Stew’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer Retrospective: Season 5, Episodes 17-18

Mombie: A BTVS Retrospective, S5 E17-18

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Episode 17

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

With the best episode of the series in our rear-view mirror, it’s time to see if we get back to business or what. While I appreciate a well-crafted episode about the death of one of the show’s worst characters, I also recognize there is precious little time left this season to deal with Glory, who has been a dire afterthought so far.

I’ve heard a lot about how Glory is one of the best Buffy big bads, but besides being beautiful (alliteration!), I’m not seeing her as all that interesting or engaging.

Anyway, we open this episode with Buffy casket shopping. She chooses one, but Dawn is unsure mom would like it or not, and mom’s the one that has to stay in it. This is setting us up for a whole episode full of Dawn being a petulant butthead, by the way, so STRAP IN.

Having dinner with the Scooby group, Buffy goes over everything she reports mom would want. You see, before surgery, they spoke about all of this. Mom was adamant that there be no wake. Dawn was pissy that she was left out of these discussions, and why wouldn’t she be? As a young girl nebulously between the ages of 8 and 14, why wouldn’t she be involved in mom’s death planning?

In keeping with this show, dad is M.I.A., by the way. Which, man, they REALLY need to explain why Dawn would not be living with him when he comes back home, so I look forward to the show not doing that at all because fuck me, that’s why.

Dawn decides after the funeral, she wants to go home with Willow and Tara, not Buffy.

Willow and Xander leave the dinner gathering and bump into Spike, who has shown up with flowers for mom. Xander bickers with him, and Spike insists he just appreciated that mom treated him decently. Xander is sure he’s just trying to get in Buffy’s pants. Spike drops the flowers and walks away, whereupon Willow sees he did not leave a card with them. And that means he has no ulterior motives towards Buffy, I guess?

We move on now, and there are so many quick cuts in this funeral scene that I soon become convinced I am watching an MCU fight scene. Dawn, per her demands, ends up leaving the funeral with Willow and Tara, but Buffy stays at the gravesite all day. When night finally falls, Angel comes up to greet her.

At Willow and Tara’ dorm room, Dawn is, of course, a bitch to them as they try to comfort her. It turns out that DAWN is the character with ulterior motives, though: she wants her witchy friends to bring mom back from the dead.

I knew this was coming, but I actually was expecting it last episode when Buffy called Giles over. I thought she was going to ask him for ways to revive mom. But nope! It’s Dawn asking her college friends how to do it.

We cut to Xander and Anya post-coitus, and I GET IT, Joss. Xander fucks. We all get it. You–I MEAN XANDER–is one hot stud muffin. Anya is referring to sex as the opposite of death because it creates life. Xander is like “Yeah, but not till we are older and richer!”.

Back to the witches’ dorm, and Willow and Tara are insisting they can not bring back the dead. Well, Tara is. Willow is oddly wishy-washy about it. But Tara takes the lead and insists that they can’t do it and won’t try. Dawn takes this as well as you imagine she would.

Buffy and Angel are still at the cemetery together during all of this, with Angel reassuring Buffy there was nothing she could do, though Buffy feels guilty for not being home and not starting CPR as soon as she saw mom lying there like that. She kisses him, and he breaks it off after a moment. She thanks him for coming and wishes that he could stay with her forever for comfort.

Meanwhile, back at Season Five Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Nurse Ben runs into one of Glory’s minions. Ben accidentally spills the beans that The Key is a human being. The minion is pleased with this information and tries to rush off to report back to Glory, so Ben just fucking stabs him in the gut.

The next morning, the girls all wake up and Tara and Willow report they have to go to class. For the third time this episode so far, my note is “Dawn is pissy”. As the two witches leave, Dawn stays behind to rifle through their magic books. It takes her approximately 5 seconds to find the chapter on resurrections because no one works for anything on this program.

Dawn eventually finds her way to the magic shop, where–while asking Giles if she can help out at all to keep busy–she basically asks “So if there was a restricted section full of stuff people can’t have, where would that be?”. AND GILES SHOWS HER.

First of all, why does Giles have a section for stuff folks can’t buy, right? But BTVS gonna BTVS.

Secondly, why is Giles an absolute junkbrain half of the time?

Giles wanders away to deal with something, so Dawn steals stuff from the restricted area so she can start her resurrection spell.

The adventures of Dawn The Vampire Slayer’s Sister continue, as we shift to Dawn at mom’s grave, about to begin her spell. Spike shows up and offers to help. Dawn is skeptical and figures that he’s just doing this to score points with Buffy, but au contraire! He insists to Dawn that Buffy never find out he is helping with this. Again, he just liked mom and wants her back, too.

