Perri's Review

The long-awaited face-off with the Watchers Council is finally here... and not really what anyone expected.

Plot:
It's Scooby Gang meeting time at Casa Summers, and Buffy scurries around trying to clean up the joint (briefly distracted by finding a sweater of Riley's). Giles fills the awkward silence by telling the gang that the Watcher's Council is on their way, with information about Glory. Buffy freaks at the concept of being around the Council, given her disastrous dealings with them in the past. "They put me through that test and almost killed me. And then when I was Faith, they almost killed me again. Honestly, I really can't handle almost being killed right now!" Anya agrees. "They don't sound very ex-demon compatible." As the gang tries to calm both of them down, Dawn eavesdrops from the steps -- and gets caught. Buffy freaks, raising eyebrows among the gang. Giles' final conclusion is that they have no choice but to accept whatever help the Council offers, since they've made no headway on their own in tracking the all-powerful Glory.

Who is currently across town, lying huddled on the floor, sweating and shaking and a real un-glorificusy mess. Her minions crash through the door, dragging a terrified mailman between them, and urge Glory over to him, telling her to drink. She grabs and digs her fingers into his head, screaming as she sucks whatever it is she sucks from people, the collapses next to his body. When she gets up, she's back to her usual cheerfully obnoxious self, and the mailman is nuts). One minion takes his out; the other, Jinx, tells Glory, "The signs of the alignment are moving faster than expected. If you are to use the key, you must act quickly." Glory, eager to get the hell out of Sunnydale, is confident of her ability to deal with Buffy in plenty of time.

It's a normal business day at the magic shop the next morning, with Anya and Giles wandering around helping customers. But business hours are interrupted by the sudden arrival of a group -- nay, an army -- of Watchers, all wearing identical boring tweed suits (even the chick) and superior expressions. They are lead by our favorite Leader of the Losers, Quintin Travers -- the man stupid enough to fire both Giles and Wesley, and thereby rid himself of the only members of his little fraternity who can actually accomplish anything. (Why no, I don't have Issues with Quintin-baby or his stupid little beard. Why do you ask?) The Watcher proceed to immediately move in and take things over, kicking out customers, sniffing at Giles' merchandise, and bitching about whether or not he should be allowed to be doing any of this. Anya is appalled (and terrified, rattling off details of a fictitious life that no one is listening to) and Giles is furious, but more than slightly intimidated and can't really do much to stop it except be snarky. "You used to respect us, Giles. You used to be one of us," Quintin observes. "You used to pay me," Giles returns.

But even snarkiness is no defense against what Quintin has to say. Seems they've come up with lots of information on Glory -- some useful, some merely interesting. But he has no intention of handing it over until Buffy and Giles have proven that they are capable of dealing with the threat. In short, the Council has a few tests they'd like to run. Again. Giles assures them Buffy is up to any challenge.

Except the chore of staying awake through a boring history class. She fidgets and fusses, then winds up challenging the professor on making assumptions (like the assumption that people who are believed to be dead actually are dead). The professor, far too in love with his own dignity and the sound of his own voice, responds by humiliating Buffy. She slinks back to her chair, furious and helpless; there's a lot of that going around. Fortunately, Buffy gets to take it out on someone -- namely, the vampires unlucky enough to meet her on that night's patrol. The satisfying fight is broken up when Spike intervenes, leaping out of the darkness and staking her opponent. "You needed help," he says, expecting gratitude. "I didn't need you, Spike," Buffy shoots back in smiling, furious disgust. "I never need you." She tries to stalk away, but Spike follows her and, being Spike, strikes back. "You're just mad you weren't the on doing the rescuing. Wishing I was your boyfriend What's-his-height? Oh, wait, he's run off."

"I don't need a boyfriend, to rescue me or for any other reason."

"Don't need or can't keep?" The conversation degenerates from there, until Spike delivers his parting shot, "Maybe you just don't hold their interest," and wanders away.

Our old friend Dr. Ben is at the hospital when Glory's head minion appears behind him, dragging him into a nearby X-Ray room. He's got a message from Glory: she knows Ben knows the Slayer and wants information. "Buffy Summers is the Slayer?" Ben blinks, but regroups, informing the minion that he's not going to help Glory -- and enforces it.

"Bad day. Bad, bad day," Buffy concludes, as she strides into the magic shop in the wake of her fight with Spike and finds the Watcher bunch waiting for her. Needless to say, she's utterly thrilled at the whole concept of the testing process, which will include talking to her friends, among other things; Giles gets quite loud on her behalf as well. But Quintin impresses on them two things: if she cooperates, they can help her fight Glory. If she doesn't -- they'll shut down the magic shop and see that Giles is deported.

