Two To Go

Sep: Did you read all the Danny Strong backlash on the boards? I wasn't quite expecting that at, y'know, Television Without Pity.
Ace: Yeah, we sure insulted a lot of short, weak-chinned men with weight issues, didn't we? It's probably that Danny Strong isn't a huge star, so people still care if we poke fun at him.
Sep: Yeah. I'm sure we really deeply wounded the guy. "Let me wipe away these tears with my supermodel girlfriend's plastic boob." Hey, I'm putting this in the recap, you know.
Ace: My God. Do you want everyone to hate us?
Sep: I just want to feel.

The boys are interrupted by Anya teleporting into their cell. She looks so good with her blonde hair. I wish she'd wiggle her nose every time she teleports, though. She quickly recaps the events of the last episode for them, thus saving me the trouble. Andrew is crushed to hear about Warren's death. Jonathan is beside himself with worry for his own tiny little skin. He quickly joins Anya in calling for the guard. Andrew delusions, "We didn't do anything." The guard comes over, drawn by the racket, and is rather surprised to see a third person in the cell. Anya very matter-of-factly tries to explain that he needs to let Andrew and Jonathan go in order to save them. He's a little skeptical, so she teleports to outside of the cell and asserts herself some more. "So just believe me when I tell you: These things are real. They're dangerous. And they're coming." Kudos to Emma Caulfield on her delivery here. She's one of the few high points of this episode. I actually really like Anya now that she's a vengeance demon again; she seems so much more self-assured and secure. Plus, she stopped whining. If she just would stop with the enacting-bloody-vengeance bit, I could like her and she could stay. Hey! My mom is a non-practicing Catholic; maybe Anya could be a non-practicing vengeance demon!

Outside the police station, the camera pans up and over a police car. The ever-present cup of coffee on the dash rumbles at the approach of Willow. This liquid-rippling effect always makes me think of Jurassic Park. This is never a good thing. The air swirls, lightning flashes, and Willow materializes in what looks an awful lot more like teleporting than "going airborne." Poof! Willow is here. But it's not really Willow, remember? It's Cruella D'Will. Heh. That's why she flayed Warren last week. She's making a coat out of him. Man, how much cooler would this episode be if Willow pranced around singing, "See my vest! See my vest! It was once Warren's chest!" I wonder what she's going to make out of Andrew and Jonathan? Not much to work with on those two. Especially Jonathan. Might only be able to get a pair of gloves out of him. Possibly a dickie. Anyway. Police officer? Disturbed. He gets out of the patrol car to confront Cruella D'Will, but she makes him go take a nap. She stands in the middle of the street and looks up at the second floor of the jail menacingly.

Back inside, Anya is still trying to convince the guard to let these nice boys out of custody. Suddenly the back wall of the cell is being disassembled. "Bricks" fly down to the street below. The guard takes off, saying, "Don't move. You'll be safe here."

Outside, police pour out of the station to helpfully mill around and point their guns at Cruella D'Will, but without actually shooting her or anything in order to save the special effects budget for those CGI dung beetles later. Cruella D'Will tosses them around like dolls for a bit, then goes back to dismantling the jail. Meanwhile, Buffy sneaks up behind Willow, hugging the building. She surveys the scene and then finds a side entrance.

Andrew begs Anya to teleport the two of them out of there, but there's no room for passengers on the Emerson Express. Andrew is still confused, thinking that he's done nothing wrong at all. Jonathan attempts to reset Andrew's moral compass for him.

Buffy kicks open the door and runs to the cell holding the two nerds.

Back on the street, Cruella D'Will has apparently taken enough time to slowly and meticulously create a big hole in the wall and is now ready to fly through the air and perch upon it. She enters to find an empty cell, the bars bent out of shape just enough to allow the Duo of Dim to escape. Anya, however, has decided to stick around and try to talk some sense into Willow. Willow responds by jolting her with a large dose of CGI lightning. Cruella D'Will turns towards the camera and lets out a high-pitched bat scream. Sigh. If a witch screams in a really boring episode, does that mean I have to stick around to hear it?

Commercials. This is a test of the Emergency Snorecast System. Everything operational.

Outside, Andrew reacts painfully to Willow's scream. Buffy decides that their only chance is to run. Fortunately, Xander pulls up just then in a patrol car. Buffy calls shotgun, but Xander starts putting the pedal to the metal before Buffy really has a chance to get in. Probably to get back at her for leaving him in the woods.

