r/buffy • u/Spikeslittledevil • 3h ago
Content Warning Go Fish
I really dislike that the moral of this episode is less “misogyny and sexual harassment & abuse are wrong!” and more “don’t do steroids!”
From Buffy getting locked in the swimmer’s car, the coach blaming it on her slutty outfit, and the scoobies not listening when she explains what happened / reacting like she’s blabbering on, to the coach throwing her into the pit with the sea monsters because they “have needs”. Buffy then jokes that doing the whole swim team is gonna do wonders for her reputation. The continued theme of misogyny is dismissed as a side effect of the steroids and “boys being boys” rather than anything serious or systemic.
As someone who’s been rewatching this show since it was first released, I totally get that it’s a product of its time, but I would’ve loved to have seen some kind of “ah, sexual harassment = bad” moment.
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u/RealisticAd4054 3h ago
After the fall of the Soviet Union, documents came into light detailing experiments with fish DNA in their Olympic swimmers. Tarpon…mako shark…but they couldn’t crack it.
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u/becksk44 Take it easy, Joan 3h ago
Every time I hit this ep I wait for “After the fall of the Soviet Union…” The only thing that could make it better would be if the coach suddenly revealed a stealth Russian accent.
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u/Sarlax I'm not a eunuch! 3h ago
They called it Operation Infinite Walrus. Their mission: to repel an invasion if and when the Communists came over the polar ice cap. The drug was designed to promote accumulation of heat-retaining blubber on the torso, foster the growth of insulating body hair, and create the ability to undertake long periods of hibernation.
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u/Inevitable-Regret411 18m ago
I love the implication that one slightly crazy gym teacher could somehow achieve what the greatest minds of the entire USSR could not.
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u/Grr_in_girl 3h ago
I just finished rewatching this episode (for the umpteenth time) and I don't read it that way at all. I feel like the misoginy of the swimmers and the coach is very much highlighted.
We as the audience know early on in the episode that steroid use is the least of this team's problems, because we can see the fish monsters from the first one.
We see everything from Buffy's perspective, so it's clear that the swimmer who hit on her was in the wrong. As well as the coach and principal Snyder for defending him.
Same goes for the coach, who is shown to be crazy obsessed with winning and loses the support of the school nurse, who was his ally for a while. I don’t see that his misogyni is downplayed by the show at all. Buffy's comment about her reputation reads to be as a dark joke in a grim situation.
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u/beeemkcl 2h ago
And regarding Buffy's clothing; if anything, the episode lampshades what Buffy wears to school. We literally don't even know if SMG's wearing flesh-colored pantyhose or stockings in BtVS S1 and BtVS S2 is canon or for SMG's modesty and comfort.
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u/JenningsWigService 1h ago
It's very similar to Reptile Boy in its depiction of misogyny towards Buffy, though the implied karmic rape of the coach is worth critiquing.
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u/QualifiedApathetic I'd like to test that theory 14m ago
People keep reading the line "Those boys really love their coach" that way, but I can't believe Buffy wouldn't be trying to save him, at least looking for a rope she could toss down. She's already given up because he's dead. At most, they sodomized his corpse. I think there's an implied "as dinner" on the end of that line.
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u/Spikeslittledevil 3h ago
I didn’t say it was downplayed - it’s definitely clear that’s the theme of the episode. But I don’t feel like any of the characters really acknowledged it - the scoobies for example don’t have any sympathy for the car situation. If that happened to a friend of mine, I’d be livid. I wouldn’t be waiting for her to finish talking
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u/Grr_in_girl 3h ago
Xander confronts the swimmer afterwards and tells him he's glad that Buffy hurt him. I interpreted that as him being mad at the swimmer for trying to hurt his friend.
Buffy is unfortunately threatened or hurt pretty much every day. I don't feel like I need to see the scoobies explicitly acknowledge that it sucks to know that they care. They show that by being there and trying to help her solve the problem in the ways they can.
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u/pyxiedust219 3h ago
I’ve always interpreted it as part of the theme actually: misogyny and sexual harassment/assault were (and are) so normalized that the others don’t recognize the supernatural elements or “bizarre” behavior at first. Our strong reactions now is in part because the culture has shifted; with a rise in comprehensive sex ed we have also seen a rise in peoples’ ability to acknowledge and recognize sexual assault when they see it. In the 90’s this awareness was not as wide, so the theme and lesson on the insidious nature of misogyny is more subtle to match an era where a lot of people lacked this clarity. I disagree that it doesn’t outright demonize the behavior!
