The Killer In Me

S07E13

Previously, previously, previously. Screw that. Let's talk about what's gone on The Sep Show since we last met. Brit Boy and I got married. And I hope y'all won't think of that as a shameless stunt to prop up any poor recap ratings. You'll also be glad to know that we won't be adding any precocious tots that will grow up to spout annoying catchphrases. At least, not if this conversation we had on the way back from City Hall is any indication. The scene: we're on MUNI. A father gets on with a baby in a stroller covered in some plastic contraption to protect it from the drizzle.

Sep: Lookit that one. They must have just gotten it; it's still wrapped in plastic.
Brit Boy: Ah yes. From Baby King most likely. An offshoot of Burger King.
Sep: So that's an eatin' baby then?
Brit Boy: Absolutely. How do you prep them again? Drop them in a pot of boiling water?
Sep: No, I think these days it's considered more human to sever their spinal cords with a sharp skewer first. Anyway, how do you like your baby cooked?
Brit Boy: I'm partial to braising. The meat stays tender that way.
Sep: I think I prefer them roasted whole. I just love the way they look with a little crabapple stuffed in their mouths. And the skin is so crunchy and delicious!

Jonathan Swift would have been proud.

Hang on! Is that Riley's voice I hear? Yup, it is. He's telling us that Hostile 17 "can't harm any living creature without intense neurological pain." And I can't see Riley onscreen without intense neurological pain.

Giles strides into the living room, wondering if the gang will be all right while he's gone. Giles leaving in the first minute of the episode? Talk about pain. He's taking the Junior Misses out to the desert to have a vision quest or be eaten by jackals or something. Well, hey, if their vision quest is anything like Buffy's, the season will end with each and every one of them dead and buried in an isolated grave far away from civilization. A girl can dream, right? Willow rushes downstairs to exposition that Kennedy still has the flu and therefore won't be going on the vision quest. As we know, Kennedy is on a quest of her own. Boo-tay! Xander rushes in to warn Giles that Rona and Molly are fighting over who gets to drive first. Buffy asides to Giles that he should have renewed his California license. Hold up. Molly and Rona are squabbling over who gets to drive? The same Molly who wouldn't be eligible for a license from her home country for another three years? The same Rona who just said in a demon bar that she was only fifteen? I could be wrong about that. I honestly can't remember most of this season. Given episode names, I can describe the plot of exactly five episodes. (And most of those only grudgingly.) Pretty pathetic, considering that I devote hours upon hours to writing about this show in great detail. Ah well. At least this whole thing ended with Molly stuffed in trunk. Giles sighs, already pining for his bunny-fearing honey. Ganya or death! It's the only thing getting me through this season.

Buffy descends the stairs to the basement, where Spike is chillin' on his cot. I'm pleased to report that his shirt is on. Spike welcomes the respite from "clomping teenage girly feet." And those aren't really the worst noise-making bits, are they? It's all the mindless crap that comes out of their mouths that drives me to distraction. Buffy is jazzed to get her own bathroom back. Buffy notices that Spike has chained himself to the bed. He explains that he doesn't want to chance The First being able to manipulate him again. Only he says it in a much more drawn-out and melodramatic fashion. Then, in the middle of their conversation, Spike is hit by the B plot of this episode -- intense neurological pain. I wonder where this is going.

Y'know, this theme song doesn't really fit the show anymore. This is a theme song for a girl who has a sacred duty to protect the world and still makes a little time to have fun. This is not a theme song for unhappy little moppets that spend all their time pulling faces.

Buffy comes into the kitchen, where Willow is making tea. Buffy says that things aren't going well with Spike, but Willow thinks that the lack of screaming is a plus. Buffy wonders if the tea is for Kennedy. Buffy starts to tease Willow, and Willow is all, "It's just tea!" I'd much rather see Buffy and Willow maybe have a conversation about whether Willow is really, y'know, ready to move on after losing Tara. I mean, considering that Willow's grief was so great that she tried to annihilate her friends, the world, and every living creature, you'd think that it would be considered an important discussion. I guess Buffy got distracted by someone pointing out to her that we haven't focused on Spike for thirty consecutive seconds. Therefore, Buffy asks Willow what she remembers about Spike's chip. Willow's answer boils down to, "If it's not readily available on a website, I ain't got jack." Buffy worries that the chip must be malfunctioning, because Spike was able to kill all of those girls without much trouble back when The First was making him her man-bint. Willow goes to take Kennedy her tea, and Buffy resumes teasing her. "It's just tea," grumbles Willow from down the hall. It's never just tea, though, is it, Willow? It's Boo-tay Tea.

