Before we get started, I want to give a big shout-out to godam for posting the lyrics on her site and saving me a huge headache. I kept trying to connect to Psyche's transcript site but kept getting redirected to Psych! The website of broken dreams.
Also, I should warn everyone that I loathe musicals. I really, really hate them. To me they've always seemed like plays with deep emotional problems. When I turned eighteen, I made a list of things that I would no longer have to do now that I was officially an adult. The first item was, "Listen to Mom's tape of Beer Garden Favorites." The second was, "Suffer through another musical." Therefore, I hope that it doesn't hurt my indie credibility too much when I admit that I actually really enjoyed this one. Shhhh!
Previously on Buffy, a lot of stuff happened that UPN wouldn't possibly be trying to summarize for the new viewers they hope are tuning in for sweeps. Oops, try they did. In letterbox format: Spike loves Buffy; she's grossed out. Willow, Tara, Anya, and Xander raise Buffy from the dead. Buffy admits to Spike that, while dead, she was in heaven. Dawn is a bad egg, but not the kind that controls you through neural clamping. Anya and Xander bored us all to tears with their flabby love story. Tara had concerns that Willow uses too much magic, and got her brain wiped for her troubles. Oh hey, that wasn't so long.
Different credits. Superimposed over a full moon is the title, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," in an unimpressive sans serif font. Sparkly overture music plays as we see the casts' faces appear on the moon with their names to the right. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendan, Emma Caulfield, Michelle Trachtenberg, James Marsters, "and Alyson Hannigan as Willow." Created by Joss Whedon, but no picture of Joss.
Then we go straight to a commercial break, and I'm seriously stunned. No teaser! Waaah! I long for the solace of the familiar. How can I adjust? Apparently by spending the commercial break sulking and muttering under my breath. Scared the cat. It's just strange to fast-forward four minutes without having recapped anything new.
The title "Once More With Feeling" appears on the screen as we get more swelling overture. I really don't know much about musicals, so bear with me if I misidentify any of these instrumental pieces. Buffy's red wind-up alarm clock goes off, but Buffy appears to be already awake, just lying in bed. She glares at the clock and picks it up. More instrumental renditions of the songs we hear later as Willow dashes about getting ready and Tara shifts some of the approximately eight million throw pillows on the bed. Under the last pillow, she finds the sprig of vegetation that Willow used to make her forget their argument at the end of the last episode. She smiles, thinking her lover has left her a sweet memento. ("Memento" -- geddit?) As Tara sniffs the flower, Dawn rushes to the bathroom door and frantically knocks. Willow zips out, brushing her hair; still Buffy lies in bed.
Der Zauber Kasten. Close up on an issue of Tomorrow's Bride magazine. Oh, the much anticipated Xander/Anya wedding planning humor. I'm really happy that Joss and Mutant Enemy paid attention to the fan groundswell on that one. We all love pre-wedding hijinks, don't we guys? Guys? Where are you going? Aw, shoot. Xander points something out in the magazine, but Anya rolls her eyes and moves off to help a customer. Giles snatches a book (presumably about magic) away from Dawn, who flounces across the room. At the round table, Tara and Willow study texts as Buffy sketches. It looks like she's filled the entire page with pencil shading but left a blank white square in the center -- like she was influenced by Rothko, but was out of class being dead during the lecture where they talked about his use of color. Giles gestures to her, and they head into the training room.
Night. Buffy walks through a cemetery. As she glances around she begins to sing, "Every single night / The same arrangement / I go out and fight the fight." As she continues, "Nothing here is real / Nothing here is right," a vampire attacks. She fights him and continues her song; she's been merely "going through the motions." As she stakes the vamp: "Nothing seems to penetrate my heart." Cute. And nice dusting effects, with a very detailed skeleton. She spots three more villains, including one with ram's horns, who have a bound captive, and fights one of them as she explains that recently her calling "doesn't mean a thing." The three baddies form a little dancing chorus as they warble, "She does pretty well with fiends from hell / But lately we can tell / That she's just going through the motions." Buffy grabs a nearby sword and eliminates the three demons one by one. As she frees the captive, she musically wonders if she's doomed to "sleepwalk" through her "life's endeavor." The captive, a square-jawed and bare-chested guy, wishes to thank her, but she distractedly dismisses him with, "Whatever!" Buffy climbs atop a stage-like grave marker and, arms flung wide, finishes her song: "I can't even see / If this is really me / And I just want to be aliiiiiiive!" The camera pulls up and up and up.
Sunny morning. Buffy enters the Magic Box, a distracted look on her face. Giles calls out a greeting, and Willow (more on her and Tara's ghastly clothes later) asks if Dawn got "off to school all right." Buffy mutters a reply, and the witches look concerned. At the table, Xander and Giles are playing with their food, and shake their heads when Buffy inquires if there's any demon action afoot. She looks around and then asks the ever-so-difficult question: "Last night, you know, did anybody, uh...burst into song?" Hee. SMG's delivery of that line is perfect. It made me think of all the times these people have had to share strange occurrences with each other, and how blasé they must have become about asking these kind of questions. But now something's come along that even the Slayer can't be blasé about. The gang looks surprised, then relieved; they all begin speaking at once. Willow: "We thought it was just us!" Giles: "That would explain the huge backing orchestra I couldn't see and the synchronized dancing from the room service chaps." Anya: "And then we were arguing and then everything rhymed and there were harmonies and a dance with cous-cous." Xander is more succinct: "It was very disturbing." Giles asks Buffy what she sang about (and I notice he never actually mentions what he himself sang about, so I'm guessing it was his love for a purple-haired recapper named Sep. Ahem.) but she evades the questions, saying she can't recall, but she's sure it was "normal."
