When we recappers submit our recaps to either Wing or Sars, we have to include certain information, such as the episode title and airdate. So the other night I settled in to start my recap and was talking out loud, "Um, season number five, episode number fifteen, airdate?" Ash, sitting to me perks up and asks, "Hairdate?" "Um, no, AIRdate." "Oh," he snerks, "I thought it was some sort of timeline of Buffy's hair. Y'know, like you're doing a Star Trek Star Date rip-off." To my disgusted look, he graciously replied, "You can use that. For free." And so I have.
Longest. Previouslys. Ever. I'm boycotting them because of excessive Riley footage.
In the training room of Der Zauber Kasten, Buffy is punching what appears to be a bag rather viciously and complaining to Giles about how "gross" she feels about Spike's crush on her. I notice that now we see SMG throw the punches, but they cut away and substitute the stunt person actually landing the punches. I guess they must have finally realized how pathetic SMG's weenie little punches looked. Buffy worries that there was something about her that attracted Spike's obsession, and this spurs her on to a particularly rough set of punches, culminating in a groin kick. Giles suggests that she calm down, and Xander groans, "Me too," as the camera pulls back to reveal that what appeared to be a bag was actually Xander in a enormous fat suit. Buffy worries about "puffy Xander," but he assures her that he's alive and that he knows that "because of the pain." Buffy helps lean him against the wall and, now that she's sure Xander isn't going to die, continues her pity party. She contemplates changing her personality so that she won't chase away her boyfriend, but Xander counters with, "Or maybe you can just be Buffy. He'll see your amazing heart and he'll fall in love with you." Buffy gets all melty at this and folds her arms around Xander's fat suit. Y'know, the writers like to tease us with the occasional Buffy/Xander bone. And no, I didn't mean it like that. The last scene I recall was from "The Freshman." However, that scene was immeasurably more enjoyable because we didn't have the Fisher-Price piano stylings of the new composer going on in the background.
On the main street, a sleek Chevy pulls up to the curb, and a supple brunette in a flowery dress exits. She thanks the guy she hitched a ride with, who tries to talk her out of going to Sunnydale. He asks what she's looking for and she chirpily replies, "True love."
In the Summers living room, Joyce is spinning around in a pretty black halter dress while Dawn and Buffy evaluate her outfit. They pretend that they aren't sure about it and each asks her to spin around again. When Buffy requests that she spin the other direction, Joyce finally catches on, and they all share a laugh. Aw. The Summers sisters reassure Joyce, who is nervous about her date, but after checking the time Buffy gives Joyce a mock-stern look and says, "Now tell me about this Brian and what his intentions are." Dawn posits that he's a gigolo and asks "if his shirt was all shiny." Heh. Joyce tells her girls that he works at a publishing house and that they met in the gallery on her first day back. Dawn asks what their plans for the evening are and Joyce confidently replies, "Dinner and a movie," but then becomes flustered that she might have gotten the sequence of events wrong and wouldn't it really be better to go to the movie first so you have something to discuss at dinner? She continues her mini freak-out and asks for Buffy's dating advice. Buffy abstains, claiming that she isn't qualified as she's had "exactly two boyfriends and they both left. Really left. Left town left." Oh boo freakin' hoo. Dawn expositions that Buffy might meet someone at the spring-break party she's going to tonight. Joyce worries some more about her dress (but she shouldn't, because she looks vibrant and sexy) and Dawn tells her to "spin again. Real fast this time." Joyce gives her a mom look.
Tara and, for some reason, Anya are walking together through a park and talking. Tara mentions that while Willow has the geek gene, she herself seems to lack it. Tara says that she goes "online sometimes. But everyone's spelling is really bad. It's depressing." God, tell me about it, Tara. I suggest she try the MBTV Buffy boards, however. Our spelling is only marginally awful. Anya encourages her to get into online trading and says that since she tripled her earnings from Der Zauber Kasten she's considering buying something terribly expensive. Like an antelope. Heh. I don't mind materialistic Anya so much when they make her lust after wacky things. They're interrupted by the girl in the bright floral dress from earlier, who asks if they have run across a guy named Warren. Only she does it about a thousand times cheerier than I'm capable of rendering here, because my idea of cheery is refraining from slapping people if they talk to me before I've had coffee in the morning. Suffice to say that Chirpy Floral girl delivers all of her lines with raised eyebrows and a generally sincere "cute" expression. Tara tells Miss Chirpy that they don't know anyone named Warren; unfazed, the girl moves off to ask a guy sitting on a park bench a few feet behind them.
