Previously: The Watchers Council came to town and fucked with Buffy, but then she BAMFed out and they yielded to her excellence. Also, we learned that Glory isn’t a demon but a god. So, that’s a thing.
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Blood Ties
Sweeney: The episode begins at The Magic Box, mid-Scooby powwow. It’s that time of year again! Time for another traumatically bad Buffy Birthday! Willow is being the best friend and fully on Team Party, but Buffy’s all, “Yeah, but, remember how my birthday falls mid-season, when things start to get really interesting with the Big Bad?” I’m paraphrasing.
Lorraine: A lot. Because no one has learned that lesson yet, and still have faith in things like cake and presents.
K: Oh, Scoobies. You so silly. Also, if I were Buffy, I’d just bring up the time my birthday involved The Judge and some magic vagina soul sucking. Or perhaps not. Now that I’ve written that, it sounds really gross.
Sweeney: As long as you’re aware.
Xander’s freaking out about the fact that Glory is a God, and Anya +1’s the general terror, but Willow’s trying to stay optimistic. Giles informs us that the Council found some backstory for us: Glory and two other hell gods ruled over a majorly bad demon dimension. Tara asks if there’s more than one, on behalf of anyone who joined the show late, and Anya fills in that there are thousands of them.
Somehow Glory found a way into their dimension, though they have no idea how. All they have is some vague references to destruction. Apparently being in human form is limiting her powers, and also driving her insane, which is why she’s been sucking the sanity out of half the population of Sunnydale. People raised on a Hellmouth probably have remarkable mental fortitude to have not lost their fucking minds sooner, so I imagine it’s good pickings.
Lor: On the other hand, all these people STILL living in Sunnydale might be crazy to begin with.
K: Both incredibly valid points.
Sweeney: Everyone in the gang offers to make with the magicy or researchy help, but Xander points out that they should probably start by trying to find this “key thing” that Glory is after and although Buffy tries to shut that down, everyone agrees. She admits that she and Giles know where it is, and Willow is seriously hurt that Buffy never said anything. Buffy apologizes and then relents, deciding that if they’re going to be risking their lives (again, as usual) they should know. “There’s something that you need to know about Dawn,” she says before we cut away.
K: Willow’s hurt face should be a big fat warning sign to Buffy that keeping things from people never ends well. AND YET…
Sweeney: The cut away takes us to The Knights of Byzantium chanting over a fire about severing the key, as it is the link, and severing it is the will of God. Some of Glory’s Flattery Demons appear, saying that the knights’ faith is misplaced. The Knights quickly kill all but one, and as one of the knights soliloquizes to the remaining Flattery Demon about testing his faith, Glory appears, saying that you shouldn’t send minions to do a god’s work. She gets her murder on. Roll credits.
Out in the streets of Sunnydale, Willow and Tara are laying down magic dust around the perimeter of The Magic Box. Dawn appears and they explain that the spell is basically a demonic alarm system. I am a little distracted by how outside shots of “downtown” Sunnydale always look and feel so much like a set. Meaning: it’s one of the weaker sets on the show.
K: YES. I was also a little confused about why people weren’t all “Hey, what the fuck are you doing in the middle of the street? Magic? OH. Excuse me while I judgey stare.”, because not even remotely subtle.
Sweeney: They say they’re trying to protect the key, adding that they did this spell at the Summers house. Dawn wants to help, and Willow awkwards that Buffy wouldn’t like her getting involved in the dark arts. Blaming this on Buffy, though plausible, is totes not a good best friend move, Willow. Dawn sulks off and Tara asks Willow how it’s possible that she’s not real. “She’s real, she’s just…new,” replies Willow.
Lor: Guys, when keeping a secret, at least wait until you hear the door shut behind you to start the whispers.
Sweeney: Inside, Xander and Anya continue the pattern of being awkward with Dawn, though Anya’s penchant for brutal honesty means she is, unsurprisingly, the actual worst at lying about what she knows. Granted, “You make a very pretty little girl!” is probably my favorite line in the string of awkward interactions.
Xander pulls Anya away, leaving Dawn to talk to Buffy and Giles.
Lor: A super dangerous point of view for Dawn to have, that could’ve been combated with any of the following information: she’s a god, she makes people crazy, she throws me around like a rag doll, she’s indestructible. None of that is key related. USE YOUR WORDS, B.
