Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the complete and total absence of Giles on a horse.

Once again, no foreign gals were stabbed in the making of this episode. Instead, we start in a funeral home. Undertaker types take off for the night, and a coffin pops open to reveal a very sneaky and hiding-out Buffy. You might think she'd be a little uncomfortable about stowing away in a coffin after being buried alive a couple times, but it doesn't seem to bug. Xander spooks her by being there when she turns around. Apparently Ms. SlayerSenses didn't hear him clunking his way out of his own coffin. A thumping noise gets their attention - it's Dawn, smooshed in a child's casket, which is actually kinda funny. If you think coffin humour is funny. Which apparently I do, so onward. It's a school night, Buffy is stressing about how she'll do in her first week of actually talking to the kids, Xander and Dawn are supportive, the dead body's a vampire, stakeystake, and we're out to the credits.

We come back to a shot of Buffy's desk from outside in the hall. I said it before and it's worth repeating: this is the *worst* counselor's set-up ever. The cube walls are still only chest-high, providing absolutely no sense of privacy from the other folks milling about the office, and she's got this huge fish-bowl window right by her desk to make sure that anyone who decides to come in for a personal chat is set on big, conspicuous display for everybody that walks by. No high school student would ever stop by a set-up like that to spill their personal problems. Ever.

Buffy actually does a decent job of talking to the kids who do come in, though. A girl thinks she was sent to see Buffy because some guys were picking on her. Buffy says guys who do that are probably really insecure themselves, and she suggests the girl stick up for herself. Oh, she already did that - jumped the guy in the parking lot and bashed his face into the pavement. Which, come to think of it, might actually be the reason she was sent to the counselor's office. Then a tough guy doesn't want to talk. Which Buffy says is fine, and so he opens up. I'd go into his problem, but I don't think we'll ever see him again. It was kind of a neat scene, but this is where my biggest problem with the episode comes up. Namely, that "Is this gonna be on the test?" feeling you get in school when the teacher starts talking about something you don't think is gonna end up being particularly relevant. I had this feeling throughout the vast majority of the episode. So I apologize now if this isn't a fascinating recap. It wasn't that fascinating an episode.

A guy who desperately wants to be Larry Jr. is there to waste Buffy's time. I'm actually waiting for him to ask Buffy out, but a different guy does that. Tells her he thinks he might be gay, but a date with a hottie like her should help him figure it out for sure. Heh. By the way, not all these scenes happen in this order - I just wanna get 'em out of the way. Oh, and Dawn comes by to talk about her pain of a sister, which is actually kinda funny. I especially enjoyed Dawn being bugged that her sister borrows her clothes without asking. Because Dawn's always been about respecting other people's property.

Anyway, Xander and Willow are walking in what looks like a park, singing Buffy's praises. The kids are lucky to have Buffy, and let's not forget the big evil coming from underneath. That abrupt shift was actually them, not me. Because in case we've forgotten, "From beneath you, it devours". Willow is still wondering if she'll be able to help when it gets really bad or if she'll end up going all evil with the magick again. Valid fear, really, but I wish they would quit writing her these glib lines about it. I get where she's coming from; I just don't like the way she's being written. Xander gets her too and likens the way she's grappling with her powers to swinging a hammer. Hold from one end, all power, no control. Hold from the other, all control, no power. It's actually a great insight. I like it when the writers remember that Xander may be kinda thick sometimes, but he's not actually a total moron. And he knows how to be a really good friend, which is definitely what Willow needs right now. He asks if Willow is ready for this, and we see that the park is actually a cemetery. Xander is taking Willow to visit Tara's grave. Willow kneels, traces the letters of Tara's name, and says "Hey... it's me..." before the camera pulls away. I need tissues.

