Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E04 – Oh, wow.

Previously: Willow came back to Sunnydale and Kirsti earned herself a lot of eyeball trauma chat for a very traumatic post title.
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Sweeney: Today’s fun time in Sunnydale begins in a funeral home where two guys are closing up, after preparing an older woman for her service the next day.

Kirsti: Right, because you’d totally leave a dead body sitting out at room temperature all night…

Sweeney: Kirsti, that sentence already requires me to think more about the care of dead bodies than I’d like. (See also: any thinking about the subject at all.)

After the guys leave, Buffy and Xander emerge from coffins. Xander says something about wanting to HELP. Seems like a lazy way to earn the star, but kudos for being so quick about it and beating everyone else to it:

Suddenly there is a knocking noise – Dawn’s stuck in a kid coffin and a little indignant at having been stuck in that one, what with her not being the shortest. (Fair point in theory, Dawnie, but you’re the younger sibling. That’s just how shit works.)

Lorraine: I have to further side bar that when I first met Lion (Sweeney’s little sister) she went on a little rant about how being the youngest sibling means being able to contort yourself into any seating arrangement in the car. She told this story while sitting in front of a giant painting that was directly behind her head, spilling over from the trunk of the car. It was amazing.

K: Apparently this doesn’t apply when you’re 5’9″ and your younger sibling is 6’2″, because I’m always the one squished into weird seating arrangements in the car… 

Sweeney: They remind the audience that the gang is still a little fractured, what with Willow’s return not being total enough for her to be a full member the gang. Buffy assures the others that she, too, would much rather be at home, what with her job counseling troubled teenagers being a thing she has to get up for in the morning. They get to business and aren’t sure about the old lady, but she finally opens her yellow eyes and is promptly staked. Wolf howl.

New Sunnydale High School [NSHS]. Buffy is sitting at her desk sharpening her pencils, waiting for students to show up.

Her first student is a tall lanky girl with a high pitched voice, who was sent to Buffy because she was being picked on. Then she chats with a tough guy who swears he doesn’t want to talk but totes has a lot of feelings that he’d like to share. ZACHERY TY BRYAN (L: AKA Not Jonathan Taylor Thomas…) stops in too, but mostly because he doesn’t want to be in class and Buffy’s the hot new faculty member. Buffy assures the sweet, tall girl (Amanda) that bullies are insecure but bitch is sick of all these dicks being insecure and she informs us that she’s also been sent to Buffy because she jumped her bully in the parking lot and kicked his ass. This sounds like slightly terrifying future murderer behavior, but I can’t help myself: Get it, Amanda.

Lor: Buffy being stunned by violence? That’s serious.

Sweeney: Willow and Xander are taking a stroll, having best friend time about all the big struggles. They’re sure Buffy’s going to be fine, but Willow’s pretty concerned about whether or not her and her magic will be of any use when the big impending doom arrives. Xander tries to reassure her with a construction-worker analogy about hammers, and Willow thanks him, but she’s not so much worried about hitting her thumb as destroying the world and stuff. Xander assures her that it will take time, just as they’ve reached their destination – they’re in a cemetery and Willow’s coming to see Tara’s grave for the first time. Xander stands back while Willow goes by herself. She traces Tara’s name and tears up and gives us all a case of that screen-transmitted hayfever. Treacherous stuff.

K: Truth. I also love the little “Hey, remember how Willow’s Jewish?” moment in that she leaves stones and not flowers on Tara’s grave.

Sweeney: NSHS, the tough guy is telling Buffy how worried he is about his brother in the military. He doesn’t want to be left alone and is worried he might not come back. An awkward kid tells Buffy he might be gay and she’s excited to help him through this, but he just wants her to go on a date with him so he can be sure. She doesn’t smack him. Very professional. Next, she’s exasperated as she says she understands how hard it must be for this one girl to have such a controlling sister and, of course, she’s talking to Dawn. (Hilarious and legit: my sister would have been in my office on the daily if I’d had a job like Buffy’s.)

