Big truckloads of props to Ace and Sep, who you'll appreciate all the more after reading my attempt at recapping this show.
Once upon a time, there was show about the misadventures of a bunch of high school students who befriended a dark-haired guy with a rather drab wardrobe. The show was popular enough to spawn multiple spin-offs, including one which featured someone with extraordinary powers, who, oddly enough, had been a bad guy at one point. I mention all this because sometimes people forget that Mork & Mindy actually got its start on Happy Days, and it bugs me. Anyway.
Previously on Buffy, Joyce decided that dying was the only way to escape this silly show, everyone was sad, Xander proposed to Anya even though he hadn't been brain-sucked, the audience was sad, Buffy practiced her high-dive, everyone was sad, Giles fled to England before someone found a way to make him as irritating as the rest of the characters, everyone was sad, Xander insisted, against all available evidence, that "this is deep stuff," Willow helped Buffy compose herself, everyone was worried instead of sad, and Buffy said "This is hell," and was all, y'know, sad. Wow, that was close to ninety seconds long. And most of it was scenes from this season. That's a little excessive.
The shows starts off with Buffy looking around in a dark basement, while we listen to creepy rattling noises. My Misdirection-Based-Comedy alarm goes off. That's strange. It must be a low battery alert; this isn't Angel. Buffy looks up and says, "So, we meet at last, Mister Drippy." The camera pulls back to reveal water leaking from an overhead pipe. That'll teach me to doubt the alarm. Buffy climbs up on some object that just happened to be placed conveniently under the drip, and lifts a wrench to the pipe. While she commences tightening, Dawn comes down the stairs and asks if she should call a plumber. Buffy vetoes that idea, and tightens the pipe. The leak stops. And then there's a rumble and water starts spraying out of a half-dozen spots with incredible force. One is aimed perfectly at Dawn, who screeches and runs up the stairs. Buffy stays still in the one dry spot in the basement and sighs, "There. All better." I'm impressed that she didn't even look around when the pipes were exploding and Dawn was screaming. She's very Zen. While the credits roll, I note that the previouslys were longer than the actual teaser. This is a big, comfy episode, full of the finest padding.
Willow and Tara fix breakfast while chatting with Dawn about the amazing amount of water in their basement. Did it occur to anyone to shut the water off? Apparently not, since Buffy is by the sink, staring dreamily as water pours out of the faucet and down. The. Drain. Much like...well, you know. I try to figure out what Buffy's necklace is meant to be, or if it's just an abstract design. Still haven't decided. Dawn reminds Buffy that she suggested calling a plumber, and Buffy agrees, "The plumber will make everything good." She keeps on staring at the sink. Tara nags Dawn about eating breakfast. Dawn is wearing a shirt with the number two on it, so start working that into your graduate thesis on numerology in pop culture right away. Without turning around, Buffy tells Dawn that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It's unbelievably important. Dawn, you should eat breakfast three times a day." I'm starting to miss the Buffybot. Willow walks up and, looking concerned, turns the water off. Dawn finally says, "I'll grab something before school." Isn't now before school? Is she going to stop at a diner on the way to class? Xander enters from the basement, accompanying "Tito the Amazing," the plumber. Tito says that the house's plumbing needs to be completely replaced: "What you need [is] a full copper re-pipe job." Willow takes the estimate as she worries, "That sounds potentially pricey." Potentially pricey plumbing problem? Poop! Tito says his number is on the invoice in case they have questions, and exits. Dawn strolls over to peek at the invoice, and comments, "That's a weird phone number," before realizing the number she's looking at is the estimate. Dawn, the dollar sign and the decimal point are usually clues. I guess she really has missed a lot of school. Xander insists that Tito is giving them a bargain rate. Buffy says, "So? We'll pay him, what's the big deal?" Willow hesitantly explains that they need to discuss Buffy's money situation, but I'm a little distracted because Willow seems to be wearing a cross. Oh, fine.