They decide they need to research the strange events of the night before, and as Xander babbles, Giles begins singing. "I've got a theory / That it's a demon / A dancing demon / No, something isn't right there." Willow thinks perhaps they're all stuck inside a dreaming child's "wacky Broadway nightmare." The camera moves on to Xander for a bar ("we should work this out") and then the group -- except Buffy, who drifts out of the frame -- sings together, "It's getting eerie / What's this cheery singing all about?" Xander hops up, because he thinks it could be evil witches, but oops, he gets the dreaded double glare from Tara and Willow, so he quickly amends, "Which is ridiculous 'cause witches they were persecuted and Wicca good and love the earth and woman power and I'll be over here." Tail between his legs, Xander sits back down. Clearly ready for her turn, Anya shares her theory. The strange singing has been perpetrated upon them by -- bunnies! Silence except for the faint sound of crickets. Heh. Then, as Tara starts in on her turn, the lights blink off the shop. Anya is lit by a bright spot, and she begins to belt out this rockin' line: "BUNNIES AREN'T JUST CUTE LIKE EVERYBODY SUPPOSES!" Well, you get the idea. She carries on about "hoppy legs and twitchy little noses," working up to her big, uh, climax. "BUNNIES! BUNNIES! IT MUST BE BUNNIES!" She windmills her arms wildly and a flash pot goes off; the group stares, aghast. Frightened by the bunny number, the gang agrees that they need to work on the problem quickly.
As Giles scampers for more books, we finally hear from Buffy. She stands apart from the others with her arms crossed and begins, "It doesn't matter / What can't we face if we're together?" I know SMG was very nervous about this project, but I think she does really well here and throughout the entire episode. I mean, I can tell she doesn't have a professional quality voice, but her delivery is very moving; I really believed Buffy's need to believe the unifying words she sings here. "What's in this place that we can't weather?" Giles turns to look at her, and Willow smiles gently. All together, they sing the refrain, "What can't we do if we get in it? / We'll work it through within a minute." Buffy cracks a little joke about having died twice, and when Giles grins, my heart melts. Then it melts some more as he sings strong counterpoint to the rest of the group. Um-hmmm. That man's voice should be in the Louvre. "What can't we face?" finishes the group, but Anya has a little addendum of her own: "Except for bunnies." Xander again found the big number "disturbing," but Willow enjoyed it (probably because she only had one line). Buffy wants to know the cause of the sudden shift into a musical reality and, curious, Giles calls her on what she just sang: "I thought it didn't matter." In this scene, these people talked about what was causing the singing, sang about what was causing the singing, and then talked about it again! And yet it didn't bother me until about the fourth time I watched this scene. Anya asks if they're the only people suffering from the involuntary warbling, and Buffy throws open the front door of the shop. Outside in the street, a bearded man heads a group of Sunnydale citizens, all holding shirts in dry-cleaning bags. They're obviously finishing up a very big number, and the bearded guy (Buffy supervising producer David Fury) exultantly holds up his dry cleaning and sings, "They got the mustaaaaard ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut!" The camera pulls back high, the big drums throb, and cartwheeling dancers flip happily through the frame. Oh God. Oh God, I loved that moment. Absolute perfection. And beautiful in its brevity. You just know that if this was one of those classic Broadway productions, we would have been subjected to the whole damn essentially inconsequential number. But here? Joss made the point with charm to spare and moved on. Buffy closes and door and tells the gang, "It's not just us."
The screen wipes, and the doorbell rings as Dawn rushes into the store. "You'll never believe what happened at school today!" The entire gang is moping around the table and Buffy, without even looking up, asks, "Everybody started singing and dancing?" Dawn's face falls and she counters, "I gave birth to a pterodactyl." Anya is the only one buying: "Oh my God. Did it sing?" Around the table, Tara and Willow are holding hands and giggling into each other's ears. They realize they haven't been paying attention and clumsily try to cover by blathering on about some texts dealing with "mystical chants, bacchanals" that they have at the house. They offer to go check them, and Giles agrees, as he's a "hair's breadth from investigating bunnies." Feeling she's unnoticed, Dawn pockets a necklace lying on the counter near the register. The witches giggle their way out of the store.