Sweeney: A general note for B all the time always, but especially in this episode
This declaration of not-so-tough-ness segue magics us to Glory torturing one of the knights, whom she “spared” for this purpose. It’s the same knight that Buffy let walk because that’s how TV works. (L: The Knight with the SAG card…) Glory’s trying to get him to tell her where they key is but he doesn’t know and wouldn’t tell her anyway. Finally, rather than killing him, Glory sucks out his sanity.
At the Summers’ home, Buffy is opening birthday presents. Tara and Willow got her a pretty dress and Anya gushes about wishing it was hers, but puts it down and says everyone else was thinking it. ADORABLE GILES MOMENT, in which he insists that he certainly wasn’t, before adding, to Xander, that he already has one at home. Precious.
K: BEST. Also, I feel like this would have been a perfect moment to have them be all “Okay, Anya. Remember how you made up a fake date of birth for the Council last episode? We’ll throw you a fake birthday party when it comes around. Mmmkay??” You know?
Sweeney: Dawn gives Buffy her present – it’s a photo of the two of them on the beach in a picture frame covered in shells. It’s from visiting their dad in San Diego, and Dawn made it. Everyone gets super feelsy about the fake memory. Buffy thanks her and gives her a big sisterly hug filled with all the emotions.
In the kitchen, Buffy, Giles, and Joyce are once again inappropriately discussing Dawn’s magic existence in the house (K: GAAAH!!! This made me so freaking Hulk smash-y), and Dawn once again overhears. Buffy sends her scurrying back into the living room, and Dawn has finally had it with people being weird around her. This is the primary reason why Buffy kept the secret from the Scoobies, and it makes sense. That said, since she knew this would happen (she told Giles as much when she first found out) it was insanely stupid of her to not make an attempt to tell Dawn the truth once the rest of the gang knew.
Anyway, Buffy, Joyce, and Giles return and nobody will answer Dawn’s question about the weirdness, and she storms off so that she can’t be “accidentally exposed to, like, words.” Later, we see her climbing out of her bedroom. On her escape she runs into Spike and I flail a little. I don’t ship Dawn and Spike by any means, but I adore the relationship that they develop in S6. This scene is delightful, and best summarized with this gifset:
K: I flailed too, Sweeney. Because the Dawn-Spike friendship is one of my favourites.
Sweeney: At The Magic Box, Spike does the actual breaking in, and brags about his criminal skillz, because LOL, obviously. He’s a little perplexed to learn that they did all this for a book. She rummages around behind the counter for the book Giles hastily hid from her earlier in the day. She reads his notes about this key – including that those outside reality are the only ones who can see its true nature. Spike clarifies that this could include “run of the mill lunatics,” so that Dawn can have an unsettling flashback to the crazies being extra crazy to her. She reads on about necromanced animal detection, which gives her a snake attack flashback. With that, she stops reading.
Spike takes the book and reads on, about the monks harnessing energy, and being certain the Slayer would protect the key if they sent it to her in the form of a sister. We get a close up of Dawn’s face reacting. Spike’s all, “Huh. I guess that’s you, niblet.”
K: NIBLET!!! One of the reasons the Dawn-Spike friendship is one of my favourites is all the nicknames he has for her. The first appearance of these caused flailing.
Sweeney: Very flail-worthy.
Back in the Summers living room, Buffy is discussing the lack of card or communication of any sort from Riley with Willow and Tara. This is interrupted when Tara sees Dawn enter the room behind Buffy, holding a large knife, with her wrists covered in blood. “Oh my god.”
“Is this blood?” Dawn asks. Joyce appears as well, and everyone rushes to Dawn to ask her what she’s done. “It can’t be me. I’m not a key. I’m not a thing.” she says. “What am I? Am I real? Am I anything?” Joyce hugs her and we cut to Buffy showing everyone out.
Lor: Haunting. Poor Dawn. And it was kind of a sucker punch to the feels for me when Buffy tells Giles that dealing with Dawn is a “family thing.” Blood ties are blood ties.
K: Not only that, but if you take the Key thing out of the equation, Dawn is still a 14 year old girl, and those kind of questions are not uncommon at the dreaded age of 14.
Sweeney: This whole bit was wonderfully done and I had too many feelings t pause mid-post, but YES. It’s haunting and there are so many feels to go around here.
In Dawn’s room, she asks Buffy why she didn’t tell her. Joyce says that they thought it would be best if they waited until she was older. (We often talk about the real world parallels; when we discussed this in the comments a few episodes ago, adoption was the common example and this scene seems to support that.) Dawn asks how old she is, when the monks made her, and struggles about as much as you’d expect with the idea that she’s only be alive for six months.
