First Date

Skipping quickly over the previouslys, we flashback to Giles kneeling to Robson in London. The Bringer swings his ax, and without looking back, Giles whips out his hand and grabs the shaft. Hee. I said "shaft." Anyway, Giles pulls the ax towards himself, punches the Bringer in the gut, whacks it in the face with the ax handle, and then chops off its head. Cool! Go Giles.

Giles, Buffy, Kennedy, Millie, and the new Junior Miss from China, Chao-Ahn, are patrolling in a cemetery. Giles explains his near escape from the Bringer's ax, fatuously rambling on about training, instinct, and reflexes. As if this show hasn't broken my heart enough already over the past few years, now they're making a buffoon of the only character I still care about. He's mid-brag about his "wary watchfulness" when he's suddenly tackled by Spike. Ah. I see. It's a running joke about Giles getting knocked to the ground or something. I think I just broke a rib laughing. Giles and Spike slap each other's hands away and both exclaim, "Hey!" While Giles is surprised that Spike's chip didn't fire, Spike is equally surprised that Giles is all corporeal and not the First Evil. Huh? Spike explains that Anya told him Giles was the First. Wow, either Spike's really out of the loop or Anya was playing a practical joke on him and Giles. Maybe Giles did some little thing to piss her off, like ignore their three-week anniversary, and this was her human attempt at a little vengeance. Giles had better hope he got her something nice for Valentine's Day, because I'd hate to see what else she has up her sleeve. Spike bitches that Giles was "supposed to be all go-throughable," and Giles dryly demands to know why, in that case, Spike tackled him. Well, nobody ever credited Spike with an excess of brains, and Spike admits as much. Giles demands to know why Spike could hit him without pain, and Buffy and Spike explain with some embarrassment about the Initiative and how they had to make a choice and decided to have the chip removed. Giles is really very surprised and not a little disgusted, and I'm just perplexed about how these people spend their days all cooped up in a house together if they're not actually ever talking about anything. Buffy and Spike came back from the Initiative and just never told anyone what happened there? And no one asked, despite the fact that Spike wasn't rolling around on the ground in pain any longer? Anyway, I think it's something Buffy was obligated to tell everyone in the house as soon as she could, and I'm not at all sorry to see her catch some crap from Giles. If she'd been up-front about it earlier, he wouldn't be so cranky about having been caught off his guard by the new development. The Junior Misses are very confused by this conversation about chips, and then Chao-Ahn pipes up (with handy subtitles), "I don't understand a word any of you are saying!" It's endemic this season, honey. Don't sweat it.

morning? Buffy's in her room, putting on earring. Giles leans in the doorway and says, "You know, this is very dangerous." Buffy pretends like she thinks he's referring to her earring: "Ah, you've just heard the horror stories. Wear hoops, they'll catch on something. Rip your lobe off. Lobes flying everywhere." It's a cute line and interestingly reminiscent of complaints on our boards about the impracticality of some (okay, most) of the costuming on this show, but I still just ended up hating Buffy for trying to deflect criticism before the conversation even begins. In response, Giles rolls not just his eyes but his whole head, and patiently explains that's not what he was talking about. Buffy knows he was talking about Spike's chip. Giles inquires as to what led her to make the decision to have it removed, and Buffy says it was instinct, like he was talking about the night before. "I made that up!" exclaims Giles, "I knew the Bringer was there because his shoes squeaked." What? Also, ASH's Giles accent slipped there quite noticeably. Sigh. Nobody on this set is even trying anymore. Where're my Patsy Cline CDs? I'm always inclined to Cline when a long-term relationship ends, and I think Giles and I might be breaking up soon. The chip removal makes Giles worry about the safety of the Junior Misses -- he lists dangers to them, to which Buffy adds, "And now the principal." She explains about seeing him in the school basement, holding a shovel and acting strange. "And now the principal"? "And NOW the principal"!? Buffy, you vapid moron! You saw the principal in the basement four episodes ago, during the same episode in which Giles arrived in town, and you're just now getting around to thinking about it? Dozy cow. She assures Giles that she's "looking into it" and he snides, "Oh, that sounds very responsible of you." Well, turn off the Patsy because I feel a spark of the old love coming back! Buffy claims that the chip didn't keep Spike from killing heaps o' people earlier this season, and Giles counters that it could well have been malfunctioning at the time. He thinks a shiny, brand-new chip would've been the best choice, what with all the many other (cough triggerandbloodlust cough) dangers Spike presents. Buffy "feel[s]" that Spike can "be a good man" and that his "soul" will "stop" him from "hurting people." She indicates that removing the chip will give Spike "the chance" to be all that he can be.

