Same Time, Same Place

Previously on Buffy: Willow killed Warren. Giles took her to England to recover, but then sent her home. She was scared to go and worried her friends wouldn't take her back. Anya went back to the vengeance trade. Spike got his soul back. Only thirty-five seconds. Thank goodness these are getting shorter.

We don't get a running girl at the beginning of this episode. Aw, I missed having a running girl to start me on my way. I'm all confused, because I thought Mutant Enemy was setting up a thing -- you know, an opening theme. A running motif, you might say if you liked bad puns (and I do!). I also like order. I like structure. Don't take that away from me, Joss!

Close-up on a clock that reads 9:24 (PM). Pan down into an airport setting and passengers disembarking from a plane. Two kids bicker as they exit the plane, and their dad reprimands them. As the passengers leave, they walk past Buffy, Dawn, and Xander (who's holding a large, hard-to-read sign.) Xander fretfully asks the others if Willow will "get" the sign, and Buffy snots that Willow won't be able to read it because it's so "pale." Turns out Xander wrote the sign (which reads "Welcome back, Willow") in yellow crayon. He explains that it was a "thing" from when he talked Evil Willow out of destroying the world last season. Dawn asks Xander to remind her again about what he said on the bluff, but she's just kidding, because the others have "heard the crayon speech a few times." "My mouth saved the world!" asserts Xander. That conjures up a few scary images. And hey, Mutant Enemy! Knock it off with the meta-quipping and quit gunning for my recapping gig. Dawn's all "yeah, whatever" because she's nervous about seeing Willow again; Buffy's not sure what to say to Willow and worries that the meeting will be strange. Xander says Giles wouldn't have let Willow "leave unless she completed thatwhateverrecovery course," but Buffy makes a little face. Turns out Willow didn't finish the course. Dawn's pretty upset and grits out, "She didn't finish being not evil?" Buffy tries to assure them that Giles said it was necessary for Willow to come back and that they shouldn't worry about it. Xander notices that everyone has debarked the plane and the flight attendants are closing the doors. "Everyone's off the plane, so where's Willow?" he asks.

A new scene. Close-up on a clock which reads 9:24. Pan down into an airport setting and passengers disembarking from a plane. Two kids bicker as they exit the plane, and their dad reprimands them. This time, though, Willow is walking right behind him. She looks around the arrival area, obviously expecting that someone will meet her. She walks right past where we saw Buffy, Dawn, and Xander standing in their version of this scene. The flight attendants disembark. Willow looks around, unsure of what to do. "Welcome home, me," she says to herself.

We're at a dark construction site. The camera pulls in close on a boy who's defacing part of the site with an elaborate spray-paint tag. He doesn't notice something creeping closer from behind him. The creeper whispers, "All alone," and then makes a little gesture with its hand, clicking its scary-ass long nails together. Uch. Since I was little, I've have a visceral aversion to those long, curly nails featured in books like The Guinness Book of World Records, so I'm grimacing already. The creeper asks if the kid is frightened to be alone, and the kid turns around and asks, "Is somebody there?" The kid has a shag cut, and I entertain myself briefly with the idea that it's Connor, come to Sunnydale to lock everyone up in a box and deep-six them. But he's not Connor -- he's just our victim of the week. The kid tries to bravado that the creeper better "clear out," but he gets attacked and screams.

The camera pans slowly across the Summers's front porch. Willow knocks on the front door but doesn't receive an answer. She picks up her luggage and heads for the back door, where she knocks again. She then tries the knob and lets herself in. III don't even have the words. Last week we saw that Buffy and Dawn don't seem to lock the doors when they're home, and now it seems they don't lock them when they go out? My god, Buffy, you're the Slayer! Why are you making it just that much easier for your enemies to kill you in your bed?! Why couldn't the prop people give Willow a key to jingle so I wouldn't have to lose sleep at night thinking about all the demons that could just waltz into Buffy's house, hide in a closet, and kill her at their own demony leisure? Willow calls for Buffy, but the house is empty and silent. Willow heads upstairs. One of the bedrooms has a little sign on it that reads "Buffy," and Willow enters. Yep, Buffy has moved into Joyce's old room, because there's that strange connecting door to Dawn's room. There's a long, long pan around the room, including a pause on some clothes thrown on the end of the bed, and then a long shot of the window Tara was standing in front of when she was shot. Willow touches the window sadly and hears the shot, breaking glass, and her own voice exclaiming, "Tara?" She turns from the window and spots some pictures on Buffy's desk or dresser. They're hard for me to make out with my terrible UPN reception, but Willow doesn't appear in any of them. Willow wanders slowly around the room and then picks up Buffy's organizer. How nosy! I see they didn't teach her any manners over in England. Is she hoping someone left her a note there? She reads the page, which is titled "Family Numbers" and has the number for Buffy's work, Xander's office, and Dawn's cell phone. A dog barks outside, and a door slams. Willow drops the organizer and runs downstairs. However, the house is still empty. Willow sits down on the living room sofa and then curls up into a sad little ball.

