Wow, what a great season. I want to know what happens now!

But I also wondered about the "drowning" thing. Seemed sort of a mistake to me.

I liked this ep.

As far as the SIT touching objects the one handed Buffy that info Giles stole from the watchers council.

Anya was as usual

Also, as I said before, they were handling weapons.

I liked the episode in a broad sense, but it was one of those that repeatedly broke my suspension of disbelief into teeny tiny parts.

I can't believe that nobody suggested getting Faith out of jail. Leaving her there under current circumstances seems... Unintelligent. At the very least, somebody should have sent word to her to break out. She's a target in an area filled with criminals (most likely of the murderous kind). Just didn't seem smart. Plus, she could have taken a potential or two out of harm's way, at least making the First's job harder. They acknowledged she'd be a target, but nobody thought about... I dunno... doing anything?

And I kept wondering why Buffy didn't bring some fire with her when she went to go find the runaway SIT. I mean, the UberVamp's scared of the sun. A flamethrower might kill him off, and a burning crossbow bolt would probably slow him down.

I dunno. If there's something to the whole No-Touchee-Giles thing, then that would explain why he was being tactically inept. But it doesn't explain everyone else.

Again, I liked the episode fairly well. I was just repeatedly confused by the lack of strategy.

I think the gang is still confused to strategize although now that Buff gave that big speech, I assume they will. Might even include getting a hold of Faith.

Re: Giles - I thought it was a bit of a cheat that they don't show what happened with the axe coming at him, but he was helping the girls and giving out information freely. If he's not corporeal, there's some other reason. The girls were consuming the food in the kitchen and holding blankets, so they're definately real.

I immediately noticed the Spike drowning thing - I would have thought a proof reading would have caught this.

Funniest moment: when they kinda suggest that the one slayerette may be gay - and Dawn comes in saying 'Eat?' or something like that. I don't know, must be my dirty mind...

And of course, seeing Buffy thrashed was a low point, but that was quite a statement. And another wait for the next episode...

I thought the same thing. You wouldn't of noticed if it wasn't for Willow's reaction.

I'm in the huge minority, I suspect, but I love 'da spoilers. So, thanks for the info. It greatly reduces my "Buffy" stress. And I also noticed the "EAT" comment. I suddenly found myself to be very hungry

Damn, I was under the impression there were no new eps until the new year do they run encores? or am I SOL? I'm not home at night because I work, so I taped the 7-9pm block on Fox.

I thought this episode was great. My thoughts and wonderings about the episode:

1. Why didn't ubervamp finish off Buffy? It could have dug her out and killed her-Xander uncovers her while it's still night so it clearly had the time. The First may have very specific plans for her.

2. What does the First need from Spike? It could have had ubervamp dust him a thousand times over by now and has been working Spike since the first ep, so it must need him for something. Does it really want to make him choose evil...or is that just entertainment and he's bait for Buffy?

3. Buffy's mom. Her demeanor seemed helpful and the talk about good and evil was going somewhere interesting, but...extremely creepy help if that's what it is! You can't tell for sure if she's being brutally honest and getting cut off before the part that makes it clearly helpful or trying to mislead, weaken and demoralize Buffy.

4. The Principal says he loves mysteries-"I love finding out what's underneath it all at the very end." Is he referring to "From beneath it devours"? Is this guy looking forward to an apocalypse?

Isn't Faith coming back to Angel when the new episodes start up? I thought I read somewhere that she was.

Good episdoe though.

I think the whole drowning thing for Spike is just to cause him discomfort dont you? I mean there are only certain ways to kill a vampire, drowning isnt one of them...but you know the whole thing is probably most unpleasant for him, like getting the $*** kicked out of him.

I was very concerned that the writers were pulling a Sixth Sense with Giles until he leaned against a coffee table in the living room. It's a big cheat to not show us how he managed to keep his head on his shoulders. I am really concerned about what's up with the principal. I had hoped he was just a latent watcher but something else is going on. He's too hot to be a bad guy don't do this to me!

On the whole Giles not touching anything - Didn't he take the books out of his bag that he took from the Council? I could be wrong, but I thought he took them out - I'd have to re-watch to be sure.

??Why didn't the council have their whole library backed up??Guess they needed a scanner!