Later, they're walking through a large sunny park -- a real, shot-on-location-type park, rather than the claustrophobic park sets we often see. And now we can get a good look at what each of the witches is wearing. Ugh. Willow is in a long-sleeved and long-skirted pale pink dress with a saggy crisscrossed bodice. It looks like something you'd wear to a stuffy garden party for people who think women's bodies should be swathed from head to toe in yards and yards of fabric. I've been watching the season-two repeats on FX and I find it strange that we saw more of Aly's body when she was a shy, never-been-kissed high school student than now when she's a sexy, confident witch. I mean, those of us who have seen the lad magazines know that Aly herself isn't shy about showing off her body, so why does Willow dress like someone trying to hide third-degree burn scars? And Tara, poor Tara. She's wearing a iridescent sea-green corset over what appears to be a burlap bag with a Cinderella-esque ragged hem. Both are very pretty women with very nice figures, and for some reason the Fashion Nazi hates them. Even Buffy is making out better this season with her sensible jeans-and-tops ensembles. Anyway, as these two fashion train wrecks wander through the park, a pair of guys pass by and grab themselves a little eyeful. Willow giggles to Tara that the guys are "checking [her] out," but Tara is totally confused. "What are they looking at?" Well, probably they saw the way you're dressed and were having the following discussion: "What's up with that girl's outfit?" "I dunno, dude. Maybe the Renaissance Faire is in town." "Turkey legs, dude!" But ah, Willow has a different spin; she tells Tara the guys were looking because Tara is hot. "Oh my God, I'm cured! I want the boys!" laughs Tara, pretending to run after said boys, who I've spent entirely too much time discussing as we never see them again. They laugh, and Tara tells Willow, "I know exactly what they see in me. You." Um, scary. Even setting aside memory-wiping spells, this relationship is more than a little twisted. Uh oh, Tara feels a song coming on.
With a tranquil lake in the background, she begins, "I lived my life in shadow / Never the sun on my face." She thought that was her place, but now her whole life has changed; Willow has bathed her in light, set her free, and brought her out of her shell. So many metaphors, so little time. She likens the process to magic: "I'm under your spell / Nothing I can do / You just took my soul with you." They walk hand-in-hand, smiling, and then Tara spins away to a sunny patch on the shore of the lake. She continues to sing and dances a few steps, backed by two random women. Amber Benson has a very pretty voice, but her dancing is a little, well, clunky. I can buy that for the Tara character, though. "You made me believe," she continues as she and Willow spin arm-in-arm. The background changes, and they are in their room at the Summers house. They both sit on the bed and share suggestive glances. "The moon to the tide / I can feel you inside," smiles Tara, "I'm under your spell / Surging like the sea / Drawn to you so helplessly." Damn, this is pretty racy stuff. In a poetic way, of course. And it just gets racier when Tara lies back on the bed and Willow lies on top of her. Then Willow backs completely out of the frame, and I don't think she went to get a drink of water or a good book because the lines Tara sings are, "Lost in ecstasy / Spread beneath my willow tree / You make me com -- plete." She then levitates off the bed. The lyrics are masterfully done and incredibly subversive, I think. Impressive in all but two regards -- Tara's completely stiff body as she levitates, and the fact that her skirt is still obviously, um, in place. I don't want to be crude, but I was very distracted by thinking that, except for the levitating, she looked more like a person strapped uncomfortably to a board than a person receiving that kind of ecstasy. And then we have...
...a strangely abrupt cut to Xander and Buffy, still at Der Zauber Kasten. Let me summarize: Xander is a little obsessed with his suspicion that Willow and Tara left to have sex. Whatever. Dawn thinks all the dancing and singing is romantic, but Buffy, Xander, and Giles are very emphatic that it's not. "What's gonna be wrong with [it]?" Dawn wants to know.
I have a feeling we're about to get our answer. Street at night. We hear tap-dancing. A man in a three-piece suit frantically taps his way into the scene. His whimpering and desperate confusion clue us in to the fact that he's not so much enjoying his little jig. As his feet go faster and faster, smoke begins to rise around him and he suddenly bursts into flames. It would make sense if his feet started burning first but the way the scene is shot makes it look rather like it's his ass that burns first. What is this, a Preparation H commercial? He dances and burns, and then his crispy corpse falls at the feet of a figure dressed in a sharp red zoot suit. Do you think it's easy in Hollywood to find a stunt-man who can tap-dance like that? I'm fascinated by this guy. He's manly enough to set himself on fire, but soft enough to dance his wee heart out. Is he a stuntman who's a frustrated dancer, or a dancer who's a frustrated stuntman? Camera pans up, and the zoot-suited demon -- whose head is completely red, reminding me of nothing so much as Tandoori chicken -- declares, "That's entertainment!"