Willow raps briefly on Kennedy's door before entering with her booty tea. She walks in to find Kennedy fully dressed and pulling on some fashionable leather boots. "For someone who's sick you look surprisingly robust and casual-dressy," notes Willow. That's because Kennedy wasn't really ill at all. She's just faking so that she can try and get it on with Willow. How terribly well-adjusted of her. Kennedy doesn't tell Willow this right off the bat. She phrases it in terms of, "I have a mission. And I need your help." Making it sound like there is Something Serious Afoot. As Kennedy pulls on her jacket, I catch sight of her ugly-ass suspenders, which remind me of nothing so much as that late-eighties sitcom My Two Dads. As if I needed yet another reason to hate Kennedy.

Bronze. Band. Cut to Willow and Kennedy sitting with big foofy-froofy girl drinks. Watch it! What with Willow's addictive personality, she might turn into a girl-drink drunk. Also, if I were Willow, I might think twice about someone who lied to me to get me to go out with her. And it looks like Willow is taking my advice; she gets up to leave when she finds out that there is no big mission afoot. Kennedy begs Willow to "hang out with [her] a little," because showing your potential partner that you're that pathetic and desperate for their company is very sexy. It's not quite working, and Kennedy figures that she has to be even more of a self-serving leech by telling Willow that she's "sexy" when she pouts. Which just sums up Kennedy's problems, if you ask me. Also, I'm going to be sick. "Why do you do that?" asks Willow. "To get you to stay," admits Kennedy. Gah. Kennedy is like an even less likeable, even more wooden-acting, lesbian version of Riley. No wonder I hate her so. Willow agrees to stay for one drink, thus proving to Kennedy that it's quite easy to manipulate Willow into doing what Kennedy wants, as long as she remembers to talk about how great Willow is. Kennedy immediately begins to barrage Willow with questions like, "How long have you known that you're gay?" and when Willow busts on her for presuming that she's gay, Kennedy rephrases it to, "How long have you enjoyed having sex with women?" Willow gets a little shrill, but for reasons I will never fathom, she doesn't just get up and leave. Kennedy blathers something about flirting, and she must have charmed Willow somewhat, because Willow admits that she realized that she was gay three years ago. Yeah. Losing a guy like Oz might be enough to turn me too.

By Sep

My screams commingle and overlap with Spike's as I see that we're back to the Bronze for the scene. "It was Gone With The Wind," says Kennedy. Ah. If only Kennedy would go with the wind. Anyway, that's how Kennedy knew she was gay. Willow still can't figure out why Kennedy likes her. Gah. I know that I rail on Buffy for being self-centered, but it seems to me that Willow pretty well has her nose stuck in her own navel. All of her conversational gambits this episode seem to be of the "right -- so let's talk more about me. Specifically, tell me why you like me" variety. Kennedy's first response is basically, "Dude, look in the mirror. You's hot." Charming. Take two. Kennedy comes up with some of the many, many things that they have in common. Things like, "Italian. Skate punk. Robert Parker mysteries." Except Willow doesn't like any of those things. Kennedy's not doing too well, is she? So in a final saving moment, she says that she loves the way Willow is unable to completely watch a movie from beginning to end. Or something. I don't know. I got bored. And then! The most amazing thing happened! My TiVo went flooey! I didn't think it was possible, but everything got all pixilated and it dropped me into the middle of the scene. It's like the TiVo knew I was in pain and wanted to protect me. It's a guard TiVo. So here's what I remember from the originally airing of the episode: Kennedy and Willow were annoying me at the Bronze. Then they went home. Kennedy and Willow were annoying me at home. Then Huge Kennedy Head moved closer to Huge Willow Head like they were super-deformed anime versions of themselves. They kissed. Willow turned into Warren, and Kennedy knocked over a lamp in her haste to get away because she was kissing icky man-lips.

