Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Killer In Me.

episode 135.
airdate: 28 Jan 2003.

Giles is still not touching things. I didn't realize they dragged it out this long. Giles is taking the girls out to the desert for a vision quest like the one he took B on in season 5. Spike is chained up in the basement. Kennedy faked the flu to stay home with Willow. Spike's chip starts malfunctioning, going off without reason. Kennedy takes Willow to the Bronze on a "mission". A mission that's really a date.

Spike is dealing with some intense neurological pain. Kennedy and Willow are relating. Buffy is trying to call Initiative dudes. When they get back to the house, Kennedy kisses Willow. Willow turns into Warren during the kiss. Kennedy is freaked out. Willow looks in the mirror. She runs downstairs and everyone else freaks out. Willow thinks she brought it on herself because she feels bad about killing him. Buffy offers to help. Willow says she'll figure out how to fix it herself. Kennedy follows her. Buffy and Spike go to the Initiative caves. Spike thinks there might be some sedatives down there, 'cause they used them on him before when he was captive there.

Xander gets a call from England. The Council-guy describes the sitch we saw with Giles' head almost getting an ax in it. They (Xander, Andrew, Anya, and Dawn) realize they haven't hugged him or seen him touch anything since he arrived. They have to find him in the desert, since he's alone with the girls. That's so lame that he couldn't touch anything for like 4 episodes. He seemed weird the whole time. Shouldn't have dragged it out so long.

Willow goes to consult with the old Wiccan group she tried to join when she was a freshman. Amy is there and she apologizes to Willow for being a bad friend and shizz. The group tries to help. Willow calls Amy a "dumb bitch" and slaps her. The "glamour" of Warren is making her turn into him.

Wouldn't there be like, NO oxygen in the Initiative after 3 years being sealed off? They hear something, decide something must have survived. Kennedy pokes around after the Wiccas disassemble and Amy mentions something about Kennedy being a Potential, when she hadn't mentioned that. "Oops" says Amy. WillowWarren is buying a gun.

Everyone attacks Giles in the desert. It's funny. He's not the First.

B kills the thing in the Initiative. Then all the lights turn on and the combat dudes show up. Riley has sent them to give Buffy whatever she needs to help "assface" (what Riley called Spike). The dudes give B the choice to either repair the chip or take it out. Big decision, B. Whatcha gonna do? Time to work without the safety net?

Amy tells Kennedy she did a penance malediction spell. Willow's subconscious chose the way she'd be punished. Amy is jealous of Willow. Amy transports Kennedy to B's backyard and WillowWarren shows up with the gun, trying to reenact when he killed Tara and shot Buffy. Kennedy talks Willow into triumphing over Warren. Willow feels super guilty about kissing Kennedy, because it means she let Tara be dead. Kennedy kisses her back into Willow. Lame.

Commentary notes added 5.2.13: 

Commentary by David Solomon and Drew Greenburg- I'm almost thinking it's not worth my time to listen/watch the commentaries not done by Joss Whedon. It's mildly entertaining to hear their cute stories about what happened during the filming of the episodes, but I feel idle when I have nothing to write about, like now. When I originally wrote the blog above, I had a lot more to say. Usually in these commentaries, which is why I haven't watched many of them until now, there's a lot of stroking each other's egos. "You acted so well in this scene!" "Sarah did incredible here." "Remember when you broke your finger and couldn't shoot this scene?" Which is all normal stuff people that made a thing would say while watching the thing, but not particularly interesting.

Every single scene with Warren/Willow was shot (every line AND every angle) by both actors. In the Initiative scenes when they were lit with only flashlights, the camera-operators were wearing mylar so that when Sarah and James shined the flashlights in their direction it reflected back at them. Cool.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Potential.

episode 134.
airdate: 21 Jan 2003.

Spike is being used in a lesson. He pretends to attack the Potentials while B teaches them skills. There's some sexual tension between Buffy and Spike. I know this makes me a big girl, but some of my favorite scenes are the ones where Spike gives one of his "you're a helluva woman" speeches to Buffy.