Buffy looks behind them nervously to see if Willow is on their tail before asking Jonathan and Andrew if they're okay. She tells them that they're going to find somewhere safe to stick them until they can deal with Willow. Jonathan and Andrew grumble a bit, but Xander tells them that if they don't knock off the bickering, he's going to "pull this car over and you can just walk to your painful deaths from here." Jonathan asks the question that's been on everyone's mind, namely why doesn't Willow just snap her fingers and kill these two dolts. For some reason, Buffy spares Jonathan the truth that they have another hour and forty-five minutes of season finale to fill, and instead tells him that it's not that Willow wants them dead -- it's that she wants to kill them. Andrew again insists, "But we didn't do anything." Buffy thankgodfully smacks him. Xander asides to Buffy that Jonathan has a point: "Why isn't she right here, right now?" Xander! Were you not listening? I just told you! It's called filler. And boy, does this episode have it in spades. Blah blah blah. Jonathan can't believe "that was Willow," the Willow of the homemade lunches and the flood pants, the Willow he's known since childhood.

Suddenly, the car is bumped from behind. It's Cruella D'Will, standing on top of a semi, steering with the power of her mind. God. Everything about this looks so cheap and fake. Especially the over-the-shoulder WillowCam shots in which the Willow blow-up doll stand-in stiffly shakes in the breeze. The semi bumps the patrol car a couple more times. Xander asks Buffy if she has "any ideas." Buffy's advice? "Drive faster." And then in my very favorite stupid moment from this stupid episode, Xander begins to drive faster, and the car speeds up enough to put some distance between them and the big frickin' truck that's been ramming them. Yes, that's right. It actually hadn't occurred to Xander to freakin' floor it until he was told to do so. He was fully prepared to drive to the conditions of the road. I've never considered Xander an incredibly smart guy, but I certainly never thought that he was THIS dumb. Okay. This scene is getting on my nerves. I never noticed until I sat down to recap it, but it's not just that everyone stands around doing the same thing in slightly different settings for two hours; even the way the scenes are shot is filler. Reaction shot from Our Heroes. Pull out to reveal deserted highway. WillowCam shot. Pull out to reveal deserted highway. Reaction shot from Our Heroes. WillowCam shot. So. They're being chased. It's supposed to be dramatic. Things are going badly for Our Heroes until Cruella D'Will starts running low on the juice, allowing the driver of the semi to regain control of the vehicle.

Spike's crypt. Clem is in the middle of a snack-chip taste test while Dawn stares restlessly out the window. In short order she emotionally manipulates Clem into helping her with a mysterious task that is not yet revealed. "Spike would have," pouts Dawn. "Spike's gone," points out Clem. Oh, how I wish that were the case.

Cut to Spike. He's hanging with Deep-Throaty Demon. I wish they could have gotten Skip to play the part of Deep-Throaty. That would have made things slightly bearable. Spike is ready to begin his first test, which apparently requires him to be shirtless for no good reason that I can see. And yes, I can see his pecs, and no, I still don't think that's a good enough reason. Spike paces in the cave and banters with Deep-Throaty until a big hunk of man-meat steps out of the shadows. It's a standard "two enter, one leaves" to-the-death type of deal. Hunky McManmeat bangs his fists together to produce flames and then drops Spike to the floor with a punch. Y'know, I realized the other day that I owe y'all an apology. This whole Spike with Buffy thing? My fault. When Angel was on the show, I hated every second of him and his dazed "you can tell I have a soul because I look like I just walked into a tree" method of acting. (Angelus was a different story. A cooler story that didn't spend so much time whining and moping.) Then, when he left, it was like light pouring in through the heavens. I was excited. Happy. I had a new lease on life. I thought, "No matter what, Buffy's boyfriend won't be so bad." Enter Riley. Riley with his potato nose, thinly-veiled chauvinism, and women issues. And so it was, until it came to pass that Riley endeth. And lo! Happiness reigned far and wide across the land (defined as my apartment), there was much rejoicing, and it was good. Again, I foolishly allowed myself to be confident that this had been the worst. Surely Buffy's boyfriend

Clem. Dawn. Walking around, looking for Rack's. Clem is uncomfortable. Dawn wants to find Willow. Blather blather. Blither blither. I think this scene's mostly filler.