The microwave clock reads 10:41 PM. Wait, it takes over an hour to get home from the airport in Sunnydale? C'mon. That works only if the airport is in another town. Or if Buffy, Dawn, Xander, and Willow all hung around the gate for a long, long time after we left them. Buffy, Xander, and Dawn enter the house through the front door. It seems they've spoken with Giles, because Buffy says Willow definitely got on the plane in London. Xander theorizes that perhaps Willow got off the plane during her layover in Chicago. Oof. I just saw all of Buffy's outfit, which appears to be a droopy, sheer cotton nightgown over jeans. Only the very top part is lined, so you can see her stomach and the waist of her pants through the fabric. She looks like a larva in that get-up. Makes Dawn's breast-cupping, ruched polka-dot top and black pants look like the height of fashion and sensibility. They speculate as to where Willow could have gone, and Dawn suggests that "ducking Giles" means Willow is still evil. Lacking in sense, certainly. They go to check their messages, and Xander slams the front door shut. Just then they hear clicking noises, like shoes on hard wood, and all stop to peer upstairs. Dawn asks, "What was that?" and they head up the stairs, calling for Willow.

A little later, Buffy comes back downstairs and tells Dawn that Willow is definitely not in the house. I hope she checked for monsters in the closet too. She's also conferred with Giles, who hasn't heard anything. Everyone sit down on the sofa. Xander asks, "Is he throwing a tasteful British wiggins?" Buffy says he is, and while it's nice to have them refer to Giles and all, I'd still rather actually see him, of course. Buffy adds that Giles feels terrible about misjudging Willow's state of mind. She suggests, "Maybe it's something about us she couldn't face." Xander suggests that Willow was worried about their forgiveness, and Dawn breaks in, pointing out that Giles is blaming himself and Buffy and Xander are blaming themselves. She adds, "Is anyone going to blame Willow?" Forgive me, but I'm starting to like this stern Dawn a little. Buffy gives Dawn a look, but Dawn isn't having any of it. She asks if anyone "around here will starts asking for help when they need it." No, Dawn. Because then there would be no hour-long dramas or soap operas and television as we know it would vanish, leaving behind twenty-four hours a day of boring normal people begging Oprah and Jerry Springer for help with their boring problems. Buffy agrees that if Willow flipped out, that's her problem, and they can only be there for her if she actually shows up. Then there's a very long shot of all three of them looking sad. They slowly fade away, and we instead we see Willow, who has fallen asleep on the couch. She sleeps. Possibly in real time, considering how long the camera lingers on her.

Willow's still asleep on the sofa, but now it appears to be the day. She wakes up and walks over to the phone. She hits speed-dial and asks for "Mr. Giles." Giles on speed-dial? I wish I had that phone. The person on the other end of the line explains that Giles is in a "council meeting" all day and can't be interrupted. "Council" like Council of Watchers, or like town council? Has Giles decided to fill his days by campaigning for local government? Nah, probably not. I just don't see Giles, after years of fighting evil on the Hellmouth, being satisfied with setting local tax rates and replacing people's lost garbage bins. Willow hangs up the phone and looks around the house. Long, slow crane shot of her standing all alone in the living room.

Sunnydale main street. Another brief crane shot of Willow walking, and then we see her approaching the destroyed Magic Box. Hey, she had all her luggage with her. Why didn't she change her clothes? God knows when I get off a transatlantic flight, the first thing I want to do is burn my icky airplane clothes and take a long, hot shower. As Willow approaches the shop, Anya comes out carrying a box. Anya flinches back towards the shop when she spots Willow, who hurries towards her, asking her to not run away. Anya demands to know what Willow is doing in Sunnydale and adds in an accusatory tone, "I thought you were with Giles studying how to not kill people." Anya wants to know if Willow came back because she's all better, or because she's there to "bring about a fiery apocalypse of death." Willow has to admit that neither option is true, but says she has been studying and will be fine. Anya snarks that she remembers the last time Willow claimed she was all better, and that she's "spent a lot of time since then cleaning the debris out of [her] ex-livelihood." Willow is apologetic; she wants to help because she "feels really responsible." Angry, Anya snaps, "You feel really responsible? You are really responsible!" Willow apologizes again, and Anya replies that vengeance demons don't care much about "sorry." They prefer to exact painful revenge that causes people to say, "Oh God! Please stop hitting me with my own rib bones." "Go on! Say whatever you want," offers Willow. "Rib bones and so forth. I deserve it." She nods, and they stare at each other. Anya's disappointed, because it's no fun to bitch out someone who welcomes the tirade. I bet I could still find ways to make that fun.

