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BRING ON The NIGHT (ep #7.10)

(a.k.a. One Down, Two to Go)


Written by: Marti Noxon and Douglas Petrie
Directed by: David Grossman
Starring: 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
Guest Starring: Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles (Special guest star)
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers (Special guest star)
Tom Lenk as Andrew Wells
Iyari Limon as Kennedy
Clara Bryant as Molly
Courtnee Draper as Annabelle
Juliet Landau as Drusilla (Really the First Evil)
DB Woodside as Principal Robin Wood
Co-Starring: Camden Toy as Ubervamp
Chris Wiley as Roger

Plot Summary

Giles returned to town. Unfortunately, he brought three whiny brats with him.

Plot Details

Xander cleaned up after the previous episode's battle while Anya and Willow got frustrated at their lack of progress in researching Morphy The First Evil. Buffy believed that the entity was the real source of evil, although Anya was a bit dubious. Buffy then dreamed about her mother handing her a book. At first, Joyce told her to rest, then she told Buffy to wake up. Actually, Xander was telling her to wake up.

Meanwhile, the Ubervamp from the previous episode dragged Spike around. The First, in the guise of both Spike and Drusilla, suggested that the Ubervamp torture Spike a bit. The Ubervamp did not seem to mind.

The next morning, Dawn and Anya discussed ways to wake Andrew. When cold water did not work, they wanted to try hot water. However, Buffy came in, causing Dawn and Anya to assume a very unconvincingly innocent posture. Fortunately, Andrew woke on his own.

Andrew led Buffy, Xander, and Dawn to the Seal of Danzalthar. Dawn noticed the bloody wheel that Spike was chained to and suspected that the First Evil made either another sacrifice or a music video. Buffy decided that the seal should be buried, so the four of them conveniently found four shovels and put dirt back upon it.

On their way out, they ran into Principal Wood. Dawn once again decided to describe Buffy's supposed illness in rather graphic detail. Everyone awkwardly tried to explain why they were carrying shovels while looking suspiciously at each other.

Willow decided that it would be a good idea to try to find the First Evil. At first, red visual effects went up her nose. Then, she vomited an image of the First Evil and spewed more red visual effects at Buffy. Xander smashed the bowl holding the spell ingredients and thus saved the visual effects budget.

Buffy decided to go looking for the First Evil alone despite Xander's protests. However, when she opened the door, she saw Giles. Unfortunately, he was not alone. Three young women—Molly, Annabelle, and Kennedy—also walked in.

It appears that there is yet another apocalypse. The three young women were among the last potential slayers in the world. Unfortunately, a few more remain and all of them are on their way to Sunnydale. The rest, like the young women in the beginning of "Lessons" and "Beneath You" were murdered. The goal was to kill all potential slayers and then the two current slayers.

Giles said that he managed to swipe the information about the First Evil before the Watchers Council was destroyed. This set Kennedy on her very first whine of the show. Meanwhile, The Ubervamp was busy torturing Spike by shoving his head underwater, as if Spike needs to breathe.

Willow tried to set up sleeping arrangements for the new guests. Kennedy unsubtly suggested where her character arc was going by suggesting arrangements that involved sharing a bed with Willow.

Meanwhile, Buffy and Giles wandered through town until Buffy fell through the ground like Xander did in "Pangs." Instead of releasing an Indian Native American warrior spirit, Buffy ran into the Ubervamp. They proceeded to fight until Buffy ran a stake into its chest. It paused for a moment and pulled it out before resuming the fight. It tried to strangle her until she grabbed a stalactite and bashed its head. She managed to climb out only because the rising sun burnt its hand.

Giles explained that the Ubervamp was a Turak-han (not to be confused with an Uruk-hai from Lord of the Rings). It is apparently a forerunner to the vampires we have seen across the previous 130 episodes, which were never mistaken for ordinary orcs.

Despite the alleged waiting list of students to see Buffy, she decided to investigate the First Evil through the World Wide Web. Principal Wood found this curious, which led to a rather abstract conversation. A bit later, she dreamed about her mother telling her to resist her friends' pressure.