Xander's apartment. He and Anya lie in bed, and Xander offers to prepare waffles for breakfast. Anya throws aside the covers and, clad in a red bra and tap pants with a forties-type hairstyle, begins to sing about her love for Xander. "This is the man that I plan to entangle / Isn't he fine? / My claim to fame was to maim and to mangle / Vengeance was mine!" She warbles a little more and concludes, "The only trouble is -- / I'll never tell." Then it's Xander's turn. He too sings a few bars about how much he cares for Anya and concludes, "There's just one thing that -- / No. I'll never tell." They head out into the living room and take turns singing directly to the camera with these little complaints they were never going to reveal: "He snores." "She wheezes." "She doesn't know what 'please' is." "His penis got diseases from a Chumash tribe!" Then together they sing: "God knows, I'll never tell." Song's not over, though, and the debate gets heated when Xander sings, "She clings / She's needy / She's also really greedy / She never --" and is interrupted by Anya popping up in front of him to emphasize, "His eyes are beady!" "This is my verse, hello," interjects Xander. He tries to continue but, always the attention grabber, Anya gets a brassy horn line and suddenly bursts into some frantic sort of Charleston or Lindy. Be kind to me -- the thimble in which I store all of my knowledge of musicals has plenty of room left over for my awareness of dance styles. The loving duo Charleston some together, do what appears to be a few steps of modified tango, and then go into a whole series of dance steps I'm not even going to try to identify. It's all rather cute, peppy, and retro, though. Then comes the soft, lovey duet part of the song; Xander calls her a charmer and the cutest of the Scoobies, and Anya refers to him as her knight in armor. They both sing about how scared they are to get married and admit their fears. Xander worries that she's a gold digger, and Anya worries that he won't love her when she's old and wrinkly. There's more, much more, and it's all very charming but I think we get the point. As Xander sings right about now, "Nothing to see / Move it along." Exhausted, they flop onto their sofa, giggling.
Later that day, Anya and Xander walk with Giles and blather frantically about what a "nightmare" their number was. They're both talking at once, but the gist is that they said some really mean things to each other and they want Giles to stop the singing. I don't know what they're so worked up about -- those two say mean things to each other every day without being under a singing spell. Anya does get a smile from me, though, by fretting that their number was "a retro pastiche that's never going to be a breakaway pop hit." Giles is about to explain some "disturbing" things he's learned, when he and Xanya walk behind a woman (played by Buffy executive producer Marti Noxon) who is protesting her parking ticket. "It isn't right, it isn't fair! / There was no parking anywhere / I think that hydrant wasn't there." Marti has a nice voice, and I like her better singing than writing scripts and trying to shove the Wonder of Riley down our throats. By the time she's done, we've missed some exposition, but from Xander's dialogue, we can tell that Giles thinks the singing might be causing people to spontaneously combust. As he explains that he examined a burned body while "the police were taking witness arias," a trio of janitors dances in the background with push-brooms. Every musical theater cliché gleefully trotted out for your approval. Giles tells Xanya that Buffy is checking into the demon world for information, or at least he thinks she is, as she's been behaving oddly lately. Xander expositions for the umpteenth million time that Buffy was pulled from a HELL dimension and that could mess anyone up. Get that? The Scoobies think she was in HELL and they saved her. From HELL. Did you hear me and the show the first eighty-seven times?
Nighttime. Buffy enters Spike's crypt as he comes up from the basement. When he sees her, he snarks, "The sun sets and she appears." I like that line much more than the song that follows it. It feels like an aside from a Shakespeare play almost, and I think it would have been cool if he'd delivered it directly to the audience. Spike claims that although he's seen a "six-hundred-pound demon making like Yma Sumac," he's immune to the singing sweeping Sunnydale. He offers her a drink, which Buffy declines with a tiny shudder. She asks if he knows the cause and Spike sulks, "Oh. So that's all. You've just come to pump me for information." "What else would I want to pump you for?" queries Buffy, and then she and I both spend a moment being grossed out. Apparently Spike's fed up that a pretty girl he's in love with is hanging around him all the time, though, so he pointedly holds the door open and tells her that he doesn't have information.
Ace: Oh, poor Spike. It must be so awful for him that Buffy only seeks him out for friendship-type purposes. I guess it's not enough that he gets to be around the woman he loves, she has to love him back or he gets all pissy.
Sep: My God! Do you know what that means?! Spike hasn't turned into Brad at all -- he's turned into RILEY! It all makes sense, the schmoopification, my total lack of interest in the character. They must have switched bodies at some point and now Spike is partying down in Belize ripping out throats and being evil.
Ace: Yeah! But uh, Riley never was one for the snark, so how's he pulling off that aspect of Spike's personality?
Sep: It's the bleach. Most definitely the bleach.
Ace: Hee. No wait, I know! He's been poking around in the crypt and he found Spike's old diaries. He's been using them for snarky, semi-reformed evil pointers.
Sep: (puts on Spike-y accent) "Met this great chick Drusilla. I really, really like her. I hope it works out. I can tell this Angel bloke and I are going to be bestest of friends."
Ace: You know, I think it's only your rich fantasy life and your opportunity to communicate it through recaps that's sustaining your interest in the show at this point.
Sep: It was choice between that or hard drugs and drinking.
Ace: Oh, so sorry -- other recappers have already cornered and perfected that schtick. You'll have to get something else, dude.
Sep: Actually, I'm kinda worried it's not a schtick with some of those guys. I'm betting that halfway through this season, half the staff is gonna end up in Mighty Big Rehab.
Ace: (concerned bystander voice) "We all thought it was just fun and games until Keckler fell down the stairs."
