Previously: Dawn thought she was a Potential, but it turned out to be Amanda. She had a lot of feels and Xander comforted her with his best speech ever. ALSO CLEM.
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The Killer In Me
Sweeney: The previouslies remind us of Warren murdering Tara and the flaying, so that’s SUPER promising. Giles is heading off to the desert to take the Potentials on Vision Quest, fretting about whether or not Buffy will be all right, Buffy jokes that they’ve managed longer than that — you know when he ABANDONED THEM. The rest of the Scoobies strut in and out of the scene to talk about making marshmallows, the fact that the girls are fighting over who gets to drive since Giles doesn’t have a valid license, and let Giles know that Molly is locked in the trunk. Good times.
Kirsti: My favourite thing about this scene is Giles berating Buffy for what she told the Potentials about the Vision Quest: “apparently someone told them that the vision quest consists of me driving them to the desert, doing the hokey pokey until a spooky Rasta-mama slayer arrives and speaks to them in riddles.” Closely followed by her attempts at looking innocent. The not having a California driver’s licence thing is bullshit though, because INTERNATIONAL LICENCE. It’s not like he let ALL his licences expire. Stupid contrivance…
Lorraine: Right, because if he yelled, “I’ll drive!” the rest of Gile’s sub-plot in this episode would be dashed. For now, we must believe him evil enough to let all his licenses expire.
Sweeney: Also, like, dead enough to that.
That bit of comedy is an emotional bait and switch, luring us in before Giles heads off and Buffy goes down to the basement to hang out with Spike to have an actual conversation. Boo! They joke about the noisy nuisance of the Potentials. Real Talk, though, this Home Invasion gig would make that whole apocalypse thing look borderline appealing. Spike’s chained up and that’s a good thing because, as was pointed out in the comments last week, they don’t actually know if The First (who The Powers That Be Contriving have placed “in remission”) is done flipping Spike’s kill switch, nor do they even know what the kill switch is. Mostly, this conversation is happening so that Spike can have an insanely painful chip-migraine in Buffy/the audience’s presence, even though he was just sitting on the bed doing nothing. Buffy looks duly concerned. Wolf Howl.
Later on, Willow and Buffy chat in the kitchen. Spike is still suffering, and Willow is making tea for Kennedy who was too sick to go on Vision Quest. (/too aware that Willow would not be joining them.) Buffy asks Willow what she knows about the chip, and being that the secret government operation was big with the secrets and then the pretending it never happened, the answer is: not much. Buffy suspects that, given his ability to hurt people under The First’s control, the chip may have been misfiring all on its own. They joke about how things have never been normal around there.
Cut to The Bronze. Ew. Kennedy, ew. Tricking people into going on dates with you is super gross. Even after Willow recognizes this bullshit for what it is, Kennedy still lies about it and UGH. STOP IT. Kennedy tells her she’s sexy when she pouts, because disregarding legitimate anger is totes the best way to hit on someone.
K: This is a big part of why I can’t stand Kennedy – because she tricks Willow into romantic situations that Willow clearly doesn’t want to be in. It’s manipulative bullshit, and I WANT NONE OF IT, SHOW. Also, how old is she meant to be that she’s ordering cocktails at the Bronze?!
Lor: Additionally, the world is about to fucking end, Kennedy, and the rest of your comrades are out handling their shit. You are trying to get in someone’s pants. I kind of hate her.
Sweeney: YES. I hadn’t even thought about that, so, yeah, fuck all of this.
Willow sits back down, though. Kennedy’s first question is how long Willow has known she was gay, which makes Willow a little squirmy. But Kennedy eventually switches up her tone enough to put Willow at ease and she answers that it was three years ago and it wasn’t “women” so much as “woman.”
Summers Basement. Spike’s got major nosebleeds. (K: He says that he burst a blood vessel. Which, HOW??? HIS HEART DOESN’T WORK. You seem to have forgotten how to vampire again, Whedon…) (S: Come now, surely you didn’t expect Spike plots to start making logical sense now?) He speculates that maybe the problem is that he wasn’t meant to last this long — one more thing they have in common. Buffy suggests book research, and Spike reminds her of the stupidity of that plan. She agrees and says it’s a phone thing. “Who you gonna call?” he asks. She gives him a look because no, “that phrase is never gonna be usable again.” Also, the answer is majorly obvious.
Bronze. Willow is talking about how her shitty mother never met Tara. She says it was fine because she and Tara are kind of private. She catches the tense on that, though, and Willow gets a major case of feelings. It’s contagious.
Chez Summers. Buffy’s trying to leave a messsage for Riley about Spike’s chip. It’s a stupid message. Probably just say you have a big problem that requires his help and leave it at that. Know your audience, girl. Doesn’t seem to matter, though, because the number appears to be a dead end. Spike, meanwhile, ain’t got time for this because he’s still suffering from the skull splitting migraines.