Willow apologizes again and sits down on the curb. That jet-lag from London can really hit you hard. Large signs on the Magic Box indicate that it's "unsafe" and "closed." Anya put her box down and sits to Willow. They smile at each other. There's a long, long pause during which Willow removes an artifact from Anya's box and then finally asks, "So where is everybody these days?" She sounds a little too innocent, trying to hide the fact that she can't find Buffy. Anya explains that she's moved into her own apartment and that vengeance is taking her all over the world. As she speaks, Willow fiddles with the three-horned skull or whatever it is that she's holding. She asks about Dawn and Xander and then breaks a horn off the skull. Oh yeah. Willow's not going to ruin Anya's stuff anymore. Under Anya's glare, Willow returns the artifact to the box. Anya is interested to find out that Willow hasn't seen Buffy, Xander, or Dawn yet, and suggests that they're probably "still mad" at Willow. Gesturing, she adds that the other Scoobies have been "a lee-tle temperamental lately." She starts to explain about the "mix-up a few days ago" with the Ronnie Worm, but Willow interrupts to ask where she could find the Scoobies. Anya tells her to check the new high school and recaps Buffy's nebulous job, Spike's insanity in the basement, and Xander's construction job. Willow's all, "Spike's what, huh?" Anya tells her that Xander should be at work already, and Willow looks overwhelmed.

Sunnydale High construction site. It's the large excavation we saw in the beginning of the episode. Willow walks up to the fence and calls for Xander. Getting no reply, she clambers down a conveniently placed ladder and walks past the graffiti we saw the kid spraying earlier. She spots something on the ground and recoils in horror. The camera pans downs to scattered clothing and an entirely flayed body -- the kid's, presumably. Guess the props department didn't want to waste the flayed man they prepared for the end of last season. Paint that many veins and you want to get your money's worth, you know? The camera spins around and lands on Xander and Buffy. Buffy makes an "ew" face, and Xander looks away. Xander found the body earlier, then gave his crew the day off and called Buffy "right away" to investigate. "I gotta get a job where I don't get called right away for this stuff," answers Buffy. We hear a clattering noise. It's Willow, frantically hurrying up the ladder, but when Xander looks over, he doesn't see anything. "Maybe Willow is back," says Xander, in reference to the flayed body.

Sunnydale High School. Willow, looking very disoriented, walks down a hallway. She finds the basement access door, still marked "No student access" and still mysteriously unlocked. Oh, wait. It's not mysterious, because nobody in Sunnydale ever locks any doors. Maybe they wouldn't need that damn sign if someone would just take a little trip down to the Home Depot and buy some damn locks for the doors. Willow heads downstairs and is shocked when Spike jumps out at her, shouting, "This is my place! You need permission to be here. You need a special slip with a stamp." Whuh? Willow crinkles her brow in concern at Spike's state, but he's off ranting before she can really get a word in. He wanders off from her, talking about walling things up and putting hearts back in. He turns to the wall and addresses it: "You're worse than ever, you are." Long pause, and then Spike slowly approaches the wall as Willow watches in the background. "You've been gone since --" he says, and Willow replies that she had to go. She then tells him she found a body, and he asks, "Is there blood?" Willow confirms that there is, and that she can't find Buffy or Dawn. She continues that the victim was skinned, and asks Spike what could be responsible. Spike turns his head towards her and says, "You did it once. I heard about it." Willow looks very worried and asks if it could be something other than her. Spike has turned his head back towards the wall. He steps forward, and softly admires her: "Look at you. Glowing." When Willow tries to get his attention again, Spike gets very agitated. He steps back, clutching his head, and says he needs to hide. "You know what I did," he mutters, and Willow is confused. "What you did?" she asks. "You didn't do anything, did you?" Well, that's what they've been trying to sell me on the boards for years, but I still ain't buying it. Spike gets an amused look on his face. "Everyone's talking to me." Then, like he's figured something out: "No one's talking to each other." Willow tries to get him to concentrate on her, but Spike roams about, saying that someone isn't there and then, "Button, button. Whose got the button? My money's on the witch." Willow is freaked out and confused.