Jinx returns to Glory with Ben's refusal of help -- and an extremely messed-up face, courtesy of our mysteriously cute doctor. Glory is predictably furious at Ben's refusal to help her with this one little bitty thing. "He makes me so mad! If I could just get my hands on him...." Across town, Giles and Buffy are fighting some violent impulses of their own, but Giles is reluctantly forced to admit that Quintin can do everything he threatened. "The rough stuff, they're all right at. A bit ham-handed, but they get it done. But this stuff, the bureaucracy, the pulling political stings -- they're the best in the world. They can kill you with the strike of a pen -- poncy sods." He also can't reassure Buffy that she'll be able to pass the Council's tests, and Buffy is wigging. Her old insecurities about her abilities as a Slayer -- the 'handbook' part, anyway -- are coming back in full force, compounded by her past inabilility to handle Glory, and her fears for Dawn. But neither she nor Giles can come up with a way out of it, despite how much they hate the Council's methods. "Holding what they know hostage with a gun pointed at my bleeding green card, no less," Giles complains bitterly. "They're also smart," Buffy sighs, "they picked the perfect thing. I can't lose you."

It starts with the interviews; various Watchers interview the Scooby gang, from Xander and Anya (still in hyper-defensive "no ex-demons here" mode), to Willow and Tara (in hyper-defensive "we're lovers" mode). The interviews leave the gang in various states of worry -- it's been pointed out that Xander doesn't have much in the way of actual fighting skills, and Willow and Tara apparently aren't "registered" witches. The Watcher chick even puts Spike under the microscope -- in a stammering fan girl kind of way, since she wrote her thesis on him. He's still pissed off enough at Buffy to trash her, claiming that she's letting her personal life issues interfere with her work; but he also takes advantage of Watcher Chick's fascination to make sure Buffy's doing okay.

Which she definitely is not. A damned silly physical test (rescue the dummy while blindfolded and being attacked, with Quintin yelling the correct fighting moves to make -- in Japanese) is a dismal failure. Giles shouts translations to the confused Slayer, who finally says the hell with it and beats her opponents her way -- but accidentally 'kills' the dummy in the process. Quintin informs her that they're ready to move onto the mental tests that night -- he's giving her time to "prepare". Tired, afraid, and annoyed, Buffy drags home -- and finds an unexpected visitor in the living room. "Long day, sweetie?" Glory asks solicitously.

Glory is in her usual form, cheerfully insulting Buffy's home and intercepting an attempted Attack by Poker without chipping a nail or losing her smile. "Buffy, if I wanted to fight, you could tell by the being dead already." She settles back in a chair comfortably, and informs Buffy that she wants the Key. Buffy can handle that -- until Dawn wanders into the room behind Glory. Buffy tries to get her out through telepathy, but not before Glory brings her into the confrontation. Dawn knows trouble when she sees it, and faces Glory down when Glory tries to pump her for information. But she also gives her sister hell for never telling her anything. I'm going to figure it out, you know," she announces, before stomping out of the room.

"Ooh, I like her! She's sassy," Glory says gleefully, then sobers. "And I'll kill her. I'll kill your mom, I'll kill your friends, and I'll make you watch when I do. Just give me the Key. You either have it or you know where to find it." She stands and strolls over to the Slayer. "Obviously, this is a one-time only deal. Next time we meet, something you love dies bloody. You know you can't take me. You know you can't stop me." She leaves Buffy staring after her in resolved terror. "Pack a bag," Buffy tells Joyce.

Spike, peacefully asleep in his crypt, gets rudely awakened. "Oh, it's the Slayer," he realizes, after the shouting and the jumping to the feet. "For a second there, I was worried." He gets worried again when Buffy doesn't speak, just stares at him -- and when he looks past her to find Dawn and Joyce standing at the door. "I need your help," Buffy tells him. "You have to look after them." Spike tries to get cute, but realizes Buffy is dead serious. "You're the only one strong enough to protect them," she declares, and they stare at each other for a long moment. "All right then," Spike finally smiles, almost gently, and wanders past her to welcome his houseguests. Buffy leaves with the usual threats which Spike blows off with the usual smart-ass comments, and he and Joyce settle down to watch 'Passions' together.