In the living room, Buffy looks over the pile of bills on the coffee table. She rather cheerfully asks, "So you're telling me [that] I'm broke?" Pretty much, yes. Buffy complains, "But I haven't spent any money. I was all dead and frugal!" Willow says it took them all by surprise. They all take turns explaining that Joyce had life insurance, but most of that money went to pay hospital bills. Anya adds, "This house, just sitting here, doing nothing, by itself costs money." Buffy has a solution: "We burn the house to the ground and collect the insurance. Plus: Fire? Pretty!" Heh. I think this scene feels strange because Buffy is behaving as if she's in a light-hearted comedy, while everyone else is acting like they're in a Party of Five-type drama. Buffy says she's kidding, and dismisses the money problem: "It's pieces of paper sent by bureaucrats we've never even met. It's not like it's the end of the world. Which is too bad, y'know, 'cause that I'm really good at." Dawn looks stricken. Buffy insists that she'll take care of it somehow. Anya has a suggestion to pay the bills: charge money for slaying! While Anya details her plan, the camera lingers on Xander, who looks horrified and covers his face in shame. I don't particularly like Anya, but I want to smack Xander for constantly making it clear that he finds his girlfriend to be embarrassing. Buffy tells Anya, "That's an idea...you would have. Any other suggestions?" Anya says her idea isn't crazy, and Dawn says that it is. "You can't charge innocent people for saving their lives!" Johanna asks me if this is a little slam at Angel. I have no idea. But it's been ages since anyone paid him, which sorta shows the flaw in the idea either way. Anya decides to support her argument by pointing to other imaginary characters: "Spiderman does." Dawn says that he doesn't, and she and Anya argue about that for a minute before Dawn goes to Xander for the deciding vote. Xander hesitates and reluctantly reports, "Action is his reward." Heh. Which is when Anya decides that she's in an afternoon soap opera. She stands up so that we can gaze in wonder at her ruffly blouse, asks, "Why can't you ever take my side?" and storms out. Xander nonsensically replies, "I am your side!" and goes after her. Everyone ignores the fight, because it's Xander and they don't care about him, which is why he's resorted to dating the only girl on the show who ever expresses concern for him. For example, Willow looks after the departing twits and, rolling her eyes, tells Buffy, "You're throwing away a gold mine." It's funny to watch your friends have tense arguments with their loved ones!
Anya marches down the street angrily as Xander chases after her. Now that there aren't any witnesses, he doesn't mind acting as if he wants to be near her. Jerk. Anya says that he doesn't support her, and Xander insists that he's a "flying buttress of support." "No, you're not," Anya and I chorus. Xander asks if Anya's mad because he hasn't announced their engagement. Of course she is! She says it's depressing that Xander bought her a beautiful ring that she can't even wear in public. Xander soothes, "Your waiting days are almost over. I know it's frustrating, but the way I understand this marriage thing? It's kind of a forever deal." What the hell does that have to do with it? He insists that he does want to get married, and Anya asks why he won't announce the engagement, then. Xander explains, "I'm still getting used to the miracle of a steady paycheck, and getting out of my parents' house." Fine. Then don't get married. Or don't get married right away; stay engaged for a couple of years. I don't care. But that doesn't explain why he won't tell his friends that he and Anya are engaged. The only explanation I can buy, given his behavior, is that he's embarrassed to tell them, and that's just cruddy. Xander smooth-talks Anya by saying that marriage is a big step, "or maybe a lot of little ones," and he wants to get each one right because he loves her. Romantic music is cued up on the soundtrack, which makes me think we're supposed to believe he's sincere about this. Bah. Anya falls for it, though, and they kiss, but then she hears me shouting abuse at Xander and pulls away. She shouts, "You tricked me, just now, with your fancy talk and lips! You keep doing this, and I keep forgetting, and you keep stalling!" She marches away, and when Xander protests, she asks, "When are you gonna grow up, Xander?" I think the problem is that he has grown up, and given his lousy family (remember how he spent Christmas sleeping outside?) and his lousier friends (remember how they didn't care that he spent Christmas sleeping outside?) he has, naturally, grown into a jerk. I guess it's possible that Xander hasn't mentioned the engagement because he knows that when he does, the news will be greeted with big yawns by Buffy and Willow. As long as I'm going on about him, I should mention Johanna's theory that Xander has bulked up lately as part of a last-ditch effort to make the writers remember that he exists. You think I'm bitter? Talk to Johanna about Xander. All right, all right, I'll move on; stop poking me.
There's a little montage of Buffy, her hair in a bun, practicing saying things like, "Collateral? No problem. I love that tie! Let's crunch those numbers." She looks down at herself and mutters, "Stupid skirt." As a man approaches and sits down, we discover that she's in a bank, meeting with one Carl Savitsky, a loan officer. Buffy hands over a pile of papers, and explains that she wasn't sure what he'd need, so she brought everything. Carl looks at the papers and starts pulling out unnecessary documents: "Old report cards? Definitely not." He's nice about it, though. After looking over the paperwork for five seconds, he determines that there's "a bit of a tangle" in her finances. Buffy cheerfully suggests using a loan as scissors to cut through it. Carl explains that her only collateral is the house, but "for some reason, Sunnydale property values have never been competitive, and refinancing's out of the question." Buffy's perky little face falls, and strangely enough, I've finally started to like her -- or maybe it's just that I dislike her less than the rest of the people on the show at this point. She sadly asks, "Are you saying you won't give me my loan?" Carl tells her that the problem is, she doesn't have a job. Naturally, that's when a man is thrown across the desk in a shower of broken glass, and Buffy looks up to see an enraged demon knock a guard unconscious as people scurry about. "No job? I wish," she grumbles.
