Hello, and welcome to Buff and the art
of story season 7. A pie that recap
1 episode of Buff the vampire slayer at
a time, focusing on its story elements.
Today,
I'm looking at season 7,
episode 9 never leave me where Buff Inter
spike, Za and On play good cop, bad
cop with Andrew,
and the truth about the big evil is
finally
discover.
I am Lisa M Lily author of the
awakening supernatural
thriller series and the Qc Davis crime novels,
as well as the writing as a second
career books for writers,
along with the recap of never leave me.
Today, I'll talk about the challenges of using
a group as a protagonist,
setting out the rules in a supernatural
story, filling in a lack of plot developments
with fun and humor and building to a
key
revelation. As always,
there will be no spoilers except in the
foreshadowing
section at the end, but I'll give you
plenty of warning. Okay. Let's dive into the
hell mouth. Never leave me aired the first
time on 11/26/2002.
It was written by Drew Goddard and directed
by David Solomon.
It's 1 of the shortest
episodes of buff at 39 minutes.
Most episodes run about 42
or 43 minutes. I think the longest was
44.
It starts with some opening conflict,
Willow on and Dawn are cleaning up the
living room as Xander repairs the windows.
This is from the destruction back in conversations
with dead people, so not much time passes
during the 3 episodes,
conversations with dead people where
Dawn, saw joyce and some sort of spirit
or demon or evil forced destroyed a lot
of the house
and Willow and Buff also had encounters, then
the following episode sleeper
where Buff followed spike and discovered he was
killing and brought him home.
Don now says to Willow, so the basement
was filled with bodies
referring to the climactic scene in sleeper and
Willow says apparently
Now John comments that Spike could have fired
lots, more vampires and buried them all over
town. So what
are they waiting for for spike to do
something crazy? On asks, shouldn't they stab him
through the chest? Isn't that what they do
in this type of
situation?
Referring to selfless where Buff did stab on
yet after she's slaughtered all those f boys.
Will insist though that Buff knows what she's
doing and Sander declines to join the debate
though On wants him to weigh. And since
he was always skeptical of spike. On tells
them they need to prepare for the possibility
that William, the bloody is back. A nice
transition to the neck scene,
we see boots and the hem of what
looks like, spikes,
trademark leather does as he stocks down the
street, but when the camera pans up, it's
Andrew
in a leather trench coat and what looks
like Warren
tells him what he needs to do next.
Andrew wants to know why he has to
do all the wet work. And here is
where we get the rules that this evil
plays by, and it's literally signaled by
warren saying, hey, you know the rules. I
can't take corp
form. Here, feel.
He stops and Andrew passes his hand
right through warren chest and back back and
Andrew says cool.
This, I'll call the ghost of warren says
pretty bitch. Right? I'm like Obi wan, and
Andrew
responds or Patrick W, Warren then explains that
he can't do any of this
himself
because of that, but Andrew says he doesn't
wanna kill anyone else. Warren morph into Jonathan.
And reassure Andrew, basically that it's okay
that he killed Jonathan that it wasn't that
bad and then he became 1 with light
and hope. Jonathan also reassure Andrew that it's
not andrew's fault. The ritual didn't work. Jonathan
is little He doesn't have as much blood
as other people, and he should probably have
told someone he was anemic, but don't worry
they'll fix it. Both Warren and Jonathan
In these scenes
speak and act very much like
themselves. So you can see why Andrew thinks
he is talking to their ghosts.
Jonathan also says they can work around Andrew
not killing anyone else. This is about 2
minutes 39 seconds, so very early in the
episode. Usually by 10 percent through, we see
the story spark or inc incident that gets
the main plot rolling.
I see
this
scene with Warren Andrew Jonathan
as the story spark because what drives
the main plot in this action is that
this evil wants to open
the seal of Damp will learn what it's
called later in the episode, and needs blood
to do it. Now in a way, this
was all set in motion long before this
episode started
in the previous
showed back when Andrew
killed Jonathan.
That was the first attempt that we know
of to open the seal. But for the
purposes, up today's story. This sets it off.
The scene cuts to a bedroom in the
summer's home. Buff is tightening ropes on spike.
He's tied to a chair, and she tells
him they'll get to the bottom of what's
happening. Spike tells her to make the ropes
tighter. If he gets free, someone will die
and we go to credits. So it's a
pretty good hook for the credits. On return,
principal wood, lectures 2 students in his office
about damaging
school property and he tells them it can
be settled 1 of 2 ways. You can
rep repay the walls or I can suspend
you and report this little incident on your
permanent.
And 1 of the students says fine. Do
that. And Robin Woods says, okay. I was
bluff. I hadn't really thought that through. Listen
this whole permanent everything thing is such a
myth anyway, colleges never asked for anything past
your Sat scores, and it's not like employers
are gonna be calling up to check to
see how many days you missed back in
high school. So listen, I could suspend you,
but that would mean calling your parents, alerting
your teachers, filling out paperwork and quite possibly
having to talk to the school board,
all of which sounds positively
exhausting to me. No. No. I think it
would be much easier if I just called
the police. Let them deal with it. Oh,
and in case you're wondering, this is the
part where I'm not bluff.
