Writers: Marti Noxon and Doug Petrie
Director : David Grossman

Cast : 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.

Main guest stars : Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles, Tom Lenk as Andrew, Iyari Limon as Kennedy, Courtnee Draper as Annabelle, Clara Bryant as Molly, Juliet Landau as Drusilla, Camden Toy as The Ubervamp, D.B. Woodside as Principal Wood.

Original broadcast date : December 17, 2002

My one-line description: As Tweety Bird would say – “Ooo, Buffy… you’we a weck!”

Once again, it’s cleanup day at the Summers house. Xander is complaining that he’s condemned to fix that window over and over again. In the ruined living room, the Scoobies are doing power research. Willow, working the computer, asks Buffy if she’s sure that “whatever” called itself the First. Buffy replies that it was what he claimed, to which Anya snidely comments that she’s often heard evil beings make such boasts. Buffy remarks that when she first encountered it, she felt that it was old and big – it almost got Angel to kill himself, and she’s afraid it could do something similar to Spike.

Xander looks at Andrew, unconscious and tied to a chair, and wonders when he’ll come out of it. Dawn comments he may be faking it; she punches him hard – no reaction. She’s about to go at it again, but Buffy tells her to stop. Just then, Willow finds something about the First – but it’s only the First Bank of Delaware… Buffy asks someone to hand her a particular book, and someone does – Joyce.

Joyce asks Buffy if she needs anything else – perhaps some tea. Buffy remarks that she’s not real; Joyce replies caringly that Buffy’s tired and has to rest. Buffy’s torn, not wanting to believe this is really Joyce. Then her mother tells her she has to wake up – and suddenly, there is Xander, shaking her awake and telling her she was dreaming. He asks what she dreamt about; “Nothing”, she replies.

Spike, still bearing marks in his chest, is being dragged across a floor by the Ubervamp. The First, in the guise of morphy Spike, appears and turns into Drusilla, who gets the Ubervamp to inflict some physical abuse on the vampire.

It’s daytime, and Andrew is still unconscious. Splash!!! A bucket of cold water is thrown on him, causing him to move a bit. Anya and Dawn, disappointed, talk about using hot water. Buffy walks in, and the two girls go sit on the couch, acting innocent. Then Andrew starts coughing up water and wakes up. He thanks Buffy for saving him, but she replies that if he doesn’t tell them what they want to know, they’ll offer him to the First for dinner… “The first what?” he asks. They explain to him what the First is, and Buffy demands that he lead them to the Seal.

Andrew leads the gang through the school basement to the seal. Upon seeing it, Buffy asks what it does, but Andrew doesn’t know – it didn’t work because there wasn’t enough blood. Dawn sees the wheel Spike was strapped to, and notes that it’s covered in blood. Buffy realizes that it might be what Spike was taken for. Andrew says that it wasn’t there before, he had nothing to do with it. Xander angrily reminds him he killed his best friend; Andrew argues Jonathan is in a place of peace, but Xander tells him he was fooled by a ghost. Buffy interrupts, asking them to help her cover up the Seal. They grab shovels and get to it.

As they make their way out of the basement, the gang bumps into Principal Wood… also bearing a shovel. He remarks that he thought Buffy was sick, but Dawn – again with the oozing comments – tells him that her sister is taking pills. Buffy asks about the shovel Wood is carrying, and he says that someone left it in the courtyard. In turn, he asks about Buffy’s shovel, and she nervously explains that she was helping Dawn with a school project – burying a time capsule. He says that if she’s better, they really need her back at work, and with that, they each go on their way, suspiciously looking back at one another as they do…

Back at the house, Dawn researches the Seal on the computer, while Willow prepares to attempt a locator spell to find the First. Alas, something goes wrong as a magical explosion sends Anya flying into a wall and knocks Dawn off her chair. A fierce wind picks up as an orange glow flows into Willow’s nostrils. She stands up, eyes horribly cold, and the First emerges from her mouth. A bolt of lightning also emerges, knocking Buffy into the front hall. “You will only make me stronger!” the First exclaims through Willow. Xander grabs the spell bowl and shatters it; Willow collapses to the floor. Buffy runs to her side; the redhead is panicking – it’s still in her, she can feel it. She frantically pleads with Buffy not to let her go bad and hurt people again.

Buffy decides to go find the First and do battle. She opens the front door to go out… and Giles is standing there, three teenage girls at his side. After a pause, the three girls let themselves in, commenting on the house and on Buffy as they walk past her. “I’m afraid we have a small apocalypse”, Giles says with a grin.