Back at the magic shop, the Council continues to have free run of the joint while the disgusted Scooby Gang watches, sitting together with their legs dangling over the edges of an upstairs balcony, overlooking the store. Buffy is way late and Quintin is getting impatient for the torture to start. The Slayer herself hustles down the street towards them -- when a big guy in chainmail lunges out of nowhere to attack her. Two more appear from the shadows; they all start circling, whipping around swords and metal quarterstaffs. "Uh, guys?" Buffy asks. "Any way we could not do this?"

Apparently not; the chainmail dude move in for the kill, and Buffy takes them on. A few minutes later, there are little piles of chainmail all over the alley, and Buffy is kneeling over one of them with a quarterstaff at his throat. He's human, with a weird symbol tattooed on his forehead. "I'm a soldier in a vast army," he gasps out. "The Knights of Byzantium, an ancient order -- and now your enemy." But mostly Glory's enemy; they're out to stop the Beast, no matter how many bodies it takes. "So long as you protect the Key, the Brotherhood will never stop until we destroy it -- and you. Now be done with it. Kill us and let legions follow." Buffy stand up, and throws her quarterstaff away. The knight stands up, confused as hell, but takes off when she tells him to.

She's still carrying the sword when she strides into the magic shop, composed and thoughtful. When Quintin tries to start the test, she interrupts by simply laying the sword down on top of his books. When he looks up at her in surprise, she informs him, "There isn't going to be a review. No review. No interrogation. No questions you know I can't answer. No hoops, no jumps. And no interruptions."

She has everyone's undivided attention. "See, I've had a lot of people talking at me the last few days. Lining up to tell me just how unimportant I am. And I finally figured out why. Power. I have it. They don't. This bothers them." She starts wandering around the store, talking to herself more than anyone else. "Glory came to my house today -- just to talk. She told me I'm a bug, I'm a flea, she could squash me in a second. Only she didn't. She came into my home and we talked. We had what in her warped brain probably passes for a civilized conversation. Why? Because she needs something from me. Because I have power over her.

"You guys didn't come all the way from England to determine whether or not I was good enough to be let back in. You came to beg me to let you back in. To give your job, your lives, some semblance of meaning." One Watcher tries to get pissy at that, and she wings the sword across the room and into the wall next to him, to the quiet delight of the spectating Slayerettes. "I'm fairly certain I said no interruptions.

"You're watchers. Without a Slayer, you're pretty much just Watching Masterpiece Theatre. You can't stop Glory. You can't do anything with the information you have, except maybe publish it in the Everyone-Thinks-We're- Insano's Home Journal.

"So here's how it's going to work. You're going to tell me everything you know, and then you're going to go away. You will contact me if and when you have any further information about Glory. The magic shop will remain open, Mr. Giles will stay here as my official Watcher, reinstated at full salary." At a prompt from Giles, she adds, "To be paid retroactively from the month he was fired. I will continue my work with the help of my friends."

Watcher Chick works up the nerve to interrupt. "I don't want a sword thrown at me, but... civilians. We're talking about children." Buffy is unimpressed. "We're talking about two very powerful witches, and a thousand-year-old ex-demon." And as for Xander, she points out that, "'The boy' has clocked more field time than all of you combined. He's part of the unit." The Slayerettes grin happily with validation. "Now, you all may be very good at your jobs, but the only way we're going to find out is if you work with me. You can all take your time thinking about that, but right now, I want some answers from Quintin. Because I think he's understanding me."

He is, indeed. His hand is blown and he knows it; to his credit, he accepts defeat with dignity. "Your terms are... acceptable." The Slayerette peanut gallery explodes into cheers and applause, quelled only after a not-very-stern glance upwards from Giles. Buffy accepts victory with her own grace, then asks the big question. "Just tell me what kind of demon I'm fighting."

"Well, that's the thing, you see," Quintin answers slowly. "Glory isn't a demon." "What is she?"

"She's a god."

Buffy stares, frozen. "Oh."

Continuity:
So, Glory is much more than your garden-variety bad guy -- she's a god. She also knows where Buffy lives and has actively threatened Dawn and Joyce, as well as the other Slayerettes, if Buffy doesn't give her the Key. But she has some severe weaknesses; without her fix of stolen psyches, she's weak and vulnerable,a dn she's apparently working under a strict timetable.

And she's not the only one looking for the Key; there's a mob of chainmail-clad lunatic wandering around who are sworn to destroy the Key and anything that gets in their way, in order to defeat The Beast.

Glory has some definite kind of connection to Ben, but can't touch or apparently even speak to him herself. And he can beat the hell out of her minions without half trying.

