Let's get right to it, shall we? Requisite spoiler warning for anyone who didn't get to watch last night's Buffy & Angel.

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Episode 5.13: "Blood Ties"

We open at the Magic Box, where Buffy is telling the gang that she doesn't want a big to-do made over her birthday, just like she does every year, and, just like they do every year, the Scoobies insist that a party will do them all good, and besides, it's her 20th birthday, which is a milestone worth celebrating. Also just like every year, talk of Buffy's birthday is a cue to the audience that there's some big angst a-comin'. And boy howdy, is there ever!

The conversation segues to Glory, and Giles takes the opportunity to exposit that the Council of Watchers informed them that "Glory and two of her fellow hell gods ruled over one of the more seriously unpleasant demon dimensions," but they don't know why she's in their dimension, other than some vague references to chaos and destruction. They deduce that her human form is limiting her god-like powers and affecting her mental state, and that she must be responsible for Sunnydale's recent rash of loonies. Willow suggests that they should focus their energies on trying to find the key before Glory does. Buffy tries to dismiss that idea, but when the gang insists that finding the key is their best strategy, she confesses that she and Giles already know the key's whereabouts. Willow and Xander are understandably upset at this revelation and demand to know why they weren't told about it sooner. When they don't buy her excuse that she thought it would be too dangerous for them to know, she sucks it up and tells them, "There's something you need to know... about Dawn."

Cut to the middle of the woods, where The Knights Who Say Key (tm Hercules) are sitting around a campfire and chanting about their holy mission to destroy the key. They are soon attacked by Jinx (a.k.a. Dreg II--and by the way, what the heck has happened to Dreg? He was a much better minion than this Jinx character) and a whole squad of crusty minions, who promptly get their butts kicked by the knights. Just as one of the knights is about to kill Jinx, Glory appears and proceeds to kick some knightly ass, which is actually very cool. She kills all but the cute one from last episode, and we go to opening credits.

The next day, back at the Magic Box, Dawn drops by after school, and the Scoobies all try their best to treat her like normal--Anya's best being to stare at her with a nervous grin and shout "You make a very pretty little girl!" Xander takes his usual place as Anya's keeper by asking her to go help him with "that thing." "Xander needs help with his thing!" Anya shouts to Dawn, and Xander quickly pulls her away. I laugh. Anya's funny. In spite of all of that subtlety, Dawn picks up on the weirded out vibe, but Buffy and Giles manage to distract her by asking about her day, but not before Dawn notices Giles' journal lying on the counter. Talk once again turns to Glory, and Dawn snots to Buffy that she's just upset over having to fight someone who's prettier than she is. "Glory is evil," Buffy insists, "and powerful... and in no way prettier than me!" Heh.

Cut to Glory, who has the cute knight tied up and is torturing him for information on the key. He won't give it up, and she gets tired and sucks his brain.

Back at the Summers home, it's party time! Buffy is opening presents, and Anya is loudly proclaiming her jealousy over the gifts, and for once I actually get irritated by Anya. It's not like this is the first birthday party she's ever attended. She was at Tara's, and I'm pretty sure she was at Buffy's surprise party last year. The newly human bit just isn't cutting it in this scene. Plus her blouse is obscenely ugly. So is whatever it was that Willow and Tara gave Buffy. Was that a sleep shirt? Let's hope it was a sleep shirt, and not something they'd expect her to ever wear out in public. Willow's top in this scene, however, is actually very cute. It's a great redhead color. I want one. But I digress.

Buffy opens Dawn's gift, which is a picture of the two sisters from a vacation at their dad's, in a frame covered with sea shells that they picked on said vacation, and everyone grows really quiet at the realization that the trip never really took place. Dawn gets a little weirded out and tries to lighten the mood by pointing out that she was just too cheap to buy a real gift. Buffy thanks her and hugs her, and everyone tries to go back to normal, but by now Dawn is understandably paranoid.

She eventually gets fed up by everyone's refusal to tell her anything, and storms upstairs to her room, where she sneaks out of the window and into the back yard, where she bumps into Spike. Hi Spike! Dawn accuses him of lurking, to which he replies, "I'm not lurking. I'm standing about. It's a whole different vibe." Heh. She notices that he's holding a box of chocolates, and apparantly it's the same box with which he blugeoned the mannequin a couple of episodes back, because it's pretty beat up. She makes fun of his lame attempt at a birthday gift for Buffy, and he tries to be menacing and scare her away, but she just laughs at him. Poor Spike. She then adds insult to, well, more insult by proclaiming herself to be badder than Spike, pointing out that while he's hiding in the bushes hugging his box of chocolates, she's sneaking out to break into the magic shop and steal stuff. Spike points out that there are "all number of beasties between here and there" that would "really go for a Little Red Ridinghood like [her]." Dawn tries to act brave and insist she can take care of herself, but after giving it some though, invites Spike to go with her.