K: Having been on the receiving end of a “You have a half-brother who was adopted out. SURPRISE!!” speech at the age of 18, allow me to say that OLDER IS NOT BETTER.
Sweeney: Buffy tries to tell her that her and Joyce’s feelings are real, regardless of where the memories came from. Dawn says she only cares because protecting the key is a job. Buffy says she cares because her sister is cutting herself. Dawn screams at them both to get out. Guys, my heart is so shattered right now. I have so many things to say, but I’m going to cool it until the end.
The next day at The Magic Box, Buffy’s ordering everyone into research mode. Xander adds something about finding out why Glory’s so eager to get her hands on the key, but Buffy clarifies that this isn’t even about Glory, but about Dawn and her right to know about where she came from. Giles wonders how Dawn got in there, just as Anya conveniently discovers that an urn has been used as an ash tray.
This segue magics us to another round of Buffy bursting into Spike’s TARDIS Crypt to yell at him some more. He’s painting his nails when she arrives, which I find adorable and hilarious. (L: +1) (K: + ALL THE NUMBERS) She says that Dawn shouldn’t have found out like this, and blaming this on him is like 16 kinds of stupid and Spike says as much, only not quite like that. He says he knew nothing and only went along to protect her, and adds that if Buffy had been more honest, she “wouldn’t be trying to make [herself] feel better with a round of Kick The Spike.”
With that, she storms off and we cut to the Summers’ home. Joyce tries to tell Dawn it’s time for school. Dawn isn’t planning on going because blobs of energy doesn’t need an education. The adoption analogy continues as Dawn tells Joyce that she can’t tell her what to do, as she isn’t her mother. Dawn changes her mind and grabs her stuff because she’d rather be at school.
At Sunnydale hospital, Ben discovers the newly crazied knight, just as the minion whose face he recently beat in appears. Face Smashed Minion says that the knights are only going to keep coming and he should really just help Glory out because their fates are linked. He starts to threaten on Glory’s behalf, but Ben cuts him off and calls bullshit, because she can’t touch him. Having dispensed sufficient cryptic information for the audience, Ben adds a counter-threat for Face Smashed Minion and exits.
K: UGH. BEN.
Sweeney: We cut to Dawn, reading and clutching her diary in bed. Downstairs, Joyce is lamenting that she’s sitting up there alone. Buffy says that she just needs time. Joyce tells her that she was suspended from school for using language she’s never used before. Dawn creeps into the hall just in time to hear the worst possible part of this conversation, because that’s how TV works. “She probably feels like she can say or do anything right now. She’s not real. We’re not her family. We don’t even know what she is.”
Dawn storms back into her room and begins tearing it to shreds, ripping posters off the wall and knocking things over. Then cries over her diaries before ripping those to shreds and tossing them in the trash.
Downstairs, we get the important rest-of-the-conversation-that-Dawn-missed, in which Buffy clarifies that she’s saying that this is just probably how Dawn feels.
Lor: UGH, GOD, REALLY? How groan worthy. (1) – SHE’S STILL IN THE EFFING HOUSE, YOU TWO. JESUS. (2) – That was so clunky. Anyone else would’ve lead with, “Dawn probably feels like…” and not tacked that on at the end. Disapprove.
K: I hate this scene SO FREAKING MUCH. I mean, I get that you have to talk about it. But don’t do it when she’s in the house, ESPECIALLY when she uses her “I used to be Harriet the Spy” skills to eavesdrop ALL THE FUCKING TIME and you’re perfectly aware of it.
Sweeney: +1 to the general rage, though mine is directed mostly at Buffy/the writers. It’s not inconceivable that they would discuss their daughter/sister while she is in the house. That’s a thing that everyone ever does. This is all pretty much on Buffy/the writers for that bullshit of having her end the line with that clarification, rather than start it that way. Joyce, for her part, good parents that it’s their job to show her how untrue this is, because it’s their job to show her that she’s still a loved member of this family.
Buffy sticks to her hyper-rational solution about finding answers. She’s correct, though excessively glib about what Joyce is saying, when she snarks that they can’t fix this with a hug and a bowl of soup. “What she needs is her sister, not the slayer.” An alarm goes off and Buffy thinks it’s Willow’s spell, but it is the fire alarm. Upstairs, they find the trash can in flames and Dawn’s escape window wide open.