NEXT, Buffy sits with a blond chick with purple streaks named Cassie and I’m excited because I love spacey, weird blond teenagers named Cassie. Cassie’s stopped doing her homework because she’s convinced that she’s going to die next Friday.

After a Not Break, Buffy asks why Cassie want to hurt herself, and she laughs, assuring Buffy that this isn’t it at all. She’s not going to kill herself, but she just knows that she’s going to die. Nobody’s threatened her, and she’s got a weird psychic ability. She doesn’t know how she knows, but there will be coins and Buffy’s going to try to help, but she can’t. After that little bomb, she excuses herself to trigonometry, but not before suggesting that Buffy put a sweater on so she doesn’t stain her shirt.

Buffy goes to Principal Wood to figure out what she’s supposed to do. He tells a story about threatening someone when he was younger, and Buffy assumes this was in “the hood” but he was actually referring to Beverly Hills. He tries to calm her down, and she gets panicky, what with her not usually getting the heads up before people die. Then she spills coffee all over her shirt and the panic gets superreal.

K: It makes me sad that that gif set leaves out the best part of that conversation, which is Buffy’s “OH SHIT, I FUCKED UP” facial expression when Wood says he’s from the snobby side of town.

Sweeney: She finds Dawn in the halls to tell her that she has a job for her. Cut to the library, where Cassie is talking to a cute high school boy about tattoos and school dances while Dawn spies. They are precious and she’s having fun, but shoots him down, with her impending doom and all. Dawn awkwardly interrupts with a lie about ceramics homework and the guy introduces himself as Mike and leaves. Irrelevant sidebar, but Cassie gives Dawn a quizzical look and girl’s got fun eyebrows.

Lor: I like that Dawnie is getting to help but I’m not entirely sure, “hey can you go befriend the possibly psychic, possibly suicidal girl?” is the best plan.

Sweeney: After Mike leaves, Dawn makes small talk with Cassie about Slaughterhouse Five, which Cassie is reading for funsies, now that she’s given up on homework. Cassie realizes that Dawn is Buffy’s little sister and Dawn corrects that Buffy is her sister. Dawn tries to chat about Mike and but Cassie says that she can’t go with Mike because she won’t be around that night.

That night, Willow’s doing some cyber-sleuthing on Cassie. Willow and Xander try to tell Buffy that she might be making it up and UGH, YOU GUYS. I wish we’d been keeping proper count on the various times – across 7 seasons – that Scoobies have suggested that Buffy might be making shit – but I’m super confident that by the numbers, it’s like infinity to zip, Buffy’s lead. (L: We should’ve definitely kept better track with this tag…) We get a hilariously dated joke in which Willow suggests googling her and Xander thinks the verb is a dirty word. (K: Even though I lived through it and therefore should have known, the “Google is a search engine” line made me all “Whoa, there was a time before Google.”) They do and she, of course, has a website where she posts angsty poetry. Xander and Buffy are anxious about it, but Willow assures them that the poetry-writing is normal teen stuff.

Dawn walks in and she tells them that they can stop researching because she’s sure that Mike is “the perp” because he’s been rejected 106 times. Willow continues the googling, though, and finds that Cassie’s dad has a nasty record a mile long. They ignore Dawn and set off to see him.

They do just that and he assumes that they’re there because Cassie’s fucking up her grades. Buffy asks if he’s still drinking, and the bunches of alcohol bottles suggest that this is a yes. Buffy goes on to say that they’re worried that he’s going to beat on Cassie and he responds with the appropriate righteous indignation. He says something about how his ex-wife is trying to get his one weekend taken away – and that weekend just happened. Buffy relents and leaves, though without much in the way of sincere apology.