Buffy doesn't take the hint, however, and just stays planted where she is. Oops -- seems that Spike is not immune after all, and he's been trying to get Buffy to leave before he too breaks into song. "I died so many years ago / But you can make me feel / Like it isn't so," he croons, and then shakes his head in frustration at being forced to share his feelings this way. Looking very sultry and lit in the very best cheekbone-emphasizing light, he tells her (in song of course) that he knows she only comes to see him because she's afraid to tell her friends about where she spent her death. "Whisper in a dead man's ear / It doesn't make it real." Buffy purses her lips and rolls her eyes, but she doesn't make any sort of verbal protest. She looks away, and Spike heaves himself up on a tomb, telling her that since she only thinks of him as dead, he wants her to stay away from him. He sings lying on his back and then crosses his arms over his chest. That's kinda dorky. I'm not really fond of this number. There are some good lines, but overall the staging is really cheesy and the song doesn't play to James Marsters's vocal strengths at all. I think it should have been a much more punky song with a more raucous chorus. More like the "I hope she fries" lines that Spike delivers near the end of the episode, which come off much more successfully than this entire song. "Let me rest in peace, / Let me get some sleep," he sings, then advances on Buffy angrily. "I can lay my body down / But I can't find my sweet release." Is this another naughty song? This is the night of heavy-breathing symbolism.
Buffy tries to leave, but Spike steps between her and the door and drops to his knees before her. "You know that you got a willing slave." His eyes do a slow, appreciative crawl down her torso. "And you just love to play the thought like you might misbehave." Buffy rolls her eyes again. I'm not convinced that he's actually bugging you, hon. He rises to his feet, demanding that she stop "visiting his grave," and I for one am happy that the show is again admitting that Spike's a walking dead man. He flings the door open. scene -- the two of them walk slowly through the graveyard as a funeral passes in front of them. I know, I know, a funeral at night? But I've got it figured out -- it's a demon funeral! Demons who look very human and have their own special reasons for burying at night that they don't, mercifully, tell us about in song. Joss missed an opportunity to include another musical cliché here, though. He could have the funeral in the daytime with Spike dancing around outside, holding an umbrella. Spike croons that his love for Buffy hurts him: "If my heart could beat / It would break my chest!" ("It would break my chest" sounds really good, so I know Marsters was up to better material.) Buffy's just giving him a sour glare, so he once again tells her to let him, you know, R.I.P. Then, in front of a painfully obvious blue screen, he morphs into his game face. At first, when I saw this total cock-up on the part of the special effects team, I thought it would be a tribute to all those Hollywood movie musicals shot in front of blue screen. You know, that the scene would continue like that for awhile. But no, we're immediately back to the location shoot and I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth. Worst effect since Fake the Snake. Spike proceeds to thrash his way through the funeral and has just laid hands on the priest when Buffy grabs him by the shoulder. They both fall into the fresh grave, Buffy on top, and Spike concludes his song: "Why won't you let me rest in peace?" Without a word, Buffy leaps from the grave and races off into the night. "So you're not staying then?" Spike queries her quickly vanishing figure.
Summers place. Dawn dumps her backpack out on the bed and tell Tara she has math homework, which seemed cooler when her class was singing about it at school. She then gets all kinds of guilty-looking when Tara tells her they have a lead on the source of the singing. "Some sort of Lord of the Dance. Oh, but not the scary one. Just a demon." Is that a Michael Flatley reference? Riverdance was his first project and then Lord of the Dance was the , in which he did all the things that you couldn't do in Riverdance -- mainly move your arms and have a big ego. Right? Ahem. Sorry. Dawn doesn't look Tara in the eye when she asks, "Um, do they know who summoned it?" Nope, still working on that. Dawn tells Tara she's glad the witches made up after fighting about magic, but Tara has no idea what Dawn's talking about. She tries to say that she and Willow never fought, but then peers down at the flower she found in the bed earlier, which she's wearing pinned to her shirt. She looks devastated and then rushes out, telling Dawn she's going to the magic shop. Once Tara has left, Dawn heads to her jewelry box and takes out the top tray. Underneath is a stash of things she's stolen -- all seemingly unused and still bearing their price tags. She takes out the pendant she stole from the shop earlier and fastens it around her neck. As she looks at it in the mirror she sings, "Does anybody even notice? / Does anybody even care?" She slowly turns and finds herself face-to-face with someone wearing a creepy marionette or ventriloquist's dummy mask. They remind me of the Supermarionation effect in the sixties series Thunderbirds. Therefore I will call these guys, the Super Minionettes as it's easier than coming up with a clever name. All three of the Super Minionettes bundle Dawn into a blanket.
Sep: What was up with the creepy plastic demons?
Ace: Creepy.
Sep: Snerk. Thanks. I was worried I was missing the metaphor for ennui in the twenty-first century or something.
Ace: Alienation of the common man in the workplace, perhaps? Nope. Just creepy.
Dawn wakes up on a pool table, dressed in a blue sleeveless turtleneck with black capri pants and ballet slippers. Someone told me that the outfit hearkens back to another musical but since in the history of the universe the only musical I care about is this one, I kind of forgot what they were talking about. ["West Side Story? It would seem to match, outfit-wise. But that's the only musical I know besides Grease, so I'll shut up now." -- Sars] Dawn points her toes in fear or something and starts doing this, uh, dance. She tries to get away, but the Super Minonettes grab her and spin her around and stuff until she finally slides all the way across the floor to the edge of the stage, where some two-tone wingtips and bright red pants are waiting for her.