We come back from commercials as Buffy asks the demon, "Are you in the wrong line? That's for deposits, that's for withdrawals, and this is for getting kicked in the face." She kicks...about an inch. Which is when we finally see that her stupid skirt is a long one without a convenient kick-slit. The demon punches her, and we see a very silly shot of her flying straight up into the air, and then crashing down onto Carl's desk. Hee. I'm gonna watch that again. Snicker. Buffy borrows a letter opener from Carl and cuts her skirt open. That's one ultra-sharp letter opener. With her legs freed, she jumps up and commences to kick some demon ass. Meanwhile, we see gloved hands opening the tellers' drawers and filling bags with money. The demon grabs Buffy around the waist and starts carrying her off when the fight is interrupted by a gunshot. Buffy and the demon look up to see a guard aiming a gun at them. The guard orders the demon to let Buffy go. Instead, the demon tosses Buffy into the guard. While the demon tussles with some other innocent bystanders, Buffy pauses to deliver an important lesson to the guard. She holds the gun and says, "These things? Never helpful!" She tosses it away, and we hear another gunshot. We don't see if anyone was hit and injured by the humorous misfire. Ah, comedy. By the time Buffy gets up, the demon has escaped out the door. No sense chasing it or anything, of course. Not when it's got an insurmountable five-second head start. Instead, she returns to Carl's desk and says, "Now, about my loan...I'm not saying [that] I'm charging you for saving your life or anything, but let's talk rates." Carl stares at her.
In the back room of Der Zauber Kasten, Willow exclaims, "He still turned you down? That's crazy!" Buffy is working out with the punching bag while Willow blathers on. She admits that the bank was robbed, but insists that Buffy deserves a reward. Buffy goes on punching, and Willow eventually perks up and says, "You're mad!" Buffy says it'll pass, but Willow insists that Buffy should feel angry. Buffy says that's good, but she stops punching and admits, "It's gone now." Willow then attempts to make Buffy mad again, first by claiming that she slept with Riley last semester. Buffy frowns and says, "And you know, I really doubt it." Willow admits that she was lying "to cover up [her] sleazy affair with Angel." Willow? I think Buffy has enough real reasons to feel angry and frustrated, so maybe you could just bring those up if you actually think it would be useful, instead of inventing stupid stories to make her angry. Unless this is a clever ploy, and the real idea is that Buffy will be enraged when she realizes how dumb her friends are? Buffy asks why Willow is trying to piss her off. Willow explains, "Since you've been back, you haven't exactly been big with the whole range of human emotions thing." Buffy innocently asks what Willow means, and Willow backs off and tells Buffy to forget she mentioned it. Buffy goes back to punching.
Elsewhere in the store, Dawn and Tara are gathering books for demon research. Anya and Xander sit nearby, and Anya is trying for the five billionth time to convince Xander to announce their engagement. Xander agrees, stands up, and then sits down and says he'll wait till Buffy and Willow join the group. Anya calls him a chicken and dares him to share the news. Xander says, "If I tell them we're engaged right after you dared me to, wouldn't you always wonder if that's the only reason I did it?" Why would she wonder? It clearly would be the only reason he did it. I hate them both. Anya just hates the situation, though, adding, "This tone in my voice? I dislike it more than you do, and I'm closer to it!" Wow, I sure hope they get married. And then kill each other.
Tara and Dawn sit down at the table with their piles of books. Dawn insists that she's old enough to join the research fun, but Tara gently insists that Dawn is "only fifteen." It's a good thing Tara said that, and not Willow or Xander or Buffy, all of whom were doing more than research when they were fifteen. Research? That'll corrupt her innocence. Whatever. Dawn whines, "If you don't let me look at the pictures, I'm gonna learn everything I know about demons on the street." "Look at the pictures"? They're worried about her seeing pictures of monsters? Are they aware of all the picture books that innocent children might find at the local library? I understand none of this. Tara gives in and hands Dawn a book. Dawn flips it open and sees -- aieee! A picture! She comments, "That's a weird place for a horn." After a beat, she closes the book and whispers, "That's not a horn." Xander deftly reminds us that there was some excuse for a plot flailing about recently, and wonders what kind of demon would rob a bank. Anya says, "The kind that wants money." Xander wonders, "What do you even call that?" Inexplicably, no one just points at Anya in response. Instead, Dawn holds up a book with a picture of the demon from the bank. Hang on -- since Buffy watched the demon leave the bank, you'd think she'd be aware that it wasn't holding fistfuls of money when it left. And for that matter, banks? Often keen on security. Including, for instance, cameras. Why am I bothering? Dawn says that the demon in the book has an apostrophe in its name, but she think its name is pronounced "Mmm-fashnik. Like, mmmm, cookies." They go on like this while I wait for Dawn to read from the part of the book that explains why it would want money, since that has to be how she figured it was the demon at the bank. She doesn't, though.
