Dawn enters her first day of high school.  Buffy discovers sinister things that lurk there.

Buffy meets the new principal Woods who takes an interest in her.  He is a likable chap, who is a bit like Levar Burton but taller.

There is some forboding here.  A girl in Instanbul gets chased and stabbed.  Why we don't know.  Later Spike either has hallucinations or is visited by ghosts warning of the Hell to come.  This visitor keeps changing from person to person, all evil people, and then confusingly turns into Buffy.  The conclusing that I draw is that Spike is somehow important to the evil that will come.

I complained about the end of season 6 lacking relationships to give the show its emotional center.  I don't see much difference here.  The best Dawn-Buffy scene occurs at the beginning.  What we get instead are surprises and fairly standard action sequences.

Twice Dawn gets to fight evil forces.  The way she does it makes me think that she has some slayer in her.

"From beneath you it devours."  It is a warning that Buffy gets in a dream.  Later the waring is repeated by someone.  I am not sure who but I think that it was Spike.  Is it the new monster that crawls under Sunnydale? (Which by the way, reminded me of the way Bugs Bunny crawls under the earth.)  I get the impression that the warning is for something much more sinsister that maybe we will see later.

What I like about this episodes is that the relationships start to work again.  Xander is not just furniture like he was in the previous episode.  He might have a possible new love interest, although we get a hint that maybe not.  I hope that we see the lady again.  On the other hand, the Buffy and Spike relationship is at least a working one if not more.  Buffy finds out about Spike's soul and is obviously moved by the gesture.  Even the Anya-Xander relationship shows some hint of rekindling.

I found myself wondering which was the better episode, this one or the previous one?  Both shows are clever.  Both shows present monsters that are interesting and different.  Both episodes explore the interaction of the characters and their relationships.

As interesting as the monster was, it grossed me out.  I almost couldn't stand to watch one scene.  The other thing that got a little old was the repeating time segments.

This episode is probably the better show because the theme of forgiveness gives it emotional pull.  Poor Willow is conflicted over how her friends will receive her.  I very much like the ending which shows beautifully that Buffy forgives Willow.

A few questions come to mind:

1. How many people did Willow kill?  I think that it was 2, Warren and Rack.
2. How many people did Willow try to kill?
3. Why would these other near victims forgive Willow?  Dawn is certainly reluctant.
4. Was Evil Willow really Willow?  If the drug analogy is correct then it really was Willow but not in her right mind.

Buffy starts her new job as a school counselor. Buffy counsels a student who claims to know the day and time of her own death. (The student is brilliantly played by Azura Skye. This actress should have her own series.)

It is interesting to see Buffy in a job that she is probably good at (other than slaying vampires.) It is also interesting to see the type of student problems that she is presented with.

The episode is memorable because the situation is so unusual. There is some foreshadowing of future events. This makes it entertaining. There is not a lot here, however, that would make me watch the show a second time.

The most poignant moments are Spike helping Buffy and Willow visiting Tara's grave. I like that Willow put pebbles on Tara's grave. I don't know what it means but it is still a tender scene.

I also like Buffy catching an arrow midair.

Although Spike's chip probably does work, I get the strong impression that it does not work as well as it used to. He shows less pain while fighting a student. This might be more foreshadowing.

Buffy reintegrates Anya into the group. Spike moves in with Xander. Dawn, Buffy, Willow and Anya fall in love with the same boy, which causes them to do irrational things. Spike and Xander try to save the girls from an apparent love spell.

About 75% of the way into this show it becomes funny and entertaining. The scene where Buffy tries to kill principal Woods is hilarious especially when Spike tries to stop her. The problem with this episode is the first 45 minutes. The setup is unpleasant. I hate seeing Dawn and Buffy behave in such an irrational way. Dawn hurts one of her classmates, lies about it, and then throws a snit after a bad cheerleading try out. Meanwhile Buffy tries to hump a teenager.

The scene where Buffy rescues Dawn from a train is one of the most confusing of the whole series. The scene alternates between a train going left and a train going right. After watching it a second time I realized that there were 2 different trains but this is by no means clear at first. Adding to the confusion is the impossible way that Buffy rescues Dawn. She jumps from a train only to barely rescue Dawn in time. If the train is moving so slowly that Buffy can hop on the train then it would seem likely that she could run as fast or faster than the train anyway. Why does she need to hop on, or climb to the top of a box car to jump off?

This would have been a great story line to incorporate with another story, but by itself it feels like a fraction of an episode. As far as I am concerned, someone screwed up on this episode. It is a combination of weak writing and bad direction. At first I felt like it was the worst episode of the whole series, but by the end I found myself laughing and amused.  

Actually if you start watching the episode 45 minutes into it, you get the best part and you don't really miss anything worth seeing.

There is a lot to digest here. There are 4 related story lines:

1. The most important story line is Willow talking to the apparent ghost of the teenage girl who died. The reason why this is important is because we find out that the ghost is not who she appears to be. This means that any dead person who appears as a ghost could in fact be something evil instead.
2. Dawn talks to the ghost of her mother and gets some startling news.
3. Buffy has an extended touchy-feely conversation with a vampire.  I didn't quite get this one, since why pour your heart out to something evil?  It raises the question as to how evil the vampires really are and if they retain much of the personality of the body they inhabit?
4. Spike picks up a girl in a bar and then kills her. We didn't think that Spike could do this since he has a chip in his head and now even has a human soul. Maybe it wasn't really Spike?