Last Week:
Faith returned to Sunnydale and a new henchmen of The First showed up. Buffy and the gang fought Caleb and lost big time. Some Slayerettes died and Xander lost an eye.

Ten Second Recap:
Buffy deals with the stress and emotions of having lost her first battle to Caleb and the price the group had to pay. Andrew and Spike go on a road trip. Faith takes the Slayers in training out for a night on the town only to get into more trouble than they'd planned. Typical. The Scoobies go to tribal council and Buffy is shocked about how the voting goes.

The average viewer isn't going to remember much about the first half an hour of last night's episode due to the dramatic finish, but let's hit the highlights anyway.

This week starts off on a high note with the return of Clem, my favorite minor character. He's packing up with the rest of the Sunnydale population and getting out of town. One can only hope he's moving to L.A. and can start showing up on Angel. I got a snicker out of the fact that Clem drives a VW Bug. Demonügen?

Dread Pirate Xander and Obi-Wan Willow shared a moment in the hospital that let us know that while they are trying to keep a positive outlook on things, there are deep feelings simmering beneath the surface. This becomes important later on.

Anya returns this week to inform us that she missed being in the last episode because she was digging up information on the bad guys. Unfortunately, her information is of the fourth grade variety and the Slayers in training are not entertained.

Buffy goes off soul searching at Sunnydale High School and runs into Caleb (literally.) He offers more warnings along with some Southern hospitality. This scene felt mostly like filler since nothing new really happened and it made no sense for Caleb to not have killed Buffy while she lay on the ground knocked out.

Faith takes the girls out for a night on the town to blow off some steam. While most of Sunnydale has been abandoned, The Bronze remains packed with drunken teenagers looking for a good time before the world ends. I wish I lived in Sunnydale. I'd get so much pre-apocalyptic tail.

Spike and Andrew take off to Gilroy (the Garlic capitol of the world and the mailing address for Fanboyplanet.com offices) to follow up on a lead from Giles. There they discover a clue about Caleb but we are left hanging as to its meaning.

Look for Spike and Andrew's new book: Road Trip Recipes on shelves soon. My favorite: Quirky Homosexual Man Fingers in a warm blood sauce. Mmmm.

After Buffy sends Faith and the Slayerettes back home she reveals her new plan, which is met with much skepticism. The meeting turns into a Slayer intervention as everyone (minus Spike and Andrew) turn on Buffy. Alas, here is the source of the debate.

First off, let's assume that it could have actually happened like this. I doubt in all honesty that if Buffy and gang were real, and not a fictional story written by writers, that any of this would have happened. The result of the living room confrontation would be possible but the outcome feels contrived (1 point for uncommon word usage).

Regardless of how it came off, it happened and all parties are to blame. The writers have been building tensions between Buffy and the rest of the cast almost all season. Slowly but surely Buffy has distanced herself from everyone else and taken the burden of being a savior all on her own.

In the earlier seasons, we knew that the reason Buffy was so powerful and had lived longer than most of the other Slayer was her support group. This is a lesson Buffy herself has forgotten.

In part, Buffy deserves some of the abuse she received in the meeting but I think they went too far.

After much bickering, Anya delivers the first real blow in the fight with her comments that Buffy didn't earn her powers. When Buffy first became Slayer this was true, but I think that after saving the world a few times over the last seven seasons and giving her life twice, she's earned a little more respect.

Buffy turned her initial "luck" into a responsibility that she has shouldered well. In comparison, look at Faith who was blessed with the same "luck" but for the most part chose to use it selfishly.

Xander's comments also surprised me. Yes, he lost an eye, but how many times has Buffy saved his life? He knew the risks from the beginning and it's unfair to blame Buffy now when he finally had to pay a price.

Dawn, oh Dawn. You bitch!

The traitorous little teenager joins the Buffy bashing bandwagon, conveniently forgetting that Buffy only gave her life to save her and kicks her out of the house. Again, a contrived storyline, but at least it's something new that the writers have never given us before. Too many seasons ended with Buffy and the gang sucking it up and nailing that one in a million shot they had at victory.

Both parties are to blame for overreacting during the fight. Buffy still hasn't learned to not keep secrets from everyone and to share the burden of Slayer. The Scoobies overreacted for the sake of the story and forgot the lessons they have learned over the past seven years.

Maybe The First is influencing all of them and pushing their emotions to an extreme. We will know for sure in just two more episodes.

Line of the Week:
Spike: "Tell anyone we had this conversation and I'll bite you."

Michael Goodson