Writer: Doug Petrie and Jane Espenson
Director: Marita Grabiak

Cast : Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers, Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris, Emma Caulfield as Anya, Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers, James Marsters as Spike, Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg.

Main guest stars : Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles, Eliza Dushku as Faith, Tom Lenk as Andrew, Iyari Limon as Kennedy, Indigo as Rona, Sarah Hagan as Amanda, Nathan Fillion as Caleb, David Boreanaz as Angel.

Original broadcast date : May 13, 2003

My one-line description: Axe definitely gonna cut it.

Picking up where “Touched” left off, this episode opens with Faith shouting for the girls to run. Alas, the bomb explodes too soon, and the SITs go flying.

At the vineyard, Buffy looks at the scythe embedded in the rock as Caleb approaches from behind. He snidely encourages her to try to pry it out, but she reaches for the handle and takes it from the rock as if it were butter…

Caleb backs away slowly from the scythe-bearing Buffy. It seems he’s scared of the thing, and The First/Buffy tells him to let the real Buffy go. Caleb argues that if he lets her go, she’ll kill him with that thing, but the First counters that they’ll get it back soon. As they argue, Buffy makes a run for it, much to Caleb’s displeasure.

In the cave, a few SITs are trying to ascertain who’s left. A lot are wounded, some dead. Kennedy, Amanda, Vi and another girl find Faith under some water, unconscious and badly wounded. They start to tend to her, but… are interrupted by a snarling Ubervamp. The girls recoil, but Kennedy rallies and tells the other SITs they can take one of these things. And then… another one appears.

At the house, Andrew is dumping groceries on the table, commenting that these were lying around abandoned at the supermarket (it seems our Scoobies were due, since Giles bites with relish into a cookie). Xander, Willow, Dawn and Anya arrive and report they haven’t found Buffy – the locator spell led them to an empty house, so they concluded she must’ve moved on.

Giles is worried about another thing – Faith and the SITs aren’t back yet, so it means something must’ve gone wrong…

The SITs are now facing three Ubervamps. Kennedy tries to be positive about their chances, but it’s clear they’re outgunned (painfully clear when one of the girls gets butchered right there and then). Kennedy bravely takes on a vamp, but he gets her into a chokehold and lifts her up by the neck… There’s movement behind them, and Buffy falls to the floor from a sewer hole. Wielding the scythe way too easily, she cuts a bloody path through the Ubervamps, then urges the surviving girls to get out. “Are there more?” a worried Kennedy asks. “There’s always more”, Buffy replies.

The Summers house has become an infirmary, with wounded girls lying everywhere. Amanda is adamant that they were punished for following Faith, but the Slayer explains that it was a trap, and it could’ve just as easily happened to her. Said Faith is brought in and laid in Buffy’s bed; asked whether she’s back in charge, Buffy replies that she doesn’t know…

In Willow’s bedroom, Giles tries out the scythe while Buffy explains how she came upon it. She tells them that she can feel its power, like it belongs to her somehow – and it scared the hell out of Caleb. She instructs Giles and Willow to find out what they can about the weapon.

In the living room, Andrew and Anya are bandaging a wounded SIT while drinking the booze that was supposed to be disinfectant. Andrew notes that these girls need real medical supplies, like sutures and gauze. He tells Anya they could do with the hospital what they did with the supermarket – raid it. Anya likes the plan and decides to come along.

In the kitchen, Buffy is asking Xander for a favor – one that Xander obviously dislikes. He thought he’d be there in the fight right next to her. “You will be”, she promises; but she needs him to do this. He’s her strength, he’s the one who’s gotten him this far, and she trusts him with her life. That’s why she needs him to do this. Xander reluctantly agrees. “And if you die, I’ll just bring you back to life. It’s what I do” he quips.

Using Internet, Willow has dug up some history on the vineyard – it used to be a monastery, and a pagan temple before that. She and Giles can’t find out much else, much to their frustration. Willow gets up and walks over to the scythe; she picks it up, trying to feel its power. Nothing. Giles suggests some magic might help, but Willow is afraid – even a little locator spell taxes her control. Laying down the scythe, she goes back to the computer – she’s found a site where different axes are displayed. The last one is a mystery – a symbol with a question mark beside it. Giles figures out that the question mark is actually a glottal stop, and that it makes up a hieroglyph representing a scythe... which means death.

