Episode 7.1: Lessons
Written by Joss Whedon

Posted by Schroeder on TWOP on 9-7/8-02

It's been revealed that Sunnydale High is reopening and that Joss is going back to the beginning right? Well, that's the tone.
PLOT:
Ranking: Already revealed. Just confirmation
[spoiler start]The show more or less opens the day before high school starts for Dawn. Buffy and Dawn are still living at home, but need Xander to drive them to school. Whatever happened to Joyce's butt-kicking Jeep Cherokee? I wouldn't have sold that, if I were them, if they did. It would make patrolling easier.
Dawn's excited, but nervous. Buffy gets her ready and is nervous about letting her go, almost to the point of thinking that she's going to suffer from empty-nest syndrome. There is a lot of talk about the school reopening and the potential reopening of the hellmouth, but nothing seriously wiggins-inducing, although I nearly died from the anvils that Joss drops this eppy-sode to let us know we're going back to the beginning.
Willow is in "rehab" or "detox" in England with Giles, who's in all his "I'm the adult, listen to me speak rationally and in English." I mean, in an English accent. They do not leave England in this eppy-sode.
Xander is working on the construction site at school, which still needs to have its science building opened. The construction isn't too good, simply because Dawn gets in trouble in the bathroom and immediately ends up in the school basement, which enough characters describe as a maze. Who designed that place?
And Spike is back in Sunnydale, as is Anya, whose hair is now long and brown. She should be the new spokesdemon for Clairol, because I'm tired of Carrie from Sex in the City telling us that Brown Sugar No. 43 is her new favorite color.
[spoiler end]
MONSTER OF THE WEEK:
Ranking: Slightly more revealy, but could be in circulation.
[spoiler start]The Monsters of the week are three dead things (Yeah, that title's been used, sue me. FOX, this does not include you.).
[s]Tall Blonde Guy (I think it's the actor who played Hollister on Galaxy Quest)
[s]Black Haired Girl (looks like Sara LaRue from Popular but it's not)
[s]one dead-looking Janitor
These three are people who died at Sunnydale High, supposedly when Buffy was a student.
The three things more or less attack Dawn, Buffy and a few more to be revelled later in the school basement.
The copy of the tape I had didn't have too many credits, so I wasn't able to check to see if it's the same people who played them or what. Actually, the opening credits were from last season, the one with only the slightest look of Amber Benson, when she blows that dust before James Marster's credits popped up, so I guess they didn't care too much about secondary credits.
Poppy says to Buffy at once point that Buffy was too busy to save her from a werewolf, and although Buffy makes no mention of Oz, I'm assuming that she's the first woman to have died back when Oz became a werewolf.
I don't remember when the Janitor died, only because someone in authority seemed to die every other week during Buffy's high school tenure.
Hollister makes reference to Buffy being to busy to save him when he died, and all I can say is if he's going to whine so damn much about being dead, then I'm glad Buffy was too damn busy.
These dead things are not ghosts or zombies, they're something else, and Buffy gets a clue as to what from someone other than Giles for once. All three keep repeating that Buffy was to busy to save them back then, but it's all different now as it's all starting over again because they've gone back to the beginning.
Watch yer heads, Buffsters.[spoiler end]
I know it's a long post, but it's probably going to be the only time that I'm going to get to do this, ever, so I'm going to have some fun with it. If it's too unbearable, just let me know and I'll knock it off.
~
OPENING SCENE:
Ranking: Not spoilery, just conformation. Although it can start off speculation.
[spoiler start]The entire eppy-sode started off in Instandbul (not Constantinople/but it's Instanbull, not Constantinople), and we're following what I assume to be a Slayer-in-Training. She has dark hair and is wearing a red jacket, so I immediately thought of the Boxer Rebellion Slayer that was Spike's first kill in Fool For Love. Turky runs, badly, from hooded creatures. Or people, we're not shown what they are. Turky runs into a dead end allyway (aren't they always?) and she climbs a drain to get away. She gets to the roof but is thrown off. She lands on her back, is pinned down, a huge curved knife is displayed in a camera shot all its own, and we then cut to a Buffy-and-Dawn scene before the opening credits are rolled. No more Turky.
It does not come across as Buffy's dreaming, but as a "This is Instanbul (cue song) and now we're in Sunnydale." And that's all we see of it.[spoiler end]
~
KIT AND CARLOS:
Ranking: What they do in this eppy-sode, and what I thought.
[spoiler start]I know I said I wouldn't give my opinion, but hell, I hated Carlos, so forget it.
