Overall Rating: 8.25 Matt: 8.4 Eric: 8.1 Writer: David Fury Director: Daniel Attias Cast : Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers, Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris, Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg, Emma Caulfield as Anya, Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers, James Marsters as Spike, Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles. Main guest stars : Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers, Amber Benson as Tara, Charlie Weber as Ben, Mercedes McNab as Harmony, Juliet Landau as Drusilla. Original broadcast date : February 13, 2001 My one-line description: Humiliated by three women in one night… That’s even worse than William the Bloody. At the Bronze, Buffy watches as her friends enjoy the dance floor. Suddenly, Spike joins her, commenting that the prices at the bar are higher since the renovations (remember the mess the troll made?). Buffy, nonplussed, coldly suggests he take his business elsewhere. Not getting the hint, he sits down, and she asks him why he’s pretending they’re buddies. He argues he just wanted to give her some company, but she just glares at him. He tries to convince her that she should cut him some slack, since he helped her fight Glory. The gang comes back to the table, and Spike angrily leaves. Xander offers to buy drinks for the entire group, but notices that the change he left on the table is gone. He spots Spike at the bar buying something, and gets up while Buffy notices Ben the intern and goes to talk to him… Spike barely pays any attention to Xander as the human takes back his change, busy as he is staring at Buffy talking to another guy. A train pulls in at the Sunnydale station, and a porter waits by the door for the passengers to climb out. When nothing happens, he climbs inside to investigate, and discovers rows of drained bodies… As he turns to leave, he himself is held back and attacked by an invisible hand. Buffy returns home to find Joyce and Dawn watching TV while Giles reads a book. She reports she had a good time, even though Spike was there – a fact which interests Dawn very much. As she leads Giles to the door, he asks how Dawn is doing, and she replies that they’ve been going easy on her. He advises that the best thing may be to act as normal as possible… So Buffy turns around and yells at Dawn for taking her blue cashmere sweater. In his crypt, Spike is caressing the aforementioned sweater… Harmony shows up and tries to get him to go to bed with her. He’s not interested, until she suggests they play a game… Cut to Harmony, stake in hand, wearing Buffy’s blue sweater and pretending to be the Slayer. Spike jumps out of the shadows and tackles her. On campus the next day, Buffy reads the papers and finds out about the six murdered people found at the train station. Discussing it with Tara and Willow, she figures it must be a vampire, because of the neck traumas reported. Dawn visits Spike in his crypt, and he asks if Buffy knows where she is. Dawn answers no, but she wants to stay – she explains that Spike is the only one who treats her like a person, and that she feels safe with him. This makes Spike cough on his bourbon, and he demands that she take that back; she tries to mend her mistake by saying that he’s tough, that even Buffy thinks so. Suddenly interested, Spike asks what else Buffy says about him… Buffy comes home to find out from Joyce that her sister hasn’t come back from school yet; she sets off to find her. At the crypt, Spike is telling Dawn a scary story when Buffy bursts in. She grabs Dawn, who explains that Spike was telling her a story. Buffy agrees to stay long enough to hear the story that Spike is telling her sister, but a chastised Spike changes the story so it has a happy ending. Dawn thinks it’s lame, but this time Buffy does drag her outside. She lashes out at Dawn, reminding her how dangerous Spike is, even though she knows Dawn has a crush on him… Dawn interrupts her, saying that she doesn’t have a shot at Spike, since he’s in love with Buffy. Buffy looks quite taken aback at this revelation… Checking the murder scene on the train with Xander, Buffy asks for advice regarding Spike’s crush on her. Xander brushes it off as entertaining, and then asks Buffy how she knows about that. Buffy reveals that Dawn has a crush on Spike, and Xander is a bit hurt in his male ego – he thought the teen had a crush on him. The two give up the search, having found no clues. As they leave, the camera zooms in on a luggage rack, where we see a makeshift bed and a very familiar porcelain doll… Buffy goes back home to find Joyce making small talk with Dawn and… Spike. This annoys Buffy more than a little, but the vampire informs her that he found a lead on the train vampires, and that he’s ready to lead her to them. At night, Spike and Buffy sit in his car, observing a warehouse… He opens the glove compartment and retrieves flask, which he offers to the Slayer. "Ew," she says. "It’s not blood, it’s bourbon," he replies. "Eeeeeww," she says again, slower. And again they wait… Two vampires show up, and Buffy and Spike storm the place. The vampires flee, and Buffy notices that the vampires have been here a while – they’ve nested. So they couldn’t have been the ones who attacked the train. Buffy berates Spike for wasting her time, and then asks what’s going on – is this his idea of a date? He tries to declare his love for her, but she refuses to let him talk and leaves, thoroughly disgusted. Spike goes back to his crypt to find a familiar face waiting for him – Drusilla… After sharing some gossip about Angel and Darla back together in L.A., Drusilla tells Spike she wants them all to be a family again. Spike argues that he likes Sunnydale, but Drusilla claims he’s still a killer, even with the chip. He reminds her that the pain is awful, but she says it’s all in his head – the electricity is a lie. Harmony yells at Spike for bringing in a Drusilla look-alike for sex, but he tells her it’s the real Drusilla. Harmony makes a scene, until he throws her out. At Buffy’s home, Joyce, Buffy and Willow are discussing Spike’s obsession. Joyce advises Buffy to go see him and break it off completely; Willow offers to accompany her, but the Slayer asks her to perform another small task for her… Spike and Drusilla arrive at the Bronze, where they dance a bit before heading up to the balcony for a snack… Said snack being a young couple, whose necks Drusilla snaps before tossing the girl to Spike. After hesitating for a moment, he vamps out and drinks. Buffy goes to Spike’s crypt and finds it empty. She moves down into the tunnel, where she finds the mannequin, along with some pictures and drawings of her. Freaked out, she climbs back upstairs, to find herself face-to-face with Spike… and Drusilla, who shocks her unconscious with a taser. Dru asks Spike to tie Buffy up, and hands him the taser… but he shocks her unconscious too. Buffy wakes up tied up, and spots Drusilla also tied up a few feet from her. Spike explains that he wants to prove his love to Buffy by staking Dru; Buffy argues that it would only prove that he’s sick and miserable. Spike growls that if Buffy doesn’t admit that there’s something between them, he’ll untie Drusilla and let her kill the Slayer. "The only chance you had with me was when I was unconscious," Buffy replies defiantly. Spike, now furious, wonders what is wrong with women. As she rants on about Drusilla leaving him and his feeling for Buffy being wrong, Harmony enters and tries to shoot him with a crossbow. As she reloads the bow, Spike attacks her, and Drusilla takes the opportunity to break out of her bonds and attack Buffy. The Slayer fares pretty well, until Spike knocks down both Harmony and Drusilla and comes to unlock her chains. Drusilla and Harmony both get up and leave, throwing final barbs at Spike as they go. Buffy turns to Spike, looks at him… and punches him hard. As she leaves, he runs after her; she wants to know which part of her hitting him he didn’t understand, and shouts that she wants him out of town and out of her life. As she enters her house, he tells her that she can’t shut him out that easily. But as he tries to also go in, he bounces back… and Buffy closes the door in his face. Summary by OttsFiveByFive.