Buffy angrily starts throwing clothes into drawers, but Giles isn't finished with the conversation. He stands to her and confides, "Buffy, I want more for you." Oh, god, and I did too, but then she started seeing Marti and everything went downhill. Give up, Giles. Walk away. Dozy Buffy can have her platinum consort, and they can be mediocre, vapid, emotionally manipulative, and abusive freaks together, and you're best off washing your hands of both of them like I have. And I promise you, one day you'll wake up and not even care anymore. Not that I've gotten to that point yet, but I feel it right around the bend. Giles feels that Spike will bring Buffy a "future filled with pain" and that her feelings for him are "coloring [her] judgment." Buffy sighs and turns to him, exclaiming, "We haven't -- things have been different since he came back." Giles says the lack of rumpy-pumpy (well, not in those words) doesn't matter; it's the connection between them that's the problem. Buffy purses up her mean little mouth and snaps, "When Spike had that chip, it was like having him in a muzzle. It was wrong." Well, slap my ass and call me Sally! It was wrong? Was it wrong when it saved Willow's life, Buffy? Was it wrong when it saved that girl in the alley in Season Six? Was it wrong if it was the catalyst that led to all the changes in Spike? Oh, wait. I'd have to answer "yes" to that one. See, the problem with that line is that Buffy doesn't specify the time-frame in which it became wrong. I actually agree with her decision to have the chip removed, but if she means the chip has always been wrong, then she's an even more hateful assface than I ever realized. "You can't beat evil by doing evil. I know that." Well, you damn well should, what with all the time you spent doing evil last season, if you know what I mean. Buffy and her pissy ponytail stomp out of the room, and Giles ineffectually calls after her, "Yeah, well, so's your face!"

I can't even begin to articulate the contempt and anger that Xander's whole subplot and its humiliating ratings-grubbing stunt casting inspires in me, so I'm going to give these scenes the quickie treatment. Xander is watching a power-tool demonstration at a Home Depot-type place, and decides that he's inspired to become the biggest power tool in the joint. He spots a deformed girl -- I mean, "pop star Ashanti" over by a rope display, and decides to practice toolishness by walking over and offering up his rope-selecting services. Ashanti flirts. Xander acts like a freakin' moron. He finally asks her out for coffee. This scene is much shorter than I realized. The complete screaming pain it induced in me the first time around made me think it went on forever. And can I just complain about the direction and camera work in the past two scenes? In both of them, the majority of the conversation between the two characters was made up of spliced together close-ups of one person talking at a time. Close-up of Xander. Close-up of Pop Star Ashanti. Close-up of Xander. And so on. It really lends itself to the disturbing sensation that these people did not actually shoot the scene together, and are not, in fact, having a conversation at all. Some of SMG's close-ups were delivered right to the camera rather than to Giles. I can't understand why there are so few long shots of conversations on the show these days. Well, I understand in SMG's case, because I bet she thinks she's too good to actually act in the same room with the other actors on the show, but Nick Brendon and Ashanti? Was Ashanti pulling diva crap too?