Kit or Kitt
We meet her briefly as Buffy and Dawn are walking into the school, before we meet The Principal. We meet her again when Dawn's gone to the bathroom after Dawn freaks out in homeroom, and she hears crying. After checking the stalls, we find Kit in the last one, feet pulled up crying, because, you guessed it, she's seeing dead people. Kit has dark hair, and really looks like Molly from Felicity, even though I've watched about five whole eppy-sodes of that series. Goth, dark hair, pale skin, light clothing that is mixed-matched. She carries her presentation fairly well, enough to get me interested in her character.
Carlos.
God, I hate this character, I hate this actor. We see him briefly after bouncing a basketball, we follow Buffy following him through the school, but she loses him, although we stay focused on the basement door. After Dawn and Kitt or Kit, whatever, meet up with him later after the bathroom fiasco, he admits that he too, has seen dead people, even though he was down in the basement to get a smoke. The girls ask for a way out, and he remarks the basement is like a maze. (woo-o-o-o-o-o, ghostlike sounds). His delivery is awful, awful, awful, and I'm hoping it's because of the advance tape.
Scrappy Gang.
Later, as Buffy and Dawn attempt to fight the MothW Three, Kit and Carlos get moved to the back ground and they watch. They're saved, and they're grateful. They walk off with Dawn at the end. Because of the way they're presented, I did not get the impression that they are "Scrappy Gang-ish." Just "Here's Dawn's friend Janice, whom we've heard about forever and are meeting for the first time and will never see again, or Dawn's black friend in The Body, who's name Schroeder doesn't even remember she was so important." I don't know about you guys, but I'm glad I've gotten the impression that there is no Scrappy Gang. I think it's just to show that Dawn is capable of making friends herself, like Buffy did with Xander and Willow.
God, what a dolt I am. I just now got that parallel. Damn Joss and his "We're going back to the beginning!" anvils.[spoiler end]
~
XANDER:
Ranking: God, there's nothing to tell.
[spoiler start]Talk about phoning in your performances. Xander shows up to drive Buffy and Dawn to school. He has the blueprints for the school, and it looks kinda small to me. Anyway, he expositions that he's gone over the blueprints and there's not pentagrams in the construction, no secret passages and the opening of the Hellmouth is directly under the new Principal's office. He later comments that the science building is still being built, and I'm thinking, there's a school building and a science building? Why is science the only subject that gets its own building? No other subject has its own wing that we've heard of, let alone its own building. Did History and English lose out the bidding war for its own home?
Later, Buffy calls Xander on their cellphones (FINALLY! After six years, Sunnydale's out of that weird No-Coverage Zone.) and goes into the Bathroom of Dead People to help Buffy put and end to the MotW Three.
Xander seems successful. He has a shiney silver car, a new suit that he wears to work instead of working clothes, so it's a guess that he's really successfull now. That leaves a bitter taste, as he didn't even attempt higher education.[spoiler end]
And because I have the time, and I really love you guys...
ANYA
Ranking: She's in one scene, what's to spoil?
[spoiler start]Anya and Hallie, that's right, Hallie, are sitting in the Coffee Haus, listening to a really, really, really bad Boy/Girl guitar group going at it. Hallie comments that Anya's not been herself and that D'Hoffryn and the upper and lower beings have noticed. Hallie comments that she's always looked up to Anya, and everyone's notice that Anya has not killed, eviscerated or even creativley done away with anyone when she grants wishes. She hasn't goaded any girls into any wishes, either. And there's a funny comment about the wishes that she does grant.
Hallie further says that everydemon should be on its demon toes, because now's a bad time to be a good guy, as the Hellmouth is reopening because we're going back, way back, so far back, that it's the beginning again. (Dodge the anvil!) Anya snits that if this is supposed to be intervention, then all her demon friends should be there. Hallie tackfully replies that they are. Ouch.
Anya is sad during this whole exchange, and it's not anvil-heavy that she's just not the same. It was just sad.[spoiler end]
~
WILLOW AND GILES
Ranking: It's gonna cause a lot of speculation.
[spoiler start]Yeah, they're in England. And yeah, Giles is on horseback in one scene. That enough for you?
It's not? OK, how's this?
Willow looks like crap. She sounds like crap, she's dressed kinda blah, and she's just crap. No makeup, ruddy compection. She's in detox, or rehab or whatever you want to call it. She's remorsefull, sullen, withdrawn.
She's under a tree, and she's growing a flower. It was so funny because when we cut to the flower shot, all it says is "VFX growing flower" and the faintest outline of a computer flower is drawn in white. It really killed the moment.