And the other student says will rep repent
it. This is the first use of a
scene
that
is entirely filler. It doesn't move anything in
the plot of this episode, but it does
have some humor. I enjoy principal wood, fuss
up about the permanent. Record thing we get
some character
development
for him, and we will see similar use
of humor later with Za and An,
which does a little bit of character development
less for them as people, more for them
as a former couple, it moves their
relationship. However, they're quite a few scenes
that are like that in this episode, which
made me on first watch,
not enjoy it that much because not much
happens
in comparison to most buff
episodes But I enjoy it more on re
rewatch because I know the whole season arc,
and I can just have fun with the
humor of it, and what we see of
our characters. And the good thing with this
wood scene, it does have conflict.
So it isn't just hey let me tell
you about these characters or let's have some
funny jokes. There's conflict. And now there's a
little bit more minor conflict because Don knocks
on the door and interrupt. She tells Robin
wood that Buff is sick and won't be
in that day. And Dawn says last night
she was vomiting, and this morning she was
vomiting some more. And then just as we
thought she is done. She started vomiting again,
and wood very dead pants says, yeah. We
got that stomach flu thing going around. Dawn
adds, her exact words were I've got stuff
coming out of both ends. Principal wood it's
hilarious here. He says, thank you. That's very
helpful.
Done Brightly says, sure. No problem. Hey, guys.
How's it going.
So more humor, ultimately, it really doesn't matter.
That Buff doesn't go to work today. This
story could as easily have happened on a
Saturday or a Sunday when she wasn't do
at work. It is a nice way though
to weave in Buff regular life, which is
something
in a story that you want to do
if you want your audience to remember, hey.
Yeah. Buff has a job as a high
school counselor and doing it with a little
bit of conflict and a little bit of
humor
and covering it quickly is a nice way
to do that. Dawn tells him that Buff
will be back. She just needed to get
some things out of her system and the
scene cut to Buff on the phone
with Quentin t from the watchers council. She
tells him she needs to find gil who
is not answering any of his number. So
this builds on that moment last week when
we saw gil with an x swinging at
his head and another watcher
killed. Quentin towels, Buff the council doesn't keep
track of laugh employees
and Ever since str abandoned his post in
Sunny dale, the council hasn't seen him. And
this got me thinking about
the council
presumably doesn't know that Buff ever died because
there was the Buff bot.
Gil probably wouldn't have told them. So did
they stop paying him because it looked like
he just walked off his post, which which
he did.
So I guess he's a lapse employee, and
and they didn't try probably knowing Buff did
not try to send another watcher out there.
Beau tells Quentin not to get, quote, all
British and Dodgy and, quote, she knows his
ways of finding gil, and he tells her
he'll look into it. When he hangs up,
the camera pans, and we see there are
a ton of watchers sitting around a giant
conference table. There's all these books shelves around
them. It's just what I would think the
watchers council looks like, and Quentin tells them
the girl knows nothing. Then he walks in
front of a map of the whole world
with
rectangles drawn around sections and says they need
to find gil as soon as possible. The
scene cuts to spike still tight in that
chair. He's breathing very hard,
struggling
to keep it together. Buff asks if she
can do something. He starts to tell her
to leave and then he va out and
we cut to a commercial. On return, we
get a shot of the summer's house and
then Willow and Buff talking in the upstairs
hallway.
Buff says he's been feast on humans for
weeks. He's been having some pretty bad withdrawals,
I think we need to get him some
blood. And Willow says, do you want me
to kill On? Buff looks a little tempted
but says, no. They should probably try to
wan him off humans
they need animal blood and Willow agrees to
go to the butcher, but first she asks
how Buff do
and Buff says she'll be okay. In the
next scene, we're in the school basement,
warren
tells Andrew, she won't feel a thing just
do it fast. They near the seal and
Warren trying to get Andrew to kill a
pig lid. Andrew talks about babe too pick
in the city being really underrated and Warren
says don't think about babe. He all so
tries to coach him telling him he's Conan.
He's the destroyer. It's Andrew against nature. He's
a primal hunter.
And goes on your Andrew, everyone knows you.
You play by your own roles. It's killer
be killed. Andrew inspired gives a whoop and
chases the pig with a knife. He lunges
at it and it sq and runs away,
and Warren says that's the worst attempt a
pig's lettering I've ever seen. Andrew says he's
not very good at stabbing. Isn't there some
other way to get blood and we cut
to the butcher shop. This is a nice
way to get Willow and Andrew
into the same
place. For this same reason.
Andrew's number is called, and he orders a
bunch of items, 12 pork chops, some other
meat, 8 quarts of pig's blood, toothpaste,
spoof the type of scene where someone goes
in, when I was young, it was going
into buy condoms and being embarrassed to get
just that. So getting a bunch of other
things. The butcher gives Andrew a look and
says he doesn't sell toothpaste. At 10 minutes
1 second, Andrew
turns away from the counter holding his brown
bag and bumps right into Willow. All his
items spill onto the ground, and we cut
to commercial. On return, Willow runs after Andrew,
who has dart outside, and she corners him
and he says don't kill me.
