None were fated to die in the sense of having a prophecy available with an attempt to stop the prophecy from coming true.
Not the same thing.
Good episode. Have I mentioned Dawn rules (and always has, damn naysayers!)?
Uh, did you watch seasons 2-5 as well? Becuase some pretty dark shit went on in those seasons. (Angelus, Faith, Riley ;), her Mom dying, her dying…) Buffy has always, always been dark, except for the random MOTW that’s mostly funny.
Did anybody else notice old Spike clutching the wrong side of his head. what’s up with that? I don’t think it’s JM getting lazy, or the director not paying attention. I think the chip has stopped working, and the pain he’s feeling is all in his head, so to speak. Also, Spike is severely freaking me out. He was waiting for them in the library. He couldn’t have come in through the door, the booby trap was still set. So he had to know what was going to happen, where it was going to happen, when it was going to happen, and that he had to be there before everybody else got there. Also, he had a torch (which was just weird.)
Somebody is giving Spike helpful information. From the past 4 episodes he knows things that there is just no way to know, because nobody told him! Yes, he has always been knowledgeable about demons and magic, but even as a Spike-lover I can admit that he doesn’t know everything. Who is telling him and why?
Did anybody else notice that all the kids who came to her for help all represented something Buffy herself needs help with.
One student has problems and resorts to violence. (Buffy’s MO–if there is a problem, beat it until it goes away or kill it.)
Another student is scared so refuses to speak. (Hmmmm, Spike scared Buffy twice, by showing up and announcing his soul, and both times she refused to talk to her friends about it.)
Cassie doesn’t do her HW because she knows she’s going to die. (Buffy never plans on having a normal life, didn’t really awnt to go to college, and didn’t want Angel to leave because she knows she’s going to die.)
Of course, then there’s just the kid who wants a date with her…I think that wasjust a joke.
Also, has anybody noticed that these are re-workings of older episodes.
Lessons–Maybe Welcome to the Hellmouth.
Beneath You–Beauty and the Beasts.
Same Time, Same Place–Out of Mind, Out of Sight.
Help–Reptile Boy
Selfless–I don’t know. It’s all about Anya, so maybe Fool For Love?
Him–Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.
Sloppiness? Laziness? Or part of a master plan that we just don’t know yet? Joss Whedon has said in interviews we’re going back to the beginning. The Master said we’re going back to the beginning, and Xander made a wish last year to a vengence demon “I wish things were how they were before.” (paraphrased from memory.)
The difference is, Buffy didn’t know they were going to die, and didn’t have any reason to believe she could save them. The only one she is really responsible for is Jenny Calender–she should have killed Angelus at the end of Innocence. (or even better, in The Harvest when she first met him. Angel issues? What Angel issues?) But she was emotionally invested in Cassie, believed that being a Slayer could save her, and did so twice.
Did anybody else notice old pepperlandgirl noticing waaay too much detail about BtVS than is healthy? What’s up with that?
Sua
I agree that the chip is either breaking down or non-functioning already. I meant to mention that in my earlier post when I was talking about how he seems to be feeling less pain but hit SUBMIT before I remembered to add it in.
I am going to go out on a limb and make my own prediction:
The Principle will eventually be revealed to be, not the new heavy or an evil guy, but a secret member of the Watcher council!
Xander cryptically pointed out that his office is situated where the library used to be in the old school – directly over the Hellmouth. When the Hellmouth was located beneath the library, they sent a Watcher in the guise of a librarian to keep an eye on it. Now that the principle’s office is over the Hellmouth, it makes sense they would send in a principle, to be (literally) on top of it.
The principle has mentioned that “they” told me to study [Buffy’s] file. And has also commented he he didn’t get the job “because of his tenure.” That would also make sense of why he hired Buffy as a guidance counselor, given her past track record as a troublemaker (undoubtedly what Snyder’s ‘permanent record’ says of her), her lack of any training, and the fact that he hired her after knowing her less than an hour (in which she acted a bit flakey around him.)
Given the last few meetings Buffy had with the council, it also makes sense that they might try to sneak in a new Watcher in to subtly “guide” her movements. She of course would have been hostile to anyone who showed up and simply announced that he was her new Watcher. And, if Joss Whedon is serious about making a “Dawn” spinoff set in the high school, there would be a need for a new adult character.
Lastly, even though the main members of the council seem like a bunch of jerks, not ALL of them can be such a-holes; at least, Giles can’t be the only cool Watcher.
Well I’m no Cassandra, or Cassie, but I think it’s a logical guess…
I liked the episode. The ending wasn’t that much of a downer. We only knew the girl for forty-five minutes; how depressing could her death be? At least she’s not writing any more poetry.
I had an idea last night about this season having a theme about people Buffy can’t save. The premiere featured ghosts of people who got killed despite Buffy, tonight’s episode was about a girl who’s going to die no matter what Buffy does. Dunno if it means anything…
They’re really playing up the whole “From beneath you it devours” thing. Every episode, someone is going on about how it’ll be bad. Really bad. Really, really, really bad. More bad than all the bad things that have been bad before. Anyone want to bet that, whatever it is, it’ll be dead by mid-season?
