Episode 7: Once More, With Feeling
Written by Joss Whedon

Reminder! This episode will run 8 minutes longer than usual! Set your VCRs!

Summary by Reddygirl 11-01-01

When the tape first started, there was total silence and I thought
something was wrong with my copy. Then Buffy's alarm went off and the
action started. We see the Summers house going through the motions of their
morning routine and almost immediately we are in a graveyard with Buffy,
who sings about going through the motions of life. This is a fantastic
bit (and SMG has a really lovely voice) with the vamps singing along
with the chorus and dancing. Buffy saves a handsome young man who thanks
her effusively, and she just yawns.

Cut to the magic shop where Buffy enters and asks the Gang, "Did anyone
else burst into song last night" to which everyone starts replying the
affirmative and Giles mentions something about a full orchestra
playing! He asks Buffy what she sang about and she brushes off the query. At
this point Giles starts to sing, wondering what's causing all this
musicality. He opines that it's a demon, Xander suggests a witch and immediately
changes his position after getting a nasty look from Will, and then
Anya (this is hysterical folks, I fell off my chair) belts out a song
about the evilness of.... bunnies!! It's one of the funniest moments of
the epi. Buffy then sings "What can't we face if we're together..." and
the gang joins in (nicely on key I might add). The Scoobies are curious
if the rest of Sunnywierd is also singing a different tune and so Buffy
goes out the door to be confronted by a dance line of dry cleaner
customers, front and center being David Fury very happy that the mustard
came out of his shirt!! Go David!

Dawn enters and informs everyone she and her fellow students also can't
keep from singing. Dawn also steals a necklace lying about.
Willow and Tara declare they have books at home that might be useful
for research and take off (no one is buying their story!!).
So the two women stroll around enjoying the beautiful day. Will spies
some guys checking out Tara and Tara jokes she's cured and pretends to
run after them. Next comes a sweet exchange where Tara and Willow
express how they feel about each other and Tara sings to Willow about how
she's under Will's spell....Tara' s voice is exquisite; it's a tossup as
to who the best vocalist is, ASH or AB. And she looks absolutely
gorgeous, never prettier and she does a graceful little dance as she sings.
Magically, Will and Tara find themselves in their bedroom where Tara
reclines on the bed still singing (Kittens, there is Tara cleavage
present!). This scene is very subtle. We see Will bend over Tara for a second
and then disappear from the frame while Tara levitates, singing about
Willow's making her com...pleat (she says this twice). My own
interpretation is they're making love.

A brief spell back at the magic shop where the rest of the gang let on
they know just what W and T are up too, but then break off talking,
glancing at Dawn, who informs them SHE knows what W and T are doing, too.
It's very cute.

Outside it's dark, and we see a man dressed in a suit tap dancing
furiously, and ....Sweet, the demon, dressed in a red Zoot suit and spiffy
spectator shoes. He looks very cool.

It's morning now, and Xan and An are in bed cuddling. Xan has given
his construction workers the day off because seeing a bunch of beer
bellied men dancing around is more than he can bear. They declare their
devotion to one another and get out of bed in their jammies, looking very
swell. Y'all, it's obvious they're in love and whatever issues they
have are not about the depth of their feelings. They start to sing and
dance, and this number is like a homage to classic 30s musicals. It's very
bright and cheery. They insist they will never tell....but Xan snores,
An has hairy toes, An worries about getting older and Xan that he won't
be successful enough for An..... This duet is a real highlight and NB
and EC are absolutely charming.

Attention!....Marti!!! Yeah Marti, she's singing to a cop trying to
avoid a traffic ticket and she sounds great (both she and David have very
nice voices).

Giles, An and Xan are walking down the street discussing the "problem."
Giles informs An and Xan about several cases of spontaneous combustion
and wonders if there's a connection. By the way, as they stroll down
the street, pedestrians are singing and dancing. This is a very neat
scene! And Giles is very worried about Buffy. He has definitely picked up
on her aloofness.

