Eh, I didn't think much of this season opener, but most people disagree with me.  What did you think ?

The first episode of this season opens up with a vampire emerging from his grave.  The Scooby gang, minus Buffy, tries to slay the vamp but fails miserably.  They talk about how easy Buffy always made it look, and wonder if she knows school starts the next day.  They wish they knew where she was.  Cut to a beach at sunrise, where Buffy and Angel stand by the crashing waves.  Buffy wonders how Angel found her there, and he tells her he'll always be with her, even if she kills him.  Buffy wakes up from the dream, and walks over to the window of her efficiency apartment, looking outside as a cop car drives by, sirens flashing.  That morning, Buffy's waiting tables at a local diner, going by the name of Anne.  At one table she waits on a couple who're really into each other; they even have matching tattoos with each other's names on their arms.  The girl wonders if she's seen Buffy before, and to duck out of a possible acquaintance, Buffy leaves early.  In the library at school (in Sunnydale), Willow tells Giles about the failure the night before, and Giles tells her and the gang to be careful.  Cordelia comes in from her summer vacation in Mexico, and asks how Xander is.  After asking how her hair is about three times, she exits.  Oz suddenly shows up and Willow asks him what he's doing there.  It turns out that he had lots of incompletes the year before, and has to repeat his senior year.  Xander pops in and asks if Willow's seen Cordelia, then goes off to find her.  As Willow and Oz still talk about the weirdness of him being a senior again, Cordelia and Xander meet up rather awkwardly, then leave before they really say anything meaningful to each other.  Later, in the library, Giles has 'another' lead as to where Buffy might be, and catches a flight out of Sunnydale. In L.A., Buffy's walking down the street when the girl from the diner calls her "Anne" from behind, several times.  She doesn't respond until she calls out "Buffy".  She re-introduces herself to Buffy as Chantrelle, the girl from that cult that worshipped vampires (Lie to Me, season 2).  She says she would never turn Buffy in, as she knows what it's like to want to change your identity and be someone else.  Lily/Chantrelle herself has had several different lives already, by this point.  Just then a homeless looking guy runs in between them and out into the road, where he's about to get hit by a car.  Buffy runs out and knocks him out of the way, and gets hit instead.  Everyone crowds around her, but she jumps up and runs away.  Running home, she bumps into (literally) a man on the corner handing out fliers to runaways and so forth for a teen home.  He reflects that she looks just as lost as a lot of the other kids he sees in this city, and how this place is a last stop for many.  (this guy, by the way, is the same actor as who played the new husband to Doyle's ex-wife in "The Bachelor Party", in the Angel series)  He invites Buffy to come to the "Family Home", but she declines. At the Bronze, Xander and Willow feel kind of depressed without Buffy.  They also discuss how they're losing half of the vamps they go after on patrol.  At Buffy's house, Joyce lets Giles in, who's back from his trip.  He tells Joyce that the latest lead was a no-go.  Joyce says she's afraid to leave the house almost, in case she calls.  Giles tells her she shouldn't blame herself for Buffy's leaving, and Joyce says she doesn't...that she blames Giles, because he had this whole relationship with her behind her back, and was such a huge influence on her.  At the diner in L.A., Lily tells Buffy that her boyfriend is missing.  Buffy tries to get out of helping her, but ends up going with her to help looking for him.  They check out the blood center first, as he and Lily went there sometimes to give blood for money, but the nurse on duty tells him he's not there.  She is suspicious looking.  Buffy and Lily decide to split up to cover more area.  Buffy finds a dead old man in some tunnels under the city, but sees the tattoo on his arm with Lily's name on it.  She goes back to her apartment and tells Lily, but Lily at first refuses to believe that he's dead.  After she finally accepts it, she thinks that Buffy brought this evil with her, and storms out.  Outside, the guy Ken (from the family home) finds her and tells her that Ricky is with them.  Lily leaves with him. At the blood center later, Buffy breaks in to find Ricky's file.  The only thing she can find odd about his file is the word "candidate".  The nurse from earlier shows up, and Buffy questions her.  The nurse tells her that she "gives him the names of the healthy ones".  Cut to the Family Home, where Ken has had Lily dressed in a white gown, and takes her into another room.   In Sunnydale, the gang has convinced Cordelia to come along as bait.  Instead of acting as such, she follows Xander to his hiding spot and argues with him about their 'relationship'.   Behind Willow, a vampire approaches.  Back at the Family Home, Ken is trying to get Lily to participate in a little "cleansing" ritual, promising that she'll see Ricky afterwards.   She dips her hand into this icky black viscous liquid just as Buffy bursts in.  She starts to question Ken, but Lily is suddenly pulled into the liquid from within.  Buffy starts to go after her, but struggles with Ken first.  They both fall in, landing on a dry floor on the 'other side'.  Buffy helps Lily up, and they both look on in horror as 'Ken's' face comes off, revealing his demon one underneath.  He calls for guards, and Buffy and Lily run out of the room into a larger one, where people are being forced to work by more of the demons.  'Ken' follows them, and knocks Buffy out.  Meanwhile, Xander and Cordelia are still arguing over whether or not each of them found someone else over the summer, when they hear a thump, and then Willow's scream.  The camera pans back to show Willow being attacked by a vampire, and Oz runs rapidly from off camera over to the vamp, pulling him off and hurling him away from Willow.  It throws Oz down, and confronts Xander.  Xander and Cordelia team up against it, and kill it, kissing afterward. Buffy awakens in a cell with Lily, and Ken explains to them that this place is just like hell.  The absence of all hope; the realization of despair.  In this place, a hundred years passes by in what is a day in the outside world.  All of the new arrivals are set out before the 'work demon', who tells them that they are now nothing, and no one.  Buffy won't stand for the cruelty he shows one of the teens, and attacks him, defeating him and some other guard demons.  She gathers up the rest of the prisoners and starts to lead an escape.  Buffy creates a distraction by fighting a bunch of the demon guards, while Lily rounds up the other prisoners.  This is a very cool fight scene by the way.  Lily manages to put 'Ken' out of commission for the moment, and Buffy helps the others escape the gate leading back to the pool.  Buffy kills Ken, and all the prisoners escape.  Back at Buffy's apartment, Buffy tells Lily she can take the apartment, and Buffy's job.  Lily decides that she's going to go by Anne now.  Back in Sunnydale, Joyce answers a knock at the door to find Buffy standing there.  They embrace.  FLAWS:      In one scene, Larry's walking with some friends and saying how their senior year is gonna rock if they do good on the football team, and have not so many unexplained deaths.  Question:  In Phases, last season, Larry came up to Oz and said "So Oz, dating a junior...what's THAT all about?", which led me to believe that he, like Oz, was a senior.  So I dunno, maybe there's a perfectly good explanation..maybe he was only referring to how Oz was a senior, or maybe he repeated as well? Whatever.  Also, right after Buffy runs into Ken on the corner, we see a scene of a woman standing at the streetside.  It lasts just long enough to recognize it as the opening scene in the opening Angel credits. THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE:       Eh.  The third season is not my favourite.  This was the first episode of the Buffy series that I didn't really like overmuch.  There were like, two cool parts in the whole thing, both derived from Oz, and the rest just sucked.  Down with the third season! BEST LINE:       None.

"Anne"

Eh, I didn't think much of this season opener, but most people disagree with me.  What did you think ?