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u/Nebranower 3h ago
Yes, but your friend doesn't have the superstrength needed to break the door open and put the swimmer in traction without breaking a sweat. Buffy simply doesn't need her friends to stand up for her against regular human beings like that.
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u/GoblinQueenForever 3h ago
The best part about this episode was Cordelia telling 'Xander' they can still date even though she thought he was a fish man.
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u/Spikeslittledevil 3h ago
Literally adorable “I’ll make your life as comfortable as possible, even if that means getting little bath toys or whatever!”
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u/Electrical-Act-7170 2h ago
She loved him.
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u/ifitdontfit 2h ago
Maybe writers put it in just to make xanders betrayal hurt more, but Cordy really was good and kind.
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u/Then_Art_7294 I'm so stuffy, give me a scone 2h ago
The extent to which she was too good for him.....
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u/danie_iero She's a hero, you see. She's not like us. 1h ago
I'm still so salty about that stupid ass cheating plotline. Not when Cordy was ready to love fish!Xander!!
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u/SafiraAshai 3h ago
I might be misremembering the episode, but I don't think it was trying to justify their behavior with "boy will be boys".
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u/Melodic_Antelope_727 3h ago
They were painted as villains the whole episode. Didnt buffy smash the one guys face into his steering wheel? lol.
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u/JealousAstronomer342 2h ago
Well, they didn’t have all the characters turn to the audience at the end and go over the moral of the story, so can you really be sure the fish boys were deliberately written as villains?
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u/Sarlax I'm not a eunuch! 3h ago
I disagree that it was a mere anti-steroid episode. Forget the fish monster stuff and just recognize that a school official is deliberately making young men violent because the school wants victory. It's commentary on how common that is in schools.
I would’ve loved to have seen some kind of “ah, sexual harassment = bad” moment.
The show made it clear that it was good that the coach was eaten alive by monsters he tried to make into rapists. I think the show was obviously taking a stand against institutionalized rape culture. It just didn't have a character deliver a big speech about it.
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u/beeemkcl 2h ago
Not only that, Buffy didn't get in any real trouble after breaking the swim captain's nose or whatever. And remember this is the Buffy who was accused of burning down the Hemery High School gym and in "School Hard" (B 2.03) was accused of burning down the abandoned Sunnydale High School chemistry building.
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u/6LegsGoExplore 2h ago
Oh, they don't eat him, or at least not first.
The line "those boys do sure love their coach"
Does not just mean he tasted nice....
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u/emmalouix 31m ago
I think the coach had the darkest end in the whole series. Raped to death by fishmen.
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u/Spikeslittledevil 3h ago
Yeah that’s my bad with the wording- I’m not talking about some flashing disclaimer for the viewers. I mean the characters in the show having that moment. Being more supportive / angry etc.
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u/RaidenMK1 3h ago
Part of the slight dismissiveness you were likely picking up on is due to the fact that Buffy, in the mythos of the show, possesses superhuman strength.
It was a running theme of the show that whenever a regular human guy would attempt violent misogyny against Buffy, they were the ones at an extreme disadvantage.
Therefore, the Scoobies were subconsciously not concerned about Buffy's safety in those situations because they knew she was beyond capable of handling herself.
Buffy’s cavalier attitude about it can be chalked up to the same concept of not feeling unsafe in these situations like most other young women would. She made it very clear in that car scene right before she effortlessly slammed dude's head into the steering wheel and broke his nose, "Oh, it's not me I'm worried about." And she meant every word of that.
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u/JenningsWigService 1h ago
While the Scoobies themselves aren't worried for Buffy's safety, they are clearly disgusted by the swim team's behaviour. And the administration's tolerance of the boys' sexual violence is clearly meant to be seen as a bad thing.
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u/Warded_Works 2h ago
An episode can have more than one moral. And the fact that the misogyny and sexual harassment were treated as “nothing special” was kind of the point.
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u/RealisticAd4054 3h ago
On a related note, anyone notice how Buffy calls a guy by his full name when she’s flirting? She did it with the swimmer guy, Parker and Riley.