Later, at Sunnydale High. Stealth-bitch Buffy walks into Principal Wood's office and shuts the door behind her. She looks through a few folders on his desk and then asks herself, "Now if I were a sign of being evil, where would I be?" Take a look into your selfish, shriveled, black heart, Buffy. She looks around the room and spots a large cupboard. Just as she's about to open it, Wood walks into the room. It being his office and all. Buffy pretends she was looking for office supplies, and Wood points out that the supply cabinet is in the outer office. Mmmmm, office supplies. We have a supply cupboard at my work, but I actually buy most of my supplies out of my own pocket so I can have all the purple stickie notes, black glitter pens, metallic push-pins, and colored paper clips I so desperately need to get through each tedious day. I even found colored staples at the Container Store last fall! Andum. That's probably enough revealing, geeky details about me. Buffy's about to leave and Wood smoothly asks her, "What are you doing tonight?" Buffy claims she'll be preparing for tomorrow's work, and Wood says, "No, really." Hee. He wants to take her out to dinner and then giggles nervously as he tries to make it clear that the invitation is not some sort of sexual harassment "do this to keep your job" thing. Buffy says she'd be happy accept, and walks out. He closes the door behind her and then reaches into the inside pocket of his suit. He draws out a dagger wrapped in a handkerchief and stained with fresh blood.. An electric piano plinks the theme "What Is Up With Principal Wood?" as he wipes off the dagger (heh, I totally expected him to lick it) and opens the cupboard Buffy almost opened earlier. Behind the cupboard doors is an innocuous whiteboard. However, that rolls upward to reveal an impressive weapon collection, hung on pins against a red background. We all knew Wood would have an impressive weaponcollection, didn't we? He hangs the dagger in its place. The electric violin of "No, Really. What's Up With Wood?" screeches us into commercials.

Buffy sits on the sofa at Casa Summers as Willow folds laundry. They're discussing possible motivations for Wood's invitation to dinner, and Buffy thinks that she might be getting a promotion. Willow cackles in disbelief, but then tries to take the suggestion seriously off Buffy's hurt look. Buffy's also worried that possibly the principal is evil and is taking her out to kill her. We can only hope. She's not sure that he's very suspicious, but thinks that being "on the Hellmouth, all day, every day" is like being "showered by evil, only from underneath." She refines her theory: "Like a bidet! A bidet of evil." This is the girl who went to that very high school for three years? Somehow she and Giles managed to survive the warm jets of evil gushing on their asses without turning (too) bad, so what's she nattering on about? I have to admit, I did laugh at that line before I thought about the improbability of it, because I do find bidets to be mysterious and possibly sinister objects. In 2001, I spent three weeks in Spain, and every single hotel room we stayed in had a bidet. I'm the type that runs into the hotel room and right off tries out the bed, opens all the cupboards, looks in all the drawers, fetches ice, reads the room service menu if there is one, and generally otherwise investigates all the amenities of the room. But in those three weeks of daily exposure, I never once tried one of those many, many bidets. There's no seat and they're really low, which means employing squatting muscles I just don't have, plus then you just end up all soppy with strained quads, right? A few years ago, I did have an involuntary bidet-like experience with one of those Japanese high-tech toilets, though. The padded, electronically warmed seat was nice, and the arm rests with many tiny buttons were intriguing. Wondering "What does this button do?" was a mistake, though, because the answer was "Spray your entire ass with hot, soapy water." And that was enough foreign toilet-experimentation for me. Although it was still infinitely preferable to sitting through this season of Buffy, I have to say.

Willow wants to know if Buffy is interested in Wood (heh -- coming from Willow, you could misinterprete that), and Buffy simpers that she's not sure. She describes Wood: "He's solid, he's smart, he's normal." I would guess there's no chance for him then, because her last lover doesn't possess any of those qualities. Buffy dithers about whether she's attracted to Wood because he's possibly "wicked," and Willow declines to comment on Buffy's obvious mental problems in that area. And then, adding to my obvious mental problems, Willow suggests that dating Wood would be a good way for Buffy to "move on," and Buffy snaps, "Why does everybody in this house think I'm still in love with Spike?" "Still"? When was Buffy ever in love with Spike? Is that what we were supposed to be seeing last season, because gack! It was hard enough sitting through that story of mutual abuse last season when I got the impression that it was supposed to be a Bad Idea. A retcon that abuse like that equals twoo wuv is just vomit-inducing. Does anyone involved with this show ever THINK anymore? Willow stutters that she meant Buffy should move on from her "super-self-reliance" and "let somebody get close." Because everyone should be an emotional weakling who requires an adoring partner to shore up their damaged self-image like Willow. Also because the stable, long-term closeness of loving your friends and family is entirely insignificant in the face of embroiling yourself in another overly dramatic sexual relationship that's almost certainly doomed to failure.