Willis says I'm not gonna kill you, and
he responds don't torture me and send me
to an eternal pain dimension. He also tells
her warren killed terra. I didn't do it
and he was aiming for Buff anyway.
Understandably, Willow looks an and an as Andrew
Makes excuses,
and she says not making it better. Then
he tells her she got her revenge. She
killed his best friend and they're even
Willow is even more angry and says even
you think I get satisfaction from what I
did and he responds maybe not, but let
me keep my skin. Okay? I'm not bad.
I'm not bad anymore. I'm good. I do
good things now.
Andrew seems
sincere here,
and some of his conversation with Jonathan
suggests he might think that he's doing something
good. He thinks when Warren appears to him
and Jonathan appears to him that it really
is his friends
And his plan with Jonathan was we're going
to get
information to help the slayer and join her
gang. So he may
still think that it's not entirely clear because
we don't know what other conversations he had
with Warren. Willow asked him if he's so
good why does he need lots and lots
of blood, and then he
switches to say that he's bad, he's evil,
he's protected by powerful forces
and goes on forces you can't even begin
to imagine little girl. He calls her as
she witch and tells her to stand down,
Willow pushes him against the wall and says
shut your mouth, I am a she witch,
a very powerful
she witch, or which at is more accurate.
I am not to be tri with.
He says, but I and Willow tells him
stop talking don't interrupt me and significant man.
I am willing.
I am deaf. If you dare define me,
I will call down my fury exact fresh
vengeance and make your worse fears come true.
Okay?
This is a nice job, and I did
not do it justice of Willow
drawing on
the feelings of power and
assertiveness
that she had as dark willow, the confidence,
the clarity, the ability to push back and
scare someone. Obviously, she went way over the
edges dark willow, but she draws on that
without going there completely,
but then there's a little of the old
willow when she says, okay? And it is
enough
to
scare andrew,
scare,
control, and intimidate. It's enough for willow to
take charge. And I like that she had
been able
to carry over some of that, so the
willow who felt like everyone pushed her around,
Willow doesn't feel that way anymore. Willow brings
warren to the summer's house and tells the
other about his suspicious behavior. That's about 11
minutes 51 seconds, which is past the quarter
mark in the episode And I think it
is the first major plot turn that should
come from outside the protagonist,
spin the story in a new direction and
raise the stakes. It doesn't spin in an
entirely new direction because we will still have
Buff trying to get the truth from spikes
and we'll still have this evil trying to
get blood in in the background unknown to
Buff,
but Andrew
will also be question and a good part
of the episode will be taken up by
that. So it is something of a earn
in this story,
and it is a big deal to bring
Andrew 1 of the geek Trio
into the summers. Home. This also raises the
question
who is the protagonist here. I said it
comes from outside the protagonist.
A protagonist should be the character actively pursuing
a goal throughout the story who has the
most at stake and is the main point
of view character.
Throughout the episode, Buff is trying to learn
more about the evil that's threatening them by
questioning spike by as she said last episode
staying close to spike because the evil has
been messing with him, he probably knows it
best even if he does consciously. So Buff
has an active goal. Za and Anu also
will be helping with that when they question
Andrew, but that's only for part of the
episode, and Willow is helping as well. So
all of them are fairly active, but Buff
is the 1 who is
throughout, who has the most at stake? Will,
they all have
their lives at stake as is often true,
probably buff more than the others because everything
is on her shoulders as the slayer. So
the first too lean toward Buff, the last
1 main point of view is where it
gets tricky and is part of why this
episode feels a little un focused
or like it, lacks enough story because we
we don't have that much more fees point
of view than anyone else's, We shift around.
We get Andrew's point of view. We get
some spike. We get buff. We get a
lot of on and Xander separately, and together,
we will occasionally get Joins point of view.
So there isn't
a
clear,
okay. Here's the protagonist.
And that's why I think in this episode,
it really is the group,
and friends
as the protagonist. And this shows the episode
shows why that can be a little difficult
because it spreads the energy of the story
around, and you should as this episode does,
have someone who is most often being the
a spokesperson for the group or the actor
for the group. So here that would be
Buff, but it it it isn't really ideal.
I do think that has more to do
with... They're not quite being enough story here.
So we do fill a lot of time
with other things. Oh, and we get a
little of Robin point of view, but clearly,
he's not the protagonist he's hardly in the
episode. The other issue with Buff as protagonist
is yes, she's actively
pursuing a goal
but she's not as active as usual and
a lot of her actions are reacting
to spike, and that rob the story of
a little of it its power as well.
The sub
with the evil force trying to open the
seal has a more active feel to it.
Even though the force can't act directly because
it speaks through warren through Jonathan,
it gets Andrew to take actions. It speaks
to spike as we'll see. Prompts him to
do things, and we will see in the
end. It acting through its minions.
And it is pushing
against Buff and friends a whole lot of
ways,
even though at least in this episode its
primary goal doesn't seem to be to push
against them. In this moment, its goal is
to open this seal.
