S01.E11: Out of Mind Out of Sight

[Lisin]

From Wikipedia:

Ignored by students and teachers alike, Marcie literally becomes invisible, then uses her affliction to terrorize Cordelia and her friends. Sympathetic at first, Buffy nevertheless stops Marcie when she goes too far. Men in black come to take Marcie away.

 

Meh, I'm not a fan of this episode. I don't have a ton to say about it though I did like the ending, it gave me a lot of questions and made me hope there was going to be more to this show than just the MOTW episodes and big bad vampires. 

[harrie]

I liked Out of Mind Out of Sight.  Having been a Marcy prototype in high school, I thought they captured many aspects of the experience sympathetically without going so far as to make Marcy a saint or anything. (For the record, I have always been and remain opaque.)    I loved the ending; but as was noted somewhere else, I would have loved some kind of follow-up with the guys in suits in future episodes. 

[Joe Hellandback]

On 6/4/2014 at 2:30 PM, Lisin said:

From Wikipedia:

 

Meh, I'm not a fan of this episode. I don't have a ton to say about it though I did like the ending, it gave me a lot of questions and made me hope there was going to be more to this show than just the MOTW episodes and big bad vampires. 

I always thought its' main significance was we start seeing a different side to CC?

 

On 6/4/2014 at 9:33 PM, harrie said:

I liked Out of Mind Out of Sight.  Having been a Marcy prototype in high school, I thought they captured many aspects of the experience sympathetically without going so far as to make Marcy a saint or anything. (For the record, I have always been and remain opaque.)    I loved the ending; but as was noted somewhere else, I would have loved some kind of follow-up with the guys in suits in future episodes. 

Spoiler

 

Yeah, Marcie to have popped up in the Initiative, even if it was just floating something for Professor Walsh.

 

 

 

Out of sight, out of mind;

The Good; One of the best allegories yet for High School as hell. Real sense of menace to the knife floating behind Buffy although from what we've seen since it probably didn't pose a real threat to her. Cordelia starts to come more and more into her own here and some funny stuff from Snyder

The Bad; Not much, very strong episode

Best line; Cordelia; "Oh my god, is she really wearing Laura Ashely?"

Worst line; Willow; "Mitch was attacked by a floating bat?" Xander; "Maybe it was a vampire bat?" (GGRRRoooaaannn!)

What the fanficcers thought; Invisible Marcie later showing up to save the Scoobs common see 'Why do we write this?'

Questions and observations: So, the government know what's going on in Sunnydale and are exploiting it to their own ends?

Spoiler

We see the beginnings of the Initiative here.

A sign of the times that Marcie at the end is training to assassinate cult leaders as this was just after Waco. Nowadays of course she'd be after Osama and co. Interesting that the class are doing The Merchant of Venice, Marcie easily resembles the figure of Shylock. If you've ever watched the DVD commentary for The Grudge SMG remembers Jason Behr who played Ford in 'Lie to Me' appearing on Buffy but not Clea Duvall. Rewatching the ep you realise that she never has any scenes with visible Marcie so they probably never met. Harmony again, named for the first time. Cordy has passed her driving test to judge by her story of running the girl on the bike over. The scene where the teacher is nearly smothered by the plastic bag is HORRIBLE. First meeting between Giles and Angel. Cordy, Buffy, Willlow and Xander are all knocked out, the start of a grand scooby tradition. Ironically Giles who is so notorious for it stays conscious. Cordy and Buffy are also tied up, another Buffy cliché that will see much use. How exactly does Marcie get Cordy and Buffy to the Bronze? I gotta say, if faced with the choice of being gassed or risking an explosion I'd take explosion every time. If you'll pardon the pun it would have been lovely to 'see' Marcie again, maybe in season 7 Buffy could have been chained up and helpless only for her bonds to miraculously unravel? But if at her new school she's got friends etc won't she become visible again? I don't know if it's deliberate but the title reminds me of the story where Soviet premier Breshnev is meeting the US President Nixon and during the chitchat he asks where the vice-president Spiro Agnew is? (some form of demon according to Angel and Fred's dad). Agnew was keeping a low profile at the time as he was under investigation for corruption so Nixon replied, "Oh, you know, out of sight, out of mind'. Breshnev looks at Nixon oddly then hurriedly walked away whereupon Nixon's translator tells him that Breshnev's translator interpreted 'out of sight, out of mind' as 'Invisible maniac' Good ep, 8/10

[Halting Hex]

On 6/8/2018 at 3:59 PM, Joe Hellandback said:

 

Spoiler

It would have been great for] Marcie to have popped up in the Initiative, even if it was just floating something for Professor Walsh.

 

Spoiler

And the best part is, they wouldn't have had to pay Clea DuVall one penny!  Just run something on a wire and have Lindsay Crouse go "thank you, Marcie".  Lmao!