Dawn is getting more and more suspicious about what secrets Buffy is keeping from her.

Giles has been reinstated as a full Watcher, and the Council has accepted that they are working for Buffy, rather than vice versa.

Relationships:
None to speak of; not a relationship kind of episode.

Characters:
Well, we never have expected much out of the Watcher Council, but I have to give them major points for this one. They walked into the magic shop, as Buffy so relentlessly pointed out, in a position of complete powerlessness -- and damn near put themselves back in power through sheer force of attitude and arrogance. They put Giles and Buffy on the defense from the first second, and might have pulled it off if so many other people hadn't been trying the same trick. Much as I despise Quintin Travors' motives and methods and, well, pretty much everything about him -- the man knows his head games, and plays them well. And I kind of liked the Watched chick; it was funny to watch her going fan girl around Spike, and she was truly worried about the potential for the Slayerettes getting caught in the cross-fire. She might actually make a good Watcher someday.

And she has a point. From the beginning, the involvement of the Slayerettes has been a ore point with the Watchers, and for good reason -- until recently, Willow and Xander have survived through luck and will more than skills. With WIllow's (and recently Tara's) involvement in magic, and Xander's growing awareness of strategy and tactics -- and the sheer amount of 'field time' they've collectively put it -- it's not an issue any more. And how cool was it to have Buffy affirm that? Mind you, they have got to work on Anya's mouth, but I don't think the council is going to be giving the ex-demon any trouble any time soon. < g >

And Giles is once again caught in the crossfire between his former employers and his Slayer. He comes through in style, giving Quintin and the Council as much hell as he can before they slam him over the barrel of his green card. ASH does his usual outstanding job, showing Giles' fear and rage and frustration and the absolutel control he keeps over all of them. And he gets paid back with Buffy's admission of how important he is in her life -- the Council threatened to take away the one thing that has been absolutely stable in her life since she was Chosen. And the look of utter pride and glee on his face when Buffy called the Council's bluff was just priceless!!!

You gotta love Spike (I keep starting his sections out like that). He's got absolutely no clue what to do to get Buffy to like him, but he's out there trying. And being a right bastard whenever she blows him off, but you really expect anything else from Spike? And she can be pretty seriously ungrateful; when she yells at the Slayerettes for interfering in a fight, it's usually out of concern. When she yells at Spike, it's just to be pissy. And no matter how much he bitches, and how much she insults him, when she actually does break down and ask for his help -- he's right there. He's snarky about it, natch, but I pity any of Glory's minions who go after Joyce and Dawn when Spike's on guard, I really do. He'd get his ass kicked by Glory, but he'd still try. You gotta love him.

The relationship between Glory and Ben keep sgetting more interesting, considering they've never been on screen together. They're obviously siblings at this point, but who can tell what side Ben's on. His refusal to help Glory is a good sign, but the kind of violence we've seen him exhibit is not a good thing. And if his sister is a god... what is he? Besides cute and apparently cool, that is -- have I mentioned the cute and cool part?

Best Moments:
The whole opening conversation about Watchers, particularly with the newbies chiming in, was hysterical. Giles' face throughout the discussion of Watchers=evil and Brit sterotypes was just priceless.

The Council's entrance into the magic shop was hugely irritating (I wanted to drop kick them back to England ) but a masterpiece of Attitude as Offense. Really well done.

Giles and Buffy contemplating Quintin's threats. The short exchange of Buffy telling Giles that she can't lose him was incredibly touching.

All of the interviews were way too funny for words -- all of the girls insecure and just contributing way more information than anyone wanted to hear and the Watchers listening with total deadpans. < snerk > Anya's obviously-rehearsed riff was particularly entertaining.

Buffy and Glory's face-down in the house. Clare Kramer does a great job of radiating menace without losing the incredibly irritating first-season Cordelia smile. And the silent exchanges between Buffy and Dawn were beautiful.

Buffy asking Spike for help. Her desperation and her conviction that this is the only way to protect her family are all over her face, and you have to respect her for sucking it up and doing what she has to do. And the smile on Spike's face, and his refusal to rub it in win him major points.

Buffy's showdown with Quintin. SMG does a great job showing Buffy's mental processes, her relief and enjoyment -- and awareness of the responsibility -- of her power, and her grace in victory. Really cool.

And as wonderful as Buffy's showdown with the Council was, the constant cuts back to the Slayerettes were fantastic, the peanut gallery watching with so much fascination, I expected Anya to pull out that bag of popcorn again. The cheers were a particularly nice touch.