Willow/Warren runs downstairs. You know that thing we do for the names when people switch bodies on this show? "Fuffy"? "Baith"? That? Yeah. It doesn't work too well when both names start with the same letter. Thanks a lot, ME. Xander, Anya, and Dawn are all hanging out on the couch. When they see Warren, they spring up in fear, and Xander shoves Dawn behind him while yelling for Anya to get Buffy, because they assume that it's The First, and they're afraid of it…standing too close to them? I don't know. Willren starts to explain the situation, but nobody is believing it. Look, here's Andrew! The reunion that nobody has been waiting for! He drops his snack and speechifies to Warren that he's good now and not going to be under his thrall anymore. Buffy has finally trundled up from the basement and burst on the scene, and she's quick to punch Willren but seems very surprised that her blow connects. Cries of "he's not The First" echo around the room. "My God," exclaims Andrew, hugging Willren from behind and copping an accidental feel in the process, "You're back." All of a sudden Spike gambols into the background, moaning, staggering, and grabbing his head. Good God. This scene is like a French farce, except without any French, any farce, and anything remotely funny. Kennedy explains to Buffy that Warren is Willow. Xander still isn't convinced, but Willow reminds him of other stories from school that don't involve yellow crayons, but do involve Aquaman Underoos. I have to give Adam Busch props here for doing the wide-eyed and upturned chin thing that Aly uses in her portrayal of Willow. Xander is either suitably convinced of Willow's identity or wants Warren to shut his cake hole before revealing anything incriminating. The gang begins to speculate about what could have brought this on. Willren, anxious to avoid having to admit to the kiss, straight away says that it is probably another case of Willow inadvertently hexing herself. She immediately hedges towards the door, promising to take care of things herself. Buffy isn't too keen on letting her go alone, but Willren gestures to a prone Spike, insisting that Buffy has enough on her plate. While the gang is busy standing around and looking at Spike, Kennedy slips out the door after Willren.

Cut to Willren walking across a street. Kennedy has cut her off at the pass and steps into her path. She tries to use a bit of humor to make light of the situation, but stick-in-the-mud Willow is just refusing to see the funny side of her flaying a guy alive last year. I wish Andrew would take a tip from her. Willren tries to send Kennedy on home, but Kennedy isn't really good at listening to people and respecting their wishes. What she is good at doing is ignoring any opposition and being a pushy little freak with no sense of boundaries. Therefore, Kennedy tags along. She wonders if Willren has any idea where they're going. "To see some old friends of mine. It's been a while but maybe they can help."

Cut to somewhere dark and outdoors. Buffy and Spike bumble along. They've both got flashlights because, while they can see in the dark, I can't. And while this show on occasion may make me wish for the sweet relief of blindness I'm not ready to turn in for The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Radio Hour. Spike asks Buffy if she's sure she "want[s] to go back to this place with me." "Eh," replies Buffy, "nothing good on TV tonight." This pun fails to hit "clever" and instead lands on "unfortunately apt." Psst, writers -- it's not really much of a joke if it's true. They swing their flashlights around for a while until they come to an unmarked place on the ground that looks much like all the other bits of ground. Must have been their blocking tape or whatever that told them where to start digging. Then Spike, for reasons I will never understand, starts spouting some bull about how they're after any surplus drugs the Initiative might have left behind. Spike knows about the existence of these drugs because, during his captivity, the soldiers would dose him to help him manage the residual chip pain from whenever he acted up. Let's just think about all the problems with this statement. First, the Initiative was never all that huggy-feely when it came to vampires and demons. I don't think the organization that wanted to vivisect Oz despite the fact that he was mostly human would be handing out Percocet to the soulless undead. Sure, they knocked the vamps out to experiment on them, but I can't believe that Buffy or Spike would consider being constantly unconscious a viable solution to Spike's problem. Secondly, we saw pretty much all of Spike's captivity. He woke up. He was disoriented. He talked to a vamp in the cell, who told him about the scientific experiments. He escaped. Furthermore, he had NO IDEA that he had a chip put in his head until he was out of the Initiative. Otherwise, why would he be so darn surprised when he couldn't get his fangs up with Willow? If Drew Z. Greenberg was intent on resurrecting the Initiative (and let's remember what a rousing success that was the first time around), maybe he could have bothered to idly flip through the scripts from Season Four? This is more than a continuity hole; it's a continuity chasm, and it goes straight on down all the way to freakin' China. So. Spike and Buffy unearth and remove the grate covering the entrance to the Initiative. Buffy drops down all lithe and graceful. Spike crashes down after her and falls on the floor. Caution: Falling Prats.

