We open later in the same night as "No Place Like Home". Willow remarks that Tara has been "spell girl" day and night lately, and Tara says she just wants to be able to keep up with Willow, and be a useful part of the gang.  Willow says she is, and then wonders if Buffy found out anything at the warehouse that night. Cut to Buffy and Giles in the living room at her house. Buffy has just told him what she learned that night from the monk; that Dawn is "the key", and not her sister.  Giles asks if she's going to tell Dawn, and Buffy says no.  She'd freak out, and she says they have to keep her safe.  Giles wonders if they should send Dawn away; maybe to her father?  Buffy says Hank is in Spain with his secretary, and will be of no use to them.  She says they sent  Dawn to her, and she has to take care of her.  Giles asks if they tell the others, and Buffy says no.  They'd act weird around her, and it's safer for everyone if they don't know.  Giles remarks that they have to find out who this woman is that attacked Buffy, and Buffy says she'll come for them. Cut to the warehouse, where the woman in red bursts up out of the wreckage in the room, alive and unhurt. The next day everyone helps Buffy pack up her stuff from her dorm room; she's moving back  home.  Anya bitches that they just moved her in there two days ago, and Xander can't believe she's giving up her cool new room.  Buffy says with her mom sick, it's probably better to just stay at home and save some money this semester anyway.  Riley and Xander goof off a little, and Buffy worries when Dawn doesn't come back into the room right away.  Everyone's back in the room when Tara tries cracking a joke, trying to join in with the easy comraderie everyone else seems to share, but nobody gets it.  Tara leaves with another load, berating herself, and Willow reminds everyone that tomorrow night at 8 p.m. is Tara's birthday party.  At the hospital, Intern Ben gets off work and goes to the locker room to change.  The camera pans back toward the door, stopping on a funky demon with a weird tongue, as it stalks Ben.  Suddenly, from behind, the woman in red grabs the demon, saying she needs a favor. At the Magic Box, Anya excitedly relates to Giles how much she enjoys the whole money cycle. The customers pay for their items, Giles pays her, etc.  Buffy and Xander come in, and neither one of them really know what to get Tara for her birthday.  They don't really know her very well, they don't think.  They sit down to try to find some information on the woman in red, which is an investigation going exactly nowhere, so far.  Buffy says she has a present-buying headache, and Xander advises her to go work off some tension or something to make her feel better. Cut to Buffy and Spike fighting in his crypt.  They pummel each other pretty good before Spike throws Buffy up against the wall.  "You want me Slayer, come and get me!" Spike shouts.  "Oh I'm coming," Buffy promises, launching herself away from the wall, "I'm coming right now!"  Suddenly we cut to Spike and Harmony just finishing having sex, and we realize that the entire previous scene was Spike's fantasy.  Harmony wants to know what Spike's thinking, and he lies and says he's thinking all about her. Back at the Magic Box, Buffy and Xander are still trying to figure out what to get Tara.  Giles thinks they're both pretty stupid; they're in a magic shop, yet they can't think of what she might like.  Xander says what's he supposed to do, get her a cheesy crystal ball?  Giles says he'd better not, his is already wrapped.  As they talk there's a guy perusing the bookshelves.  He pretty obnoxiously intrudes upon their conversation, and asks them questions about the books they're looking for.  Just then Tara and Willow come in, and the guy greets Tara.  "What's the matter?" he asks, "You don't have a hug for your big brother?" Tara introduces Willow and the others to "Donnie", and suddenly Tara's stuttering again, even though she hasn't done that yet this season.  She asks how he found her, and then corrects herself and asks why he came.  He implies that it's for her birthday, and just then her father and a cousin walk in the shop, too.  The father pretty much orders her to have dinner with him that night to "catch up", to which Tara can only respond with a "yes sir".  He and her brother and cousin leave, and Tara doesn't really  want to talk about it afterward; instead proposing they get into research mode. At the Summers house, Buffy comes in and greets Riley as he comes down the stairs, having stowed the rest of her stuff away.  They play kissy face for a minute until Buffy catches Dawn leaving to go have dinner at a friend's house.  Buffy tells her she can't go, saying it's family night, though we realize she's really just trying to keep Dawn close by so she can protect her.  Dawn stalks off, and Riley asks Buffy why she's coming down on Dawn so hard all the sudden.  Knowing that she can't tell him the truth about Dawn, Buffy tells him she just feels safer with everyone close, in the light of this new evil thing.  Riley offers to contact Graham, and get the government boys in on it, but Buffy stridently objects to that idea.  Riley feels like she's pushing him away, and gets up and leaves.  At Tara's dorm room, she comes in to find her Father already there.  He says he was a bit early, but he supposes she wanted him to find her room like this (meaning all the magic stuff in it).  He says she doesn't even try to hide it anymore.  He'd thought this whole "witchcraft thing" was just a phase, but then someone at the dorm had told him they could find her at the Magic shop, and he realized she was just as into it as ever.  Tara says she hadn't known he was coming, and he said of course he would.  She's turning twenty, and that's the same age her mother was.  Their dialogue is all very cryptic, and we're not sure what he's getting at, but it seems clear that her mother went through something at twenty, and he expects Tara will go through the same thing.  He wonders if her friends even know, and Tara lies and says yes.  He knows she's lying, and orders her to come home with them.  He says she can't control what's going to happen; she's got evil inside of her, and it will come out.  He says he doesn't feel like eating anymore and starts to leave, after saying that her family will always love her, no matter what.  How does she think her friends will feel after they see her true face? Cut to the inside of a closet, where the woman in red (who's not wearing red at this moment) throws shoes at the demon she snatched earlier to wake it up.  She questions it about who Buffy is, and it tells her she's the slayer.  She orders him to "get his friends" and find and kill Buffy.  Back at Tara's dorm, Willow has come to pick up Tara to go to the Magic Box for an impromptu scooby meeting.  Tara pleads fatigue, and Willow leaves without her, but says she'll fill her in in the morning, and then they'll be demon hunters.  Tara looks worried, and rifles through a book. At the Magic Box, the gang all gathers around the table, and Tara enters through the back door.  She looks in on the gang, and casts a spell in a whisper, blowing some technicoloured dust, which wafts in and infects the gang. Tara leaves.  At Willy's Place, Riley orders another drink from the barkeep who is, unfortunately, not Willy.  A woman comes in and sits down on the stool next to Riley's, and introduces herself as Sandy.  He buys her a drink and she says they should go somewhere a little more private.  He tells her it's no good; his heart belongs to another.  Besides, he doesn't go out with vampires.  Cut to Spike in his crypt, staring at the head of the mannequin in the blonde wig.  Obviously, he's thinking about Buffy.  Harmony comes in and he quickly puts it down.  Harmony rambles a bit and Spike doesn't listen, until she says she heard there was this demon who got recruited by some big nether-world chick to go kill the slayer.  That gets his attention, and he grabs his duster, heading off to get a front row ticket.  Elsewhere, Tara cuts across the quad and runs into her cousin Beth, who quickly berates her when she finds out Tara has no intention of coming home with them.  She says her father has been worried sick about her since she left, and that he and Donnie have had to take care of themselves while she was down here "living God knows what kind of lifestyle".  Beth says she can't wait until her friends see what she really looks like, and Tara says they won't.  Beth realizes she cast a spell on them, and threatens to tell her father.  Tara begs her not to, saying it's harmless, but she just didn't' want them to see the demon part of her. Cut to Buffy stretching in the training room at the Magic Box.  Out front, Willow answers a knock at the door, but doesn't' see the three demons standing there.  Cut back to Beth telling Tara  she recommends telling her friends before they find out on their own, and then back to the Magic Box where the demons wander around amongst the scooby gang without them knowing it.  They go into the back room and attack Buffy.  She can't see them, but fights back.  She calls out to Giles that there's something in there.  Xander goes to the door, but one of the demons grabs him.  It knocks him to the floor and starts strangling him.  Willow grabs a chair and hits the space right above Xander, and the demon ceases.  Giles grabs Dawn and tells her to get under the desk, which she does.  Back in the back room, one demon has Buffy on the ground, while the other one circles, when Spike comes in with a satisfied look on his face.  He sets in to watch, but when he sees one of the demons about to hurt Buffy he jumps in and attacks it, keeping it from her.  Buffy manages to knock hers out, and looks around the room.  She doesn't see anything (including Spike), and heads back out to the front. She demands silence, and tries to listen to hear where the demon might be.  Tara walks in just then, and warns Buffy that the demon is behind her.  Back in the back, Spike kills his demon.  Back up front, Buffy asks Tara if she can see the demon, as it continues to thrash her.  Tara quickly undoes her spell, and Buffy can finally see it as it knocks Tara down.  Tara's family comes in just as Buffy kills the final demon, and Tara cries and says she's sorry, but she just didn't want them to see what she was.  Willow doesn't  understand, and the father explains that the women in their family have demon in them.  Her mother had it, and he says that's where the magic comes from.  Giles realizes that Tara cast a spell on them to keep them from seeing her demons side.  Tara jumps to her feet, sobbing, saying she's sorry, and ready to go.  Willow says Tara just made a mistake, and asks her if she wants to go.  Tara shakes her head no.  The father demands that she come with them, but Buffy says he'll have to go through her first.  Soon everyone unites on Tara's behalf, and Tara, touched, smiles through her tears.  Cousin Beth says she hopes they'll all be happy hanging out with a disgusting demon, and Anya asks exactly what kind of demon Tara's supposed to be, anyway.  The family doesn't have any answer for that, and Spike gets a knowing look on his face.  He walks over and hits Tara in the face, and they both recoil in pain.  Willow and Buffy realize that if she were a demon, that wouldn't have hurt Spike.  "There's no demon in there," he proclaims.  Turns out this whole "demon" thing was a tale to keep the women in their family in line.  Tara's overjoyed to learn that she's not a demon, and tells her dad to "just go".  Cousin Beth asks if she's happy now, and Tara smiles. Cut to the birthday celebration at the Bronze.  Montage of everyone having fun.  Riley enters with a present, and Buffy's glad he came.  Willow and Tara go dance together, all happy and in love and stuff. As everyone dances around them, they float above the floor together.  FLAWS:                        The girl that Riley meets in Willy's Place, Sandy, is the same Sandy that Vamp-Willow killed in "Dopplegangland".  I mean, it's the same actress and everything.  Playing the same character.  But she was clearly killed in Dopplegangland, not turned.  I'm not sure what they were trying to accomplish here, but they failed miserably. THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE:          Decent ep.  I'm glad they finally let Tara have a bigger role, and finally clued us in on why Tara deliberately sabotaged that spell last year in "A New Man".  I thought this was kind of an anti-climax, after building up all this mystery about Tara, but ah well.  I also enjoyed Spike rushing to see Buffy die, but then finding himself unwilling to just stand by and let her get killed.  At this point it may have been a combination of his new feelings for her, and also the desire to be the one to kill her himself, but that quickly changes  ;)   I love Spike : )  BEST LINE:            n/a

"Family"