The shoes start a-tappin' and the camera pans up to show everyone's favorite Tandoori Chicken Head demon, Sweet. He croons to Dawn that he's "from the imagination and here strictly by your invocation," and by the way do you wanna, um, maybe dance with me? He dances and sings awhile, because he's, like, a three-time Tony award winner and I imagine that's just what you do when you've won three Tony awards. Maybe call up Liza, gloat a bit, and then it's off to dance and sing your day away. So Dawn gets up to dance with him a bit and then she's says hopefully, "So you're like a good demon? Bringin' the fun in?" He summons the illusion of the crispy corpse from earlier to show Dawn what can happen if people sing and dance for too long. He then takes a moment to explain that since she summoned him, she's going to be his queen when he returns to the underworld. The camera pulls back from Dawn to show that she's suddenly wearing an ice-blue full-length dress that makes her look more like the Prom Queen of 1977 than anything else. It's just wrong. The color washes her out and it has lace in all the wrong places. Dawn is less than enthused with being elevated to underworld aristocracy: "What I mean / I'm fifteen / So this queen thing's illegal." He pays her no heed until she croons, "She'll get pissed / if I'm missed / See, my sister's the Slayer." This stops Sweet Tandoori Chicken Head mid high-kick, and he dispatches the Super Minionettes to find Buffy.
Buffy and Giles are training in the back room of Der Zauber Kasten. Buffy fears that it might turn into a training montage from an eighties movie. Giles dryly suggests that in case of power chords, they'll just duck and cover. Heh. Giles pauses for a moment and then asks Buffy if she's had a chance to set Dawn straight over her Halloween antics. Buffy nonchalantly says, "I thought you took care of that." Giles looks as though this confirms his worst suspicions. "Okay. I'm ready," says Buffy, referring to the part of their workout. But this being a musical, Giles launches into his big number. He walks over to the big collection of weaponry hanging on a red felt background on the back wall, and grabs a few knives. Hmmm. I'm thinking that I might have to display my own weapons that way. It looks pretty cool. Of course, since my weapons consists of mismatched cutlery, the door stopper from my first apartment, and origami throwing stars, it might lack the same effect. Note to self: Improve the armory. Anyway. Giles starts throwing knives at Buffy while singing about how he's keeping her down. "Your path's unbeaten and it's all uphill / And you can meet it, but you never will / And I'm the reason that you're standing still." Whoosh. Buffy steps out of the way of a knife. "I wish I could say the right words to lead you through this land / Wish I could play the father and take you by the hand." Whoomp. Buffy kicks the knife out of the air. I'm thinking that her life might get a lot easier if people would just stop throwing sharp objects at her all the time. Buffy does some Tae-Bo in slow motion in the background while Giles sings about how he's hindering Buffy by trying to help her.
Cut to Tara hurrying through the main floor of Der Zauber Kasten and up to the loft where all the dangerous magic books are kept.
Backroom. Giles booms, "I wish I could lay your arms down and let you rest at last / Wish I could slay your demons / But now that time has passed." As he sings, he walks behind Buffy, who has gone on to do some bag work. The bag is barely moving, her posture is terrible, and her arms look like wet noodles. To top it off, the expression on her face is that of a monkey trying to calculate all 51.5 billion digits of pi. It doesn't look good at full speed, and when you slow it down to one quarter impulse, it just makes it that much more obvious that SMG's punches couldn't drop a woozy kitten, much less demon hordes from hell. It really pulls me out of the moment in an otherwise outstanding episode. Giles finishes up his little song while Buffy faces him and shakes her hair out. She asks if he said something, because Buffy was stuck in some Molasses Swamp off the space-time continuum that made her unable to hear Giles's song.
In the loft, Tara leafs through a book and quickly finds the flower that she's holding. The refrain from her earlier song, "Under Your Spell," starts up as we see that the flower called "Lethe's bramble" is commonly used in memory and mind control spells. "I'm under your spell / God how can this be?" Tara sits on the top rung of the ladder and watches Willow and Buffy talk near the door. "Willow, don't you see? / There'll be nothing left of me / You made me belieeeeve" On this last note, Giles comes into frame, and their songs overlap. They both sing about how they don't want to leave but they have to -- Giles because he has misguided notions about how to help Buffy, Tara because Willow has turned into an abusive freak that thinks nothing of mentally violating her beloved. Their songs intertwine with each other, yet neither of them seems to be aware of the other person's presence. None of that really matters to me, because I get all shivery listening to them.