Over at Casa Summers, the phone rings. Andrew hops up, eager to answer because he thinks that his new comic has come in. Much to my disappointment, it's not Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons but "some British guy named Robson." Cut to Xander hanging up the phone. He explains to the assembled company that Robson was attacked by the Bringers, and the last thing that Robson saw before he blacked out was Giles, inches away from getting his head chopped off. Furthermore, when he came to, Giles was nowhere to be seen. Suspicion mounts as the gang realizes that Giles mentioned exactly none of this to them. "Maybe he didn't make it," suggests Anya. They quickly outline the implications of The First posing as Giles and infiltrating their inner circle. "But there's no way that we can know," says Dawn. I roll my eyes so hard they pop right out of my head and don't come to rest until they're in Paraguay. Because there IS a way that they can know, which they established not only ONCE in this episode ALREADY but AT LEAST two times previously. Because it was a pivotal lesson they learned JUST A WEEK OR SO BACK when The First impersonated one of the Junior Misses. Because it was also one of the VERY FIRST THINGS that Giles told the gang when he got into town. Gah. Ben is Glory! The First is NOT CORPOREAL! Okay? Maybe Dawn meant, "There's no way we can know unless we use our brains," which, judging from what I've seen from the Scoobs lately, is completely plausible. Andrew jumps in with the whole The First = non-corporeal equation that everyone is having so much trouble grasping. "It's not like Giles hasn't touched anything right?" says Anya brightly. Why is Anya acting like Giles hasn't been touching anything since she's been engaged in quite the tryst with him since he's been back? She then asks, "Has anyone seen Giles touch anything since he got back?" Oh, I get it. She wants to make sure that the gang doesn't know about their relationship. She's probably just trying to spare Xander's feelings. Nobody can come up with any evidence of Giles touching any thing at all, so Anya's secret is still safe. So when Dawn and Andrew and Xander get ready to jump into the car to follow Giles to the desert, she doesn't say anything so she won't blow her cover. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Ganya or death!

Giles is out in "desert," brooding in front of a small campfire. He's actually sitting amongst what I bet is the sand trucked into the studio to "replicate" "Africa" at the end of last season. Ominous music plays as the fire reflects eerily off Giles's glasses.

We switch scenes. No, want more Giles! Sulk. Anyway, in this scene a number of people are holding hands and sitting in a circle on the floor of what looks like the Psych classroom at UC Sunnydale. I guess they had that set in storage in case they ever sent the Scoobs back to college? And then realized they were never going to, because thinking too much is bad, and instead pulled it out for this episode. The room lights are off, but each person wears a glowing crystal. The leader chants, asking some random "Great One" to instill them all "with peace, with strength, with compassion," and other patchouli-scented virtues. The camera circles around the group and finds Kennedy and Willren standing in the doorway. Willren blurts out, "Okay, well, this is new," and catches the attention of the spell-casting group. She then introduces herself, saying she met them freshman year (and letting us all know that this is the Wicca group from Season Four). I thought Willow decided those folks weren't real witches? Why is she seeking out their help now instead of contacting the British coven or going after Giles for help? Alternatively, if she had knowledge that the Campus Wiccans had moved on to actually doing magic, why does she seem so surprised to see them practicing right now? Oh, why ask why? It never gets you anywhere. The Wiccan leader seems to remember Willow, but is understandably confused by the whole boyness that she's now sporting. Then a voice from the circle pipes up, "Um, it's actually her. I can tell."

The speaker stands, and it's Amy. Willren is shaken to see her. Amy very sincerely stutters her way through a speech explaining that she hit rock bottom but has been working on her problems with the help of the Wiccan group. She says she wanted to come find Willow and tell her how much better she was doing. Willren explains that she thinks she's under a glamour and was hoping someone in the group could help her. Amy demurs, "Yeah, see, the thing is we're much more about healing spirits and nurturing our life force here," but then offers help anyway. A little while later, Kennedy and all the Campus Wiccans watch from the classroom chairs as Amy and Willren sit at the front of the room, their hands cupped together holding a crystal. The crystal burns Willren's hand, and we see her outer form of Warren as she jumps up in surprise. "It didn't work?" asks Amy, and we see Willow now, her face twisted in rage. "No it didn't, you dumb bitch!" she shouts, and clouts Amy a good one across the face. Amy's all accusatory: "You slapped me." Willren protests, "No, I didn't. It wasn't me! It was Warren!" Oh, pooh. I bet Willow's been wanting to do that since Amy dosed her last season.

Back from commercial, Willren races from the classroom, Kennedy following close behind. Hee, Adam Busch runs like a girl. Oh, I guess that was acting. Willren turns to talk to Kennedy out in the hall, and we see shots of Willow and Warren edited together rather nicely as Willren agitatedly explains, "I'm turning into him. It's not a trick. It's not a glamour! I'm becoming him. A murderous, misogynist man!" Well, actually it's my opinion that Willow is turning into her conception of Warren, not the real thing, but I guess that's immaterial here. Willren continues, "Do you understand what he did? What I could do?" Judging from the dopey look on Kennedy's face, she's still stuck back on "misogynist" and trying to sound it out: "Mee saw whuh?" "I killed him for a reason," rants Willren but Kennedy doggedly whines, "Getting angry isn't helping. We can still try --" My god, she's charmless. Willren interrupts that Kennedy "understand[s] nothing about magic" and stomps out, throwing up a barrier spell so Kennedy can't follow her. Trust your instincts on that one, Willow.