Buffy fills the Scoobies (including Spike!) in on this turn of events at The Magic Box. Pause to inform you that she’s wearing a ridiculous jacket that has a fur collar and is about four sizes too large for her. Willow has an awkward moment in which she remembers how long Dawn has been keeping her diaries. She hesitates and Buffy fills in: “Since she was 7. I remember too.” Buffy breaks them up into teams and parts of town. Lest I cheat any of you out of a flail moment, she assigns Spike to go with her.
We see Dawn hanging out at the playground, having a feels flashback to a fake memory of her and Buffy. Xander and Giles are wandering through an alley, discussing Dawn’s thousand-year-old-ball-of-energy status. (L: Loudly. In public.) Xander gloats that the epic ball of energy has a crush on him, because some guys are just cooler. Giles gives him perfect, “I CAN’T EVEN,” face and walks away.
Later, Spike and Buffy are at the playground and she’s calling Dawn’s name. Spike points out the stupidity of that idea, given that Dawn ran away from Buffy in the first place. Buffy than relents that Spike was right and this is her fault. Spike then says that she probably would have run off anyway, due to being a 14-year-old hormone bomb. Then he assures Buffy that she’ll find her right in the nick of time, because that’s what hero types do.
K: I love that Spike does this – points out the bleeding obvious, the stuff that Buffy’s denying to everyone else. He makes her acknowledge what’s really happening, and then he gets all “AND I HAVE FAITH IN YOUR ABILITY TO FIX IT.”
Sweeney: Out in the street, Dawn watches an ambulance go past, which inspires her to go to the hospital because of reasons. She sneaks into the psych ward, where all the crazies strapped to their beds start chanting that, “It’s here.” She asks them all to tell her what she is, and the Now Crazied Knight shouts, “The Key!” and she asks him a bunch of questions about her. He starts his “Key is the link / Must be severed / Will of God” chanting, and the general patient mumbling gets louder. She runs for the door, just as Ben is walking by.
We cut to him giving her hot chocolate in their break room. She starts to remember a story about Buffy and mashmallows, but stops short at the realization that it’s a fake memory. Ben tries to figure out why she’s there, and concludes that Dawn must have gotten into a fight with Buffy. He says he gets it because he also has a sister that he often wishes didn’t exist. INTERESTING.
Lor: Thank you for humoring the newbie. BECAUSE YEAH IT IS.
Sweeney: “It’s not Buffy. It’s me. I’m not real,” says Dawn. Ben tries to console her, but she cuts him off and explains the reason he doesn’t get it. Ben freaks the fuck out at the mention of monks and Glory, and he’s all, “Oh shit – you’re the key!” He tries to tell her to run because Glory knows and is coming and he doesn’t know how she knows, but she always does. Dawn is not heeding his panicked order to GTFO. As he shouts, “She’s here!” he TURNS. INTO. GLORY. I’m going to pause here for Lor to have her “DAFUQ?” moment.
Lor:
K: A+ gif usage, Lor. I can assure you that the first time I watched season 5, I had exactly the same reaction. I’m sure all of us did.
Sweeney: After a Not Commercial Break, Glory is changing into a red satin dress she keeps in Ben’s locker. (K: And apparently none of Ben’s colleagues thinks that’s weird?) Dawn says she is Ben. “It’s an eensy more complicated than that. Family always is, isn’t it?” They banter some, and we conclude that Glory has no knowledge or recollection of Dawn’s conversation with Ben because they aren’t the same person. Glory’s interrupted by a security guard so she snaps his neck, before suggesting they go somewhere else to have a long, uninterrupted chat.
The Scoobies meet back up in the cemetery and conclude that nobody knows where she is. Buffy conveniently decides that they should now all go to check the hospital together. (L: More eyerolls.)
This cuts us to Glory, asking Dawn if she knows where her sister hid it. Dawn is terrified, but, to her credit, cleverly tells Glory that she’s not sure and asks what it looks like. Glory explains that the monks pulled a magic trick so it could look like anything. Dawn presses on, adding that if she knew more about it, she might know if she’d seen it.
The gang arrives at the hospital and confirm that Dawn wasn’t brought in. In case you thought I was calling unfair contrivance earlier, I think we can all agree that it was EXTRA CONVENIENT that two guys walk by explaining that they found a security guard with his head ripped clean off in the break room.
K: It’s a good thing we didn’t put CONTRIVANCE SHOTS!! on the drinking game, or we’d be permanently hammered.
