anyone and he didn't have any other choice. Willow says he did have a choice, that he could have told someone instead of keeping it a secret. Veruca agrees and Oz yells at her to leave. Oz apologizes but Willow says she somehow knew. Oz says he knows how she's feeling since she strayed with Xander when they were dating and she asks him if this is some sort of payback. He continues to apologize and tells her he has no control over what happens when he's a wolf. She asks him if he felt an attraction for Veruca when he wasn't a wolf, if he wanted her then as well, even more that he wanted Willow in sort of an animal way. He doesn't answer and she runs away crying.

She walks despondently through downtown Sunnydale. As she crosses the street, she walks directly in the path of an oncoming car. Buffy sees this and tries to push her out of the way but she's too far away. Riley also sees and is much closer. He grabs Willow back onto the sidewalk barely saving her from getting hit. Buffy arrives and takes her back to their dorm room.

Buffy is trying to comfort Willow at their room. Buffy says she has to leave to find Veruca before the sun sets and when she does she's going to put an end to her. She knows she's bad news and she wants to protect her friend from more hurt. Willow says she'll be okay alone. As Buffy leaves she tells Willow she loves her and that she'll be back after she takes care of Veruca.

Buffy finds Oz in his dorm room and wants to know where Veruca is at. He says he doesn't know but thinks he can track her by scent. As Oz tries to explain, Buffy quickly let's him know she's not interested in his side of the story and tells him to shut up.

As Buffy and Oz are in the woods looking for Veruca, Willow has left her room and is seen in what looks like a chemistry lab. She's casting a spell to curse the deceitful hearts of Oz and Veruca.

In the woods, Buffy and Oz find a pile of dirty clothes that Oz says smell like Veruca. They realize that Veruca purposefully left the clothes there to throw Oz off her trail. They then realize that means Veruca is going to try and hurt Willow. They run back to school. Buffy runs into another masked military commando. They both fall and drop their weapons (Buffy has a tranquilizer gun). Oz hurries on ahead and Buffy recovers but has lost some time.

At the chem lab, Willow is completing her curse on Oz. As she incants over a fire, beakers and other things start to float around her. She holds a picture of Oz which she needs to place in the flames to complete the spell. As she does this she looks long at the picture of her boyfriend she still loves deeply and finds she can't go through with it. She puts the picture down and the flames go out and the floating beakers drop breaking all around her. Veruca has been watching and mocks her for not having the courage to complete the spell. As she enters the room she locks the door. She says that she doesn't blame her for trying the spell though because "sometimes to keep what's yours, you have to kill." She points out the sunset is imminent.

Veruca taunts Willow about her sleeping with Oz and hits her to the ground. At that moment Oz breaks into the room and tells her not to touch Willow again. If she wants to hurt him he tells her then to hurt him directly and to leave Willow out of it. She asks how can she, since she thinks that Willow is the reason that he locks himself in cages. She says Willow is blinding him from his true nature and when she's gone he'll be free to admit what he really is.

As the sun sets they both change into wolves. Oz and Veruca fight and Oz bites Veruca's neck killing her. He now has a taste for blood and looks directly at Willow. As he leaps to attack her, Buffy enters the room and hits him with a tranquilizer dart and puts him down.

The next morning Buffy tells Giles about the commando in the woods and says that she almost didn't make it to Willow in time. She's seen these guys around many times recently and now wants to know who they are.

Willow arrives at Oz's room to find that it's now mostly bare. He's packing his bags to her surprise. She doesn't understand and wants to know what he is doing. He says that he has to leave. He says that Veruca was right about something, that the wolf is always in him and until he can understand more about his nature and how the wolf plays a part in it, he needs to search for answers and be away from people he may hurt. He doesn't know how long he'll be gone. She asks if he loves her and he tells her he's never loved anything else in his life. A really heartbreaking scene where Willow really cries a lot. Oz can't take it, he feels he may break down too and leaves Willow alone in the room crying her eyes out. He walks out to his van and starts it up. He stops for a moment, turns off the van and looks back towards his room, thinking about going back. Cut to poor Willow crying in the room all alone again. But then he starts the van again and drives away.

Importance

The existence of the primal, savage wolf in Oz and Veruca is a metaphor the fundamental, primal urges felt by all of us. These can be natural urges taken to a destructive, glutonous level; the desire to accumulate wealth for one's comfort at the expense of others, sexual desires, perhaps substance abuse/addiction.

Veruca embraces the raw nature, the do-anything feeling the wolf gives her and doesn't understand why Oz would try to supress it. The supression of the wolf nature by Oz is symbolic of the struggle people have to contain their fundamental urges in check. If we succumb to them too much they become self-destructive just as the physical manifestation of the wolf in Veruca shows us. The writers give us a good reason to try and supress our primal urges when we see what happens to Veruca, who dies because of it.

Buffy is now interested in the commandos she keeps seeing. This is building the plotline of the Initiative. The audience yet has not heard of this group, but soon will.

Giles showing up in the Bronze, watching TV, and happy to see Buffy talking about supernatural happenings in town is important to Gile's story in this season's plotline. Since he's no longer offically Buffy's watcher, we see he struggles with his new life as well as our college-bound freshmen. He too has to find his place in this new world and stumbling a bit as he does it.

Quotes and Trivia

Willow (faking a dream): "All Geminis to the raspberry hats."

Oz: "You don't wanna find out what I am."
Veruca: "You're an animal. Animals kill."
Oz: "You're right. We kill."

Cast and Crew

• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
• Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
• Seth Green as Oz
• Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
• Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

• Marc Blucas as Riley Finn
• Lindsay Crouse as Maggie Walsh
• James Marsters as Spike
• Paige Moss as Veruca

• Written by: Marti Noxon
• Directed by: David Grossman

Air Date

9 November 1999 on The WB Television Network