a few stats on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

BUFFY

times Giles gets knocked out:

1) Never Kill a Boy on the First Date

2) ep6: The Pack.

3) ep12: Prophecy Girl (by Buffy).

4)ep29: Passion

5)ep33: becoming part 1.

6)ep38: beauty and the beasts

7)ep39: homecoming

8)ep41: revelations

9)ep44: gingerbread

10)ep104: flooded

11)ep122: grave

times Angel is topless:

1) ep7: Angel

2) ep22: What's My Line, pt. 2.

3)ep25: Surprise

4)ep26: Innocence

5)ep31: I Only Have Eyes for You

6)ep37: faith, hope, and trick

7)ep40: band candy

8)ep41: revelations

9)ep43: amends

10)ep55: graduation day pt 1

Giles cko a book to non-Scooby:

1) ep5: Never Kill a Boy on the First Date

2)ep29: Passion.

Apocalypses:

1) ep12: Prophecy Girl.

2)ep25: Surprise.

3)ep33/34: becoming.

4)ep47: the Zeppo

5)ep55/56: graduation day

6)ep67: doomed

7)ep100: the gift

8)ep144: chosen

Times Xander saves the world:

1)Prophecy Girl, when he resuscitates Buffy.

2)ep47: the Zeppo, when he diffuses the bomb in the basement while everyone else was fighting a many-headed beast from the Hellmouth

3)ep55/56: graduation day

4)ep122: grave

times Xander falls for a demon of some kind:

1) praying mantis

2) ep16: Inca Mummy Girl.

3) ep54: Anya

4)ep136: first date

Jonathan sightings before season 6:

XIII

times Dawn screams "get out get out get OUT":

1) ep91: blood ties

2)ep114: older and far away

*I kept these as I went. At first, I was also counting the times Giles takes his glasses off and cleans them, but he didn't do it much at first and then he did it a LOT in the last few seasons and I lost count. I also may have spaced on a few times he was knocked out as well, but I think these are all pretty accurate.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen.

episode 144.
airdate: 20 May 2003.

Caleb isn't actually dead, turns out. Knocks Angel out. They fight. B slices Caleb in half. Angel has an amulet for someone ensouled, stronger than human, a champion. Angel thinks it should be him. B tells him he can't help because she can't risk him. She tells him to be the second front if Sunnydale "goes". Angel asks her about Spike, if he's her bf, etc. Buffy tells him Spike is in her heart. They have a little conversation about B's lovelife. B says with regard to relationships maybe it doesn't matter if she can't make it work because she's not done becoming who she's going to be. She's living in the moment. Angel wants to know when she DOES think that far ahead, who she might consider...Angel surrenders the amulet and starts to leave to work on the "second front". She gives him a little nugget of hope for their future and Angel says, "I'm not getting any older..."

When B gets back home Dawn kicks her in the shin and calls her a "dumbass". B tells the good news about killing Caleb. B goes down to the basement to talk to Spike and he confronts her about the kiss. Spike holds out his hand to take the amulet. She tells him "it's meant for a champion", then she gives it to him. Buffy stays with Spike in the basement. They cuddle again, night #2.

The First as Caleb taunts B in the middle of the night, then turns into her talking about the legacy of the Chosen One, alone. It gives her an epiphany. "We're gonna win."

We see she's shared her plan with the core group (Faith, Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn, and Anya), but we don't know it. Willow is worried about losing control...big magic. B does a speech to everyone. Says it's about choices. B's planning to lead them into the Hellmouth the next morning.

Giles, Andrew, Xander, and Amanda are playing Dungeons & Dragons. Hot. Night # 3 and Buffy and Spike probably do it. They're at the school. Everyone goes to their jobs and it's just the core four: Buffy, Xander, Giles, and Willow joking about what they're going to do in the morning. Great moment.  Giles even says, "The Earth is definitely doomed."

The Potentials, Slayers and Spike open the seal and go in. Spike is wearing the amulet. They're looking at all the Ubervamps. Willow is using the scythe to do a spell. "I say we change the rule. I say my power will become OUR power." Essentially every Potential becomes a Slayer with Willow's spell. Willow's hair is white during the spell. Kennedy takes the scythe to Buffy. Epic battle-time.

Buffy gets stabbed, goes down, gives the scythe to Faith. Anya dies. Wood is hurt. Amanda dies. The First taunts Buffy as her.  She stands back up and Faith throws the scythe back to her. She's got seniority, so she gets to keep the weapon. Spike's amulet is tingling. It's so great watching all these girls kick ass. Spike becomes a beacon of sunlight killing all the Ubervamps. It's his soul. Everyone is running away now. We realize Spike is a sacrifice. She tells him she loves him. "No you don't, but thanks for sayin' it." She goes. The school is blowing up. Everyone is on a school bus getting away and B is the last one out. She still has the scythe. Buffy is running after them and ends up on the roof of the bus as Sunnydale falls into the Hellmouth. They stop to get out and survey the damage. Sunnydale is gone.

"What are we gonna do now, Buffy?" She's not the one and only Chosen anymore. What a super cool feminist statement. The show started with B being the Chosen ONE. She had to bear the burden of Slayerdom by herself until Kendra, then Faith. Now every Potential is a Slayer and that is soooo cool. Slayers everywhere.