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u/Hippies_Pointing 3h ago
Buffy succeeded and has lasted so long because it didn’t hit viewers over the head with a message (usually, S6 aside). It portrayed flawed, at times morally gray characters in extraordinary circumstances.
In this episode it’s clear who the bad guys were, and they were the ones depicted as doing the actions you described. Morally and lawfully wrong actions are committed every day without repercussions or without people huddling around to announce that those actions are indeed wrong. The show managed its balance by hewing close to real life and real characters in these extraordinary circumstances. It’s not a “safe space” kind of show where characters check in after every bad thing, because that’s not what happens in every day real life (sadly). We pick up, we move on. There are more fish monsters to slay.
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u/Committed2Mediocrity 2h ago
The episode shows how girls can actually live sexual harassment at school and how their entourage diminishes it.
Also it’s super fun and campy.
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u/whocares199 3h ago edited 3h ago
I like it for Wentworth Miller as Gage. He was such an asshole and then Buffy saves him and he follows her around like a puppy (until his timely demise anyway). Also we discover Xander is built Like That. It's a garbage episode if you look closely but there are highlights lol. Edit: Oh, and I loved how Cordelia was so so sweet when she thought Xander got turned into a fish monster. A great underrated character moment for her.
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u/basicotter 2h ago
If you thought the main moral of the story was “steroids are bad” your media literacy is in the toilet.
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u/dirtylittlehart 3h ago
It highlights realistic depictions (especially for the time but also still today) of how sexual harassment and misogyny are both perpetrated and ignored. We shouldn't need to be told by the show that they are bad things. Like, what?
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u/TelluricThread0 2h ago
Do you need everything explicitly spoon fed or can the audience just understand that its bad?
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u/ringobob 2h ago
I feel like the point is they've turned into amoral monsters, and that very much shines a spotlight on the coach saying "boys will be boys" - the show is actively pointing out that boys aren't monsters, and monsters aren't boys, and when the coach says "boys will be boys", what he's really saying is "monsters will be monsters", and he just thinks those two statements are equivalent.
And, lest we forget, he's the villain. The monsters are monsters, and they eat him. That's the culmination of his misogyny. The leopards sea monsters ate his face.
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u/JenningsWigService 1h ago
And just as Reptile Boy is about frat boys' sexual violence, Go Fish is about high school athletes getting away with sexual violence because of their privilege as athletes.
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u/ImmediateHoney2191 2h ago
Well its more subtle than “Beer Bad” yanno, the episode about beer being bad
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u/TeddybearBjorn 1h ago
OMG NOOOOO! Go Fish is a great filler episode and highly enjoyable! I honestly think it has some brilliant ideas and interesting commentary about systemic abuse of power and the way the patriarchy is structured to celebrate and push forward the worst examples of it. I always felt their boys in this episode are victims of [their own and systemic] hyper masculinity and cultural misogyny who are made/transformed into ‘villains’ - the fact they end up escaping the system into the sea suggests as much. To me it’s a great example of making these wider social critiques AND portraying their individual/group behaviour as clearly wrong. It’s literally saying the patriarchy creates monsters of its own making.
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u/Aracoth 1h ago
Well, the point of the story is not: 'misogyny', at all. You are painting it with a modern political brush that doesn't apply. The point is that the guys were on special steroids, and the coach was evil. The show demonstrated that the ones on the steroids were bad guys, albeit, against their will, as they didn't know they'd become fish, and the coach was a bad guy.
The other boys are all hormonal teenagers, of course they are twats. Teenage girls are equally as nasty, if not worse; they are just less physical with their aggression, although, not always. Teenagers are mean, and steroids are bad. Oh, and Buffy did like to wear spicy outfits. Multiple things can be true at once: Steroids bad, coach evil, teenagers are overly hormonal, Buffy dresses provocatively, although, I don't think she was dressed as such when the coach mentioned it. I thought she was dressed rather well.
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u/Alarming-Put-9003 3h ago
This is such a bad episode for a multitude of reasons and when you look at the season as a whole it just kills the pacing between I Only Have Eyes for You and Becoming.
You want follow-up after that awesome cliffhanger of Spike getting out of the wheel chair. For that alone this is one of the few episodes I ALWAYS skip on a rewatch.