The camera pans across the aforementioned spring-break party. The large room is decorated with palm trees, tiki crap all over, hanging paper lanterns, and a huuuuuuge shell that holds the special punch. Can I just say that this is the world's largest shout-out to me? I've been obsessed with all things Hawaiian and tiki for years! In the past I've had whole rooms decorated in hula girls and bamboo matting (my place now is too small). Hey, a guy just walked by the camera wearing a large plastic tiki mask on his head. I have that very tiki mask! Hanging over my television, no less. Oh, this is exciting. What, I can't be delusional too? The camera comes to rest on Xander and Buffy dancing together and looking very adorable. Willow, Anya, and Tara stand on the sidelines and watch. Xander and Buffy finish their dance, and Xander goes to join the girls. While I must admit that Xander isn't actually a good dancer, he's certainly a very adorable one. Buffy spies Greasy Intern Ben standing across the room but alas! They are separated by the giant clamshell of punch. Oh well. So sad. But lo! Buffy finds her way around the clamshell and, while Ben is looking away, situates herself against a pillar in his line of vision. Uch. Who let him in here? Even if we didn't know about Ben's nefarious connections, this would make me doubt him. I'm pretty suspicious of someone who is an intern at a hospital and has therefore completed both college AND med school, yet wants to spend his Friday night crashing an on-campus college party. When Ben turns his head, he sees Buffy, and I suddenly wonder if Ben has the same sort of powers that Glory does? If so, he already knew exactly where Buffy was and was just standing around looking doofy to entice her. So Buffy pretends that she didn't see Ben, who pretends that he didn't know Buffy was there, and it's good to see that they're starting their friendship off on a solid foundation of lies and deception. Buffy greets Ben and compliments him on his non-medical clothing. He quips that he's actually wearing "orthopedic pants." Buffy doesn't find that half as a amusing as I do (which is to say that she finds it not amusing at all, and that I am halfway amused) but then remembers her resolve to laugh at jokes that guys make, and therefore does so. In an annoying and obvious fashion. Buffy asks Ben if he wants to dance, and a pained expression crosses his face. He claims that he's not really a good dancer but amends that with a non-enthusiastic, I'm-only-doing-this-to-please-the-purty-girl "Sure. I'd love to." He goes to get rid of his drink, and Buffy is left momentarily alone.
Xander and Anya are in the corner discussing snack foods when Xander is distracted by the presence of Chirpy Floral. Anya recognizes her when the girl calls out, "Warren?" Elsewhere at the party, a guy who looks like he took an unfortunate dip in the Spelling gene pool quickly hustles over to a girl and grabs her, saying, "Gotta go. She's gonna see me." Meanwhile, Chirpy Floral makes the rounds looking for Warren as Xander and Anya are joined by Tara and Willow. They watch her a bit and discuss how there's something strange about her. Tara hopes that she finds Warren and Xander says, "Somehow I don't think a girl who looks like that is going to be lonely for too long." Willow's raging gay yang momentarily takes over as she concurs, "Definitely not." Which earns her an eyebrow raise from Tara. I myself raise my eyebrow when I realize that Willow has decided to wear a green, bulky turtleneck sweater to a luau-themed spring-break party. She looks like she's wearing the flayed pelt of Oscar the Grouch.
