Out of Mind, Out of Sight (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

"Out of Mind, Out of Sight"^[1] is the eleventh episode of the first season of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The episode aired on The WB on May 19, 1997.

Buffy and Cordelia become unlikely allies to combat an invisible spirit that has targeted Cordelia and everyone around her. Meanwhile, Angel goes to Giles to warn him that Buffy could be in grave danger.^[2]

At school, Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) is talking excitedly with Harmony (Mercedes McNab) and her boyfriend Mitch (Ryan Bittle) about spring fashion and the May Queen competition. Suddenly, Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) bumps into them, spilling various Slayer paraphernalia out of her bag. When she makes up an excuse about borrowing them from Giles (Anthony Head) for a history project, they laugh at her for spending so much time in the "creepy library."

In English class, Cordelia comments that in The Merchant of Venice, the character Shylock is self-involved and whiny. She compares it to running over a girl riding a bicycle; the girl whined about her pain and ignored Cordelia's traumatic experience. The teacher, Ms. Miller (Denise Dowse), seems agreeable to her viewpoint. After class, Cordelia arranges to meet with Ms. Miller the next day to discuss her paper.

In the boys' locker room, Mitch is attacked by a floating baseball bat. When Xander and Willow mock Cordelia as she campaigns for May Queen, Buffy admits she was the May Queen at her old school. The conversation is interrupted when they hear Mitch was found beaten. Principal Snyder (Armin Shimerman) arrives, and Mitch explains what happened as he is taken to the hospital. Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) distract Principal Snyder, allowing Buffy to slip into the boys' locker room, where she finds the word "LOOK" spray-painted on the lockers.

During lunch, the Scoobies suspect a ghost, and Giles asks Xander to help him research. Meanwhile, Cordelia tells Harmony that Mitch is better but too bruised for prom pictures. In a flashback, Cordelia and Harmony are talking about Mitch's recent breakup with Wendy and whether Cordelia should consider dating him. In the present, Harmony is suddenly pushed down the stairs by an invisible force and injures her ankle. Buffy follows the sound of laughter into the band room, where she feels someone bump into her but finds nothing.

When Buffy tells the Scoobies about being touched by the "ghost," Xander suggests a cloak of invisibility worn by the Greek gods. Buffy dismisses that theory due to the pettiness of the crimes. While searching the school after hours, Buffy follows the sound of a flute. In the library, Giles is surprised by Angel (David Boreanaz), who offers to bring him an ancient book of prophecies, the Pergamum Codex.

In another flashback, Cordelia and Harmony talk in the bathroom while ignoring Marcie (Clea DuVall). In the present, Cordelia wins the May Queen award. Looking over Willow's list of missing students, Buffy suspects Marcie when she sees she played the flute.

After Buffy finds Marcie's hideout above the band room, Marcie goes to Ms. Miller's classroom and suffocates her with a plastic bag. Arriving shortly after, Cordelia saves Ms. Miller. Behind them, an invisible hand writes "LISTEN" on the blackboard.

In the library, the Scoobies look over Marcie's yearbook and notice it is full of generic "Have a nice summer!" messages — something you write down in the yearbook of someone you don't know. Willow and Xander are surprised to learn they had several classes with Marcie the previous year but never noticed her. Giles realizes Marcie became invisible because people treated her as if she didn't exist — a result of physics, not magic. In a flashback, Marcie is being ignored by Ms. Miller in favor of those around her even when she has her hand up. She puts it down in defeat and slowly starts to fade away.

Cordelia runs into the library and begs Buffy for protection just as they discover she is Marcie's intended target. They decide to use Cordelia as bait, with Buffy acting as her bodyguard. In the hallway, Cordelia confides to Buffy that she is also lonely, but being popular "beats being lonely by yourself."

Marcie lures Willow, Xander, and Giles into the boiler room, where she locks the door and turns on the gas. She then kidnaps Cordelia and knocks out Buffy. At the Bronze, Buffy and Cordelia awaken and discover they are tied to chairs. When Cordelia realizes her face is numb, they see the word "LEARN" written on a curtain. Marcie explains that Cordelia will be used as a lesson when she surgically disfigures her face. When a flying scalpel cuts Cordelia's cheek, Buffy kicks the instrument tray at Marcie and frees herself from the ropes. Buffy uses her Slayer senses to hear Marcie, kicking her into a curtain before knocking her out. Meanwhile in the boiler room, Angel rescues the Scoobies and gives Giles the Codex. Two FBI agents, Doyle and Manetti, arrive and take Marcie away.

The next day, Cordelia comes by to thank the gang for helping her, much to their surprise. However, she mocks them when Mitch arrives, not wanting to risk her popularity. Meanwhile, Marcie is taken to a school full of invisible students, taught by a teacher from the FBI. She sits down in class and opens her textbook. The title reads "Assassination and Infiltration," to which Marcie chuckles and says, "Cool."

Buffy says, "All I know is, it's a message. And monsters don't usually send messages. It's pretty much crush, kill, destroy."^[3] The line "Crush! Kill! Destroy!" became famous after occurring in the episode "Revolt of the Androids" of the TV show Lost in Space, in which the same line is said by a super-android.^[4]

The teacher and Cordelia in her English class discuss William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Cordelia says about Shylock, "That is such a Twinkie defense. Shylock should get over himself."^[5] Season 5's episode "Tough Love" also mentions the Twinkie defense.

Angel meets Giles for the first time and says he can bring him the Pergamum Codex^[1], a key account of Slayer lore that will be pivotal in "Prophecy Girl." Angel is able to save the Scoobies from the boiler room because he was bringing the book to Giles. (In "Orpheus," the Season 4 episode 15 of Angel, Winifred Burkle asks Willow about the Codex.)

Willow wears a white Scooby-Doo t-shirt in this episode. In the Season 2 pilot, "When She Was Bad," Xander wears a red Scooby Doo shirt. In "Beauty and the Beasts" Willow will keep her forensic tools in a Scooby Doo lunch box. Xander calls Buffy's group of friends the "Scooby Gang" for the first time in "What's My Line?"

"Out of Mind, Out of Sight" was first broadcast on The WB. It received a Nielsen rating of 2.3 on its initial airing.^[6]

Vox ranked it at #80 on their "Every Episode Ranked From Worst to Best" list of all 144 episodes (to mark the 20th anniversary of the show), writing, "One of the earliest examples of Buffy making someone’s figurative demons literal, this episode makes a neglected girl disappear, leaving her to wreak havoc on the school at will. It’s on the nose but, thanks to some canny voiceover work from Clea Duvall as the invisible girl, surprisingly affecting in the end."^[7]

Noel Murray of The A.V. Club rated the episode B, writing that it "comes awfully close to being a classic, but can't quite overcome ... some erratic performances and a plot that's more busy than necessary". He praised the more subtle scenes but said that it was "a little too blunt about its metaphor".^[8] DVD Talk's Phillip Duncan called "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" "[a]n ingenious combination of monster and social commentary [that] make this another standout episode".^[9] A review from the BBC was also positive, describing it as a "clever script" with "a carefully polished plot".^[10]

1.^ Giles: "I've studied all the extant volumes, of course. But the most salient books of Slayer prophecy have been lost. The Tiberius Manifesto, the Pergamum Codex..." Angel: "The Codex?" Giles: "It's reputed to have contained the most complete prophecies about the Slayer's role in the end years. Unfortunately, the book was lost in the 15th century." Angel: "Not lost. Misplaced. I can get it."^[11]

• "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" at IMDb