Fights in Spiral

The opening scene of the episode Spiral shows Buffy and Dawn getting away from Glory quite easily. Buffy writer Steven DeKnight said of the beginning of that episode:

“As a matter of fact, in the first draft of the outline for that script, the opening action scene where Buffy is trying to escape from Glory with Dawn, was massive. It was a ten minute long escape scene. Buffy gets smacked into a tree a hundred feet away, she ends up beating Glory with a sheared off lamp pole, there was big, big action. Joss read it and said “This is great, this is wonderful, Kubrick couldn’t film this in 20 days with five million dollars, so cut everything”. I’m like “Great, okay, that’s fine, as long as I get the Knights chasing the Winnebago”".

Bob Morrissey

Bob Morrissey, who played the crazy guy who talks to Dawn in Real Me, played the same character in Spiral and The Weight of the World. He appeared as Dr. Gregson in the Angel episode ‘Heartthrob‘. He has also been in The Terminal, Northern Exposure and Soul Plane.

Jack Donner

Jack Donner, who played Glory’s cleric in Spiral, played Romulan Subcommander Tal in the original Star Trek and has appeared in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, Stigmata, Roswell, Malcolm in the Middle, Charmed and Mission: Impossible.

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.

Karim Prince

Karim Prince, who played Dante, a Knight of Byzantium, in Spiral has also appeared in Malcolm in the Middle (as Cadet Stanley), The Bold and the Beautiful (as Raymond), MTV’s Undressed (as Randall), and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers (as Cestro/Blue Alien Power Ranger).

Lily Knight

Lily Knight, who played Glory’s minion Gronx, has also appeared in The Singing Detective, Secretary and Artificial Intelligence: AI.

Wade Williams

Wade Williams, who played General Gregor in Spiral, has also been in Erin Brockovich, MDs, 24, Enterprise, Six Feet Under, Charmed, The X Files, Becker, Star Trek: Voyager and The Larry Sanders Show.

Dante Chevalier

Dante was a Knight of Byzantium who rescued Orlando from the mental ward of the hospital. He later killed Orlando to retain the other Knight’s dignity after he got information on the Key in Spiral.

Gronx

Gronx was one of Glory’s female minions who was a seamstress and seer, seen in Spiral.

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.

Ben’s number

In Spiral, Buffy calls Ben with the phone number he gave her in I Was Made to Love You. Either she took the slip of pink paper with the number on with her, or has memorised the number.

New tactics

Buffy says in Spiral, “We’re not going to win this with stakes or spells or pulling out some uranium power core,” referring to Primeval, in which she destroyed Adam by pulling his power core from his body.

Remembering rockets

In Spiral, Xander mentions the time Buffy used a rocket launcher to defeat The Judge in Innocence.

Shrimp

Shrimp have been a referenced many times in the show: In Spiral, Anya says that Xander doesn’t travel well, like fine shrimp; in Graduation Day (Part 1), Willow finds a spell to “communicate with shrimp”; in Superstar, Anya compares a parallel universe with shrimp; and in Triangle, Anya mentions a ‘world without shrimp’, to which Tara replies that she’s allergic to them. In the Angel episode ‘Underneath’, Illyria says she once visited a world populated with nothing but shrimp.

Energy barrier

An ‘Energy barrier’ is an invisible force field to keep enemies at bay. Willow created one around the Scoobies’ hideout to keep the Knights of Byzantium away in Spiral, and one in Showtime to defend the Scoobies from the Turok-Han.

Knights of Byzantium

The Knights made their first appearance in Sunnydale in Checkpoint. They seemed to be human and had a tattooed symbol on their foreheads. They used swords and wore chain mail armour. They believed that the Key and its protector should be destroyed as they did not want the Key to fall into the hands of their enemy, Glory. The Knights held the Scoobies under seige in Spiral but many of them were killed by Glory.

The Beast and the Key

The General of the Knights of Byzantium fills Buffy and Dawn in about Glory and the Key in Spiral. He says of Glory, and her fellow hellgods:

On Glory in Ben’s body:

On the Key:

Bugs Bunny

Anya references Bugs Bunny cartoons in Spiral when she suggests a new way to kill Glory, “We should drop a piano on her. Well, it always works for that creepy cartoon rabbit when he’s running from that nice man with the speech impediment.” She later hits a Knight with a frying pan, in a classic cartoon moment.

Dead Man Walking

In Spiral, Xander tells Spike, “Or you can be Undead Man Walking”, which is a reference to the book Dead Man Walking by Sister Helen Prejean, which was made into a film in 1995 starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. The story centres on a nun, who befriends a convicted killer on death row. In Grave, Willow calls Jonathan and Andrew “Dead Men Walking”.

Sgt. Rock

Xander twice name checks “Sgt. Rock” in the episode Spiral. He is referring to DC Comics’ all-action war hero created by Robert Kanigher & Joe Kubert.

Spam

In Spiral, Anya suggests cooking Spam in the Winnebago (”Who’s up for some tasty fried meat products?”). Spam is pressed meat in a can, favoured by British people during World War II.

Seen at 02.58 minutes:

Buffy is clearly holding a dummy of Dawn when she runs from Glory at the beginning of the episode Spiral.

Seen at 11.11 minutes:

In Spiral a crew member can clearly be seen in the scene where the Knights of Byzantium are marching out of the forest. Just after Gregor says “we end this now”, the Knights start marching and a crew member wearing a red checked shirt can be seen in the bottom of the screen.

Seen at 18.02 minutes:

The face of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s stunt double can be seen clearly several times on top of the Winnebago.

Seen at 18.04 minutes:

When Buffy is fighting the knights on top of the Winnebago she is wearing flat shoes. When she talks to the Byzantium leader, she is wearing high-heeled boots.

Seen at 20.11 minutes:

In the episode Spiral, a Knight throws a spear whcih strikes Giles. If you look closely, you can see that it actually misses Giles, and bounces back slightly from the seat when it hits. Also, when you see the spear come through the window in the shot of Giles’s face, it’s a lot higher than when you see the side-on shot.