Giles thinks the First is in remission for a bit. Buffy is doing another speech about it. Telling the Potentials they're special. Dawn is sitting on the stairs feeling left out because she's not one of the Potentials.

Willow just got news. A Potential is in Sunnydale according to someone in the coven. B is taking all the Potentials out for a group patrol. Willow is doing a spell to lead her to the Potential in Sunnydale. The light hits Dawn so they think she's a Potential. It's a big deal. Dawn has to process. She sneaks out.

B takes the Potentials to a demon bar. They run into Clem. Dawn runs into a friend from school. She got attacked by a vampire. She trapped it in a school-room and ran away. She was on her way to Buffy's to get her, because people talk. So Dawn and her friend (Amanda, I think) go back to the school. Dawn thinks she can fight it, since she's a Potential. The vamp is after them now that they've opened the door. They run. Dawn hits it with a fire extinguisher.

B is giving the Potentials a tour of a crypt. A vampire wakes up, recently turned. Buffy is telling them to know their environment and how to use it. As she's saying this Dawn is fighting pretty valiantly in the chem lab. Buffy and Spike lock the girls up in the crypt to kill the vamp on their own. As Dawn and Amanda are fighting the vampire a bunch of Harbingers show up and grab Amanda. This is Dawn's moment of realizing she's not the Potential, Amanda is. But the really cool thing is that even though she's not, she was the one fighting while Amanda was cowering in the corner. Dawn believed she was a Potential. Maybe there's not something totally special about the girls called. Dawn can fight because she believes she can. Because it's all about knowing your own strength, your environment, all that stuff Buffy said. So now, not only are Dawn and Amanda fighting the vampire, they're fighting the Harbingers. Dawn surrenders her weapon to Amanda who does some serious damage all of a sudden. Buffy shows up with Spike, Xander and Willow. Buffy is never told they thought Dawn was a Potential.

Xander gives Dawn an extremely moving speech about how they (Potentials, Buffy, Magical Willow, Werewolf Oz, all their friends with special powers) will never know how it feels to be ordinary, like he and she are. He tells her he saw how she handed the reigns to Amanda the second she realized Amanda was the Potential. He said, "You're not special, you're extraordinary." It was great. Really wonderful moment. I gotta wonder if Joss knew about them already.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Showtime.

episode 133.
airdate: 14 Jan 2003.

Another Potential arrives in town. Harbingers finds her, but B is in tow and kills 'em real quick. Potentials are arriving to stay with Buffy daily from all over the world.

Kennedy is flirting with Willow. She insisted upon staying with her in her room. Xander is there too. Why doesn't he sleep at his own apartment? No one can sleep. Anya's hair is getting lighter again. I was enjoying her brunette-ness, but she is always a vision. The Potentials are all worried all the time. Spike has been being tortured for days now, at least. He's fighting his way out right now. He sees B. Oh, wait, that was all a hallucination. He's still tied up and the First-as-Buffy is taunting him. Telling him Buffy won't be saving him.

Anya has an idea to talk to an Oracle to get information, but they need a demon to open a portal, so Anya is trying to sweet-talk a demon she slept with once into doing it for her. She offers him sex and he rejects her, then Giles threatens burning down his restaurant or something. What does that mean, feminism-wise? He responds to the threat from Gile, but not the offer of sex, because Anya is a human now and the demon doesn't find her attractive in human form. I don't know what it means, but this season is weaker than I remember it being. Joss didn't write very many of the episodes. Just the first and last and maybe another one or two I think. The overall story arc is still solid, but a lot of the details are sloppy.

Giles still isn't touching anything, in case you were wondering. They untie Andrew because they're sick of watching him, but he's still not allowed to leave--an obedient hostage. Willow talks to the Coven on the phone and they tell her another Potential is staying at a motel in town...arrived two nights ago. They've turned the basement into a training area. Xander and Buffy arrive at the motel room. Potential Chick doesn't answer, so they break in. The Potential is dead and it's Eve, one of the Potentials that's already at B's house, or so they thought. She's garnering dissent towards Buffy, telling the others Buffy can't protect them, etc. Andrew is so nerdy and hilarious. Buffy confronts the First.

The Oracle says the First cannot be destroyed. It has always existed and will always exist. Giles asks why it hasn't tried to destroy the Slayer line before now, and the Oracle says the opportunity hasn't presented itself until now. Something about how the mystical forces surrounding the Chosen One have been altered (with Buffy's resurrection? When Faith was called? something else?). Giles asks. Oracle answers that the Slayer altered it. By having friends?

The Potentials are being super annoying. But they would be. Buffy, Xander, and Willow are talking telepathically, but you don't see what they say. The First sends the Ubervamp to Buffy's with instruction to kill everyone except B. Willow is doing a protective barrier spell. Willow describes what it felt like to be embodied by the First when she tried to do that locating spell before...it's all scary and descriptive, then she says, "I could taste it." Kennedy asks, "How's evil taste?"

"Kinda chalky." ;)

Willow can't hold the spell long, so they go out the back door, killing Harbingers along the way. It slows the Ubervamp down a bit. The Oracle has concluded that the reason the Slayer-line vulnerability exists is because Buffy came back from being dead. Anya feels guilty for bringing her back. They're splitting up...B is distracting the Ubervamp while Xander gets them all to a safe place. Xander takes them to his site, the future Sunnydale Public Library. Ubervamp shows up soon after. Everyone is expected to fight. Buffy is standing back. It was a setup, Dawn realizes. We see the scene when X, W, and B talk to each other in their minds. They planned it all, even down to Willow not being able to hold her barrier spell. Buffy has brought them here to learn how to fight. To see a fight actually happen instead of waiting at the house all the time, worrying.

That's so cool they can talk to each other telepathically. It must be leftover from their conjoining spell at the end of season 4, because Buffy initiated it, not Willow. She finally decapitates him with barb wire and he dusts, after a totally epic battle. Buffy does a speechy-speech.

Buffy finds Spike. Spike thinks it's the First. She cuts him down. They both cry. He leans on her and I think this is the first time he touches her since you-know-when when she hasn't recoiled.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Bring On the Night.

episode 132.
airdate: 17 Dec 2002.

Xander is fixing the house, again. "It's a loop, like the mummy hand." Buffy sees Joyce for the first time. The thing that's super haunting about the First Evil is that it's effectively dead people. It embodies the persona of people that have lived. It becomes them. When she's talking to what looks like her mother, it acts like her mother, talks like her mother, remembers everything her mother would remember. Everything. It is the PERFECT plot device for the last season of this show too because it means you get to see anyone that has died, anyone Buffy has killed, all the old villains, even any vampire is fair game since they're technically dead. Joyce tells Buffy to wake up. Joyce was in a dream instead of in person, apparently. Buffy keeps it a secret from Xander who was the one actually telling her to wake up. Spike is being taunted at the seal by himself, then Drusilla.

Anya and Dawn are still enjoying torturing Andrew, who is now unconscious. Xander calls the seal "Satanic man-hole cover" and "goat-heady badness". Buffy decides they should cover the seal (Spike wasn't there, by the way) and they shovel, like you WOULD shovel, not like Wood shovels. And they see him in the basement. They've all got shovels, attempting to explain why they all have shovels. Willow attempts to do a locating spell to see if they can find the First, but it embodies Willow and there's red lightning and it's super scary. Willow is pretty freaked out and B promises they won't use magic again until they know what they're dealing with. Buffy decides to go out willy-nilly to find the First by herself when she finds Giles at her door with three Potential Slayers. Giles tells them the First's plan is to kill Faith and Buffy and ALL the Potential Slayers so that another is never called ever again. Pretty straightforward evil. Giles took a bunch of books and files from the Council concerning the First before they got blowed up. He tells them the First can only appear as someone who has died.

*Foreboding note: Giles isn't touching anything. He always touches stuff. That's part of why Tony Head is such a compelling actor, because he uses props (eating, glasses, mugs) all the time as he talks, but he's just walking around with his hands in his pockets and no one even hugged him when he got there. This is so they can make you think he's the First in an episode or two. And they are actually not letting him touch anything. And we never saw how he got out of the whole ax-behind-the-back thing from a couple of eps ago. I'm paying super attention this time to see if he actually ever touches anything.

The Ubervamp is torturing Spike. I don't know why. Just for fun? Kennedy is flirting with Willow already. Giles and Buffy are investigating the Christmas tree lot where the Harbingers were camped out 4 years-ish ago when the First tried to get Angel to kill himself. B finds the Ubervamp. She stakes him but he doesn't dust. He's really strong, but not quite as strong as Glory. Buffy decides to run. The sun was coming up, so it recoils when it follows her above ground.

Buffy goes to work and Googles "manifestations of evil". Wood acts real suspicious. I guess the reason they're torturing Spike is to try to convince him to join their side. He won't, of course. The Ubervamp is beating him to death.

The Potentials are super worried about sundown. Giles is putting a lot of pressure on B. Annabelle, one of the Potentials, runs away and gets killed by the Ubervamp real quick. Buffy goes after her and finds her dead. Another Ubervamp fight ensues. He's beating the living tar out of our heroine. M keeps saying, "Level up, Buffy!" Xander, Giles, and Willow find Buffy under a bunch of rubble. Not sure why the Ubervamp didn't finish her off. Morale is real bad because Buffy is so badly beat up.

Buffy makes a rousing speech. "We just became an army."

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Never Leave Me.

episode 131.
airdate: 26 Nov 2002.

Xander is fixing the house. Anya, Dawn, Willow, and Xander are worrying about Spike being evil again. Warren is trying to get Andrew to kill someone else. Jonathan didn't have enough blood to open the seal, apparently; anemic.

Bondage fun with Spike and Buffy. Well, not as fun as their bondage used to be, presumably. But, um, he's tied to a WOODEN chair. Like he's not strong enough to get out of that. And he's tied up in Buffy's room? Wowwww. Ok.

Dawn goes to tell principal Wood Buffy is sick and is way graphic about it. She really needs to call the Council about stuff. The Council doesn't know where Giles is. Spike is having withdrawals from human blood. Andrew is supposed to kill a pig. It's really cute. The pig AND the attempted stabbing. He has to go to the butcher shop instead to get the required blood. If he could just go to the butcher shop this whole time for the blood required, why did he have to kill Jonathan in the first place? Willow sees Andrew at the butcher shop because she was there getting some blood for Spike. Andrew and Willow have a fun nerd-off. Willow drags him to B's as hostage. They tie him to a chair and "torture" him for information. It's hilarious. Anya slaps him. Buffy's room is so girly. It's so contrary to how she dresses and who she is. I suppose she's still clinging to the girliness of her youth?

Spike explains that having a soul is about self-loathing and he understands why B had sex with him, because she hated herself. "As evil and as wretched as I was, I never truly hated myself back then." Buffy hears Spike singing through the door before she goes back into the room after checking on Anya and Xander. He breaks through the chair, as predicted, and pulls Andrew through the friggin' wall, biting him.

Buffy explains the sitch to everyone and Xander intuits that the song is a trigger. She hatches a plan: Willow and Dawn are in research mode and Xander is doing something. Principal Wood goes to the basement of the school and finds Jonathan's body on the seal.

Back at B's, they now have Spike chained up for REAL this time, in the basement with metal chains. Spike tries to convince Buffy to kill him. Taunts her with information about how badddd he used to be. She gives him a rousing speech about how he can be a better man, that she believes in him.

Wood is burying Jonathan. He does NOT know how to cover a grave. Pretty boy ("with perfect almond shaped eyes. Is he an Egyptian prince?" says my husband) has never operated a shovel in his life, probably. I think they picked the wrong actor for this character. He's so vanilla for a Slayer's son.

Harbingers break into Buffy's house and wreak a ton of havoc. They take Spike. B tells everyone it's the First because B recognizes the Harbingers. There's pandemonium at the Council. Casualties. The First Evil has declared war. Quentin wants to fight back, finally, and is giving a big speech, then they blow up, like the building, with explosives and everything.