*I am now officially done with my project, but I'd like to watch the commentary now, but because it's fun. My plan of attack (next project, which is really just a continuation of THIS project) is to go back and watch all the commentaries and add notes while I watch the commentaries. After this month of writing about Buffy I've written over 50,000 words and I feel like it's been a good writing camp. I feel like I'm progressing in my craft. A lot of people don't understand what I'm doing when I say I'm writing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but to be fair, a lot of people don't understand what I'm doing EVER anyway. I think I'll go backwards with the commentaries. There are 36 of them, I think. I'll go back to the corresponding blog on the episode and add commentary comments at the end in a different color or something. Then I'm reading the comics up to date. Then maybe I'll write a book about Buffy, though I don't know what my thesis is yet...maybe I'll know when I get there. Whatever. All I know is that I'm doing two things I love simultaneously: writing and watching the best show ever made, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

**My commentary on the commentary by Joss Whedon:
Making Nathan Fillion evil must have been really hard, but they did it. Joss is talking about how the graveyard is the "perfect iconic place for Buffy". I never thought about it like that, but I think that's one of the reasons I love Buffy so very very much. Because I love graveyards. A LOT. Graveyards are a wonderful setting. This show is so literally dark and I think that's brave and interesting. A metaphorically dark show that's also literally dark. It also makes everyone look hot. Pretty much everyone on this show constantly looks hot and interesting. Angel's exit from this episode was meant to mirror his exit from the first episode he was in. Cool. I forgot he backed away like that. Cool. I'm SUCH a fangirl. To be officially done with a project I've been doing for YEARS and want to just jump back in to do some more is a really awesome feeling. I feel so engaged and happy. Yeay.

Ok, just to hearken back to a theme within my own life (I think I'll allow myself to get a bit more autobiographical during my commentary-commentaries. Is it the commentary within the commentary within the commentary? yikes.), and that theme is isolation. Both Faith and Buffy were shown as being very isolated, and duh, 'cause they're the only two Slayers in the whole world. But don't we all have this thing? The thing about us that makes us feel unlike anyone else in the whole world? Maybe not usually superpower-strength, but maybe a thing that no one else gets about us. The thing we carry like a burden, even when it isn't. The thing that makes some of us famous, some of us geniuses, etc. A feeling of other. The thing most of us don't realize is what they said in the Matrix: belief is not a prerequisite of understanding...is that right? We, none of us, really speak the same language, but we try to communicate in whatever ways we personally know how. That's art, that's poetry, that's self-expression. We are constantly attempting to interpret our brains to other human beings for that one moment of recognition in the eyes of a like-minded being. That ONE tiny minute of understanding and validation. We seek it with fervor. And it's worth all the pain and suffering we endure to get there. These tiny handful of moments in our lives. It's totally worth it. We're never as isolated as we feel, and yet we are always alone. Life's great oxymoron.

The shot wherein Buffy and Spike are standing apart looking at one another before they spend their third night together, Joss explained that he wanted the viewers to fill in the blanks about what they wanted to have happened during this night. I'll tell you what I want. I want them to have had extremely intense "making luuuuuuuv"-type sex, then fallen into an extremely deep sleep wherein B actually gets 8 whole goddamn hours of restful sleep before an Apocalypse.

The moment when all the girls have to bleed onto the seal to open it was meant as an earthly menstrual cycle thing. Cool. Didn't recognize that either. Also, the thought of even though you've worshipped this character of Buffy the last seven years, find it in yourself now that she's gone from TV. Joss addresses the fact that the Ubervamps were too easy to kill in this episode. He just says, "Yeah, they were." I mean, even Anya is killing them when B couldn't do it mid-season. Whatevs.

I didn't realize that when Andrew tells Xander Anya "died saving my life" he was making it up. He was saying what Xander needed to hear, when really he didn't see what happened.

We're seeing a life that's just beginning, like B's smile at the end of the series. Joss, you devil. I love you. I know you said you'd never make TV again after Dollhouse but you didn't mean it, right? Come back!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: End of Days.

episode 143.
airdate: 13 May 2003.

It's a sword-in-the-stone kinda thing. Caleb taunts her about not being able to "pry it from solid rock", but she does it with ease, because it belongs to her. Caleb starts backing away, his voice shaking. The First shows and tells her and Caleb "Faith go boom" and Buffy goes before killing Caleb.

The bomb has gone off. Several girls are dead. Faith is unconscious. They hear a growl and are trying to escape with Faith in tow...it's an Ubervamp after them...a few, actually. Andrew has gotten a bunch of food from an abandoned grocery store. Xander and Willow are trying to find Buffy. The girls are surrounded. Buffy shows up to save them all with her fancy new all-in-one weapon. All the wounded are taken back to the house. The girls think they've been punished because they followed Faith. B tells them it could have just as easily been her leading them into the "trap". Faith is still out. Everyone loves the new weapon. B says she felt like it belongs to her.