Buffy, meanwhile, has been going through her wardrobe like crazy all day. That, or it was supposed to be a montage of her week. The time-frame's kinda dicey throughout this whole episode. But she's wearing a simple t-shirt and clunky pearl necklace at the moment and looks really pretty. She's talking to a student who's been slacking on her work lately and tries to give the girl the "Hey, once you graduate, you can do other more interesting stuff" pep talk (which she actually manages without being all preachy or overly "counselor-ish"), but the student, Cassie, tries to change the subject to Buffy's cute t-shirt and where she got it. It's a plain men's undershirt. They come 3 to a pack your local Wal-Mart. Buffy doesn't share this fashion secret, though, and wants to know why Cassie's not gonna graduate. Cassie tells her, quite plainly, that next Friday, she's going to die.

When we go to commercial here, the obvious questions are supposed to be a) how she knows that, and b) how Buffy's gonna stop it. But the problem I had is Cassie's clever name. Soon as I saw this scene, I thought of Cassandra. Ancient Greek seer cursed by Apollo. Her prophecies would always be right, but nobody would ever believe her. Hence, her warnings would always fall on deaf ears. So unfortunately, during the rest of the episode when I was supposed to be looking forward to Buffy's heroics, I was just waiting for Cassie's tragic and unavoidable death. Bummer, huh?

Buffy thinks Cassie's going to kill herself, but that's not it. Cassie tells her she sometimes just knows things, and there are going to be a bunch of weird coins, and Buffy will try to help, but she's still going to die anyway. Oh, and Buffy should put a sweater on over her t-shirt so it doesn't get stained. Buffy really wants to talk and find out more, but Cassie's in a hurry to go.

So Buffy goes to talk to Principal Wood. He doesn't seem to think there's anything else to do, that kids are often upset and say things like that all the time. Kind of overly unconcerned in my opinion, but he doesn't think it's that big a deal. He starts to tell Buffy a story about when he was in school. Some guy threatened him, he threatened back, and stuff like that was taken pretty seriously where he was from. Buffy suddenly becomes some sort of ignorant racist for a second and assumes that because Robin is black, he must have grown up in the 'hood. Robin's from Beverly Hills. Which, he does concede, could technically be considered a 'hood... of sorts. Buffy has the good grace to look very embarrassed.

Robin says they'll inform teachers and do a locker search, but there really isn't anything else they can do. Buffy doesn't accept that. She insists she needs to do something because she doesn't usually get a heads-up before somebody dies. He wonders what she means by 'usually', and Buffy gets so flustered, she decides to walk into the desk that's right in front of her. She spills her coffee all over her adorable men's undershirt, and suddenly, she seems to get it. So what's a school counselor to do? Put her little sister on the case.

Dawn sees Cassie talking to a guy who clearly has a crush on her. Cassie, that is. Not Dawn. That part comes later. Kind of. Anyway, this guy - I'll call him "Mike" because that's his name - wants Cassie to design him a tattoo and go to the upcoming dance with him. Cassie's clearly fond of Mike, but she turns him down. Dawn walks up, introduces herself, and asks Cassie about their art homework, which Mike takes as his cue to go study for his history test. Cassie tells him he's gonna get a B.

Dawn asks about the book Cassie's reading, but it's not for any particular class. She's decided to blow off her schoolwork and read books that interest her instead. Dawn likes that approach to literary enrichment but says her sister wouldn't be down with that. Cassie puts "Summers" and "Summers" together and mentions talking to Buffy earlier. Dawn asks what about but realizes that her foot doesn't taste very good and takes it out of her mouth. She switches the conversation to whether Cassie's gonna go to the dance with Mike, but Cassie says she won't be around that night. Sad look from Dawn.

Buffy, Willow, and Xander are doing some research on Willow's laptop, trying to figure out what's going to happen to Cassie. Willow suggests looking up Cassie's medical records, but Buffy already has them handy, thanks to her job. She shows them to Xander, who finds details like "yeast infection" not remotely his business and hands the folder back to Buffy. Apparently there's no useful info there, so they go back to the computer and find Cassie's website. It's chock full of depressing poetry, all of it spelling "I'm going to die." But also? That's one seriously high-tech website! Like, overly so. It looks cool, really, but it's a little much. I know I sound really picky, but it was distractingly fancy. Whenever they cut to it, I kept being dazzled by these free-floating bits of moving text and self-scrolling pictures and trying to figure out how on earth she did something so technically advanced. I'm not knocking the creative design; it was just kind of distracting. Bah, I quibble.