The Harbingers are bleeding Spike at the seal. Why would they choose him? It would only alert the Slayer to what they were doing. The seal activates and the first Ubervamp comes out. He's scary and stuff.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sleeper.

episode 130.
airdate: 19 Nov 2002.

Buffy wakes Xander up at 4:30 in the morning looking for Spike. He's digging a grave, humming a jaunty tune.

London: a black robed figure is killing people from the Council. Willow arrives home to see Dawn amidst the wreckage of their house. Dawn tells her about her mom talking to her. Willow tells her not to trust what Joyce said to her. Xander and B talking about Spike when he gets back. I think they put Vaseline under Spike's eyes to make him look so sweet. B mentions Holden (psychoanalyst-vampire) and Spike doesn't bat an eye. Buffy convinces Xander to get Anya to watch Spike, not let him leave the house, in case he is killing again.

Buffy gets home and Willow explains what they went through the night before. "This big evil that keeps promising to devour us? Well, I think it's started chomping."

Anya starts snooping around while Spike is sleeping. He's naked. One thing about this show I'm not sure if I've mentioned: men are almost always the ones shown naked. Spike has been shown in a lot of almost-nudity, in a sexualized manner, several times. And Angel too. I believe most of the gender roles on this show are just straight reversed. Spike does look yummy laying there with a little side-flank showing. I'm really starting to think that it's not that women have less sexual desire, just that our sexuality is so fused with guilt and so NOT pandered to, at all, in our culture, that we just think we don't think about it. Having desire and not following through makes us teases. Not having desire makes us prude. But we're supposed to react sexually to a man just because he WANTS us. I'd rather see some effort, myself. A little side flank, perhaps? But not overly sexualized, like women. I'd like NO ONE to have to be overly sexualized, please. Nudity shown on Buffy is almost always male, sexy, but not flaunted in a trying-too-hard or vulnerable way. Male or female, confident, just-there nudity is a concept I can get behind!

So, Anya's snooping and Spike wakes up. She tells him she wants him, again. He rejects her and she's a little offended. After the sun goes down, Spike leaves and Anya let's B know. Spike hums a jaunty tune again and B is following him this time. Watches him flirt with a girl and take her off somewhere. There's a big crowd (some kind of festival?) so it takes a second to catch up to him. When she does, she taunts him, "You know you want it. You know I want you to." Then he bites the girl. Then he runs away guilty as B turns into Spike. You get that it's the First at this point, yes? Next scene the real B pushes Spike out of bed asking him if he killed the girl. Spike says he talked to the girl is all. Tells her he can barely live with what he did, says it haunts him. He says he talks to other women because he can't talk to her. Tells her he got the soul for her. That he passes the time, but it's still all about her.

B tells Spike that Holden told her he sired her. Spike is genuinely confused. B says he looked like he was on the prowl, not lonely. Asks him what happened. Spike is fuzzy on the details but he knows he wouldn't forget the taste of human blood.

The next night Spike starts to worry he did do it. Xander tries to stop him from going out, but he punches him. And it hurts, so the chip still works. Spike is asking around for a girl he remembers talking to at the Bronze. Aimee Mann is playing. He's in the balcony drinking out of a flask. A vampire comes up and starts hitting on him. She tells him he bit her. They start fighting. Spike stakes her and she falls over the balcony, dusting as she falls, interrupting Mann's "Pavlov's Bell". Everyone stares for a second, then the band goes on. Buffy is trying to find Spike. As the band is leaving, Mann says, "Man, I hate playing vampire towns." He he. Spike is on the payphone to B, telling her he's starting to remember doing bad things. Then he's faced with himself telling him he's going "against the plan". Spike shows B to the house where he's been burying the bodies. He's telling Buffy everything. As he's telling her everything he remembers, which isn't much, the fake Spike starts singing the jaunty tune. Sees him change. They fight. The buried resurrect as they're fighting, so B has to fight all of them. Suddenly Spike remembers everything and he freaks out, leaving B to fight the others alone. She kills 'em all real quick.

Spike is cowering in the corner. He offers her his chest. Buffy can't kill him. He asks her for help. She says she will. B isn't letting Spike out of her sight.