Buffy and Willow finally wander out from the back room, and Dawn holds up the picture for Buffy to see. Buffy asks, "You do research now? Want a cappuccino and a pack of cigarettes to go with it?" It's research! Reading books! If they were trying to keep Dawn from fighting demons, it'd still be hypocritical, but I could sort of understand it. I don't get how reading is, in itself, a dangerous adult activity. Buffy says that the picture is the demon she ran into, and starts talking about how strong it was when she suddenly looks up and stops mid-sentence. Everyone turns to see special guest star Giles standing by the door. He puts his bags down and walks toward them, and Buffy goes up for a big hug. Aw, Giles. Giles whispers, "You're alive. You're here. And you're still remarkably strong." He chuckles as Buffy lets go of him and apologizes. Giles says he couldn't believe it, even when Willow told him Buffy was alive. Buffy says, "I take some getting used to. I'm still getting used to me." Giles stammers and insists, "You're..." Buffy smirks, "A miracle." Eh. Giles agrees, "Yes. But then, I've always thought so." They look at each other, and Buffy looks sort of lost but happy to see him. Again I say: Aw.
The demon walks along the street, all growly. That was sure an interesting scene.
Giles and Buffy have retired to the training room to chat. She asks how England was. Giles says he met with the Council of Watchers, and says, "Otherwise, there's nothing really to report. I keep a flat in Bath." And a bath in his flat! Ha! Sorry. He continues, "Met with a few old friends and almost made a new one, which I think is statistically impossible for a man of my age." Giles, I'll be your friend. Buffy needlessly observes that Giles is back now, and off of his unenthusiastic agreement, she asks, "Are you miserable about it, or just really British?" Giles admits that it was difficult to leave, "And coming back is --" Buffy interrupts, "I'm guessing the word is 'inconvenient.'" Giles says no, "Bewildering." He rests a hand on her bony shoulder, risking a nasty puncture, and asks how she is. Buffy says, "Sleeping's hard, but just because of that whole waking up in a box thing. So maybe it's waking up that's the problem. But only just for a second. I sleep okay. Great even, except, you know, for the dreams." For some reason, Giles doesn't find that terribly reassuring. He tells Buffy that he's proud of how she's holding up "under extreme circumstances." Buffy pointedly notes, "Willow brought me back. I just lay there." Giles tries to rephrase things, and Buffy says it was "just a little post-post-mortem comedy." She stands and says she should prepare for more slayage, and Giles slowly exits.
Upon returning to the front room, Anya rushes up to Giles and hugs him, exclaiming, "We missed you! You can't have the store back!" I used to try and figure out if any of the writers really thought we still found the materialistic-Anya gags to be funny. Eventually I decided that figuring out algorithms was more entertaining. Giles pushes Anya away and asks if there's any information about the demon. Willow announces that it robs banks, and Dawn hands Giles the book she was looking at. Giles says that the M'Fashnik demon "comes from a long line of mercenary demons, known to perform acts of slaughter and mayhem for the highest bidder." He wonders, "What's out there [that's] powerful enough to control one of these things?"
The M'Fashnik demon knocks over a pile of boxes in a basement. He points a claw at someone and growls, "We had a deal. You got what you wanted; now give me what I want! The head of the Slayer." We see that he's talking to Jonathan, Warren, and a new guy, who are sitting in beanbag chairs in front of a spiffy new television set. I'm gonna call the new guy "Andrew," on the grounds that eventually we'll find out that's his name. Jonathan is holding wads of money. Warren says, "Okay." Jonathan: "Sure!" Andrew: "We can do that."
When we return from the ads, nothing new has happened. The demon helpfully reminds the boys that they hired him to "create carnage and chaos" and claimed to be powerful magicians. A shoot-'em-up game plays on the TV in the background. The boys insist that they are powerful, and Jonathan adds, "We're like super-villains." Which they are. If you're talking about The Tick. They all laugh evilly. Kinda. The demon asks which one is the leader, and all the boys answer, "I am." Then the demon says he will kill their leader, and everyone points at each other and insists, "He is." The demon obligingly says he'll kill all three of them. Jonathan whines, "No fair!" and climbs out of the beanbag chair. He says that it's not their fault that Buffy was at the bank, and adds, "We said we'd pay you, and we're gonna." Huh? They did get money from the bank robbery. So…they can pay the demon right now. I don't understand what the problem is. Warren and Andrew hurry up and kneel to Jonathan, pointedly praising his leadership. "You guys suck," Jonathan notes. He's distracted when the demon grabs him by the neck and lifts him up, hissing, "You can't pay me with paper, tiny king. You pitted me against the Slayer. For that, I must kill you." Oh. Well, that answers my question. But then, how were they going to pay the demon in the first place? Andrew and Warren chuckle at Jonathan's imminent demise until the demon goes on to say that he will use Jonathan's bones to beat the other two to death. At that, Warren hops up and demands that they "back things up a parsec." Which is a unit of distance, as all geeks know, since they're constantly whining about the term being misused in Star Wars.