Der Zauber Kasten. Anya and Xander lead the nerds inside while they wait for Buffy. A quick bit of dialogue lets us know that Anya can no longer sense Willow because "whatever she's feeling has gone way beyond simple vengeance." Buffy rushes in and warns the others that they've got to grab what they need and then get gone, because Willow is smart enough to check the usual haunts. Andrew offers to summon a demon to deal with Cruella D'Will, but Xander counteroffers to smack him hard enough to make his eyeballs switch sockets. Buffy and Xander finger the empty black magic books on the table as Buffy decides that they need to fight magic with magic. Unfortunately, as Xander points out, Willow has taken everything. "Not everything," pipes up Anya from behind the register. She pulls out a small chest with a white handprint on it from behind the counter. Ah, the old Talk To The Hand book of protection spells. But uh-oh -- it's in Sumerian. Jonathan offers to help translate, but Buffy essentially tells him to sit down and shut up, because he's only meaningful to her in terms of what it would do to Willow if she were to kill him. I don't get her wasting a resource like that, but, y'know, one hour and thirty-three minutes left to fill. Xander pulls Buffy aside to ask her what the hell she plans to do if they find Willow. Buffy wants to talk it out, reasoning that Jonathan and Andrew "are the line she cannot cross." Y'all get that? Willow making a Warren-skin rug is OKAY, as long as she doesn't harm a single hair on Jonathan's miniature little head.

Cut to Rack's lair. A door swings open. We come upon Rack sitting in his inner sanctum, playing with some runes on the couch. He's been expecting her. "Guess the rehab didn't take, huh?" he says, in This Is Not Willow But Rather The Magicks MAKING Her Do It Moment #563,420. Is it just me, or does Rack have a very "it puts the lotion in the basket" style of line delivery? Anyway. Rack gets up and circles around her, saying, "When you first came to me you were just a little slip of a girl." He reaches her hands around her: "But you're now so grown up," and the camera doesn't follow his hands but I swear it looks like he cops a feel. So. Rack wonders if Willow still tastes like strawberries, in reference to the last time she came to visit him. But then he finds out that he has a bit of an allergy to strawberries. They make him all glowy and dead as Willow puts her hand on his chest and sucks his power right out of him. She only wants "to take a little tour," eerily echoing his words to her the last time they met.

Dawn and Clem walk through the portal into Rack's lair. Clem is scared to go inside, the big baby, so Dawn decides to go it alone. Dawn cautiously enters the inner sanctum. She peers around, calling out for Willow, then turns and comes face-to-face with Rack, who is either floating or strung up upside-down, and is either unconscious or dead. Dawn screams and turns to run, but almost bowls into Cruella D'Will. "Hey cutie," Willow smirks.

Cruella D'Will ominiously tells Dawn that "now is not a great time." Dawn is all, "Girl, you look like nine kinds of awful." And she really, really does -- all scary, veiny, and gross. Dawn wants to know if Willow killed Rack. She doesn't really get a straight answer, but decides that she knows enough to want to get out of there. She bolts for the door, but by the time she reaches it, Willow is already there waiting for her. Dawn tries to reason with Willow, but Willow's not having it. "I miss Tara too," blurts out Dawn. "But this? What you're doing here? This is not the way to go." She seems to get through to Willow for a moment. but Willow quickly recovers. asking Dawn if she cried. She says that she understands the crying; Dawn is human, after all. "But you weren't always." Cruella D'Will starts advancing on Dawn, backing her up against the wall. "Maybe that's why you're crying all the time, Dawnie, " she sneers. "Because you don't belong here." Willow offers to send her back to her salad days as a green glob of goo. Do it! DO IT! And then comes one of the very best moments of the episode -- in fact, one of the only moments that Willow was convincingly evil, and not just kinda snotty yet completely boring. "You'll be happier. I'll be happier. We'll all be a lot happier without listening to the constant whining. Mo-om! Buffy! Tara! Wa-ah! It's time you go back to being a little energy ball. No more tears, Dawnie." Shiny McWhiny writhes at the painful threat of having to use such a substandard shampoo. "Luckily," Buffy appears just in the nick of time.