Amazingly, the second that the last note has faded away, Spike enters with a Super Minionette under guard. Tara wonders if he is the cause of the spell. Willow notices Tara for the first time and smiles, and it's a good thing that Willow is wearing one of her fluffy-collared pimp coats, because the temperature drops about fifty degrees when Tara completely ignores her. Spike replies that the minion has a nice little song to sing for them. He shoves the Supier Minionette forward, the music swells, and the camera action seems to suggest that he's taking a breath, aaaaand he says in a very normal voice that TCHD has Dawn at the Bronze until midnight, when he will return with her to the underworld unless Buffy comes to him. HA! Buffy muses dryly, "Dawn's in trouble. Must be Tuesday." Snerk. Buffy turns to the gang and asks what the plan is. Xander suggests that they move on out, but is stopped by Giles's dissent. The gang is shocked. "These underworld child-bride deals…never end well," protests Anya, then amends, "Maybe once." Heh. Giles decrees that Buffy is going to face Sweet all by her lonesome. Everyone raises a protest but Giles says, "I'm old and British and not Slayer-whipped and therefore you must listen to me." Or something like that. I understand what Giles is trying to do, but I think he's going about it the wrong way. Spike turns to Buffy and tells her that he's "got [her] back." Buffy very calmly says, "I thought you wanted me to stay away from you. Isn't that what you sang?" Spike gets all inappropriately angry that Buffy might take him at his word and grits, "Fine. I hope you dance until you burn. You and the Little Bit," before storming out. If you look very closely, you can actually see his nose start to sprout a wee potato.
Streets of Sunnydale. People spinning and dancing among trash-can fires. I must say, I really don't get the preponderance of open flame in barrels right downtown. I've lived in more than one small town and while we might, say, barbecue an entire pig in a barrel, we generally don't use them in lieu of street lights. But really, the fire is there so Buffy can hold up her hand to the flame and sing, "I touch the fire and it freezes me." See, she's feeling all out of sorts and disconnected with the world, and she lost her Bic lighter so she wants "the fire back."
Spike, sitting in an alley somewhere, picks up the verse. He's all verklempt that Buffy doesn't love him back. Initially he growls, "I hope she fries. I'm free if that bitch dies." And then realizing that the bitch already died and that didn't go so well for him, his tone totally changes and he sings, "I better help her out."
At der Zauber Kasten, Giles worries that he's made the wrong decision: "Will this do a thing to change her? / Am I leaving Dawn in danger? / Is my Slayer too far gone to care?" Oh! And when he hits the lower register on those last notes, it really hits my lower register, if you know what I mean, and I can't think how you wouldn't. I really wish they had pushed him into the lower range more. Xander's all, "We have to go!" only he rhymes and is in song. Anya agrees, "Beady eyes is right, we're needed!" They leave to go find some fire to walk through, Xander grabbing his big leather coat but letting his girlfriend traipse out in a filmy little dress.
Buffy's on her way to walk through some fire or something, and she's all bitter that her friends don't know why she's all cold and unfeeling, but then doesn't think to tell them either.
Montage of shots of everyone finding them some fire to walk on through. Spike debates whether he should use a Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy approach or if a Cognitive Behavioral approach would work better with Buffy. "I'll kill her then I'll save her / No, I'll save her then I'll kill her."
Are we there yet? I don't know how long I can find different ways to say that everyone is going to the Bronze and singing about the damn fire. So. Gang. Walking through the park. Questin' for some fire. Goin' to the Bronze. Fire trucks roll behind them. Possibly on their way to walk through some fire.
Spike climbs a chain link fence and ends up outside the Bronze. He paces restlessly, waiting for his cue.
Buffy finally gets there and kicks the door in. Buffy! When you're dealing with fire, you're supposed to feel the door to see if it's warm! There's no need to be careless. "I love a good entrance," muses Sweet. "How are you at death scenes?" quips Buffy. She asks if he has a name. He replies, "I got a hundred." Sep: "I. Just. Need. ONE!" I was complaining to Ace that I hate it when they give us villains without names, because I didn't want to go on calling this guy "Tandoori Chicken Head Demon" for the whole recap, and then she told me that Entertainment Weekly said that his name was Sweet, and I didn't think that they would come up with a name lamer than "Tandoori Chicken Head Demon" but apparently they did. Buffy proposes a trade -- TCHD takes her to the underworld instead of Dawn, since she "can't kill [him]." Whuh? When did this come about? Buffy really isn't giving her all here. I'm not asking for much, but maybe it'd be nice for the Slayer to at least try to destroy the demons before declaring them invincible. Because from where I'm sitting, TCHD has done nothing to give her that impression. He didn't even get out of his chair! Who knew that the best defense against the Slayer was to just sit very quietly? TCHD counteroffers: He'll just kill Buffy and they'll call it even. She tells him that it "won't help." He's all, "Your worldview violates my sense of Zen." Buffy shrugs a "That's life" in response. In punishment, he makes her sing a song about life. Ooh! It looks like Buffy stopped off to change into something more presentable. Normally I'd complain, but I'm so in love with Buffy's red top with the drape-y neck and simple jeans that I just don't care.