Buffy, still waiting for Ben, is approached by Spike, and you see what I mean about creepy people attending parties inappropriate for them. Buffy gives Spike a pissed look and doesn't rise to his verbal baiting. She grits out that she told him to leave town but Spike, taking comfort in the tenets of democracy, tells her that it's a free country and if she wants him "to leave, [she] can put [her] hands on [his] hot tight little body and make [him.]" Yeah. Somehow that doesn't have as much impact what with all the square brackets, but it made me both snicker and sweat a little. Buffy snarls at Spike to get away from her, and after giving her an appraising look, he complies but doesn't go far. In fact, he just goes over to the other side of the party and spends the rest of this scene spying on Buffy. This heralds the return of GIB; he asks if Spike was bothering her, and wonders if he "should offer to get inappropriately violent or something." Buffy shakes her head, and as Spike watches curiously in the background, Ben holds up a slip of paper. It's his phone number, which he was hoping to subtly hand to her but "thought [he] should try and give it to [her] before [she] sees him dance." Oh fine. I will admit that, while I am not usually fond of Ben and never find him attractive, he does have good lines in this episode. ["I think in the future I will only date guys with really good scriptwriters." -- Sep] Buffy looks blankly at the paper, finally taking it while Ben offers to take her for coffee. Buffy demurs, warning him that if they go get coffee, events will transpire in such a way that he will have to leave town, and that wouldn't be too convenient since he's just recently arrived. Ben declares that he "thinks coffee might be worth it," and "would like to get to know coffee better." With a smile, Buffy says that she'll call him.
Spike, upset from having observed this scene from afar, catches sight of Chirpy Floral. "And who are you?" he booms, coming up to her in the vain hope of making Buffy jealous. She introduces herself as April and says that she's "lookin' for [her] fella." Her "fella," eh? Might I suggest she start her search in freakin' Iowa or something? "Maybe you just found him," replies Spike. "Really? Where?" queries April brightly. Spike leans in close and whispers into her ear. In response she grabs Spike by the lapels and throws him through the window, exclaiming, "That would be wrong. You're not my boyfriend." ["And the Misleading Division of the WB Promo Department steeee-rikes again!" --Sars]
Back at the party scene, Spike picks himself up off the ground and is shocked. You can tell because shocked people often state incredibly obvious things such as, "You threw me through a window." April primly tells Spike that his suggestions were inappropriate because Warren is already her boyfriend. Spike gives his "bleedin' sympathies to Warren" before taking off. April turns and tells the crowd of stunned onlookers that "no one but Warren can touch [her]." Buffy stops April and asks if they can talk but April interrupts her, asking if she knows Warren. Buffy: "Okay. I think you need to take a second and stop looking for your boyfriend." At this, April picks Buffy up and throws her across the room. Buffy sits up, rubbing her shoulder, as April approaches. "If I hurt you just now I am sorry. And I hope that your boyfriend will take good care of you," April Stepfords before taking off.
Somewhere that is else, the gang sits around and discusses the events. Tara is grateful that April "didn't do too much damage." In an effort to pay some sort of attention to character continuity, Xander comments that "double glazed glass ain't cheap." The gang quickly agrees that April is a robot and that they need to track Warren down. Buffy asks Willow to get right on it, but then agrees that this isn't a critical situation -- more of a code pink, really -- and that they can locate Warren tomorrow. Buffy expositions that she's going to go home and relieve Giles who has been watching Dawn during Joyce's date. Huh. Somehow I don't think Giles ever thought that one of the things he would be watching as a Watcher would include the Slayer's kid sister.
Back at the house, Giles moans, "Dear God, Buffy, there's only so much I can take." With a smirk Buffy asks Giles what Dawn subjected him to. "Well. We listened to aggressively cheerful music sung by people chosen for their ability to dance. Then we ate cookie dough and talked about boys." Buffy and I crack up at this, and then Buffy tells Giles about the robot. She says they're going to work on it tomorrow, "Unless you want to stay for a while and then you and I can…" As Joyce comes swirling into the house trilling, "Who wants to hear everything?" "…listen to my mom talk about boys," finishes Buffy. Giles beats a very hasty retreat. Joyce bubbles about her date, scaring Buffy by bluffing that she left her bra in his car. Buffy shrieks, "Mother!" but Joyce assures her she's joking. She'd have to be. There isn't a bra in existence that would fit under that backless dress. You'd think that Buffy would know everything there is to know about not wearing bras. Joyce claims that she's kidding and that she really left her undergarment in the restaurant. Buffy doesn't want to hear this and scurries upstairs with Joyce calling after her, "On the dessert cart!" Huh. I doubt Sunnydale has a restaurant that would have a dessert cart. but whatever. It amused me.
