Willow returns to Sunnydale, nervous about meeting her friends as she tried to kill them the last time she saw them. Buffy, Xander and Dawn go to meet her, trying to show their support, but they are invisible to Willow (and vise versa) due to a mislaid spell. Willow is captured by a demon called Gnarl who paralyses its victims before eating their skin. Her friends come to her rescue and the Scoobies are eventually reunited.
| Airdate: | 8 October 2002 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Writer: | Jane Espenson | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Director: | James A. Contner | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cast: |
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Xander: "I've avoided Giles tons of times, just meant I was lazy, not evil."
Behind the Scenes Trivia
Better left unsaid
In the original promotion for the episode Same Time, Same Place, Spike was shown saying, “I mean, who doesn’t like skin?” but this line wasn’t aired in the episode.
Dawn’s issues
This line of Dawn’s was deleted from Same Time, Same Place:
Dawn: “Instead everyone just keeps secrets, and suffers alone, and then we’re supposed to be all sympathetic when they start ripping the skins off people or dragging their sisters to the basement! I may have some stuff to work through.”
Guestless
Same Time, Same Place is the first episode of the series in which there are no guest stars credited at the start of the episode.
Reused demons
The Gnarl demon suit from Same Time, Same Place was used again in the episode Conversations with Dead People. The costume was painted black and used in the scene where a demon is seen over Joyce’s body.
Skin cuts
The BBC and Sky One in the UK heavily cut the part of Same Time, Same Place where Gnarl peels and eats Willow’s skin.
The Bill
In an episode of The Bill (shown on 25th November 2003) a picture of Gnarl, the demon in Same Time, Same Place, appeared on a locker. The Bill is a long-running UK police drama series.
Cast and Crew Trivia
Camden Toy
Camden Toy played one of the Gentlemen in Hush, Gnarl in Same Time, Same Place and a Turok-Han in season seven. Camden also played a character called The Prince of Lies in the Angel episode ‘Why We Fight‘. Camden has also been in Irascible (which he also produced and edited), The Works, My Chorus, Deja Vu, The Devil May Care and Faith. His resume website lists his special skills as “Physical Comedy, Street Performance, Juggling, Coin Roll, Dialects, Cooking”. Camden enjoys meeting fans at various Buffy and Angel conventions around the world.
Character Trivia
Continuity
Demons, demons, demons
The website Dawn uses in Same Time, Same Place, called ‘Demons, Demons, Demons’, was first used by Cordelia on Angel in the episode ‘The Ring‘.
Flayed
In Same Time, Same Place, there are a lot of references to Willow’s flaying of Warren in Villains.
It’s gotta rhyme
A glimpse of Spike becoming more like his human self, William, is shown in Same Time, Same Place. He says to Buffy “What’s a word that means glowing? It’s gotta rhyme.” William asked the same thing of a waiter in the season five episode Fool For Love, while composing a poem about his love interest, Cecily. This is also part of the same speech he made to his mother in Lies my Parents Told Me - after he sired his mother and she was no longer sick.
Location
In Same Time, Same Place, Willow and Anya perform the same demon-finding locator spell that Willow and Tara did in Goodbye, Iowa.
Magic Box
Giles opened the new Magic Box shop in No Place Like Home and took on a new member of staff - Anya. He first eyed up the prospect of opening a magic shop in Real Me, after the previous owner was found dead. Giles dressed as a wizard for the grand opening but Buffy told him, without words, how very silly he looked.
The Magic Box is located at 5124 Maple Court in downtown Sunnydale. The phone number there is 803-555-8966. Their slogan is “Your one-stop spot to shop for all your occult needs. Let us make it easy”, which Tara says in Shadow is great in a hard-to-read way.
A sign at the Magic Box warns customers that “Shoplifters will be transfigured”.
The magic box was trashed by Olaf the Troll in Triangle, but miraculously restored by the next episode, Checkpoint. It was finally destroyed completely by Willow in Grave after she consumed dark magics and fought Giles there. We see in Same Time, Same Place that the Magic Box has an “Unsafe” sign on the outside, presumably because the building was structurally damaged.
Mix up
In Same Time, Same Place, Anya mentions a “mix up” that she had with the Scoobies, which occurred in Beneath You.
Phone number
The phone numbers shown in Buffy’s address book under the heading ‘Family Numbers’ in Same Time, Same Place are: Buffy’s work (555-0101), Xander’s office (555-0168), Dawn’s cell phone (555-0193). Giles’ number is on speed dial on the phone in the living room. 555 is the number commonly used for fictional numbers. Willow saw these numbers when looking for the Scoobies and didn’t think of calling them.
Red
In Fear, Itself, Xander calls Buffy “Red”. Spike called Willow “Red” in Same Time, Same Place and The Yoko Factor, and Faith called Willow this in This Year’s Girl. Kennedy also calls Willow “Red” in Chosen, when they’re in the Principal’s office getting ready for Willow to work her mojo.
Room swap
We see in Same Time, Same Place that Buffy has moved into her mother’s old bedroom and Willow is now sleeping in Buffy’s old bedroom. Previously, Willow and Tara had been using Joyce’s old room, when they moved into the Summers’ house after Buffy died.
