Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Seeing Red.

episode 119.
airdate: 7 May 2002.

Tara and Willow in bed together. Lots of doing it occurred. Willow confesses she suspects something might be happening between Spike and Buffy. Tara tells her how Buffy told her what was going on, and how it happened. Willow goes to check on her, but she never came home. Willow sees Dawn in the hall and they talk about finding out about Spike and Buffy. Tara comes out in a sheet and Dawn is super excited about them being back together. She squeals and everything.

Meanwhile, Buffy has found where the boys live and breaks in and is trying to call them out. The place is booby-trapped with giant buzzsaws. She barely makes it out with a few of their notes and a book. They've decided to find the boys without Anya, Xander, and Spike. Anya is doing vengeance, kinda. Mostly she's lamenting her own issues. The chick she's talking to is trying to wish things, but Anya keeps going on and on.

Dawn goes to see Spike as he's spiking his blood with booze. Asks Spike if he loves Buffy. Tells him what he did with Anya really hurt Buffy, then she leaves. Not sure her motivation there, unless she wants Spike and Buffy together or just wants to understand. "It's complicated, niblet." It's interesting how Joss deals with breakups. They are fluid on Buffy. They're told in present tense often. This is how breakups often are. Pain, relapse, betrayal. It's not like cutting off a limb...more like carrying around a dead limb for a time, jolting it back awake occasionally, before finally dismembering it. Or something. The fluidity of breakups is more true than the way pop culture usually portrays it, anyway.

It's revealed what the troika are doing: some invincibility balls of some kind. Warren gets to use them first, of course. Ooh, what's misogynist-boy going to do now that he's all

?!?

Buffy goes to see Xander who is drinking. He says he understands why Anya did what she did, but not why Buffy had sex with Spike. Buffy tells Xander what she does with her personal life is none of his business and Xander says, "It used to be." He's mean. Chastises her for doing what she did with Spike. Xander's place is a mess. He leaves in a huff. A girl tries to flirt with him at the Bronze, but he's too dismal. The boys show up. 

A vamp throws Buffy up against a tombstone and it hurts her back. Oh, god, this is the scene. *deep breath* She's about to take a bath when Spike shows up. He says they need to talk. He tells her he's sorry, that he originally went to Anya to get a spell for himself to not be in love with her anymore. He again insists that she loves him and she tells him she has feelings, but they're not love. "I could never trust you enough for it to be love." Then he starts insisting she loves him and attempts to rape her. *deep breath* She falls and her back hits the side of the tub. She's screaming for him to stop. It's just awful. She's really vulnerable and we've never seen Buffy like this. Finally she kicks him across the bathroom. "Ask me again why I could never love you." He's horrified at what he's done. He tries to say he "wouldn't" and she says "because I stopped you, something I should have done a long time ago." So, yes, as I've written before, this encounter isn't terribly different than the other times they had sex, only this time she was protesting and his pain was so loud he didn't hear her. This is the kind of situation women usually get raped within. Someone they've had sex with before. Someone they know intimately that just isn't hearing "no". There are many reasons this no isn't heard, many of them to do with our culture, but it doesn't make the man any less culpable. The precedent here is a vampire without a soul victimizing a woman he's obsessed with. He'd been let in before after taunting her and insisting she loves him, though she never told him so. Even a man as evil as Spike has never been seen to force himself upon a woman sexually, though the parallel could be made with forcing himself upon women in the biting and killing sense. Wow, that was upsetting.

Back to the Bronze. Jonathan and Andrew are waiting while Warren tries to mack on a girl. It doesn't work because the chick has a bf. Warren starts a fight. Xander notices and confronts him. Warren punches him across the room. Jonathan distracts him before he kills Xander. Xander goes to B's and sees Spike's leather jacket on the stairs. He barges into the bathroom (why would be do that? she could be pooping, hello!) demanding to know if she's still seeing Spike. He finds her crying on the floor with bruises, asks her if he hurt her. She says, "He tried. He didn't." Xander starts to go after him and she stops him. Willow shows up and Buffy covers the bruises. Not sure if Xander understands the attempted "hurt" was really an attempted rape. Willow has figured something out. The boys are going to rob banks and shit, apparently. 

