Last week:
Clem returns! Spike and Buffy train the wannabe Slayers. Dawn discovers that she is and then is not a potential Slayer. Did I mention Clem returned?

Ten Second Recap:
Kennedy confirms she's lesbian and has the hots for Willow, but their first kiss transforms Willow into Warren. Spike's chip is randomly going off and he and Buffy look for help from old friends/enemies.

One of the aspects of Buffy The Vampire Slayer I enjoy most is that the writers often reward longtime viewers by reincorporating characters and plot lines from seasons long ago into current storylines. It's fun to see something that happened years ago get used and you think, "oh yeah, I remember that!"

Too often television writers in general don't think we as an audience are smart enough to remember. We are (most of the time), and it really pays off from time to time.

For example, The Killer in Me (is the killer in you?) used many aspects of a variety of past Buffy episodes and seasons. The lengthy "previously on Buffy…" should have been our first clue.

Spike's chip (received in season 4) is malfunctioning and he and Buffy must go back to where he got it in the first place, The Initiative's underground facility. I seem to recall that an order to fill it with concrete and salt the Earth was given by the Initiative, but I guess at that point they'd run out of initiative. Har. Har.

When Willow is suddenly transformed into the image of Warren, she parallels Spike's journey by going back to where she first started experimenting with magic.

The college campus Wicca club turns out not to be that helpful, but Willow does encounter Amy, a familiar face to long and short time viewers. Unfortunately, Amy isn't able to revisit or learn anything from her past or she would have remembered the lesson her mother taught her: being evil generally backfires on you. What an excellent bumper sticker that would make.

By the end of the episode Amy's life begins to parallel another old time Buffy character, Faith, which is only appropriate since she'll be back in just a few weeks. Like Faith, Amy is jealous of her one time peer that has grown more powerful than her so easily. The friends and accolades come so naturally for Buffy and Willow that Amy and Faith's jealousy is almost understandable. I say "almost" because most of us would just swallow that jealousy rather than turning evil and running willy nilly over the place.

I suspect that we've not seen the last of Amy this season. There are a lot more issues for her character and Willow to explore. (Willow can raise the dead in a single episode but it takes her four years to change Amy back from being a rat.) Her chaotic evil attitude may just play right into The First's plans. Or not. That's the great thing about being chaotic evil. Trust me, I know.

Despite the walk down memory lane, this week's episode did have enough entertainment for even the newer viewers. Many questions were raised, most notably being will Buffy have Spike's chip repaired or removed?

Giles and the rest of the Scooby Gang had minimal roles this week. They mostly just disproved a theory I came up with a few weeks ago. One thing to note was that this was the first time Andrew has played an active role in the investigation. Will he join the Gang on a full time basis? His character is something I'd like to see evolve in a Buffy spin-off as a regular.

By sending half the bloated cast off on separate missions, this week's episode managed to explore a number of personal relationships and move the overall plot along with grace rather than slam fisted action. It was a lovely and enjoyable change of pace.

Line of the Week:
Spike: "Who you gonna call? God, that phrase is never going to be usable again, is it?"

Michael Goodson