Since we are talking about supernatural
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to save the world or destroy it? The
awakening is book 1 in a 4 book
series,
and the ebook book additions are free at
all your favorite
retailers in all your favorite formats
or you can buy a paper back or
audiobook
edition or get any of those at the
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You can find links at least a lily
dot com slash v hyphen awakening.
Willow tells the others about Andrew's
suspicious behavior, including the blood. He comments on
her hair not even being black anymore, and
then he says he won't talk. This is
where Xander in An
become very active. They tie Andrew to a
chair in a separate room from Spy. He
tells and be careful with the coat. It
was expensive, and on throws it on the
floor and stamps on it. So this is
the beginning of their
interrogation of Andrew and both of them having
a lot of fun with it. Andrew claims
he knows nothing, and he did nothing wrong,
and he makes up a goofy story about
getting the blood for a pretty vampire. He
met in My c, when Xander questions him
on lunges at Andrew and slaps him and
Xander Drags him out. In the other room
Buff feed spike some of Andrew's animal. Blood.
We cut back to Xander and An. They're
in the hall and they're super excited about
their good cop bad cat performance. They are
really having fun together, and they're sure He'll
talk in no time. And I do enjoy
seeing the 2 of them
working together so well. It adds to what
we saw last week where there was a
little bit of banter, at least Sanders part,
and now they are clearly having fun together.
Buff asks spike if he feels better and
he does but he still remembers very little
about the killings,
just flashes.
It's like he's watching someone else. And he
tells her he's been losing time for a
while. And also that he didn't know his
chip stopped working
until now,
He says time has been wonky ever since
he got his soul, but it's so long
since he had 1 that he figured that's
what it was like, and she asked how
he got it back. This cutting back and
forth to Buff questioning spike, Xander and An
question Andrew
is a way to try to keep the
story engaging, and the writers keep the threat
level up by showing spike damp out early
on. So we know that he may get
out of that chair. All the same, the
repeated warnings by spike, more than ones he'll
talk about how dangerous he is, Buff should
kill him, and it will turn out. He
is still really dangerous.
But it feels repetitive, and now Spike is
gonna tell us some things we already know.
Which happened in the last episode. Even on
first watch,
it felt slow because essentially,
the scenes with Buff and spike
until we get to when he breaks free
are just 2 people
talking. And yes, there's conflict, but it feels
like ground they have been through before.
I really think lack episode, sleeper, this episode,
and next episode bring on the night. If
you look at them all together,
have enough story for 2 episodes, and they
were stretched in my opinion into 3, probably
because that's what you need to fit the
network schedule of 22
episodes. I suspect that is why we get
a lot of repeating
exposition, cutting back and forth, Buff gives spike
a little more blood, Spike looks a little
threatening.
Here, she... After she asked how he got
his soul back, he says, saw man about
a girl. I went to seek a legend
out. Travel to the other side of the
world made a deal with a demon, which
of course, we already know. And Buff says
just like that, and he says no, not
just like that. There was a price. There
were trials, torture, pain and suffering of sorts.
When Buff says of sorts, he says it's
all relative,
she asked him what he means. He says
meaning I have come to redefine the words
pain and suffering since I fell in love
with you,
and she says how can you say that?
And he says, apparently, I just slaughtered half
of Sunny pat. I'm not really worried about
being polite anymore? So there is some conflict
there. Buff now tells him he's feeling sorry
for himself, and he claims he's being honest.
And then he says that Buff used him
which he acknowledges she told him. She was
doing, and he claims he didn't understand it
until now but he gets that she hated
herself and took it out on him. She
seems to agree, but then he says Soul
is about self loa which he gets now
he understands the violence inside her, Buff sc
that William the bloody now his insight into
violence, but spike claims it's not the same.
He never hated himself back then as evil
as he was, not that he hates himself
now. And I just continue to have a
lot of trouble with the idea that Buff
hated herself last season.
I read her as depressed feeling numb
as feeling wrong about sleeping with spike, but
I saw the c sensation the other way.
She has sex with spike to feel something,
and then she feels
really conflicted and guilty about that because it's
something that doesn't fit with her view of
what she should be doing in her life.
Of course, it is spiked telling us this,
so we don't have to that spikes view,
but to some extent, Buff seems to agree.
Later, she is gonna disagree with him, though,
which I like at this same time that's
another example of re tread ground in the
conversation and just breaking it up with these
other scenes
and stretching it out. Because now we go
back to Xander. It's 17 minutes 26
and he's playing good cop. He brings Andrew
Water, and apologize for Ami, hitting Andrew, and
Andrew says that chick. Psycho. Xander says you
don't know the half of it. She's a
vengeance steam and you know, conveniently leaving out
that on is not a vengeance steam and
anymore. Andrew says this 1 time I saw
her having sex with spike. Xander counters was
she's killed more men than small packs
Andrew asks if small plaques still kills people,
and Xander says she's killed a lot of
men. She torture them. Anyone who incur her
wrath. 1 time, she... And then he trails
off. Andrew prompts him to finish, and he
says, well, there was this 1 guy. There
was this 1 guy. He
he heard her real bad, so she paid
him back. She killed him, and she did
it real slow. See first, she stopped his
heart. Then she replaced it with darkness, then
she made him live his life like that.