[wendyg]

On 08/06/2018 at 8:59 PM, Joe Hellandback said:

Breshnev looks at Nixon oddly then hurriedly walked away whereupon Nixon's translator tells him that Breshnev's translator interpreted 'out of sight, out of mind' as 'Invisible maniac'

I wonder if this story is apocryphal. Because: back in the 1970s I read a book that included some material on early expert systems (what we'd now call AI), and one was a translation system Russian-English and English-Russian. The story was that the machine was given various English things to translate into Russian and back again. One of them was "Out of sight, out of mind", which came back as "Invisible, insane". There were several other examples given.

[Joe Hellandback]

16 hours ago, wendyg said:

I wonder if this story is apocryphal. Because: back in the 1970s I read a book that included some material on early expert systems (what we'd now call AI), and one was a translation system Russian-English and English-Russian. The story was that the machine was given various English things to translate into Russian and back again. One of them was "Out of sight, out of mind", which came back as "Invisible, insane". There were several other examples given.

Interesting, I wonder about Spiro Agnew now?

[lembergwatcher]

Willow's reaction on Cordelia is just like mine most of the time.

[Halting Hex]

When Marcie taunts Buffy by going, "what are you going to do, slay me?"  that means she knows Buffy's the Slayer, right?  Too much of a coincidence otherwise, I'd say.  Does this mean she knows Angel's a vampire, too?

How many of the group's conversations has she been listening in on, I wonder?  When Giles unwinds in the evening by stroking off to thoughts of Buffy in exercise gear

Spoiler

or happy memories of Ethan

 with a nice cup of tea, is Marcie there, watching the Watcher?  Did she see Marc murder Emily in the locker room two episodes ago, and just decide not to get involved? How much of what we know does she know, I wonder?

[lembergwatcher]

I have another question: if Marcie disappeared six months prior to the events depicted in OOM, OOS what took her so long to start dealing with Cordelia and Cordettes?

Edited April 10, 2019 by lembergwatcher

[Halting Hex]

Maybe it was the events of Nightmares that convinced her to take action?  She could have been a quiet little voyeur mouse for months, alone in the ceiling with her stuffed bear (aww 🙁) and then she was hit by a nightmare (what could her nightmare have been, I wonder?) and after it was over, she went to the Library for an explanation, and heard G/W/X (Buffy went off with Hank, remember) discussing the day's events, and learned that Billy had been causing all the chaos, subconsciously.

And then perhaps Marcie reasoned that Cordelia (either knowingly or unknowingly) might have caused the whole invisibility thing, and so she decided to snap Cordelia out of it, and restore herself?  Hence the "helpful hints" and the fact that Marcie doesn't actually kill anybody.

Of course, by episode's end, Marcie is having wayyyyy too much fun with that scalpel, but that's where the whole "thundering looney" element kicks in, I'm guessing.

On a different subject, I'd say the reason that Buffy doesn't get very far with that "Mitch needs his comb" line is that Snyder hasn't given much thought to combs for more than a few years now.  Probably the way that Buffy came up with the comb-"explanation" was that Snyder's chrome-dome caught her eye, and thus she had hair on the brain.

Don't get distracted by shiny objects, Buff.  It's dangerous.

Edited April 10, 2019 by Halting Hex

[lembergwatcher]

If in IRYJ Buffy is all into Willow and we can see her getting undeniably jealous because of redhead and her online boyfriend, here Buffy switches her attention/affection to Cordy. Seems like our Slayer craves the dark haired girl's approval and appreciation in one way or another. Is this because she clearly sees there's more to Cordelia than a vapid Queen bitch of Sunnydale High or she just misses the old days of being in the spotlight at Hemery High? 

Also Buffy's clearly uncomfortable hearing Xander and Willow take a little walk down the Memory Lane. Don't know why actually. She's upset because: a) they laugh at her "sweet Cordy" or b) Buffy realizes she'll never know any of those two the way they know each other?    

Edited April 27, 2019 by lembergwatcher

[Halting Hex]

So, when Buffy teasingly taunts Xander about how, if he doesn't want to do research, he could always interview Cordelia, is this a specific call-back to his having to do that in The Puppet Show?

Quote

XANDER:  Okay, the next time we split up, someone else is on Cordy detail.  Five more minutes with her and we woulda had another organ donor.

I mean, we already know that Xander doesn't like Cordelia.  (He complains about her to Willow in both Witch and Angel.)  I just always thought that Buffy's just referencing his general dislike here, but perhaps he complained more longly and loudly about her during their last investigation than we got to see in 1.09, and this is Buffy picking up that thread and running with it?

Season One is always thought of as being rather stand-alone, so it intrigues me to see this sort of subtle ep-to-ep continuity.  Huh.

[Joe Hellandback]

On 4/10/2019 at 2:04 AM, Halting Hex said:

When Marcie taunts Buffy by going, "what are you going to do, slay me?"  that means she knows Buffy's the Slayer, right?  Too much of a coincidence otherwise, I'd say.  Does this mean she knows Angel's a vampire, too?

How many of the group's conversations has she been listening in on, I wonder?  When Giles unwinds in the evening by stroking off to thoughts of Buffy in exercise gear

  Hide contents

or happy memories of Ethan

 with a nice cup of tea, is Marcie there, watching the Watcher?  Did she see Marc murder Emily in the locker room two episodes ago, and just decide not to get involved? How much of what we know does she know, I wonder?

Interesting question, in fanfic she often returns to save the Scoobs having been successfully been rehabilitated by the Initiative. . 

On 4/10/2019 at 8:42 AM, lembergwatcher said:

I have another question: if Marcie disappeared six months prior to the events depicted in OOM, OOS what took her so long to start dealing with Cordelia and Cordettes?

I figure CC becoming May Queen (or whatever?) was the stressor which pitches her over the edge at the BAU would observe, wheels up in 30!

Edited December 10, 2020 by Joe Hellandback
Initiative ref

[Halting Hex]

So when Cordelia gives Buffy a skeptical look about Buffy's "the weapons are for show-and-tell" story, that's not just because it's an obviously lame excuse, right?  

I mean, in case Buffy's forgotten (and apparently she has), Cordelia is actually in both of Buffy's history classes:  the American History class that CC had to drag Buffy to the test for last episode, and the European History class where the two met in the pilot.  Sheesh, does Cordelia have to worry about turning invisible, herself?

In contrast, although Willow's "Mitch's dad is the most powerful lawyer in town" might seem like a bit of a risky bluff, it's not so much, as Principal Snyder has been in the job for less than a month (and, of course, Willow and Xander know that).  It's possible that Snyder could have done a blitz job of getting up to speed on all the students' parents, but that seems unlikely.  And something tells me that Snyder isn't exactly a big one for community outreach, anyhow.

So Giles may have a point about Buffy needing to work on listening to people.  It does seem that Willow knows Snyder better than Buffy knows her own classmates.  No wonder you're not running for May Queen, Buffster.

[lembergwatcher]

Why does Buffy even bother explaining herself to Cordelia?

Since when do Cordelia's opinions matter to the Slayer?

[Halting Hex]

On 2/2/2021 at 5:28 AM, lembergwatcher said:

Why does Buffy even bother explaining herself to Cordelia?

Since when do Cordelia's opinions matter to the Slayer?

Well (aside from the part where SMG is almost playing parts of the episode as if Buffy has a crush on Cordelia) the whole point of the episode is that Cordelia has influence; the Harmonys of the world follow her lead and the Marcies want to join that club.  So even if Buffy dgaf what Cordelia herself thinks, it's not necessarily about Cordelia qua Cordelia;  Buffy has enough stress without CC making her into even more of a pariah.

I mean, she hadn't even told Mitch about Buffy "attacking" her at the Bronze inWttH until just now…

******************

Various reactors have noticed the "bad things happen in the locker room" trope that the show has already created, and Mitch would certainly agree.  But at least, unlike the dark and creepy girls locker room that we've seen so often, the men's is well-lit.

(Should somebody be sending in a Title IX complaint, about the lack of equal facilities?  Hmmm.)

*****************

I've previously wondered if Mrs. Miller is teaching Shakespeare, specifically, or just a general Literature section.  But this time I noticed that during the flashback (to Marcie going invisible while Willow/Xander/Cordelia, those bastards, don't notice a thing), the blackboard has written on it "Once a bum, always a bum", with the quote properly attributed to John Steinbeck (in Travels with Charley). So that settles that, I suppose.

******************

Not from the episode:

Quote

MARCIE:  Your beautiful face…

CORDELIA (flattered):  You think I'm beautiful?  (romantic sigh)

Remember, Cordy had only described herself as "cute" to Buffy, earlier in the episode.

First time anybody calls her beautiful (for all we know) and they try to hack her face with a scalpel.  More evidence for that "none of us is ever going to have a happy, normal relationship" prediction from episode 8, I suppose.  Sure, Cordelia isn't part of the group, but she's a main-credits character.  So apparently the same rules apply to her.

Edited June 3, 2023 by Halting Hex

[Halting Hex]

Quote

XANDER (imagining):  I wouldn't use the power [of invisibility] for evil, though; I'd use it to protect the girl's locker room. (grins)

I grant you, it's an easy assumption that Xander's just being horny here (and that grin of his would certainly argue for it) but we have just seen yet more evidence that those locker rooms are freaking dangerous, so perhaps he has a point.

A little patrolling might not be out of order, I suppose.  And if Xander has a…physical reaction to the healthy young ladies on display, at least they won't have to see it.  

(They just hope they don't emulate the Bronze patron who unknowingly helped Xander slay Jesse [in The Harvest] and accidentally bump into his, er, stake.)