Xander is trying to rebuild the Summers' living room
after the destruction that happened with the ghost. Everyone discusses
Spike, and every seems to want him dead. Meanwhile, Andrew is talking to
the ghost of Warren and arguing that he can't kill anyone anymore.
Warren then transforms into Jonathan who tries to convince him that his
death wasn't all that bad and now he's happy dead. Unfortunately,
Jonathan's blood wasn't enough and the ritual never even worked. Andrew
still refuses to kill anyone else, but Jonathan figures they can just
work around that. Buffy ties Spike up to a chair, telling him that they
can figure this out.
At school the next day, Principal Wood is dealing with
some high school punks when Dawn interrupts them, telling him that Buffy
is very sick today and she won't be able to make it in to work today.
The principal is sympathetic and encourages her to keep her sister home
until she's better again. Meanwhile, a very unsick Buffy calls the
Watcher's Council in London England and speaks to Quentin Travers,
demanding to know where Giles is located. Travers agrees to find Giles,
but as soon as he hangs up, he tells the rest of the Council that Buffy
knows nothing, but that they DO need to locate Giles as soon as
possible. Buffy heads upstairs and is tending to Spike when he vamps out
and tries to lunge for her, with only his restraints holding him back.
Realizing that Spike needs blood, Buffy sends Willow off to get some
from the butcher. Warren, meanwhile, is trying to coach Andrew on
killing a pig. Andrew lunges at the pig headfirst, diving at it with the
knife, he misses multiple times, and the pig runs off squealing. Giving
up on the pig massacre idea, Andrew goes to the butcher shop in order to
get the required blood. But as soon as he gets his order, Andrew bumps
straight in to Willow, spilling the contents of his bag and displaying
the blood bags for Willow to see. Andrew tries to run off but Willow
tears after him and stops him in an alley demanding to know what he's
doing with the blood. Andrew tries to babble his way out it but Willow
gives him a stern talking to, telling him that she's death and she's not
to be trifled with. That being said, she takes him back to the Summers'
home where no one there is the least bit pleased to see him. Xander ties
him up and begins interrogating him, with Anya backing him up. Anya gets
really angry and slaps Andrew right across the face. Xander and Anya
rush in to the other room, elated that they're interrogating Andrew so
well.
In the other room, Buffy feeds Spike some animal blood.
He feels a bit better afterwards, and tells Buffy that he gets flashes
of himself killing those girls. Buffy asks him how he got his soul back
and he tells her that he went to the other side of the world. He went
through trials and torture to get it. Spike then admits that he finally
understood that she used him, that she hated herself and she took it out
on him. Up until recently though, he hadn't realized or understood that.
Downstairs again, Xander informs Andrew that Anya is a vengeance demon
that has killed many, many people. He begins a story about how
she removed the heart of a man and replaced it with darkness, making
references to himself. Anya then runs in and lunges at Andrew, she
accidentally slaps Xander in the process, but continues attacking Andrew
until he offers to tell them anything they want. Buffy, hearing the
commotion, leaves Spike to go check on the others. As soon as the door
closes, Spike's evil double appears and begins talking to him, singing a
song. Buffy comes back upstairs and hears Spike talking. She opens the
door, demanding to know who Spike was talking to. He just says he's
feeling hungry so she gets to blood bag, but as soon as she turns her
back, Spike rips free of his restraints and lunges at her. She fends him
off and Spike then reaches through the walls and yanks Andrew towards
him, ripping up the walls in the process, just as Andrew was
beginning to discuss the symbol of Danzathar. Spike then bites down on
Andrew's neck, until Buffy rips Spike from Andrew. She knocks him out
cold by kicking him hard in the face.
They all head downstairs and Buffy tells the gang that
when she returned to Spike, he seemed to be completely different and
there was something about a song. Xander says that triggers can be used,
the song for an example, like in the army, to activate certain controls.
Buffy sends them all off to do research because she wants to know
exactly what she's dealing with. Meanwhile, Principal Wood, finishing up
work, heads down to the basement where he finds Jonathan's body. He
carries the body away from the school and buries it in the ground. Spike
is now chained up in the Summers' basement, where Buffy tends to his
bleeding face. He insists that he doesn't know why he's acting like
this, but Buffy explains that Spike is being controlled by some sort of
ghost. Spike urges Buffy to kill him, explaining that she doesn't even
begin to understand what he's capable of, what he's even done to girls
Dawn's age or how much blood to drink from someone to cause just the
right amount of damage. Spike thinks she can't kill him because she
likes pain and suffering, but Buffy tells him that he has no idea who
she even is and he's only alive because she saw his penance. She tells
him that she can see the better man in him, and that she believes in
him. Suddenly the windows break inwards as the men dressed in robes
break in to the Slayer's house.
