Buffy & Angel random thoughts and spoilers ahoy...

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On Angel...

Angel gives away Cordy's ugly-ass thrift-store psychedelic halter-top to charity, proving once and for all that he has truly become one heartless bastard. I mean, inflicting that shirt on homeless kids, Angel? What were you thinking? At least we'll never have to see it on Cordy again.

Cordy finally gets a good hair cut, and adds in more blonde streaks, and Jean is finally at peace with the loss of her pretty long hair. Gunn & Wesley bond over a game of Risk in Cordelia's apartment, where the Fearless Threesome have temporarily set up shop for their own agency, where drinking extra-tall beers during business hours is hunky-dory (does anybody remember that Cordelia's still supposed to be underage?), and where there is no sign whatsoever of Phantom Dennis, leaving me to wonder if he's quietly gone on to his final resting place, or if the writers have just forgotten about him.

Umm, there was a story in there somewhere, something about Angel pulling a fakeout on W&H and through some sort of insane troll logic (or is that insane soully vampire logic?) deciding that publicly airing embarrassing home movies of Cordelia and Wesley would be a good way to humiliate Lindsey and Lilah. Okay, sure. Anyway, it was funny. "Mmm, milk!" Oh, and W&H's scheme is to make sure Angel's on their side for the Apocolypse, L&L are both expendable, and if Angel snaps and kills one or both of their smarmy lawyer asses, so much the better, yaddayaddayadda. Oh, and Merl shows up and gets abused by just about everybody, so that was fun.

On to Buffy...

Giles is reinstated!

Buffy's large and in charge! Well, in charge, anyway. I'm always amazed at what a tiny little person she is.

Spike is... Spike!

"Willow's a demon?!!" HAW!

(Why am I the only one who finds Anya hysterical?)

Anyway. The gang gathered at Buffy's, and I expected a birthday party, since by all accounts I'd read this was supposed to be her 20^th birthday, but instead all she got was news that the Council of Watchers was coming to town to put her through some more testing. Never having seen "Helpless," the ominousness of this announcement was lost on me.

The next day, she's actually shown in a classroom setting, proving once and for all that she is, in fact, still a college student. She fights with my English Lit professor, who's now teaching history, and who does a pretty good job of humiliating her in front of the entire class. Cut to the graveyard at night, and she's taking it out on a vampire. It looks like the vamp is about to get the upper hand when who should come flying over a crypt to take out the vamp and save his honey but Riley. PSYCH! Just kidding, it was Spike. Look! They're wearing twinkie coats! How cute. Spike wears it better, though. Anyway, Buffy doesn't take too kindly to being rescued, and Spike says she wouldn't have minded if it had been Riley, and then proceeds to berate her about being unable to keep a man, and goes on hypothesize that it's because her beauty is fading, she's aging prematurely because of the Slayer-related stress, and so forth. Umm, Spike? Way to sweet talk your way into her heart there, buddy. Buffy tells him he's disgusting. Yeah, yeah. "Sing me a new one sometime, eh?"

Back at the magic shop, the Council arrives, shuts down the shop, threatens to deport Giles back to England if Buffy doesn't cooperate, and commences interrogations. Anya is terrified of what they might do if they find out she used to be a demon, and her attempts to come across as a perfectly normal human are pretty funny. Xander, nursing his broken arm, tries to convince them that he's useful to Buffy even though he doesn't have any special powers. Willow and Tara actually don't annoy me as they both stutter their way through their interview, and I actually have to laugh at Willow's proclomation that they're "lovers. Gay lesbian lovers." Then when the Council guy specifies he's asking about their relationship to Buffy, Tara's sheepish, "Oh. Just good friends."

Then it's Spike's turn. "I pitch in when she pays me... Money, a little nip of blood out of some stray victim, whatever. Well, they're gonna die anyway. Come to think of it, though, that's a bit scandalous, innit? Personally, I'm shocked. The girl's slippin'." HEE! I was starting to forget how much fun Spike is when he's stirring trouble. But then, after flirting shamelessly with the Council gal (who, as it turns out, wrote her thesis on him) and causing her and me both to go all squishy inside and squeal like a thirteen-year-old girl at an N*Sync concert, he sobers up and expresses genuine concern for Buffy's progress. Aww. Him in love.

There's some stuff in there with Glory and Ben, too, but it boils down to that Ben is icky and Glory is annoying. Oh, and Ben refuses to help Glory find the key, but we aren't told why, and Glory shows up in Buffy's house and threatens to kill Dawn and everybody else Buffy loves if Buffy doesn't hand over the key. Which is important mainly because it gives us another excuse to visit Spike when Buffy takes Joyce and Dawn to his crypt and asks him to protect them while she finishes up with the Council.

A rudely awakened Spike first thinks this a "You pay, I help" request, but after some initial teasing, as he realizes the magnitude of what she's asking, he agrees, and the look on his face is just... *SIGH* Buffy leaves, Joyce acts nervous, Dawn acts bratty, and Spike acts annoyed as he tells them to keep it down because Passions is coming on. Joyce pipes up: "Passions? Oh, do you think Timmy's really dead?" Spike perks up: "Oh, no. She can just sew him back together. He's a doll, for God's sake." Again I say: HEE! Spike and Joyce bond over soaps, and Dawn's eyes roll almost completely back into her head.

On her way to the magic shop, Buffy is accosted by three Knights of Byzantium, and after she takes them all out one of them tells her that they were foolish to try and take her on with only three, that next time they'll send a hundred knights, and if she defeats them they'll send a thousand, whatever it takes to take down the Slayer and destroy the key. Buffy lets him go, but keeps his sword. He's really very good looking, so I'm sure we'll be seeing him again. I just really hope he's not going to be a new love interest for her. Anyway, this exchange has left Buffy all pumped up with self-importance, and she goes in to meet with the Council, and begins to lay down the law.

"There isn't gonna be a review," she says. "No review, no interrogation, no questions you knooow I can't answer," (the way she said "know" there just bugged me), "no hoops, no jumps, and no interruptions." She then proceeds to surmise that the reason everybody has been telling her unimportant she is lately is because they're trying to keep her down out of fear, because she is important. She has power, and they dont. She is the reason for the Council's being, and she figures that puts her in charge, which leads us to the coolest scene in the entire episode, when one of the Council guys pipes up and accuses her of insolence. She grabs the sword and throws it at him, and it sticks into the wall about an inch from his head. "I'm fairly certain I said no interruptions," she says. "That was excellent," an awe-struck and wide-eyed Xander says, and I have to agree. Buffy gets Giles back his job, with retroactive salary payments, establishes that the shop will stay open, Giles will remain her Watcher, and the Scoobies will remain Scoobies. The Council sheepishly agrees to her terms, and then finally shares what they know about Glory, which is that "Glory isn't a demon. She's a god."

Whew. I didn't set out to write an entire recap, but I just really enjoyed this episode, and once I started I couldn't shut up about it. Surprises were revealed, structure was reestablished, the balance of power has shifted, Buffy's back to kicking ass, and subtle yet important advances were made on the Spike & Buffy front, all of which make me say "Yay!" I'm not too sure about this order of knights that was introduced, though. I'm hoping that they were just a one time annoyance, but I'm probably wrong. Regardless, I'm beyond psyched for the rest of the season. If I had a rating system I'd give this one a really high rating. Not the highest, but up there. Hercules gave it 3 & 1/2 out of 4 stars, and Loey gave it an 8 out of 10, and I have to agree. On the other hand, Peter thought it sucked "big donkey ass," so ratings are all subjective, anyway.