The rilly, rilly dark Initiative. Do you think they kept the set so dark in order to avoid having to reconstruct it in any recognizable fashion? Anyway, Buffy and Spike wander about with their flashlights. The beams of the flashlights illuminate various decomposed corpses. Of demons, I suppose. I wasn't sure if the implication here was that the Initiative left the demon experiment subjects to die, or if these are supposed to be corpses from the big battle waged between demon and Initiative forces at the end of "Primeval," so I just had to go read my entire recap for that episode, and of course it was brilliantly funny and all, but I resent having to do that much research on Season Four for a Season Seven recap, y'know? Spike and Buffy's exposition doesn't help much in deciding, as Spike only says, "They just sealed the place off. Left everything as it was." I've decided that the bodies are from the big battle. I'm sure you're all relieved. Buffy and Spike head through a security door into another room. There's some strangeness about the lighting in this scene -- most of it is totally dark, which makes sense for a sealed-off and abandoned complex, but the room they just entered is dimly lit by red light. Powered by a uranium core located to its spine, perhaps? Gah -- you know I'm desperate when I'm making nonsensical Adam-related jokes. Kill me now. Buffy and Spike hear a creaking noise, and a figure passes by a window behind them. "Locked in a dark basement with an unidentified monster" is pretty much a daily occurrence on this show, so the writers are going to have get up a bit earlier and try a little bit harder if they want to creep me out.

Xander is driving; Anya is in the passenger seat to him, Dawn and Andrew in the back. Anya wants to know how long it's been since Giles left with the Junior Misses, and Xander claims it's been a few hours. It seems like it should have been quite a bit longer than that, but okay. Xander ominously opines that if Giles is The First, he "didn't bring [the Junior Misses] out there to meditate." Yeah, I think we got that. Andrew asks Dawn if she's happy now that she isn't a potential Slayer. Dawn doesn't answer, but you can just tell she's sad that none of this revolves around her princess-y self. Anya and Xander worry that they'll be too late to save the Junior Misses. I really, really hope they are. Dawn frets that they'll be stuck in the middle of nowhere with "no Slayer and no powerful witch." Anya sums up their resources: "Just a teenager, a powerless former demon and two big geeks." Too bad for you, then.

By Sep

Willren, as Warren, is looking into a glass case. The guy behind the counter gestures to the guns in the case and asks, "So, same model as last time? How'd that work out for you?" Cut to Willren as Willow, who places her hands on the counter and leers all evilly, "You'd be amazed!" If only. But I did like seeing Aly Hannigan be all creepy there. It was more fun than three episodes of zombie-like Dark Willow.

Giles! Giles is still sitting to his campfire. Giles in jeans and boots. Oh, yum. It's a wider shot this time, so we can see his campsite with his little tent set up in the background. A few prop Joshua trees are set up among the sand and fake rocks are scattered about. Spooky desert noises on the soundtrack; Giles, clutching his arms around his body from the cold, stands up and starts walking towards the back of the set. I think he's going to take a pee behind one of the larger foam rocks. Before he can get too far, though, he's tackled to the ground by Xander, Anya, Andrew, and Dawn. Good timing, guys; if you'd gotten there a few seconds later, we might have seen some really inappropriate touching. The look of surprise on Giles's face as Xander rushes at him, arms outstretched, is really priceless. Hee! Giles is all bug-eyes and gaping mouth as he falls to the ground. "Touch him, touch him!" shouts Xander to the gang. If only I could, Xander, if only I could. Xander and Dawn grope at Giles's shoulders, Anya grabs his torso, and Andrew is located somewhere around his thighs. Sounds like we've wandered into some random fan fic, doesn't it? "Oooh, I feel him," shouts Dawn, and Andrew actually cracks me up a little by managing to render his, "Me too!" in a very salacious voice. Giles is quite understandably confused about being submitted to this stealth group-grope. "Good, we all feel each other," he snaps, and then addresses Andrew: "Including some of us who don't know each other well enough to take such liberties, thank you." Hee. He's very proper there at the end with that "thank you." Andrew looks embarrassed and removes his hands from Giles's leg. Anya stares at Giles's mouth like she's overcome with the need to kiss him. You think I'm making that up? Check out the episode again -- Anya has a very strange, swoony look on her face at this point. She is so in love with Giles. Erm, anyway, Giles, still lying on his back and being felt up, requests an explanation for this quite strange behavior. "We thought you might be non-corporeal evil," swoons Anya. I guess ex-demons might be into some quite kinky things, up to and including sharing their honeys with a teenager and two big geeks. "We had to make sure you were okay. We were worried," amends Xander. Aw, Giles is so touched. He makes little pleased noises and then sits up on his arms, confused. "Now wait a minute. You thought...you think I'm evil if I bring a group of girls on a camping trip and don't touch them?" Bwa! That was laugh-out-loud funny the first time I saw this, and I laugh so infrequently at the show these days. I don't think it was an entirely Gilesean thing to say, but I liked the wry observational humor of it and didn't feel it was at all inappropriate.