Cut to the Magic Box, where Spike is having a little trouble picking the lock. Dawn complains, and he explains that his usual tactic is to just burst through the door. He succeeds with the lock and, looking mighty pleased with himself, smirks and says "That's right, who's bad now?" Hee. Inside the shop, Spike looks around for good loot to steal, and in one of the more amusing displays of continuity this season, spies Olaf the Troll's hammer leaning against a wall. "Troll hammer!" he shouts excitedly, and runs over to pick it up, but almost falls to the floor with the weight of it. "Wouldn't go with any of my stuff, anyway," he mutters. HA! Dawn explains that they're there to pilfer Giles' journal, which seriously disappoints Spike. She finds the journal and starts to read his entries about the key. Her reading falters as she begins to put two and two together, so Spike takes the book and, between some amusing comments on Giles' handwriting and his dull writing style, reads aloud, "They had to be certain the Slayer would protect it with her life, so they sent the key to her in human form, in the form of a sister." A beat. "Huh. I guess that's you, niblet."

Allow me to pause a moment to cast my vote for the next spin-off series: "The Adventures of Spike and Niblet." These two are really incredibly cute together. And I really like how Spike said "niblet," and if we could see that every week, I'd be happy. He should also declare things to be "neat" at every given opportunity. He has a way of pronouncing N words that melts my socks.

Back to the summary, which is already too long, so let's see if I can speed things up a bit.

Back at the Summers place, Buffy, Joyce, Willow & Tara are sitting around lamenting the lack of a birthday card from one Riley Finn, and I feel compelled to point out to my TV screen that Riley's been gone a while now, and we the audience are SO over him, and nobody really believes that Buffy misses him all that much anyway, so he really doesn't need to be brought up in every single episode. I don't think even Oz got so many post-departure mentions, and everybody actually does miss him. What's that? I said I'd speed things up? Right, then. Here we go.

Buffy declares a new birthday tradition: boyfriendless birthdays. The lesbians heartily agree, and Tara starts to stutter out something about some of her best friends, as if any of us buy that Tara has any other friends. Before she even gets started on her point, she focuses on something in the back of the room and says "Oh, my God." The others turn around to see Dawn, holding a kitchen knife in one hand and sporting a self-inflicted wound on the other. Alarmed, Buffy and Joyce rush to her, and she declares that if she bleeds, then she must be real, and she can't be a key. The party guests leave, and the Summers girls all go up to Dawn's room, where Buffy and Joyce try to explain everything to Dawn. These two scenes are really very moving, and I don't think I can do them justice here. Let me just say that I'm extremely impressed with Michelle Trachtenberg at this point. She cries even more effectively than SMG, and that's saying quite a lot.

Just as I reach for some tissues, they cut to the magic shop, where the gang discusses what to do about Dawn. Anya discovers that someone used a little magical urn as an ashtray, and Buffy gets a pissed off look on her face as she realizes that there's only one character on the entire show that is evil enough to actually smoke cigarettes. Cut to Spike's crypt, where he's sitting cross-legged on top of his sarcophagus, touching up his black nail polish. He registers no surprise whatsoever and actually tries to make conversation as Buffy comes storming in, as is her wont. Without a word, Buffy grabs the sarcophagus lid and jerks it forward, spilling Spike backward into the empty grave (prompting me to wonder what he did with the body, but I don't think that's something I want to dwell on), and pinning him upright against the back of it with the lid. Cool. Buffy proceeds to lay the blame on Spike, asking if he really hates her so much as to let Dawn find out the truth from a book. At this point Spike and I have both had quite enough of this mistreatment, and he stands up, flinging the sarcophagus lid aside as if it were nothing, reminding both Buffy and the audience that she's in the presence of an extremely powerful vampire and she would do well to watch her step. I found it incredibly gratifying to see Spike exhibit some of his old badness for a change after all of this chipped, helpless and Slayer-whipped business he's been going through lately. Buffy seems to get the message as Spike angrily points out that it was her job to keep an eye on kid sis, not his, and that he went along with her for protection. "Maybe if you'd been more honest with her in the first place," he tells her, "you wouldn't be trying to make yourself feel better with a round of 'kick the Spike.'" Without another word, Buffy storms out, and Spike looks hurt and frustrated. I think he needs a hug.

Dawn won't get out of bed and go to school, but after some attempts at mothering from Joyce, she decides school would be a better alternative. Meanwhile, at the hospital, Ben the Intern is threatened by Jinx, but points out that Glory can't touch him and they all know it, and threatens to finish the job he started on Jinx's face last episode if he doesn't leave him alone.

