Today was rough. Most of the kids were acting up and throwing tantrums and just plain not fun. Between that and the sleep deprivation I had to come straight home and take a wee nap. Then I had to watch Buffy again. So I'm all fresh and ready to talk about it now!

Spoilers ahoy.

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Okay. First, what I didn't like: Willow actually said "goddess," thus justifying one of my biggest fanfic pet peeves ever. That pissed me off. And this ep was written by Joss, too. Grrr.

Um. That's about it for that column. I didn't hate Dawn and the Junior Scoobies, but I hope focusing on them won't be too much of a trend. Everything else, I loved. Giles! On horseback! Looking all sexy in his riding coat and riding boots! And he told Willow her magic's not an addiction! I love Giles. Love, love, LOVE Giles.

As for Willow, I'm already speculating that, what with all of her connectedness and whatnot, she'll get her big shot at redemption by being the only one powerful enough to defeat the new big bad.

Xander's still on the puffy side, but he looked good in that suit. Nice suit, nice new car ... they didn't actually come out and say, but I'm thinking he must be running his own contracting business now. At any rate, he seems to be doing pretty well for himself. Let's hope that the outward grownup-ness has also translated to inward grownupness and that he'll no longer be an asshole.

Anya's shirt was terrible. So was her hair, though I'm kinda glad to see her as a brunette again. Too soon to tell what up with her.

Hallie has been a vengeance demon since at least the Crimean war, which means that if she is indeed Cecily I was right about her being in disguise when William tried to woo her and got so thoroughly crushed and humiliated for his efforts, and that Spike is in no way responsible for her becoming a demon. Yay!

I like Principal Hottie, and I hope he's not evil and doesn't get eaten. Unless of course he's being set up as a romantic interest for Buffy, in which case, bring on the principal-devouring demons!

Buffy's all better. Yay! Buffy called Spike a hottie. Whee! Buffy did not look at all unhappy to see Spike again. Yippee! Buffy looked all concerned and worried about him. Eeeee! Plus, she gets a new job and gets to have long hair again and she did that cool fighty thing with that purse full o' bricks. Yay, Buffy!

As for Spike: Sigh. And, swoon. And, sniff! My poor, crazy, platinum-tipped baby. I totally underestimated how badly the soul would mess him up. However! I also totally called the shizo, William/Spike dueling personalities. Yay on me! Anyway. When he showed up, my heart started pounding, and that had to be the longest freaking commercial break ever. The bit where Buffy checks out his wounds and he admits to trying to cut "it" out (it being either his heart or his soul or his pain or his love for Buffy or possibly even his demon, according to all of the different interpretations on AIM last night; although my first impression was his heart) was just beautiful, and between that and the bit where he was huddled and rocking and repeating "She won't understand" just broke my heart. This season is purportedly supposed to be fairly light on the angst, though, so I'm sure he'll get better. And Buffy's undisguised concern was a good sign. And also? Spike pretty.

The big bad thing at the end was just cool. I did not expect the parade o' villains. My take is that it was primarily a visual cue to the audience that whatever this thing is, it's more evil and more powerful than every powerful being in the history of the show, including Buffy. Beyond that, it's too soon to speculate too much. Obviously Spike fits into this thing's agenda, and there's no telling how long it's been screwing with his head. The most obvious possibility is that it's the First Evil; it's MO matched what the FE did to Angel in "Amends," when it tried to turn him against Buffy. And if that's the case then the robey guys in Istanbul were most likely the FE's followers. But that's probably too obvious. So I'm just gonna wait and see.

In the "It's All. About. Spike." deptarment: Giles, to Willow: "We are all who we are, no matter how much we may appear to have changed" (or something like that). Meaning, as applied to Spike, that he is still Spike, despite the soul; but also that he is and has always been William. He lost that part of himself that made him a good man when he got turned, but personality-wise he was still, essentially, William. "Fool for Love" even blatantly showed us that Spike began as an invented persona. But he's worn that persona for so long that it's become his true identity. He's as much Spike now as he is William, the soul really makes no difference on that count; but now he's got the good part of himself back. Hopefully his conscience won't take 90 years to figure out how to cope with all the evil things he's done the way Angel's did and that it won't take too long for him to pull himself together.

Finally: I didn't watch the Emmy's on Sunday because once again James Marsters didn't even get nominated. His performance in this ep just proved what a travesty that is. He nailed crazy, tormented Spike and put all of Boreanaz's falling down and constipated twitching to complete and utter shame. God, he's amazing. How is it that he's so underrecognized in Hollywood? Can somebody please explain this to me? It's just because he plays a vampire, isn't it? Feh.