Anya and Andrew decide to go to the hospital for supplies. Buffy and Xander are talking about him not being at her side during the fight. Humor is back in the mix. Traditional Xander, Willow, Giles, and Buffy bickering. Thank gawd. Willow and Giles are doing research on the scythe. Willow could do a spell to intuit the origin of it, but she's worried.

Xander kidnaps Dawn and takes her away, per Buffy's request. The First does a spell to enter Caleb. Buffy and Faith bond. Faith understand a bit about what it's like to be B after leading everyone for a few days. Says she'd always been jealous of B, but leading everyone made her feel more alone than ever.

Spike shows up and he and B act weird after the night before. Buffy tells Spike that the reason she's got the scythe is because of him, the strength he gave her. Spike tells B last night was the best night of his life. He's never been close to anyone. He asks her if she was there with him and she says yes. They don't know what that means.

Anya makes a speech about how screwed up humans are. Says that stupid humans fight when it matters and don't quit. Andrew decides he's probably going to die, but he wants to go out as one of the "lame humans trying to do what's right". Buffy is on a quest to figure out why she has the scythe and its origin, letting it lead her.

A matriarch-type is who she finds. A guardian that's been waiting for her. The weapon was forged in secrecy from the shadow men (the ones that raped the original Slayer). The shadow men became the Watchers and the Guardians are women. The weapon was used to kill the last pure demon on earth. Whoa. Caleb breaks the Guardian's neck.

Dawn wakes up and Xander explains he used chloroform to knock her out. He gives her a letter from B. In the middle of reading the letter Dawn tases Xander and turns the car back around. Caleb and B are fighting now. Things are looking bad for B, then Angel shows up and helps, well distracts Caleb, then stands back and watches as B kills him. Buffy and Angel kiss. Spike sees from the shadows.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Touched.

episode 142.
airdate: 6 May 2003.

Everyone is arguing about how to organize things now that Buffy is gone. Faith finally speaks up and tells everyone to just get some rest and everyone can hatch a plan in the morning. Then the lights go out. Electric company has skipped town at this point is the presumption.

Buffy is wandering the streets watching people leaving their houses. She breaks into a house thinking it would be empty, but someone is there still. She scares him out of his own house, waxing existential. Spike and Andrew have to wait in the church throughout the daylight until they can head back. Faith is stepping up in a big way, shutting Kennedy down. She tells everyone that while she's not the one that's been on their backs this whole time, she's also not one of them anymore. She asserts herself as their leader.

Kennedy is bait. They kidnap a Harbinger and bring him back to the house to wring information out of him, but he has no tongue. Dawn knows about a spell that can help him talk without a tongue. Spike and Andrew get back. They have to break the news to Spike that Buffy is gone. He calls them traitors. Faith and Spike fight. Spike leaves to go find B by smell.

Everyone else continues with the spell. The Harbinger talks through Andrew. They're a collective, like the Borg. He (they) say something about building an arsenal underground at the edge of town. Giles slits the Harbinger's throat declaring that's all the information they need. Spike finds Buffy in that house. Buffy is depressed. Spike tells her she's not a quitter.

Back at Slayer Central, they've decided they fight in the morning. There's a place Giles and Faith decide upon on a map, not sure if it's the vineyard. The Mayor/the First shows up to taunt Faith.

Buffy is admitting that she's cut herself off from everyone, she always has. Having all kinds of insight into who she is, with Spike as mirror from a different perspective. Tells her the only thing he's ever been sure of in his 100+ years is her. Tells her he's not asking her for anything. That he loves her not just because he wants her...but because she's "a helluva woman". There it is! Buffy asks him to stay with her and hold her. So sweet.

Wood comes in after Mayor/First leaves. Faith gets defensive for a second, then tells him why she's spooked. They talk. Wood is more likable as he relates to Faith than he has been this whole season. Faith is missing B, but Wood is making her feel better. Faith seduces him. Kennedy has kicked everyone out of her and Willow's room so they can do it. I guess they haven't yet. Willow is hesitant, worried about being out of control. Kennedy tells her she's safe with her and then they do it. Anya and Xander are eating ice cream. Anya is jealous that everyone else is having sex. They end up doing it, too. Buffy and Spike cuddle all night.

Andrew is saying that Caleb and the First are protecting something at the cellar, like B thought.

B has left Spike a note, no, it's letter-sized. B shows at the cellar. Faith and the girls are somewhere else fighting the Harbingers...decoy. B is fighting all Neo-like. B finds the magical Slayer multi-weapon thing. Faith finds a bomb with 7 seconds left.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Empty Places.

episode 141.
airdate: 29 Apr 2003.

Today is the day I finish this Buffy project. Bittersweet, really.

Everyone is leaving town. Even the regular folks know it's time to get out of Sunnydale. The realest Apocalypse. Buffy isn't just going to hold back evil for a bit this time. She's going to change the world.

Buffy and Willow are at the hospital with Xander. Buffy is bailing to work on Apocalypty stuff. Xander is making jokes already. Willow tries to go along, but she starts crying. Restore Xander's goddamn eye, Willow!! This is a mystical eye death. You can fix this.