Giles asks if it's Brazillian, and Willow wants to know if there's anything he doesn't know. Funny answer a comin'. Giles remarks that that flower doesn't belong there, and Willow says she knows. So "VFX wilting flower" appears on scene, and the white outline wilts. I was prepared, but it killed it again anyway.
With two mood killers, is this scene important?
You bet it is.
Willow is listless, but talks about how she can get that flower to grow here in England, because everything's connected. The roots, flowers, blades of grass, Gaia (Mother Earth), she's connected to it all. She thanks Giles for putting her in touch/under the care of a coven there in England, and she remarks that the witches still look at her with fear in their eyes.
A little walk and talk. She asks if that fear will always be there, and honestly, I don't remember what he said. But whatever he said, it was loving and matter of fact. Oh, I love me some loving-and-matter-of-fact Giles. Anyway, Willow remarks that she's killed people and Giles says he hasn't forgotten (Not to mention that she tried to kill him!). He asks if she thinks she should be punished. Honestly, I don't remember again. But it was cool.
The main point of this scene that I picked up is that Willow says the magic is still inside of her, and she's trying to control it. She remarks that she's drained after what happened in May, and she asks if it will ever go away. Giles says that it won't. The magic will always be there, and she will have to control it.
So there goes that speculation that magic really was an addiction that can be kicked, huh? Put that in your speculation pipes and smoke it.
The final scene of Willow and Giles (and I think there's only two) is after Buffy has fought the MotW Three, and we see Giles picking her up off the floor, after she was knocked to it, I guess. He asks her what she sees, and she says the Earth, and other crap, but what's important is that she could see its mouth opening will all the teeth. Giles remarks that the Hellmouth might be opening again now that the school has been rebuilt and Joss is taking us back, and Schroeder has to get off his bed and under the nearest doorframe, lest any anvils that are falling will surely kill him, and Fairly Perceptive Boyfriend will be sad.[spoiler end]
~
Buffy:
Ranking: I'm going tell how she gets the job at the school and her meeting with Spike, so rank it how you want.
[spoiler start]As I've said, Buffy is not introduced this season waking up from a dream. She is training Dawn at a graveyard in the second scene before the opening credits. The third scene, immediately before the credits, is the ribbon cutting for the new school. Buffy's teaching Dawn about slaying, about who has the power, the pointy end points outward to stuff, the basics.
As I said in the Dawn spoiler, the banter between the two is great, delivered well, and Buffy's channelling Giles. Very serious, but capable of having fun. (Huh, not exactly Giles with the fun part, but the instruction, I mean.) She's patient and lets Dawn control the slaying of the new vampire until Dawn needs help. It's funny because the vampire comes out of his grave and he's all Everyvamp, because he listens to them banter first before asking for help getting out. In the tape I have you can see the wire coming out of the vamp's back up to the sky that helps her lift them. That shattered all illusions that Sarah really has upper-body strength. I'm sure there's a Freddy Prince Jr.-hubby joke in there somewhere, but hey, I'm tired.
After staking the vamp, the resume banter about school and how scary it is, only we're not suppsed to know it's about school and that we're going back to the beginning.
After the credits, Buffy is getting Dawn ready for school, and she's worried about sending Dawn there because, let's face it, they built the damn thing right back over the Hellmouth. Now if ME doesn't play that out like someone somewhere in Sunnydale did it on purpose, then they've fired the Continuity Fairy althogether this season.
Honestly, why didn't the Summers girls move? Oh, because they can't transfer out of district and she doesn't have the money for private school, as the Exposition Fairy tells us through Buffy.
Cut to school, Buffy's doing her best to prep Dawn as any of us would do for our younger sibs, but we've never had to tell them to look out for a heyena pack, fish swimmers or invisible girls. Looks like Continuity shows up when it wants to, huh?
Buffy and Dawn meet the principal, and he's a black guy, but young. Buffy and I were both surprised at the age. Race doesn't matter to either of us. Buffy and I are like that. They banter about how Buffy's a little overprotective of Dawn, and Dawn finally runs of to get away from smothering Buffy. The principal actually makes a reference to reading Buffy's permanet records. Guess even blowing up the damn thing can't kill those freaking records, huh?
Buffy never leaves the school. She follows a then-unamed Carlos until she loses him and then goes to the Bathroom of Horror. It is there that we first see dead people in the school, and it's Poppy. (Check my Monsters of the Week post earlier today) Buffy finds a little hand-made talisman on the counter, picks it up and we see Poppy behind her. A freaked out Buffy runs to get Dawn at the most inopportune time. It's freaking hilarious. Read the Dawn post to take a guess.
Buffy can't get Dawn to leave, so she starts to leave herself when The Principal stops her again. Small talk about how it's customary to actually leave when you graduate. Ha ha, The Principal's actually likable right now. Like Flutie was.