The poetry's on the seriously morose side, but Willow thinks it sounds like normal teen angst. After all, she posted some pretty "melodramatic" love poetry herself when she was younger. Xander perks up at that, and Willow has to break the news that she's over him now. Undeterred, Xander is all puffed up and adorable at being the man. But really, Willow says, it's normal to post a little angst, join a chatroom or two, write some Doogie Howser fanfic... er, back to Cassie. Dawn, who has watched entirely too much Law & Order for her own good, has decided that Mike's the perp, and they should collar him before he lawyers up. Willow finds Cassie's father's arrest record, which is chock full of alcohol and trouble. Dawn tries to swing the conversation back to Mike, but Xander & Buffy are already out the door.

Yes, Buffy and Xander have decided that it's a good idea to barge into Cassie's dad's house in the middle of the night and accuse him of getting drunk and beating his child. I understand the urgency, but really. He's furious and rightly so. He accuses Cassie's mom of putting them up to this so she can take away the one weekend a month he gets to see Cassie, which was last weekend. So since he won't be seeing her this Friday, Buffy rules him out. Still indignant, he pretty much invites them to get the hell out, and they go.

When they get outside, Cassie pops out of the bushes and thanks them for trying, but she says it's not her father who kills her. Yes, for some reason, Cassie was in the bushes. I don't know if she was watching her father's house or if she's tailing Buffy or if she had a vision of Buffy pissing off her dad or what, but there she is. Xander makes sure she's not talking about killing herself, and Cassie gives a very touching speech about not wanting to die. She really does want to live, but she knows it's a done deal. Buffy tries to tell her to fight, that she's going to help, but Cassie doesn't see the point. There's a lot she wants to do, but she's not going to get the chance. And she doesn't know what or how, but something out there is going to kill her.

Cut to some guys in robes, who make a highly likely gang of suspects. Candles, creepy chanting, brazier in the middle with stuff to burn. Soon as this shot popped up, my hubby said, "Hey, isn't that the old Library floor?" You know, I think he may be right. Only, now it's the new Library floor. Oh, but we don't know that yet. Oops. Anyway, one of the robe guys lights the fire in the middle, and the camera starts to zoom in on it. The picture burning in the middle of the pile is clearly Cassie, but the camera doesn't seem to think we can tell that yet, so it keeps on zooming in a while longer. And the music is having waaaay too much fun building up into one of those "creepy strings of impending doom" things they do. It goes on far too long and gets all loud and jangly, even though we already get it. Clear and present danger! Bad guys who mean Cassie harm! Cut to the damn commercial already!

When we come back, Buffy's checking out Cassie's website again at her desk. Robin declares it Friday (which is a big help, since as I've mentioned, the time frame on this puppy is all but nonexistent), and we have a voiceover of some more of Cassie's poetry. It continues as we see Dawn, Cassie, and Mike having lunch together. Then the Scoobies doing research at night. Then Cassie sitting on her bed writing. Um, is it still Friday night now, or are we having a flashback to earlier in the week? I have no clue. Buffy then appears in the basement (having changed and un-changed her shirt) to look for Spike. She finds him sitting in a corner, catatonic. She snaps her fingers in front of his unblinking eyes, but he doesn't move. This irritates Buffy to no end. How dare he be mentally ill when she needs something! He's trying to remain utterly still and shut out the voices that are tormenting him. Spike pleads with her to leave him alone, but Buffy desperately wants to know if there's anything evil down there. Sheesh, what a loaded question. She says that a girl's going to get hurt, and Spike confesses that he's a bad, evil man for hurting her. Buffy wants to know what he did, but he's talking about hurting Buffy last season. He starts punching himself in the face, literally beating himself up for what he did, but Buffy shows a rare moment of compassion towards Spike and makes him stop. She's talking about a different girl, but Spike doesn't know anything about it. Frustrated, Buffy turns to go, but he begs her to stay, to help him be quiet. Buffy says, firm but still compassionate, that she thinks it's worse when she's there. Spike doesn't want them to hurt the girl.