Morale is bad. Everyone feels hopeless. Anya and Andrew are trying to update the Potentials on how to kill the Ubervamps. Dawn starts asking tons of questions about how Xander is and Buffy evades. Tension everywhere. Buffy decides to leave soon after she arrives. Faith is holding down the fort, so to speak. Buffy goes to the school alone, the way she feels. Alone. Chosen ONE. She sits at her desk and cries looking at a picture of her, Willow, and Xander. Caleb comes in, mocking her crying "just like a woman". They fight. Short fight. He knocks her out and leaves. The bad guys never take their unconscious Slayer opportunities like you'd think they would.

Giles has a mission for Spike. They've found something out about Caleb, sending Spike to investigate...sending Andrew too. Faith suggests taking everyone out to blow off some steam. She takes 'em to the Bronze. Buffy gets home and everyone's out but Giles. Buffy is upset Giles sent Spike out without her input. "You sent away the one person that's been watching my back." That's a bit of an overstatement, B. She's making herself "other" when she doesn't have to be. She's also pissed that Giles let Faith take everyone out. The cops try to take Faith away on outstanding warrants. She goes outside with them and they pull guns on her. A few of the officers stay inside and keep everyone else locked in so they can't help Faith. The girls stand up to the officers and get outside to help Faith who is being beaten. Buffy arrives, tells the girls to go home, then "has a talk" with Faith. Faith suggests the girls need to mess up sometimes. Buffy is talking about the girls' safety and Faith brings up the fact that they weren't very safe when she led them into the vineyard. Good points, F! B punches her, then leaves.

Andrew is riding on the back of Spike's motorcycle. It's a bit of a road trip wherever they're going. Wood and Faith meet. There's gonna be a big meeting at the house. Xander gets home from hospital.

Buffy has a plan to go back to the cellar. Spike and Andrew arrive where they're going. A church that took in Caleb a bit ago. An inscription on the wall in a secret room in the church got Caleb all angry. He killed everyone but this one guy. The inscription says, "It is not for thee. It is for her alone to weild." The power. The Slayerness.

B thinks they need to go to the cellar because the bad guys always go where the power is and no one has been protecting the Hellmouth or the seal, only the wine cellar, so this must be where the power lies. Faith says no, they shouldn't go back in there without proof. Giles weighs in next. Buffy gets defensive and asks Giles if he sent Spike away so everyone could "ambush" her. Willow also says she's  worried about B's judgment. Buffy tells them it can't be a democracy, unfortunately, because democracies don't win battles. "There needs to be a single voice....you need someone to lead you." Anya replies, "And it's automatically you." Xander next. We all need to realize that, like it or not, Buffy is the reason two girls are dead and Xander's eye is gone. Buffy is standing her ground about "being together on this" and unwilling to compromise her plan. She tells them to fall in line. Someone suggests Faith be in charge. Faith recoils and says B just needs to "take a siesta". Kennedy suggests a vote. Buffy says "I can't stay here and watch her lead you into some disaster." Dawn tells her "Then you can't stay here." They're ousting her. Faith goes out to talk to B on the porch. B tells her "Don't be afraid to lead them."

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Dirty Girls.

episode 140.
airdate: 15 Apr 2003.

A girl is running from someone. Nathan Fillion shows up in a priest outfit and pickup truck to save her. Turns out the girl is a Potential and is trying to get to Buffy. Caleb (Fillion) tells the girl she's a whore. That all women are whores. That they can't help it. "Born without a soul." Caleb is the embodiment of our society. The literal interpretation of a patriarchal society. He brands her with his ring after heating it with the cigarette lighter in the truck. He has a message for the Slayer. Stabs the girl and whispers the message in her ear and throws her out of the moving truck. Willow finds her and she's with Faith. Faith is back!!! Yeay!!!

Xander is masturbating thinking about the girls. He gets interrupted by one of them. Not sure they knew what he was doing, 'cause he's covered up. Faith and Willow are at the hospital with the injured girl. Faith goes to find Buffy, runs into Spike in the cemetery first. She doesn't recognize him at first. Spike recognizes her by description. B shows up. Faith fights a vamp. Everyone is very guarded around Faith, understandably. Spike explains part of the tension is about Giles trying to kill Spike.

The First is talking to Caleb within Buffy's visage. Caleb used to be a priest, but now serves the dark side. Caleb was the one who blew up the Council and organized the Harbingers.

Andrew sums up Faith to the Potentials in a dramatic montage of of flashbacks of her story arc on the show. We even see her fight a Vulcan because Andrew got the volcanologist Faith killed confused with a Vulcan. Buffy makes up with Wood. He fires her. Tells her she needs to focus on the fight, the "mission". B needs to figure out how to get paid for this shit.

Faith goes to the basement to smoke a cigarette away from the girls upstairs. Spike is down there on his bed. They bond a little. Both of them on a redemptive path. Faith flirting a bit, mentions when they met when Faith was in Buffy's body. Spike remembers exactly what she said to him. That whole bit about galluping and warm champagne. Faith says he should have known it "wasn't blondie behind the wheel. She'd never throw down like that." Spike disagrees. B sees them talking in Spike's bed.