At Buffy's house, Xander joked and boarded the windows while Willow apologized for the spell failing. Kennedy and Molly begged for weapons while Annabelle claimed full faith in Buffy. Andrew protested that he was now a good guy while Giles tried to encourage Buffy.

Molly interrupted with good news: Annabelle had left. We then saw her running only to find the Ubervamp, who quickly reduced the potential slayer population in Sunnydale by one.

Buffy found Annabelle's body. Unfortunately, the Ubervamp was waiting for Buffy. She fled to an empty factory (a bit newer looking than the one that Spike used to occupy). Buffy managed to get one good blow in with a metal pipe, but the Ubervamp was soon having fun beating her up. She buried it under a pile of pipes, but this did not hold it for long. It beat on her some more and eventually buried her under a pile of rubble.

Giles, Xander, and Willow found Buffy and brought her back home. While Giles worried about what they would do without Buffy, she got up and gave a speech about how they were going to take on the First Evil and win.

The Good

It is good to have Giles back.

Buffy delivered a great speech at the end of this episode.

The Ubervamp already succeeded in taking out one of the potential slayers.

The Bad

I do not believe that Buffy ever jumped the shark. However, if forced to choose a moment when it did, I would pick the moment when the three brats came through the door for reasons that I will get into in the review of the seventh season. It probably is not hard to figure out the fact that I am not that fond of the potential slayers.

Molly joins Kendra and Angel (flashbacks only) in the trifecta of horrid accents on Buffy.

Overall Rank: 105

Action: 6

Buffy and the Ubervamp fought in a cave.

The Ubervamp beat up on Buffy some more in a factory.

Comedy: 5

Anya and Dawn were quite amusing in their attempts to wake Andrew without Buffy knowing what they were doing.

Dawn loved to talk about vomiting and oozing.

Anya had some good lines including an interesting theory about who blew up the Watchers Council.

Andrew also had a few funny lines.

Drama: 3

The characters, especially the potential slayers, felt unsafe with an Ubervamp on the loose.

Romance: 1

Kennedy appears to have her eye on Willow.

Character Development: 4

Anya apparently had a lot of demons give her lines about how evil they were in order to bed her. She was not clear about whether the lines worked. She has funny ideas about what stuffy and repressed people do.

Dawn loves to describe vomiting and oozing.

The First Evil is a shapeshifting entity that can appear only as someone who has died. It also cannot touch anything, but neither did Giles, so that is not saying much.

The Ubervamp is a formidable fighter. It appears to be impervious to stakes in the heart, but sunlight does affect it. It is heroically working to rid the show of whiny brats, but, unfortunately, it seems to kill only one at a time.

Kennedy is the whiny brat who likes the idea of sharing a bed with Willow.

Molly is the whiny brat who has yet to express an opinion about sharing a bed with Willow.

Principal Wood acts as if he has seen true evil.

Importance: 7

The Seal of Danzalthar is now buried under the foot or so of dirt that was such an impediment the last time around.

Giles is back in town, and he brought three whiny young women with him.

Fortunately, only two whiny young women are still alive.

Most Valuable Player: The Ubervamp

Xander gets a bit of credit for putting an end to the spell. However, the Ubervamp gets the MVP for killing off one of the whiny potentials and for giving Buffy a good thrashing even though it has yet to kill the other two, and it let Buffy live.

Sherlock Holmes Award: Giles

Giles came into town with his stolen files and filled in all the exposition. Spike gets a bit of credit for figuring out that the First Evil was not Drusilla.

Goat of the Week: Annabelle

Buffy failed to defeat the Ubervamp, but that was not really her fault. She gets a lot of credit for surviving, something the Ubervamp may regret. Annabelle gets the Goat for fleeing the relative safety of the Summers house straight to the Ubervamp.

Imponderables

Like with Glory, there is no record of The First Evil because it predates written history. Like I said with Glory, rocks also predate written history. However, there are still written records about rocks.

