Episode Report Card Ace: C+ | 2 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Scenes from a passport office
By Ace | Season 5 | Episode 19 | Aired on 04.30.2001
Glory thinks she's figured out who the Key is, but the script writer is employing the "clever" "device" of not letting the audience in on her decision. See, that creates "suspense." The audience is in "suspense" and then "tension" builds, until we find out it's all a big "wacky misunderstanding." Is it possible to overdose on one's own bile? Because I'm only about a quarter of the way into the recap, and I'm already feeling pretty bilious. Glory and her ratty-ass frizzy hair send the minions to collect the Key.
Willow and Tara are in Willow's dorm room discussing Buffy's crabbiness at Der Zauber Kasten. Tara defends Buffy, saying that Buffy "has to look after Dawn now." Willow protests that she doesn't have to do it in a "Miss Minchin's Select Seminary For Girls way." She feels Buffy's crankiness will just make Dawn "more rebellious." But really, I think even looking at linoleum makes teenage girls more rebellious. Tara mentions having to look after her brothers when her mother died and unfortunately says, "You can't really know what it's like to..." Having just heard this from Buffy, Willow becomes defensive. Surprised, Tara apologizes for making Willow mad, but Willow protests that she isn't mad, and struggles to explain that she feels her opinion doesn't mean anything because her mother hasn't died. Trying to understand, Tara asks if she acts like a know-it-all on the subject; Willow says no. "Is that 'no' spelled Y-E-S?" asks Tara, and Willow reluctantly answers, "S-O-R-T of." Ouch. The witchlets continue to talk. Tara mentions Willow's witchy skills and confesses, "It frightens me how powerful you're getting." Oops -- Willow doesn't like that and wants to know if she frightens Tara, but Tara protests she misspoke. Getting a little snippy, Willow retorts that she knows Freudian slips because she took Psych 101, albeit "from an evil government scientist who was skewered by her Frankenstein-like creation before the final." Go Maggie Walsh! It's your birthday! The tension between the two runs higher, and Tara suggests they drop it and go to the fair, but Willow can't. She wants to know why Tara doesn't trust her, and suddenly decides that Tara is insecure about Willow's lesbianism being only "experimentation before [Willow] gets over the thrill and heads back to Boystown." Boystown? Sign me up! I'll take a condo and make sure it has a large Jacuzzi. Dance for me, pool boy! "You think that?" snips Willow. "Should I?" Tara snips back. Willow sarcastically apologizes for "not establishing [her] lesbo street cred" and stomps out of the room.