Checking in on Glory and her minions, the stabbed flunky is still alive and comes along to deliver his news. I love the idea that Ben DESPERATELY wanted to stop him from telling Glory about The Key being human, but not desperately enough that he stuck around to make sure the stabbing actually finished the job. Like… STAB! Okay, I have to run now, so please just die, okay?

The underling gets out the word about The Key, brightening Glory’s day. Then he dies. SO CLOSE, Ben. So close.

Spike and Dawn visit some strange man who seems happy enough to see them. As they report their mission, he pulls out a GIANT book. Just… an unreasonably large book. He tells them how to do the spell, but notes they need an egg from a specific kind of demon to be able to pull it off. He notes that this magic is finicky, and there could be complications, so they can undo the spell by destroying a picture of the person they are bringing back to life.

OF COURSE SunnyDale has at least one (1) of the kind of demon that has the eggs that Dawn needs, and OF COURSE that demon is currently nesting eggs. This demon is, like, a three-headed dinosaur. Spike fights it while Dawn gets the egg. As they try to leave, Dawn drops and breaks the egg, so… they just repeat everything with Spike fighting it some more, and Dawn stealing a second egg. Then they leave. And I swear to god, the writers on this show just do most of what they do to fill time. Dawn breaking the first egg means NOTHING. Why even… you know what? I don’t care.

Back at the dorm, Willow is journaling about her day, and she forgot what she had for breakfast until Tara fills her in. Truly gripping stuff, as usual. Then Tara realizes one of their books is gone! They figure out Dawn’s clever ploy and call Buffy to report in.

Buffy walks in on Dawn completing the spell! It’s too late! They start to have a fight, as Dawn thinks Buffy doesn’t care that mom is dead, resulting in Buffy slapping her. Dawn–who has spent the entire episode avoiding her big sister–accuses Buffy of avoiding her.

Buffy breaks down at the accusation, as the past few days have all been too much, and she just loves Dawn so big. The two reunite and come together when the reanimated corpse of mom (who apparently Kill Bill’ed her way out of the casket, and I hate that we missed that) knocks on the door. Buffy goes to answer it, but Dawn realizes she done goofed and rips up the picture, reversing the spell.

AND LEAVING THE NO-LONGER-ALIVE CARCASS OF THEIR MOTHER ON THE FRONT STOOP, RIGHT?!

Well, no, because ripping up the picture just makes mom disappear because OH GOD everything is so neat and orderly and clean on this show. I want an episode where the girls (and the police!) have to deal with their unburied mom’s body finding itself on their front lawn! But do I get what I want from this show? Never.

Episode 18

Image Credit: 20th Century Fox TV

Buffy and Giles are doing dishes in the Summers household, and Giles notes that now that mom has been dead for two whole episodes, it’s time for Buffy to get back to training! Buffy, however, wants time off. She doesn’t like what slaying is doing to her; it’s making her cold and hard. She is worried her own mother didn’t know how much she loved her before she died!

Giles notes that what Buffy REALLY needs is a spirit quest in the desert to regain her focus, because he is wildly insensitive, I suppose. Buffy reluctantly agrees to this when Dawn convinces her it is a good idea. Buffy forcefully affirms her love to Dawn so that the little sister knows that she loves her. It’s awkward. For all of us.

Elsewhere, we see Spike getting his Buffybot activated from Warren. It wakes up and gives him a smooch.

Even more elsewhere, Glory and her minions are planning. It turns out that the underling that Ben stabbed is all better now, so Ben is just the most useless character on this show, and THAT is saying something with this assemblage of utter fools. Imagine being the most worthless character in a sea of plebeians. And they let you be a NURSE in this world!

Glory is still focusing on The Key being a human and insists it must be someone special to the slayer–someone she is keeping close to her. The toadies are sent off to figure out who this might be.

Buffy and Giles arrive in the middle of the desert somewhere, and the latter does a really silly ritual that Buffy likens to the Hokey Pokey.

We are FLYING through scenes here like the writers of this episode fell off their Ritalin. Back in Spike’s crypt, he is sparring with the Buffybot. It cries out that it is defenseless against him, and they fall into fooling around.

BACK to the desert now. Giles speaks a strange language as part of the ritual. Buffy sees a puma and just follows it into the heart of the desert.

At the Scooby Lair–which I say because I’m not 100% sure whose place they are at–Tara has made a protection spell to ward off threats like Glory. When no one is looking, Dawn steals some earrings because suddenly she is Marie from Breaking Bad, I guess. We see outside a window that one of the minions is spying on them.

It’s not even fun to hate on Dawn because she’s clearly being written to be insufferable and despised. No one can legitimately like or empathize with this girl. I can’t even compare her to the worst TV show characters of all time, because she’s basically written to be a borderline antagonist.