Inside, Giles explains that they’re all potential Slayers, not yet called. He says there were a lot more, and that the few remaining are on their way here. “They were all murdered”, Buffy realizes, having flashbacks to the opening scenes of “Lessons” and “Beneath You”. Giles adds that they were killed along with their Watchers – flashback to his crouching before a dying Hobson, the Harbinger coming up behind him with the axe… He says that the Council had always feared that something would try to erase all the Slayers, along with their Watcher and methods. Buffy muses that they’ll kill Faith, and then her…

Willow reports they haven’t been able to find anything on the First. “That’s because it predates written word”, Giles explains. The only info available was at the Council library. Anya wonders what the Council has to say about all this, and Giles, his face darkening, breaks the news: the Council is gone. Willow wonders what happened to all the Council’s records; “Annabelle”, Giles calls to one of the Slayers-in-waiting. She produces some books from her backpack – all that’s left of the information the Council had, along with what he scrounged up on the First. Giles admits to stealing the files when he learned what was going on, and adds that it was probably an agent of the First who blew up the Council after his little burglary. He says he had to protect the files at all cost. “And it cost them their lives!” Andrew blurts out. Buffy asks Xander to gag him. As he works with the duct tape, Buffy asks what the files say. Giles reports that the First can only take the guise of dead people, but that it can’t touch or be touched. It has to work through others, like the Harbingers. “Those freaks in the black robes”, says Kennedy, the only American (or Canadian – no British accent) SIT. “Yeah. With the hoodies and the crazy alphabet eyes”, adds Molly in a Scottish brogue. As Annabelle hushes her, Giles continues, saying this is really, really worse than what they’ve faced before – there’s evil, and there’s the thing that created evil. If the Slayer line is extinguished, the Hellmouth will no longer have a guardian. He tells Buffy that it falls to her to protect the girls and the world.

“But no pressure”, Xander quips. Kennedy is worried about their only plan being the Slayer – the First is coming for them, and maybe it’s not such a good idea to be sitting on the Hellmouth. Buffy agrees – they need more muscle, namely Spike. Anya comments that it should work, provided Spike isn’t crazy, or killing people, or dead, or all of the above…

Spike is actually having his head thrust in a pool of water in a cave. The Ubervamp holds him under while Morphy Drusilla looks on. Spike is finally drawn, unconscious, from the pool. After a moment, he coughs up water as Drusilla tells him he won’t be able to spill the secrets to Buffy. She adds that they’re not done with him yet, and the Ubervamp gives him the water treatment again.

Giles and Buffy walk down a Sunnydale street at night time, going to the Christmas tree lot where she encountered the First years ago. As they spot some Christmas decorations, Buffy comments that she almost forgot what time of the year it was, and suggests they decorate the rubble. She then asks Giles if he’ll ever come back to Sunnydale for a real visit – she misses him.

At the house, while Andrew questions Xander on how long he’s “followed” Buffy, Willow is trying to find a place to sleep for everyone. Kennedy advises her not to pair Dawn and Molly (Molly will talk her ear off) or Willow and Annabelle (Annabelle snores). Willow gives Kennedy the stack of blankets and sheets, asking her to figure it out. “You’d better not hog the covers”, Kennedy says playfully as she heads upstairs. Willow looks dumbfounded.

Going back to the kitchen, Willow runs into Dawn, who tells her they have a food problem – she just burned the mac and cheese. Willow suggests they order pizza, and Annabelle agrees – as long as it’s vegetarian. Molly finds a box of cookies and starts munching away.

At the lot, Buffy and Giles as still looking for the entrance to the First’s cave. Suddenly, she falls through the ground… “Found it!” she announces from the cave floor. She begins to look around, asking Giles to remain above. She walks around a bit, noticing suspicious shadows moving behind her… The Ubervamp lunges at her out of nowhere and sends her flying with a punch. Buffy retaliates, but it’s obvious the Ubervamp is fast, strong and mean. She finally manages to stake him… but he doesn’t go poof. He just stands there, grinning at her.

The Ubervamp goes after a still stunned Buffy and uses her for ping pong practice, basically. He slashes her with her own stake, and manages to crush her hand with a punch. Finally, he grabs her by the throat and raises her up, and in desperation, she grabs a stalactite and bonks him over the head with it. He staggers back, stunned, and Buffy takes the opportunity to make her escape through the ceiling hole. She barely makes it, crawling out into the dawn sun where Giles is waiting for her. The Ubervamp tries to follow, but recoils from the sunlight and goes back into the cave.

Buffy and Giles walk into the Summers house, where the SITs are having breakfast. One of them notices Buffy looks like she’s been in a fight, and she admits that she was. She asks Giles what that thing was, anyway. He motions to the SITs, wondering if this conversation shouldn’t be private… but Buffy is adamant they stay. Giles reveals that what she fought was a Turok-Han, basically to vampires what Neanderthals are to humans. They’re vicious, the vampires that vampires themselves fear. He thiks it’s likely that the Ubervamp is an agent of the First. Annabelle asks if Buffy managed to slay it, to which she sadly replies that she didn’t. At least the sunlight kept it at bay, she adds. Giles thinks she should get some sleep, but Buffy says she has work and research to do. He wonders how she’s going to research something as ill-defined as the First; she answers that she’s got ways…

At school, Buffy is typing out “evil” on a search engine on her computer while talking to someone on the phone (presumably Willow). She finds out that there are over 900,000 entries, and proceeds to narrow the search. She hangs up, and Principal Wood walks up behind her and reads “manifestations of evil” on the screen. Seeing him, Buffy hurriedly adds “in the movies” and tells Wood that she loves evil movies. Wood sits in front of Buffy and tells her he doesn’t like scary movies – it takes kids to places they shouldn’t be. He muses that "once you see true evil, it can have some serious afterburn, and you can't unsee what you saw...” As he gets up and walks away, Buffy asks what kind of movies he enjoys. Wearing a mysterious smile, he replies that he likes mysteries. “I love finding out what's underneath it all at the very end." (huh?)

