Episode Report Card Sep: B+ | 10 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT I wonder what the return policy is?
By Sep | Season 5 | Episode 22 | Aired on 05.21.2001
Xander joins Anya, Spike, and Giles, and they fill him in on the action so far. "We haven't got up to Dawn, but then neither has anyone else," concludes Giles. However, Spike has been employing his supersonic vampire hearing, or eyesight, or something and tells them someone is up top with Dawn. Xander suggests charging the stairs, but Anya says they already tried that. Suddenly, Spike hears Willow's voice speaking to him. She sounds strange, like she's speaking underwater, and for a second I thought she had used magic to communicate through this metal thing near Spike's head that looks like a speaker. Then I figured that, duh, she's speaking to him telepathically. Because Willow does that all the time -- chatting telepathically with her friends. Oh, wait, she totally doesn't. I'm starting to wonder what powers she won't have by the start of next season. Rotate the Earth backwards and reverse time? No problem. Fly us all through space to visit the moons of Pluto? Shouldn't take more than a sec! And so on. Willow tells Spike to get up The Tower Of Terror to Dawn; when he protests, the other Scoobies are under the impression he's talking to himself. "Go!" instructs Willow. Spike leaps up and runs for the stairs. Tara and Willow clasp hands and use witchy power to throw all the minions and crazies out of his way.
Up top, Doc is checking his pocket watch. Dawn shouts, and Doc turns to see Spike behind him. "This won't take long," threatens Spike; Doc replies, "No, I don't imagine it will." He then moves incredibly quickly and stabs Spike in the back. Down below, Buffy is still whapping Glory with the troll hammer. Glory is bloodied and seems exhausted. She whines that Buffy can't understand her pain. At the tower's top, Spike is still standing, and he tells Doc he won't let him near Dawn. Doc doesn't seem much concerned by this, but does take the time to inquire why Spike is protecting an innocent, since he has no soul. "I made a promise to a lady," admits Spike. A "lady"? Doc is tired of chatting and uses his zappy tongue to feint at Spike; he then manages to wrestle the vampire to the edge of the deck. Dawn looks on, horrified, as Doc tosses Spike off the tower. Dawn shrieks, "No!" and Spike hits the ground. He grimaces in pain, so I guess he, like Glory and Buffy earlier, managed to survive the fall. Glory kneels before Buffy, begging her to stop. "You're a god. Make it stop," sneers Buffy, and then slams the troll hammer repeatedly into some part of Glory's anatomy off-screen. For some reason, Ben suddenly appears in Glory's place. His face bloodied like Glory's, he apologizes to Buffy. Buffy tells him to tell Glory that it's over, that Glory (and Ben) need to go far, far away and never bother her again. Ben agrees to do as she says. Buffy drops the troll hammer and races off. "I guess we're stuck with each other, huh, baby?" laughs Ben to Glory, and then coughs up some blood or lung chunks. He gulps in pain. Suddenly Giles is there, kneeling over Ben. He tells Ben that Buffy couldn't kill him because she's a hero. "She's not like us," he continues quietly. "Us?" queries Ben, but Giles slaps his hand over Ben's mouth and clamps off his nose. Giles watches Ben until he stops breathing. Wow. Giles is my new favorite character. He rid me of the pain that is Glory and Ben. All hail Giles.
Up top, Dawn is shrieking in pain as Doc makes a series of shallow cuts on her torso. Blood dribbles onto Dawn's feet. Suddenly, Buffy is there; Doc turns towards her and says, "This should be interesting," but Buffy doesn't even pause in her walk towards Dawn and just shoves him off the tower with a casual push. Dawn sobs, and her blood drips off the edge of the deck as Buffy unties her. Where her blood falls mid-air, a pulsating ball of energy zaps, and a hole begins to open. Buffy helps Dawn towards the stairs, but the girls pause as they realize that the portal has begun to open. Energy zaps a huge chasm in the main street of Sunnydale. Another bolt hits a large building, which morphs eerily into a hellish Giger-esque structure, from which screaming Alien-esque monsters appear. Kinda derivative, but full-on creepy. Almost as creepy as the Gentlemen. More bolts zap from the portal, and everyone at the bottom of the tower cowers in fear. Anya shoves Xander away, and she takes the fall of bricks she saved him from square on the head. She lies amid the rubble. Dawn apologies to Buffy and then tries to throw herself into the portal, but Buffy stops her and demands to know what she's doing. Uh duh, Buffy. Dawn insists that she must stop the ritual by leaping into the portal, but Buffy won't hear of it. Above their heads, a huge dragon appears and flaps off towards Sunnydale. "Buffy, you have to let me go," sobs Dawn. She insists that her blood must stop flowing, but Buffy just stares at her in anguish. "It has to have the blood," reminds Dawn, in case Buffy didn't hear her the first eighty-seven times. Buffy has a series of memory flashes: Spike talking about blood earlier in the episode, the girls doing some blood bonding in "Blood Ties," Buffy herself insisting the monks made Dawn out of her, First Slayer Guide telling her (say it with me), "Death is your gift." Buffy turns towards the portal, and the girls stare as the sun begins to rise.