The episode opens the very instant after "Tough Love" ends.  Glory's standing at the ruined wall, looking in at Willow, Tara, Buffy and Dawn, who she now knows is the key.  Buffy grabs Dawn and yanks her through the door out into the  hallway. Glory starts to give chase, but Willow delays her with a spell.  Buffy races through the student center with Dawn, and Glory follows at speed.  Dawn trips and falls outside, and Buffy picks her up and carries her toward the road.  Glory races out ahead of them, confronting them.  Buffy puts Dawn down just as a semi-truck slams into Glory and sends her flying.  Buffy and Dawn take off as Glory lands on top of a parked car.  Glory starts beating at her head, saying "Not now, you idiot!", and then morphs into Ben. Later, the whole gang is at Xander's when Dawn tells them of how "Buffy" bested Glory.  Buffy reveals that she was actually hit by a truck, but she doesn't know how they got away anyway; she couldn't have been slowe d down for long.  Everyone's trying to brain storm, like usual, but Buffy's energized by a sudden urgency, now that Glory knows Dawn is the key she says they have to get out.  They have to get away from her before she can come after them again.  Everyone's stunned that Buffy wants to run away, but Buffy says they have no other choice.  She orders them to pack up and get ready to go, but not tell anyone they're leaving.  Xander wonders what they'll all leave in, and Buffy says she'll take care of the transportation.  At Glory's apartment, a female minion whines that she'll never be able to mend the dress Glory had been wearing when Ben morphed into it and tore it.  Ben doesn't care.  The minion inquires about the key, and Ben says even if he knew anything, he wouldn't tell her or Glory.  He gets aggravated by the minion's groveling in Glory's name, and the minion snaps right back at him that he's nothing without Glory; he exists only because of her.  He says he didn't ask for any of this, and the only thing he cared about in this life Glory has taken from him.  He tells the minion that the reason he wanted to become a doctor was so that he could be right alongside humans, in their lives.  Be part of something normal.  They get back on the key conversation again, and Ben says that if Glory gets it he'll cease to exist.  So he plans on getting to the key first.  The minion asks if he could "go through with it"...take a human life to spare his own.  Ben looks guilty, and torn, but pretty set to his course.  Outside the Magic Box, the gang is incredulous when a big ole' winnebago pulls up.  They go inside to find Buffy at the table with some maps, and Spike driving with a pair of dark goggles on.  Giles and Xander are pissed that Spike's there, but Buffy basically tells them that Spike's the only one of them besides her who has a chance of defending Dawn, and to deal with it, and stomps off to the rear of the camper.  Spike drives off.  At the hospital, two of the Knights of Byzantium (KoB) sign a release form for the crazy one of their number that Glory brain-sucked, and lead him out into the woods where the rest of their complement awaits.  He touches a medallion the leader wears, saying it's shiny, just like the shiny key girl.  They realize he's seen the key, and they all mount up to go find the slayer, who they know is protecting the key. Back in the winnebego, Giles is driving now.  Nobody has any idea where they're going, and Xander's carsick.  Spike mournfully reflects to Dawn that it's too bad it couldn't just be the two of them and big sis.  Xander's close to hurling, and goes up front to talk to Giles.  Xander worries about Buffy, and thinks she's not thinking very clearly right now.  Giles says she's had a lot to deal with recently and just needs to regroup and catch her breath.  She'll be all right. Back at the table, Tara's acting crazy-like still, as Willow tries to find some spells that might be able to help them.  Anya decides it's snack time and pulls a big-ass frying pan out of her knapsack, as well as a can of Spam.  Nobody's interested.  Crazy Tara pulls back a curtain to look outside and lets in some harmful sunlight.  Spike recoils in pain.  Willow pulls Tara back, who immediately begins sobbing.  Willow tries to comfort her, simultaneously apologizing to Spike, who says it's "No biggie.  Look, the skin's already stopped smoking."  Tara cries that the light is all gone; that it's dark.  Cut to the mental ward at Sunnydale Hospital, all the crazy people there are chanting the same thing.  That it's dark.  Cut to Glory's apartment, where two minions cast runes on the floor, and one of them says everything is in alignment.  Back at the camper, Dawn opens the door to the back room and asks Buffy if she wants to come out and eat something.  Buffy says maybe later.  Dawn doesn't go away, however, and tells Buffy thank you.  Buffy wants to know for what, and Dawn says pretty much for everything.  Buffy is sarcastic; doesn't think she's doing a very good job.  Things are supposed to run from her; instead she's fleeing the battle.  Dawn says it's the bravest thing anyone's ever done for her.  Buffy almost starts to cry, saying that it just keeps coming.  "Glory, Riley, Tara, Mom."  Dawn says the bright side is at least things can't get any crazier.  Naturally, just then, an arrow shoots through the wall of the camper, making both Buffy and Dawn jump.  They look outside to see the KoB chasing after them on horses.  Buffy and Dawn run out to the main part of the camper, and Giles tries to drive faster.  The KoB continues to shoot arrows at the camper.  Everybody gets down.  In the back, one of the KoB climbs on top of the camper and starts plunging his sword through the ceiling.  Spike whirls around and grabs hold of it just before it would have split Buffy's skull, and he tells her now might be "a good time to do something heroic".  Buffy goes up through the hatch onto the roof just as the knight finally yanks his sword out, and we hear Spike scream from inside as his hands are sliced to ribbons.  