As for Spike’s chip, it could be breaking down, or totally non-functional, or it could be that Spike is in so much spiritual agony that the chip barely registers. Also, the guy was recently trying to claw his own heart out of his chest with his bare hands. Maybe he has a new definition of “serious pain.”
The booby trap was on the exterior doors to the building. Not the library doors. Spike is living in the school basement and can wander the hallways freely. I did not get the impression that he was already waiting in the library.
Um, pepperlandgirl, have you forgotten TETDITB?
I think it wants to use Spike, for purposes not yet revealed. I think it drew him to the SHS basement somehow, otherwise he would have just gone back to his crypt, gotten pissant drunk and spent his nights pissing and moaning to Clem about how wretchedly guilty he fieels about, well, everything.
On one hand, TETDITB wants Spike to feel he is irredeemably evil, so he will stay in the basement where it can influence him instead of moving back into his crypt and away from its influence. On the other hand, it knows he wants to make amends in some way, so it feeds him information that enables him to help Buffy, thus making itself appear to be friendly.
I don’t think TETDITB is as deep into Spike’s head as it was in “Lessons”- he did manage to stay lucid for most of “Beneath You”, before he wounded Worm Dude and fell apart again, but it is still playing on his feelings of guilt and shame in order to manipulate him. Into doing what remains to be seen. I still think Spike has Little Bad potential. If Buffy doesn’t cop to what’s going on with him soon and get his ass out of that basement, there’s going to be Hell to pay.
I have to break down and ask what TETDITB is. Could someone please enlighten me? Pretty please??
The Evil That Dwells In The Basement.
Thanks 
I just want to say here that it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside to know that somebody remembers what a sort of quasi-acronymmy thing I coined three weeks ago means.
Thanks, Ferrous
Oh, I didn’t forget about the TETDITB. Not at all. But why would the evil be feeding help info to the souled vampire in love with the slayer who desperately needs and wants said slayer’s forgiveness? That’s not much of a master plan. “I know how to surprise the girl! We’ll tell her pet vampire all of our master plans, and he’ll tell her. That way she’ll never see us coming!”
I think there’s the Evil thing down there, but I think there is something good that is trying to help Spike. There is no way that the Evil thing is fooling Spike into thinking it’s friendly, especially after it’s little speech in Lessons. Spike may be grief stricken, in total emotional and physical pain, but he’s certainly not stupid.
Think about what happened in Beneath You. He thought the earthquake was indicating the Big Bad, not Ronnie the Worm. So he pulls himself together and goes to help Buffy. If the Big Bad’s master plan is to turn Spike into the Little Bad, it’s not doing a very good job.
I think there are 2 forces working on Spike. Why would the Evil thing tell Spike the dog’s name. “Poor Rocky.” The only one who mentions Rocky before that was Nancy, at the beginning. Why would the Evil tell him what type of Demon Anya turned Ronnie into? Why would the Evil tell him what was causing the manifest spirits? Why would the Evil tell him about Tara’s death? Why would the Evil tell him what was going on in the library (even if he wasn’t alreayd there, he sure showed up awfully fast, and he looked somewhat lucid and pulled together.)?
Because TETDITB wants Spike to think it’s his friend? And to maneuver him into a position where he’s close to the Slayer?Who will think Spike is on her side because he’s being all helpful and stuff? Hell, it probably wants Spike to think Spike is on Buffy’s side. Remember at the end of “Lessons”, after it morphed through all the Previous Seasons’ Big Bads, it ended up looking an awful lot like Buffy.
I think TETD is also doing its level best to keep Spike bug-shagging crazy. Sort of playing both ends of his fractured psyche against the middle. Spike has a couple of his own inner voices (William and the demon Spike) talking to him. On toop of this, TETD is probably assuming several different forms and voices, which Spike in his current mental state may not realize are all one critter.
In jother words…
The Evil is
working.
PrinciPAL. The PrinciPAL is your PAL.
You bet.
Just so ya know, I’m a dedicated lurker in most of the Buffy threads. I don’t contribute much, because I’m sort of a latecomer, and I still haven’t seen all of seasons 3-5. But I’m out here reading, and I like your analyses particularly, Thea.
Without looking at the old post, I thought it was The Entity That Dwells ITB.
See no evil or good, just power.
How come I never notice how strange it is for Spike to show up, hair combed, lucid and helpful, carrying a torch (lol, now there’s a double-entendre if ever there was one!) . . . ?
All I notice is, “Boy, I’m getting tired of Spike still being tapped to save the Slayer’s bacon in every scenario that comes along this season, even when he’s bug-shagging crazy.” Buffy treats him just like she always did, even though he has a soul. I haven’t seen a moment’s compassion since the ep where she discovered that he had it. For some reason, even though I trust Joss to put it all right in the end, this annoys me something awful. It seems out of character.
That’s alright, I thought it was The Elvis That Died In The Bathroom.
May I humbly suggest that, instead of using these cumbersome acronyms, we refer to this entity as the Dana Carvey Demon…the Big Bad of a Thousand faces. As I said on another board: