Stew’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer Retrospective: Season 5, Episodes 12 & 14

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Episode 12

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

We start off our dozenth episode this season with a meeting at Buffy’s house, whereupon she finds a sweater of Riley’s and gets supersad over his leaving. Giles reports in that the Watcher Council is coming to America with their findings on Glory, and Buffy just hates that news and wants to know why they won’t just report in from across the pond. Dawn sneaks downstairs to listen in, but Mom interrupts her.

Speak of the Glory, and the Glory will get a scene. A surprisingly weakened Glory is babbling and crawling around when her minion demons (wait, there’s more than one?) bring her a mailman. She doesn’t eat him or kill him, though; she just sticks her fingers into his temples and absorbs, like, life energy from him? It turns him into an incoherent mess. Hmmmm! Curious!

Next, we’ll take you to the magic shop; we’ll let you browse the lollipops. The Watchers’ Council arrives, headed by Quentin Travers, another old British dude. The Watchers force Giles to close the shop and give him some shit over what he is selling. Anya is terrified that, as a former demon, she will be on the list of folks they want to kill and/or imprison forever. Quentin tells Buffy the Watchers want to “review” her before they share any info with her.

Quentin, you might remember, was directly involved in a previous episode where the Watchers de-powered Buffy and set a vamp on her that they allowed to get loose. And he was pleased she passed that test. But now we are testing her again because hey! These 20-some episodes aren’t filling themselves!

Anyway, Giles explodes on the Council that this is all bollocks, but they threaten to have him deported if he and Buffy do not abide by their rulings.

After that, and I can not contain my surprise at this, we actually and honestly cut to Buffy taking a Russian History class or something at college! She is learning about Rasputin, and she questions the teacher on whether the accepted belief that Rasputin did finally die by drowning might actually not be true. Her professor ridicules her into slinking back down in her seat, and while I have no earthly idea what the point of this scene was (yes I do; it’s to show Buffy is being subjugated by authority figures at all turns here), I DO appreciate that the episode took three minutes to remind us that her college courses do, in fact, exist! It’s so easy to just, you know, DO STUFF LIKE THIS.

After being given that hard time in class, we cut to Buffy fighting a vampire and raging to him about the hard day she has had. Spike jumps in and intervenes, killing the vampire and incurring Buffy’s wrath. He puts her down for being unable to keep Angel or Riley.

We move on to Nurse Ben at the hospital, and one of Glory’s minions approaches him. Glory is demanding info on Buffy’s address! Ben refuses to acquiesce to this. Soon thereafter, we see Ben has kicked the minion’s ass and sent him packing back to Glory, who fumes at Ben’s lack of teamsmanship.

Buffy and Giles are together working on preparing her for the Watchers’ trials, and Buffy is mostly concerned with protecting Dawn from them. Giles is very stressed out, and Buffy is unsure she can pass the trials.

We cut to a montage of the Watcher’s interrogating all of Buffy’s allies, including Spike. Anya is still most focused on pretending she has always been human. Willow brings up the sunshine ball again, so maybe that WILL be a thing going forward; I really thought that was just a one-off thing that was never going to come back. I still have my doubts. Spike is mostly sabotaging Buffy and talking about her inability to keep any boyfriends.

Interrogation time over, it’s time for Buffy to pass the physical exam from the Watchers. And not, like, her blood pressure and stuff; she has to defend a dummy from an attacking Watcher while blindfolded. Again, it FEELS like she doesn’t need to do this because the Watchers had her fight off a vampire without any powers once, but what do I know?

A lot! I know a lot. I’ve watched this whole damn series to this point now.

Anyway, Quentin barks instructions at her in Japanese, which she does not understand, even with Giles translating. She eventually does it her own way, which sees her defeat the Watcher but get the dummy killed. Well, it gets an axe in its head; I guess dummies are never actually alive.

Except Xander! BOOM. Nailed that one.

Hey, remember LITERALLY A FEW MINUTES AGO where Glory was infuriated that Ben wouldn’t tell her where Buffy lives? Well forget that! Because Buffy goes home and Glory is just there.