The girl Caleb stabbed is awake. The message is that Caleb has something of the Slayer's. So, he's calling her out. B is going to get whatever it is back and she's bringing the girls. Buffy asks Faith why she came back. Faith is a little defensive. Buffy is trying to forgive, but it's hard. She's a bit jealous because Faith helped Angel and was flirting with Spike, though she's not saying it.

The Potentials are questioning Buffy's motives and Xander defends her

Xander: I've been through more battles with Buffy than you all can ever imagine. She's stopped everything that's ever come up against her. (Buffy and Faith walk in, unbeknownst to Xander.) She's laid down her life, literally, to protect the people around her. This girl has died two times and she's still standing. You're scared. That's smart. You got questions, you should. But you doubt her motives, you think Buffy's all about the kill, then you take the little bus to battle. I've seen her heart, and this time not literally. And I'm telling you right now that she cares more about your lives than you will ever know. You gotta trust her. She's earned it.

Faith: Damn! I never knew you were that cool.

The Potentials have to fight a bunch of Harbingers in an old vineyard. Caleb shows. Kicks Buffy and Spike's ass real quick. Breaks the arm of one Potential. Kills two others. They retreat, but not before Caleb pokes out Xander's left eye. Omg, Xander!

The last scene is everyone in the hospital. Everyone blames Buffy for taking them there. She keeps trying to be proactive, but it's feeling pretty hopeless at this point.

Commentary notes:

Commentary by Drew Goddard and Nicholas Brendon: It seems like this might be one of those commentaries wherein it's less about concepts and ideas and more about "Remember shooting this scene?" So, I may have nothing to say.

Ohhhh, Xander is in his apartment in the scene when he's masturbating. I never realized he wasn't at Buffy's. This makes sooo much more sense that he was at his apartment and several of the Potentials were staying with him. ok. I was assuming everyone was staying at Buffy's, including Xander.

Drew says each act starts with the different ways men objectify women/how the male gaze misinterprets women. Act 1 is Xander having a pretty harmless fantasy about a few of the Potentials. Nicholas Brendon is a little crude and he might have just made a slightly racist joke, but I didn't get it, so I might be wrong.

Themes of Big Bads-
season 2: bad boyfriend
season 3: male authority figure
season 7: ways men try to take power away from women

act 2 begins with Andrew retelling Faith's story arc with all the clips. Not sure how that's about the male gaze objectifying and misunderstanding women, besides Andrew not really being there for Faith's arc.

Ew. Apparently they were thinking of having a Faith spinoff with Spike as another main character which was why they had that scene with Faith and Spike. That would have been weird. I can't wait to get caught up on the comics. Even just beyond the Buffy comics, there are Angel and Spike and Faith comics, I think too. I want to know ALL the Buffyverse! Bwa ha haaaa.

Nicholas' favorite episodes are: Once More With Feeling, Hush, The Body, and Restless. Lots of really good ones.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Lies My Parents Told Me.

episode 139.
airdate: 25 Mar 2003.

1977 is when Spike kills Wood's mommy. And Wood sees some of the fighting. In present time, Spike saves Wood. He wants to avenge his mom, anyway. Giles is ranting about the new library at the school: "Not a book in sight!" Giles and Buffy talk about Spike, his trigger, his chip, and his soul in front of Wood. Giles is going to put a bug in Spike's head so they can find out what the trigger of the trigger is. It takes him back to his past, reading his poetry to his mother.  She's sickly with tuberculosis. She begins singing to him. It's the jaunty tune that triggers him. He goes nuts, then the bug crawls out of his eye. Giles asks him about the song. He's reluctant to talk, but through flashbacks we see that after he was turned he wanted to turn his mom, but Dru was against it. Ok, another hole in the plot: In season 6 Spike mentions he had to crawl out of his grave, but his mom just revealed that she'd been worried about him being missing, presumably for the days it took for him to change. She would have thought him dead if he had been buried, yes? Since Dru turned him on purpose, wouldn't she have kept his body somewhere so that he didn't need to resurrect from a grave? Spike turns his mom. Willow gets a call from L.A. from Fred. She has to go away for a few days. Buffy unchains Spike against Giles' wishes.

Wood talks with Giles about the "problem" of Spike. Wood mentions the name of the Watcher that raised him and Giles puts it together that Spike killed his mom. Wood says Spike's "an instrument of evil" and wants Giles' help. Keeping Buffy at bay for a couple of hours while Wood kills Spike. I forgot Giles agrees to this. He takes B out for a training session in the cemetery. Wood is "looking after" Spike in the meantime. Takes him to his garage which is decorated with crosses. Wood pulls up the mp3 of Spike's trigger song on his computer and plays it because he wants to feel less guilty about killing Spike by killing the monster in the man.

Another Spike flashback. His mom is changed now and she is super mean to him and doesn't want to spend eternity with him. So the lie both Wood and Spike's mom told their sons was that they were important to them, but they were a lot less important than they needed to be. The lie Giles is telling Buffy is the deception of distracting her while Wood attempts to kill Spike. Giles intuits that Buffy would sacrifice Dawn to save the world, if faced with the same choice now. She agrees. Wood is actually doing some damage to Spike. Spike's mom tries to rape him, he kills her. Flashbacks endeth and he comes to, he's worked out the trigger after getting some closure on the whole killing-his-mom thing. He's gotten over it and is now fighting back with Wood. Spike is all Neo now. Just in case we were still worried about the trigger, Spike goes over and plays it from the computer again and he doesn't change. He tells Wood he's going to kill him and bites his neck.