Outside, Cassie says that it’s not him and she’s sorry she told Buffy because she’s wasting her time making a big deal out of it. Buffy tells her that she needs to fight and she sounds like she’s just giving up. Cassie calls bullshit, saying that she wants to be here and graduate and be a person who lives and experiences the world. She doesn’t know why and how and it sucks. My hay fever is flaring up again.

Lor: I’m usually with you on the hay fever, but I’ve got to admit that this speech went on for.ev.er. I feel like a dick, telling a character that their death speech was a little on the lengthy side, but I just did, so…

K: Team Heartless Cow is floating somewhere in the middle on this issue.

Sweeney: Elsewhere, some dudes in red robes are chanting and walking around a creepy Helga Pitacki like shrine to Cassie, lighting it on fire. The red robed guys remind me of a very evil, Sunnydale version of something that happens over in Neptune, but we haven’t gotten there yet, so NEVER MIND. NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

Buffy sits at her desk, reading Cassie’s poems. The reading switches to a Cassie VO so that we can montage our way from school, to research at Chez Summers, to Cassie sitting in bed writing poems.

Basement Of Don’t Go In There 2.0. Spike is staring blankly, being still and silent because if he does that it won’t hurt so much. Buffy asks if there is anything evil in this school and he says that yes, there is, right there. He talks about how he is bad and hurt the girl before punching himself in the face, but Buffy doesn’t realize that he’s talking about her. Spike’s got nothing on Cassie, though, so Buffy leaves.

Upstairs, Buffy corners Mike. He’s confused and a little bummed about getting a B on a test (as Cassie predicted) but assures Buffy that he has no real problems. As much as he likes Cassie, he insists that he holds no ill-will and maybe wants to ask Dawn out. Buffy smiles, but then gets defensive, “You’re asking my sister to the dance and she’s your second choice?”

This is interrupted when Buffy spots a bunch of weird coins falling out of a locker opened by Principal Wood and a student. Later, she’s interrogating the locker’s owner about the coins and what they have to do with Cassie. The kid is twitchy but insists he knows nothing. Buffy threatens to connect her fist with his face, which is the kind of thing that would get her fired if she worked in a real school. (L: If a student were brave enough to tell on her. ‘Cause, you know, fists and faces and all.) (K: Truth, Lor. Despite being tiny and blonde, she can be hella intimidating when she wants to be.) He relents and admits that there are some guys who have a plan to mess with the weird suicidal poet girl, just for funsies.

Elsewhere, the school day is over and Cassie is telling Dawn that this is goodbye. Dawn tries to stall, but Cassie says that she knows what Dawn is trying to do and it isn’t going to work. She also knows that Dawn is truly her friend and tries to reassure her. It’s very sweet. ZACHERY TY BRYAN calls out to Dawn and Cassie tells her that she needs to know that whatever happens now isn’t Dawn’s fault. ZTB asks Dawn if she’s been asked to the dance yet and she gets kind of excited, but it turns out he’s just fucking with her. You fucking WISH you could take Dawnie to the dance, ZTB. Sit the fuck down.

For reference:

 

Lor: A+. I feel like this took a tiny bit of research too, so it’s a legit A+.

K: At first glance, I thought that was Russell Crowe…

Sweeney: When Dawn turns to tell Cassie what an ass ZTB is, Cassie’s gone.

Later, the red hooded dudes continue the candle carrying and chanting in the Rebuilt Mega Wiggins Library. ZTB pulls back his hood to reveal himself as the leader of the gang. Another Hooded Bro giggles because he’s excited about their big demonic ritual and how rich it’s going to make them, but ZTB tells them to STFU because they have to actually do the thing first. I guess they missed the memo that Buffy already crushed this scheme once before. (No but really, guys, click the link. IT HAS THE GIF OF THE TIME THEY BRAIDED WILLOW’S HAIR. #mynostalgialives #teamfeels)

