Reunited after 20 years! Interview with Eric Balfour

Reunited after 20 years! Interview with Eric Balfour

The Bitch is Back, and we're opening the vault. A few of our favorite interviews are leaving Patreon for YouTube for the first time, and this is the one we wanted to lead with. Charisma Carpenter interviews Eric Balfour, who played Jesse McNally, Xander's best friend and the first Scooby to get turned, more than two decades after they last spoke. Eric gets into auditioning for Xander and landing Jesse instead, knowing from day one that his character was built to die, and the misery of those early vampire contacts and fangs that left him basically blind on set. He looks back on thirty years in the business, his recent run on Hacks, and why he tells young actors to stop waiting for permission and make their own thing. Plus an honest, funny turn on fatherhood and the parts of Hollywood that quietly break people. Old friends, real talk, and a new chapter for the channel. The B*tch is Back. Full future episodes on Patreon: www.patreon.com/CharismaCarpenter TT: / www.tiktok.com/@charisma_carpenter IG: / www.instagram.com/charismacarpenter

One year anniversary on the Hellmouth Charisma’s best of Hot Takes

In this week's episode of The Bitch is Back, Charisma Carpenter closes out the podcast's first season, a run that carried her through 24 episodes across Seasons 1 and the first half of Season 2, culminating in a Vacation Edition best-of special where she revisits the Pod’s sharpest hot takes. It's a first watch, so every reaction lands fresh: the dream sequence sucker punch that genuinely shocked her, the Cordelia-and-Xander opposites-attract makeout that simply does not track, and the lox and bagel bad breath warfare she and her scene partner waged behind it. Then there's the swarm of worms that still gives her a full-body shudder, and a fond look back at Queen C's license plate, a prop fans were still recreating for her at a convention in Paris. One year in, and the bitch is still very much back. Full future episodes on Patreon: www.patreon.com/CharismaCarpenter TT: / www.tiktok.com/@charisma_carpenter IG: / www.instagram.com/charismacarpenter

S2 Episode 12 "Bad Eggs"

The Bitch is Back, and this week Charisma Carpenter takes on Buffy Season 2, Episode 12 "Bad Eggs" a Marty Noxon sex-ed cautionary tale featuring two vampire cowboys, parasitic alien hatchlings, and a prehistoric mama demon nesting under Sunnydale High. Charisma unpacks the episode's patriarchal reading of motherhood and connects it directly to being branded the "maternal monster" herself years later for daring to have agency over her own body. She delivers one of her sharpest hot takes yet, calling out the show's persistent fixation on weight and thin bodies across 24+ episodes and why that always sat wrong with her, on screen and off set. Plus: the gut-punch moment Xander knocks Cordelia out cold in a scene the show simply moves past, surprise chemistry between Joyce and Giles, and a personal aside about being grounded so often her friends called her house Alcatraz. Full future episodes on Patreon: www.patreon.com/CharismaCarpenter TT: / www.tiktok.com/@charisma_carpenter IG: / www.instagram.com/charismacarpenter

Bad Eggs, Good Takes. Interview with Iliza Shlesinger & Emily Higgins

Charisma interviews comedian Iliza Shlesinger and her right hand Emily Higgins, host and producer of Ask Iliza, pull up for "Bad Eggs," the Season 2 episode where the Scoobies babysit sentient parasites and Buffy fights a subterranean Mama Bezoar with baby fever. Emily is the Buffy expert (she came armed with DVDs). Iliza is the first-watch newcomer who immediately clocks Sarah Michelle Gellar's ice-skater fighting style and reframes Mama Bezoar as a tool of the GOP. We get into pet-moms vs. real moms, why the 90s felt safer than they actually were, the canceled reboot, and what TV is actually for when the world outside is on fire. Nobody holds back. Listen now! Full future episodes on Patreon: www.patreon.com/CharismaCarpenter TT: / www.tiktok.com/@charisma_carpenter IG: / www.instagram.com/charismacarpenter

S2 Episode 10 "What's My Line (Part 2)"

In the conclusion of the "What is My Line" two-parter, Charisma Carpenter breaks down the arrival of Kendra, the strict new Vampire Slayer , and the relentless onslaught of the Order of Taraka assassins. While analyzing Buffy's desire for a normal teenage life and Spike and Drusilla's dark ritual , Charisma shares vivid behind-the-scenes memories of the fiery church showdown that took days to film. She also delivers her signature hot takes, calling out the problematic mocking of Kendra's accent , rejecting the forced "opposites attract" trope of the infamous Xander and Cordelia kiss , and officially declaring Cordelia a full-fledged Scooby after she stomps the gross "Worm Guy" into liquid adhesive. Watch the full episode on Patreon! Full future episodes on Patreon: www.patreon.com/CharismaCarpenter TT: / www.tiktok.com/@charisma_carpenter IG: / www.instagram.com/charismacarpenter