Giles finds the other Council members, something comes up from behind with an ax....credits.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Conversations with Dead People.

episode 129.
airdate: 12 Nov 2002.

This is an important episode, so don't fuck it up, Stephanie.

Take us home, Angie Hart. Love this song. In fact, I think I need to post the lyrics, because it was made FOR this episode, so it's important and relevant to the storyline:

Night falls, I fall
And where were you?
And where were you?
Warm skin, wolf grin
and where were you?

I fell into the moon and it covered you in blue
I fell into the moon
Can I make it right?
Can I spend the night?

High tide, inside
The air is dew
and where were you?
While I died
and where were you?

I crawled out of the world
and you said I shouldn't stay
I crawled out of the world
Can I make it right?
Can I spend the night....alone?

As the lyrics state, everyone is alone in this episode, and they (spoiler!) will talk to dead people. Buffy is in the cemetery. Willow is falling asleep at the school library. Dawn is at home alone.

Andrew and Jonathan are shown for the first time this season. They're coming back from Mexico. They're both having "from beneath you it devours" dreams, only Andrew translates it as "It eats you starting with your bottom."

Willow sees Cassie in the library, mentions Tara. Dawn is being terrorized by some weird spirit and can't turn the TV off, etc. Buffy is fighting a vamp that turns out to recognize her, but she doesn't recognize him. He majored in psych, so he psychoanalyzes B and it's really one of the better analyses of Buffy on the show. Dawn is hardcore being poltergeised or something. She hears her mother's voice on the radio and sees her mom a few times. Jonathan and Andrew arrive at the new school library. They are still hilarious, in case you were wondering. Andrew sees Warren. There's some sort of plan orchestrated by dead Warren. Andrew has to sacrifice Jonathan at the Hellmouth. Cassie tells Willow Tara couldn't come herself because of what Willow did. "You killed people. You can't see her. That's just how it is." It breaks my heart when Willow says "Tara". We see Spike meeting and later walking with a woman. Cassie tells Willow she can't use magic every again. Tells her she's going to kill everybody. Jonathan makes a sweet speech about how all the pain of high school has melted away with time. Dawn is doing a spell to cast out the poltergeist. Buffy admits Spike loved her but she didn't want to be loved. Psychoanalyst-vampire tells B she has a superiority complex and an inferiority complex about it. Dawn casts the demon out, then sees her mom. Cassie is trying to convince Willow to either give up magic completely or kill herself. This is when Willow realizes this isn't Cassie talking for Tara. We see Spike bite the chick he was on a walk with. Joyce tells Dawn Buffy won't choose her when "it's bad", then she disappears. When Buffy mentions Spike's name, psychoanalyst-vampire mentions that Spike is the name of the vampire that sired him.

Andrew stabs Jonathan. Cassie threatens Willow. Mentions "the whole balancing the scales, mortal-coil thing? I'm over it." That's the clue that it's the First. Jonathan's blood fills the Seal over the Hellmouth. Buffy slays. Spike kills the girl. Dawn is sitting in the middle of her destroyed house that looks a lot like mine looked after the damn tornado.

Commentary notes 5.2.13:

Commentary by Nick Marck, Jane Espenson, Drew Goddard, Danny Strong, and Tom Lenk- Joss wrote the segments with Buffy in the cemetery, Marti Noxon wrote Willow and Cassie's part, Jane Espenson wrote Dawn's horror part, and Drew Goddard wrote the scenes with Jonathan and Andrew. This is the only episode without Xander. Now THAT is an interesting tidbit. Cassie was originally supposed to be Tara, but Amber Benson wasn't available. 

Both Cassie and Joyce were the First and they can be in more than one place at a time. That's what I assumed, but it's nice to confirm it. Jane here is talking about how Buffy is a very moral show. Everything character-driven, personal consequences, etc, but no conclusion on if there's a god or not ("eh, jury's still out"), leaving it up to the viewer to put in their own theology into the mix. Though I'd like a more Atheist stance myself, I get why they did this. Religious symbolism (crosses, cemeteries, hell and heaven dimensions) is powerful and interesting, even though I so KNOW there's no "God". 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Him.

episode 128.
airdate: 5 Nov 2002.

