5 hours Ago By Rob Stewart
Meat Me At The Double Meat Palace: A BTVS Retrospective, S6 E12 Our episode kicks off with some exposition: Willow explains to Xander and Anya that Buffy was unable to catch Team Losers because they cleared out of their lair after the Slayer found out their identities. She and Willow managed to recover a slew of magical and technological items, but not the ne’er-do-wells themselves. Anya launches into a capitalistic rant, and this sees Buffy enter the room in fast food gear.
It seems as though she has picked up a job as we head into Nerf Herder singing the theme song. After the intro, we see Buffy in a side room watching an orientation video for Double Meat Palace, her new place of employment, and apparently the video shows how the company slaughters cows and chickens? Why would–you know what? Doesn’t matter. Anything from this show for a slight joke, you know?.
After the video, Buffy is escorted around the premises by Manny The Manager, a ten-year tenured “lifer” of the DoubleMeat Palace. The entire ordeal has creepy music and a fairly auspicious tone. I’m genuinely not sure if we are going to find out this place is up to no good or if the show is just having a bit of fun with the menial nature of minimum wage employment.
I am hoping for the latter because that would be more subversive, but honestly? I’d take either option. I like that it’s honestly up in the air for me here. It all feels very cult-like inside the DMP, though; never moreso than when Manny forces Buffy to eat one of their signature sandwiches, a burger with processed chicken meat and a burger patty.
Would that be good? It’s not even like a crispy chicken breast; it’s sliced chicken lunchmeat. Which is fine as far as lunchmeats go, but the alternative? A burger that also contained a fried chicken breast? I can see myself eating that! (Allegedly, there is a similar Hidden Menu item at McDonald’s where you can order a sandwich with burger, filet o’ fish, and chicken all together. How I have never ordered this beast remains a mystery to me other than my own inherent shyness at asking for things not outright offered).
(I should go to McDonald’s and see about this strange creature, though. It sounds amazing) (I would rather eat that crazy-ass megameat sandwich than watch BTVS, at least. Chicken, fish, AND burger, guys.
That’s, like, 3 of the 5 food groups) Buffy waits on an older customer–very much one of those actresses that you are like “I’ve seen her in a hundred things, but I do not know her name”–who implies some new employees just vanish after short stints working there. ARE THEY BECOMING THE SECRET INGREDIENT IN THE DOUBLE MEAT MEDLEY!? Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV I hate that this episode has me really engaged in if this restaurant is evil or not. Xander, Dawn, Willow, and Anya come in to support Buffy’s employment, and she shares her (my?) concerns that the Double Meat Palace has strange goings-on afoot.
Xander blows her off and notes he has worked at fast food before, too, and it all sounds normal to him. Fun fact: I have actually never worked fast food. It all seems WAY too stressful and fast-paced for me.
My first job was at a pizza parlor, and I was awful at even that. I basically refused to make the pizzas, haha! I worked the backside of the oven and prepared all the sides and salads. And I washed dishes.
So I was useful! But not...
all the way useful, I guess. The Scoobies leave, night falls, and over twelve minutes into this episode, we are STILL at the DMP. The screenwriters were committed to this one, which is fine because some episodes of this show give me whiplash with all the cutting back and forth.
Spike shows up to Buffy’s work and notes that she is unhappy and does not belong there. Buffy walks away from him, as he ominously warns “This place will kill you!”. Fifteen minutes in; STILL at the fast food joint! Commitment indeed! One of Buffy’s fellow employees is attacked and likely killed while taking the garbage out.
After the commercial break, it’s a new day and Buffy is BACK AT WORK. So this is just going to be a bottle episode at this point, right? We are never leaving Double Meat Palace. She punches in and runs into Manny who notes the dead guy didn’t show up to work that morning.
Manny puts Buffy on the grill for her second day. Buffy continues fishing around for the key to the secret ingredient from the guy training her on the grill, but he is either really cagey about it or just doesn’t know. The score CONTINUES to be eerie, and the makers of this episode are going all-in on the creepy vibe.