But he still had to go do his
job and see his friends and wake up
in the morning and go to bed at
night, but he had to do it all
empty.
Without anything to look forward to ever.
It definitely seems like Xander is talking about
himself, so we are getting character development
here, it throws me because
it doesn't quite fit. I understand that Xander,
though he was the 1 who left On
the alter, no doubt felt empty. Felt terrible,
probably
had trouble getting through the days.
But framing it as An did that to
him as
revenge.
Since it is linked to Andrew
saying, I saw her having sex with spike
or at least it comes soon after that.
Maybe were to take that that Xander feels
that was On vengeance, which he said at
the time. She told him it was not
about that, but it it kind of bugs
me. I, in a way like that they're
using this for Xander to talk about his
feelings,
but I don't feel sorry for him.
Andrew says it sounds bad, but he doesn't
sound super impressed. So Xander now
switches to well, then she tore out his
test and rubbed it in his face and
took pictures of it, and Andrew says, oh,
god. He also tells Andrew that bad things
have been happening lately and the girls are
looking for someone to blame. Andrew says I
didn't do anything.
Continuing his denials and on your from the
hallway yells you lying son of a bitch,
and she storms into the room and toward
Andrew.
Tanya grabs Andrew,
Sandra pulls her away, and she accidentally slap
Sander in the mouth,
accidentally in the sense that she gets so
into it. Then she mouth Sorry and turns
back toward Andrew Lunges again. She gets him
on the floor and he screams, buff leaves
spike to see what's happening.
While she's gone,
the other
appears and lectures real spike, and then he
starts to sing. He also tells spike they
have a problem. Buff sees on over Andrew
who's on his back, An got her arm
drawn back, but Sandra and An tell her
everything's fine. Buff returns to the hall and
through the door here spike coming, talking
and singing. Oh, don't deceive me. Oh, never
leave me.
From early 1 morning from last week. But
Spike is alone when she goes in and
quiet, and she asks who he was talking
to. He's says he was talking to himself
and he's fine. In the other room, On
tells Andrew she loved to keep hitting him.
Spike asks Buff for more blood and she
watches him as she moves toward the blood
moving slowly,
but the second that she reaches for it,
gl away for a moment, spike va out
breaks his ropes
and lunges out of the chair. So this
is 21 minutes 15 seconds. That past the
middle of the episode. Remember it's a short
episode, but this is a pretty big midpoint
reversal that spike gets free because not only
does he get free. He shove buff aside,
we get a quick cut to the next
room, Andrew starts to talk about the deal
of damp are. So all of that questioning,
Santa and On, with Andrew, it was funny.
There was a point where they
start using kind of film noir ish language,
on something like the we is ready to
sing when they talked to Buff about it.
But all of it doesn't get any
information,
except this brief mention of the seal of
damp
and at that moment, spike punches right through
the wall between the 2 rooms, grabs Andrew
with both hands and bites him, Andrew screams
and we cut to a commercial. And this
is what I mean by not much happening.
We're halfway through and Buff has fed's spiked,
some animal blood. There's been some humor with
sander and On, 1 tiny piece of information
came out. We did get to the house.
So that was pretty big, but that's it
for our main characters.
Buff
saves Andrew. She kicks spike in the head
knocking him out. In the living room, our
friend's talk, buff tells him about hearing spikes
singing and talking. On says maybe it's another
musical, a bad 1. And Buff ads that
Spike mentioned something about Pas song when they
were in the cellar. And she says that
he changed their too and says, quote, I
mean, instantly became another person and, quote, and
Xander says trigger. On says the horse. Za
responds know in his head. It's a trigger.
It's a brainwashing term. It it's how the
military makes sleeper agents. A nice reference to
the title of the last episode sleeper. And
he goes on the brain operatives and condition
them with a specific trigger like a song
that makes him drastically change at a moment
notice. Willow asks if this is left from
his army days, a callback to Halloween,
and Xander says no. This is left over
from every army movie I've ever seen.
I really enjoy that because the show has
had Xander,
draw on that experience of being turned into
a soldier so many times. So I like
that this time. It's the movies. I also
like the way callbacks are handled in this
episode. I had mentioned in some previous
episodes that it felt too heavy handed, and
they felt more like rehash than callbacks.
These are nice callbacks where if you're a
fan and you remember the episodes well. You
know what I'm just talking about when she
says, don't we stab people through the heart
in these situations or the quick reference to
your time as a soldier. We don't replay
a story where Xander becomes a soldier.
Or where everyone's turned into their costumes, we
just have the characters reference these things, the
way you would reference stuff that happened
between you and someone else.
Sand argues it makes sense, they've had these
ghosts haunting them and what if spikes ghosts
figured out a way to control him. Buff
says, this trigger, how do we h safety
or I don't know guns. How do we
make it stop?
Za responds well, usually the operative completes his
task and either blows his head off or
steals a submarine, An honest recap of a
lot of movies, but not helpful.
Buff says they need
information. Spike is like a bomb, so how
do they diffuse him and she tells the
others to look for anything that could haunt
or control spike this way. They need to
know exactly what they're dealing with. This is
a nice transition to the next scene because
principal would
walks through the school at night, and we
do not know what we're dealing with as
to him.