Sometimes this show causes me to sigh so hard that I worry my lungs are going to collapse in on themselves and absorb the entirety of known existence with them into a singularity of annoyance.

Glory says she isn’t there to fight, and if she was, Buffy would already be dead. She just wants the Key. She threatens to kill everyone Buffy knows and make her watch, then just leaves. Solid threat; no follow-up. Typical of this program. Buffy tells mom to pack a bag and get herself and Dawn out of town.

And by “out of town”, she means “to Spike’s crypt”. She brings mom and Dawn to Spike for protection.

Did I fucking hallucinate the episode from THIS SEASON where Spike tried to kill Buffy the literal MOMENT he thought he would be able to? Was that a dream? Am I going insane? And this is all to say nothing of the fact that Buffy knew Spike was working with Adam last season until Adam turned on him and he had no other option than to fight back.

But whatever, yet again. Now Spike and mom are going to watch Passions together!

En route to the magic shop for her final test with the Watchers, Buffy is jumped by some dudes wearing chainmail and wielding medieval weapons. I assume THIS is her last test, but it turns out I’m wrong; these are the Knights Of Byzantium, and they know Buffy has The Key. They want to see it destroyed so that Glory can’t use it to do… whatever she needs to do. It’s all very nebulous.

She beats their asses and sends them on their way, even as they tell her they will come back in greater numbers to destroy The Key by any means necessary.

With the Knights defeated, Buffy is feeling herself. She strolls on into the magic shop and tells Quentin she will not submit to a final review. Buffy, you see, has realized she has all the cards. Glory threatened her, but needs her for The Key. The Knights attacked her, but need her for The Key. The Watchers screwed around with her, but need her because they aren’t fighters. So she says the Watchers are going to give her the scoop on Glory and that’s that.

Quentin relents and drops the bombshell: Glory is not a demon. She is a GOD.

Episode 14

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

For Episode 13, see the previous article, fellas! It was a big one, and it earned its own article instead of being split up. Here, we’re doing the previous and subsequent episodes!

At the gran re-opening of The Bronze following the troll attack a few episodes ago, the gang is mostly dancing, except for Buffy, who is being chatted up by Spike. She shrugs him off and says she does not want him there, and he scurries away, though. We see Willow suffering from a headache, and Tara tells her not to try any more teleportation spells, as it took way too much out of her.

Buffy spies Ben from across the bar and goes off to talk to him; elsewhere, Spike jealously sees them talking and laughing.

Because he’s in love with Buffy for reasons that have never quite been made clear. Other than that the writers thought it would be a whacky new wrinkle in the show!

We cut to the SunnyDale train station (another aspect of town we didn’t know they had, as this metropolis gets bigger by the episode) The train guard guy–you know, the person outside the train who would yell “all aboard” while checking his pocket watch in an old timey movie–looks inside. He sees a bunch of dead bodies, then is attacked by an unseen force!

Back at home, Buffy is hanging with Dawn, mom, and Giles. Giles tells Buffy to treat Dawn like she normally would and not coddle her over all of this Key business, so Buffy yells at Dawn for stealing a sweater. Real high-impact stuff, mostly notable for the opening credits at the bottom of the screen that spoil that Juliet Landau is back as Drusilla in a guest starring role. So thanks for THAT, I guess. No sense in having suspense over who the train killer was, you know?

At the mention of the sweater, though, we move on over to Spike’s lair, and we see that he has said garment. Harmony drops in on him from wherever she lives when she isn’t at Spike’s. She wants to bang, but Spike isn’t having it. She offers to “play a game” for him, so we fast forward to her wearing the sweater and pretending to be Buffy, whereupon he grabs her and takes her offscreen for presumed sex.

Buffy, Willow, and Tara are shown at school, and as always, I am excited when this series meanders its way around to reminding us that college is a thing in our characters’ lives. They are discussing The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, but Buffy has not read it yet. She intends to watch the movie. As they move through the University of California’s hallowed halls, Buffy sees a newspaper detailing the train massacre.

