Feeling left out by the gang, Xander ends up accompanying a student named Jack O'Toole, who raises some friends from the dead and decides to blow up the high school.
Xander helps out the gang with another demon vanquishing, but Buffy worries about his safety and asks him to stay "fray-adjacent,"[1][2][3] upsetting him.
He spots Willow leaving the magic shop and tries to talk to her; she tells him that she loves him before hurrying off to help Buffy.
Meanwhile, at the library, Buffy, Angel, Faith, Giles and Willow fight off a giant multi-headed monster and the members of the Sisterhood of Jhe before successfully closing the Hellmouth.
The next day, the bruised Buffy, Willow, Giles, and Oz sit at a table discussing how they saved the world from destruction.
After a few seconds of talk, Xander decides to keep his harrowing night-long adventure to himself (aware that his friends will never believe such a story, no matter how he tells it).
The world-saving activities of the main cast are portrayed as secondary until the plot lines eventually converge.
Xander's immediate insistence that he and Jack were "rasslin', but not in a gay way" stems from his intertwined fear of emasculation and homosexuality.
He jokes about objectifying women and viewing sex as some sort of game, but in more intimate moments, seems to value romance and real connection.
"[7][8][9] Vox ranked it at #34 of the 144 Buffy episodes, writing that "this episode, which sees him sidelined by his friends as they try to stop yet another impending apocalypse, is truly Xander-centric: Isolated from the gang, he falls in with a bad (read: dead) crowd, has a, uh, romantic encounter with Faith, and eventually averts an apocalypse of his own.
But the episode reminds us that he charges into battle beside his friends time and again not because he’s gifted, or tasked by some higher power, but because he chooses to.
"[11] In Entertainment Weekly's list of the 25 best Whedonverse episodes—including episodes from Buffy, as well as Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse—"The Zeppo" placed at No. 23.
[14] Theresa Basile calls it an overrated episode, saying, "This is the boy who brought Buffy back to life in 'Prophecy Girl,' helped her save Willow/Cordelia/Giles/Jenny in 'When She Was Bad,' constantly patrolled with her throughout season two, pulled Cordelia out of a fire, and rescued Giles in 'Becoming Part 2,' all without the aid of supernatural powers – and all of a sudden, he’s a useless drain on the Scooby gang whom they need to protect?
They sacrifice character for the sake of a fairly weak parody that doesn’t actually become funny until the final act."