We open in Buffy's dorm room, where Buffy's roommate Kathy is already getting on her nerves.  She keeps playing "Do you believe" by Cher over and over, and she's ironing her jeans.  She also questions Buffy extensively when Buffy leaves the room late at night, and is pretty anal about logging all calls they make, and has noticed a bit of her milk is missing.  Buffy tries to be nice about it, but she obviously thinks Kathy's whacked, and way too hyper.  Out on the campus, Buffy complains about Kathy to Willow, and Willow says this whole dorm thing is just something they'll both have to get used to.  Willow departs for her dorm, and we pan over to see some demon with green glowy eyes watching Buffy. After the credits, Buffy tracks a noise in the bushes, and is startled when Kathy bounds out cheerily, saying she'll go with Buffy to get some coffee (Buffy's excuse for leaving the room so late).  Suddenly, however, the green-eyed glowy demon jumps out and Buffy knocks Kathy out of the way.  She fights the demon and chases it off, and helps Kathy up out of the bushes.  She makes up some story about how someone tried to steal her backpack, and Kathy complains about her ruined sweater from being pushed down in the dirt. The next morning Buffy greets Giles as he comes home after a run, and Buffy tells him about the demon who got away the night before.  Giles questions why Buffy took her roommate patrolling with her, and Buffy reveals Kathy just kind of tagged along without an invite.  After the demon discussion, Giles wonders why she's still hanging around instead of rushing off "as usual".  Buffy tells him about her issues with Kathy, and Giles tells her that it's always difficult to live with someone; she just has to get used to Kathy's idiosynchrosies.  Buffy agrees to try to give Kathy a chance. Back at the dorm room, Kathy scrubs at her ruined sweater, but the stain isn't coming out.  She looks around and then gets up and goes into Buffy's closet, pulling out a sweater of Buffy's.  While in the closet, she discovers Buffy's bag o' weapons and looks at them curiously before putting them away again.  In the cafeteria, Buffy starts to head to the end of the line before recognizing Kathy.  She ducks into the line to avoid being seen, right in front of a guy who introduces himself as Parker.  They talk a bit in line, and then part to go to their respective tables.  Buffy joins Willow, Oz and Xander (who's already hanging around on campus with the gang) at the table, and they all talk about the googly eyes they just witnessed between her and Parker.  They all start to talk about Scooby stuff, but are then interrupted by Kathy when she sits down with them uninvited.  Buffy notices that she's wearing Buffy's sweater, and tells her she wishes she'd asked first.  She then narrows her eyes when Kathy drips some ketchup on her sweater.  Later that night Buffy complains some more about Kathy on the phone to Willow, who's having her own roommate trouble due to the large party being thrown in her dorm room.  They get off the phone when Kathy comes back to the room, and they have a little scene where they forced-politely fight over the window being open or closed, gum left on the nightstand, etc.  They go to sleep and Buffy has weird dreams where one of the green-eyed glowy demons is trying to suck some kind of light out of her mouth, and pour blood down her throat, and drops scorpions on her.  She wakes up to find Kathy asking her "Do you always make that sound when you sleep?" The next morning Buffy tells the gang about her dream, and Kathy again interrupts them.  She starts talking about the dream she had the night before, and everyone realizes it's the same dream Buffy had.  Giles thinks that the fact she and Kathy both had the same dream means something.  After Buffy leaves for class, Giles, Willow and Oz talk about how bitchy Buffy seemed, and wonder what's going on with her. In a clearing, several of the green glowy-eyed demons meet and talk to each other over a fire.  Back at the dorm room, Buffy comes in to find Parker chatting with Kathy, and "Do you believe" playing yet again on the stereo.  She gets kinda pouty when she realizes that Parker came to leave his number for her, but stayed to talk to Kathy.  When he starts to leave, however, she salvages the situation and sends Parker out with the promise that they can talk sometime.  He leaves, and Buffy and Kathy have another tiff.  Kathy tells her that the world doesn't revolve around Buffy, and that it's share time now.   Buffy's all "share time, eh?" and grabs Kathy's milk out of the fridge and drinks it rather obnoxiously right in front of her.  Things are obviously getting pretty confrontational between them. Willow and Oz walk down the hallway of the dorm and talk about how worried they both are about Buffy; the way she's behaving.  Willow thinks someone should keep an eye on her, and Oz volunteers.  He heads out onto campus, and shares a look with a passing girl. He doesn't think too much of it, but continues walking.  He later meets up with Buffy, and she bitches some more about Kathy.  She gets so worked up she actually smashes up a park bench.  She tells Oz something has to be done, and Oz agrees, though for different reasons.  Back at the dorm room later, Buffy and Kathy are totally getting on each other's nerves.  Every toenail Kathy clips grates on Buffy, and every tap of Buffy's pencil drives Kathy nuts.  