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Last week, we learned that Buffy’s entire life as the Slayer could be just a schizophrenic delusion and that a jilted Anya has gone back to her vengeance demon ways. Anya and Spike had revenge sex and thanks to the spying Trio, everyone found out, and Willow and Tara found their way back together.
The Buffy Season Six Drinking Game Rules
Drink once every time:
A vamp is dusted
A scene takes place in a cemetery
Giles adjusts his glasses
Willow misuses magic
Tara gets upset at Willow misusing magic
Anya or Xander mention being engaged or their wedding
Spike and Buffy are the epitome of Bad Romance
Warren, specifically, is the worst
Drink twice every time:
There’s an extremely outdated pop culture reference
A vampire is invited into a house
There’s a callback to previous season shenanigans
Dawn steals something
Buffy emotes existential dread
The “Trio” makes a pop culture reference
You really miss Giles
**CW** Major content warning here. If you’ve never seen these episodes, or it’s just been a really long time, please be aware that the first one features sexual violence and assault, and both episodes include violent murder and not just the supernatural kind we’re used to. Proceed with caution and possibly hard liquor.
6.19 “Seeing Red”
Willow and Tara are enjoying their snuggly afterglow when Willow admits to being worried about Buffy since she looked upset after seeing Spike and Anya together. Tara confesses that Buffy and Spike have been sleeping together, but that Tara had promised not to tell. Willow feels a little betrayed that Buffy didn’t tell her, but Tara helps her to understand that Buffy probably couldn’t handle the look on Willow’s face if she’d told her. Willow checks and finds that Buffy hasn’t made it back home and runs into Dawn, who’s bummed about how upset everyone must be about what they saw on the Trio’s video stream. But then Dawn gets adorably excited when she realizes that Tara spent the night and that the two must be back together.
Buffy busts down the door of the Trio’s lair to find the place empty. She gathers up some papers while looking around but then finds out the place is boobytrapped with giant buzz saws. She makes it out and heads back home to get help from the girls to see if they can track down the Trio. They decide to give Xander and Anya some time off from Scooby research for the time being. When Dawn suggests Spike, Buffy says he’s not part of the team, and Dawn is obviously disappointed that he won’t be around anymore. On her way to a sleepover, Dawn stops by Spike’s crypt to confirm that he won’t be coming around anymore. He gently tells her it’s complicated, and actually seems pleased to hear that Willow and Tara are back together. Spike is shocked to find out that Dawn caught his and Anya’s sex show, thanks to the Trio’s cameras. Dawn wants to know if he loves Buffy how he could have hurt her like that. But he’s still pouting about how Buffy treated him and tells Dawn there must be a little evil left in him yet.
When Buffy goes to check on Xander, she finds him still drinking and feeling sorry for himself. She tells him that Anya loves him, despite being with Spike. But Xander is way more upset about Buffy having been with Spike. ICK. She tells him that he doesn’t know how hard it’s been for her since she was brought back. When he keeps arguing, she finally tells him that her personal life is none of his business. He claims it used to be, but NO, XANDER, IT NEVER WAS. You just didn’t know it then, either. Xander reminds her that Spike doesn’t have a soul and asks if she’d still trust him if he didn’t have that chip in his head. Then he slams out, to go feel sorry for himself elsewhere. I did not miss Xander being a dick. He ends up at the Bronze, flirting with some girl at the bar, but he ruins it by going off on a tangent about how poorly he’s doing with women these days.
The Trio attacks a Nezzla demon to skin it and make Jonathan dress up in its skin to get through a magical barrier to steal the Orbs of Nezzla’khan. While Jonathan does the dirty work, Warren and Andrew are quite obviously plotting to get rid of him. Warren calls dibs on the Orbs, which imbues him with demon strength. He promises the others they’ll get their chance, too. Somehow, I don’t believe him. They head to the Bronze so that Warren can start a fight with his high school bully. After he knocks that guy out, he takes some money from the cash register and creeps out the women at the bar before Xander comes over and tries to take him outside. Warren says something gross about Anya, and Xander hits him, but the Orbs also make Warren invulnerable, and he punches Xander across the room. He intends to keep pounding on Xander, while Andrew calmly drinks an umbrella cocktail and eggs Warren on, but Jonathan reminds him there’s somewhere they’re meant to be.