Warren claims that if the demon spares them, they'll give him...something. The demon needs specifics, but obligingly drops Jonathan to the ground. Warren says they can give the demon anything he wants. Jonathan adds, "Like, you want a spell to make you look super-cool to the other demons? I'm all over that action, my friend." Heh. Warren offers to build the demon a robot girlfriend, "For those long, lonely nights after a hard day's slaughter." The demon's interested, but Andrew interjects, "Don't trust him. Robo-pimp-daddy's all mouth." Warren replies, "You're just mad [that] I wouldn't build you Christina Ricci!" Andrew vaguely threatens Warren, causing Warren to snicker, "You'll train another pack of devil-dogs to ruin my prom? Graduated." Andrew finally explains who the heck he is by whining, "That wasn't me! How many times do I have to say it? The prom thing was my lame-o brother, Tucker." Jonathan complains that he was at the devil-dog-infested prom. Andrew wipes his hands past his face and says, "Hello? Screen-wipe -- new scene! I had nothing to do with the devil-dogs! I trained flying demon monkeys to attack the school play!" Heh. I like Andrew. 'Cause, hey, monkeys! Wish we'd seen that episode. Although with the animated thing, we probably will. I take it back. Warren admits that the demon monkeys were cool, and Jonathan chirps, "Yeah, everyone was like all, 'Run, Juliet!'" Hearty chuckles all around, until the demon roars, "Enough!" The demon says he doesn't want "your toys, or your spells, [or] flying monkey demons." Hang on, the monkey demons could fly, too? Cool. Anyway, the demon says, "I want the Slayer dead!" The Legion of Dim (Dim being really Dim) quickly agree. Warren asks for a minute to conference with his friends, and they move across the basement to "nail down the optimum method for [them] to wipe out that Slayer." The demon expresses a preference for there to be some pain involved. For Buffy, one assumes. So the demon wants to kill the Slayer because she kept him from robbing the bank, although she didn't really prevent it since they did get money, and I'd still really like to know what the original plan here was. And I realize that this is just a wacky establishing story and all, but threats to kill the Slayer? Kind of losing some of their tension. How many times can she get killed? Maybe the show will become like Aeon Flux, and she'll die at the end of every episode. That'd be fun.
Buffy says, "I know they're so cute you could die, but it's all I got." She's making up a bed on the couch for Giles, using cutesy children's sheets. She claims that she couldn't find the guest sheets, and maybe she should ask Willow and Tara where they are? Whatever. Blah blah, mom's dead, sheets don't fit, need a sofa-bed-cakes. The need for a new sofa makes for a not-at-all forced segue to Buffy's money troubles. Giles asks how bad the situation is, and Buffy says she's trying not to think about it. Giles thinks that's a good plan for the evening, and Buffy responds, "Figured I'd put it out of my mind, y'know, take a break, get some perspective, and then wake up at 4 AM, terrified." Giles says that she's putting too much pressure on herself, and adds, "To return from some unknown level of Hell -- it's only natural that coming back would be a process." Buffy doesn't flinch at the big Hell-lie, and quietly notes, "In the meantime, I'm scaring people." Giles says that may take time, too, and that "life can get overwhelming even for people who haven't been...where [Buffy has]." He says that tomorrow he'll sit down with Buffy and go over the bills and they'll work something out. Hooray for grown-ups. Buffy's glad he's back, and Giles in turn is glad she's back, but not so glad that he's going to stick with this disintegrating show much longer, of course. Buffy sighs and wanders off to bed, and Giles stares after her, concerned.