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u/Lobothehobosexual 3h ago
I agree with you, but I guess a lot of shows do this. Theyll have some big Cliff hanger ending of an episode following the main storyline, and then the next episode ends up being unrelated “monster of the week” type of episode.
Was watching X files last night and saw they did the same thing, big Cliff hanger, expect next episode to follow up on that Cliff hanger and ends up being one that doesn’t address the Cliff hanger until the episode after that
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u/Spikeslittledevil 3h ago
So true, I’m binging at the moment and the whole episode I was like “wait what’s spike doing? Have they noticed he can walk yet??”
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u/SangestheLurker 3h ago
Well that was kind of the idea back when seasons had fuller episodes and were allowed to breathe, it allowe the tension to linger instead of getting right directly onto the next main plot point. Something's sorely missing in today's 6-10 episode seasons.
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u/RealisticAd4054 3h ago
I swapped those episodes on my latest rewatch and it worked so much better.
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u/SangrianArmy 1h ago
well, the part where the guy tries to assault her in the car and she ever so easily and casually reaches over and slams his face into the steering wheel is satisfying enough for me.
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u/Jarita12 1h ago
I disagree (respectfully). I rewatched the show recently and it is so very visible that the coach is an a-hole. He even ends up, ironically, in the end in the water with his team and the "They really love their coach" has a terrible double meaning. That one I would maybe argue that it was a bad joke? Or was it even a joke? A justice?
But it is not my favourite episode overall
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u/Revolutionary-Wait82 Spike defender 3h ago
The creators generally didn`t handle the topic of sexual harassment and especially attempted rape very well.
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u/Numerous1 3h ago
I mean it ends with the fish men gang raping their coach and Buffy just quips about it. It’s definitely not trying to be a serious conversation on rape.
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u/yankeeangel86 3h ago
I always thought the swim team fish monsters ATE the coach.
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u/Numerous1 3h ago
Nah they gang raped him 1. They were going to rape Buffy. We know this because it was the whole “my boys have needs hur hur hur” thing. 2. She quips “wow they really love their coach” which “love their couch” being sex makes a lot more sense than eating. The joke doesn’t work the same if it’s eating.
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u/SuggestionBoxX 2h ago
The joke definitely works with eating as well. I always thought they were eating him too. So this adds a new layer of gross and I like this episode even less. Either way or if they raped him then ate him, it's horrifying.
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u/kimmycat88 2h ago
And then they r*pa the coach to death. Wild episode. "Those boys really love their coach."
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u/TrophyHunter22 3h ago
I'm on S4 and this was easily the worst episode of the show I've seen so far.
In addition to everything you wrote: it's just genuinely the dumbest possible villain plan as well. Like, what is the endgame for the coach? They let a team of actual fish monsters win state/regionals/whatever it was? And then Buffy doesn't even really win in the end... she's just like "eh they probably left, whatever"
Disappointing all around, it messed up the momentum of the Angel/Spike/Dru storyline as well. The only plus for it was recognizing the late Conchata Ferrell in her brief role as the nurse who gets eaten.
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u/OkJelly8882 3h ago
The fish monsters are the failure state of the serum. Coach is like, "This time they won't turn into fish monsters!" And he never considers that maybe he should administer controlled doses instead of pumping it into the sauna.
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u/TrophyHunter22 3h ago
lmao there's no world where the plan works right? Even if there was no vampire slayer: he just turns the rest of the kids into fish monsters, and eventually the police start linking him to the dozen missing high school students and school nurse and he either gets arrested or the team turns on him in a similar fashion.
Just a ridiculously dumb plan.
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u/SafiraAshai 3h ago
Did you get to Beer Bad?
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u/TrophyHunter22 3h ago
I have not (I'll probably be going slow cause I wanna watch Angel too)
I can't imagine liking it less than this but we'll see I guess. haha
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u/Catowldragons 2h ago
Beer Bad is campy fun - I get maybe not enjoying it on a first time watch because it’s a little ridiculous but it’s fun (and not nearly as bad as everyone says) on rewatches.
I don’t think Go Fish is that bad, though, but it’s definitely hurt by its placement in the season.
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u/Knight_Machiavelli 3h ago
This is way worse than Beer Bad.
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u/SafiraAshai 3h ago
I disagree. Both storylines are kind of dumb, but Go Fish isn't nearly as painful to watch.
