Episode Report Card Sep: A | 26 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Once More, With Feeling
By Sep | Season 6 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.05.2001
Night. Buffy walks through a cemetery. As she glances around she begins to sing, "Every single night / The same arrangement / I go out and fight the fight." As she continues, "Nothing here is real / Nothing here is right," a vampire attacks. She fights him and continues her song; she's been merely "going through the motions." As she stakes the vamp: "Nothing seems to penetrate my heart." Cute. And nice dusting effects, with a very detailed skeleton. She spots three more villains, including one with ram's horns, who have a bound captive, and fights one of them as she explains that recently her calling "doesn't mean a thing." The three baddies form a little dancing chorus as they warble, "She does pretty well with fiends from hell / But lately we can tell / That she's just going through the motions." Buffy grabs a nearby sword and eliminates the three demons one by one. As she frees the captive, she musically wonders if she's doomed to "sleepwalk" through her "life's endeavor." The captive, a square-jawed and bare-chested guy, wishes to thank her, but she distractedly dismisses him with, "Whatever!" Buffy climbs atop a stage-like grave marker and, arms flung wide, finishes her song: "I can't even see / If this is really me / And I just want to be aliiiiiiive!" The camera pulls up and up and up.
Sunny morning. Buffy enters the Magic Box, a distracted look on her face. Giles calls out a greeting, and Willow (more on her and Tara's ghastly clothes later) asks if Dawn got "off to school all right." Buffy mutters a reply, and the witches look concerned. At the table, Xander and Giles are playing with their food, and shake their heads when Buffy inquires if there's any demon action afoot. She looks around and then asks the ever-so-difficult question: "Last night, you know, did anybody, uh...burst into song?" Hee. SMG's delivery of that line is perfect. It made me think of all the times these people have had to share strange occurrences with each other, and how blasé they must have become about asking these kind of questions. But now something's come along that even the Slayer can't be blasé about. The gang looks surprised, then relieved; they all begin speaking at once. Willow: "We thought it was just us!" Giles: "That would explain the huge backing orchestra I couldn't see and the synchronized dancing from the room service chaps." Anya: "And then we were arguing and then everything rhymed and there were harmonies and a dance with cous-cous." Xander is more succinct: "It was very disturbing." Giles asks Buffy what she sang about (and I notice he never actually mentions what he himself sang about, so I'm guessing it was his love for a purple-haired recapper named Sep. Ahem.) but she evades the questions, saying she can't recall, but she's sure it was "normal."
They decide they need to research the strange events of the night before, and as Xander babbles, Giles begins singing. "I've got a theory / That it's a demon / A dancing demon / No, something isn't right there." Willow thinks perhaps they're all stuck inside a dreaming child's "wacky Broadway nightmare." The camera moves on to Xander for a bar ("we should work this out") and then the group -- except Buffy, who drifts out of the frame -- sings together, "It's getting eerie / What's this cheery singing all about?" Xander hops up, because he thinks it could be evil witches, but oops, he gets the dreaded double glare from Tara and Willow, so he quickly amends, "Which is ridiculous 'cause witches they were persecuted and Wicca good and love the earth and woman power and I'll be over here." Tail between his legs, Xander sits back down. Clearly ready for her turn, Anya shares her theory. The strange singing has been perpetrated upon them by -- bunnies! Silence except for the faint sound of crickets. Heh. Then, as Tara starts in on her turn, the lights blink off the shop. Anya is lit by a bright spot, and she begins to belt out this rockin' line: "BUNNIES AREN'T JUST CUTE LIKE EVERYBODY SUPPOSES!" Well, you get the idea. She carries on about "hoppy legs and twitchy little noses," working up to her big, uh, climax. "BUNNIES! BUNNIES! IT MUST BE BUNNIES!" She windmills her arms wildly and a flash pot goes off; the group stares, aghast. Frightened by the bunny number, the gang agrees that they need to work on the problem quickly.