Back at Spike’s tomb, with Harmony MIA again, we see Dawn show up for a visit, much to Spike’s chagrin. Dawn notes that he is the only person still treating her normal and with respect; she feels safe with him. We fast forward to his telling her stories about murdering folks when Buffy barges in. She initially just wanted Spike’s help to find the missing Dawn, then is furious that Dawn is there. She calls the man she just showed up to ask the assistance of an evil monster and accuses Dawn of developing a crush on him. Dawn laughs that off and says it would never matter because Spike has a crush on Buffy.

Presumably the next day, Buffy and Xander are investigating the murder train because, as you know, in SunnyDale absolutely no one watches over murder scenes. But it makes sense: as much murder as there is in this town, who has the time to keep riff-raff out of them all? Buffy is bitching about what Dawn said regarding Spike having a crush on her. Xander laughs that off–he can’t take it seriously–then gets petulant that Dawn has perhaps supplanted her crush on him for one on Spike.

God, this character gets close to being sympathetic, then turns right back into a creepy asshole.

Buffy heads back home, and Spike is there talking to Dawn and Mom. He tells Buffy he has some info on the train murders and knows where the vamps possibly involved are holed up. He and Buffy drive off to investigate, and Buffy is now weirdly awkward around him.

They approach the two vampires they find, but they just flee from the Slayer. Buffy realizes they had nested already, so they can’t have just arrived by train. She accuses Spike of making the whole thing up to go on a “date”. He starts to say he loves her (Jesus, guy, that’s pretty heavy considering you have zero relationship to this point), but she stops him and leaves.

Spike heads back to his crypt, and Drusilla is there what oh my god who could possibly have predicted this except the opening credits crawl. Apparently Dru was recently set on fire over on Angel in events I am not privy to since I only watch Buffy. Dru wants Spike back and knows about the chip. Harmony shows up and starts giving Dru shit for leaving and hurting her Spikey. He tosses Harmony aside and kicks her out, then announces to Drusilla that he is back.

Back at home, Buffy is talking to Willow and Mom. Willow thinks puppy love Spike is more dangerous than ever! Buffy, who JUST LEFT Spike, goes back out to talk to Spike, but asks Willow to do her a favor first…

Spike and Dru are at The Bronze, and Dru is getting through to Spike that he can overcome the chip in his head and do whatever he wants. He just has to push through the pain. They see a couple dancing in the rafters and go after them. Dru kills and feeds off the boy. Seeing this, Spike is able to transform and kill the girl and feed!

But we’re still not going to have the slayer kill this guy, huh? Even though he has proven at every turn to still be a monster? Okay, sure.

Buffy is at Spike’s tomb, but he’s obviously not there. She searches around and finds a hidden compartment with a shrine to her inside. As she tries to leave, Dru and Spike return home. Dru TASES Buffy (where/why did she get a TASER?!). Before they can kill her, however, Spike grabs the taser and knocks out Drusilla.

Buffy wakes up shackled, but she sees Dru is also tied up to a post. Spike finally gets out the L word to Buffy, and she is incredulous! Vampires don’t have a soul; they can’t love! Dru argues that, au contraire, they can indeed.

Spike threatens to kill Dru and set Buffy free if the latter gives him a crumb–anything–to let him know there is a chance for them. If not, he’ll free Dru and they’ll kill her.

Man, imagine being Drusilla in this instance. Just being told you’re the backup option if the girl he wants doesn’t want him back. Damn, that’s rough.

Buffy, of course, says no way because she’s a dumbass. Or a smart… a clever ass, because it still works. Even without her giving him what he wants, he still won’t kill her.

At this, Harmony shows up and crossbows Spike, but not through the heart! A fight breaks out as Spike attacks Harmony, and Dru breaks free of her bindings and begins beating the crap out of Buffy. Spike eventually defeats Harmony and then frees Buffy to save her. Everyone lives as Harmony and Drusilla slink away into the night, and the slayer is terrible at slaying even secondary characters, man. She does deck Spike, though.

Spike follows Buffy home, and we see the favor Buffy asked Willow for was to magically rescind the invitation into Buffy’s abode.

So we’ve moved onto our next big plot point: Spike’s affection for Buffy is out in the open. I guess we will see how this progresses next time…