Aka: The Acme Anvil store is sold out of their 3 ton style

This episode is the reason I try my hardest to maintain faith in TPTB.  Buffy’s back.  She’s really back!  All it took was one week of episodes to make me like the stars of my two favorite shows again: Buffy and Angel.  All is right in the world…almost.

Let me start with the Troika.  More dissention within the troops.  Warren is the embodiment of evil, caring nothing about raping and murdering his ex-girlfriend.  Andrew and Jonathan give me a nice glimmer of hope that they will finally drop this Evil scum bag.  But then, in the end, Andrew decided that it was pretty cool to get away with murder.  Jonathan said as much, but he didn’t convince me one iota.  I find it interesting that Earshot was played right before this ep on FX.  It reminds us of how very much Jonathan owes to our Buffy.  I hope he doesn’t disappoint me.

Anyhow, the point of this discussion: “To hell with the soul.”  The soul don’t mean a thing.

Next, Willow and Tara.  Tara was in this episode.  Okay, that’s enough about them.

Let’s move on to Xander and Anya.  I’ve read the spoilers.  (You bad, bad TabRas’ers, you.  Tricking me into reading those naughty things.)  I see no more foreshadowing of troubles in this ep.  Have to ask, though: where did Xander learn to swing dance?

Why does Anya look like a blow-up doll?

Dawn and Buffy.  More foreshadowing there.  Buffy is ignoring Dawn.  Okay, we get it.  But can’t you give her a break?  She’s a working mom by day and the Slayer by night.  When is she supposed to have time for anyone else?!  My goodness.  My mother never spent any time with me, but I didn’t go off and steal things, then try to get turned by some vampire I didn’t even know.  Color me nonsympatico to Dawn’s plight.  By the way, what color would that be?  Olive drab?  Mauve?  Sand?

Now to the nitty gritty.  Buffy and Spike.  Shall we count the anvils?  Buffy passing a grave marker with a heart on it.  Buffy at Spike’s door, feeling his presence on the other side. 

 Buffy beating the s%$# out of poor Spike (how did his eye puff up so darn fast?), then Spike’s remark.  “You always hurt the one you love.”  Then, my friends, my favorite anvil of all time:  Buffy repeating the phrase in earnest.

The end scene between Tara and Buffy ran me out of my Kleenex.  I was just thinking before the last 15 minutes of the episode, “Man, I have to rip on another episode in the Tarabula Rasa Review.  Why does ME want me to hate them so much?”  But then, Buffy was resurrected.  It didn’t happen in “Bargaining”, my friends.  It happened right here in “Dead Things”.

Tara tells her that she is not “wrong”.  She is just Buffy with a sunburn.  (Brief time out here.  A sunburn?  Who wrote that line?!  Can we fire him/her?)  Buffy freaks out.  She tells Tara that she has had sex with Spike.  Tara tells her it is okay.  Tara (God bless her soul) asks if she loves Spike.  She doesn’t say, “Oh, God, you touched that thing?  How could you?”  She doesn’t get up and leave.  She doesn’t lecture.  She kindly asks if she loves him and says that it would be alright.  Of course, she also says that if she didn’t love him, that it would be alright too.

Buffy, in turn, continues to freak out, saying that it would be wrong to be having sex with Spike and not love him.  She never mentions that it would be wrong to love a soulless creature and make love to him.

Point.  Match.  Game.

Remaining (rhetorical) questions:

What was with the lounge lizard shirt?

Why is Buffy under a rug?

Favorite line: "You always hurt the one you love."

Screen Caps courtesy of Spirit Crow