Speaking of being doomed to failure, Xander pops in the front door. "Guys, guess what happened!" he bursts out, and Willow responds, "Buffy got a date!" Xander's all confuzzled and stands there, patiently waiting to talk about himself, as Willow teases Buffy about Wood being a real youngster compared to her usual guys, and Buffy teases Willow back about "holding hands" with Kennedy under the dinner table. They finally remember Xander standing there, and he explains that Ashanti and he will be going to coffee. She's definitely a demon if she responded to his creepy come-ons at the hardware store. Any human woman would've walked very quickly to her car and driven away. Xander doesn't get to explain much, though, before Giles and Chao-Ahn also arrive, laden down with shopping bags full of clothing. Giles rants that he hates the mall because "the shop assistants are rude and the food court is sticky." Well, in my experience, a British person should know from rude shopkeepers, so the Sunnydale retailers must be pretty bad. Oddly addressing no one in the room, Xander delivers a little exposition about how "rough" it must be for Chao-Ahn, yanked away from home so suddenly and without an adequate wardrobe. He's been hanging out with Buffy and Willow way too long. Giles agrees (about the difficulty, not the need for many and varied outfits), and explains that he was worried about his Mandarin being rusty, but it turns out Chao-Ahn speaks Cantonese, which Giles knows not at all. Allow me to cede the floor to Sep, our little linguist:

Sep: Seventy percent of the total Chinese population speaks Mandarin. What we refer to as "Cantonese" is a group of Yue dialects (Yue is spoken by about five percent of total population). Mandarin is supposed to be the medium of instruction in schools, but this is difficult to implement in rural districts. So, Giles was correct in assuming that she would most likely speak Mandarin, and it sounds like Chao-Ahn probably came from a very rural area if she wasn't able to converse in Mandarin at least a little.

That, or Giles overestimated his Mandarin skills because he's a buffoon this season. Round of applause for Sep and her research skills, though! Giles smiles, saying they "muddled through," and claims, "As I suspected, ice cream is a universal language." Chao-Ahn looks around curiously and contributes through the pleasantly recappable medium of subtitles, "Like many from Asia, I am lactose intolerant. I'm very uncomfortable." Yes, well, you're not the only one, except it's the poor writing and not the milk that's giving me gas. Everybody smiles at her stupidly, and then Giles semi-shouts (because that always helps foreign people understand better) that they should put away her clothes. Sigh. My love for Giles is the dam that's holding back my true, enraged hatred for this show and everyone associated with it, and the way Giles acts with Chao-Ahn in this episode is giving the dam serious stress fractures. ME should beware breaking the dam! After Giles leaves, Buffy asks Willow to research Principal Wood for her; Willow offers to do the same for Xander's date, but he declines.

Andrew is in the kitchen, trying to shore up the running gag about the microwave. Give it up, already. You. Aren't. Funny. He's got his highlighter all ready to mark important passages in the instruction manual when Jonathan suddenly appears across the room. First Jonathan mocks Andrew for needing a manual to operate the microwave, and then, when Andrew attempts to fend it off with a crucifix, the First waves its hand back and forth through it, sneering, "Oooh. Aaaah. It burns as it ineffectually passes through me." Doesn't the First have that the wrong way 'round? Anyway, it then adds, "I'm not corporeal, remember?" Well, actually, the Scoobies don't seem to remember that from day to day, so, no. Tiny Evil Jonathan says he's there with a mission for Andrew, who declines because he's serving Buffy in order to redeem himself for killing the real Jonathan. And I'm just happy that after this season is over I will have my heathen life back and will have much more limited exposure to the words "redeem" and "redemption," because, quite frankly, they give me a rash. And every time I head over to the spa at TWoP Towers for the Soothing Salvation Salve, I find that Strega has used it all up. First Jonathan mocks Andrew for wanting to join the Scooby gang, and says he'll never get in because he's a murderer. Andrew confides, "Confidentially, a lot of her people are murderers. Uh, Anya, and Willow, and Spike." And hence my lack of affection for them. We should have known we were all in deep shit when Marti admitted that her vision of Buffy was "Party of Five with monsters." Party of Five was a terrible, depressing, whiny, loathsome show about terrible, depressing, whiny, loathsome people. And that's just what Buffy has turned into.