Xander and Anya are at Der Zauber Kasten, working on translating the spell; it's not going so well. Anya whinges that Xander is standing too close to her, and that she's not cut out for doing this kind of work anyway: "I'm in retail." Having worked both in retail and as a translator, I'd go for translation any day. Jonathan pipes up that he thinks it's probably Babylonian, not Sumerian. Xander is all, "Thanks for the non-help. Now go away." Jonathan goes to sit back down to Andrew, who doesn't get why Jonathan is helping them out. He then tries to enlist Jonathan to lead a revolt against the Scoobs and run away to be "The Duo." He even offers Jonathan the leader role and says that he's very good at taking orders. Jonathan wisely turns him down by throttling him. Xander threatens to stop working on the protection spell unless they start behaving, and Andrew points out that once Willow is done with him, she's going to go after Xander and Anya. Xander doesn't think Willow will stoop to that, but Anya rightly points out that "she tried to use you for a hood ornament, Xander. She doesn't care if you live or die." Xander is all, "I guess you two will finally have something in common." Anya: "I care if you live or die, Xander. I'm just not sure which one I want." Blah blah. Xander is worried that Anya will turn on them when things get ugly later. Anya tells him that she can't "officially" do anything. "You got away with it. I can't hurt you." Xander brings up Anya's polishing of the table with the Spike sex. Anya turns toward him to explain, "That wasn't vengeance. It was solace." Ooh. Looks like D'Hoffryn got Anya a Word-A-Day calendar as a signing bonus.

Back at Rack's lair, Buffy tries to talk Cruella D'Will down from her high. Buffy grabs Dawn and hurls her towards the door, telling Dawn to run away. Willow locks the door with the power of her mind. Buffy: "I know what you want to do, but you have to listen to me. The forces inside you are incredibly powerful. They're strong, but you're stronger." Did you hear that? Willow has forces inside her that are compelling her to do their bidding. Willow takes this opportunity to flap her gums about how much of a "loser" Willow always was. Which, if you take the drug addiction storyline to heart, is a bizarre message, to wit: "If you find yourself being constantly picked on for years at a time, you should become a junkie when you grow up. Drugs make you all-powerful and allow you to try to kill your friends. Best of all, they probably won't even BLAME you for it!" Back to Willow. "The only thing I had going for me. Were the moments, just moments, when Tara would look at me and I was wonderful." Buffy tries to reason with Willow some more, pointing out how much Willow has to lose if she "lets loose with the magicks." Meanwhile, Dawn slowly creeps into frame, for no good reason other than that she has to be there for the part of the scene. Bad blocking! Bad, bad blocking! No cookie for you! As Willow points out the irony of Buffy being the one to cheerlead about The Deep Meaningfulness Of Life, the background behind them starts to spin, slowly becoming that of Der Zauber Kasten. Buffy and Dawn look disoriented. Willow explains that "the trip can be kinda rough" as Dawn collapses. Huh. So that wasn't teleporting either? Because it didn't look like she was going airborne. Oh well. Just one more crappy little detail in a crappy little episode. Willow turns her attention to Andrew and Jonathan. "You boys like magic, dontcha? Abracadabra," she says as she releases bolts of lightning directly at them.

Ooh! But it's not working. Guess somebody got that protection spell. Cruella D'Will says, "You guys wanna take it slow? I can do that too." See? There's a little bit of the old Willow left. She's a caring evil person who is genuinely worried about taking things too quickly for her victims. She tries to zap them again, but it's not working, as Anya is busy chanting a protection spell. Pay no attention to the vengeance demon behind the curtain! Andrew and Jonathan grab swords to try to defend themselves.

Cut to Spike getting thrown against a wall. He's still grappling with Hunky McManmeat. Is Spike even on this show anymore? I had forgotten. Spike has a number of prominent burns. Y'know, if he wanted to get his tattoos removed, he should have gone to a laser professional. Yeah, I know that Spike really doesn't have tattoos, but I'm just amusing myself of thinking what they would be. Probably a big, red heart pierced by a rose with "Buffy" written underneath an X-ed out "Dru," melodramatic little sop that he is. Spike is all, "I passed, right?" Yes, but only the first stage.