Upstairs in the hallway, they're doing those locker checks Robin mentioned earlier (despite Buffy's insistence that the situation was dire, they seem to have waited all week to do this). It's the middle of the day now and apparently still Friday. Or Friday again. I'm so very lost. Anyway Buffy confronts Mike, but he insists he's okay. Maybe a little bummed about only getting a B on his history test (like we all knew he would) and kind of disappointed that Cassie turned him down, but he's honestly okay. Actually he's thinking of asking Dawn to the dance, which Buffy thinks is interesting until she realizes that her sister is this guy's second choice (heh). They get interrupted, though, by the sound of a whole mess of coins spilling out of one of the lockers.

So the owner of the locker gets called into Buffy's office. She knows the coins are related to what happens to Cassie, and she's decided that with a serious deadline coming up, it's time to threaten violence. Which happens to work. The guy says some other guys he knows have a plan to mess with this suicidal poet girl...

Who is saying goodbye to Dawn outside. Dawn doesn't want to let Cassie out of her sight, and Cassie busts her for being put up to this by Buffy. She's not mad, though; she really appreciates the effort. She considers Dawn her friend and wants her to know that whatever happens, it's not Dawn's fault. Dawn clearly wants to say more, but the wanna-be Larry Jr. (named Peter) interrupts to ask if anybody's asked Dawn to the dance yet. Dawn blushes and says not really, and Peter laughs and says he was just taking a poll. Jerk. He walks away, Dawn turns to diss him to Cassie, but Cassie's already gone.

Cut to that night, where we see that Peter is head of the red robe guys. They're all stoked about being rich after this ritual. One of them says he booby-trapped the fire exits so that nobody can get in or out without a nasty surprise. Then Peter drags Cassie out from behind a bookshelf. She's bound and gagged, and he holds a huge meat cleaver to her throat. I can't tell whether the other guys are surprised or not that they're going to sacrifice her. Like, they planned to mess with her, but they look surprised, but they don't balk at it, but they do look uncomfortable... hell, I don't know. They're bad, bad boys.

Apparently Cassie was chosen because with all her death-poetry, Peter figures that if she disappears, people will just assume she killed herself or something. He tells them to extinguish their candles, speaks the ritual, and Buffy throws off a robe and stands up, determined to poop their party. Peter calls her a stupid bitch and earns himself a kick in the face. She mocks their lame ritual and their lame, no-show demon. Except that - surprise! The demon is standing behind her. He is kinda lame, though. What self-respecting demon walks around with a cow skull strapped to his chin?

Buffy throws the cleaver at the demon, hitting it in the chest, but the demon swats her across the room. It pulls out the knife and tosses it aside where Peter picks it up to go menace Cassie some more. One of the other robes rushes Buffy, and she kicks him in the gut. She sees Cassie in danger, but the demon throws her on the floor and stands on her chest. It recoils in pain, though, because Spike has joined the party and hits it with one of the ritual torches. He's there to help, not wanting the girl to get hurt, and Buffy takes the torch. Yes, she's decided that the better division of labour is for her to fight the demon while he goes to get Cassie away from Peter. As opposed to letting Spike fight the demon. Which he can do without head-splitting agony.

Instead, he has to tackle the human guy. He pummels Peter, recoiling in terrible pain after every punch. Then he grabs the cleaver, and after a "will he kill this guy?" moment, he uses it to go cut Cassie's ropes. Buffy, meanwhile, pokes the demon in the belly with the torch, and it goes up in flame that conveniently and instantly consumes it and only it. Amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Spike gets Cassie untied and tears the tape from her mouth. She looks at him and says, "She'll tell you. Someday she'll tell you." I assume she means Buffy, but exactly what she's going to tell him will remain a mystery until probably late in the season, if my (and everyone else's) guess is correct. Buffy walks away from the now-charred demon, and Spike makes a silent exit. Peter, though, is incredibly miffed that his demon is all burned up. Apparently not too burned up, though, to rear up and bite Peter on the neck before exploding in a hail of bad computer effects. Peter thinks Buffy should help him since he's all bitten and bleeding, but she's not especially moved by his problem.