In the cave, Morphy Drusilla is playing with Spike, flirting, trying to get him to choose sides. “You’re not Drusilla”, he coldly says. She looks hurt, but flirts with him again, before nodding to the Ubervamp, who inflicts more pain upon Spike. Dru says that Spike has been bad, and that now he has to choose a side. After the Ubervamp pummels him a bit, Spike says, slowly: “Dru, love… get bent”. An angry Dru pulls back as the Ubervamp resumes the pummelling.

Buffy is in the washroom at school, inspecting a cut in her forehead left over from the night before. She checks her arm, which is likewise bruised. “Honey, what happened?” Joyce asks with concern. She says Buffy has to rest and heal, but Buffy says there’s no time. “Are you worried about the sun going down?” Joyce wonders. She adds that she can’t control the sun going up or down. Buffy says that her friends need her, but Joyce counters that they’re putting too much pressure on her. Buffy remarks that evil is coming, but Joyce argues that evil is already here, it’s always been here, it’s a part of everyone.

The school bell brings Buffy back to reality, to her desk where she dozed off. The student in front of her is offended and thinks she doesn’t care; he walks off as she tries to apologize. Wood watches the scene from his office, expressionless.

Willow and Dawn are picking weapons from the weapons chest, while waiting with Giles for the sun to set in 17 minutes. Xander is boarding up the living room window as the three SITs sit on the couch. Willow apologizes to Buffy for what happened with the spell earlier. She says she has to help, she has so much power… Buffy tells her not to use it, but Willow argues that Buffy will need help, even though she won’t admit it. “I’ll be OK”, Buffy says.

Kennedy speaks up, saying they should have weapons too – without them, they’re sitting ducks. Annabelle argues a bit, but quickly realizes the First may be coming straight for them. Buffy agrees to give them weapons, and the three girls jump up from the couch and head for the weapons chest. Andrew also pipes up, saying he has a bad feeling and should be untied. Buffy asks how that would help them, and Andrew very clumsily tries to convince them that he’s good now. Unconvinced, Buffy walks away, leaving him tied up. She goes to the kitchen and watches with Giles as the sun sets. Giles comments that everyone now understands that Buffy is in charge, which she balks at. Just then, an alarmed Kennedy comes in and reports that Annabelle is gone…

Outside, Annabelle is running, fear in her eyes. Clutching a cross on her neck, she looks behind her – and runs right into the Ubervamp who grabs her and lifts her up. Annabelle’s crucifix falls to the ground…

Buffy arrives and finds Annabelle’s corpse. She has no time to mourn, though, as the Ubervamp attacks her. He sends her to the ground; she tries to hit him, but he’s too fast, and he’s the one who manages to hurt her. She gains some time by spitting a mouthful of blood in his face; he drops her, and she makes her escape into the factory, limping. After licking the blood off his fingers, the Ubervamp follows, not even bothering to run as Buffy limps away. She manages to ambush him and clobber him with a pipe, but it barely fazes him. He hits her and sends her flying, then approaches for the final kill. Buffy notices a pallet full of heavy steel pipes hanging overhead, and hits the “release” button as the Ubervamp gets close. The pipes fall and bury the creature as Buffy limps away. But he’s not done… he gets up from under the pipes, unharmed, and comes at Buffy again. This time, she can’t outrun him, and he beats her up really, really bad. He finishes off by throwing her into a wall, which collapses onto her.

Xander removes the rubble and finds an unmoving, bloodied Buffy. “Oh God almighty”, he says as Giles and Willow look on.

At the cave, Morphy Dru tells Spike that he’s alive only because she wishes it. She looks down at the battered vampire and asks why he thinks he has a choice, what makes him think he could be any good at all in this world. “She does”, he says. “Because she believes in me”.

Buffy sits on her bed, eyes staring, as we hear Giles and Willow talk about how bad she was hurt and wonder if she can fight. Giles think she may have internal bleeding. Speaking to the congregated gang (Xander, Willow, Anya, Dawn, Molly and Kennedy), Giles says that without Buffy, they’re back to square one and he doesn’t know if they can fight the First.

“We don’t know how to fight it”, Buffy comments, appearing in the dining room doorway. She’s battered, and her eyes are haunted. “We don't know when it'll come. Can't run, can't hide... can't pretend it's not the end 'cause it is. Something has 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."

Giles says that she’s tired, but Buffy replies that she’s beyond tired, beyond scared. She promises the Hellmouth, if it tries to swallow her, will choke on her. She launches into a moving speech, saying that if “they” want an apocalypse, they’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 is. And I will kill it myself. There's only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil. And that's us."

“Any questions?”

Special thanks to www.leoffonline.com