Okay, I was charmed and amused by that scene, but it's over now, so I feel the need to rant. The stupidity of the Scoobies not setting up some sort of daily handshake test after being tricked by Eve aside, how lame was this Giles "plot"? Six freakin' episodes of "What's up with Giles? Isn't Giles acting funny? Why is Giles being such a dick? Did Giles touch anything? What's going on with Giles?" and we find out the answer is -- wait for it -- NOTHING. Nothing is going on with Giles. God only knows (or at least I hope so, because the writers sure don't) why he was being such a big jerk, the Scoobies are irredeemably, tragically stupid, and the viewers have been wasting their time on a moronic subplot that carried over almost half of the episodes already aired and had absolutely no dramatic payoff whatsoever. And okay, I know the Giles plot wasn't the main thing going on this season, but he's just about the only character I still have deep affection for, so I was paying attention and trying to figure out where we were going and to find out we were going exactly NOWHERE just. Pisses. Me. Off.

Hee. Highlander is on Telemundo right now. "¡Puede haber solamente uno!" That cheered me up a little.

Aw, crap. We're back to the blondie boring twins. Buffy's looking around for Spike, but gets into a fight with the demon that attacked them earlier instead. She dispatches it and kneels to the unconscious Spike, asking, "Are you still with us?" Sadly, yes. Spike starts to regain consciousness, and Buffy's making small talk when suddenly all the lights in place power up. Buffy looks up, startled, and on the catwalk above her, a troop of armed military men level their rifles at her. Ten or more guys in combat boots walking on a metal catwalk can now sneak up on the Slayer? Riiiight. Okay. The leader of the military guys explains, "Miss Summers. Agent Finn reported that you tried to contact him earlier today." And Buffy's all, "I knew it! Government conspiracy." The military leader-guy continues, "[Riley] indicated that you might be needing our assistance. We are to provide you anything you need to help [he gestures to Spike] 'assface' here." Bwa ! Assface. Off Buffy's questioning look, Leader Guy explains, "Those were his exact words, ma'am." Off-screen Riley Finn is my new favorite character.

Willren stomps the streets of Sunnydale, carrying her new pistol in her fist. It looks like it might be dawn, so either she's been walking around like that for a very long time, or this is the shortest night ever in Sunnydale.

Back at the Initiative, Leader Guy tells Buffy that his team has looked at Spike's chip, and it's "degraded." Funny, that's the way I feel watching this sad parody of the show I used to love. I used to believe these were real people -- well, not real people, because I'm eminently sane, but I believed that they could have been people I knew. But now? There's no interior life there. I don't get the sense that they think or feel really anything other than what the writers decide they should think or feel to get them from point A to point B, no matter how contradictory those thoughts and feelings are to the thoughts and feelings they had last week, last month, or last year. Can I get some random military guys to come work improbable technological mojo on my head? To get through the last nine episodes of the season, I think I'll need a chip that makes lame one-note characters funny, induces me to have a great interest in the shirtless sufferings of a character I care nothing about, and causes me to have entirely selective memory about plot points established in seasons. They have the technology. Can they make me a better viewer? Or at least a less discerning one? ["This fall on UPN: Bionic Sep! Wocka wocka wocka." -- Sars] Spike is lying on an examining table in the background. I guess we're supposed to think he's unconscious. Leader Guy tells Buffy that the chip will be fatal to Spike if left untended, and I cross Riley off my favorite character list for interfering in what seems to me to be an entirely natural and reasonable process of getting rid of Spike. My favorite character list is now very short. It reads: "Giles. When he's not being a prick." Oh, well. I'll just sum up the rest of this scene -- the chip can be repaired or removed, and the decision is up to Buffy. The not-suspense is not killing me. I'm hoping that she asked that Spike be revived briefly so that he could make the decision, just so we can avoid any and all future scenes of angst between these two. And I swear to God I just saw this whole "person makes an important decision for another person, then keeps it a secret and recriminations and regrets ensue" plot on a soap just last week. What? I didn't watch it on purpose -- TiVo recorded it for me and said I'd like it. Must have been assuming too much because of my hard-to-shake Dawson's Creek habit.

