BtVS: What's My Line? Part 1

Hold onto your stakes, kiddies. in this, the series' first two part cliffhanger What's My Line? since the two part pilot, there's a lot going on, so try to keep up.

So you're saying these vampires went to all this hassle for your basic decoder ring?
okay, remember that mysterious book stolen from Giles' office in Lie To Me? good, because we finally find out what it is. written by Josephus du Lac, the manuscript contains dark rituals and spells that "reap unspeakable evil". the trouble is, it's written in archaic Latin so it could only be read by members of his sect. on top of that an invention of du Lac's, called the Cross-o-matic... erm, no, the 'du Lac Cross', is needed to decypher it.
now Spike and Dru have possession of both the book and the cross, they just need time to decypher it. so, to distract Buffy and gain more time, they call in...

The Order of Taraka.
a society of deadly assassins said to have been around since the time of King Solomon. their credo is to sow discord and kill the unwary. they're a breed apart. unlike vampires they have no earthly desires, but to collect their bounty. they find a target, and they eliminate it. you can kill as many of them as you like, it won't make any difference. where there's one, there will be another, and another. they won't stop coming until the job is done.

Vampire Slayers on Ice
the first bounty hunter attacks Buffy while she's out figure skating (a quick clandestine rendezvous suggested by Angel) on her Riedell's 375 Gold Star skates with a Wilson Coronation Ace blade (personally requested by Ms. Gellar, who at one time was a competition skater, for the episode) no doubt because they make handy weapons for cutting the throat of assassins trying to kill you or your undead boyfriend. when Angel spies the ring on his corpse he has a slight wiggens, telling Buffy she needs to find someplace to hide, a sentiment Giles echoes when told the Order of Taraka is after Buffy.

Mr. Ewgoo the maggot-man assassin:
possibly the weirdest and definitely one of the ickyest characters in the buffyverse, the "worm-man" as he is sometimes called (though he's actually made of maggots), poses as cosmetics saleman Norman Pfister (Kelly Connell), and stakes out Buffy's house. luckily for her Joyce (though not for her neighbor Mrs. Kalish) is in L.A. on a buying trip for her gallery so he has to watch from the house across the street.
seeing Xander and Cordie enter the Summers' house, he makes his move. naturally Cordelia can't resist free makeup samples so she lets him in.

Meanwhile, at Sunnydale High: it's career week at SHS. a time when everyone gets to discover their potential careers. everyone, that is, except the Slayer (she actually does get a paying job later on, but that's much later). Willow is being courted by one of the world's leading software concerns. along with one other student at Sunnydale who met their criteria. Oz. yes, the two finally meet face to face, and considering the momentousness of the situation, Oz handles himself in his (soon to be legendary) stoic and taciturn style. he offers her a canapé.

In every generation there is a Chosen One.. er, Two
earlier at Sunnydale Airport, a special passenger arrives stashed in the cargo hold of a plane coming in from Jamacia. though we don't actually learn her identity until the end of part 1, this is Kendra (Bianca Lawson) the Vampire Slayer. non-fans of the show are probably going "huh?". well, remember at the end of season one when the Master killed Buffy and Xander resuscitated her? apparently there isn't a clause in the Slayer Handbook about her staying dead for the next Slayer to be called.

Willy the Snitch
Angel, while looking for information on who put the hit out on Buffy with the Order of Taraka (though it's pretty obvious), drops in on Willy (Saverio Guerra), a barkeeper who doesn't mind serving vampires and demons. Willy is a snitch, though he prefers to get paid for his snitching, beating him up will work quicker.
while questioning Willy and ramming his face into the bar, Angel is attacked by Kendra and locked in a storage room with an eastern view. with the sun coming up in just a few hours Kendra leaves him there to fry. one wonders why angel didn't try getting out through the window or at least tried to cover it up with his trenchcoat, but i guess these ideas didn't occur to him.

to be continued...
the episode ends with Kendra attacking Buffy while she's napping in Angel's room. fortunately, the Buffster wakes up in time to avoid getting a hatchet in her noggin (though Angel will have to get a new pillow). thinking she's facing the second assassin from the Order of Taraka (along with everyone else in the audiance when it originally aired), Buffy and Kendra fight to a standoff. Buffy finally gets a chance to ask "Who are you?" only to discover she's facing "Kendra the Vampire Slayer"

Giles Report: no harm, no foul. Giles glides through part 1 with nary a bump to his delicate little head.

Jonathan Watch: though not in part one, Jonathan shows up in part two.