Tiny Evil Jonathan says that Andrew is the only person in the house who Buffy is making "seek redemption," which isn't fair. No, Buffy isn't making Andrew seek redemption -- she just doesn't give a fuck about him. It's very similar to her attitude to Anya, actually. Willow fares a little better, and Spike the best of all, because Buffy apparently has decided the moon rises out of his ass or something. Tiny Evil Jonathan advertises the upcoming big fight between ineffectual, incorporeal, holiday-taking Evil and the forces of Good that's supposed to have us all on the edges of our seats until May sweeps, and advises Andrew to choose the winning side. First Jonathan reveals that he wants Andrew to "hurt the girls." But none of the ones in the credits. Because then we might care. Nope, Andrew's just supposed to kill the mostly-invisible-for-the-past-few-episodes Slayers in training. "The girls must die," explains the First over Andrew's protests, and I have to say, I'm with it on that. Go evil, choose evil! Tiny Evil Jonathan wants Andrew to fetch Willow's gun for some shootin'.

Buffy and Anya are in the bathroom. Anya scrubs away at Buffy's shirt and says, "I don't think it's really a date." Blather about Buffy's shirt, which Anya decides she can't fix. Then Anya explains she was actually talking about Xander's upcoming humiliation. She thinks it's a ploy to make her jealous, and she's very upset about it. Emotional discussions that aren't about Spike make Buffy uncomfortable, so she leaves.

Oh, good choice, because in the hallway she runs into Spike, who is not bothered at all by the bright sunlight streaming through the windows at both ends of the hall, because it's just too inconvenient for the writers to remember that he's a vampire, because they're all too busy swooning over his cheekbones and doodling "Spike + Buffy" into the memo pads on their Blackberries. Or possibly, the rules only apply if you're a nameless hench-vamp. If you're a vamp in the credits, you can walk down main street at high noon with a sheer pink parasol and be just fine. Vamps in the credits have special privileges in their contracts, like "indirect sunlight okay" and "vamp make-up only during sweeps." Spike, who seems to have been sneaking tranquilizers out of the medicine cabinet, drones that he's all fine and dandy and noble about Buffy going out with another man. She advises him to try dating too, as if that's really feasible for a freakin' vampire in his condition. Bitch. Buffy leaves to get dressed. Spike broods, or enjoys his downer-induced coma. One or the other. Vampire with a soul nobly suffers and tells his Slayer ex-girlfriend to be happy dating a human guys? WOW! I have never seen a plot like that before! This is groundbreaking storytelling we're witnessing here. I'm so glad ME decided to take Buffy in this new direction -- we're sure to learn so much about her character with this novel estranged, besouled vampire lover storyline. Yes, that was sarcasm. Poor Season Three Spike would be so embarrassed to know he'd end up with Angel's sloppy seconds, in terms of both partner and plot.

Xander at the Espresso Pump. He fiddles with his cup and then is excited when Pop Star Ashanti shows up. He brags about his hardcore coffee drink, which she grabs and sips and reveals to be "hot cocoa." I'd be really repulsed by someone I barely knew drinking out of my mug without permission. Plus, ugh. Right. I've got it. Xander is an unmanly buffoon. Must this torture continue?

Ace: Why Ashanti anyway?
Sep: Yeah, no kidding! Who would you have rather seen?
Ace: Um, I dunno. In the realm of singers, maybe --Whitney Houston?
Sep: What? You're crazy. Why?
Ace: Because she's one mean-looking lady and I really believe she could fuck your shit up. I think Whitney Houston would be a bad-ass Slayer.
Sep: Bwa! "Eye-eeye will always stake you-ooooo-uuu!"

Dawn, Millie, and Willow research Principal Wood. Kennedy hangs over Willow's shoulder, sniffing her hair or something. They've discovered that Wood seems to have no record of existence at all before he arrived in Sunnydale to work at the school. "Well, that's suspicious," says Kennedy, proving she has great intellect as well as, umwell, I'm sure she has some positive virtues. Oh, right! She's really into Willow, and that's about all Willow requires from a partner.