Amy and Kennedy are still in the UC Sunnydale classroom. Kennedy asks why Amy cast the spell on Willow, and Amy belts her across the room with some magic. Go Amy! I like your style. But instead of just stalking off in villainous victory like she should, Amy succumbs to the clichéd bad-guy's need to indulge in self-explanatory exposition. She claims to have cast a "penance malediction" on the Willster -- a type of hex. Kennedy wants to know why Willow took the form of Warren and why it happened after smoochies. Amy's very amused at this tidbit of gossip and says Kennedy must be a good kisser, but since I only remembering seeing close-ups of her forehead during the kiss, we'll never know. We'll also never know why Amy thinks it must have taken a good kiss to trigger the hex, since she doesn't explain anything more about it except that it "lets the victim's subconscious pick the form of their punishment." Recapper say wot? Excuse the fuck out of me, but is this not the same plot that I already saw once this season, back when it was called "Same Time, Same Place"? Willow's feelin' guilty? Check. Willow's subconscious punishes her by basically obliterating her existence? Check. I've almost gotten used to the fact that every episode this season seems to be a retelling of an episode of one of the earlier seasons, but I'm just not ready to start strip-mining Season Seven when it's barely half over. The Department of Retro would like to warn the writers that they are running out of past to recycle.

So, Willow is one fucked-up little monkey, and she obviously hasn't gotten a bit better in the past ten episodes. Now that the First Evil is on its annual two-week vacation to Bimini, couldn't Willow take a little time out to get some professional help? And before you guys jump all over that, witches gotta have day jobs too, and I see no reason why a few of them couldn't be in business as therapists with a secret sideline in supernatural trauma. Sunnydale would be the place for it. And wow, Kennedy, nice choice of women to make a sexual move on there. Hoo boy -- who wouldn't, at nineteen, want to start messing around with someone who HATES themselves so much they keep trying to VANISH? Kennedy might have good gaydar, but I think her suicidar is on the fritz. Or maybe she has some sort of matching personality deficiencies that lead her to be attracted to supremely self-negating people. Any way you look at it, it just can't be healthy. If Kennedy had a brain in her head, she'd want to stay far away from any romantic entanglements with Willow, because you know what? She's fucked up.

Anyway. Kennedy demands that Amy remove the hex; Amy jokingly agrees, and then firmly refuses. She says she didn't hex Willow because she hated her; rather, "it's about power." I wish I had the power to turn this boring crap off, dagnabbit. But since I don't, I have to sit through Amy's supposed explanation -- she wanted to punish Willow for having things so easy with her magical power, and for being loved by her friends even after she killed people and destroyed the world. I don't buy the first half of the explanation, but I guess I can give a reluctant "okay, whatever" to the second half. Amy claims she was just having a little "fun" and playing a game with Willow. Kennedy lockjaws some empty threats about stopping Amy, and gets zapped right out of the room for her troubles.

Suddenly, Kennedy is in the Summers's backyard and it's full daylight. So is Sunnydale getting the shortest night ever because Los Angeles is stuck in the longest one, or something? Ah, fanwanking. The refuge of the desperate and disoriented fan. With all the fanwanking and tortured retconning being performed on the boards about this episode, I really feel that the fans worked much harder on it than the writers did. Can we all get a producer's credit or something? Making sense of an hour of TV shouldn't take so much effort. ["Oh, I agree. My mom did some lengthy complaining about it too, and usually she's the one listening to me bitch about Buffy." -- Ace] Kennedy looks around the yard, and at that moment Willren as Willow storms in through the gate, just like Warren did in "Seeing Red." Willren reenacts Warren's dialogue to Buffy from last season and points her gun at Kennedy, who is a little baffled. Willren shouts, "This is what I am. I made it happen and I'll make it stop," which seems to indicate that she thinks killing Kennedy will break the hex. I'm not sure about that, though. I could be drunk. Wouldn't be the first time this season I had to resort to liquid refreshment to finish a recap. Kennedy wants to know what Willow made happen, which just indicates to me that she hasn't been in Sunnydale long enough to accept that most of the shit that happens there makes no sense whatsoever. Willren explains, "You were there, bitch. You saw it! I killed her!" Her? Him? Her? Him? Everybody's confused about who feels what for killing whom. Kennedy points out that Willren claimed she was present, and asks, "Who did you kill, Willow?" Willren, flashing back and forth between Willow and Warren, waves the gun around and calls Kennedy a slut for tricking her and making her forget. "Tara," deduces Kennedy, with a stump-stupid look on her face. No kidding, dimwit.