Outside, Dawn is hunched over looking in the back seat of Xander’s car for a crossbow – which Xander is sure he left there. He makes jokes about having to take driving exams every year till the end of his life, since they don’t trust his depth perception anymore. As Dawn gets in front of him to look in the front seat, he grabs her and puts a rag filled with chloroform over her mouth. He then hauls the unconscious teen into the car, gets in and drives off.

At the vineyard, Caleb mouthes off at Buffy/The First for not letting him fight Buffy. The First replies that Caleb isn’t ready yet – he’s weakening, as they haven’t merged in a long time. It promises that soon they will rule the world. A mollified Caleb tells the First he’s ready to merge, and he stands still as the First reveals its ugly true form and enters him. Caleb seems to enjoy the experience, and his eyes go black with power.

Sitting in bed, Faith examines the scythe, while Buffy explains what she knows about it. Faith feels the power of the weapon, almost as though it’s hers… “Which means it’s yours, I guess”, she comments to Buffy. She’s still feeling guilty about leading the girls into a trap, but Buffy tells her it was an honest mistake, and these things happen. Pensively, Faith tells Buffy that all her life she’s been a loner (she reveals along the way that she had sex with Wood, much to Buffy’s astonishment) and that she’s been jealous of Buffy, surrounded by all her friends. Opening up to the other Slayer, Faith observes that once she got to be the leader, she never felt so alone in her life, and that she understands that Buffy lives the same isolation. Buffy confirms that she loves her friends and is grateful for them, but she can’t share the burden of being a Slayer with them. Faith comments that it may be why the two Slayers don’t get along – they have to be loners in some way.

Going down the stairs, Buffy comes upon Spike, and shows him the scythe. He comments that it’s truly something a girl would leave a guy for… (hint hint). Buffy apologizes, but he says the previous night wasn’t a really big deal. He goes to leave, but Buffy walks in front of him and calls him a dope – the reason she got the scythe in the first place is him and the strength he gave her. She says she doesn’t know how he felt about last night, but… “Terrified”, he replies. The previous night was the best night of his life – all he did was hold her and watch her sleep, but he’s never felt as close to anyone, so he’s terrified. “You don’t need to be”, she says softly. “Were you there with me?” he asks. She replies that she was, and he wonders what that means. “Does it have to mean anything?” she asks. He agrees that it doesn’t, and leaves her to her work.

At the abandoned hospital, Anya and Andrew are looting supplies – namely gauze and stitches. The conversation turns to why Anya is staying in town, and she tells him about the apocalypse she dodged because she split (Season 3). She adds pensively that since then, although she’s learned how stupid and messed-up humans are, she’s also realized that when things get bad, they pull together and fight with all they have. So she wants to fight too. Andrew notes that her chances of survival are probably better than his, but he wants to finish his life on the side of good, with the “lame humans”. Silence. “So… wheelchair fight?” he asks. And voilà, our two heroes are going at it with ridiculous hollers.
At the cemetery, Buffy finds an ancient mausoleum and enters it. It’s lit with torches, as if someone had been waiting for her – and indeed, an old woman walks out towards her and greets her. She reveals that she is part of the group which forged the scythe; they’re older than Watchers – they’re Guardians. The scythe they forged defeated the last pure demon to walk the earth, then was embedded in stone. Then there was a town, then there was Buffy… The woman says it’s a powerful weapon, but that Buffy already has weapons. Buffy wonders if it’ll be enough to defeat the First. The woman replies that it may be, and that the end is truly near.

Two hands grab the woman’s skull and snap her neck. She falls to the ground, revealing Caleb. “I’m sorry, I missed that last part”, he says. “Did she say the end is near, or the end is here?”

Dawn wakes up in Xander’s car and asks what happened (actually, she meant what the “hell” happened). Xander hands her a letter from Buffy, and she reads a few lines from it – Buffy is telling Dawn that she’s sending her away to protect her – but the teen quickly grabs a stun gun and hits Xander. She then turns the car around and drives back towards Sunnydale.

Buffy lashes out at Caleb, but he’s really, really strong, kids – he pretty much begins throwing her around like a rag doll. She bravely fights on, however, and gets a little help – as a fist lands squarely on Caleb. It’s Angel. Buffy quickly greets him, then hints to him that this is a fight she has to finish by herself. He obliges, stepping back and commenting that he missed seeing this. Buffy actually gets close enough to Caleb to slice him open. He stumbles and laughs it off before keeling over, dead.

Angel asks Buffy if she’s happy to see him, and the only answer she gives him – a good one, really – is a huge kiss.

From the shadows, Spike watches, looking quite saddened. “That bitch”, growls Buffy/The First, standing next to him.

Special thanks to Loey.