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
Two minions sneak up to a window at the Summers home. Inside, Dawn sits at the dining room table and Buffy stands near her, folding laundry. As she flips a dish towel around, Buffy blathers about making a schedule for Dawn's chores. Dawn gives her the stink-eye. "I don't want any of this," sulks the Velve-teen Rabbit (I forgot all about that nickname), crossing her sulky little arms. Buffy protests that she's trying to give Dawn a normal life, but Dawn bitches about how she's not real. "Who cares if the Key gets an education anyway?" she surls, and throws her pencil down. "Why should I care about any of this?" Buffy: "Because they'll take you away!" Ah, finally. Turns out the principal told Buffy that if she can't make Dawn attend school, Dawn will most likely be removed from her custody and sent to their father or to foster care. Get your ass to school, Dawn. The last place you want to be is in foster care! Dawn, on the verge of tears, says Buffy could have told her about this and Buffy, her jaw set, replies, "I just did." Where's the love, Buffy? The love that will lead you to your gift. Uh, except that gift was death, so maybe I can actually see why you're being such a bitch to Dawn. And since there were minions lurking outside the house for this conversation, why don't we ever see an outcome of the minions hearing that Dawn is the Key?
Crappy, sappy piano noodlings try to make us sad as we see Tara sitting on a park bench in the middle of the Culture Fair. Give it up, wanker. I'd rather listen to my cat scratching in her litter box than this piece of so-called music.
Der Zauber Kasten. Willow sits on a pile of pillows and sulks. Tara looks around her with that drippy, blinky, bovine expression that makes me think the character is entirely too "nice" in a way that makes me hate her. A hand slips into Tara's and she turns, smiling, thinking it's Willow. But -- oh no! It's Glory! The music jangles! We're shocked! We gasp! Tara blinks.
At the magic shop, Willow glums up to the counter as Giles opens a box of "petrified hamsters." Strange, but -- snicker. Giles tells Willow that her "good mood is both obvious and contagious." Oh Giles, marry me. You're the only snarky person left on this show. Willow mopes that she had a fight with Tara, and Giles tries to assure her that she and Tara will make up and everything will seem much better. In the middle of his reassurances, Giles seems to hear a noise, and opens the back door; without looking, he uses it to knock down the minion lurking outside. Giles drags the stunned minion, Split-Off-From-Dreg's-Evolutionary-Branch-Six-Million-Years-Ago, into the store and throws it into a chair. Oooh, Giles becomes very cold and proper. He wipes his hand on a handkerchief as he menaces, "What a marvelous opportunity for you and me to talk." SOFDEBSMYA claims he will never talk, so Giles instructs Anya and Willow to fetch some twine off the counter. As they do so, off-screen we hear the chair scrape and the minion gasping loudly. "Don't! I'll tell you anything. Please," cowards SOFDEBSMYA. First time I watched this scene, I figured the minion must have a huge aversion to twine, which I can kinda understand because it does have a rather scratchy and dry texture, but further viewings have persuaded me that Giles actually did some mysterious Ripperish thing to SOFDEBSMYA in those few seconds. The minion admits that Glory is fetching the Key, but refers to it as "the witch." Willow runs to check for Tara at the fair as SOFDEBSMYA explains that the decision was based on Tara being the "new one" of the Scooby Gang.