Spike's crypt. Buffy bangs the door open in her usual fashion and then
we see Spike climbing up from his lower den, hanging on to a bottle.
He asks Buffy if she's come to seranade him and Buffy realizes he knows
about the weird singage. Spike says he's immune from the spell and
asks Buffy if she's come to pump him for information. Buffy says what
else would I pump you for and then does a double take and exclaims "I
can't believe I said that". Spike then goes to the door of his crypt and
tells Buffy to leave, he doesn't know anything. Of course Spike is under
the spell and starts singing to Buffy that she only confides to him
because he's a dead man, who's safe to keep the secrets she's ashamed to
tell the others. Spike also tells her she makes him forget he's "dead"
(he'll repeat this theme later). He lies on his sarcophagus at one
point, pretending to be "dead" and then kneels before Buffy and longingly
expresses about how he feels about her. His look is very intense as
his eyes travel up her body.

Next we see Spike and Buffy outside interrupting a night time funeral!!
Spike jumps on a coffin, still wailing away, and then vamps for a
second and grabs a priest by the neck all the while relating his pain. This
really isn't threatening behavior, just Spike getting down with his
feelings. Spike and Buffy tumble into the empty grave on top of each
other, share an intense look and then Buffy scrambles out and runs away.

Lyrics to Spike's song
Posted on IGN.com
http://boards.ign.com/board.asp?brd=5034

I died,
too many years ago
You can make me feel,
like it isn't so.
Why you come to be with me,
I think I finally know...

You're scared, ashamed of what you feel
You can't tell the ones you love
You know they couldn't deal.
Whisper in a dead man's ear
Doesn't make it real....

That's great, but I don't wanna play
Being with you touches me more than I can say.
Since I'm only dead to you,
I'm saying stay away,
And let me rest in peace.

Let me rest in peace,
Let me get some sleep.
Let me take my love and bury it
In a hole 6 foot deep
I lay my body down
but I can't find my sweet release...
let me rest in peace.

You know I'm your willing slave.
And you just love to play the part
And you might misbehave.
But till you do, I'm telling you
Stop visiting my grave,
And let me rest in peace.

I know I should go,
But I follow you like a man possessed.
There's a traitor here beneath my breast
And it hurts me more than you've ever guessed.
If my heart could beat it would break my chest...

But I can see you're unimpressed,
So leave me be.
Let me rest in peace
let me get some sleep
Let me take my love and bury it
In a hole 6 foot deep.

I lay my body down
But I can't find my sweet release...
Let me rest in peace.
Why won't you let me rest in peace?

Meanwhile at the Summers home, Tara comes in to check on Dawn and Dawn
tells her she's glad Tara and Willow have made up after their fight
about magic. Tara is taken aback and replies that she and Will have had no
such fight, she doesn't know what Dawn is talking about. Dawn just says
how cool she thinks W and T are and she's glad everything is ok now.
Tara looks confusedly down at a bit of herb she had stuck in her
bodice, trying to remember... and wanders out of Dawn's room.

Dawn, now alone, opens her jewelry box and looks at all the loot she's
"collected" in the last year. She sings pensively about no one
noticing and then, 3 goons in Howdy Doody type masks burst into the room and
kidnap her.

She wakes up on the pool table of the Bronze and is confronted by
Sweet, who says since she's summoned him, she has to go back to the nether
regions with him and be his bride!! Dawn shakily insists she never
summoned him, she doesn't know what he's talking about. Sweet does a little
soft shoe and says something about all hearts lay open When Life Is But
A Song (get it; this is important!). Dawn retorts the slayer is her
sister and ...Sweet silkily orders his henchmen to find the slayer and
bring her to the Bronze, he wants to see her burn.

Giles and Buffy are training and Buffy mumbles that she hopes she's not
going to find herself doing some 80s movie montage dance scene (Flashdance
anybody?) and then tells Giles he'll figure out what's going on.
Giles, needless to say, is very concerned, and as they continue training
lets on it's not Buffy's physical strength he's worried about and then he
starts singing (ASH is simply fantastic!). Basically Giles is pained
because he wants to protect Buffy but he knows he's standing in the way of
her developing her capabilities and he knows he has to go...

Tara has also returned to the magic shop and discovered that the bit of
herb Willow had given her was part of a forgetting spell. Very
troubled, Tara sings about not wanting to go but knowing she has to. "Willow is
playing with my memory, nothing will be left of me..." At one point
Giles and Tara are harmonizing about having to leave but dreading to go and
it sounds gorgeous. Their voices blend beautifully and the hair on my
arms stood on end listening to them. Awesome!!

