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.

Tough Love

• Buffy stops by to meet with one of her professors to let him know she’s dropping his class.
• All her classes… She needs to be available at home for Dawn since the passing of Joyce.
• Meanwhile, Ben shows up for his job at the hospital and he apologizes to the doctor for being late.
• The doctor informs him that he can’t be late to a job he doesn’t have.
• He hasn’t showing up to work because Glory has been taking over more and more.
• And, as he’s cleaning out his locker, he transforms back into Glory, who is apparently hungry.
• Dawn has been skipping school.
• When the principal asks to speak with Buffy alone, you know it’s not going to be a good conversation.
• Being in the line work I’m in, I’d imagine there will be some talk about calls to Child Protective Services.
• Buffy and Dawn later arrive at the Magic Box and Buffy heads to the back to get advice from Giles.
• Actually, she wants Giles to be the authority figure in Dawn’s life. But he can’t.
• Buffy heads back out to where Dawn is supposed to be working on catch up work, but seems to just be having a swell time hanging out with Willow and Xander.
• So she puts her foot down.
• After getting a full report from her minions on Buffy and her friends, Glory thinks she’s pinpointed exactly who the Key is and sends the scabby demons to fetch this person.
• Later, Willow and Tara are discussing Buffy’s crabbiness toward Dawn. And it kind of leads to a soft-spoken fight when the conversation turns to Tara being afraid of how advanced Willow has become in the witchcraft.
• And then the conversation turns to Willow’s status as a lesbian and Tara’s concern about what happens if it turns out this is just a college thing for her.
• The conversation doesn’t end well and Willow storms out.
• At home, Dawn continues to refuse to do her homework. She is blatantly disrespectful and tells Buffy there’s no point. Why does a Key need an education.
• Buffy breaks and informs Dawn that if she doesn’t toe the line, social services would have no problem taking her away and putting her in foster care.
• Assuming they can’t send her to their dad, who has still been a no show since Joyce died.
• Tara is at the fair that she’d planned to attend with Willow.
• She’s sitting on a bench all alone, sad that Willow’s not there.
• When someone reaches out to hold her hand, she gets excited, thinking it’s Willow.
• But that excitement is very short lived when she sees that the hand is attached to Glory.
• Willow is at the shop and Giles catches a scabby minion eavesdropping.
• Giles threatens to torture him and just the threat is enough to get the demon to spill that Glory is going after Tara.
• She’s the new one among the group, so it wasn’t hard for them to figure out that Tara is the Key.
• Glory calmly crushes the bones in Tara’s hand.
• Then Glory tastes the blood dripping from Tara’s hand and angrily realizes she’s not the Key.
• But Tara’s not completely worthless to her. She becomes Glory’s brain food.
• Willow gets there just in time to find Tara, minus her sanity.
• The gang gets her to the hospital to take care of her hand. But they want to keep her overnight for observation based on the psychiatric issue.
• Dawn is safe with Spike. Of course, she’s snarky about it since he still shows the bruises from his last encounter with Glory.
• But Dawn’s really messed up by the whole thing. She’s worried that she’s some kind of evil thing.
• She blames herself for all the bad things that are happening to her friends.
• Spike’s not buying it. He knows a thing or two about evil. And he tells her she’s not evil.
• It’s actually a kind of touching moment between Spike and Dawn.
• When Tara is carted off to the psych ward, Willow decides it’s time to do something about Glory.
• Buffy tries to stop her. They need to wait until they have a chance.
• Willow makes it seem like she’s just going off to be alone. But, of course, she goes to the Magic Box to load up on magical supplies.
• She builds up a nice little bag of tricks and soaks up some dark magic from a book titled Darkest Magick (a little on the nose if you ask me).
• Glory is in a great mood back at her apartment. And then Witchy Willow earthquakes her way in.
• “Did anybody order an apocalypse?” Funny.
• Willow comes floating in with completely blackened eyes. And she actually inflicts pain on Glory.
• Back at Spike’s safehouse (aka cave), Buffy says she explained to Willow why she shouldn’t go after Glory.
• Spike scoffs… of course Willow is going after Glory.
• But Willow is weakening. She wasn’t really prepared to use this much magic.
• Glory is about to impale Willow and basically nail her to the wall.
• Buffy arrives in time to beat Glory up a little and Willow has enough magic left to slow Glory enough for them to get away.
• The next day, the girls all have Tara back at her dorm room.
• Suddenly, the outer wall is pulled away. Glory has arrived to exact her own kind of vengeance.
• Problem is, crazy Tara can now see Dawn in her true form. And she makes it known in front of Glory.
• That’s a heck of a cliffhanger for ya.
• Body count: No one died this week!