Of course, a tied up, mouth-taped Cassie is their sacrificial offering. Just in time, Buffy throws off her red robe to reveal herself as an intruder in their midst. She gives ZTB the ass-kicking he so desperately needs, but unfortunately wastes waaay too much time with the punning to get back to dismantling their little arrangement of stones and general demon-raising set-up. In spite of how alive and well their sacrifice is, the demon appears. Buffy grabs the knife they brought to kill Cassie and throws it at the demon. Demon tosses it aside and ZTB grabs it to finish the job, but is apparently really slow about it, because Buffy continues to fight the demon and Spike appears with a torch that gets handed off to Buffy, all before Spike finally makes his way over to ZTB to get with the girl-saving and chip-activating human-punching while B finishes off the demon.

K: She pokes the demon several times in the stomach with the torch and it goes up in flames, because apparently that species of demon has a “press here to combust” belly button???

Sweeney: After the demon is dead, Spike frees Cassie. She looks at him and insists that “someday she’ll tell you.” Buffy goes to help Cassie up and out of there. ZTB refuses to accept that the demon is really dead, without all his riches. The demon bites ZTB (LOL) before exploding into a puff of magic sparkly multi-colored dust. Delightful.

On their way out the door, Cassie is nearly shot through the head by an arrow, but Buffy stops it just in time. “See, you can make a difference,” Buffy assures her. “And you will,” Cassie says, before she collapses.

Chez Summers. The Scoobies sit in the living room having all the feels. Cassie’s family has a long history of heart problems and that’s ultimately what killed her – the thing she saw coming. Buffy never actually had a chance to save her. A reminder of Buffy’s helplessness in the face of non-Supernatural fatality. THANKS, SHOW.

Buffy says that she failed her. Dawn is crying, but assures Buffy that’s not true: “No, you didn’t because you tried. You listened, and you tried. She died because of her heart, not because of you. She was my friend because of you. I guess sometimes we can’t help.” Buffy wants to know what she’s supposed do then, when she knows that she can’t help.

K: We know that Buffy has a sad because she’s wearing the 2003 equivalent of the Overalls of Sadness – the Brown Velour Tracksuit of Feels. Also, I couldn’t watch this episode for a really long time after one of my best friends was diagnosed with a heart condition while we were in Peru. The most common first symptom of said heart condition? Death. So yeah. This episode terrified me for the longest time because it was slightly too close to home.

Sweeney: Awkward internet hugs. <3

We get a final shot of her sitting down at her desk. Showing up. Trying.  Ready to listen and try. Roll credits.

Guys, I’m loving the shit out of season 7, but probably mostly because it continues to not be season 6. That gets it an awful lot of points for me. My feels hated that there was nothing Buffy could do for Cassie and that it all boiled down to this big other thing that we, the audience, didn’t know, but it worked. Cassie kept trying to tell her that it was futile and what did our girl do? She kept on trying. After Buffy’s S6 depression – which arguably stemmed not just from her resurrection, but was also an outgrowth of her inability to handle the things she couldn’t prevent (her mother’s death, Dawn’s potential death) before she died – it’s a lovely symbolic thing to have Buffy acknowledging that sometimes you can’t help and yet you keep trying, because that’s just who she is.

Lor: Well put, and yes, after a rocky start, the last two episodes have been incredibly enjoyable. This episode has an old school vibe to it, in that it lightly touched the characters and their issues, but felt more like a standalone. A few things I loved in addition to what Sweeney said about trying: Willow visiting Tara’s grave because it needed to happen and it just felt so full circle; the episode starting in the funeral home where Buffy tells us that she can only fight vampires one by one, as she always has; Dawnie having a touch of Spencer Hasting’s Loud & Wrong Syndrome; revisiting what we saw in Lessons, that there are those that Buffy cannot save.

It’s about power… and learning that sometimes we are powerless.

K: Old SCHOOL vibe. I see what you did there, Lor.

Next time: Anya gets her mojo back, and we get some delightful backstory. Find out more in Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E05 – Selfless.