Hush

Season 4, Episode 10
Written by Joss Whedon
Directed by Joss Whedon
Original Airdate: 13 December 1999

“Sometimes I like to crumble the Weetabix in the blood. Gives it a little texture.”
Spike

REGULAR CAST

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
James Marsters as Spike
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

GUEST CAST

Marc Blucas as Riley Finn
Emma Caulfield as Anya Jenkins
Leonard Roberts as Forrest Gates
Phina Oruche as Olivia Williams
Amber Benson as Tara Maclay
Brooke Bloom as Cheryl
Jessica Townsend as Nicole
Lindsay Crouse as Professor Maggie Walsh

CO-STARRING

Doug Jones as Gentleman #1
Camden Toy as Gentleman #2
Don W. Lewis as Gentleman #3
Charlie Brumbly as Gentleman #4
Carlos Amezcua as Newscaster
Elizabeth Truax as Little Girl
Wayne Sable as Freshman

SYNOPSIS

Professor Walsh talks about communication in class and then asks Buffy to come and lie on her desk for a demonstration. Riley steps forward and kisses Buffy, then the sun goes down and its night. Buffy then hears a young girl’s voice and walks out of the classroom and into the halls where a girl stands chanting and holding a small box. Buffy wakes up to see she was dreaming in class. As they’re leaving, Riley overhears Buffy and Willow talking about the dream then Willow leaves them to talk. Riley inquires about Buffy’s dream and then they talk about their plans for the night. Both make up excuses for their real plans.

Giles tries to research the information Buffy got from her dream about something called ‘the Gentlemen.’ Spike makes himself very comfortable at Giles’ place and complains about there not being anymore Weetabix. Xander and Anya arrive where Giles informs Xander that he has to keep Spike with him for a few days. Willow goes to her Wicca meeting but finds that all the girls in it are just wannabe Wiccas with no knowledge of the real magic. One girl, Tara, seems to be interested in magic, but she’s shy and very quiet. After the meeting, Buffy and Willow chat about how things are going slowly with Riley.

While he’s sleeping, Xander ties Spike down to a chair and Spike talks continually to annoy Xander. Olivia shows up at Giles’ apartment and after some brief talking, they get right to kissing. That night, at the clock tower, one of the demon Gentlemen opens a box, and the voices of all the people in Sunnydale are taken from them and put into the box. When Buffy and Willow wake up the next morning and find they have no voices, they panic and then see that everyone else in the dorms also don’t have their voices. Riley and Forrest try to enter the underground lab, but without his voice, Riley cannot activate the voice command. Professor Walsh however opens the elevator and they see a sign that says they should have used the stairs.

Buffy and Willow walk through the town, seeing that everything is closed down. Armed with dry-erase boards to write down their words, Buffy and Willow show up at Giles’ and meet with everyone else. The news states that everyone in Sunnydale has come down with a case of laryngitis and the town has been quarantined. The threat of chaos that night, Buffy goes out to patrol, and Professor Walsh sends Riley and his team out. Riley and Buffy meet while walking out on the streets and as Riley is about to leave, he turns and kisses Buffy. The Gentlemen travel, floating a foot up into the air with their demon assistants following with them on the ground. Olivia wakes up in the middle of the night, and through the window she spies one of the Gentlemen.

A couple of the Gentlemen travel through the dorms until they find a freshman boy. The demon assistants hold the boy down while they cut out his heart. The next morning, Olivia draws a picture of the creature she saw, and when Giles recognizes it, he gets out a book of Fairy Tales. In one of the lecture rooms at the college, Giles tells the story of the Gentlemen through drawings and text on an overhead projector. The sound of a real human voice – not recorded – can kill them, so they took everyone’s voices so that they could get the seven human hearts they need. Riley suits up and then goes out to patrol, while Buffy is doing the same thing.

Tara, from the Wicca group, tries to get to Willow while the Gentlemen chase after her. She finally makes it to Willow’s dorm and the two girls make a run for it. Riley is attacked by several of the Gentlemen’s demon assistants in the clock tower, until Buffy shows up and starts fighting alongside him. The two are first shocked to see each other, but have no time, let alone ability to speak. Spike gets a mug of blood out of the fridge at Giles’ apartment and vamps out in the process of drinking it. As he’s bending down to pick up some dropped books, Xander sees this from a different angle and thinks that Spike is biting Anya. Xander attacks Spike and punches him several times before Anya and Giles stop him.