Buffy gets in a fight with a vamp in the cemetery who kicks her into a tombstone just as she dusts him. She goes home injured and is limping in her bathrobe headed to take a shower when Spike follows her into the bathroom and closes the door. She tells him to get out, but he says they need to talk. He calmly tells her he still cares about her, and she responds that maybe he shouldn’t sleep with her friends then. But he tells her he didn’t go to Anya for that, he went to her for a spell. He starts to get upset as he tells her he wanted a spell to make the feelings stop. He gets Buffy to admit that she didn’t let Xander kill him because she has feelings for him, but she tells him it’s not love. She could never trust him enough to love him. Spike laughs that trust is for old marrieds. He thinks that great love is wild and passionate and dangerous, and he doesn’t believe that she doesn’t feel that way about him. He advances on her until he’s pawing at her and groping. She repeatedly refuses him and tries to push him away but ends up getting knocked into the side of the bathtub on her already injured back. Spike pushes her on the floor, forcing himself on her while she cries and screams, begging him not to. It’s fucking horrifying and extremely upsetting. Buffy is able to push him off and he seems almost surprised at what happened, denying that he would have. But she knows it’s only because she stopped him and tells him to ask again why she could never love him.
Xander goes to Buffy’s to let her know about the Trio and finds Spike’s coat on the banister. He heads upstairs to confront Buffy with it since she told him she wasn’t seeing Spike anymore. He finds her bruised and crying on the bathroom floor. He wants to know if Spike raped her, but he can’t even say the word. Buffy admits that he tried, but she stopped him. Willow walks into the bathroom, but Buffy just wants to know what they’ve found out about the Trio. Willow and Tara have used the stuff Buffy found in their lair to track their next hit.
In his crypt, Spike keeps reliving the attack, and Buffy screaming at him and is visibly distressed. Clem stops by with hot wings, hoping for a Knight Rider marathon because he is the greatest. Spike is still in his head, asking himself what he’s done, but Clem misunderstands and thinks it’s just about his on and off thing with Buffy. Clem thinks she’s a sweet girl but has Issues. (He’s not totally wrong about that.) Spike starts speaking non-sensically about feeling the chip squirming around in his head. Clem tries to reassure him that things change, and Spike sinisterly agrees they do, if you make them. Later that night, Spike leaves town on his motorcycle, stopping just long enough to deliver a menacing message to the Sunnydale skyline.
At an amusement park, their opening day haul is being loaded into an armored truck, which the Trio is about to rob. Buffy shows up to stop it, and she and suped-up Warren are pretty evenly matched, but she manages to bury him under some rocks. Unfortunately, it doesn’t slow him, or his misogynistic quips down for long. Andrew chants for Warren to kill her, which surprises Jonathan. Jonathan jumps on Buffy’s back, which looks like an attack, but really, he tips her off to smash Warren’s Orbs. She’s able to do so, defeating him and Warren takes off with a jet pack. Andrew tries to follow suit but misses. Jonathan wasn’t even given a jet pack. Those two get arrested and taken to the police station, where Jonathan bitches about how they were going to ditch him, and Andrew cries that Warren left him after promising they’d be together.
Willow and Tara are in their room hugging when Tara sees Xander out the window, headed towards Buffy in the backyard. She hopes they’re making up. Xander is finally able to nicely tell Buffy that it hurt that she didn’t trust him enough to tell him about Spike. She apologizes and says she should have. He admits that maybe she would have if he hadn’t given her so many reasons to think he’d be an ass about it. Seriously, though. Xander says he doesn’t know what he’d do without her and Willow, she tells him they shouldn’t find out and she loves him, and they hug. It’s teary and sweet, so of course, Warren shows up to ruin everything. He storms into the yard yelling at Buffy and pulls out a gun. He gets several scattered shots off and runs away. One hits Buffy in the gut, and the other goes through the upstairs window and hits Tara in the chest. As Willow grabs Tara crying, her eyes turn red.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
10. And they were nearly all for effing Warren. Also, I really miss Giles.
Vamps Dusted
1
Bloody Good Snark
Oh my god, that was so satisfying.