The audience is as uncertain as Buff is
about him, and we also don't know here
if something is controlling him because he goes
down into the basement
and sees Jonathan dead body sp out on
top of the seal. The scene cut back
to Buff. Spike is now chained to a
brick wall in the basement.
There's lots of basement scenes in this episode
and the last 1 we had those bodies
in the basement. We've seen the seal in
the basement multiple times. And now spike gets
chained in the basement.
All fitting with that from beneath you, it
devour,
the line that I don't love, but it
automatically fits together.
And it links a bit to the end
of season 6 where Buff had to crawl
out from
underground where she and Dawn were stuck and
fighting those monsters,
and she crawls out much like crawling out
of her own grave. Buff cleans
the blood from the wound on spikes mouth.
I think from where she kicked him.
Spike asks if he heard anyone, and she
says he took a bite out of Andrew
and bike responds, who, she tells him tucker
brother. This running joke, they did this earlier
too where Dawn asked who about Andrew.
Spike doesn't know why he attacked Andrew. Buff
tells him that they think they know that
something's figured out how to control him. He
tells her to kill him. So this is
a repeat of what he said earlier with
more urgency given that he just tried to
kill Andrew.
She argues with him and he asks if
she has any idea of what he's capable
of.
She says she was in the cellar with
him. She knows, but he's not talking about
the bodies in the cellar. They got off
easy, so did Buff. Buff never met the
real him
Does she know how much blood you can
drink from a girl before? She dies.
He knows because he knows how to drink
exactly enough so that the girl will still
cry, and it's not worth torturing if the
girls don't cry. Buff tells him it's not
his fault, and he's not the 1 doing
this and Spike says I already did it.
It's ready done. You wanna know what I've
done to girls Don's age. This is me,
Buff. You've gotta kill me before I get
out. Buff says, we can keep you locked
up. We'll keep you here and we'll figure
out. And spike questions,
why she is keeping him alive after everything
he's done, and he says it not love.
We both know that. And Buff says you
fought by my side. You've saved lives you've
helped. He tells her don't do that. Don't
rationalize this into some noble act because we
both know the truth of it you like
men who hurt you. Buff says no.
But he argues she needs the pain they
cause.
She needs the hate to do her job
as the slayer and Buff says no. I
don't hate like that. Not you or myself,
not anymore. So this is why I say
the writers
are telling us that Buff did hate herself.
I guess last season.
Now she sc at the idea that he
has insight into her because his soul is
drenched in blood. She tells him he doesn't
know
he doesn't even know himself, and he's not
alive because of hate or pain.
She's keeping him alive because she saw him
change. She saw his pen. He insists it
was window dressing, but she tells him that
would be easier if it was an act,
but it's not. He faced the monster inside
him and fought back, he risked everything to
be a better man He may not see
it, but she does and she ends with
I believe in you
spike.
This part of the dialogue
does move. The story, this is an important
moment for the 2 of them. I guess
I should say it moves the season arc.
It doesn't move this particular
story or change the plot developments in this
story, but it is really important that buff
identifies
why she keeps protecting spike because she believes
in him as she told Xander last time,
he changed. He is different.
And this time she has
conviction and we as the audience believe her.
But because something
Good has happened this genuine moment of
connection. This statement of faith by Buff in
spike something terrible happens.
Just a reminder that you can find all
the Buff in the art of story books
and my other non fiction books for writers
under my non fiction pin name l m
Lilly at your local library.
If they don't already have them on the
shelves, they can order them, in paper back,
ebook or for 2 of them audiobook
additions, the 1 you're novel and super simple
story structure. I take extra steps when publishing
to make sure as many of my works
as possible are available to libraries
has that is mainly how I read as
a kid and being at the library
with such a joy for me, and I
love that it is a way that books
can be available
regardless of people's budgets.
The lights go out and the windows shatter
upstairs in the house. So this is a
wonderful way to ratchet up tension, you have
these quieter moments
and something good, and then bam, something terrible
happens and it's an action moment. And this
is that last major plot turn. It comes
right around the 3 quarter mark in the
episode, it should grow from the midpoint and
take the story in yet another new direction
Though it's not obvious on first viewing, this
does grow from the midpoint
has, spike failed, will find out later
that he was being triggered so that he
would get and Drew, and I guess taken
back to the seal so that Andrew could
be bled, but he failed. So this is
the response
of the evil. And it raises the stakes
because everyone is in danger,
robe figures who have no eyes
break in to the house and we cut
to commercial. On return, we see Robin again
very briefly
He bur Jonathan
outside, then the scene cuts to the gang,
fighting these robe figures, Buff saves Andrew.
Donna does pretty well defending herself, but 1
of the figures
ultimately
gets the better of her is about to
kill her but Sanders saves her.
Buff is fighting
everyone.
Most of the figures end up dead or
badly injured. Another part of what makes this
episode feel off
is all of this feels like the climax
of the episode, the final
confrontation
between
the protagonist an antagonist, Buff and friends and
the evil this time acting through these robe
figures, and it feels kind of off to
have that happen immediately.