Legion of Dim. Jonathan thinks it's sad that they're planning to kill Buffy. Warren calls Jonathan "Whineathan," but Andrew expresses some hesitation about the murder plot as well. Jonathan notes, "She saved my life a bunch of times! Plus she's hot." Warren says that it's Buffy or them, and continues, "We're talking about staying alive, and since this is my mom's house, I think what I say goes." Andrew worries that they might get in trouble, and Warren notes that bank-robbing isn't terribly approved-of either. Jonathan reminds everyone that Buffy has "super-strength." Andrew says that killing people isn't the reason they got together. Jonathan reminds Warren of their "clear, super-cool mission statement," triggering a flashback. They're all in the basement, gathered around a gameboard, as Warren asks, "So...you guys wanna team up and take over Sunnydale?" Andrew and Jonathan look at each other and reply, "Okay." End flashback. Heh. While the bored demon watches in the background, Warren says, "Of course I remember. It was last month." Jonathan reminds him of their mission, and points to a whiteboard which contains their to-do list. It reads: "Control the weather, miniaturize Fort Knox, conjure fake IDs, shrink ray, girls, girls, the gorilla thing." Jonathan describes the last item as "Trained gorillas," which is considerably less mysterious than "the gorilla thing." He also reads one item that isn't there: "Workable prototype jet-packs." Warren demands that they vote, and Andrew and Jonathan vote against killing Buffy by raising their hands in Vulcan salutes. Warren reluctantly raises his hand as well. Jonathan wonders what they'll do with the demon, and Warren says he has an idea. He hurries over to the demon and hands it a piece of paper, whispering, "Here's the Slayer's name, address, and telephone number. You wanna kill her? Make it so." Why'd he just happen to have that in his pocket? The demon takes the paper and exits. Warren turns around as Jonathan and Andrew stare at him with wonder. Andrew asks if Warren is "some kind of Jedi." Warren intones, "The Force can sometimes have great power on the weak-minded." Maybe this crew should go to David Nabbit for funding. And, to reiterate my Nabbit-related complaints, and add some new ones...this is a show with a big geeky fan base. It was also originally a show about how it feels to be the weirdo. So making fun of an easy target like geeks doesn't sit well. Particularly when it's a thrown-together series of clichés. Geeks play role-playing games! And like science fiction! And dress badly! And hang out in basements! They also read comic books, but of course, Whedon writes comics now, so we wouldn't want to make fun of that. This seems like a one-joke idea that will be dragged out for ages. Kind of like Anya.
Giles strolls into the kitchen with a towel over his shoulder. Willow is pulling a box of cookies out of the cupboard. She sits at the counter and dives in as Giles asks about the spell she did to resurrect Buffy. Willow reminds us that, essentially, a snake came out of her mouth and they were attacked by demons and then, poof, Buffy was back. Giles mutters, "You're a very stupid girl." Go, Giles! Willow's taken aback. He continues, "Do you have any idea what you've done? The forces you've harnessed? The lines you've crossed?" Willow, hurt, sniffs that she thought Giles would be impressed. Giles sarcastically admits that Willow has indeed "made a very deep impression." He says that she's the one he trusted to respect the forces of nature, and Willow gasps, "Are you saying you don't trust me?" Giles says that Willow took a big risk. Willow wonders, "Risk? Of what? Making her deader?" Giles pickily ticks off pesky items like, "Killing us all. Unleashing hell on Earth." Willow insists that she did what had to be done, what nobody else could do. Giles, quite angry, says, "There are others in the world who can do what you did. You just don't want to meet them." Willow blindly responds, "Probably not, but, well, they're the bad guys. I am not a bad guy. I brought Buffy back into this world, and maybe the word you should be looking for is 'congratulations.'" Giles admits that he's happy that Buffy is back, but adds, "I wouldn't congratulate you if you jumped off a cliff and happened to survive." He says Willow was lucky, and she fires back with, "I wasn't lucky, I was amazing! And how would you know? You weren't even there!" Giles says that if he'd been there, he'd have stopped her, and rants about how the magic she used was "more primal and ferocious than [she] can hope to understand." He finishes, "You're lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!" He heads for the door, but Willow quietly says, "You're right. The magicks I used are very powerful. I'm very powerful. And maybe it's not such a good idea for you to piss me off." Ha. Five long years of hating Willow are finally justified! Giles stares at her, and after a moment Willow continues, in a lighter tone, "I don't want to fight. Let's not, okay? I'll think about what you said, and you...try to be happy Buffy's back." Giles ignores Willow's outburst and quietly answers, "We still don't know where she was or what happened to her." Johanna says that if we have to choose between nice, cutesy, talking like a five-year-old Willow and creepy, Giles-threatening, speaking-in-a-normal-voice Willow, she'd prefer to have Creepy Willow. Me too, especially if there's any chance it'll lead to dead, rotting, not-talking-at-all Willow. Hey, I can hope.
We cut to the porch, where Buffy stands as we hear Giles say, "And I'm far from convinced she's come out of all this undamaged." How much Buffy heard of that conversation is terribly unclear. The entire episode has had dialogue overlapping scenes, but based on what happens here, it seems as if this time it was done as a plot point. In which case, maybe that should have been made more explicit. Buffy stares out at the night, and a cigarette butt suddenly lands by her feet. She grinds it out with her toe and greets Brad. Brad, you'll remember, is Spike's identical twin, who has a lot in common with Spike except that Brad is kind, and trustworthy, and not at all evil. You know: Brad! Boy, if Spike ever returns to Sunnydale and finds out how Brad has been ruining his reputation, heads are gonna roll. I can't wait for that episode! But Spike's off somewhere, reunited with Drusilla, having a good time killing people and causing mayhem. In the meantime, we've got Brad. Who's cute and all, and, let's not forget, very old, but he's just no Spike. Yes, my powers of denial are fearsome to behold.