Willow regains control slightly and desperately says, "Kennedy. I can't hold on -- he's winning." Never mind what Kennedy says in reply, because it's really not important. Willren as Willow starts to cry and says she's being punished for letting Tara go, for kissing Kennedy and forgetting her dead, gay Tara. "She was with me. We should have been forever and I, I let her be dead. She's really dead…and I killed her." Aw, I'm feeling all sorry for Willow, but then she sinks to the ground and begs, "Please, baby, I'm so sorry!" Ech. I always hated it when Willow had to call Tara "baby" because it just never came out of Aly's mouth convincingly. Then there's some nice sound editing where Willow's begging voice blends into Warren's, but that's marred by the fact that Adam Busch's "crying face" looks a lot more like a "laughing hysterically" face. Kennedy kneels to Willren as Warren and tells her (him?) that she doesn't think Willow did anything wrong. She explains the Warrenness is "just magic" and says magic "is just like fairy tales." The fairy tales about doing too much crack? I'm not familiar with those. They must be a new urban breed of fairy tale. Jack and His Magic Crank Lab, Nodding-Off Beauty, Goldilocks and the Three Bongs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs She Services Because She's A Crack Ho, and so on. Kennedy leans in for a kiss, and Willren as Warren pulls back. "What are you doing," s/he asks. "Bringing you back to life," Kennedy whispers, and she and Willren as Warren mack. ["And I feel a resurgence of my secret crush on Adam Busch from last season. I've always been a sucker for a guy with sideburns and strong noses." -- Ace] The camera circles as they kiss, and when it's made a full revolution, Willow is kissing Kennedy. Kennedy pulls back from the kiss; seeing that Willow has returned, she smiles, "Hmm, I am good." Please do shut up. Willow touches her own face gratefully. Kennedy asks, "Are you all right?" and Willow glances up towards the window where the stray bullet entered to hit Tara. It's a nice subtle moment, and I'll be interested to see if it was in the script. Willow's not sure if she is all right, but lets Kennedy help her into the house. And I'm sure that was all supposed to be a message of hope and love and acceptance, but it just made Willow seem like a pathetic victim of her own feelings who can't help herself to get well, but instead needs to be saved by others over and over. Xander last season, Xander and Buffy earlier this season, and now Kennedy. If anyone should be out in the desert looking for a few answers, alone, it should be WILLOW.

By Sep

Hee. Highlander is on Telemundo right now. "¡Puede haber solamente uno!" That cheered me up a little.

By Sep

Willow regains control slightly and desperately says, "Kennedy. I can't hold on -- he's winning." Never mind what Kennedy says in reply, because it's really not important.

By Sep

Willren as Willow starts to cry and says she's being punished for letting Tara go, for kissing Kennedy and forgetting her dead, gay Tara. "She was with me. We should have been forever and I, I let her be dead. She's really dead…and I killed her." Aw, I'm feeling all sorry for Willow, but then she sinks to the ground and begs, "Please, baby, I'm so sorry!" Ech. I always hated it when Willow had to call Tara "baby" because it just never came out of Aly's mouth convincingly. Then there's some nice sound editing where Willow's begging voice blends into Warren's, but that's marred by the fact that Adam Busch's "crying face" looks a lot more like a "laughing hysterically" face. Kennedy kneels to Willren as Warren and tells her (him?) that she doesn't think Willow did anything wrong. She explains the Warrenness is "just magic" and says magic "is just like fairy tales." The fairy tales about doing too much crack? I'm not familiar with those. They must be a new urban breed of fairy tale. Jack and His Magic Crank Lab, Nodding-Off Beauty, Goldilocks and the Three Bongs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs She Services Because She's A Crack Ho, and so on. Kennedy leans in for a kiss, and Willren as Warren pulls back. "What are you doing," s/he asks. "Bringing you back to life," Kennedy whispers, and she and Willren as Warren mack. ["And I feel a resurgence of my secret crush on Adam Busch from last season. I've always been a sucker for a guy with sideburns and strong noses." -- Ace] The camera circles as they kiss, and when it's made a full revolution, Willow is kissing Kennedy. Kennedy pulls back from the kiss; seeing that Willow has returned, she smiles, "Hmm, I am good." Please do shut up. Willow touches her own face gratefully. Kennedy asks, "Are you all right?" and Willow glances up towards the window where the stray bullet entered to hit Tara. It's a nice subtle moment, and I'll be interested to see if it was in the script. Willow's not sure if she is all right, but lets Kennedy help her into the house. And I'm sure that was all supposed to be a message of hope and love and acceptance, but it just made Willow seem like a pathetic victim of her own feelings who can't help herself to get well, but instead needs to be saved by others over and over. Xander last season, Xander and Buffy earlier this season, and now Kennedy. If anyone should be out in the desert looking for a few answers, alone, it should be WILLOW.