6.20 “Villains”
The ambulance arrives at the Summers’ house and Xander directs them to the backyard where Buffy is lying still with her eyes wide open. Upstairs, Willow is crying and begging Tara to come back, then she looks up, and as clouds and thunder roll across the bedroom ceiling, she commands Osiris. A demon face in the clouds tells her this is a human death by human means and she cannot use unnatural forces to bring her back. Willow screams in frustration. She comes outside as Xander accompanies the paramedics taking Buffy to the ambulance. He doesn’t seem to notice her blood-spattered clothes as she asks him how this happened and he tells her it was Warren. She stomps off down the sidewalk, not stopping when Xander calls for her.
Jonathan and Andrew are arguing in jail, with Jonathan making gross jokes about the dude in the next cell wanting to make him his boyfriend. Andrew thinks Warren is coming up with a plan to bust them out, but Warren is actually playing big man in the demon bar, bragging to everyone that he’s the one who killed the Slayer. He explains that he tried witchcraft and demonology, but what finally worked was shooting her with a gun in her own backyard. But while he’s ready to celebrate the demons all laugh at him because they just heard on the news that a girl was shot in her backyard and has been taken to the hospital, alive.
Willow blows open the door to the Magic Box, asking where Anya keeps the black arts books. Anya refuses to tell her, but Willow freezes her and makes the books come flying down to her. She then dips her hands into the stack, absorbing all the print up through her skin, until it turns her eyes and hair black. Warren goes to Rack’s, offering dead presidents. And it’s kind of hard to believe Rack deals in money. Warren explains that he tried to kill the Slayer but it didn’t take and now she’s after him. But Rack tells him the Slayer is the least of his problems and he should worry about the witch. Rack can already sense Willow’s rising power and that she’s coming for Warren. He begs for cover and firepower, but Rack doesn’t even think he could protect Warren from Willow’s fury.
At the hospital, they’re trying to save a crashing Buffy when the power starts flickering and the new Dark Willow (who apparently stopped to change her outfit to complete the look) arrives. She orders the medical personnel out and uses magic to remove the bullet from Buffy’s chest with what appears to be zero effort. Buffy wakes up asking how she got there and what’s wrong with Willow. Willow says that she’ll explain, but they’ve gotta go find Warren. Warren buys a bus ticket headed out of town as Xander drives Willow and Buffy through the dessert. Xander isn’t driving fast enough, so Willow uses magic to speed things up. Buffy and Xander are concerned about her using magic, and he would also like to know what’s with the makeover of the damned. Willow doesn’t provide any answers, just magically off-roads the car towards the place where Warren’s bus is heading. She stands in the middle of the road until the bus stops right in front of her and orders Warren off the bus. As soon as he gets off, she strangles him and his eyeball pops out, revealing that it’s actually a robot. Willow promises that she’ll still find him and kill him. When Buffy and Xander object, she finally tells them that he killed Tara when he shot Buffy. They’re upset, but try to talk Willow out of this, telling her that killing Warren will destroy her too and that there’s no coming back from this, which Willow is totes fine with. She blasts them back when they try to follow her and then disappears.
Dawn comes home and heads upstairs looking for everyone, and finds Tara’s dead body on the floor. It’s heartbreaking. Hours later, Buffy and Xander get home after dark, calling for Willow. I realize a lot has been going on, but like, nobody thought about Dawn all day? Well, that tracks, I guess. As they’re calling for Dawn around the house, Buffy finds Tara’s body on the bedroom floor, and crouched in the corner, Dawn says she didn’t want to leave her alone breaks down in Buffy’s arms. They finally have the coroner take the body away and Xander and Buffy talk about needing to find Willow because if she finds Warren, he’s a dead man. Dawn doesn’t understand why that’s not a good thing. Buffy tells her she doesn’t really feel that way, but she does and thinks Buffy should too. Xander kind of agrees. Buffy doesn’t think being the Slayer gives her a right to kill, and that the human world has rules for these things. She promises that Warren will get what he deserves, but she will not Willow destroy herself. They decide they should try the Magic Box for a locating spell, but realize they can’t leave Dawn home alone. (She’s been alone in the house all day with a dead body, but sure.) Dawn begs to go with them to help Willow, but Buffy wants to take her somewhere she feels safe, which Dawn says is Spike’s place. Buffy agrees and cuts Xander off when he objects because of what Spike did the other night. She doesn’t think they have any other choices. Buffy takes Dawn to Spike’s crypt and startles Clem, who’s housesitting. He’s surprised Spike didn’t tell Buffy that he was leaving town. Buffy and Dawn both seem down about the news, but Clem sweetly agrees to let Dawn stay and offers to play Parcheesi or rent The Wedding Planner. Buffy asks if Spike said how long he’d be gone, but all he told Clem was that he could be gone a while.
African drums in the nighttime desert and people speaking a foreign language around campfires tell us that Spike must be far from home. A guy tries to stop him from doing something in a language that isn’t translated for us, but Spike says he wasn’t asking permission. He heads into a dark cave and the creepy violent carvings along the sides don’t deter him. A demon with green eyes knows Spike seeks him, something to do with a woman. Spike agrees, “Bitch thinks she’s better than me.” Spike tells the demon he hasn’t been himself since he got this chip in his head, and the demon asks if he wants to return to his former self. The demon flings some insults at Spike, including telling him that Spike would never be able to endure the trials to get what’s asking for, but Spike is up for the challenge.
At the Magic Box, Anya tells Xander that she knows about Tara and Willow sucked all the dark arts books dry. She admits she doesn’t need a locator spell to find Willow because she can sense her overwhelming thirst for vengeance. At first, Xander assumes it’s leftover from her demon days, but then he finally gets a clue about what he drove her to. Buffy arrives and catches up on that news quickly and wants to know which side Anya is on. Anya says she’ll help, but that she’s helping Willow, who’s getting close to finding Warren in the woods.
After using her bloodstained blouse to do a locator spell, Willow stalks through the forest after a running Warren, but he somehow gets the upper hand and manages to bury an ax in her back. Thanks to her magical supercharge, the ax doesn’t work. He tells her that killing Tara was an accident wasn’t personal, but Willow is taking it pretty personally. Warren tries to stop her with robotic tricks and magic, to no avail. Once she has him tied to some trees, he tells her she’s really asking for it. Good god, he is the worst. The way he threatens that Willow will be begging to join her little girlfriend makes her realize this wasn’t the first time he’s killed and uses magic to reveal a dead Katrina who asks Warren how he could have loved her and done that to her. “Because you deserved it, bitch” is his answer. Warren alternates between saying awful misogynistic things to Willow and yelling for help as Anya leads Buffy and Xander through the woods to Willow. She magically burrows the bullet she took from Buffy’s body into Warren’s chest and then flays the skin off his entire body before incinerating him. The others arrive just in time to ask what Willow’s done. She tells them “One down” before disappearing.
How many times do I have to take a drink?
All the drinks. There are no drinks left. Willow used all the magic, and Warren is the effing worst, and we poured the rest out for Tara.
Vamps Dusted
0
Stylish Yet Affordable Boots
I’m a bit perplexed by Anya’s schoolgirl Peter Pan collar look. It’s very librarian chic, which isn’t really her usual aesthetic.
The Truest Thing Anybody Said This Week
I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Willow uses her soulless doppelganger’s iconic line before flaying Warren. Be honest. You’re way past over his shit, too.
Dark Willow: “Bored now.”
So… that was a lot. I know we’re supposed to think Willow went too far there but did she really? There are demons who are better people than Warren Mears. Speaking of, I’m afraid it’s time to talk about the rapey vampire elephant in the room. The show loves to remind us that Spike is a monster who has no soul. But he’s also the same person who would have let Glory kill him rather than give up Dawn’s name and watch Buffy lose her only family. He’s the same person who’s taken care of Dawn and fought beside Buffy’s friends when she was dead and he couldn’t win any points with her anymore. At Xander and Anya’s wedding, he was already on the rebound and commented on how it was nice to see Buffy look happy. Yes, in last week’s recap, he wanted Buffy to tell her friends about them, which was definitely shitty since they were already over, and it’s her friends so it should be her choice. But it was also just last week that he reminded Buffy “I don’t hurt you” when she suspected him of planting the Trio’s camera in her yard. Can you hear my scream of frustration from there? I know the writers needed something dramatic enough to drive Spike on his big quest, and of course, I would have liked it to have been anything else. But mostly, I’d have appreciated if it felt like it made any damn sense for the character.
Feel free to stage your Spike apologist intervention in the comments, and be sure to join us next week! Meredith will be wrapping this bleak season up for us with “Two To Go” and “Grave”.