Willow and Tara combine their powers to move a vending machine in front of a door and protect them from the Gentlemen. Buffy gets caught by the Igor-like assistants and the Gentlemen are about to cut into her when Riley shoots them with bolts of electricity. They fight and one of the demons grabs onto Buffy as she spots a box on the table and recognizes it from her dream. She points it out to Riley and after one false try he smashes the box and everyone’s voices are returned to them. Buffy lets out a loud and long scream, which causes the Gentlemen to explode into a green slime. The following morning, Willow and Tara talk about being a Wicca, while Giles and Olivia talk about how many scary things are really out there. Riley goes to Buffy’s dorm to talk, but neither knows what to say.

TRIVIA

Joss Whedon wrote this episode as a challenge to himself. He felt his directing skills had become boring stylistically and that TV was limiting as to the kind of shots you can use. He therefore wanted to create an episode which was completely different to his usual work. He was convinced that he would fail and that people would get bored or confused.

In his DVD commentary, Joss says that if you look closely during the opening scene, Andy Hallett (who played Lorne on Angel) can be seen in the top left corner of Professor Walsh’s lecture hall. He wanted the lecture hall to look as full as possible so he got everyone who was on set or in the production office that day to sit in the hall. He even sat people in the aisles to fill up the space.

Amber Benson, who plays Tara, makes her first appearance in this episode. She said one of the scariest things about her first day on Buffy was going to the canteen for lunch and seeing the Gentlemen – with full make-up on – eating their lunch. Amber previously worked with Lindsay Crouse in the 1995 movie Bye, Bye Love. She played the best friend of a character played by Eliza Dushku, who also appeared in the film. Joss Whedon discusses in his commentary for this episode how the casting of Tara went: He was originally looking for someone like ‘old Willow’ – before Willow became as confident as she is now. Visually he wanted someone who was small and thin. Amber Benson read for the role and it was Marti Noxon who saw her vulnerability beyond her body shape and convinced Joss to get Amber back to read again.

In his DVD commentary, Joss states that he expected to have Riley and Buffy make love for the first time in this episode, but it seemed too soon in the development of their relationship.

Joss Whedon received an Emmy nomination for his work on this episode, in the category of ‘Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series’, in the 52nd Annual Emmy Awards. The episode also received a nomination for ‘Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series’.

When shown on the BBC, this episode was cut in some parts. Anya’s gesture to Xander for them to go and have sex was cut, as was Buffy’s rapid “staking” movement in the lecture hall scene. Another scene cut was where Tara opens a door in the college to see a Gentleman holding a heart. The BBC cut it in a way that the door was opened by Willow.

CONTINUITY

Willow has joined the Wicca Group that she was looking into during Wild at Heart.

Willow makes a reference to her floating pencils, which we saw last in Choices.

GOOFS

As the gang watch TV, Olivia’s drink appears to change from whiskey to water.

When we first see a shot of the clock tower, the time is almost one o’clock. The camera cuts to a shot from inside, looking out at the clock, and the minute hand is pointing at the 40 minute mark. Back outside, it’s one o’clock again.

In the lecture hall, Anya sits down empty handed. A moment later, she holds a bag of popcorn.

As Buffy holds her message board up to ask how she gets her voice back, she first holds it up and the marker is in her right hand. The shot cuts away and when we go back, the marker is in a slot on the message board.

When Riley smashes the bottle, a chunk of glass lands on top of the box. In the next shot, the glass has gone.

When Spike opens the fridge, his cup of blood is full almost to the brim. When he starts to drink he tips it so far that if it were that full, it would have spilled onto him before it even got to his mouth.

When Riley and Walsh have a ‘conversation’ via the computer, the text on Walsh’s screen changes for no apparent reason.

In one shot, when the Gentlemen are wandering around the U.C. Sunnydale campus at night, you can see a bit of the dolly (which was used to make them seem like they’re floating) in the bottom left hand corner of the screen for just a second.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

EPISODE
Something Blue / Doomed

STORY ORDER
Parting Gifts / Doomed