Anyway, Brad asks if Buffy heard "all that noise" inside, and Buffy replies, "Just enough to make me feel crappy." Brad says that Giles didn't mean anything by it, which strikes me as odd, since Giles didn't say anything bad about Buffy, and he pretty clearly did mean what he said about Willow. Buffy says, "They all care so much, it makes it all harder." Brad doesn't understand. He's cute when he cocks his head that way. Which he does constantly, so I don't know how long I'll go on thinking it's cute and not evidence of some kind of spine maladjustment. Buffy complains, "I just feel like I'm spending all my time trying to be okay, so they don't worry. It's exhausting. And then I..." Brad finishes, "And that makes 'em worry even more." He stands to Buffy and asks, "You want me to take them out? Give me a hell of a headache, but I could probably thin the herd a little." Buffy chuckles, because it's funny for good old Brad to threaten to murder her friends. If it was Spike, it wouldn't be funny; in fact, she'd kill him for saying that, but it's Brad, so it's okay. He notices her reluctant smile and says, "Knew I could get a grin." Buffy sits down on the steps and asks why he's always around when she's miserable. Brad answers, "'Cause that's when you're alone, I reckon. I'm not one for crowds myself these days." "I reckon"? Brad's from Texas. Buffy admits she doesn't care for crowds either. They stare out at nothing. Buffy finally asks, "What do you know about finances?" Brad looks at her.
Dawn tromps down the stairs, wearing a T-shirt with a big 55 on it. That's the speed limit, you know. Which this episode has carefully avoided breaking. Giles greets her, and they agree that neither of them can sleep. Dawn asks, "You ever try mixing parts of every cereal you got together in one bowl?" So that's where all the money has gone: Cereal. There are worse investments. Giles yawns, "Does it work?" Work for what? I missed something. Dawn invites Giles to join in her experiment, and he replies, "Why don't I be your control group. I find, as you get older, that you lose patience with throwing up." He looks at the front door as the knob begins rattling. Giles asks if the door is locked, and Dawn says it should be. Suddenly the door breaks open, and Dawn is knocked over by something I just can't figure out. The demon enters and smacks Giles into the stair railing, which collapses under him. The demon looks down at Dawn and growls, "You're not the Slayer. But you'll do for a start." Dawn screams, and glasses shatter throughout the house.
After taking a breather during the ads, the demon resumes menacing Dawn. Suddenly he's pulled away by Buffy, who says, "You're paying for that door, buddy." She shoves him back into the living room, where the coffee table collapses under his weight. Buffy moans, and the demon stands up and hurls a table leg into a corner, where it shatters a lamp. The demon shouts, "You have cost me, Slayer!" Buffy replies, "I cost you? That's a designer lamp, you mook!" Heh. "Mook." Heh heh. Pardon me. Anyway, they get back to fighting, and Buffy tosses the demon onto the dining room table this time. The table holds, but a glass bowl on the table is crushed. I can't believe I'm recapping which household items get broken. ["Hee. Demian can relate." -- Sars] Or don't get broken: Buffy's knocked back, and brushes a vase off the mantel, but manages to catch it. She hangs onto it while kicking the demon, and neatly replaces it before returning to battle. After breaking a picture frame, the demon is suddenly hauled back by Brad. Buffy orders Brad, "I want him in the kitchen!" Why? She kicks the demon again, and he's thrown into the back door, breaking still more glass. Brad looks on as Buffy pummels the demon a bit, and she finally orders Brad to open the door. Not the back door, so she can take the fight outside, but the basement door. I don't understand. Neither does Brad, but he opens the door and watches as Buffy and the demon tumble down the stairs. The demon splashes into the foot-high lake down there. More fighting. The demon breaks off the pipe that Buffy tightened back at the start of the episode. Buffy is quite miffed. The demon attacks, and she wrestles the pipe away and knocks him down into the water. She clubs him a few times with the pipe while grunting, "No! More! Full! Copper! Re-pipe!" I can't pretend this makes sense. With the demon dispatched, Buffy sighs and looks up at the dripping pipe. From the stairs, Brad looks down and asks, "Did you know this place was flooded?" Oh, that wacky Brad. This was the big climax? Yipes.