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u/HomarEuropejski Why do we ship Buffy with toxic guys? Are we stupid? 3h ago
Boy if you think this was bad, wait till you get to Where The Wild Things Are lol. From what I've seen on this sub, it's propably the most hated episode of the show.
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u/TrophyHunter22 3h ago
Honestly if Buffy at least won the fight with the monsters at the end... I still wouldn't have liked the episode but at least I might have brushed it off as a forgettable episode. Instead it just kinda sticks in my mind as a legitimately annoying 60 minutes to get through.
Just an awful episode that feels like the main character admitting they ran out of time at the end lol
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u/Knight_Machiavelli 3h ago
Absolutely, and on top of everything else you said, they treat a guy getting gang raped by monsters as a punchline. Like obviously dude was evil and that's what he was trying to do to Buffy, but still probably shouldn't make monster gang rape a punchline.
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u/SuggestionBoxX 2h ago
I got the feeling they were just going to eat him. But now that scene has a deeper level of ick. Gross.
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u/ModernKender twixt its wee beak 2h ago
This is honestly my least favorite episode. I just can't. I skip it every time.
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u/HappybutWeird 2h ago
I think the issue with the episode is that it had two messages that while related, sort of competed. The swim team is misogynistic and it is even more explicit with their newfound success and lack of consequences. The other message is that steroids are bad and will make athletes into monsters. So I could see how those messages muddled and it could be interpreted that the steroids = the reason the swimmers were misogynistic, but I don't think that was the intention.
As far as the Scoobies acknowledging Cam assaulting Buffy, this is sadly a byproduct of the late 90s/early 00s when sexual assault on women was often dismissive (and sexual assault on men was often played for laughs). So from a 2026 lens the sensitive topic could have been handled better, but the writers clearly didn't differentiate a sexual assault by another human from Buffy being attacked by the supernatural. It's even worse in S6's "Seeing Red" when Buffy's sexual assault is edited with a commercial break as if to say "Tune back in to find out how Buffy escapes this danger!" Then the following season focuses on how the sexual assault affected the assaulter.
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u/hollowtear 1h ago
One of the funniest line is that one where she worry about her reputation. I laugh every time. Her delivery is amazing
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u/UnicornScientist803 3h ago
I agree completely! Honestly, this is one of several episodes that include sexual harassment and/or attempted rape and it’s almost always brushed off, even by female characters. “The Pack” is another example of this. After Xander (under possession) attacks Buffy, she goes to tell Willow about it, makes a joke about him attempting “felony sexual assault” and Willow barely bats an eyelash. No “Oh my god” or “Are you ok?”, they both just move along like it’s any other Tuesday on the Hellmouth. Gross.
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u/Spikeslittledevil 3h ago
Can’t edit the post but just wanna clarify - I don’t mean we as viewers should be told sexual assault is bad - that’s a clear theme of the episode and also duh! But the reactions from characters (dismissive, downplayed) is where it falls flat for me. It didn’t need to be some deep and heavy heart to heart moment, just her friends being a bit more supportive in certain moments, or even seeing Buffy taking it more seriously herself.
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u/SuggestionBoxX 2h ago
But did Joss really see sexual harassment as bad? You acknowledge that it was a product of the times, well that was the time. People weren't going to be too bold about it being an issue because it was just a little thing at the time. Women were taught it was them. You might just be looking at a reflection of the past that was never going to be what you wanted.
There are some signs that Buffy is the wrong person to mess with and that it's starting to be seen as wrong, but they might not have felt is was that deep. I remember books from the 80s / 90s where rape was a factor in romance novels. Look at Outlander and the horrific rape scenes in there that are treated in such a disgusting way. Then books like Whitney My Love where the writer included it because she was forced but you can tell she was pushing back. Books like the cousins series where in the Amelia book she was assaulted and they had to explain it wasn't about her.
Long story short, you're looking at a moment in time where the world is still okay with it, but baby steps in progress are being made. The episode is a time capsule of that. Like Willow and Tara and their first sex scene being to implied.
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u/Knight_Machiavelli 3h ago
Go Fish may actually be the worst episode in the entire series. There are a couple candidates in later seasons but I think it's a very defensible position to say this is the absolute worst episode.
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u/SangestheLurker 3h ago
C'mon now.
The creature transformation effects alone saves this episode from even the Bottom 10 worst IMO.
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