BUFFY: I call an emergency meeting, and this is it? Where's Willow? Where's Anya?

DAWN: I-I couldn't find Willow. I knocked and knocked on her door.

XANDER: And Anya's entertaining a vengeance demon named Hallie. Say Buff, did you ever see Anya as a demon? 'Cause if that's it ... whoa.

BUFFY: There's something wrong at the DoubleMeat Palace. Really wrong.

DAWN: Have you been demon-fighting? Is that why you smell funny?

BUFFY: No! I'm talking about... Ucch. That's great. That's, that's just great. I try to do the simplest thing in the world, get an ordinary job in a well-lit place, and look, I'm right back where I started. Blood and death and funky smells. (re severed finger) Look. Look what I found near the grinder.

DAWN: (very heartfelt) Ew. (pause) Whose is it?

BUFFY: I don't know. It might be this guy named Gary, the only one in the whole place who didn't seem all brain-dead. He didn't show up this morning. Except now I think he was there the whole time. As the secret ingredient. We need to analyze that burger. We need to find out if it used to be people.

XANDER: (mouth full of burger) What?! (swallows) People?

BUFFY: Xander, you ate the burger?!

XANDER: Well, first you say it's cat, then you come in and hand me a burger, blah blah blah, five minutes later 'oh and by the way, it happens to be hot delicious human flesh'!

BUFFY: I needed that burger to analyze it. Now I'm gonna have to get another one.

XANDER: *That's* your problem with this scenario? You getting seconds?

WILLOW: Late! Late, sorry, I ... I was reading for school, well, highlighting anyway. (quietly) Anyway, late.

XANDER: Yeah, you just missed the Gary burger.

WILLOW: What are we doing? Let's jump right in. Did Xander say something about food?

DAWN: You wouldn't want any. Apparently the DoubleMeat Medley is people.

WILLOW: Whoa. Bad.

BUFFY: I bet it's not even just this one time. Or even this one town. There are DoubleMeat Palaces all over California.

DAWN: (disgusted) I've eaten there a lot.

BUFFY: Well, everyone has! They've got the perfect deal. Everyone expects high turnover of the employees, they get the meat for nothing, and ... (pauses) And they have us disposing of the bodies! How sick is that? We need to bring down the whole corporation. Will, Xander ate the burger, is there any way for sure to figure out what it was?

WILLOW: Well, yeah, I can start analyzing it with science, not ... I can use science. (to Xander) You ate it?

DAWN: Um, we have the wrapper. There's little scribbles of meat on the wrapper.

written by: Jane Espenson; transcribed by Joan the English Chick (pisces@englishchick.com).. Full transcript at:
http://www.studiesinwords.de/112doublemeatpalace.html