Safety first
Buffy doesn’t seem to lock her doors. In Same Time, Same Place, Willow just walks into Buffy’s house through the back door whilst Buffy is out. In a place like Sunnydale, you’d be more careful. Vampires need an invite but burgler’s don’t!
Sexy spells
In the episode Same Time, Same Place, Willow asks for Anya’s help with a locator spell, and Anya asks if it will be sexy. This is a possible reference to the sexed-up Draconian Katra spell which Willow and Tara performed in Who Are You?
Viscera
In Lies My Parents Told Me, Drusilla says, “Ooh, such a pretty house you have, sweet William. It smells of daffodils… and viscera.” Dawn told Xander and Buffy in Same Time, Same Place that viscera is guts.
Willy’s Place
Sunnydale had a bar called Willy’s Place which catered for the vampire and demon population. It was first seen in What’s My Line? (Part 1) when Angel went there to question the bartender, Willy the Snitch. The bar was also seen in Amends, The Zeppo, Goodbye, Iowa and Family. In Same Time, Same Place, Xander suggests trying to get information at Willy’s place.
Yellow crayons
In Same Time, Same Place, Xander writes his “Welcome Home, Willow” sign in yellow crayon, which is something that featured heavily in his speech to stop Willow destroying the world in Grave. Xander also refers to this speech in Same Time, Same Place and, from the looks it, has related the story to Buffy and Dawn many times.
Music Trivia
Mythology Trivia
Gnarl
Gnarl was a parasite-demon with long fingernails that secreted a poison, which he used to paralyse his victims. The paralysis is permanent, but wore off when the demon was killed. Gnarl slowly cut off strips of his victim’s skin and ate it, while they are still alive. Gnarl also drank his victim’s blood. His weak spot was his eyes, and Buffy killed him by poking her thumbs into them in Same Time, Same Place.
Moving walls
In Same Time, Same Place, Xander comments that the blueprints for the school basement have become useless, as it seems like the walls move. This is probably the doing of the Hellmouth.
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.
References
Button, button
In his crazed state during Same Time, Same Place, Spike says, “Button, button, who’s got the button?” This is a children’s game where a button is hidden and must be found. The line was also used by Wonka in the 1971 film version of Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
Lord of the Rings
The demon Gnarl in the episode Same Time, Same Place, is very similar to the Lord of the Rings character Gollum. Jane Espenson confirmed that this was intentional in a post at the Bronze Beta: “Collect the money on the bet. There was some Gollum in the history of Gnarl.”
In Intervention, Xander says that Buffy called Glory’s minions “hobbits with leprosy”. He’s referring to J.R.R. Tolkien’s creatures from his book The Hobbit and the trilogy the Lord of the Rings. Hobbits are like men, but are much smaller, with large hairy feet. They are home-loving and enjoy food, parties and smoking pipes. Glory later calls Spike “Precious”, which is fitting as the Lord of the Rings character Gollum refers to the One Ring as “my precious”.
In Gone, Warren says to Jonathan, “Oh, cheer up, Frodo”. Frodo Baggins is a character from Lord of the Rings. In Chosen, the scenes of the thousands of CGI Turok-Han in the Hellmouth was clearly influenced by the scenes in the Mines of Moria in the Lord of the Rings movie The Fellowship of the Ring.
In Damage, Andrew reacts to Spike’s reappearance by comparing it to Gandalf’s resurrection in The Fellowship of the Ring (“more beautiful than ever”} before weeping on Spike’s shoulder and whispering “Frodo, he’s alive.”
In Power Play, Gunn calls Drogyn “Aragorn.” Aragorn is the name of a long-haired character in The Lord of the Rings, played in the movie version by actor Viggo Mortensen.
Sherlock Holmes
In the episode Same Time, Same Place, Dawn says, “it’s smellementary!” This is a twist on the famous phrase “it’s elementary”, used by Sherlock Holmes. He was a fictional detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle, and featured in many stories in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Goofs
Seen at 14.32 minutes:
Spike ripped off the hideous blue shirt (which I’m still having nightmares about) he wore in last week’s episode saying the ‘disguise’ didn’t work. But he’s wearing it again this week. I know he’s insane, but still…
Seen at 30.21 minutes:
When Xander and Buffy put Dawn on the couch, she is clearly face up as they begin to set her down. Yet the following shot shows her face down.
Seen at 31.42 minutes:
Willow’s skin and the amount of strips taken from it by Gnarl changes in different scenes.
Seen at 36.07 minutes:
Buffy wipes her hands on her trousers after poking out Gnarl’s eyes. The trousers don’t seem to be dirty. Later, when she talks to Willow in the bedroom, we see that she has changed her top but not her trousers, which should have demon goo on them.
Quotes
Dawn: "She didn't finish being not evil?"
Xander: "I've avoided Giles tons of times, just meant I was lazy, not evil."
Spike: "I'm insane... What's his excuse?"
Willow: "So, will you help me?"
Anya: "Is it difficult or time-consuming?"