Everyone has gathered into the main room of the magic shop now and
Spike flies in with one of the Howdy Doody henchmen, ready to make him
talk. The goon "sings" that Sweet has Dawn and wants the Slayer to meet
him at the Bronze. Xander says "Saddle up" but Giles rejects this idea
and quietly says, "Buffy has to go alone" Spike jumps in, calling Giles a
stupid git and insists Buffy IS NOT going alone, and then Willow offers
to do a spell, freaking out Tara who insists Willow not do anything
with magic. Spike then turns to Buffy and says, forget them, I'll watch
your back, Buffy. Buffy reminds Spike he had told her he didn't want her
around and Spike, hurt, angrily snaps "fine, I hope you burn, you and
the bit" and storms out.

Buffy then turns to Giles and says in a tiny voice, "You're really not
coming. What will I do?" and he replies kindly but firmly "Your best."
Now we see Buffy wallking around Sunnydale singing about being alone
and how when she touches the fire it freezes her. This fire and walking
through the fire leitmotif is repeated several times by all the cast
members at different times. Buffy sings she wants her fire back...

Spike is sitting on a crate in an alley, looking dejected and angry.
He moans about feeling tortured by Buffy and then "I hope she fries, I'm
free if the bitch dies." A beat and then "I'd better go help her" in a
sort of resigned tone. We see him and Sweet and the other cast members
talking about Buffy's being drawn to the fire. Spike (and this is in
the same way he used the "drink from Dawn's brain stem" threat when he
was frightened) sings first he'll kill Buffy and then save her, no, first
he'll save her, then kill her....

Okay, I got ahead of myself because my handwriting is so bad! It's at
this point the Scoobies, anxiously waiting at the shop, with Giles
singing about the danger he's put Dawn in and his general worry about Buffy,
decide they have to go help Buffy and make their way to the Bronze.
At the Bronze, Sweet announces "Its showtime" (and let me reiterate
here how seriously cool Sweet is).

Buffy arrives and after a little amusing banter finds out what Sweet
wants with Dawn and then insists Sweet take Buffy in Dawn's place. Buffy
then, take off her jacket and sings "Life's a show..."

The gang breaks in and in one of the funniest moments, Giles says in a
serious tone Buffy needs backup and Anya and Tara rush to her side and
form a classic girl group formation and start singing and dancing with
Buffy, providing, well backing vocals!

Now, the big shoe drops, Buffy finally fesses up: "I was pulled out of
heaven, I live in hell because I was expelled from heaven." At this
revelation, Willow looks devastated. Buffy asks to be given something to sing
about and begins a wild dance, finally starting to smoke when Spike
enters and grabs her and then gently starts touching her hair and saying
"Life's not a song, it's not bliss, it's just this, ...living." "You''
get along, the pain you feel, will start to heal, by living, one of us
has to be living." This bit is very tenderly sung as he strokes her hair.

Sweet then claps his hands and announces he'll just be leaving with his
child bride now when Dawn again insists she had Nothing to do with
summoning him. Sweet asks her if she picked up the necklace and Dawn
answers, well, she did take it from the shop but she didn't summon
anyone. At this point Giles puts the pieces together and exclaims that one of
them had to have "requested" the presence of Sweet, when Xan sheepishly
raises his hand and admits that he did, but only because he wanted to bring
happiness and joy to everyone, bring them all back together. Xan then
turns to Sweet and nervously asks if Xan has to be Sweet's "queen."
Sweet chuckles and replies no, and then rather gloatingly tells the gang
they have vanquished the bad guy but now all the secrets they have been
concealing are out now and "Once More With Feeling" and then with a
"see you all in hell" Sweet vanishes, knowing full well he's left a bunch
of hurt, confused people.

Dawn then begins the finale song "where do we
go from here". The gang form a dance line, holding hands, and sing this
refrain before crooning this: "Go hand in hand but we walk alone in
fear." After they do the hand waving thing, Spike suddenly asks himself what
the bugger he's doing and leaves. Buffy runs after him and Spike tells
her she should go back inside with the rest of them to "get their
Kumbayayas" out! (hee!!). Then B and S start coming closer to one another
singing--Buffy "it isn't real I want to feel" and Spike "you make me feel
alive" They kiss. Very passionately and then the screen gets grainy
and the curtains start to close as The End pops up and Buffy and Spike
are still kissing.