I begin to hope there is nothing inherently sinister about the DMP and this is all about the soul suck that is minimum wage employment, but I’m likely giving the show too much credit. Manny reports to Buffy that she needs to work a double shift because another employee did not show, either. Buffy retorts that he could be anywhere, and some guy slams down a person-sized hunk of unfrozen burger meat! WE CUT! WE CUT TO OTHER EVENTS! Eighteen and a half minutes in, and we leave the Palace to head to Xander and Anya’s apartment.
A demon shows up to rend Xander to pieces, but it ends up being Anya’s friend who she has invited to the wedding. They initially seem happy to see each other, but then the friend turns judgey that Anya is marrying Xander. Ninety seconds later, and it’s back to the fast food joint and its malevolent musical score.
Buffy is working the fries now. She heads out on her break, and Spike is there. They get it on on the side of the restaurant because that seems super sanitary.
Also, wouldn’t cars going around the drive-thru see them? Can you imagine? You are at McDonald’s, and you just see an employee banging her boyfriend against the side of the building? What would you actually do at that point? Suddenly this episode can’t seem to stay at the DMP, and we move on over to Willow in Buffy’s home. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV Why..
. why isn’t Willow working a job? Buffy has to support herself, sure, but Willow just gets to live in Buffy’s house for free with no responsibility? Cushy gig! Amy shows up and wants the cage she was living in while she was a rat. Amy asks Willow about going magical cold turkey, and Willow explains that she is trying to get better.
Amy casts a spell to give Willow some free magic she can use without doing anything herself. Willow immediately starts accidentally destroying things with it and seems wildly taken aback. Buffy finds a severed finger in the meat grinder.
She takes it to Manny as a big “ah-ha!” gotcha moment, and he is admittedly wonky about everything and throws out several lame excuses for how it got there. Buffy runs out to the restaurant floor and makes all the patrons stop eating! The other employees drag her to the back, and she starts kicking their asses before Manny fires her for it. Back with Anya and her friend, the demon and the former-demon are dishing on Xander.
Anya’s friend tries to twist her words and convince Anya that it’s wrong to marry Xander, and this causes some confusion in our reformed vengeance demon. Elsewhere, Xander is playing Go Fish with Dawn when Buffy shows up having called an emergency meeting. Xander quickly eats her evidence before she can announce she thinks it is Soylent SunnyDale.
I mean, what did you expect, Buff? It’s Xander. And I can’t even fault him for this one; I’m a fatty fat eater, too. If you throw a delicious fast food burger down in front of me, I’m going to eat it, too! Willow shows up, still reeling from Amy’s spell, and says she can identify the remnants of meat on the wrapper with “science”, and this show has a real curious idea of what regular-ass people can do with “science”.
Buffy breaks into the closed DMP to investigate. She hears someone else come into the restaurant, and while looking around, she trips over the bloody stump of Manny’s foot (identifiable by his orthopedic shoe). At the magic shop, Willow has beakers and vials and shit! WHEN DID SHE BECOME A CHEMIST?! How does “Good at computers” translate to THIS? BTVS just making shit up at this point.
Willow is repeating a mantra that she doesn’t need magic. Behind her in the store, Dawn and Xander and talking and discussing Buffy’s future as a permanent fixture in the minimum wage worker market. Willow eventually calls them over to announce her findings: the sandwich was not made of human being.
But there IS something strange about the meat. Cellulose! Back at the restaurant, Buffy finds the little old lady roaming around the DMP. She is bald now and was just wearing a wig earlier, so that’s a thing that might as well be a plot point, I suppose.
She grows a monster out of her head that sprays Buffy with a paralyzing agent. Willow shows up and starts talking to Buffy through the drive-thru speaker, where she announces the burgers are actually vegetarian. Inside, Buffy is crawling around, desperate to escape the Monster Of The Week.
The little old lady beastie starts eating a weakened Buffy by her shoulder, but Willow arrives and cuts the creature off of the top of her head, then pitches it into the meat grinder. The next day, Amy arrives back at Buffy’s house. Willow sends her away and says she did not enjoy being given the magic.
At the DMP, Buffy shows up to turn in her uniform. When she reveals to the new manager that she knows the Double Meat Medley is vegetarian, they come to an agreement: Buffy keeps the secret..
. and keeps her job. So I guess this is a new chapter for the Slayer where she will be working at the Double Meat Palace for the foreseeable future? Interesting! And by “Interesting” for this show, I mostly mean “Sure, why not?”.
.