Buffy realizes Giles is distracting her and she runs to Spike. He didn't kill Wood after all. Spike tells Buffy he gave him a pass and let him live because he killed his mother. Buffy goes to Wood's aid. He's pretty beat up. Buffy tells Wood she understands, but Spike is a warrior they need. Buffy threatens Wood that if he ever tries to kill Spike again, he'll kill him and B will let him. "The mission is what matters." which is the same thing his mom used to say to him.

Giles tries to explain to Buffy. Buffy says to Giles, "I think you've taught me everything I need to know." She shuts her bedroom door on him. Giles, why? Damnit, Giles.

Commentary notes [5.1.13]:

Commentary by David Fury, Drew Goddard, James Marsters, and D.B. Woodside: I'm almost ten minutes into the commentary on this episode and haven't had anything to say yet. This scene wasn't really shot in New York, this shot was hard to do, bla bla. No new insights into the show itself. James isn't talking a lot, which is sad. It is kind of cool to know that the shot where the stone that drops from Spike's eye took 30 minutes, just to shoot a rock and get it in frame. If it were me doing that I'd be so impatient and think I was wasting my time, but art takes time, man. I love it. I read a quote today from Gloria Steinem...something like "writing is the only thing I do that I don't wish I was doing something else while I'm doing it." I'm paraphrasing, but that was essentially it. And I love that thought. When you're doing your thing, taking half an hour to get a two second shot of something is worth it. It's your fucking art. You take hours/days/weeks to paint a masterpiece if you're a painter and these things can be translating to any passion. Weeks to knit an afghan. A month to write the first draft of a novel. Etc etc. I love it. I want to do the art!

Ew. They picked the actress that played Spike's mom because she looked like an older Buffy and they named her "Anne" because that's B's middle name. Oedipal stuff. Ew. 

Spike is an anomaly as a vampire. He's the only vampire on the entire show that retained a portion of his humanity as a vampire (without a soul). When Angel becomes Angelus, he doesn't retain any humanity and no other vampire really does either. They might have a semblance of their former personality, but no empathy, really. 

The scene with Giles and Buffy in the cemetery was shot like ten days apart or something. They're not even in the same space at the same time. Weird. I notice the disconnect now that I know about it. I felt weird about that scene before, but I thought it was because I was mad at Giles for plotting to take out Spike.

Originally the scene with Giles and Buffy included Giles admitting that he killed Ben. That makes me feel better knowing that. It makes sense that he would choose that moment to tell her, when he's giving a speech about when to sacrifice and when not to sacrifice people for the greater good. Nice knowing a version like that exists, as Lloyd Dobler would say...

This episode is about killing your parents, both literally and figuratively. B has to shut out Giles after what he did. Spike actually literally kills his mother. Wood has to live on when his mother has been killed, and he has to move on without the kind of closure he thought he'd get. Spike has some closure too, beyond whatever closure he might have felt by killing his mother.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Storyteller.

episode 138.
airdate: 24 Feb 2003.

Andrew is telling his version of everything that's going on through his own video diaries. It's super hilarious and awesome, of course. He's interviewing everyone and following B around as she slays. Buffy gets into another speech and Andrew slips out of the room as B tells everyone about the vision she saw. Via Andrew, we get a much needed reprieve from Buffy's speeches. Andrew is retelling the story of him being a "super villain" and "facing Dark Willow". It's also cute. I love episodes like this.

Everything is crazy at school. Buffy is trying to help everyone. A girl is disappearing, someone throws rocks at Wood, a kid explodes from stress. Andrew interviews Anya and Xander. Anya tells Xander "You still love me." Buffy tells Wood about the vision at the seal. He gets possessed for a second, calls Buffy a "whore". Xander and Anya love each other and both admit they don't know what that means. Andrew gets it on tape and watches it over and over.

Flashback to Andrew and Jonathan in Mexico. They dreamed about the First Evil. There was a flash of the row of cheese from "Restless" too for a sec. Why are they dreaming about it? They don't have special powers or anything and I can't imagine the First really finds them useful enough to lure them back to Sunnydale. They're questioning Andrew, since he was the first to see the seal. The knife the First had him get to kill Jonathan has an inscription on it. So maybe since the knife was in Mexico, that's why the First used him for its bidding. There's been rioting at the school. They're taking Andrew to the seal because he knows the language on the knife that the seal responds to, or something. There's still kids rioting and they're violent. When Andrew and Buffy get to the seal they find chanting kids that have turned themselves into Harbingers. Anya and Xander did it. They're unsure what this means. They decide it was probably a "one more time" and now they're ready to move on.