Questions and Comments:
Xander's wrist is still broken and can I just say how much I love that! It's little details like this that make continuity happen. On the other hand, the taste in headgear on this show continues to suck; can we please ditch the black watch caps on the chicks once and for all?

Goody, another gang of lunatics wandering around. Who are the Knights of Byzantium, and are they going to be pointy?

I wonder how Wesley is going to react to Giles being reinstated. Just a thought....

Rating: 4.5 out of 5. An absolutely solid entry in the season's arc, addressing the whole Watcher Council issue and doing it well. I was right there with Buffy and Giles in the incredible frustration and hatred of the Council, which made it all the better when they broke out of it and called the bluff. Awesome both for plot advancement -- and there was a lot of that -- and for character development.

SunSpeak

"My main comment on this ep: as satisfying as it would have been to hand the insufferable Mr. Travers his balls in a teacup, this was *so* much more so. Altho, now that I think about it, it figuratively amounts to the same thing. *snerk* I am so, so, SO glad we finally got the Council being well and truly (and, just to twist the knife, quite civilly) put in their place by the Slayer...without whom, as they seem to have forgotten, they *have* no place. Mind you, any scrap of them leading up to that moment was almost unbearably irritating, due to Buffy's temporary acquiescence to their blackmail. I still would have really liked to see them physically damaged, but this was nobler, and the satisfaction will be much more lasting."
"I especially liked getting to watch good chunks of it from over the Slayerettes' shoulders in the peanut gallery." -- Valerie and Dianne

"I'm always telling the good guys (what? you mean you _don't_ coach the characters from your livingroom sofa??? < g >) to pour on the attitude-- that serious attitude can get you remarkably far alone if used well. It just never really occured to me that the bad guys could pull the same thing. They walked in with nothing, but poured on enough attitude and confidence that they almost pulled it off anyway." -- Dianne

"So...Glory's a god, huh? Can't say I'm too surprised. Doesn't exactly throw a flattering light on her, does it? I mean, if she were a demon, she'd be pretty damn impressive. As a god, kinda lacking. Sorry, sweetie, we demand more from our gods these days. *eg* As she will no doubt be informed at some point in the relatively foreseeable future. Of course, being BTVS, they've cleverly answered a question we weren't necessarily really asking, and in the process brought up a whole gaggle of new ones: Are we right about Ben being her brother? Does that make him a god too? Why is Glory so desperate to get the Key? What's wrong with her that she has to slurp mortal sanity on a regular basis? Is insanity her natural state? Is she staving it off by those means in order to function in this world and get what she's after? If so, how did she figure out to do that? Did Ben give her the idea, intentionally or otherwise? And on and on and on..." -- Valerie

"Oh, I don't know that she was sucking sanity, so much as some variant of "lifeforce" -- something I can see sending anyone over the bend. She didn't seem insane, just pathetically weak. And that's perfectly normal for gods in certain parts of the world. The Aztecs had to keep up regular still-beating-heart blood sacrifices just to keep the universe from collapsing!"
"I can see that. I guess I'm going from the first time we saw her do it--that sequence of her raving about "make all this birthing stop", then getting all collected after she slurped the guy. This time, you're right, she was really weak; I'm guessing that's the stage that comes after the raving. So, hard to tell." -- Dianne and Valerie

" I can see Glory as some god who once had worshippers offering themselves regularly and who gained her strength from that -- but who has fallen on hard times popularity-wise and is now down to the god-equivalent of stealing bread (or having her last minions do it) to stay alive. This may well be why she's after the key. Longing for her < pardon the pun > Glory Days? Would the key put her back in a situation to be feared/worshipped on a grand scale?" -- Dianne

"Other big question that came careening into the picture near the end of the ep: Who are these Knights of Byzantium twerps? And what the hell makes them think they'd be any more capable of keeping the Key away from Glory than the Slayer is? And why did the one say "Slayer" as if it were nearly as bad a word as "Glory"? Do they know something about the "dark" nature of the Slayer's power? And how pigheaded and counterproductive are they gonna be about the inevitable necessity of working *with* her to stop Glory?" -- Valerie