During this, Dawn's had her own bathroom problems and calls Buffy to get her help down in the basement. Buffy runs of, she runs down there and she goes to save the day.
It's then that when she least expects it, she runs into the MotW Three. She tries to fight them and has to listen to their stupid banter about how they're dead and it's all her fault. She actually snarks back that they need to get over it. I realize that these three did NOT die at graduation, as speculated. She realizes they're not ghosts, and goes to the door she thinks that Dawn's in, because the MotW Three are protecting it. She runs to it, opens it and comes face to face with Spike.
Muwah ha ha ha!!! (Opps. Did it again.
Boy, Sarah pulled back on this scene. She jumps into the little basement room with Spike and locks the door. I'm describing Spike in his own thread: how he looks, his reactions, whatnot. This is about Buffy. I'm getting that this is the first time that she's seen him since the you-know-what. She asks what he's been up to, and asks what happened to him, as she notices some scars on his chest. She does not address the near rape, and I really think it's because she was caught unawares, and because she knows that Dawn, Carlos and Kit are in real danger. She just doesn't have the time. Maybe eppy-sode 2, 3 or 4.
It's Spike who informs Buffy that the MotW Three are not ghosts or zombies, they're manifestations of evil spirits, and they need a talisman to be controlled. Buffy puts two-and-two together and calls Xander (He's got a phone too! Did Nokia sponsor this show as they did Alias or something?). Anyway, she gets Xander to get to the talisman in the bathroom and break it. The MotW Three disapear, and Buffy takes the Scrappies out of the basement.
It's here that when she's coaching Kit and Carlos how to survive this hellmouth that the principal overhears and comments to her after the Scrappies leave. He tells her that Carlos and Kit are two big-time trouble makers and was impressed she was able to talk to them and that they listened. He mentions that they have a community outreach program where he gets the parents or gaurdians to help out part-time a few days a week, as buddies or mentors for troubled students. Buffy actually says Guidence Counselor and her corrects her. She's not going to be. It doesn't matter, as she takes the job without any hesitation. Guess that will leave her up for patrolling.[spoiler end]
~
Spike:
Ranking: Oh, who am I kidding!!! Read at your own risk!
[spoiler start]Where to start? As I said in the Buffy spoiler post, Spike is first seen before a comerical, by Buffy, as she's looking for Dawn in the basement.
Spike's hair has grown out and he stopped bleaching it, so the roots are dark. I have never been a big Spike lover, but my god, he looked damn hot to me with with longer hair. He was a little tanner, and he was wearing a long sleeved shirt that was unbuttoned. He had scars and cuts all over his chest, and Buffy asks him what happned to himself. She moves aside his shirt and looks and asks, and he replies with "I tried to cut it out." I messed up this earlier by saying "they" but that's not true. He says he tried to cut it out. what's he talking? Who knows. He does tell Buffy that she needs to find a talisman, and although Dawn heres avoice on Buffy's end of the phone, she does know who it is. Buffy does leave to go save Dawn, but she says she'll come back for Spike.
Also, the Janitor MotW says that down there is like a maze and you can get lost for months. Spike says that this is now his home, so guess who long he's been living down there. [spoiler end]
~
The Final She-Bang
Ranking: Don't read unless you would pissed about learning of Tara's death or Glory's godness.
[spoiler start]The final scene is of Spike, hudled in a ball in his little basement room, and he's talking about he had a whole speech planend out and didn't get to say it. At that point, Warren comes on the screen and talk about hot stupid that would be. He morphs into Glory, who talks about how faboulous she is, and then become Adam, who talks about how he has plans for Spike, No. 17. We don't see him change into The Mayor, but that's who's next. He talks about how he knows Spike got a soul, but doesn't know why he did that. It's not going to prove anything. His hand that's caressing Spike's face becomes Drucillia who talks about how Spike has always been with her and always will be with her, right down in the dark, and she'll sing songs for him, as she did in the beginning, and right then she morphs into the Master, who talks about how the next few months will be interesting, as well all learn about each other. He says we're going back to the beginning, the beginning, WAAAAAAAY on back to the BEGINNINGININGININGINING, just in case non of us hear about Joss' promise to take us back to beginning of the series when it was funny and fun in an attemp to correct what Marti did wrong. What out for the anvils. And The Master says that we'll all learn a lot more about ourselves in the next few months, and it's not about winning, or something, it's about something else. And at that point, he morphs into someone else, who tells us what it's really all about.
And I'm not going to post who that is, because I just want y'all She-banged correctly.[spoiler end]