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Storyline
While patrolling the cemetery, the self-confident Buffy fights against a vampire, is stabbed with her stake and saved by Riley. She tells the incident to Giles and decides to research how the previous Slayers were killed. She does not find any information in the watcher's journals and decides to seek the information from Spike. He tells that in 1880, in London, he was a bad poet and a shy good man in a non-corresponded love with Cecily. When he meets Drusilla, she bites and converts him in the evil vampire. Later, in the same year in Yorkshire, he meets Angel and Darla and is challenged to defeat a slayer. In 1900, in China, he is well-succeeded and kills his first slayer. In 1977, in the subway of New York City, he kills his second slayer. He advises Buffy that she must never be reckless and keep her death wish to survive. Written by
Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot Summary
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Plot Synopsis
Certificate:
TV-PG
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Did You Know?
Trivia
On the DVD commentary, episode writer
Douglas Petrie says that the scene in which Spike and Angelus are fighting and trying to stake each other while Darla and Drusilla look on with glee is a not-very-subtle allegory for female enjoyment of male homoeroticism.
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Goofs
In season 2, Spike reveals that Angel sired him. In this episode, however, it is Drusilla who turned Spike into a vampire.
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Quotes
Dawn Summers:
When do I get to patrol?
Buffy:
Not until you're never.
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Connections
Referenced in
Angel: Darla (2000)
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Any fan of Spike and the mythology of the slayer will love this episode. The story opens with the Slayer doing what she does best, kicking and quipping as she performs her nightly duty, another vampire set to be "dusted". The twist? She slips up, The Vamp gets the upper hand and shes wounded with her own stake, almost killed and Riley has to come to her rescue. What follows is a multi-layered story of Buffy trying to discover how this happened when shes at her best and at the top of her game and a detailed look into the past of Spike and how he bested the slayers he did and how he came to be what he is. Beautifully written and James marsters steals the show. Buffy learns a hard lesson that she may have suspected and Spike knows all along....Slayer=Killer,death is part of their life and ultimately that takes a toll.Sooner or later, the Slayer will embrace death and want it for herself. This will come to pass by the end of the season and ring true throughout the series. Only Buffys willingness to break free of the usual Slayer constraints(one slayer fighting alone) will be her salvation.