Spike gets back home and the attempted rape scene is replaying over and over in his head. He pours himself a drink, then crushes the glass in his hands. Clem shows up with chicken. Spike starts ranting. "What have I done? Why didn't I do it? What has she done to me?" He wonders if what he feels is love. Starts ranting about "the chip" not letting him be a monster, and he can't be a man. Decides he's going to force change. We don't yet know what that means, of course. 

Buffy catches up with the boys as they're robbing some kind of truck full of money. Warren calls B a bitch and baby and kitten. Jonathan jumps on B's back and whispers in her ear to "smash his orbs". Warren says to Buffy, "Say goodnight, bitch." She smashes the orbs and says, "Goodnight, bitch." Warren leaves on a jet pack. The cops show up and take Andrew and Jonathan away to jail.

Spike leaves town muttering about when he gets back "things are gonna change". 

The next morning Xander comes over to make up with Buffy. They hug. Warren shows up and shoots several rounds at Buffy. Hits her, and Tara. I don't really see how that happened. Tara's upstairs and Warren is in the backyard, but whatever. It happened. Willow's eyes turn red.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Gone.

episode 111.
airdate: 8 Jan 2002.

Willow has to get rid of all her magic stuff. No candles or tarot cards.

Buffy is wearing a wig.

The troika load the diamond they stole at the museum into a gun. It's an invisibility ray.

Dawn is pissy with both B and W. B admits that she should have noticed that her "best friend was drowning" etc. Just then Spike shows up. Says he's looking for his lighter. A woman from Social Services shows up. B had forgotten about their appointment. Things look bad. She's been put on probation. It's lame that she will be put on close supervision because with Social Services when if she were Dawn's actual mother, she could be as much of a deadbeat as she wanted. Spike gets his lighter out of B's pocket and it's all sexual-like.

Righteous hair-cutting scene! The troika go to a beauty shop with their invisibility gun to shoot a cosmetologist or something and accidentally shoot B as she's walking by after getting her hair did. She goes to the magic shop afterwards. She doesn't seem upset at all that she's invisible. She leaves Xander and Anya to figure out what's wrong with her. Xander suspects Willow and goes to see her at B's. Anya is distracted by wedding plans. Tara and Giles are gone. Everything is all a mess. Willow is upset Xander thinks she might have made B invisible. She storms out.

Buffy is walking around town messing with people, enjoying her invisibility. She messes with the Social Services chick, moving her mug and stuff. When she goes to the bathroom, B tampers with her file on the woman's desk. They decide to reassign her cases.

When X gets to the scene of the invisibiliting, W is already there spraypainting to get invisible things to emerge. Willow is off to find the van that's been "stalking Buffy".

B goes to see Spike and has some weird invisible sex with him. Xander and Anya discover that the invisible pilon they brought back to the magic shop is breaking down over time. Presumably, that will happen to B if they don't turn her back pronto. Warren knew that, but didn't tell Andrew and Jonathan. They're upset. Jonathan convinces Warren to re-visible Buffy, but they have to fix the gun first, 'cause I guess it's broken.

Xander goes to Spike's to find Buffy. Weird invisibility sex Xander walks in on. Spike makes B leave after she tells him she's glad to be free of her life. Willow is computer hacking, resisting the urge to boost it with magic. Dawn gets home and B is showing off her invisibility. Dawn asks her if she's "working on it". She's upset, as per usual. B checks her messages and has one from Xander telling her she'll "fade into nothing" if they don't fix it. Willow finds the van and the troika's lair. She sees their blueprints for the gun. The troika are invisible too and take Willow hostage. They call B and tell her to meet them at an arcade. If you were invisible, would you know where you were in relation to the rest of the world? Like how would you know where you are?