Kathy puts in the Cher song again, and takes one of her labled eggs out of the fridge and peels it.  Buffy concedes defeat and goes to bed, where she has anohter dream involving the blood and the scorpions and the demon sucking something out of her throat.  She wakes up to find Kathy still twisting and turning from the same dream. Later on, Buffy comes across Kathy bitching to Willow about Buffy.  Kathy sees Buffy and takes off, and Buffy comes up and asks Willow why she was talking to Kathy.  Willow tells her to chill out, and Buffy at first shows signs of reason, before telling Willow that she's figured it out; Kathy is evil and she must be killed.  She offers Kathy's cut off toenails as evidence...she says they kept growing even after she cut them off, and that's a sign of a demon.  Willow's all "whoa, wait a minute", and convinces Buffy to not do anything rash and go to Giles with her suspiscions first.  Buffy agrees to that and takes off.  Willow immediately calls Giles and tells him what's going on. At Giles' place, Buffy enters the silent apartment and then gets attacked with a net.  Giles, Xander and Oz tie her up, and watch with bemusement as Buffy rants about how Kathy is evil and needs to be destroyed.  Giles thinks she must have been possessed, and leaves to go get some supplies from the magic shop for a revealing spell, leaving Xander and Oz in charge of watching Buffy. At Buffy's dorm room, Willow tries to get Kathy to leave the room before Buffy comes back, but then she gets a phone call from Oz saying that they've got Buffy under control, and she cuts the conversation short and leaves.  Back at Giles', Buffy tries to appeal to Xander and Oz as her friends, but Oz advises Xander not to engage her in conversation.  Buffy starts struggling with her ropes, and Xander worries that they might not be tight enough.  He and Oz go over to check, and Buffy stands up and knocks their heads together; dropping them to the floor unconscious.  Buffy goes back to the dorm room, and she and Kathy get into it.  Kathy punches Buffy, and Buffy responds by tearing Kathy's face off.  "I knew it!" she declares, and launches herself at Kathy.  Out in the clearing with the fire, more of the green-eyed demons chant, and another demon is raised up from the ground.  Back in the room, Buffy and Kathy fight.  She says she knew Kathy was a demon, and Kathy says why couldn't Buffy just shut up and let Kathy finish her ritual.  Giles, at the same time, is realizing that the dreams Buffy's been having are a soul-stealing ritual.  Kathy explains to Buffy that she left her dimension to go to college, but now her people have sent people after her.  They'll recognize her because she'll be the one without the soul.  She needs Buffy's  so that when they come, they'll take Buffy instead.  Giles rushes home and meets Willow there as they find Oz and Xander just regaining consciousness.  Giles tells them that the soul-sucking ceremony is the reason Buffy's been acting so bitchy.  They start to perform a spell that will stop Kathy's ritual.  Back in the dorm room, Buffy and Kathy continue to fight.  Kathy gains the upper hand, and tries to get Buffy to open her mouth so she can finish the ritual, but Giles finishes the spell just as Kathy succeeds.  Instead of sucking Buffy's soul, all of the soul goes back into Buffy. Just then, the head green-eyed guy that was raised in the clearing shows up and sucks Kathy down into a vortex in the middle of the floor, taking her back to their dimension. The next day, Willow is moving into the dorm room, and she and Buffy are listening to a "Dingoes Ate my Baby" tape as Willow hangs up one of their posters.  Buffy says she's glad that it was just Kathy's spell that was making her all cranky, and that she doesn't have like, huge issues with living with people.  Just then Willow picks up half of Buffy's sandwich and asks if she's going to finish it.  Without waiting for an answer she bites into it and the camera closes up on Buffy's eyes as she narrows them.     FLAWS:       When Oz and Xander approach Buffy to see if she's tied up securely enough, Oz is on the left, and Xander is on the right.  She bangs their heads together, and drops them.  When she steps over them to leave Oz is on the right, and Xander's on the left.  And the claim can't even be made that they fell in opposite directions when she dropped them, because they dropped head-to-head, and they wouldn't have landed side by side the way they're shown. THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE:          God. Shoot me.  The only decent things in this entire episode were the comic moments between Oz and Buffy in the park, and Xander and Oz when they had Buffy tied up at Giles'.  The rest of the episode sucked, and was my 2nd least favourite up to this point. (after Dead Man's Party)  As far as foreshadowing and setup, we did get that long, meaningful look between Oz and the girl in the park, who we later learn is Veruca.  We also meet Parker, unfortunately, and get a little more of a look of the campus.  BEST LINE:  Oz:  (to Buffy) "On the plus side you killed the bench, which was looking kinda shifty" and later.... Willow:  (about Buffy collecting the toenail clippings)  "Good thinking. 'Cause in the night they could have attacked you and left little half-moon shapes all over you!"

"Living Conditions"