Bronze. Willow switches gears and asks why Kennedy even likes her. “Have you seen you?” A totally fair and legitimate point. Kennedy goes on to give a good list of Willow facts, but kills it with, “Not so into the magic because it seems like fairy tale crap to me.” The “if it matters to you” is way too little too late, but Willow’s nicer than I am.
K: There are no words for how much I hate the “I don’t give a shit about your hobbies, they seem really lame. But I’ll tolerate them if it’s absolutely necessary (though I’ll probably complain non-stop), because I want to have sexytimes with you” thing. Possibly because I’ve seen it in real life… Willow’s nicer than I am, too.
Lor: Willow sat back down after she was tricked into a date. Willow is nicer than us all.
Sweeney: Chez Summers. Willow’s trying to say goodnight and end the night, but Kennedy goes in for the kiss. Aw, Willow. Naturally, it’s all about to go to shit. The Romantic Spinny Cameraman does is thing, but at the end of the kiss, Kennedy breaks away to find Warren in Willow’s place. It’s clear that Willow is still Willow and doesn’t get what happened. She goes to look in the mirror and sees what happened. She explains to Kennedy that this is the man she killed.
Downstairs, Xander, Dawn, and Anya freak out when Warren storms in. Willow insists that she’s not The First. Kennedy is too confused to be very helpful. Andrew walks in and drops his food because he’s terrified, but tries to muster up the courage to stand up to what he believes is The First. Buffy enters and goes directly to punching WillowWarren in the face, and is upset that her fist made contact with something. Suddenly everyone’s a little more sympathetic to Willow’s claim. She warns Xander that there are non-yellow-crayon-stories that she can start telling, like one with Aquaman underoos, which is enough to get Xander on board to keep her from talking.
K: She also says something about “bad touching” when Andrew hugs her/Warren, and I pause briefly to wonder if that’s a reference to Doppelgangland and Vamp!Willow’s naughty touching.
Sweeney: She explains to Buffy that she has no idea how it happened – she was fine and then she wasn’t. She leaves out the kissing detail, of course. She suspects she did it to herself, but she doesn’t know how. Buffy doesn’t get why her subconscious would turn her into Warren. Willow awkwardly offers that it’s because she feels bad for killing him. Then she insists on handling this on her own. She doesn’t want them to see her like this any longer. She glances over at Spike, groaning on the floor, and says Buffy has her hands full anyway, and leaves.
Buffy kneels by Spike and promises to call again and someone will send help. Spike says that he doesn’t have time.
Out on the street, Kennedy stops Willow and begs to be included. Willow resists, but Kennedy won’t accept her insistence to do this on her own. I’m not a fan of how pushy Kennedy is, but I’m willing to give it a pass here because I also don’t think Willow’s right about needing to do this alone. (Though I think that someone like Xander or Anya might have been a better companion.)
Elsewhere, Buffy and Spike are breaking into the underground remnants of The Abysmal Plot Arc Research Facility. (Yes, I totes just looked up an S4 post to remember what we called it. Memories!)
K: I never thought the day would come when I’d get nostalgic for the APARF. Welcome back, old friend. You remind me of simpler times…
Lor: I mean, you can’t deny that was a fantastic nickname.
Sweeney: There were a lot of great nicknames and abbreviations in S4. A simpler, more light-hearted time.
Chez Summers. The phone rings and Andrew answers. Cut to post-call and Xander hangs up the phone. The dude Giles attempted to rescue before his end-of-episode near-stabbing is calling to say that before he blacked out, he saw that end-of-episode near-stabbing and woke up to find Giles MIA, which means that there’s good reason to suspect that Giles isn’t Giles. Anya points out that if you’re trying to infiltrate The Slayer’s operation, masquerading as the one person she trusts most is a good start. Then they all try to remember if they recall hugging Giles or seeing him pick something up. Nobody does. All the more reason that NOPE, NOT THE FIRST Handshake should have been established after the previous infiltration. But, like, how would we have a plot, then?
K: Surely the fact that they saw him sit down in the car and (presumably) close the door would be sufficient though? Even without the door, I can imagine The First would be good at fake-sitting in a convincing way…
Sweeney: Shhh.
Xander decides they have to head out to the desert to confirm that Giles is legit. Andrew insists on coming with and Xander tries really hard to fight that idea, but they really can’t leave him there. Xander notes that the girls are all out there all alone. Though, at this point, they’ve been gone for more than enough hours for The First to have killed if that’s what’s going on.