Xander is putting Spike up, at Buffy's behest. Everyone wants to know why Buffy is choosing to help Spike. She doesn't know what she's feeling. Dawn doesn't get people and their complicated feelings of love. Pf course, as she's ranting about "what's up with love" she sees a boy in a letter jacket she decides is the bee's knees. He's not, in case you were wondering.

Buffy is fighting a demon for Anya. D'Hoffryn is sending demons after Anya, apparently. Anya is trying to figure out who she is and trying to be alone, but B thinks they all need to help each other.

Ugh, I so don't care about lovesick-for-football-boy Dawn. Dawn tries out for the cheerleading squad in Buffy's old outfit. Dawn is crying over this boy that she says she loves when she's known him less than 24 hours. She's acting super-psycho, so of course there's a spell involved.

Buffy has weird bangs.

Xander, Buffy, and Willow are Bronze-ing it. They see the boy there with Dawn dancing pretty provocatively in a skimpy shirt. A girl confronts her outside when Buffy makes her leave. There's hair-pulling. Then Buffy gets transfixed too as soon as he puts the jacket on. Groooooss. I just can't even comment on the grossness that's happening right now. Yes, this is going back to the beginning of the series. Dumb high school hijinks. I like it better when it's the main characters and what they're going through. Buffy is making out with Letter-jacket boy and Dawn sees. Xander, Willow, and Anya work on breaking the spell. Xander has an actual flashback to "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered". Xander gets Spike to help. They go talk to RJ's older brother. I guess Xander knew him in high school. The letter-jacket used to be his. Passed down from his dad. RJ comes over to the house and bewitches Willow and Anya too. Now all four of them are fighting. They all separate to try to get the boy. Willow is doing a spell, Buffy is going to kill the principal, Anya is robbing a bank, and Dawn is going to kill herself on the railroad tracks. Lame. Xander stops the spell. Ew, Principal Wood is listening to lame elevator music. Like a Narada sampler or something.

Xander distracts Buffy before she slays. Willow does a spell to find Dawn. Buffy saves her just in time.  Xander and Spike steal the jacket and burn it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Selfless.

episode 127.
airdate: 22 Oct 2002.

Anya-centric episode. Xander, Buffy, and Dawn are helping Willow unpack in Buffy's old room as Xander is explaining that Anya isn't into vengeance anymore. She's going to come around. Then we see Anya sitting amid a dozen dead fratboys.

Anya, 880. Her name was Aud then. I think that's pretty much the coolest name ever. Her troll comes homes from work or something. They have rabbits everywhere.

Anya, in present time, is washing blood from her hands. Buffy is talking to Spike. He's telling her he's seeing things lately. Buffy wants to help. She tells him "It's you and it's me and we'll get through this." She's overly comforting...then the real Buffy comes in. She wants him to leave the basement. He tells her he doesn't have anywhere else to go. Willow sees Anya leaving the frat-house and tells her how excited she is to be coming back to school. Anya has a cover story of a boy she's sleeping with. Willow notices blood on Anya's hand and goes into the frat-house to check it out. She finds a lot of blood and then a crying girl in the closet. The girl tells Willow a story about being humiliated in front of all the frat-boys and she says she said "I wish you could know what it was like to have your hearts ripped out". Oh no, Anya. It was a gigantic spider that Willow threw out the window real quick.

Back to 880: Anya has just turned Olaf into a troll and D'Hoffryn visits her, introduces himself. Suddenly they're speaking English. He renames her Anyanka and offers her a job.

Willow calls B to tell her about the spider demon. Halfrek is congratulating Anya on her frat-boy mayhem. Anya is upset. Willow goes to confront Anya. Anya tries to tell Willow those boys got what they deserved. Xander and Buffy go to find the spider demon. They find it. Buffy kills it. They go back to Buffy's and B talks about "hitting the research" but Willow is there and tells them how it got there. Buffy says she has to kill Anya.

