Episodes

1.01: Welcome to the Hellmouth
The first glimpse we get of the Master is in Buffy's disjointed nightmares. Later, as Luke chants before a pool of blood, the Master rises from it. He tests the mystical barrier that imprisons him in the Hellmouth and asks Luke to bring him "something young" to help him build his strength before the Harvest.

1.02: The Harvest
The Master decides that Jesse should be used as bait to lure the Slayer, but she evades the trap with Xander's help. Unruffled, the Master annoints Luke as his Vessel and sends him out to feed on his behalf, but Buffy stakes Luke before the Master can gain enough strength to free himself.

1.04: Teacher's Pet
Though the Master doesn't appear in this episode, we meet Fork Guy, a vicious vampire who cut off his own hand in pennance for displeasing him, then replaced the missing hand with a Wolverine-like claw.

1.05: Never Kill a Boy on the First Date
The prophecy of the Annointed One, the Master's greatest ally against the Slayer, cuts into Buffy's social life. Reluctantly she interrupts her date to slay a muscle-bound vamp who rose at the appointed time, which makes both her and Giles glad. But the Master is a lot happier. The real Annointed One is now at his side.

1.07: Angel
The Master grows weary of seeing his family picked off by the Slayer. The Annointed's suggestion? Annihilate her. Darla's suggestion? Lemme do it! The Master's answer? Nope. Instead, he instead sends The Three, who nearly kill Buffy before Angel intervenes. After Darla stakes The Three for failing, she offers a new suggestion, that they get Angel to kill Buffy to save his own life. Despite bringing a crossbow to a gunfight, Buffy survives when Angel stakes his sire to save the Slayer. The Master is grief-stricken at losing Darla, his favourite for over four hundred years.

1.10: Nightmares
Buffy awakes from a dream in which she is helpless against the Master to face a day full of nightmares. And because she fears him, the Master is the agent of Buffy's worst fears, burying her alive before she rises as a vampire. With Giles' help she holds herself together long enough to end the nightmares, and the Master is once again imprisoned below.

1.11: Out of Mind, Out of Sight
Angel brings Giles the Pergamum Codex to aid the Watcher's research on the Master.

1.12: Prophecy Girl
Giles uncovers a prophecy that Buffy will face the Master and die. Hearing this, Buffy tries to run away, but Willow's fear of the evil around them convinces her to accept her duty. She accepts the Annointed's invitation to lead her to the Master, determined to try to take him out along with her, but she's easily bested. He drinks from Buffy, then leaves his mystical prison while she drowns in a pool of water. But Xander revives her with CPR, and she meets the Master on the library roof. After a brief fight, she throws him through the skylight, impaling him on a broken table below. Thick, black dust streams out of him until all that's left of the Master is a skeleton on the library floor.

2.01: When She Was Bad
Come to think of it, a skeleton is rather a lot of vampire to be left with after it's staked. Buffy is dealing very poorly with her death at the Master's hands and continues to see him in her nightmares. Overcompensating for her feelings of vulnerability, she is furious to discover that it's possible to revive a vampire if you have his bones. The remaining members of the Order of Aurelius are planning to attempt that very ritual, but Buffy puts a stop to it by smashing the Master's bones to bits with a sledgehammer.

3.09: The Wish
Cordelia wishes that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. In the alternate reality this creates, the Master gained his freedom at the Harvest, and the entire town lives in constant fear. Holding court at The Bronze, the Master is about to usher in a 'new age' with the opening of an automated plant that drains the blood from living victims ("for the freshness"). Buffy comes to town and attacks the plant while Giles tries to undo Cordelia's wish. He smashes Anyanka's pendant, returning them to the real world, just as the Master snaps WishBuffy's neck.

7.01: Lessons
The First Evil taunts an insane Spike in the guise of Big Bads Past. As the Master, the First Evil tells Spike they're going back to the "true beginning", that the months ahead will be a trying ordeal... and that Spike is a pathetic schmuck.

Angel 2.07: Darla
In Virginia Colony in 1609, he appears to a dying prostitute. Pretending to be a priest, he asks about her soul, but she refuses to repent or to ask forgiveness for her sinful ways. Satisfied, the Master sires the woman and names her Darla, meaning 'dear one' (even Angel doesn't know her real name). Angelus meets the Master in London in 1760. Darla introduces her sire as the leader of their Order, but Angelus isn't impressed. The Master explains that they live below ground to pay tribute to the Old Ones; they only go to the surface to feed and to increase their number. But Angelus knows that Darla has a taste for the finer things in life. Over the Master's objections, she leaves with her young lover, but as her sire predicts, she later returns to his side.

[ back ]