Episode Report Card Ace: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT We fall to pieces
By Ace | Season 6 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.29.2002
Buffy, Willow, and Xander are hanging out in the Summers's dining room, where Willow is attempting to trace the signal from the hidden camera. She says she should be able to snag the signal as soon as she can "tap into the fiber optic network." If you say so, Red. Willow types and taps on her laptop (which we all know always makes for fascinating television) as Xander muses that if the culprit is not Spike, then they all know who it is. Buffy grits out that she wants to find the Dimsters.
In the Dimsters' lair, beta-nerd Jonathan lights a candle as the usual crappy, twinkly soundtrack plays. He props up the disk from the teaser in front of the candle as Warren and Andrew look on. After a sprinkling of magic powder, the disk begins to glow brightly, and the candle shoots out a beam of light that goes through the disk and then focuses on a map lying on the floor. The map is old and appears to say "Map of Sunnydale" across the top. I say "appears" because it was hard to read, what with my cheap VCR and dinky TV. As the beam pinpoints a location on the map, Jonathan leaps up in glee and cackles, "They're digging in the wrong place!" Then he and Andrew do a happy jig arm-in-arm. Okay, not really, but they might as well have, considering what a direct, um, "homage" this scene is to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Between this and the "Short Round" thing earlier, I'm wondering what's with all the references to movies in the Indiana Jones series. Jonathan says, "There. There's where we have to go," and it seems that Warren is threatening to dispose of him ("Well, now that we've found out where we're supposed to go...") when the map catches on fire. Much shouting.
Der Zauber Kasten. Anya and Spike do shots with the conveniently-left-behind-by-Giles shot glasses they have found. Spike, without using Buffy's name, complains about her "real for you" speech earlier in the episode. Anya is totally not concerned with Spike's romantic anguish and just wants to get back to the topic of Xander. She whines, "Nobody seems to care enough to do anything," and if I cared at all about her character or her stupid relationship with Xander, I might stop to ponder what she seriously thinks other people are supposed to "do" about the failure of her relationship. But I don't care, so I don't have to bear that burden! Whee! Back and forth between Spike and Anya about how awful Xander is and how Spike would take him on himself if not for the chip. Big words, impotent boy. Anya's attempts to get Spike to make a wish about Xander are not successful.