Original Air Date: December 14, 1999

Written by Joss Whedon
Directed by Joss Whedon

Summary

Buffy has a creepy dream during psych class in which she is kissing Riley when the lights go out and a little girl holding a small box sings an eerie song with the lyrics:

Can't even shout, can't even cry,
The gentlemen are coming by.
Looking in windows, knocking on doors.
They need to take seven and they might take yours.
Can't call to mom, can't say a word.
You're gonna die screaming but you won't be heard.

Buffy wakes up a little creeped out and finds that class is over. Riley walks Buffy to her dorm, they're just about to kiss but Buffy begins babbling, spoiling the moment. Buffy phones Giles about her dream, he says it sounds familiar and will look into it. Xander and Anya head to Giles with Anya complaining that Xander doesn't care about her. Giles tells Xander that Spike will be staying with Xander for a few days because he has a friend coming to town. Meanwhile Willow is at her wicca group and she finds it rather cheesy, they're all about bake sales and no spells. One girl named Tara does appear to be different though. Later Willow relates to Buffy about the bogus wiccas and Buffy tells her that wishes she could tell Riley that she's the slayer. Meanwhile, Riley is having the same chat with Forrest about his secret identity. Xander ties up Spike before he gets into bed that night and Spike says that even is he could, he wouldn't want to bite Xander anyway. Gile is busy researching the gentlemen when Olivia arrives and they start smooching.

In a clock tower somewhere, a small box is opened by a gentleman and voices are ripped from sleeping bodies all throughout Sunnydale. The voices slip into the box which is then closed when all the voices are stolen. The next morning, Buffy and Willow both wake up to find that theur voices are gone. Xander also finds out and tries to phone Buffy's dorm but since neither can speak, it doesn't work. Forrest and Riley head to the underground lab to find out what's going on. Meanwhile the whole town is in shock at their loss of voices. Buffy and Willow buy message boards on their way to Giles' house where Xander, Anya, Spike and Olivia are already camped out. The news on tv explains the situation in Sunnydale as an outbreak of laryngitis. Buffy writes to Giles on her message board to keep researching. Riley and Forrest are given orders to maintain order in the town as their should be chaos. Buffy is walking through town and spots Riley. They try to reassure each other. Riley spots trouble and leaves her, not before kissing her though for lack of words.

Meanwhile, several floating gentlemen with skull-like heads float out of the tower and make their way through town. They're followed by skulking mutated humans. Olivia gets out of bed while Giles is sound asleep and looks out the window to find a gentleman grinning hideously at her. The gentlemen enter UC Sunnydale dorms and attack some random dorm guy. He tries to scream as they cut into his flesh with a scalpel but no sound escapes. The gentlemen bring home his heart in a jar where they have several others already.

The next day, Olivia draws a picture of the gentleman she saw while Giles reads the paper about a bloody murder last night at the dorms where the heart was removed. Something clicks and Giles pulls out a book on Fairy Tales. The gang then gathers at the campus where Giles explains, with the use a slide projector and slides, what is going on: the gentlemen are fairy tale demons who come to town, steal the people's voices and steal seven hearts but Giles has no idea how to kill them. There was one story of a princess who regained her voice and began screaming, killing them all. But no one knows how to get their voices back. Buffy patrols that night, as does Riley. Riley spots movement at the clock tower and heads over. Meanwhile Tara from wicca group heads for Willow's dorm only to be pursued by the gentlemen. She runs into the dorms and bangs on doors. Willow hears the commotion and runs out of her dorm and bashes into a running Tara, knocking her over and injuring her ankle. They spot the gentlemen coming and start running. They run to the campus laundry room where Willow tries to elevate a soda machine with her mind in order to keep the door closed but she can't do it alone. Tara grabs her hand and their combined power sends the soda machine rocketing towards the door. Riley enters the tower where he is attacked by some of the mutated humans. Buffy jumps throguh the window and fights them as well. Buffy and Riley are shocked to see each other, but they continue to fight the mutated humans. Buffy follows a mutation up stairs into the tower where she finds the gentlemen and several jars full of hearts. They're about to take Buffy's heart when Riley stuns the gentlemen with the knife. They fight viciously with the gentlemen and mutations until Buffy is held captive. Buffy spots the little box that the girl was holding in her dream and motions to Riley to smash it. He does and their voices return to them. Buffy starts screaming her guts out and the gentlemen's heads explode from the sound. Buffy and Riley are left starring at each other.

The next day, Tara and Willow are talking about witchcraft and Tara says that he mother practiced and she had a lot of power, like Willow. Buffy is in her dorm when Riley drops by. They sit down on opposite beds and they figure that they need to talk. But it ends there. In silence.

Summary written by Nika

Quote of the Week

Giles: I've a friend who's coming to town and I'd like us to be alone.
Anya: What? Like an orgasm friend?
Giles: Yes, that's exactly the most appalling thing you could have said.

My Rating

5/5

Nika Summers' Review

Deliciously creepy and entertaining! An episode I'll not soon forget! There's so much good stuff to say about this episode that I hardly know where to begin! First off, I'd like to say that it brings new meaning to us for the line "Actions speaks louder than words" or "Silence is deafening". For 29 minutes we sat through no words and yet I'm not complaining. The entire premisis for this episode was abosolutely creepy and entertaining. The first scene in this episode (the dream sequence) had me so hype dup for this episode that I never wanted it to end! The gentlemen were extremely creepy and their eerie grins were incredibly freaky. I'm just wondering who is well versed in fairy tales know where this story originated from? Or maybe it was just some fabrication from Joss' incredibly inventive mind. The loss of words for such a long period of time gave me time to think about what it would honestly be like if WE couldn't speak? (Life would definitely head over to the internet) But it's creepy to think that without words there seems to be so little that we can do. In this case though, a lot was found without words; Buffy and Riley finally kissed, even though I liked the dream kiss better (Did anyone else notice just how much Riley and to bend forward to kiss Buffy? Ouch, looked like it hurt!), Tara and Willow discovered each other's power and ability and this became friends and Xander and Anya became closer after the imaginary scare with Spike. The wicca group was rather disappointing and made me laugh with their comment about a bake sale. I'm glad that Buffy and Riley finally "sort of" found out about each other and while the ending of this episode rather bothered me because they didn't talk, I did find it fitting that it should end in silence, as most of the episode was spent.

Niki Bartl's Review

Wow. What an amazing episode, with a stunt like that thrown in. I was so anxious that I wanted this episode to continue so much but alas, all good things must come to an end eventually. There was only one thing I didn't like, which was the ending. I was praying 'please don't make it end now' but I knew they would, on their infamous note of silence, which actually fit the episode. I love the humor, with Xander mouthing boobies, Anya with her popcorn,Buffy with the staking motion and then Anya with her finger left me rolling on the ground with laughter. Spike was hilarious, as usual, and I was so glad for Giles, that he actually got some, except who is that chick? The best thing about this episode was in all the silence, which was beautifully acted, was the wonderful score. The music that filled in the scenes made it so much more suspenseful, so much more tense. I must admit I hardly listen to the music, usually because I'm concentrating so hard on the visuals, and tonight I realised on how much I miss out. And Willow has a little Wicca friend! Yay! I can't wait until more new episodes!

Cast