Back at the Summers place, we learn that Dawn was suspended from school for going off on a teacher. Joyce and Buffy argue over how to handle Dawn, and Buffy insists that they should give her some space. Dawn overhears and gets upset enough to trash her room and burn all of her diaries before sneaking out the window and running away. You know, you'd think parents would know better than to erect a trellis directly beneath a teenager's bedroom window. Buffy and Joyce discover she's gone, and Buffy assembles the Scoobs, including Spike, to help search for her. Buffy splits them up into pairs, declaring that Spike's on her team, which prompts Buffy & Spike 'shippers all over the continent to read all kinds of implications into her choice of search partners.

Cut to Dawn, who's walking through the park, recalling childhood memories that she now knows to be false. The angst is now coming in truckloads.

Giles and Xander are searching for Dawn in an alley, and Xander expresses his amazement over the fact that none of his memories of her are real, and that she is in fact an ancient being of living energy. He points out that Dawn has a crush on him, and Giles looks at him like he's some kind of pedophile, and I can't blame him, what with Xander's skanky 'do and all. Somebody please give Xander a good hair cut. Xander assures Giles that he's "just saying, powerful being... big energy gal, digging the Xand-man. Some guys are just cooler, you know?" Heh.

Cut to Spike and Buffy, searching the park. Buffy keeps calling out to Dawn, but Spike stops her and points out that she's the one Dawn ran away from in the first place, and if she hears her coming she's just going to take off again. He refers to Dawn as "niblet" again, and I feel a goofy grin spread across my face. Buffy stuns everybody by telling Spike that he was right about it being all her own fault. Spike goes through a subtle series of expressions indicating that he feels bad about making Buffy feel bad, but that he's irritated with himself for feeling bad about it, because making Buffy miserable is, after all, his purpose in life, or at least it was before he went and fell in love with her, and now he just wants to spare her from pain, and all of this in the space of two seconds, and why the hell James Marsters has never been nominated for an Emmy or a Golden Globe, I just don't understand. The man can act rings around the rest of the cast. He tells Buffy that besides being a blob of energy, Dawn is also a 14 year old hormone bomb, and this sort of thing was bound to happen eventually. He then reassures her that they will find Dawn.

Joss? If Buffy doesn't want Spike, can I have him? Please? I promise I'll take good care of him.

SIGH.

Dawn ends up at the hospital, where she makes her way into the mental ward and encounters the cute knight who's brain Glory sucked. He recognizes her as the key, but as she tries to get information from him he starts babbling about his mission to destroy her. Dawn runs out of the ward and into Ben. Ben takes her to the lounge and makes her some hot chocolate and tries to figure out what she's doing there. There's nothing sinister about it, he doesn't know she's the key and he's operating strictly in nice guy mode. He thinks she's upset about a fight with Buffy, and starts talking about his own sister and how he doesn't get along so well with her, and one assumes that he's referring to Glory. Dawn spills that she's the key and is shocked when Ben knows what she's talking about. Ben freaks out and tells her she has to run away because Glory is coming, but before Dawn can get anywhere, Ben morphs into Glory. Now, they could have earned so many coolness points here by doing something akin to the agents taking over civilian bodies in The Matrix, but I guess the special effects budget for this week was used up on that time bubble thing over on Angel. As such, it was a pretty unimpressive transformation, but shocking, nonetheless.

Dawn is shocked that Ben is Glory, but Glory tells her it's so much more complicated than that, but then, "family always is." Glory has no memory of Ben's conversation with Dawn, so she doesn't know Dawn is the key. After changing out of Ben's scrubs into one of her trademark red dresses, which, apparantly, Ben keeps for her in his locker, and after killing a security guard, she takes Dawn someplace more private and proceeds to interrogate her about the key.

Meanwhile, the Scoobies meet up and declare their failure at finding Dawn, and Buffy decides they should check the hospital in case something happened to her.

Unlike last episode, Dawn finally has the good sense to be scared of Glory, and tries to buy herself some time by asking Glory about the nature of the key, claiming that maybe she'll be able to help her find it if she knows more about it.

Cut to Buffy & co., who aren't sure whether or not to be relieved that Dawn hasn't been admitted to the hospital. They overhear someone mention the murdered security guard, and Buffy thinks it must be Glory. The start searching the hospital.

Glory describes the key's true form to Dawn, and tells her that it's almost as ancient as she is. Dawn asks if it's evil, and Glory says, "Totally!" Dawn looks distressed, but then Glory says, "Well, no, not really. I guess it depends on your point of view." Dawn tries to find out what the key is used for, but Glory becomes irritated at the questioning, and feels one of her episodes coming on. Just as she's about to suck Dawn's brain, Buffy enters. "Conversation's over, Hell Bitch." HEE!