Willow is leaving a class and letting a classmate borrow her notes, allowing Allyson Hannigan to do her thing and act up her neurosis by insisting the classmate take pristine care of them. There is a flunkie spying on her, as well.

Post-coitus–which there is a lot of in these two episodes, I see–Buffybot leaves Spike because it decides it’s time to go hunt some vampires.

Out in the wild of SunnyDale, Buffybot encounters Xander and Anya. Quickly thereafter, Spike comes running up after her. She tries to flirt with him, but Spike plays it off as her hurting him.

Vampires do end up approaching, leading to a quick fight scene. From a distance, the minions are watching, and they sees the Buffybot being overprotective of Spike. OHHHH, OKAY. I see where we are going.

After the peril is defeated, Buffybot sends Xander and Anya away. But as they leave, they turn back and see the Buffybot straddling Spike.

Remember a few episodes ago with the OTHER robot that everyone hilariously instantly knew was a robot because of the way it spoke and acted. Question: Do you think that happens here?

Of course not, don’t be silly.

Back to Scooby HQ, Xander and Anya tell Willow and Tara what the saw.

Meanwhile, back in the SunnyDale desert, Buffy wakes up (why was she asleep?) and sees a roaring fire. Truly intense scene; glad we cut to it.

At Spike’s crypt, Xander busts in while Buffybot is hiding, and X gives Spike a piece of his mind about taking advantage of a grieving Buffy. The minions bust in at that, though! They pummel Xander and abduct Spike!

In the desert, Buffy encounters “The Guide”, with the latter taking on the form of The First Slayer. They talk a bit. The Guide informs Buffy that she is full of love. Love will bring her to her gift, The Guide explains.

Buffybot, no longer hiding in the crypt, shows up at Scooby HQ and talks to Willow. Despite her weird mannerisms and direct statements of common knowledge, Willow also does not put together that this is a robot again. EVEN THOUGH EVERYONE KNOWS BUFFY IS SUPPOSED TO BE OUT OF TOWN ON A VISION QUEST. Buffybot explains she has had lots of sex with Spike. Xander shows up, and Buffybot finally notes she needs to go rescue Spike from his kidnappers.

BACK to the desert! The Guide tells Buffy her gift is Death. Buffy doesn’t like that! Death is not a gift! But The Guide and the fire both vanish.

The henchdemons deliver a bound Spike to Glory, who immediately knows he can not be The Key because The Key must be pure, and vampires are not. She notes vampires can not be brain-sucked, so he is worthless. But maybe not! She then starts tossing him around her digs and torturing him for information on who The Key is.

The Scoobies head to Buffy’s place to arm themselves for a possible encounter with Glory. The real Buffy shows up and everything gets pieced together re: Buffybot. They agree to go after Spike so Buffy can kill him before he can spill the beans about Dawn.

A still-full-of-the-beans Spike is strung up and being beaten badly by Glory. He relents and says he will tell her about The Key…

Somewhere close-ish by, Buffy and the team note they are where Buffy ended up stopping the cobra monster, so Glory’s pad must be near. They agree to split up and search.

In the single best scene of the episode–and, in fact, one of the funniest scenes the show has ever pulled off–Spike hints that They Key is daytime game show host Bob Barker, causing the minions to eagerly note that they will go bring Glory the beaten body of Bob Barker. I admit, I laughed. It was the how gleeful the minions were in this moment; it got to me. Good acting! It happens sometimes.

Regardless, Glory sees through the ruse. Spike chuckles at her and says he will never hive up The Key. His taunting causes her to accidentally free him, and he scampers away and dives down an elevator shaft onto the elevator top below.

As he gets out of the elevator, Buffy and Xander show up, and a fight against the minions breaks out! Not far behind them are Giles and the Buffybot. The Buffybot is distressed to see Spike in peril, and one of the underlings throws it into the elevator controls, electrocuting it and shorting it out.

And… that’s it. That’s all we see of the fight. Being a few floors away from Glory ultimately goes nowhere, as neither side seeks the other out. We just cut to Willow examining the shorted-out Buffybot back at their place. Willow notes it would be easy to fix, but agrees not to do it.

Back at the crypt, a bloody and beaten Spike is trying to heal up when “The Buffybot” comes in. They talk for a bit with Buffy really selling the Buffybot routine. She hears that Spike got beaten up for not telling Glory who The Key is and informs him she will go to Glory, but Spike commands her to never tell anyone about The Key because that would hurt Buffy and Dawn.

Buffy kisses Spike lightly on the lips, and he realizes it’s her and not his robot. She tells him she will never forget what he went through to protect them.