The seal is glowing. Buffy tells Andrew his blood (the blood of the one that opened it) is the thing that closes it. She taunts him. He cries. When his tears hit the seal, it closes. After it closes (or stops glowing, rather) the rioting upstairs stops. Andrew tells the camera he might not live through the fight and that he killed his best friend. He's finally dealing with what he did.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Get It Done.

episode 137.
airdate: 18 Feb 2003.

Buffy is checking on everyone sleeping. There are so many girls everywhere. The First Slayer pushes her down the stairs and tells her "It's not enough". Dream.

Spike and Anya are bonding about how crowded the house is getting, hanging out, on their way to the Bronze to get drunk together. Anya keeps making allusions to when they had sex, hinting that she'd like to again. Spike tells her to drop it.

There's pandemonium at the school. Things are percolating. Wood gives B a bag of Slayer stuff that used to belong to his mother. It was supposed to be passed down to the next Slayer when she was called, but he wasn't able to part with it until now. Wood wants to see where she works. B shows him her house. The Potentials are all training in the backyard. Kennedy is training them military-style. Wood is analyzing their form. Like HE gets to say if they're ready or not. Then he says "Show me the vampire." Why is she just following his orders? Ugh. I don't like him, in case you haven't noticed. Wood is mean to Spike, asking him a lot of pointed questions. Dawn went through the Slayer bag and updates B on the contents. Some books, weapons, and an "unopenable" box. They find Chloe (a Potential) has hanged herself. The First convinced her to off herself and makes threats to everyone in Chloe's visage. Buffy buries her and does a speech to everyone. "Chloe was an idiot, weak." Tells them they need to use the power they have. Spike tries to leave because he's "neither a girl nor waiting". Buffy confronts him too. She doesn't think anyone is using their full potential. Buffy tells Spike he was a better fighter when he didn't have a soul.

They break out the Slayer bag and invite Wood over as Buffy breaks open the box. Inside the box are some puppets that cast shadows on the wall. They tell the story of the origin of the Slayer. Earth, then demons, then men, then the men found a girl and made her fight the demons, by chaining her to the earth, then darkness. The thing starts spinning out of control, then there's a portal. B goes through it. A demon replaces her. Now without Buffy, everyone needs to use their full potential to fight this demon. Spike especially steps up to the plate. Lots of house destruction, as per usual. Willow needs to find a way to get Buffy back. Buffy is in the desert. Anya suggests they leave Buffy there, because of her "Everyone-sucks-but-me speech". Willow is worried about going off the deep-end if she does a spell as intense as opening a portal, but she knows she has to step up, too. They figure that they have to send the demon back in order to regain Buffy.

Spike is going after the demon, but he needs to get something first. Some tribal-dudes tell B she's the "hellmouth's last guardian". They tell her they can give her power and knock her out. Willow's starting the portal. Why don't they do this outside? Buffy wakes up chained to the earth. They tell her they brought her back to the beginning. She says she brought herself here and that she doesn't need any more power. They ignore her. They used the spirit of a demon, its essence, to essentially rape a girl and THAT'S how they created the Slayer. Men raping is how the almighty chick warrior was created. If that's how it's done, why aren't we all Slayers? The black energy is coming at her, to "become one" with her. They tell her this is how it HAS to be. She screams it out of her mouth, it goes for her other end.

Spike is putting on his leather jacket for the first time since before the soul. Willow is all black-eyed trying to open the portal. Xander thinks she should stop. She sucks all the energy out of Kennedy and Anya, then the portal opens. Xander pulls Willow out of the circle as her hair turns black...it turns back after she gets out of it. Spike is fighting the demon with his old gusto. Wood has seen him in the coat. Even though it looks like a normal leather trenchcoat, he recognizes it as his mother's.

Buffy's refuses to be "knocked up by some demon dust". She wishes to retain her humanity and fight the First on her own terms, not theirs. She frees herself, tells them they violated the girl that became the first Slayer, and fights them. Spike kills the demon and lights a match on his tusk. The lead tribal-dude accepts that Buffy is not going to take the power offered to her and shows her a vision. We don't see it at this time. Spike brings back the dead demon to the portal and B is transported back. Willow apologizes for taking Kennedy's power. Kennedy is having a hard time dealing with it and doesn't want to spend the night with Willow.

Willow talks to B. She tells her she rejected the power offered to her. Now we see an army of Ubervamps, too many to count. Like a Zion orgy of Ubervamps. OMG.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: First Date.

episode 136.
airdate: 11 Feb 2003.

Let me just start by saying that it makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER for Buffy to go on a date with Principal Wood. He's not my type (he's too clean), but it's not the whether-or-not-she-could-be-attracted-to-him thing that's throwing me, it's that there's a big honkin' evil brewin' and it's out of character for her to let loose and go on a date with some guy that she THINKS doesn't know her sitch, plus there has been ZERO flirtation between them before this episode. ZERO. It would be too exhausting for B to do something like this. I guess it fits in with her periodical I-wish-I-could-be-a-normal-girl whine, but it just feels flimsy. It feels like the writers did this as a way to integrate Wood into the storyline quickly and make Spike jealous at the same time. Another episode I just want to get over with, so let's do it...

