Overall Rating: 7.65 Matt: 8.3 Eric: 7.0 Written by: David Fury Directed by: James A. Contner Cast : Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers, Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris, Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg, Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase, Seth Green as Oz, Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles. Main guest stars : Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers, Jeff Krober as Zachary Kralick, Harris Yulin as Quentin Travers, Dominic Keating as Blair, David Haydn-Jones as Hobson. Original broadcast date : January 19, 1999 In the mansion, Buffy trains with Angel ­ she succeeds in mock-staking him withŠ a French baguette. As they rest a bit, Angel asks what her plans are for her 18th birthday. She answers that she has a date to the ice showŠ with a man she calls Dad. Later at the library, Giles is having Buffy concentrate on an assemblage of stones set on the table, and tries to get her to name them. But Buffy isn¹t in it; she¹s itching to burn some energy, and finally goes on patrol. But as she fights a vampire, she suddenly has a dizzy spell that almost gets her killed before she manages ­ barely ­ to dust it. The next day, Buffy¹s worries increase when, at the library, she throws knifes at a target and misses horribly. She confides to Giles about her close call of the previous evening, but he tells her that it may be nothing, probably just a bout of the flu. At lunchtime, Buffy¹s upcoming birthday is again the subject of discussion. When Buffy talks about the ice show she goes to with her father every year, Willow remarks that once when she was little, she got so scared at Snoopy on Ice that she threw up on Woodstock. Xander then says he hopes there¹ll be a birthday party, but Buffy dismisses the plan, reminding him how badly her birthday parties usually go. When she gets home, Buffy sees a very nice bouquet waiting on the table for her ­ with a card from her father, telling her he can¹t make it for the ice show. Joyce offers to take time off work to go with her, but an obviously very disappointed Buffy turns her down. Elsewhere in Sunnydale, someone is preparing other birthday plans for the Slayer. In an abandoned building, the leader of the Council of Watchers, Quentin Travers, is overseeing workers setting up the "test"Š He notes that it is almost ready, while looking at a large, human-sized crate. At the library, Buffy tries to convince Giles to go with her to the ice show, but he¹s strangely one-track minded ­ he wants her to concentrate on the crystals once again. She does, and falls in a trance. Giles quickly takes out a syringe, rolls up her sleeve and injects her with something. Then, he takes her out of the trance, and she calls it a night, totally ignorant of what has just happened. The next day, as Willow and Buffy talk about toys for Amy the rat, they witness Cordelia being roughly manhandled by a guy. Buffy tries to intervene, only to find out that her strength is gone. Cordelia fends off for herself, and Buffy, now thoroughly alarmed, goes to see Giles once again. However, he evasively shrugs the whole thing off. At the old abandoned building, Giles is trying to talk Travers out of the "test", but the Council leader answers that the Cruciamentum is a time-honoured tradition for the Slayer on her 18th birthday. However, Giles argues that locking her in the building, weakened and defenceless, and unleashing "that" on her is cruelty. After he leaves, having failed to convince his superior, a wail is heard from another room. It¹s a vampire, tied up in a straightjacket against the wall and looking quite insane. And indeed, two Council workers carefully feed him some pillsŠ Later that night, the vampire clamors for his pills again, and one of the two workers, Blair, gets up wearily to give them to him. However, the creature manages to lure him closer, until he can bite him and drain himŠ At the mansion, Angel is comforting Buffy. She¹s worried about not being able to cope with not having powers anymore, afraid that she¹ll know too much about what goes bump in the night, but won¹t be able to do anything about it. Angel confides to her that he saw her called, that day at Hemery High, when her first Watcher, Merrick, came to meet her. He tells her that he loved her from the very first sight. At the abandoned building, the vampire is licking the blood off his fingers and humming a tune, as Blair wakes up, now a vampire. Of course, the first thing he does is free his sire. The two of them set out to find Buffy and play the game by their own rulesŠ Buffy is walking home alone when Blair and the other vampire chase after her. She barely gets away, but must abandon her coat to them. She¹s saved by Giles, who stops by in his car and tells her to get in. In the library, a defeated Giles shows Buffy the organic compound of muscle relaxants and adrenal suppressants he used on her, and tells her about the test she was to pass ­ being locked in a house with an insane vampire and relying only on her natural skills to fight him. As he tells her that the test is now void, since the vampire ­ Kralick, a mass-murderer ­ has escaped, she angrily throws the syringe box at him. Tearful, she tells Giles that she doesn¹t know him anymore, and asks Cordelia ­ who arrives at just the right moment, as always ­ for a ride home. When Buffy arrives at her house, she finds out that Kralick has kidnapped her mother. She packs her weapons and leaves, obviously straining under the weight of her knapsack. At the building, Kralick is busy taking pictures of Joyce tied up to a chair, and making plans to turn Buffy into a vampire and having her bite her own mother. Meanwhile, Buffy arrives, manages to knock out Blair, and goes after Kralick. They play cat and mouse until he badly needs his medication and takes out the bottle of pills. Buffy, seeing an opportunity, snatches the bottle and runs, an angry Kralick chasing her; she slides down a laundry chute and finds her mother. Kralick arrives and demands his pills, which Buffy gives to him, along with his glass of waterŠ which he downs, not knowing she¹s replaced it with holy water. He poofs up, and Giles shows up to stake Blair and untie Joyce ­ Buffy doesn¹t have the strength to do it. In the library, Quentin Travers congratulates Buffy for passing the test, but a seething Buffy accuses him of putting her mother in danger, and tells him he better get out of town before she gets her powers back. Travers obliges, but not before he informs Giles that he¹s fired ­ he¹s grown too close to the Slayer, whom he loves like a father would. The next day, Buffy is home discussing the events with Joyce, Willow and Xander. As Willow expresses her outrage at Giles¹ firing, Buffy tries to open a jar of peanut butter ­ and fails. She passes it to Xander, who gloats about being a manŠ before also failing to open the jar. Summary by OttsFiveByFive.