She and Cassie walk into the, um, Library foyer? I'm not sure. Then Buffy says it's all okay now. A sure sign that all is not, in fact, okay. When she opens the outer door, it trips the aforementioned booby trap. A crossbow on the far wall fires, and an arrow zings towards Cassie's head. Buffy catches it just in time and snaps it. She insists that you can make a difference. Cassie agrees that Buffy will, then keels over dead. Yep, just like that.

At Buffy's house, the gang is all assembled and appropriately sad. Apparently Cassie's family had a history of heart problems, which Cassie never knew about. Buffy thinks she failed her, but Dawn tearfully insists that it wasn't Buffy's fault. Just, sometimes you can't help. So what do you do then? Implied message as Buffy goes to work the next day: you do the best you can.

Anyway, next week looks fun.

Thoughts

Well, that was... boring. I really liked Cassie, but since I figured she was a guaranteed goner, I didn't get too emotionally attached. Which was easy to avoid, as this episode wasn't especially well-crafted. Usually when Buffy's over, even if I'm not gonna write up the recap for a couple of days, I sit down and type out what I thought of it while it's still all fresh and gooey. Tonight? The main focus of my thoughts is "eh". It wasn't a complete groaner like "Teacher's Pet", but saying it's better than insect sex isn't that huge a compliment.

There really were a few things I liked - Cassie in general, Buffy counseling Dawn about her bossy older sister, Willow visiting Tara's grave, Spike's... well, Spike. But for the most part, this episode still feels like a whole bunch of filler. I got the feeling they were going for that "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do" vibe from Angel, but it just didn't do it for me. Unfortunately, that's pretty much my whole feeling about this episode. It just didn't do it for me.

Quirks

The whole timeline of this episode is one big quirk. I found it pretty impossible to figure out what was supposed to be happening on which day. Robin declares it Friday. Buffy's in her creme-coloured shirt, and Cassie's eating lunch on the quad. Then we're at the Summers' house, it's dark out, and Buffy's in a black tank top while Cassie's at home writing. Then Buffy visits Spike in the creme shirt, apparently after the previous research scene. We can't tell if it's light or dark out since it's the basement, but she says again that it's Friday. Then she's upstairs, and it's light again and still Friday. What's up with the research scene? Was it from another night? Was it filler from earlier in the episode they stuck in the middle of the day for some reason? Is there any coherent timetable for this episode? I have absolutely no idea.

I'm guessing the red robe crew borrowed the coins from the guy who got called to Buffy's office. They used the coins in the pre-ritual that seems to have taken place before Friday. Then the coins were in his locker on Friday, and it seemed like Buffy impressed upon him the seriousness of the situation. But then the robes had the coins that night. Did he give the coins back to them, knowing a girl's life was in danger? Eh, I quibble.

But wait! There's more quibble! Now how much would you pay? The guys are holding lit candles before the ritual begins, which they blow out before it actually starts. So why did they all have candles?

Um, why didn't Buffy interrupt, say, *before* Peter did his summoning ritual? Sure, it's less dramatic and all, but still. She just sat there in her borrowed robe while the guy held a cleaver to Cassie's throat and invoked a demon before she decided to speak up?

Where the hell did everybody go? All the guys scattered after the ritual went kerflooey, but the arrow trap was still unsprung.

Would it have made any difference if Buffy had bothered trying CPR when Cassie collapsed?

Cassie's family had a history of heart trouble, and her mother never told her. The hell?! This isn't like sparing Cassie from knowing about her crazy Uncle Yorgi who buggers goats for money - this is important information for a young adult to have. And not only was Cassie unaware, it apparently wasn't in her medical files either. What the hell was Cassie's mother thinking?!

Body Count

CowChin Demon - burned by Buffy, then exploded
Cassie - dropped dead of heart failure

Haiku

Hour of filler
Cassie says she's gonna die
Then she does. Surprise.

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