Usually we get that last major plot that
then drives the story generally quickly at a
fast pace toward the climax, but it doesn't
usually just turn into the climax. I do
think though that the climax does not happen
until the very end of the episode and
will get yet another scene before that, that
feels like it could be the final
resolution of the main plot. Once the rope
figures are defeated,
Sandra her common that he thought there were
more of them. Buff says spike and they
run down to the basement at 33 minutes
35 seconds. They see spike it's gone and
realize that he was the goal.
That's why the figures were so easy to
defeat.
Upstairs, Buff looks at 1 of them, lying
on the floor and says she remembers these
guys she fought them before. These are the
harbinger
of death who work for the first evil.
This is a reference to a amend where
the first
plagued
angel. It appeared as dead people at that
time and appeared as Jenny calendar, but also
many other dead people to hunt angel. Buff
goes on to say they aren't being haunted
what they saw spikes ghosts, the from beneath
you, evil, it's all the first. This is
a big revelation. We've been building to for
the whole season
The audience has had a few more hints
than buff, but it is a big deal,
and it is a major
turn
because now Buff knows what she is fighting.
Now we get the scene I mentioned that
also could look like the climax of the
episode. Because in England, the watchers are reporting
to Quentin, they tell him that They lost
contact with their locations in other countries. Lydia,
the woman watcher who was in other up
sew says that the council is crippled Quentin
reassure her that they're still masters of their
fate captains of their souls, and he tells
them that all of their fears are confirmed.
The first evil
declared war on the council. Its first volley
are most effective, but he thinks it's time
they struck back, and he tells them to
get
confirmations on where all the remaining operatives are,
prepare them to mobilize. He wants to be
ready to move. They'll be paying a visit
to the helm mouth, which is a nice
way to set up what we think will
be a big change for the season, it
looks like the council
is going to Sunny.
Quentin quotes proverbs, quote 4 by wise counsel,
you shall make your war and, quote, at
36 minutes 18 seconds. The scene cuts to
outside.
We see the large building that houses the
council's headquarters and it explodes.
This looks like the first
prevailed for the episode.
First it prevailed by getting spike, which it
wanted now
by
blowing up the council and pretty much based
on what Quentin said, everything is gone.
The first is definitely the antagonist in this
episode. The antagonist 1 job is to push
against the protagonist.
And the first does that throughout the episode
triggering spike wiping out the council,
getting Andrew
to try to open the seal, having the
bring break into buff.
And it's interesting because in this, the first
is not doing it directly to harm buff,
not right
now, and that shows
your antagonist and protagonist
don't have to be
specifically striving to defeat or harm 1 another,
but they do have to have mutually exclusive
goals. Now Buff doesn't know what the seal
is or what it does, but it's a
pretty good, she would not want. It opens
since the first does want it open, so
they can't both get what they want, and
the first is great and antagonist in this
episode and very active,
even though it is not directly trying to
harm buff. The scene cuts to the school
basement
The first watch, I saw this scene as
falling action because we see what happens to
spike. So it's tying up loose ends
and we'll see a couple things for the
future. But for the podcast, the more I
thought of it, the more I thought this
is the resolution because throughout, the first has
been trying to open this seal. Buff has
been trying to learn more about the evil,
now in a way in a very small
way she prevailed because she did
succeed in finding out
it's the first, and she succeeded by staying
close spike. That prompted
the first to send the bring in and
Buff recognized the bring. So she prevailed in
that sense,
but the first prevailed in getting its
seal opened as we'll see. And now I'm
gonna take back what I said and say
that maybe the watchers council moment and this,
our falling
because they are tying up sub plots. We
saw the the watchers council sub gets tied
up. The
first efforts to open seal are tied up,
but the main plot, Buff trying to find
out about the evil was resolved
not in that big fight with bring, but
when Buff
realized,
it was the first.
And that shows the tricky part of having
a
plot that involves gaining
knowledge or information in the same story as
action plots because it feels like the action
plots are the main plot, and and they
are not, and it makes Buff
discovery, feel a little less like an actual
climax of the episode, but I really think
it is since Buff achieved her goal. It's
just hard to say she wins, given everything
else that happens.
A bring ties spike to this giant
cross or wheel and cuts symbols into his
chest while the first appearing as spike
blames the real spike for all of this.
He says spike is the 1 who couldn't
hold his end of the bargain and take
care of quote, what's his name and, quote,
continuing that running joke of no 1 remembering,
Andrew.
No. Spike had to make breakthroughs and learn
about himself. The first morph into buff and
tau spike further as the wheel raises above
the seal, spike his face down, and the
blood from his chest start falling on the
seal. And the first is Buff is happy
it worked out this way and says I
was going to bleed Andrew, but you look
a lot better with your shirt off. And
also says, I think it's about time we
brought some authority to our presence.
Now spike, you wanna see what a real
vampire looks like. More of spikes blood drips,
the seal opens with flashes of light and
the real vampire emerges. It has claude hands.
It's grow. It's got fangs. It's got pointy
8 ears and a very monster like face.
So it is not at all. Human
and we go to credits.