The Legion of Dim looks around their redecorated basement lair with pride. Leather chairs instead of beanbags, ugly blue carpeting, and a periscope are among the new features. Warren comments, "We got the money. We got the lair. And our one loose end's been taken care of by the Slayer." That rhymed. He punctuates his words by lifting up a flame-thrower and trying it out. That seems like a dangerous thing to do indoors. Andrew toys with the periscope, which, by the way has "5 4 12" inscribed upon it. And, rumor has it, the word "geek" in Cyrillic. Heh. Andrew turns the periscope and announces, "It looks like your mom's weeding tulips again." The screen behind him shows a woman weeding. In case you thought Andrew would make up an exciting story like that. Jonathan gestures to a cabinet and says, "Action figures -- fully deployed." Andrew raises up the periscope, having focused it on a bathing beauty. There are also targeting lines on the screen, which weren't there before. Andrew sits down and says, "We can do anything. We could stay up all night if we wanted!" Oh come on -- they're, like, twenty, right? I hung out with the geekiest of geeks in high school, and even then "Ooo, we can stay up late" wasn't a big deal. Jonathan worries that "sooner or later, the Slayer's gotta come after us." Warren suggests that they could hypnotize her. "Make her our willing sex-bunny," Andrew adds eagerly. Jonathan adds "Hypnotize Buffy" to the list on the whiteboard. Andrew says, "Is this the life or what? I mean, here we got all the stuff we ever wanted, and we didn't have to..." "Earn it?" Warren finishes. Andrew says, "Exactamundo." No, really, he did. Jonathan observes that "life is like an interstellar journey. Some go into hypersleep and travel at sub-light speeds, only to get where they're going after years of struggle, toil and hard, hard work. We, on the other hand..." It's Andrew's turn to finish a sentence: "Blasted through the space-time continuum in a wormhole?" Jonathan declaims, "Crime is our wormhole!" and lights a cigar with a burning bill. Andrew starts nattering on about wormhole physics until Warren interrupts by saying, "Dude. Don't be a geek." See, that was funny because...anybody want to suggest an end for that sentence? Andrew?
Willow and Dawn sit on the couch, trying to repair the broken lamp. Xander tries to fix the coffee table while Anya and Buffy look over the bills again. Anya, who is wearing a shirt with a picture of what appears to be Dale Evans on horseback, shows Buffy an estimate of her debt. Buffy wonders, "I've trashed this house so many times. How did Mom pay for this?" Xander suggests that Joyce saved money on "this crappy-ass coffee table." Anya suggests using the magic of credit cards, but Buffy insists that she will "definitely, probably not be doing that." Giles and Tara wander into the room, and Giles says, "I know I'm back in America now; I've been knocked unconscious." Tara wonders what the demon was trying to do. Buffy says that "he's way too dead to answer that question," and wonders who hired him. Willow cheerfully offers to do a "locator spell," but when Giles looks at her, she thinks better of the idea. Xander wackily announces that the coffee table is a lost cause, because he is wacky that way. Dawn admits that repairing the lamp is hopeless, too. Willow suggests that they put everything in the trash, so that later she can do a dangerous spell and try to summon them back from furniture heaven. She, Tara, Anya, and Xander troop out. Boy, I hope Anya and Xander don't discuss their engagement while they're outside, because I'd hate to miss one of those conversations.
Buffy sighs, "Giles, I don't think I can do this." Giles insists that Joyce "dealt with this sort of thing all the time. She took one crisis at a time, without the aid of superpowers, and got through it all. So can [Buffy]." Of course, Joyce also had an income. Just saying. Buffy perks up a little, and then the phone rings. Buffy wonders, "Who's calling me? Everyone I know lives here." Dawn tells Giles that the call is probably from creditors, and asks if they're going to starve. Giles doubts it. Dawn then asks, "No chance I'd have to quit school and work assembling cheap toys in a poorly-ventilated sweatshop?" A shocked Giles asks, "What have you been reading?" How on earth would Dawn hear about sweatshops, after all? Except maybe in school. Why is he so shocked? Buffy strides through the room, and Giles asks what's wrong. She answers, "Angel." Giles asks if Angel is in trouble, and Buffy stammers, "He needs to see me. I have to see him." Giles asks if she's leaving for LA tomorrow, and Buffy reminds Giles about the whole network change and crossover-kibosh. She says that they're getting together "somewhere in the middle. There's a place." Ah. A place. In the middle. Gotcha. Giles claims to understand, which is more than the rest of us can do. Giles suggests that they get the bills taken care of before she leaves, but Buffy says, "I have to go now," and heads out. She stops and thanks Giles for "taking care of this," before scampering upstairs to find something more attractive than the bejeweled tank-top she's wearing. Dawn and Giles just look at each other.
week, in a non-spectacular non-crossover non-event, Buffy tries various jobs, but for some reason doesn't think of the obvious career path: professional wrestler.