This summary is the intellectual property of Loey

A young, abnormally strong young woman named Dana escapes from a mental institution, going on a killing spree that involves beheading middle-aged men with one of those surgical saw things. She seems to be entirely off her rocker - the early assumption is demon possession - but it turns out that she's a Slayer, activated by the spell Buffy had Willow perform at the end of Season 7, which gave all potential Slayers the power of the real thing(s).

And she is, in fact, entirely off her rocker. When she was a child, her parents were brutally murdered, and she was kidnapped and tortured for days by the killer. She snapped then, and never snapped back. Now, she's got that psychic link to her Slayer heritage, but it's not staying in the realm of dreams. For her, it's completely real, and she can't tell the difference between her visions and the actual world.

Interestingly, the person who ends up knowing the most about this is a visitor from Buffyland. Andrew, cute little dork extraordinaire, is now training to be a Watcher, under Giles' tutelage. In fact, all the old Buffy gang is involved in finding and teaching new Slayers, and they're basically re-organizing the whole system. Buffy is in Rome with Dawn; Willow and Kennedy are in Brazil; Xander is in Africa; Giles is (presumably) in England. Now that they know about Dana, Andrew has come to help Angel and his crew track her down.

And track her down they do, but not before Spike gets to her. He's determined to play action hero, but he doesn't count on the fact that she's connected to the memories of past Slayers - including the two he killed. She initially believes that he was the man who tortured her (and the audience is briefly led to believe this as well), but it turns out that her real attacker was killed in a robbery a few years ago. Her fractured psyche has everything jumbled, and she's out for revenge.

Angel arrives in time to keep Dana from killing Spike, but she does manage to drug him and cut his hands off. As a tranquilized Dana is carried away on a stretcher, Andrew shows up at the scene. He intends to take custody of Dana and put her under the care of the new Watcher/Slayer regime, and he's got a small army of Slayers to back him up. Angel lets them take her, but threatens to call Buffy in protest. "Where do you think my orders came from?" Andrew replies. It seems that word of Angel's involvement with Wolfram & Hart has reached the ears of the Scoobies, and none of them trusts him anymore. Not even Buffy.

Later, Spike is recuperating after having his hands sewn back on. Angel comes to talk to him, and they have an actual, honest heart-to-unbeating-heart. Spike is really thinking about the things he did before he got his soul back, noting that even though he didn't kill Dana's family, he offed plenty of others. He'd never really stopped to consider his victims, unlike Angel, who relished every moment, and would have considered Dana a "masterpiece" (akin to Drusilla, I imagine). Spike wonders if Dana is beyond help, and Angel points out that she's just an innocent victim.

"So were we, once upon a time" Spike says sadly.

"Once upon a time," Angel replies.

Site design Internet Promotion Services