1905: Halfrek and Anya are celebrating after she facilitated a huge massacre. Xander is defending Anya. He wants there to be some way to not have to kill Anya. "This isn't new ground for us. When our friends go all crazy and start killing people, we help them." Buffy makes a big speech about how someone has to draw the line and "it's always going to be me". Xander is telling her she acts like she's "the law" and she totally does. He brings up Spike. Buffy really could try to talk Anya out of being a demon...give her a little chance. Xander leaves to try to find another way as Buffy leaves with a weapon. Willow does a spell to summon D'Hoffryn. She wants to talk to him about Anya.

Xander finds Anya, lamenting about her kill. Warns her Buffy is on her way. Then she arrives and Buffy and Anya fight. Buffy stabs her in the chest.

2001: Flashback to "Once More, With Feeling" episode. Anya sings a sweet song about becoming his wife. Flash-cut to Anya waking up from being stabbed. She pulls out the sword. They fight some more and Xander pushes Buffy out of the way before she stabs her again. D'Hoffryn arrives. Deal is this: the life of a vengeance demon to take back the lives of the frat-boys. Anya chooses to sacrifice herself. D'Hoffryn chooses to kill Halfrek instead, right in front of them. She's ousted as a demon and she wishes she was dead. Xander goes after her. He tells her she shouldn't be alone. Anya tells him she's always let herself be defined by others. She needs to be alone for the first time. Anya is so interesting.

Commentary (by Drew Goddard and David Solomon) notes added 5.3.13:

Anya and Olaf (actors that played them, of course) spoke 8 pages of Swedish for the scene with Aud and Olaf. Aud is the name of an actual Viking woman known for her sense of humor and money-managing skills. How hilarious is that? God, I love the name Aud. LOVELOVELOVE. I have to make a character named Aud in a novel or something.

The thematic death of the vengeance demon in Anya was when Anya gets stabbed just as she's saying, "I'm a vengeance....."

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Help.

episode 126.
airdate: 15 Oct 2002.

Buffy, Dawn and Xander crawl out of coffins in the mortuary in order to stalk a potential vampire. So, usually they don't rise 'til they get to the cemetery...why do they think this one will rise before the grave? Seriously, was someone else writing this season. Joss, you still there? The chick does come back and Buffy slays.

It's B's first week talking to the kids in her counselor role. Xander and Willow are talking about whether or not she can control her power. Xander makes a power versus control hammer analogy that's pretty awesome. They're visiting Tara. That's such a piece of total scheibe (I know that's not accurate, but I am approximating without German characters) that Tara's gone. She was the most like me of any character, I think. She was shy, goth-like, sweet, and wise. Not that I think I'm wise, but if I were more actualized as a person, I'd be a lot like Tara, I think.

B is talking to a cool chick (pictured) who says she hasn't been doing her homework because she's not going to graduate high school. Buffy asks her why she's not going to graduate and she says next Friday she's going to die. Buffy first suspects suicide, but she says she doesn't want to hurt herself, there are just some things that she knows. Buffy tells the principal. He says, "We just do what we can." Buffy gets Dawn to befriend Cassie to see why she thinks she's going to die next Friday.

Buffy is snooping around a lot and Willow and Xander think she's "seeing paranormal where there's just normal." They find out Cassie's dad is a drunk so they go talk to him. He yells at them, drunkenly. He only gets his daughter one weekend a month and it was last weekend, so it's not him. Cassie sees them outside her dad's house and she convinces them she wants to live, but she simply won't get to.

Buffy goes to see Spike, ask him if he knows anything. He refers to himself as William a lot now. He starts beating himself up because he "hurt the girl", meaning Buffy. Buffy's detective-ing and it's the day Cassie's supposed to die. Buffy is doing really well being a counselor. She just wants to "help". Some boys are doing a ritual in red hoods. They've kidnapped Cassie. Buffy stops them, but they've already raised the demon. Buffy slays, Spike shows up. They save the girl. Cassie tells Spike, "She'll tell you. Someday she'll tell you." Aw.

Buffy even stops an arrow from hitting Cassie on the way out, but then she dies of a heart condition or something. She was going to die no matter what. Sometimes you just can't help. This is very after school special. Lame.