Somewhere else in Sunnydale, April is knocking on doors, looking for Warren at 3:30 in the AM. Man alive. I never thought I'd see anyone with less of a sense of appropriate unannounced visiting behavior than someone in a missionary-based religion.
In Der Zauber Kasten, Willow is clicking away on the PowerBook, trying to narrow down the Warren list, and Xander comments on April's attractiveness. You may have noticed that I haven't been able to bring myself to mention either Buffy's repeated amusement at Spike's defenestration nor Anya's constant "I am so NOT a jealous girlfriend. See? See? SEE?" comments. Having all of those reiterations in the same episode made me very, very sad. Like we can't be expected to take note of something that's only said ONCE. Or even just shown. week I fully expect to have running commentary a lá TRL scrolling along the bottom of the screen to remind us of the salient plot and character development points. Buffy has turned into a Cliff's Notes version of itself. Willow finds a Warren that went to Sunnydale High School with them before going to ITT Tech in nearby Dutton. He has parents who still live in town, and Tara posits that he's home on spring break. Buffy takes off to go talk to him, but not before a thousand anvils crash through the ceiling and fall on Buffy's head.
From the training room, Buffy picks up the phone a few times, fingering the paper with Ben's number on it. She dials and…
…cut to a sweaty, Greasy Intern Ben, who has just morphed from Glory while the phone was ringing. Maybe he has the corporeal equivalent of call forwarding? He picks up, and Buffy asks him to go to coffee. They make a date for the evening. After he hangs up, the camera follows his gaze downward to see the red strapless dress Ben is wearing. He makes a disgusted noise, as red does not suit him and he much prefers the mauve taffeta.
Warren frantically stuffs items in a duffel bag as Katrina, the girl he hauled out of the spring-break party, wonders why he's in such a hurry to leave Sunnydale. After he tells he she can call his mom from the road to explain their departure, Katrina, sensibly dressed in slacks with her hair in a messy French braid, asks if there's something he doesn't want to see. Pulling open the front door, Warren and Katrina find Buffy outside, her hand raised to knock. Buffy says she needs to talk to Warren. Warren asks, "Is this about her?" and Katrina gets to don the Captain Obvious cap this week when she exclaims, "Something's going on here!" Uh duh. Warren tells Katrina to be quiet and wait in the kitchen, which would probably have earned a killing glare and a concise "fuck you" from me. Instead, Katrina asks Warren to send Buffy away. They argue about his keeping secrets from her, and Warren finally snaps, "Katrina, shut up!" Oooh -- words you never, ever say to me unless you want to see the sharp side of my hand colliding with your face and then my ass as I head out the door. I hold my breath, waiting to see Katrina's reaction. Yay! She sets her jaw, tells him she's gone, and stomps out the still open front door. Buffy shrugs and then introduces herself, asking if Warren knows who she is. He says he does, and then inquires if April has hurt anyone. "No one who matters," quips Buffy. An anvil smashes me in the face, knocking off my glasses. My cat chases them under the couch, and Ash looks up briefly from his laptop to ask if I'm okay. Warren explains that April followed him to Sunnydale, and Buffy gives him a "duh" face. Warren tells Buffy there's something she must know about April; Buffy replies that she already knows. He says she can't possibly know, and this "comedy" goes back and forth until Warren dramatically declares, "[April's] a robot!" "Uh huh," replies Buffy, because y'know, she already knew that.
