It’s Buffy’s birthday and if there’s one thing we can be sure of: there’s going to be trouble. Sure enough we find it in the shape of Dawn. She and Spike sneak into the Magic Box where she finds Giles’ Watchers diaries and starts to read them. Dawn discovers that she is really the Key and, understandably, freaks out. She goes to the hospital to start quizzing mad guys there, who seem to know more about the Key than she does. Dawn then runs into Ben who realises who she is but suddenly morphs into Glory. The Scoobies arrive in time to save Dawn, who then forgets who Ben really is.
| Airdate: | 6 February 2001 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Writer: | Steven DeKnight | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Director: | Michael Gershman | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cast: |
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Anya: "This is extremely suspenseful! I want the presents."
Behind the Scenes Trivia
Morphing Ben and Glory
Clare Kramer spoke to the BBC about the morphing process between Ben and Glory:
“The morphing (into Ben) was a big technical process, especially the first couple of times we did it because nobody really knew what we were doing. For example, the first time we morphed you see Charlie talking to the Key. All of a sudden it’s me morphing. That was about a five hour process.
“He would be standing there in a certain position and then they’d be like “Okay, freeze.” He’d run out and I’d run in and stand on an apple box so I could be the same height. I’d adjust myself and they’d be yelling at me from the monitor, “Move a little to your left” or “a little to your right.” We’d finally get in the right position and then you’d come out of the morph. It’s quite an extensive process in terms of filming.”
Cast and Crew Trivia
Justin Gorrence
Justin Gorrence played the Knight of Byzantium Orlando in Checkpoint, Blood Ties and Spiral. He played Peter Garrett in The Young and the Restless and has also been in Shut Up and Kiss Me!, From Justin to Kelly and Puzzled.
Paul Bates
Paul Bates, who played one of the mental patients in Blood Ties, has also been in 8 Mile, Showgirls, Mr. Wonderful, True Romance, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Coming to America and Hannah and Her Sisters. He also played the crazy guy in Spiral and The Weight of the World.
Steven DeKnight
Steven DeKnight was a writer on Buffy and Angel. He wrote the Buffy episodes Blood Ties, Spiral, All the Way, Dead Things and Seeing Red. Steven directed the Angel episodes ‘Inside Out‘, ‘Hellbound‘ and ‘Shells‘. He was also a supervising producer and writer on Smallville. Steven met Joss Whedon originally to talk about the animated version of Buffy, but eventually Joss asked him to write for the show itself.
Character Trivia
Orlando
Orlando was the Knight of Byzantium who attacked Buffy in Checkpoint and told her more would come. He ended up in the mental ward after being brain sucked by Glory. When Dawn went there in Blood Ties he told her she needed to be killed. Orlando was freed from the mental ward by two other knights, but was later stabbed to death by Dante Chevalier when he realised the extent of the damage done to him.
Continuity
Bad birthdays
Buffy celebrates her 20th birthday in Blood Ties. Her party comes to a staggering halt when Dawn discovers she’s the Key and freaks out. This isn’t the first (nor last) time that Buffy’s birthday has gone wrong. In Surprise, Buffy slept with Angel on her 17th birthday which prompted him to turn evil and start killing her friends. In Helpless, the Watcher’s Council forced a test on Buffy on her 18th birthday by removing her powers and seeing how she coped with a crazed vampire. In Older and Far Away, Dawn unwittingly made a wish with a vengeance demon that none can leave her, forcing the Scoobies to be stranded in Buffy’s house at her birthday party.
Black nails
Three characters have painted their fingernails black on the show: Oz, Spike (seen painting them in Blood Ties, as well as various other episodes) and Dawn (in Life Serial).
Bubble blower
Willow blows bubbles at Buffy’s birthday party in Checkpoint, which she also did at Tara’s birthday in Family.
Carousel
In Blood Ties, Buffy asks the Scoobies if they looked for Dawn at the carousel, when she goes missing. This is most likely the same carousel that Riley took her to in Shadow. Dawn told Riley that Joyce had rented out the carousel for Dawn’s birthday just after they moved to Sunnydale.
Chicken and stars
In Earshot, Joyce offers “chicken and stars” soup to Buffy. She offers it to Dawn in the season five episode Blood Ties, after Dawn discovers she’s the Key.
Chocolates and hammers
In Blood Ties, we see that Spike has the box of chocolates which we saw in Checkpoint. He also tries to pick up Olaf’s troll hammer first seen in Triangle.
Dawn realises
In Blood Ties, Dawn has a couple of flashbacks to being confronted by the crazy guys in Real Me and Listening to Fear. She also remembers Sobek the snake from Shadow.
Get out, get out, get out!
In Older and Far Away, Dawn screams, “Get out, get out, get out!” at Buffy and the gang. She said the same thing to Buffy and Joyce in season five’s birthday episode, Blood Ties. In Lessons, the zombie janitor yells, “get out, get out, get out!” at Buffy.
This phrase is repeated by Glory in The Weight of the World, when Glory is starting to become “more human”:
GLORY: “What’s he doing?”
PRIEST: “I must anoint the key.”
GLORY: “Really don’t. Go.”
PRIEST: “But-”
GLORY: “Out! Get out, get out!”
Perhaps intentionally similar to Dawn’s outbursts?
Green energy
Glory says the Key is pure green energy in Blood Ties. In Tough Love, Tara reveals to Glory that Dawn is the Key by saying she’s a beautiful green light.
I know you
In Blood Ties, Glory recognises Dawn from when she visited Buffy’s house in Checkpoint.