"My impression was that they had the same intention (keep the Key from evil hands) but a different approach. Buffy and the monks who produced Dawn want to hide the Key-- the Byzantine guys are taking the very practical, if somewhat cold, approach that the only way to make sure Glory doesn't get it is to _destroy_ it. I think they're pissed at the Slayer because they see her 'misguided' attempt at preserving the Key alive as a sure way to guarentee that one day Glory will eventually get ahold of it. In their eyes, instead of helping to destroy this terribly dangerous power, the Slayer is not only protecting it, but hindering their quest. Bascially, by being weak/sentimental/impractical, Buffy becomes a traitor who is ultimately helping their worst enemy. And, to be honest, they have a point. Destroying the Key is likely to be far easier to accomplish than forcibly stopping Glory... and with the same effect. Except for being sympathetic for Dawn's own sake, I'd have to agree with them--disable and destroy the damned nuclear bomb, rather than spend your lives constantly trying to keep it out of the terrorist's hands!" -- Dianne

"Yeah, and while the Knights-Who-Say-*Ni!* may think that killing Dawn will destroy whatever it is that makes her "the key", it's entirely possible that killing the human aspect may release a more pure-energy form of the key, which would _still_ be in this universe and accessible to Glory. At least, that's what I was wondering about last night..." -- Maureen

"This makes sense. And they have a point in a way, but I suspect a couple things that, if true, they're failing to take into account: (1) that the Key *can* be destroyed (which I seriously doubt--more on that in a second); and (2) that it *should*...as in, destroying it could have consequences of its own. But the monk said "the Key is energy"...what kind, we don't know, but to me that says it probably can't be destroyed per se. Pesky laws of conservation and all that. Sending it into some other realm of reality would probably come under the definition of "destroy" in many folks' books, and with good reason; but we have no idea whether that would guarantee it would be out of Glory's reach. So far I'm really getting the impression (admittedly, from one guy who admits that he and his buddies were a little overly gung-ho about the attacking-the-Slayer thing) that these guys don't necessarily have all the info, and/or haven't necessarily thought through this plan to destroy the Key. Maybe I'll change my mind once we hear more from them." -- Valerie

"Lots of neat little bits during the various "interviews", especially Willow and Tara's rapid build to a defiant declaration of their relationship...to someone who wasn't actually asking, and clearly couldn't care less. *giggle*" -- Valerie

"Great Giles ep. < g > Which always makes me happy. And they finally addressed the green card question that a lot of people have played with in fic, but has never really been brought up on the show before. Wonderful emotional stuff from Tony, and they've pretty much re-established the Buffy-Giles relationship that originally made me so happy. She might be 20, and a really accomplished Slayer at this point, but he's her main emotional support in this. Willow and Xander could (and would) take up the slack if he got deported, but it wouldn't be as easy for her to do her job well without Giles to rely on." -- Chris

"Those baby Watchers were SO annoying! And I just wanted to smack Travers again! How very satisfying, to have Buffy realize the truth of the situation and lay it out for them at the end. I guess they *aren't* Eeeevil; most of the worst of their sins has been inferred, rather than blatant... but I still don't like them. Poncy twits." -- Chris

"That one chick going fangirl over Spike, with her cohorts still pointing weapons at him that he totally ignored, was priceless. < chortling a lot > Not to mention James doing the vibe thing making it all the more believable." -- Chris

"Did anyone else start singing "Knights of the Round Table" when Buffy got jumped by the Crusaders for Byzantium? < ~la la la la la la, la la la, la la la...~ > Okay, so they're against Glory, but they think that destroying the Key would help thwart her? I 'm half wondering if they're right, only this is an unacceptable option because of Dawn--- of if they have no *clue* about what they're talking about, and are just being Testoterone Dudes because they have swords, and it's the only idea they could come up with. I look forward to getting the rest of the story from Travers next week, since there *has* to be a way to derail Glory." -- Chris

"I'm also now wondering what it is that the key opens... if Glory is a god, maybe she's somehow been exiled from the realm of the gods, and the key is her way back in ("Dogma" flashbacks, anyone...? ). Oh, and that may be why she needs to "feed" all the time -- she doesn't have the same power here that she would have in her proper realm, and needs more energy to stay alive." -- Maureen

"Anya Christina Emmanuela Jenkins." < much giggling > That's it, Anya, more names makes you more believable as a human."
"Did'ya notice that both "Christina" and "Emmanuela" both basicically mean "of Christ"? Anya seems to be regretting her pagan/heathen roots, here. < snicker > -- Chris and Maureen

"fortunately for Buffy's argument, Glory has made it very clear that she's running out of time to do whatever it is she wants to do. So Buffy doesn't have to keep the Key away from her forever, just until she's missed her chance." -- Valerie