Der Zauber Kasten. Xander, Tara, and Willow have apparently just filled Dawn in on the robotness of the plot this week. In a "continuity yay" moment, Dawn wonders if April is any relation to second-season robot Ted. Willow assures her that April is a whole new robot and Xander opens the shop's front door. In rushes Spike, covered in a flaming blanket. He rushes past Giles and throws the blanket to the floor, stomping out the flames. The Scoobies silently gather round as Spike looks at them and asks, "What's goin' on then?" Throwing down his dusting cloth, Giles sternly replies, "Spike, you're not welcome here." Willow chimes in that they're working on a way to reverse his invite into the store, even though it's a public place. Xander and Anya express their wish to toss Spike out into the street, "like the robot did." Spike shakes his head at the information that April was a robot and then attempts to turn on the charm to Dawn: "Someone's glad to see me! Aren't you, little bit?" Hiding behind Tara's shoulder, Dawn refuses to make eye contact but resentfully tells Spike to stay away from her; Tara tells him to leave. Laughing, Spike says he was afraid things would go like this. He's not sure what sort of "misrepresentations" or "allegations" Buffy told them, but actually he and Buffy worked side by to "get rid of Dru." Well, I recall that they stood aside by side as Dru sulked and ran off, but then Buffy turned to Spike and decked him into a cave wall. He's continuing in a vain attempt to talk his way of out last week's events when Giles approaches him and quietly says, "Spike, listen to me." Uh oh, Giles took off his glasses -- I think he means business. Spike tries to brush Giles off, which causes Giles to come over all manly and forceful. He shoves Spike backwards into a cabinet and threatens, "We are not your friends. We are not your way to Buffy. There is no way to Buffy." He picks up Spike's blanket and tells him to get over this thing. "Move the hell on," he finishes, shoving Spike's blanket into his chest. Spike pauses as if he's going to say something but, wrapping the blanket over his head, he walks out of the store past Xander and Willow.
April perks her way into a random Sunnydale restaurant. She asks some random guys if they know where Warren is. One of them shines her on that Warren just left. April is happy because she's starting to feel tired.
At Warren's parents' house, Buffy and Warren are discussing his reasons for building April. She speculates that he wasn't getting dates and decided, "Hey, this isn't fair." Warren agrees, saying that "everyone deserves to have someone." When Buffy asks how long it took him to build "that little toy," Warren protests that April is "more than that." Buffy totally cracks me up by replying, "Look, I'm sure she has many exciting labor-saving attachments." Rather like a Hitachi Magic Wand. Uh, or so I read in Bust. As Warren protests that he made April to care about things he cares about and to support him, we see a shot of the cute but extremely vacant-looking April wandering the streets of Sunnydale. Nice of Warren to give her such good posture, even if he couldn't manage to give her a facial expression that says anything other than, "What is your pleasure today, Master?" He tries to convince Buffy that he made April to be his girlfriend, not just a sex toy. Buffy's like, "Uh, whatever." Warren explains that although he made April to be perfect, "it was too easy and predictable." I'm not even touching that "easy" here because I'm sure y'all can fill in your own joke. Long story short, he eventually found April "boring." He didn't want her and thought he was going crazy. "Really? You?" deadpans Buffy. I giggle. Warren then explains how he met Katrina and fell in love with her because she gave him a hard time and was so unpredictable. "But first you decided to take April out of the box -- play with her for five minutes and then what? You got bored, decided to dump her? Tell her to go away?" Oh bitchy Buffy, I love you. Warren allows that he didn't really dump April; he just went off and left her alone in his dorm room. Buffy is understandably disgusted, but Warren tries to explain that he thought he'd just leave April alone until her batteries wore out. He has no idea as why they haven't yet done so. Because she's the freakin' Energizer bunny of robot girlfriends, I suppose. Buffy asks if April is dangerous and Warren replies, "She's only programmed to be in love." "Then she's dangerous," decides Buffy.