Anya flounces into the room with a stack of drawings and Giles right on her heels, protesting, "Anya, calm down. They're educational!" Aw, he brought her his little drawings so she'd be all proud of him and look what happened. Willow flips quickly though the drawings, which feature stick figure vampires, Bringers, and Slayers, plus tons of red-ink blood and violence. In a tone only an exasperated girlfriend could muster, Anya bitches, "Giles made them for Chao-Ahn and now she's locked herself in the bathroom." Kennedy and Willow look at Giles in horror, and as he tries to explain the he needed to educate Chao-Ahn about the seriousness of their situation, Willow gasps, "You showed her these?" "Holy crap!" exclaims Dawn, who's just gotten hold of the pictures. She holds up one of the Turok-Han, which has apparently just broken a girl in half and dropped her in a pool of blood. Giles admits that he might need to rethink his approach, and then gets all shocked to hear that Buffy is going on a date. Anya complains that everyone is going on a date but her. Obviously, she wants her snuggles with Giles out in the open and is fearing a retread of the time Xander wouldn't admit that he was engaged to her. I can just hear her complaining to Giles that taking her to scummy alleys and windy, dark dimensions to talk to plastic eyeballs don't count as proper dates. Giles is exasperated, and bitches about the gang thinking about their social lives when they should be gearing up to fight the "original, primal" evil. Stop being fooled by the First Evil packaging, Giles. The box is empty! Contents haven't just settled on shipping; they've entirely disappeared. Andrew lurks around the corner while Giles rants.

Buffy and Wood walk down a dark alley. Wood must've studied dating techniques with Giles! Buffy is wearing an entirely rational outfit of leather jacket and jeans, plus some black lace curtain she wrapped around her waist. Did she have a fight with a goth chick's interior decorating scheme on her way to meeting the principal? Wood promises that they are on their way to a little-known delicious restaurant just around the corner. Whoops -- vamp attack! Has Principal Wood betrayed Buffy? Buffy fights and successfully dusts a number of vampires, and we can't quite see what the principal is up to. Buffy finishes off her opponents and yells at Wood for setting her up when she realizes that he too is under attack. Well, that could be a ruse to gain your trust, Buffy. Wood does a little kung-fu fighting and stakes his two attackers as Buffy looks on, surprised. He comes over to help her up, stowing his stake in a little holster at his back. "I guess we should talk," admits Wood.

Buffy gazes at Wood in shock, but he's all cool and collected, telling her that the restaurant is just a few steps away. She looks at him as if to say, "Did you see me in that camisole earlier? You think I'm going to ingest food?" Either that or she's still surprised that, despite collecting her merry little band of evil fighters over the years, encountering a governmentally-funded secret ops unit that did the same, and knowing about Angel's group in L.A., there are still normal people who are capable and willing to fight evil in Sunnydale. Twit.

Coffee shop. The Date of Humiliation continues. "And you still hafta like see her every day?" inquires Ashanti. Ah, yes. No dating strategy is more effective than whinging to your new flame about your old one. No wonder Xander always ends up nearly eaten or tortured on a big wheel thing. Maybe it's his own freakin' fault for being such a crap date. Ashanti is glad that Anya and Xander didn't marry each other, if only because things turned out well for her. Xander has a moment of clarity as he realizes, "I should have taken you on a nicer date than this." Ashanti coyly suggests that she has something "fun" in mind. Poor Xander.

At the restaurant, Buffy and Wood scrutinize the menu. "This place is nice," offers Buffy. She quickly adds, "How the hell did you do that?" in a very "how the hell did you do that?" tone. Wood chuckles and says that he's "had a little practice." "So you're freelance," surmises Buffy. Buffy is gazing across the table at Wood with huge awestruck eyes, which I kinda don't get considering that over the years she's seen many, many civilians successfully take on vamps. Buffy's questions establish that Wood was aware of her status as the Slayer, and their mutual presence at SHS is not in any way random. Wood says with striking conviction that they're "headed for something big, really big and I need to be here when it happens. I wanna help." What does Buffy get out of this moving message? A fear that he "didn't hire [her] for [her] counseling skills." Wood's response, a hearty chuckle, endears me to him forever. "They'revaluable too," he finishes lamely. Buffy wants to know why Wood didn't come clean with all of this information a little earlier. He replies that he wasn't sure if he was ready to "jump into this fight." Hmm. Sounds suspicious. He's so adamant about needing to be in Sunnydale when everything goes down, but he wasn't sure that he was ready to take part in the fight? I'm catching a faint whiff of fish here.