Before I shift to foreshadowing a couple more
things about the rules for the first. We
learn the rules in this episode. The first
is not corp.
It can't touch anything.
It can't affect things physically, that's why it
needs Andrew to do things and the bring
to do things. This immediately
creates
inconsistent seas. Because if it was the first
that plagued Dawn, how did it destroy so
much of the house? If I'm sure I
mentioned that, Steven Young, and I mentioned it,
in conversations with dead people. And I think
I talked about it last time in spoilers
that really does not fit.
Now some of it could be that the
demon that appeared over
joyce was really a demon that was there,
and it did some of the things,
but we saw an invisible force,
throw things against the wall. We saw things
breaking. There was no creature there breaking them.
We saw
chairs on the table suddenly
on top of it, and none of that
fits with what we just learned about the
first.
And that is the thing when you create
a supernatural
world, you can make the rules whatever you
want them to be, but they should be
consistent. Whatever you tell the audience about those
rules, you need to stick with them. And
if you can't, you need to have something
that explains that. These rules do tell us
that holden for sure, was a vampire Buff
was not dealing with the first, which we
kind of got because of all those other
vampires spikes s,
but it confirms that. Some rules for the
first are not clear. It's not clear what
the first nose and doesn't. For instance, did
the first not know that Jonathan
would not have enough blood to open the
seal. And if Jonathan didn't have enough blood,
why would killing a pig and having its
blood be enough to do it?
The first seems to be saying to spike
that bleeding Andrew would have worked us well.
But then, why not just grab any human?
There's no reason to have to break into
this layers house to get spike. You could
just randomly grab a person off the street,
it would be a lot less trouble and
more certain of success. So it seems to
suggest maybe a vampire is better because you
can keep bleeding the vampire, and they're not
gonna die.
I guess that's okay
because the first doesn't have to tell spike
its secrets. It could be just messing with
bike about bleeding Andrew. Maybe there is something
special about it is spikes blood that will
open
the seal.
I don't believe this is spoilers for what
I don't know. I don't think that is
ever answered, but I'll keep an eye out
for that. And finally,
going to the rules again, if the first
has access to the bring,
why use Andrew at all. I suppose you
can say Andrew was the 1 who could
get Jonathan down to the seal, but Jonathan
blood didn't open the seal anyway. And that
don't think it's ever answered either. Why does
the first even bother With them when it
could just have bring grab someone and and
tied them up?
That is my last thought on the episode,
other than for foreshadowing, which includes spoilers.
If you're not sticking around for that. Thank
you so much for listening. Come back in
2 weeks for season 7, episode 10. Bring
on the night where Gil appears in Sunny
deal and the Uber va attacks Buff.
In this episode, Spike talked about taking just
enough blood to keep a girl alive.
And the first seems to follow a similar
strategy with spike, continuing to torture him
taking blood, but keeping him a lot. Now
with a vampire easier to keep them alive.
But I do wonder if that was on
purpose that we heard that from spike and
then we see something similar being done to
him. A fun for foreshadowing, that pig is
going to appear again in storyteller teller, it's
still in the basement running around. And overall,
this episode is a pretty good for foreshadowing
4 story. That's the episode where we see
from Andrew's point of view, and he keeps
telling different stories about how and why he
killed Jonathan,
and here, it is set up because keeps
saying I didn't do anything. And he tells
Willow, well, I I didn't catch
Tara warranted and he was aiming for Buff
anyway, and he's not taking any responsibility.
And in storyteller,
finally, Andrew
Will. In the next episode, Buff is going
to run into Robin Wood in the basement.
So the next episode picks up very close
in time to this 1. Buff goes to
the school.
And Robin is suspicious of her. I I
think they're going to look at this the
seal. He's suspicious of her because she's supposed
to be sick and she looks fine,
and she's suspicious of him because he's carrying
a shovel around. He just buried Andrew.
So that is a running
theme about Robin wood. Who is he... Why
is he here?
And it's part of why I stay these
3 episodes really could be put together. Those
robin and wood scenes we get in this
episode. Our are just
filler
and could have been in the next episode.
Buff, I believe in news spike plays a
key role In future episodes because it's how
spike resists,
the first taunting him, he repeats
she believes in me, she believes in me.
Learning the rules about the first help set
up gil
return
and everyone thinking eventually that he might be
the first because we won't see him touch
anything,
carry anything.
I think it makes for a lot of
awkward ness when they do that, but it
does add to the idea that Gil was
killed in that other episode, and now it
is the first, that Uber va will find
out is called the Tu khan. Buff will
fight it at the end of the next
episode, and she will lose
So it is quite a formidable foe and
I had forgotten that the first calls it
a real
vampire. That's it for this episode. Thank you
again for listening,
and a special thank you to patrons who
support the show, come back in 2 weeks
for season 7, episode 10, bring on the
night, where Gil returns bringing
potential layers with him and buff faces the
Tu.
You can find back episodes of bumpy in
the art of story, as well as the
buff in the art of story, books and
all my fiction at lisa lilly dot com.
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Music for this episode was written and performed
by Robert New castle, Buff in the art
of story is a production of Sp woman
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