We finally see Giles responding to the ax incident with some serious BADASSERY. Hot. See, it can be hot for a man to kickass too, but in mainstream pop culture it's just taken for granted that every male protagonist is a badass and that's boring. On Buffy when someone is a badass, they've earned it. Giles is recounting his story of being a badass in the cemetery with B, Amanda, Kennedy and a new Potential from China, when Spike attacks him. Giles notices his chip didn't go off and Spike notices simultaneously that Giles isn't the First, which is why he attacked him (which is also weak plot-wise, because why would Spike launch himself into Giles if he suspected he wasn't corporeal? He would then fall facefirst into the ground if Giles was the First and reveal he no longer has the chip, as he did do, if he wasn't. Ugh. So many things to criticize in this season). In my hastiness of bitching about the plot details I paused the DVD and Giles just asked Spike how it was supposed to help if he was the First that he just launched himself into him. That helps a little. So now the topic of discussion is why isn't Spike in pain? Buffy and Spike explain. Giles is upset, like he would be. He's regularly touching things again. It's soooo obvious. Urg. 'Course I say this now, but I didn't notice it the first time around.

Giles confronts B about making the decision to remove Spike's chip. Buffy tells him Spike can be a good man. Giles tells her he can hear in her voice that her feelings for him are "coloring her judgment". He's not wrong, but I think she made the right decision. If she chose to repair the chip and Spike kept to his path of redemption, it would have malfunctioned in another three years maybe anyway and they'd never know if he really means to be good. This way, if he intends to be bad again, B will know definitively and be able to make the choice to kill him. This is all my two cents, not something that is said in Giles and Buffy's convo.

Xander sees Ashanti at some outdoor tool place and asks her out. He is always so charming when he meets a cute girl and asks her out. Boys, THIS is how you pick up a girl. Study Xander Harris on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He employs humor, awkwardness, and doesn't AT ANY POINT mention her looks. This is such a cliche and should never be done. Here endeth the lesson.

Wood asks B out by simply saying, "I'd like to take you out to dinner tonight, if that's all right." Lame. If these two men were asking me out, assuming I didn't know either of them before the meeting and all I had to go on was their style of the asking, I'd choose Xander every time. Even if the Xander-outer-package were something other than Xander's cutie face. Wood has a weapons arsenal behind a dry erase board in his office.

Buffy thinks she might like him. Willow and B are having a normal BFF convo about getting a date which is sweet. Then Xander comes in and shares about his date.

Willow: She evil?
Xander: She's interested in me, so there's a good chance, but I'm hoping for the best.

Jonathan/the First tries again to get Andrew on their side. Tries to convince him to kill the Potentials with the gun Willow got when she was turning into Warren. Anya is telling B she thinks Xander's date is not a real date, that he's trying to make her jealous.

Buffy: Well, it's not working...
Anya: Are you nuts? Of course it's working! Observe my bitter ranting and the shrill edge of hysteria in my voice!

Buffy runs into Spike in the hallway and Spike lets her know he knows about her date and acts real big about it. It's so hot when he's mature. Willow, Kennedy, Dawn, and Amanda are researching Wood and can't find anything from before he moved to Sunnydale. Giles thinks people shouldn't be dating right now. Wood is leading B through a dark alley to a restaurant. They get ambushed by vamps and they both start fighting, staking them all in no time. She's confused, but he isn't. He knows she's the Slayer. Ashanti and X are talking about Anya on their coffee date. Another disparity between these two men's dating styles is that Xander asked Ashanti to coffee and Wood asked B to a super-fancy dinner. I'd rather the less-pressure coffee situation.

Wood hired B because she was the Slayer and he knows something big is coming and wants to align himself with B for the fight. He's known about B since before he came to Sunnydale, possibly why he came. He reveals that his mom was a Slayer, killed when he was 4. So that makes 1975 the time period if he's ten years older than B and it's 2003? Why doesn't she put this together immediately that his mom is Spike's second Slayer? Whatever. B asks him if he has any Slayer powers and he says no, but his mom's Watcher raised him and taught him some skills. Andrew finds the gun and shows it to Jonathan/the First. Andrew asks him about his weaknesses. Andrew is wearing a wire. Willow is listening in the basement on headphones.

Ashanti has Xander tied up at the seal and she's planning to bleed him. Ashanti has a nice Akasha vibe going on. Willow gets a text from Xander in code. Spike goes to get Buffy. They know Xander is at the school because Willow did a locater spell. Spike, Wood, and Buffy in a car together. The seal starts to open as Wood cuts Xander down and B and Spike are fighting Ashanti. After Buffy beheads Ashanti, she checks on Spike first, before Xander or Wood. Xander asks B how her date's going. Wood gives a pointed look to B and Spike. Nipped THAT in the bud real quick, thank gawwd.

Everyone makes fun of Spike for demon's being attracted to him. Giles silences them from their joking, makes them get serious. Killjoy.

Buffy and Spike talk. Spike tells her the First told Andrew it "wasn't time for me yet". Spike says he should go before it is time for him, leave town. B says she needs him, because she's not ready for him to not be here. Spike asks about Wood. She doesn't say anything.

Wood is being haunted by his mommy/the First. She's beautiful. She tells him Spike is the one that killed her. Wonder what's going to happen now.