Buffy's not done with the interrogation, though. "How do you know about Slayers?" Well, it's simple. His mother was a Slayer, and his father smelt of elderberries. Buffy is floored because, well, slaying vamps is a tough enough gig already, and adding a tiny, mewling infant that is completely dependent on you to the mix can't improve things. However, at least when the kid won't get to sleep in the middle of the night and is howling his fool head off, you can go out and kill something to work off a bit of stress. Wood doesn't remember much of dear old Mum, though, because she died when he was four. She was killed. By a VAMPIRE! Whoa. Never saw that one coming. Except for the whole expectation I have that most Slayers would die that way. For those who haven't seen the episode, it's very clear at this point that Wood's mother is the Slayer Spike killed on the subway in New York City in the 1970s, but I don't think Buffy makes the connection. If she bothered at all to do the math, I think she would've, but that might take brain power away from her musings on The Importance Of Being Spike. Wood explains that he "went through this whole avenging son phase" a while back, but he never located the vamp who did the deed. I'll be interested to see how they have Wood figure out that Spike is that vamp. I mean, that subway train we saw during "Fool For Love" looked pretty deserted, and it's not likely that details of the murder scene were written up in either The Post or The Watcher's Weekly. Okay. Exposition over. Except for one more little tidbit about Wood not inheriting any Slayer powers. All the secret agenda items having been covered, Buffy and Wood settle in for the date part of their date.

Casa Summers. "So did you find the gun?" asks Tiny Evil Jonathan of Andrew. He did, in Buffy's underwear drawer. Apparently, "she has nice things." Andrew knows because he spent the last two hours trying them all on. Tiny Evil Jonathan wants to see the gun. Andrew opens the paper bag and shows off the gun. Tiny Evil Jonathan recommends trapping all the Junior Misses in the basement to improve spazzy Andrew's chances of hitting as many of them as possible. Andrew not-so-casually asks for an update on why Tiny Evil Jonathan wants all the girls dead, and we get reminded that it's because without them, the Slayer line cannot continue. Thanks for the reminder! Hey, is the First incorporeal? Get out! And did you hear that Buffy used Spike? Andrew is curious as to why Spike isn't being deployed for this maneuver, and Tiny Evil Jonathan claims that it isn't Spike's time. "Say," says Andrew about as nonchalantly as he can muster, meaning not at ALL nonchalantly, "do you have any weaknesses I should know about if I'm going to work for you, like kryptonite or allergies?" Tiny Evil Jonathan pretends to be unsure of what Andrew is getting at, so Andrew asks if it is made up of the evil impulses of humans, so that if everyone were to become simultaneously unconscious, it would simply dissipate. If I at all cared at this point, I might try to find out what comic book that's from. But I don't, so I won't. Andrew rambles on and on, and Tiny Evil Jonathan becomes quite suspicious. "Are you wearing a wire?" Cut to the basement, and Willow grabs off the headphones she's wearing, seemingly in pain. Dawn, who is sitting at the table (they have a table in the basement?) along with Kennedy and Millie, wants to know what's up.

Back upstairs, Tiny Evil Jonathan advances on Andrew, menacing, "Do you think you can trick The First? Do you think you can squirm free? I hold you, Andrew, I made you do this." Tiny Evil Jonathan touches its chest and then reaches its palms toward Andrew, and they're covered with blood. "Jonathan suffered. He was your friend and he trusted you and now he spends eternity in pain because of what you did," says Tiny Evil Jonathan sadly. It then begins to decompose, probably emulating Tiny Dead But Good Jonathan's current physical state, and declares that Andrew has to keep going down the path of evil that he's already set his feet upon. Andrew tells him, "You're trying to get me to shoot innocent girls but I won't do it. I'm gay now." Er, "good now." Whatever. My version is more plausible. Also? Stop the redemption! I wanna get off. Andrew continues, "When the fight is over, I'm gonna pay for killing Jonathan." Tiny Evil Jonathan tells him that he's going to pay for a lot more than that, because he pissed off the biggest, baddest evil in all the universe. Which is now going to talk everyone to death. Cut down to the basement. As Willow hears, "You think this was smart?" the First's voice changes. Kennedy removes her headphones, pointing out that everyone in the basement can clearly hear Tiny Evil Jonathan. Then Tiny Evil Jonathan appears in the basement wearing a half-rotted corpse. "So many dead girls. There'll be so many," he threatens before blipping out. Yawn. Y'know, although this episode isn't anywhere near what I would call good, it didn't actively hurt me to watch it. However, it did make it really, really obvious that this show is being made in the spare seconds left between really, really long pizza and doobie runs.