Sweeney: Kirsti, I’m pretty sure we’re well past that point with the drinking game.
Glory and Dawn continue their chat. Dawn learns a little more: the key has been around, “just this side of forever,” and could be evil, but it really depends on your perspective. Glory gets upset, though, and decides that Dawn is just fishing for information for Buffy and doesn’t actually know where the key is. She decides that she wants to send Buffy a message and will do that by performing the brain suck on Dawn.
As Spike predicted, the gang bursts through just the right door, just in the nick of time! Fighting ensues. Buffy holds her own, but barely. Spike gets literally tossed across the room and knocked out. Xander gets an A+ crowbar to the head in on Glory, though. All of this fighting essentially just buys Tara and Willow time to complete a spell, which makes Glory disapparate the fuck out of there.
The spell knocks Willow over and gives her a nosebleed. She has no idea where the spell sent Glory, which cuts us to her appearing in the sky over Sunnydale, just before falling back to Earth. In the destroyed hospital room, everyone is gradually getting up and helping each other up, but it’s time for Buffy and Dawn to have their sister feels chat:
Buffy: Are you OK? Did she hurt you?
Dawn: Why do you care?
Buffy: Because I love you. You’re my sister!
Dawn: No I’m not.
Buffy: Yes, you are. *grabs Dawn’s arm* Look, it’s blood. Summers blood. It’s Summers blood. *holds her other hand to her chest wound, then grasps Dawn’s hand* It’s just like mine. It doesn’t matter where you came from or how you got here. You are my sister. There’s no way you could annoy me so much if you weren’t.
With that, they hug. Not sure that last sentence was really necessary, B, but OK. As they all get up to go, Dawn remembers that she had been talking to Ben, but doesn’t really remember what happened. Buffy brushes this off as not important, which, uh, really? Anyway, they’ve got to get Dawn home because Joyce is freaking out, though is unlikely to be in trouble, because of “big love and trauma.” Roll end credits.
SO. This episode hits way too close to home and I have all sorts of overwhelming feels. Forgive me for my crazy long conclusion while I collect said feels:
On the whole, I think this show usually does a bad job of giving us Dawn’s perspective. She is a character that tends to suffer from Buffy’s POV, and while I didn’t notice it the first time I watched, that sister feels scene really got me with just how much this show plays up the “Sisters fight! Little sisters sure are annoying!” as the defining reason that they are believable as sisters. I hate that so. so. much. In this episode of all places, too? Really, show? I cringed at Buffy’s last line in the Summers Blood speech.
That being said, I appreciate and understand the scenes between Buffy and Joyce, in which Joyce is the more sympathetic one and Buffy is harsh and angry, because she’s hurt. Knowing that her little sister cut herself is a terrifying, scary, and painful thing. She also feels partly responsible for that. Anger isn’t the “right” emotion, but it’s absolutely an understandable and believable one.
Given all the heavy things that this show deals with, it’s not surprising that somewhere in 7 seasons, we’d touch this subject. It makes sense that they did it with Dawn, the introspective diary-keeper, who also happens to be a confused, hormonal 14-year-old. What I like about the magic stuff/real stuff elements of this show are the moments where the show forces you to reexamine the real stuff version of events. I think it’s a lot easier to empathize with Dawn because we know all of the mythical stuff that surrounds her, than with, say, her very real counter-part who has a crapton of emotions she doesn’t understand and can’t seem to process.
I could go on about this for days, but I’ll stop. This episode was a little contrivancey in places, but I still enjoyed it.
Lor: I’ll pause you here to point out that I clearly had a bigger issue with the contivancey things. While this episode does the emotional stuff well, with both the adoption and cutting parallels, as a first time watcher it also dispensed some new information. On second or more rewatch, it probably doesn’t matter as much because it isn’t information you need. You can over look the heavy handed set-up and enjoy the ride. There was just a lot of heavy handed set-up paired with the culmination of the bad communication plot device. It weighed down an otherwise great episode.
Sweeney: A fair point – both that the contrivance was excessive and also the reason it was easier for me to shake off.
I do appreciate this episode. All the Dawn feels. Spike as Dawn’s accomplice was excellent. I also love that it’s an episode that gave us a better look at a character other than Buffy, while also being majorly plot significant. (The tragedy of the Xander-centric episodes, I think, has been that they haven’t meant much for the larger plot.) Clunky in places, but mostly well done.
Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike takes his Buffy obsession to a troubling new place on S05 E14 – Crush.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