Katrina tromps across a playground and happens to encounter April, her face still wearing one of her variations on "cute 'n' perky." "Hi!" she chirps to Katrina. Katrina just grunts in exasperation and tries to get past April. "Do you know where Warren is?" perks April. Disgusted, Katrina demands, "This is getting insane! How many of you are there?" She then tells April that Warren is her boyfriend and no one else's. This fires off that "random violence" feature Warren for some reason built into his sex toy/supportive girlfriend, and April grabs Katrina by the arm. She then folds Katrina in a bear hug and robots, "You are lying. He cannot be your boyfriend. Say that he is my boyfriend." So suppose I suspend disbelief in order to buy that the technology exists in the Buffyverse to build a robot as convincing as April. Here I am, believing that Warren could get her hair that soft, her skin that smooth, her face that expressive. So could someone please explain why in the hell he could do all that but he couldn't teach her a few goddamn contractions? Well, anyway, April the absolutely perfect robot girlfriend who sometimes randomly uses contractions but mostly doesn't, is choking the air out of Katrina, who gasps to be let go.
Spike is at the Buffy shrine. He's grabbing scattered pictures off her off the floor and tossing them violently into a box. He then flings the Buffyquin's wig in the box, snarling, "Bloody right, I'll move on."
Warren and Buffy enter the park. Warren is shouting for April and explains that she'll have to answer if her batteries are still running. "She's voice-activated?" disbelieves Buffy, and Warren just digs himself in further by explaining that April will suffer "feedback" if she hears him calling and doesn't answer. "If you call her and she doesn't answer, it hurts her?" demands Buffy. "You're one creepy little dweeb, Warren." Sing it, sister. Suddenly Creepy Dweeb and Buffy spot April, who is holding Katrina by the neck, suspended above the ground. April worries, "I couldn't find you and this girl kept lying to me and then she went to sleep." Oh, hey, she used a contraction! Buffy blinks in concern.
Aprés commercial, we're still in the park with Buffy, Warren, Katrina, and the perky sexbot. April perks that Warren shouldn't be angry because she's trying "very hard" to make him happy. Buffy asks her to put Katrina down, and April looks to Warren for direction. April releases Katrina into Warren and Buffy's arms, wondering, "Is she broken?" Buffy lays Katrina on a park bench and checks her pulse; she then tells Warren that Katrina is alive. April asks Warren why he left her; she wonders if they're playing a game or if she did something wrong. "I made you five sweaters," she chippers, and Warren tries to dweeb his way out of the situation by encouraging her to go back and get the sweaters and wait for him there. Buffy tells him to tell April and "do it right." As Warren tries to explain to April that he made a mistake, we see him through her eyes, Terminator-style. She's viewing him through a blue screen, with command menus along the sides. Somewhat belying his claim to Buffy that April wasn't just a toy is the fact that there her menus contain one "listen sympathetic," "praise" and "neck rub" each, two "kissing" subroutines, three for "fetish," four for "sex," and at least six that read "position.gfd." There's also one that seems to read "guy from personals" but my crappy cable connection makes it really hard to decipher.
Warren says he made a mistake -- he thought April was everything he really wanted, but it turned out he didn't want it, and it's over between them. April can't quite process this information and says she'll be whatever he wants, do whatever he wants, because she loves him. Warren tells her he realizes she loves him, but that he cannot love April. "I love her!" he exclaims, pointing, and we see Buffy looking surprised in April's robot-o-vision. An alarm is pinging, and large red letters read "Combat Mode Enabled." April also has a short menu with selections such as "street fight," "kung fu," and "take a bullet." Her readout identifies Buffy as "potentially hostile," and she growls at Buffy. "You made her so she growls?!" demands Buffy. And then of course she and April fight. Fight, fight, fight, as Sep would say. During the fight, Buffy slams down a see-saw section near Katrina, which causes her to suddenly awaken, holding her throat. As Buffy and April continue to duke it out, Katrina again gets to wear the Captain Obvious hat as she exclaims, "That's a robot!" "She wasn't just for sex," lames Warren. Displaying an thoroughly appropriate and commendable reaction, Katrina then yells, "Get the hell away from me!" and takes off running. Warren runs after her. Buffy and April fight. April is doing a good job of fighting in sand despite being shod in clunky, strappy sandals. She gets Buffy by the neck and lifts her off the ground, saying that she'll kill her for taking her man. However, her batteries must finally be running low, because she can't crush Buffy's neck. "What's happening to me?" pleads April, as we hear a little whining powering-down-type noise on the soundtrack.
