Rack (Buffyverse)

Infobox Buffyverse Character

Rack
Title=Rack
First=Wrecked
Last=Two to Go
Creator=Joss Whedon
Name=Rack
Status=Deceased
Kind=Human
Affiliation=Self-employed
Powers=Rack is a powerful warlock, capable of manipulating dark magics in order to:
* Perform cloaking spells and other incantations.
* Sense sources of magical power.
* Imbue other beings with raw, highly addictive magical energies and exert a level of control over said energy.
Actor=Jeff Kober

Rack is a minor recurring fictional character on the UPN TV Show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" during season six. He is portrayed by Jeff Kober.

Rack is an ambiguously evil warlock who appears in three episodes, "Wrecked", "Villains", and "Two to Go". Although he only appears in Season Six, Rack has apparently resided in Sunnydale since at least early Season Three (see below). In "Wrecked", When Buffy mentions Rack to Spike, Spike immediately recognizes the name and is quite alarmed to learn Willow and Dawn are in his company.

In "Wrecked," Amy talks Willow into paying Rack a visit after having exhausted all their own magics. Rack's hideout is cloaked, so that only demons and those with magic abilities can find it. Once inside, there is a waiting room with several people (who resemble heroin addicts in their mannerisms) and a back room, where Rack lives. Rack and Amy had had some sort of prior relationship, as Amy apologizes for being gone so long and Rack knows that she had been a rat. After the pleasantries, it becomes increasing clear that Rack is the mystical equivalent of a drug dealer, as he will not share his magic until after Willow (whom he nicknames "Strawberry") allows him to violate her mentally. After this, Willow and Amy spend several hours with Rack, 'high' on magic. Willow's addiction to magic becomes immediately more severe, and she goes back to Rack's apartment the next night with Dawn grudgingly in tow. After being chased by a demon (a side effect of Rack's spell), and an injury sustained to Dawn's arm during a car accident, Willow renounces her use in magic and severs her contact with Rack and Amy.

It is not until "Villains," that Rack appears again when Warren Mears accidentally shoots and kills Tara Maclay, Willow's girlfriend during a botched assassination attempt on Buffy. Warren pays Rack handsomely for protection when he gets word that the Slayer has survived, but Rack warns him that Buffy is the least of his problems compared to what is coming, Willow. Rack does give Warren protection spells and even some magical weapons, but is then visited by Willow who kills the somewhat unstable warlock by sucking his life force into hers, giving her a much needed magical boost.

According to Clem, Rack had a thing against demons of his kind, but this is only mentioned and never shown.

Trivia

* Jeff Kober also appears in the Buffy episode Helpless as the vampire Zackary Kralik.

ee also