Welcome to Rewatching Buffy, the part of the blog where I rewatch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Each Tuesday evening, you’re invited to join me as I attempt to rediscover what made me love this show 21 years ago.

Blood Ties

• The gang sit around and review info about Glory from the Watchers’ Council.
• Turns out she once shared rulership of a demon dimension with two other gods.
• But why is she on earth now?
• And then the subject comes around to the Key.
• The gang figures they should find it before Glory does.
• And Buffy reveals that she and Giles already know where it is and she’s hidden it from her friends to protect them from knowing too much.
• So then she reveals that Dawn is the Key. That she didn’t exist before last summer. That their memories have been fabricated.
• A bunch of Glory’s minions find a group of Byzantium Knights chanting around a fire and pick a fight.
• The knights make short work of the scabby demons and just as they’re about to kill the last one, Glory shows up and makes short work of the knights.
• Dawn comes up on Willow and Tara doing an early warning spell outside the shop.
• Then she goes into the store and Anya remarks that Dawn makes a very pretty little girl.
• The gang’s going to do a great job keeping Dawn’s true identity a secret.
• Glory kept one of the knights alive to torture for information about the Key.
• He knows nothing, but he’s still good for a brain sucking.
• It’s Buffy’s birthday. These always go well.
• Dawn gives Buffy a framed picture of the two of them from that time they visited their dad in San Diego. She decorated the frame with seashells they found together on the beach.
• Everyone has trouble with the idea of those memories not being real.
• Later on, Dawn is fully aware that every time she enters the room, people have clearly been talking about her.
• When she confronts everyone, she storms up to her room. Like a mature person would.
• Then she sneaks out of the house. Like a mature person would.
• Dawn runs into Spike who, of course, was lurking in the back yard.
• She tells him she wants to break into the Magic Box to steal things. So he goes with her.
• Specifically, she wants to get her hands on a book that she knows Giles was conspicuously trying to hide from her earlier.
• In reading this book, Dawn discovers that she is the Key.
• She goes home and walks into the living room having cut her arm pretty severely. If she bleeds, she can’t just be some thing, right?
• Dawn is upset and she has a lot of questions.
• When neither Joyce nor Buffy have the answers she wants to hear, she screams at them to get out.
• The next day at the shop, they figure out that Spike is the one that helped her get in and Buffy is not happy.
• Dawn refuses to go to school. Blobs of energy don’t need an education.
• Then she changes her mind when Joyce tries to be her mother.
• At the hospital, Ben sees that one of the knights is in they psych ward now. And a scabby demon drops in with more threats from Glory.
• Ben, once more, points out that Glory can’t lay a finger on him, so the threats are pointless.
• That night, Dawn overhears Buffy and Joyce talking and, as usual, misinterprets what she hears.
• She goes on a rampage in her room.
• When Buffy hears an alarm, she assumes it’s Willow’s warning spell and is ready to face Glory. But Joyce realizes it’s a smoke detector.
• Dawn set a fire in her trash can and then climbed back out her window again.
• Buffy sends the gang to look for her all over town.
• Dawn makes her way to the hospital because she wants to know what the crazy people in the psych ward see when they look at her.
• The crazy knight knows more about her than the other crazy people, but he only upsets her without the ability to give her any real information.
• Ben finds her as she runs out of the psych ward and treats her to a steaming cup of hot cocoa.
• Ben comforts her by saying she has a sister that she wishes doesn’t exist. (Glory?)
• Dawn lets it slip that she’s the Key. And Ben starts to freak out.
• He tries to warn Dawn to get away because Glory will find her.
• Then, as Ben screams, “She’s here!” he transforms into Glory.
• Whoa.
• Guess that’s why she can’t lay a finger on him when the scabby demons make her threats. Because she is him.
• Whoa.
• Glory recognizes Dawn as the Slayer’s sister. She wants to know why Dawn was hanging out with Ben.
• When a security guard walks in, she snaps his neck.
• Once the whole gang meet up with no luck, they decide to check the hospital.
• Glory wants Dawn to tell her where the Key is. So Dawn asks what the Key looks like.
• She’s hoping that Glory can give her more info about what the Key is. Because then maybe she’d know if she’s seen it.
• Glory starts to get tired of the questions and realizes that Dawn doesn’t know where the Key is.
• And she’s starting to lose it… And she’s starting to look at Dawn like her next brain meal.
• Luckily, Buffy and the gang arrive just before she can dig her fingers into her skull.
• Buffy, Spike, and even Xander get in on the fight. Then Willow and Tara manage to successfully perform a teleportation spell, but they’re not sure where Glory is teleported to.
• Turns out she’s sent to about a mile above Sunnydale. Awesome.
• Buffy explains to Dawn that she is her sister. They have the same blood. Summers blood.
• Dawn tries to explain about Ben. He was trying to help her. She can’t remember what happened to him. He may have left before Glory got there.
• So does that mean there’s some kind of mojo at work that keeps people from understanding the link between Ben and Glory?
• Body count: Scabby demons – ~5; Knights of Byzantium – 4; Humans – 1