Ok, so they're at the arcade and this is the first time they're encountering Andrew, Jonathan, and Warren. And they're all invisible. Willow tells B when she gets there that there's just three of them. She looks craycray though because all four of them are invisible. Warren gets ready to shoot B with the gun telling her he's re-visibling her, but Willow notices the gun is on the INvisible setting, which would speed up her molecular deconstruction or something. So B has to fight them. Warren lied to Andrew and Jonathan. There's an invisible argument amongst the boys and then a fight. Willow gets the gun and starts re-visibling everyone. She knows Jonathan and Warren already, of course, but not Andrew.

Buffy: So you three have banded together to what? Be pains in my ass?
Warren: We're your arch nemesiseses.

Everyone thinks B's hair is "adorable". It was a really hard day for Willow. Buffy tells Willow she was scared when X told her she was fading away. She wants to live. Breakthrough. They have the gun now too. Both B and W decide they've made "good first steps". B wants to live and W made it through a day without magic. But they still look so sad.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Triangle.

episode 89.
airdate: 9 Jan 2001.

Xander and Anya are talking about Buffy's relationship debris. Buffy's kicking ass at a convent and asked the nun she saves from vampires lots of questions about how one becomes a nun, etc. Giles is getting ready to make a trip to England to check out some books at the Watchers' Council, since they are coming up with nothing in Giles' library on Glory. Anya and Willow are fighting about taking care of the shop while Giles is gone. No one seems to trust Anya.

Joyce is healing. Dawn talks to Buffy about relationship stuff, comforts her a bit after Riley leaving. Everyone misses Riley. Spike is rehearsing giving Buffy some chocolates. Trying to be sweet. He has a mannequin dressed in her clothes with a blonde wig. Obsession, like I said. He ends up yelling at the mannequin and hitting it over the head with the chocolates and starts over. More Anya/Willow fighting.  They're putting Xander in the middle of everything all the time. They run Xander and Tara off. Their fighting ruins a spell Willow was trying to do and conjures a huge troll. During a conversation between Tara and Buffy at school, Tara tells her about Xander clearing out at the magic shop earlier, and Buffy gets all hysterical thinking Anya and Xander are in trouble. They "have a miraculous love". Spike sees Xander at the Bronze and sits and talks to him. Tara and Buffy go to the shop and see the damage the troll caused and go after it. Anya and Willow are gone looking for him too. Xander is confiding in Spike. The troll shows up at the Bronze. Willow and Anya show up. Willow says "I wish Buffy were here." and then Buffy shows up with Tara immediately after she says it.

It is revealed that Anya dated the troll. She turned him into a troll after he cheated on her. There's a bunch of people in the Bronze just watching it happen. There's a bunch of destruction before the troll takes off and Spike helps make some disaster victims more comfortable and "you want credit for not feeding on helpless disaster victims?!" He's trying to impress her, which I used to think was cute...but really it's kinda scary.

Willow and Anya go back to the magic shop to find a spell to re-trap the troll. Anya is jealous of Willow and Willow is jealous of Anya. They kind of work it out. The troll shows back up and Xander shortly after who tries really hard to kick the troll's ass. They're destroying everything in the magic shop. I hate that. The troll gives Xander the choice between Anya or Willow...he's planning to kill one of them. Xander refuses to choose. The troll breaks his hand or wrist or something. The troll says something to Buffy about how Xander and Anya won't last and this gives Buffy extra oomph to kick the troll's ass. And then she cries after Willow sends the troll to "troll land".

Giles comes home and tells Joyce and Buffy that the Watchers don't know anything yet, but they're looking into it. Joyce says something about Dawn being the Key and Dawn overhears part of it, but not enough to know she's the Key, just that they're talking about her being something.