So often Xander is seen as the least important of the series protagonists; he is just an ordinary high school boy with no powers or skills; he isn't even seen as cool by other students. When the latest threat appears to be the worst Buffy has faced it is decided that Xander should say away from the danger while Buffy, Giles, Willow and Angel try to deal with it. Trying to compensate he gets a cool classic car; this is the start of his problems though as he ends up driving Jack, a school bully, around as he raises his friends from the dead! Once raised there is more trouble in store as first they state their intention that Xander should die and be raised to join there group then he realises they are planning to set off a bomb.
This episode was a lot of fun; I really liked how we focused on Xander's story even though one would expect Buffy and the other's struggle to prevent the Hellmouth from opening would dominate proceedings. It has been clear for some time that Xander is the least special of the group so it was fun to see him being forced to deal with a situation when the others are too busy to help him. Jack and his friends are a good group of antagonists who manage to be threatening and mildly amusing. Nicholas Brendon is on great form as Xander; we see his frustration with being left out, his fear when threatened and ultimately believable bravery. There are some surprises; most obviously what happens between Xander and Faith after he helps her get out of a spot of bother... details of this would spoil it! Some might be disappointed that we don't see too much of what Buffy and the others are up to, just enough to make it look interesting, but if we had Willow's comment about the world not knowing what they did wouldn't be amusing. Overall this episode was a lot of fun; there was good character development for Xander, some solid action and scares and quite a few good laughs.