Suddenly Willow gets a text message. It's from Xander, and it's in code, but Willow can't remember if it's the code for "I just got lucky -- don't call me for a while" or "My date's a demon who's trying to kill me." Wolf, one of our brilliantly funny posters, postulated that Xander's ambiguous message must have been I M FCKED. More importantly, how did Xander send this message? With his penis? This episode hangs together like it's made of nothing more than wet string and chewing gum. In response to the numerous queries about exactly how Xander managed to message Willow despite being bound to a giant wheel, Jane Espenson, the writer for this episode, commented that there was probably a point after Ashanti had revealed her evil intentions but before Xander was tied up that he became conscious in Ashanti's car and managed to message Willow. Oh. Thanks for clearing that up. Y'know, when the plot goes from C to X, the viewers actually need to see a few of the letters in between. I find the comment by Jane very telling, for two reasons: (1) even the writers have been reduced to fanwanking, and (2) the surprise expressed by Jane that the viewers thought this was a plot hole means that there is NOBODY looking at these scripts to make sure that they even make sense. The gang agrees that it's statistically far more likely that Xander is getting eating alive than getting lucky. Spike again says that he wants to go get Buffy, but Willow again says she'll call her. Ooops -- Buffy's left-behind phone rings from the chair to Willow. "I'll go get Buffy," offers Spike for the third time. "I can probably still track her scent," he adds in an obvious voice-over as he leaves. It's that vanilla shower gel that stinks up the town, I guess. And no, that's not a wound on Spike's back. It's a red circular logo (or design) on his shirt.

"Oh my god," gushes Buffy, "that might be the best thing I've ever had in my mouth." Snerk. Poor Spike. Wood feeds Buffy another bite of dessert, but as she's taking a bite, she tilts her head to see Spike looming over the table. "It's Xander," says Spike.

Xander, meanwhile, is trying desperately to talk Ashanti out of killing him. He argues that she hasn't thought her plan through completely. "The seal opens, and a vicious feral vampire creature comes out," she retorts. So how does this thing work exactly? You can use human blood (except for Jonathan's, for reasons I have never understood ["I believe the reason given was that there wasn't enough, because he's little" -- Sars]) or pig blood, and I'm assuming that if you get really desperate you can just string the Kool-Aid guy up and have him bleed cherry Kool-Aid all over the seal. Then once the blood hits the seal, a super-powerful ur-vampire pops out, kinda like an evil Pez dispenser? And anyone can do it? Whatever. Ashanti wants her own little pet, because "the end is coming" and it's time for all creatures to align themselves with either good or evil. She picks up a ritual knife and thrusts it deep into Xander's belly. Blood drips down the blade and runs onto the seal. If that was Nicky's stomach in the close-up, I'd like to send him a thank you for not waxing off his cute belly fur. I was going to write a whole section here about the extreme trauma I suffered last night by agreeing to attend a bachelorette party at a male "exotic" "dance" club, but I think I'll spare you the pain. Let's just say that nearly naked (but wearing knee-pads and comfy Reeboks -- how come lady strippers don't get these perks?) guys with semi-muscular chests and goose-pimply buttocks flailing their units arhythmically don't do much for me. Oh, and I'm baffled by "exotic" "dance" routines apparently based on the theme "Drunken Cholo." "Low Rider" by War has been ruined forever for me. Oh, sorry. I guess I didn't spare y'all my pain after all. But it did distract me from my intended rant about how this humiliating subplot for Xander is a complete dead end in terms of continuing plot. They just whipped up this little scenario to shoehorn Ashanti into the show, and all of Xander's butt-monkeyness leads tonothing. It might have been nice to see him make a key discovery or have a heroic moment to ameliorate the mortification.