Sweeney: Contrivance U. WillowWarren walks in on her former Wicca group, doing actual magic, having “come a long way from the whole bake sale phase.” (They still do that, though.) She insists that she’s really Willow and everyone’s confused, but someone pipes up to say she knows her well enough to know that this is her. Said voice belongs to way-less-awesome-now-that-she’s-not-a-rat Amy. (K: UUUUUUUUUUGH.) GOTTA GET ALL THOSE RECURRING CHARACTERS UP IN THIS FINAL SEASON. Willow explains her problem, and Amy says that’s a little out of the club’s league, but they’ll try.
But “they” she means “her” because everyone else takes a seat and watches. Amy performs a spell that’s supposed to “put back the soul” but when she finishes, Willow still looks like Warren. She gets pissed and slaps Amy, but then freaks out. She realizes that it was Warren — that she’s turning into Warren — and storms out. Kennedy follows, and tries to help but mostly just needs to GTFO and stop. WillowWarren tries to explain that Warren was the mega worst and that Kennedy has no idea what Warren could do, especially since, as we see in Willow’s exit, all of Willow’s power still seems to be a part of the picture.
Underneath Sunnydale, Buffy and Spike have only flashlights, but have found their way into the belly of the beast that is the remnants of The Abysmal Plot Arc Research Facility. [APARF] Spike is pretty sure he can get them where we need to go. There’s not a lot to see here besides a few demon corpses because underground and dark, but there are a lots of creepy murdery noises.
Road Trip. Andrew’s being annoying. The others are having the big realization that they’re all sorts of too late if it really is The First instead of Giles and they’re currently driving out to the middle of the desert to meet it without The Slayer or a powerful witch to defend them.
WillowWarren walks through an alleyway and eventually sits down and cries. Then she has a sudden realization and gets up to investigate that. In another scene.
But first, APARF: Buffy and Spike concentrate on investigating the noises rather than whatever they were looking for, which is fair. It’s really helpful that Spike’s migraines and general state of debilitating pain has been magically placed on hold for them to make with the research. Extra helpful when the noise turns out to be a live demon that attacks Buffy. Or, like, I assume it will, because we’ve got to cut away for end-of-episode tension purposes. WILL SHE BE ALL RIGHT? DUN DUN DUN. (But also, OMG, can you imagine if we got this far and that was B’s death knell?)
K: I call bullshit on a demon still being alive down there TWO AND A HALF YEARS after the APARF was closed up. But whatever, show. Whatever.
Sweeney: Eh, he could have been hiding out down there is a lair. Plus, demon lives seem to be a millionty years long, so a 2.5 year hibernation sounds legit. I’m not really defending this so much as saying that there are plenty of other more contrived things going on right now. Plus, APARF was really all about contrivance. Contrivance was APARF’s jam.
Contrivance U. Kennedy finds not-a-rat Amy putting her stuff away. She says the others took off because this was too intense for them. Amy notices that Kennedy is legit worried, and insists that Willow dealt with much worse “long before she went and got herself a big old Potential Slayer bodyguard.” Kennedy says that she never told her that and asks how she knew. “Oops.”
APARF. Fighting ensues. Migraine returns. Aw, now I kind of feel like an asshole – like I violated some basic TV rule in even bringing it up. Sorry buddy. I mean, I know I don’t like you, but I also don’t particularly like watching people be in pain. Also Buffy’s still gotta fight that demon. Which she’s doing, but is, of course, distracted by her fallen comrade. So is the demon, who switches gears and drags off Spike.
Lor: The appeal of a fast meal. I understand, demon. I understand.
Sweeney: Gun shop. A guy wants to know if WillowWarren wants the same model as last time, asking how it worked out for him. Warren-looking-like-Willow answers, “You’d be amazed.” Alyson Hannigan, man. That shit gave me chills. Mostly gross chills from Warren being a murdery murderer.
Vision Quest Desert. The gang pounces on Giles and they excitedly exclaim that they can all feel him. Giles is terrified but says that now that they all feel each other he’s “certain there’s a perfectly reasonable and not at all insane reason.” They explain and Giles says that’s actually kind of sweet. He considers this further, though, and makes the funny but also super squicky joke, “You think I’m evil if I bring a group of girls on a camping trip and don’t touch them?” LOLEW.
K: Giles’ face when they tackled him was most definitely the highlight of this episode. BRB, staring at that gif for the next century.
Lor: I amend my previous statement. The tackle hug was the only good thing about this subplot.
Sweeney: The subplot was bullshit, but I kind of think it was worth it for the tackle hug.
APARF. Buffy finds the demon and handles that shit, but Spike’s still decidedly not OK. Just as she starts to freak out, the lights all flip on and some soldiers appear, guns pointed at Buffy. A man enternounces that he was sent by Riley (“I knew it! Government conspiracy.“) to give her everything she needs “to help assface here…Those were his exact words.”
K: LOL. Oh, Riley. How dare you make me LOL when for the duration of your presence on the show you were as exciting as cardboard?
