S02E20 – Go Fish

Season 2, Episode 20 | Aired: 5 May 1998 | Written by: David Fury & Elin Hampton | Directed by: David Semel

The swim team episode. Members of the Sunnydale High swim team are shedding their skin and emerging as fish-creature hybrids — which turns out to be caused by a coach who has been injecting performance-enhancing steroids derived from Soviet fish DNA into the team’s steam room. Buffy the Vampire Slayer does body horror about competitive athletics, and it mostly works.

What Happens

The swim team is Sunnydale’s great hope for a championship season. Coach Marin (Charles Cyphers) has been ensuring their performance by adding experimental compounds to the steam, and the cumulative exposure is transforming the boys into sea creatures. Several have already transformed and are living in the sewer system under the school.

Cordelia has a moment of unexpected depth when she encounters one of the transformed swimmers — someone she was dating — and adjusts her expectations rather than running. “I want you to know I still care for you,” she tells the creature. It does not help. She survives. The episode ends with the creature-swimmers escaping to the ocean — an ambiguous ending the show treats as darkly funny.

Key Moments

Cordelia’s monologue to the transformed swimmer is the episode’s best scene and one of Charisma Carpenter’s finest moments in the season. She plays it completely straight, which makes it both funnier and more genuinely touching than it has any right to be.

Monster / Villain

Coach Marin and his Soviet fish-steroid compound. The transformed swimmers are victims rather than villains — the show is sympathetic to them even as they’re dangerous.

Notable Quote

“I’m surrounded by athletes and I’m dating a fish.” — Cordelia, before adjusting her position on the matter.

Where It Fits

Go Fish is the season’s penultimate standalone episode and functions as a tonal breath before the finale’s two-part devastation. It’s lightweight but crafted, doing its job without pretending to be more than it is. The Cordelia work is worth noting — she’s grown considerably since season one.

External Sources