Spike comes in and grabs Glory from behind while Buffy wails on her. "I thought you said this skank was tough," Spike snarks, and Glory proceeds to wipe the floor with his vampire ass. As he lies unconscious, Glory tells Buffy that when her boyfriend wakes up, she should tell him to watch his mouth. "He is NOT my boyfriend!" Buffy protests, and we 'shippers all shake our heads and say "Buffy, he is SO your boyfriend! Just accept it and we'll all be happy." Buffy tries to kick Glory in the face, but Glory catches her foot, and pauses long enough to compliment Buffy's shoes. Heh. Giles and Xander both make pitiful attempts at attacking Glory and get knocked around like little bitches. In the process one of the musses her hair, which angers her enough to proclaim, "Time to start the dyin'!" She throws a crowbar pointy end first at Dawn, but Buffy intercepts it and takes it in the chest, but it must not have been thrown very hard, because it does minimal damage. In the midst of all of the fighting, Willow and Tara manage to cast a spell that makes Glory disappear. The force of the spell knocks Willow down and bloodies her nose. Amazed, Buffy asks what they did. Willow explains that it was a teleportation spell that she and Tara had been working on, but that they hadn't quite worked out all of the kinks. Buffy asks where they sent Glory. "I don't know," Willow says. "That's one of the kinks."

Cut to the night sky high above Sunnydale, where Glory suddenly appears, and has just enough time to get half of a naughty word past the network censors before plummeting to the earth.

Back in the hospital, Spike comes to and looks slightly embarrassed, but everybody but me ignores him as Buffy begins to wrap this thing up by reassuring Dawn that, regardless of where she came from or how she came to be, she is her sister. The cut on Dawn's hand begins to bleed, and Buffy tells her that it's Summers blood. She gets some blood from the wound on her chest on her hand and takes Dawn's bleeding hand, mixing thier blood, which is really pretty nasty if you think about it, and says "just like mine." They hug and make up and Dawn seems to calm down and return to semi-normal, but then remembers that Ben was there and that he tried to help her, but for a reason that is not explained, she doesn't remember that he turned into Glory. Buffy reassures her that they'll thank him the next time they see him. Dawn worries that she'll be in trouble with thier mom for starting a fire when she gets home, but Buffy tells her that she has "a get out of jail free card on account of big love and trauma."

"You think she'd raise my allowance?" she asks.

"Dont' push it," Buffy tells her.

Grr. Arg.

Good episode. Heavy on the angst and light on the humor, but the truth about Dawn is out in the open, and the mystery of Ben's relationship to Glory is solved. And the cute knight had his brains turned to jelly, so I don't have to worry about him getting in Spike's way. Speaking of which, next week Spike will finally come clean to Buffy about his feelings. The episode is titled "Crush," and while the trailer tried to make it look like Spike actually has a shot with Buffy, I can't help but think that the title really refers to what she's going to do to him. Even so, the possibilities hinted at in the preview had me jumping up and down in front of my sofa. There were also squealing noises. I'm not proud of it.

Other takes on it:

• Loey's recap/review - she gave it an 8 out of 10.
  
  
• AICN - Herc's review - three and a half stars. Not bad.

Angel

Episode 2.13: "Happy Anniversary"

Honestly, tonight's episode wasn't worth an involved review. Basically, a lovesick physicist almost destroys the world when he tries to use his time bubble experiment to freeze himself and his girlfriend, whom he learned is planning to break up with him, in a moment of passion. When the scientist takes a turn behind the mic at Caritas, The Host has a vision of the world ending, and he recruits Angel to help track down the scientist and save the world. Angel reluctantly helps, and after much badgering from the Host, admits that W&H's plan to drive him over the edge is working. He realizes that he's never going to attone for the things he did as Angelus, and he's angry because Darla had a chance at redemption, but they took that from her, and now he's going to have to hunt her down and kill her, and after that he's going to burn W&H to the ground. He's pissed off that there are 200 highly intelligent law school graduates all working to drive him insane, and all of his friends are surprised and morally superior when he actually does start to crack. He's actually starting to feel bad about the way he just dumped Cordy, Wes and Gunn, but unbeknownst to him, the trio has reopened Angel Investigations, and are doing just fine without Angel.

It was an okay episode, but only about ten minutes of it covered anything important, the rest felt like filler. If you want a more detailed review, go read Loey's take on it. She gives this one and 8 out of 10 too, which is interesting, because it wasn't nearly on the level of last night's Buffy, and even compared to other Angel episodes, I think that's a pretty generous ranking. I'm ready to get back to the main arc now.

And on a related note, MBTV has posted a special edition recap of Valentine. I haven't read it yet, but I bet it's more entertaining than the movie was.

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