I agree that "Giles" seemed "inept", he didn't offer much help and was turning to Buffy for all the answers and strategies. If it really isn't Giles, then it was a great acting job by ASH on being "not Giles."

Joss said "continutity is for wimps" or something like that - so I guess it doesn't matter that the Christmas tree lot where the underground cave was- was in the heart of Sunnydale in "Amends" and not in a field like in last nights ep.

The thing that came out of willow was the same thing that came out of the first in "Amends" when it was talking to Buffy in the underground cave (yay continuity!)

I thought Buffy's reaction to Giles being at the front door was weak - she was quite expressionless -

his re-apperance at the Magic Box at the end of last seaon was one of my all time favorite Buffy moments!

Vamp's don't breathe, so I was sort of laughing when Spike was getting dunked in the water repeatedly.

I think Giles is Giles (I don' t think the First can appear to so many people as the same "dead" person at the same time, plus the First wouldn't be giving up the 411 on itself so easily).

yes, its been pretty widely reported that Faith will escape from prison after some of the First's hooded henchmen attempt to slay her. She is supposed to start out on Angel and then move over to Buffy for the last few episodes of the show.

If the Slayerette was so scared, why did she go running out into the night by herself?

Buffy knew a stake didn't kill the UberVamp, so why didn't she report this to the gang, and why didn't she later go out with any weapons?

Why did they have to wait until night to go kill it? Why not try and kill it when you have an advantage, during the daytime?

How did Buffy's hair get so long when it was above her shoulders less than a year ago? Does the Slayer healing powers also apply to hair growth?




I am also hoping that Principal is not a bad guy, but wasn't he seen burying the bodies in the last episode?

I like Willlow's new gay Slayerette friend. It was cute how she worked it out so they'd have to sleep in bed together.

It would've been cool if Giles had been wearing a scarf or a turtle-neck sweater. But only if it was really Giles. Remember when he showed up at the door - as Buffy goes to hug him, he noticably winces away and then the SIT walk up in between them - he didn't want to be touched - also notice how he pretty much led her to the encounter with the uber-vamp - first time directly, second time indirectly (using a SIT that ran away for not apparant reason).

But why didn't the badass vampire kill Buffy? Wasn't that the point?

So the badass vamp just likes to punch people a lot? If he's so bad, Buffy should have been torn to pieces - not just beat up.

Yet, I will forgive these goofy contrivances in favor of the eventual return of Faith and the usual satisfying payoff that Whedon delivers

If you follow the evil formula, they never kill right away. They always go for the pain, maiming, etc. It didn't kill her because for whatever reason, the First Evil doesn't want her dead yet. And we won't no why just yet. If that thing wanted her dead, I'm guessing she would be by now.

Giles was also trying to get Buffy to sleep, just like the joyce-ghost was. Also when Buffy was trying to climb out of the xmas-tree-place hole in the ground, i was suprized when Giles didnt help pull her out. what was he doing away from the hole?

-daveninja.com

Two inconsequential things that haven't yet been brought up:

(1) What happened to Dawn's hair? One minute she's "little miss ironed straight" and the next she's discovered that Ronco "twist-a-braid" machine?

(2) Andrew was flat-out brilliant last night. His monologue about being the redeemed Vader from the last 5 minutes of "Jedi" had me rolling on the floor.

• Quoth elektra •<HR SIZE=1>das - where the heck are you dude?<HR SIZE=1>

Sorry, babe. I'll be steering clear of the Buffy threads for the most part ... not too keen on running across a spoiler before the big end (just read one in this thread actually; luckily it's already been spoiled for me). I dropped in to see if others were thinking the same as me about Giles though ... appears to be the case.

No one touched Giles ... in fact, he was conspicously avoiding it at all times. Note the other Slayer chick was carrying the books, and as already mentioned, that he was strangely absent from the hole when Buffy was climbing out ... and the hug scene when he first showed up. Add to that the M. Night Shyamalan reference, and it's either a VERY elaborate misdirection (I wouldn't put that past ol' Joss either), or poor Giles is in the great beyond.

Anyway, I'm not entirely convinced that "evil" is the only thing playing games here. It would stand to reason that "good" would probably have the same dead-people approach.

das

DaveNinja - I was wondering that myself. Why didn't Giles help her out and where was he that he showed up at the last minute?

das - what's your thoughts on the principal?

As a weird silhouette, no less.