The next day, Xander coaxes the jocks into throwing him a pass, but he misses and the football knocks over the resident bully's soda. They have a confrontation and afterwords, Cordelia tells him how worthless and uncool he is. He feels so bad that he even asks Oz for advice.
Meanwhile, in the library, Giles tells Buffy that a female cult is attempting to open the Hellmouth. Buffy finds Willow and tells her that they must go into research mode. While they are walking towards school, Xander pulls up in a classic car. They tell him what's up and he asks if he can do anything. They send him for donuts; where he meets a hot girl who wants to go for a ride in his car.
They go to the Bronze after he drops off the donuts. She goes on and on about how she loves cars and he resorts to pleading for Angel to rescue him. But, he's looking for Buffy. Car girl asks to go for another ride. When they get in, he drives into the car in front of him; which belongs to the bully. They almost rumble until a cop intervenes. But, Xander tells him that they were just playing around. The bully decides that he's wheels man, and they go raising his dead buddies.
Giles can't find any answers and Buffy finds Willie beaten severely in his bar. He tells her that the cult is planning to open the Hellmouth that night. Xander and the dead guys joy ride around town until they decide to break into the bakery. While they do that, Xander sees Willow buying magic supplies. He asks her what's wrong and she says she can't tell him. But, she hugs him and tells him she loves him. So, he efficially decides that he has to help out. But, the dead guys won't let him. They say he has to die.
He takes off in the car; only to find Faith battling a tough demon that she can't seem to kill. He accidentally runs over it and lets her get in the car. They drive to her room and she has to relocate her shoulder. Then, she gets horny. She starts to fondle Xander. She basically seduces him, in the full body sense. He loses his virginity; what a night, huh?
She throws him out afterwords, and he finds that the stolen stuff in the back of his car is kerosene. He realizes the dead guys are planning to do some pretty hefty stuff. He runs off again trying to find Buffy. He finds her having a mondo argument with Angel over him being willing to die. He interrupts, but they look at him funny. So, he decides to deal with it himself.
He finds the dead guys, and goes to the rescue by making them tell him where the bomb is. It's at school, so he goes there and they chase him. The Hellmouth has opened, bringing the big ugly creature with it. So, while they are involved in that, Xander runs around school 'killing' the dead guys. In a big chase montag, the encounter the demon cult women, who take care of the remaining dead guys. Xander runs to the boiler room to turn off the bomb. But, the head bully/dead guy fights him while the time ticks away. He plays brave guy and verbally confronts the guy. And the seconds tick. Tick, tick, tick, tick. Dead guy loses his nerve, and disarms the bomb at the last second. With, that; Xander struts out of the room. Dead guy thinks he has Xander beaten, but werewolf Oz eats him. And the Scooby Gang closes the Hellmouth.
The next day, Buffy, Willow, Oz, and Giles tell Xander about the creature and say that he was so lucky not to be there. He zips hip lip and doesn't tell about his own adventures. Cordy confronts him again and he just smiles at her slyly.
Though I don't usually rate these, and I haven't decided whether or not I will all of them, I have to do this one. I am crowning it two things: best episode of season three (so far) and second best Xander episode. It's a close second to The Pack, possibly surpassing it because of how fantastic Nick looked and the showage of skin. Even though many have complained on how they should have made two completely separate episodes because of the whole hellmouth thing; I don't agree. It was funny watching Xander run around doing the blatantly obvious comedy while the rest of the Scooby Gang battled for their life. That's what made the episode so priceless! I'm not going into details about why I loved this, because I loved everything Xander did so much, I would run out of room! One thing though, the Buffy "penis metaphor" thing was great. I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard it. Joss got very daring with the sexual innuendos in this episode! But, I couldn't look at Jack without out thinking "that's the guy from Boogie Nights!...."