Injured Jinx
Ben beat up Glory’s minion Jinx in Checkpoint as a message to the hellgod that he wouldn’t co-operate with her. In Blood Ties, Jinx’s face was still injured from this, and Ben reminded him why. In Forever, Ben told Jinx, “you’re more fun when I hit you”.
Niblet
Spike’s pet name for Dawn is “Niblet”, heard in Blood Ties, Seeing Red, Beneath You and Lies My Parents Told Me.
Sick Xander
Xander’s arm is still bandaged in Blood Ties from when he was beaten up by Olaf in Triangle.
Unicorn candle
There is a unicorn-shaped candle in the Magic Box in Blood Ties. This is possibly a reference to Harmony who, we discovered in Real Me, likes unicorns.
Music Trivia
Star Ghost Dog
At Buffy’s party in the episode Blood Ties, we hear ‘Holiday’ by Star Ghost Dog from their 2000 album ‘The Great Indoors’.
Mythology Trivia
More on Glory
We find out much more about Glory in the episode Blood Ties. In his diary, Giles says that the Watcher’s Council have been getting their information about Glory from The Book Of Tarnis. He says that Glory “absorbs the energy that binds the human mind into a cohesive whole”, which makes her victims insane. She is a hell-god from a demon dimension, which she ruled over with two other hellgods. She has amazing power and is immortal but being human, her powers are limited and she is going insane. The Key is something which will help her return to her own dimension. She calls it a blob of green energy.
Teleportation
Teleportation is when someone or something moves instantly from one place to another. Willow and Tara did this spell in Blood Ties to temporarily get rid of Glory, though they weren’t sure of where they sent her. Some demons (such as vengeance demons) have the ability to teleport. When Anya became a demon again she helped the Scoobies by teleporting (Two to Go), though her teleporting rights were taken away from her when she undid a vengeance spell in Same Time, Same Place.
Urn of Ishtar
Spike used the Urn of Ishtar in The Magic Box as an ashtray in Blood Ties, which was how Buffy discovered he’d been there with Dawn.
References
Gentle Ben
In Blood Ties, Glory calls Ben “Gentle Ben”. This is a reference to a TV show of the same name made in the 1960s about a kid who has a tame bear called Ben. It starred Ron Howard’s brother, Clint Howard. In Pangs, the Chumash spirit Hus turned into a bear, which Xander called “Gentle Ben”. In Sense and Sensitivity, the Wolfram and Hart lawyer, Mercer says, “… look like Gentle Ben.”
Monopoly
Faith says in Beauty and the Beasts, “Get out of jail free, huh?” This is a reference to the board game Monopoly, which has a card which allows the player to leave jail. In Blood Ties, Buffy tells Dawn she has a “get-out-of-jail-free card”, and in Lies My Parents Told Me, Anya says, “Spike’s got some sort of ‘get out of jail free’ card that doesn’t apply to the rest of us”.
In Real me, Monopoly is one of the games that Anya brings when she and Xander babysit Dawn.
Piñata
In Listening to Fear, Xander jokes about the meteorite being a “festive piñata”. Piñatas are a tradition often found at children’s birthday parties. They are papier-mache figures filled with sweets. Children are blindfolded and given a stick to hit the piñata, to try and break it open to get at the sweety goodness inside. Nicholas Brendon (Xander) appeared in a movie called Demon Island in 2002, in which a demon is hidden in a piñata and is let loose.
In Blood Ties, Buffy says, “I just don’t think this is the best time to break out the party piñata”.
Teletubbies
In Blood Ties, Spike asks Dawn if she’s sneaking out to watch Teletubbies, a reference to the popular British children’s show about some brightly coloured creatures who get great fun out of simple things like vacuuming and handbags.
Goofs
Seen at 25.41 minutes:
When Dawn rips up her diaries, there is a magazine on the wooden chest at the end of her bed, next to the bin. It disappears in one shot then is seen again in the next.
Seen at 26.54 minutes:
Willow says about Dawn’s diaries, “She’s been keeping those since” and Buffy continues, “Since she was seven. I remember too, Will.” Buffy was 15 when she moved to Sunnydale, which meant that at that time Dawn would’ve been around 10. How would Willow “remember” Dawn starting her diaries when Buffy and Dawn would’ve been in L.A?
Seen at 38.34 minutes:
Where does Xander find a crowbar in a hospital? He couldn’t have taken it there as self-defence as the gang went to the hospital as they thought Dawn might be injured, not because they knew Glory was there.
Quotes
Willow: "Well, you know what they say. The bigger they are..."
Anya: "The faster they stomp you into nothing."
Anya: "You make a very pretty little girl!"
Buffy: "How was school today?"
Dawn: "Um, the usual. Big square building filled with boredom and despair."
Buffy: "Glory is evil. And powerful. And in no way prettier than me."
Anya: "This is extremely suspenseful! I want the presents."
Dawn: "Well, jeez, don't get all movie-of-the-week. I was just to cheap to buy you a real present."
Spike: "I'm not lurking. I'm standing about. It's a whole different vibe."
Spike: ""So they sent the key to her... in human form. In the form of a sister." Huh. I guess that's you, niblet."
Xander: "Oh, nothing. No. Just saying... powerful being... big energy gal, diggin' the Xan man. Some guys are just cooler, you know?"
Spike: "She's not just a blob of energy, she's also a 14-year-old hormone bomb."
Glory: "Two birds, one stone, and boom! You have yummy dead birds."