Der Zauber Kasten. Cruella D'Will is still trying to have a nerd-B-Q. She muses about the power contained in their counter-spell. "So which one of you boys worked the mojo? Doesn't matter really. I'm just curious." That, and there's a whole 'nother hour left to fill. Willow casts a spell on herself so that she's strong enough to physically kick their asses. To prove it, she casually flips the table over. Oh, she'll have no problem with Jonathan, then. He's only three apples high. She takes a step forward, but then there's Buffy, standing in the way. "I don't want to hurt you," says Buffy. Willow knocks her into a magazine rack. Huh. I wonder what kind of magazines they sell at the shop? Magick Monthly? New Wicca? Good Spellkeeping? Better Altars & Shrines? Oh. That's not the point, is it? Buffy gets up and smacks Willow into a glass display case. "I said I didn't want to. Didn't say I wouldn't." I'm getting awfully sick of the trend this season of lifting dialogue whole cloth from seasons. The writers may want to reconsider that practice. Taking one-liners from Seasons One through Three and dropping them into these episodes, which are devoid of pacing, a decent score, innovative fight scenes, and snappy writing, just showcases the fact that this show is suckier than a big bag of leeches these days. Xander corrals the nerds and Dawn, explaining that Buffy will take care of Willow and they should put some distance between them. He stops to collect Anya, but she explains that she needs to stay there to keep the spell going. Xander tries to argue. "Go! Do something right!" she orders, then starts chanting again. Willow gets up to stop her prey from escaping, but Buffy wipes the floor with her. She rises, and the girls face off. The camera zoooooms in on Willow's face and then Buffy's. You can tell that Buffy is good and Willow is evil because Willow's lipstick is all caked and gross, while Buffy's is dewy and fresh. Plus Willow is a brunette, which is TV shorthand for Eeeevil. Buffy is all, "Are we really going to do this?" Willow is all, "Oh, Buffy. You really need to have every square inch of your ass kicked." Sep is all, "What? All five of them?" They fight. Punch kick punch flip. Buffy gets slammed into some bookcases.

Xander leads his troop of fools down the street. He has no idea where he's going. Because Xander is having a mini-crisis this episode. It's like "The Zeppo," if you took out all the good parts and the funny parts and the touching parts and the Giles parts.

Willow pins Buffy behind a ladder and heads for the door. Buffy frees herself and tackles Willow. "Get off, superbitch," grunt Ace and Willow in unison.

Ace: I watched this too many times.
Sep: You mean once?

Man, what stinks? Right. The dialogue. "Superbitch"? This is why you should say no to drugs -- I mean "magick." All the magick Willow hoovered up done fried her brain. If you get hooked on magick, you too run the risk of losing all of your clever, sarcastic quips.

Xander and his merry band of nerds. Jonathan is tired from running and makes everyone stop. It's really just an excuse for Andrew to revolt. He decides that they should hightail it to somewhere further away. Andrew says to Jonathan, "We should go to Mexico." Xander vetoes that idea, but Andrew vetoes Xander's veto. And Andrew's veto is backed up by a sword point against Xander's throat, so it looks like his has more weight.

Buffy. Willow. Fight. Der Zauber Kasten is being destroyed. Willow is thrown through a shelving unit. She lands by Anya, who is still chanting steadily. Buffy notices and tries to intercede, but Willow backhands her and she falls into a table.

Xander. Andrew. Alley. Xander wants him to put the sword down. Andrew? Not too thrilled with that plan. Suddenly there's a sword point behind Andrew's ear as well. Jonathan orders Andrew to let Xander go. They argue who is going to let go first. Finally Jonathan settles it by pressing his sword point a little too deeply into Andrew's flesh. It almost drew blood! Jonathan then gives his big speech about Doing The Right Thing And Going Back To Jail. I ignore it, because it's a crock of shit.

Back at Der Zauber Kasten, Willow throttles Anya. You'd think this would have been a good time for Anya to teleport, instead of screaming, "Help meeee!" at an unconscious Buffy. The reason you'd think that is because you, unlike the writers for this bloated production, actually are still capable of thinking. Willow tosses Anya into some shelves. It's Buffy's cue to wake up and bounce to her feet, so she does. Willow sends Buffy a lightning-o-gram and sneers, "I get it now. The Slayer thing really isn't about the violence. It's about the power. And there's no one in the world who has the power to stop me now." Just then the Hubris Police step in in the form of Rupert Giles and throw a bolt of green energy at Willow, knocking her clear across the room. "I'd like to test that theory," says Giles, all tall and authoritative. Oh, Giles! Hi! I missed you so much this season! We have so much catching up to do! Let's see. I just finished my finals, and I think I did rather well. And I met a very nice boy who just happens to live in England, so when I'm over there this summer, if you wanna hang out or something just let me know. I gotta hand this over to Ace now, butcall me!