Dawn and Willow fight back downstairs as they're being
brutally attacked by the cloaked figures. Buffy counters their movements
as they spin around her with sharp blades. Buffy uses Andrew as a shield
and manages to kill two of the robed figures. As soon as there are no
men left, they discover that Spike is missing from the basement. Looking
at one of the bodies of the dead men, Buffy realizes that she's seen
these before, they're the harbingers. Realizing just how much trouble
they're in, Buffy shares with them that they're up again the First Evil.
In London, Mr. Travers is being informed that they've lost a great deal
of their contacts around the world. Affirming their fears, Mr. Travers
informs the Council that the First Evil has declared an all out war
against them and he wants to fight back. Determined to succeed in his
plan, Mr. Travers tells them that they're going to be paying a visit to
the Hellmouth. But in the next moment, a horrific explosion causes the
entire Watcher's Council building to crumble in pieces. In the school
basement, Spike is being tied to a large wooden object as stabbed with
certain symbol until he begins to bleed profusely. The evil Spike double
taunts Spike and then transforms into Buffy telling him that he's about
to see what a real vampire looks like. As Spike bleeds on to the symbol,
the symbol breaks inwards and a hideous beast of a demon is released
from its depths. With ears like a bat and a mouth full of incredibly
pointy fangs, it roars in pleasure, happy to be free of it's cage.
The reason that this episode gets such a low score
is because they took forever to get into the storyline and the whole
first half was just way too boring for my liking. Plus, the added fact
that we didn't even find out what happened to Giles, and that was just
kind of silly of them to not bothering explaining it. Also, if the
recaps at the beginning of the episode get any longer it's going to
become ridiculous. Because they're now cutting in to story time with
it. This episode was about 37 minutes long if you took out the intro,
the opening credits and the end credits. We used to get a solid 45
minutes. But now they just keep cutting back and back. It's becoming
kind of aggravating.
A highlight of this episode included Anya the
dominatrix beating on Andrew. That woman is hilarious with physical
comedy. Especially when she slapped Xander in the face accidentally.
Another one good with the physical comedy would be Andrew. See him
when he was lunging at the squealing pig? He dives head first into
concrete with a knife held out in front of him. Who the hell does
that? hahahaah. And he did it multiple times too which just made it
all the more hilarious.
Unfortunately, this episode focused on Spike. Again.
They're really going to have to change their pace with that because I
can't take another Spike central episode. Also, how come he's suddenly
so insightful? He seemed pretty clear that Buffy was using him last
year, and he even stated that he knew it. But now it's like he only
JUST realized it. What the hell? Honestly, I don't know why Buffy
keeps him around. She's just putting everyone in danger. She's just a
glutton for punishment because she likes pain and suffering. And it
always just keeps coming back to that. This is one healthy heroine
we've got here. Now why couldn't we have a nice stable boyfriend for
her? Like Riley! (Well, up until he started going to vampire
whorehouses.) I miss Riley. :( By the way, when Spike went nuts after
he'd been possessed by the evil ghost thing he lunged at the wall
because Andrew was discussing the symbol of Danzathar. So the evil
Spike was trying to keep that thing quiet. I *think*. And I wonder how
Andrew and Jonathan came about all this information in the first
place.
The Council BLEW UP. How many people's mouths were
hanging open when that happened? I think I was in shock. I was NOT
expecting that. It was all so calm and they were all making plans to
fight back and then *BANG!* GONE. What the hell? So what now? The entire
Council is gone? Just *poof*? There's no more Watcher's Council?
This isn't good... Not in the least.
Originally I thought that the demon that rose at the
very end was the First Evil. But I've been discussing it with some
people and when I looked at the credits, there's a listing of a
character called "Ubervamp" so I'm guessing this beast is
actually a vampire? How about the first vampire? Kind of odd
because Dracula was supposed to have been the first vampire but I
guess we're kind of ignoring that. And if this IS a vampire, that'll
be nice. We haven't had a vampire big bad in quite some time and this
show is about a vampire slayer. And as IF we have to
wait until January for new episodes...