"Conversations with Dead People" took place on the night of November 12. "Sleeper: took place on the nights of November 13 and 14. "Never Leave Me" took place on the night of November 15. Therefore, this episode started on the morning of November 16. It is not unusual for Christmas decorations to be up that early, which might have sparked a sarcastic comment about it being almost Christmas. However, Buffy was well mistaken concerning the date when she said that it was December.

Memorable Dialogue

"It claimed to be the original evil, the one that came before anything else." Buffy
"Please, how many times have I heard that line in my demon days? 'I'm so rotten. They don't even have a word for it. I'm bad, baddie, bad, bad, bad. Does it make you horny?'" Anya

"Evil names should be like Lex or Voldemort or ..." Andrew

"There's blood on this, lots. Looks like the First made another sacrifice... or a music video." Dawn

"I thought that you were..." Principal Wood
"Sick? She was, oh, vomiting and oozing from various places and..." Dawn
"Yeah, I remember, so please don't go on." Principal Wood

"We buried a... time capsule." Buffy
"'Hello, people of the future. Kids today like Red Bull and Jackass.'" Dawn

"Sorry to barge in. I'm afraid we have a slight apocalypse." Giles

"When I learned what was happening, I stole them [records on the First Evil]." Giles
"And you blew the council up. See, this is what happens when you're all stuffy and repressed. You overreact." Anya

"We need to find Spike." Buffy
"Yeah, he'll help, you know, if he's not crazy or off killing people or dead or, you know, all of the above." Anya

"She [Buffy] seems like a good leader. Her hair is shiny. Does she make you stab things?" Andrew

"I'm only saying that once you see true evil, it can have some serious afterburn, and then you can't unsee what you saw, ever." Principal Wood

"Hey, junior slayers, don't look so worried. I mean, sure, we don't know where Spike is or how to fight the First or if and when this super-styled vampire is gonna attack us all. However, house, boarded up. Now, all we gotta do is trap the Ubervamp in the pantry and it's game over." Xander
"Xander, newbies, let's ease them into the whole jokes in the face of death thing." Willow
"Who's joking? That pantry thing could work. You saying M. Night Shyamalan lied to us?" Xander

"I know what you're thinking, Andrew—Bad guy. You think I'm a supervillain like Dr. Doom or Apocalypse or the Riddler. I admit I went over to the dark side, but just to pick up a few things, and now I'm back. I've learned. I'm good again." Andrew
"And when were you good before?" Buffy
"OK, technically never, touché, but I'm like Vader in the last five minutes of Jedi, with redemptive powers. Mine is a redemptive struggle of epic redemption, which chronicles... These ropes itch." Andrew

"What makes you think you will ever be any good in this world?" The First Evil
"She does. Because she believes in me." Spike

"You're right. We don't know how to fight it. We don't know when it'll come. We can't run, can't hide, can't pretend it's not the end, because it is. Something's always been there to try and destroy the world. We've beaten them back, but we're not dealing with them anymore. We're dealing with the reason they exist: evil, the strongest, the First." Buffy
"Buffy, I know you're very tired." Giles
"I'm beyond tired. I'm beyond scared. I'm standing on the mouth of Hell, and it is gonna swallow me whole. And it'll choke on me. We're not ready? They're not ready. They think we're gonna wait for the end to come like we always do. I'm done waiting. They want an apocalypse? Well, we'll give them one. Anyone else who wants to run, do it now, because we just became an army. We just declared war. From now on, we won't just face our worst fears; we will seek them out. We will find them and cut out their hearts one by one until the First shows itself for what it really is, and I'll kill it myself. There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that's us. Any questions?" Buffy

Characters in Peril

Kills

Evil Escaped

Departed Characters Remembered

Buffy and the Law

Strictly the Caucasian Persuasion

Spoiler Questions

Highlight the space after each question to find the answer. It is strongly recommended that you do not do so if you have not seen episodes through the episode indicated.

This page was last modified on January 10, 2013