Her song begins as a jaunty tune about how all the world is a stage and it won't really matter if you make a few mistakes, but then, as the Super Minionettes advance on her, her tune changes to something rough and abrupt as she handily beats the hell out of them. "Whistle while you work / So hard all day." As the Scooby Gang enters, the song changes back to peppy: "To be like other girls / To fit in in this glittering world." Giles declares that Buffy needs back-up, and calls for Anya and Tara to assist her. They dash behind Buffy to flank her and provide much needed "aaaaah aaaaah aaaah"s. Hee! I really wish they wouldn't put Tara to these whippet-thin girls who are ninety percent bone and hair and teeth if they insist on dressing her in this hippie-dippy, crunchy granola, earth-mother crap that makes her look like the side of a house. Tara is probably no larger than a size six, but when you wear a long, shapeless skirt with a monochromatic top that cuts you off right at the widest part of the hips, it really doesn't do you any favors. In fact, it goes out of its way to be snide to you. Tara would look so much nicer if they gave her a more streamlined look. Buffy pleads that she needs "something to sing about." Buffy goes up the stairs to the stage. TCHD makes demon come-hither fingers at her. Her song changes to a minor key as she spells it out for the Scoobs. "There was no pain / No fear, no doubt / 'Til they pulled me out / Of heeeeeaaven" with "heaven" sung so flat that it makes my teeth itch. She purses her lips and looks at the Scoobs. She has to repeat it a few more times, because you can't just say something once in a musical. It's a law or something. Willow looks horrified. Xander is shocked. But it's nothing compared to Anya who looks like…okay. She looks like she just discovered that her mashed potatoes don't have quite enough butter. Maybe we shouldn't look to Anya for reaction shots until she's learned how to emote via expressions when you don't have any lines. Buffy faces her friends: "So give me something to sing aaaaabouuut!" If it's possible to yell in song, she's managing to do it here. She turns to TCHD and pleads, "Pleaaaase! Give me something!" He just shakes his head, because he's an evil Tandoori Chicken Headed demon. Buffy flips off the stage and starts cutting a rug. She's a whirling, dancing dervish. She spins and smokes and is about to combust until Spike grabs her mid-spin. I guess Spike was waiting outside this whole time, trying to scrounge up enough dough for the cover charge.
He sings to her, "Life's not a song / Life isn't bliss / Life is just this / It's liiiiiiving," in a minor key that mirrors hers. He then brushes a stray lock of hair behind her ear, gazes at it with deep emotion, and asks if she's been using Dawn's shampoo. Spike tells her that the cure for what ails her is simply living. Someone finally pokes Dawn awake as she gets up to deliver her line: "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it." Uh, thanks. I guess I needed that anvil-shaped hole in my ceiling. I hope my renters' policy covers acts of the overly obvious. MBTV offered me anvil insurance when I signed up but I was all, "No, no! I have a good show. I won't be needing any of that." I've been kicking myself every day since. The music fades away as TCHD claps, congratulating them all on a good show. Willow snarls at him to "get out of here." He agrees that he and Dawn should hit the road because the traffic on the way to hell is always a snarled mess. Giles is all, "Over my dead, golden-throated, wicked sexy British body!" TCHD reminds all and sundry that Dawn summoned him, and therefore he gets to keep her as a consolation prize. Dawn sputters that she did no such thing, and that she got the necklace while she was, fingerquotes, "cleaning" at the shop. Giles realizes that if the trinket was found at the shop, that means one of the gang had to have done the deed. He fixes each of the girls with a look as Xander slowly raises his hand. Xander? Okay, how? If a layperson like Xander can raise a demon from a simple charm, maybe they should keep those items locked up. Do they come with instructions? I mean really, really detailed instructions. With diagrams, perhaps? Scale drawings? I mean, Xander. Realization washes over Xander's face as he asks, "Does this mean I hafta…be your queen?" TCHD briefly considers: "It's tempting. But I think we'll waive that clause just this once." He then transforms into a stream of glowing light and takes off.
Everyone is uncomfortable and unsure of what comes . Dawn walks across the stage and sings, "Where do we go from here?" Huh? But the demon is gone. Why are they still singing? Did he forget to flip off the spell when he left? This had better not go on too long. I have no patience for people who communicate through song while not under the influence of the supernatural. Back to the action. Everyone is confused. They all line up and hold hands so it will make a better visual when they sing, "Understand we'll go hand in hand but we'll walk alone in fear," and then break away in separate directions. Afterwards, it's time for a dramatic hand-sweeping gesture. Spike notices exactly what he's doing right in the middle of said gesture and snots, "Bugger this." He takes off. However, Buffy has followed him into the alley. He tells her to go back inside and "get [her] kumbaya-yas out." Buffy says that she doesn't want to. Spike peeves, "The day you suss out what you do want there'll probably be a parade." Buffy starts singing again about how she's got nothing left inside. Spike is all, "I'm dead, dude." They start towards each other, and then she smashes her lips onto his. Y'know, I almost feel I shouldn't say anything, because I know how long a lot of people have been looking forward to this, but -- bleeeech! Aside from my reservations about the advent of a Spuffy/Bike romance, Spike looks like a terrible kisser. Seriously. He looks as if he's nursing or chewing on a particularly fatty piece of meat. Yeesh. The curtains close on an image of Spike and Buffy smacking lips that I'm sure will be burned into my brain for all eternity.