Sweeney: Sunnydale Streets. Willow is walking with determined murder face. It’s interesting that now that Warren is taking over, we’re getting more shots of Willow looking like Willow. Again, snaps to Alyson Hannigan for how well she embodies the misogynist douche.
APARF. Military dude explains that what happens next is ultimately up to her. Riley left the decision to repair or remove the chip in her hands.
Contrivance U. Kennedy’s put the dots together and asks why Amy did this to her. She doesn’t answer and Kennedy starts to attack, but Amy sends her flying back. Amy explains that she put a penance hex on Willow that allows the victim’s subconscious to choose their own punishment, which is the rough explanation for why it happened after they kissed. Kennedy demands that Amy undo it and she’s obviously all, “Nope.” Amy villain monologues that this is about power because Willow’s all came so easy to her — she never had to work like other people (Amy) and then she goes off the deep end and still gets love, which Amy hates. Amy says it was just a game and it’s not her fault she’s losing herself. Kennedy tries to threaten Amy, who just magic snaps her out of there.
K: So basically, Amy hexed Willow because she’s jealous. Gross.
Lor: Seriously. Considering the amount of stalking and creeping Amy had to do to keep tabs on Willow post going off the deep end.
Sweeney: Kennedy finds herself in the Summers back yard, super confused. WillowWarren storms in with the gun and begins to reenact his confrontation with Buffy. Tara’s death scene. OH MY GOD WHY. I RECAPPED THE ACTUAL DEATH SCENE.
UGH. Fine. Willow and Kennedy go back and forth and it’s clear that there’s a lot of internal confusion over which kill — Tara or Warren — is being discussed as WillowWarren flops between the two identities. Kennedy remains surprisingly calm, and eventually puts together that the “her” is Tara. Willow shouts, crying, that Kennedy does not get to say her name. Then she accuses Kennedy of tricking Willow into kissing her. This is kind of true, but probably not at you-deserve-to-be-held-at-gun-point levels. “She was never gone. She was with me. We should have been forever. And I…I let her be dead. She’s really dead, and I killed her.” Willow collapses on the ground sobbing, begging Tara to come back to her and OH MY GOD MY FEELS MY FEELS. I can’t.
Lor: Nope, don’t know. All the feels.
Sweeney: Kennedy says she thinks she’s figuring the whole magic thing out and it’s just like fairytales. She leans in for a kiss and explains that she’s bringing her back to life. The Romantic Spinny Cameraman does his thing again, this time revealing Willow to be herself at the end. Kennedy asks if she’s all right and Willow says yes, but CLEARLY SHE IS NOT ALL RIGHT. But, you know, it’s time for the episode to end and bring in this whole big story flipping thing, so they go back inside where Kennedy will make Willow some tea.
K: I’m not a fan of this episode. I hate that they brought Amy back, and then didn’t even have Willow confront her about what she’d done. I hate that they finally remembered Spike’s chip but then brought in the Initiative to deal with it. I hate Kennedy’s stealth date. In fact, I think the only thing I enjoyed was Giles’ face when he got tackled. If anyone needs me, I’ll be watching that gif again.
Lor: Yeah, not a fan. This season is just tripping all over it’s loose plot threads. I thought season 6 was sloppy, but it was also awful, which made it incredibly easy to hate. Large parts of this season so far are sloppy, but at worst, aggressively mediocre. Everything that happened in this episode was such a stretch. The concept of a malfunctioning chip isn’t a bad one, but it was a little too sudden-onset, if you ask me. Plus, in the grand fashion of pushing the Spuffy relationship in increasingly grandiose ways, Buffy must now decide whether he should remain chipped. Of course. It is interesting, though, that all said and done, Riley left that choice in Buffy’s hands.
In theory, I think that Willow would certainly have a lot to confront if/when she ever felt ready to start another relationship. Bringing in Amy and having some sort of hex involved cured with a magical kiss? LOL. WHAT? Plus, fuck Kennedy. She’s aggressive and weirdly insensitive, first with saying that she’d love to see Dark Willow and then in this episode joking about how she ended up kissing a guy. GIRL, THAT GUY WAS THE MAN WILLOW KILLED. NO TIME FOR JOKES. She’s also been insensitive about magic in general, about Willow’s hesitancy to jump into a relationship and also she’s no Tara. It had to be mentioned.
Sweeney: No Tara indeed. The insensitivity up to now was a thing, but I also wanted to like her because she was brave and stood by Buffy when the others were falling apart. This episode effectively undid any goodwill she’d earned by being a 45 minute exercise in an epic lack of concern for Willow’s feelings.
This #meh season is going to be interesting to rank, but of the 13 episodes we’ve now seen, this one is down near the bottom of my own list.
Next time: Buffy and Principal Wood go on a date! How normal! Weird. See how it goes on Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E14 – First Date.
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.