Sometime later, she and Buffy are each sitting in a swing. April's arms are limp to her sides, and her head seems only held up by the swing's chain. Buffy gently suggests that April have a good cry to make herself feel better, but April smiles and replies, "Crying is blackmail. Good girlfriends don't cry." Ouch. I hate Warren. April then tells Buffy she's sure she was a good girlfriend, and if she can't love Warren, "what am I for? What do I exist for?" I dunno -- maybe to catch the giant anvils currently raining out of the sky all over Sunnydale? Being very nice, Buffy tells April that Warren wasn't fair to her. April then worries that it's getting dark (the day is still very sunny) and that Warren won't be able to find her. Buffy assures her that she'll make sure he can. She reassures April by saying that she's sure Warren will come back, and that Warren has told her how proud he was of April. Dear, sweet, kind Buffy. I love her very much right now for being so kind to this annoying, perky, cute little sexbot. Sniff. I guess I'm just a great big softy at heart. April tells Buffy that every cloud has a silver lining, and then starts spouting so many clichés that I figure Warren stole my Aphorism Generator and installed it in April's hardware. As she tries to tell Buffy that "things are always darkest before --" her batteries finally run down. Buffy sits in the swing and looks sadly at the poor unloved little sexbot.
Later that night, Xander is repairing the window that April tossed Spike through. Buffy looks on as Xander explains some finer points of window carpentry, and they share a little banter about the word "shim" and the fact that Xander has actually acquired some sort of useful skill. They discuss April, who Buffy defends against being called "crazed." "With him gone there was just no reason for her to exist anymore," Buffy muses. She then notes that people are strange: "Look at me obsessing about being with someone." She was obsessing? A few lines at the start of the episode do not make her obsessive. I'm a little curious about this episode -- it basically seems to be teaching Buffy that she doesn't need to define herself by her romantic relationships, but I think she's been doing fine, and it's not like she's been desperately trolling bars for unattached guys since Riley left. In fact, this episode would have made more sense airing right before or right after "Triangle," when she was so distraught about his departure. So, learning a Big Lesson I wasn't aware she needed to learn, Buffy says, "I don't need a guy right now. I need me. I need to get comfortable being alone with Buffy." Again, might I add that I've read great things about the Hitachi Magic Wand? Xander replies that Buffy is a pretty great person to be alone with, and they share an "awww" moment. Buffy then finds Ben's number in her pocket, and as Xander continues to work on the window, she calls Ben. She leaves a message on his machine saying it's not "the best time" for her to be drinking "coffee." She apologizes and hangs up. At BenGlory's pad, Glory listens to the message and gripes, "What the hell?" Jinx explains that Ben asked the Slayer out, and Glory assumes that Ben is conspiring against her. Jinx shrugs, and Glory sulks, "She turned us down?"
Warren is at his parent's house, trying to explain his totally inexcusable actions to Katrina over the phone. She's having none of it, though (good girl), and hangs up on him. Warren turns to find Spike right behind him, bearing his box of Buffyabilia. Spike explains that Warren's mother let him in and says, "I'm placing an order." Warren sputters that he's "not making any more girls," but Spike says he is and hands him the box of Buffyabilia. "You're gonna make her real good for me," he smiles.
Buffy enters her house. It's day -- the day, I would assume, since it was night when Xander was fixing the window, but Buffy is still wearing her pretty red shirt. Big continuity error, or a hint that Buffy spent night of passion Xander's arms while he crooned carpentry-speak to her? She calls for her mother and then sees a large bouquet of flowers to the front door. The card is from Joyce's date, Brian, and Buffy muses that a few guys are still "getting it right." She calls for her mom again and goes to the bottom of the stairs, and as the camera moves back, we can see that Joyce is splayed out on the couch in the living room. Buffy turns and sees her mother; she asks, "What're you doing?" and the camera pulls in close to show that Joyce's arm is hanging limply and her eyes are wide open. "Mom? Mom? Mommy?" quavers Buffy.