Buffy starts fighting the knight.  Inside, Dawn rips up some cloth to make bandages for Spike's ruined hands.  Buffy almost gets thrown off the camper, but manages to hang on and swing herself back up.  She knocks the first KoB off, but he's quickly replaced by another.  And another.  Another knight crashes through the window by the table, and Anya fends him off with the frying pan.    On top of the camper, Buffy does that front forward cartwheel kick again, except backwards this time.  That's three for three, in three episodes.  Anyways, she fights them all off, and inside, it looks like the fight is over.  Giles is relieved, until he looks back out the windshield and sees a KoB guy on horseback headed right for him.  The knight throws a spear, which crashes through the windshield and impales Giles.  In pain, Giles quickly loses control of the camper, and it crashes, throwing Buffy to the ground outside.  Everyone evacuates the camper, and they hole up in an abandoned gas station.  Buffy tries desperately to figure out what to do next, after she takes stock of Dawn and Spike's injuries, and gets Willow to try to stop Giles' bleeding.  She says she just needs a minute to think, but it's a minute she doesn't have.  Flaming arrows plunge into the building from outside.  Xander pulls the arrows out of the walls before they can catch fire, and looks out to see that they're surrounded by more KoB.  The knights set to breaking into the building.  Inside, Willow tries to find a spell that will help, as Spike and Buffy move a big vending machine to over in front of the door.  A knight breaks in through the back door and attacks Buffy, knocking her down.  Before he can use his axe on her, Spike punches him; then recoils in pain from the chip.  Buffy then saves Spike from getting axed by pummeling the knight.  She knocks him out, and Xander carries him out of the room.  The leader of the KoB comes in next and identifies Dawn as the key.  He starts to throw his sword at her but Buffy disarms him and then knocks him out, too.  Willow finds the spell she needs and casts it, creating a  big invisible dome-wall around the building, preventing the KoB from passing through.  One of the KoB orders some clerics to come forward, and they start chanting, trying to punch a hole through the wall.  Back inside, Buffy questions the general of the KoB, while Spike, Xander and Dawn stand by.   The General says she protects the instrument of chaos, and Buffy says it's not that simple.  The general notes yes, she's been made human, but says she still cannot be allowed to exist; it's too dangerous.  Buffy screams that Dawn doesn't remember anything about being a key; all she remembers is growing up with a mother and a sister who love her, and she demands to know what kind of god would demand Dawn's life.  She begs the general to tell his men to stand down, saying that she is not his enemy.  The general looks like he understands her situation, but refuses to call off his men. Just then, Tara goes nutso in the front room.  Everyone runs out to see her flailing at the boarded up windows.  Willow is near tears as she tries to restrain her, and begs Buffy to do something.  Tara can't stay like this.  Quieter now, Tara chants "It's time", over and over.  In the psych ward at the hospital, all of the crazy people there are chanting the same thing, and they all break free of their restraints and wander out. Outside the gas station, the crazy KoB guy is chanting, too, and one of his fellows kills him to keep him from going to Glory.  He then screams at the clerics to get the barrier down NOW. Inside, things aren't looking too good for Giles.  He's lost a lot of blood, and it's a struggle to speak.  Buffy apologizes, saying they should have stayed.  But he says she's doing the best that could be expected, and that she's everything a Watcher...everything he could have hoped for.  Buffy cries, and Giles fades off into unconsciousness again.  Buffy realizes he won't live much longer if they don't get help for him, and orders Willow to open a door in the forcefield. Outside, Buffy and Xander meet with some of the KoB.  Buffy asks if they will let help come for Giles.  At first they don't want to, but Xander says this is war, and in a war there are rules; or at least there should be if they're as honourable as they think they are.  Back inside, Willow restores power to the phone, and Buffy makes a call. Later, Ben pulls up outside and is confronted by the whole army of the KoB.  He goes inside and works on Giles, and Buffy thanks him.  He patches Giles up, and plays Mr. Charming Intern Guy with Buffy, but takes note of Dawn, still debating with himself if he can kill her or not.  Annoyed and a bit jealous over Buffy and Ben's chatting, Spike goes into the back room and tries to light a cigarette, but his poor mangled hands can't manage it.  Xander comes up and takes the lighter away, lighting it for him.  He asks how Spike's hands are doing, and Spike says it's nothing compared to what's going to happen when the KoB come smashing in.  He proposes they make a break for it; at least some of them might live that way.  Buffy overhears them and says no; they're all going to make it out.  She's not going to lose anyone else.  She sends Xander and Spike off to go see if anyone's hungry.  The general laughs, noting the dissention in the ranks.  Buffy punches him, but his amusement doesn't fade.  He finally clues her in on some of the history of the Key and "the Beast"  (Glory).  Buffy knows already that Glory's a god, and that she and the two other hell gods ruled over a demon dimension.  The general finishes the story, saying that Glory grew in power beyond the other two, so much so that they became afraid of her.  They struck first, and they conquered her.  They banished her to this lower plane of existence, trapping her in the mortal body of an infant male.  He tells her that this is the Beast's only weakness, but unfortunately they've never been able to find out the identity of the person Glory was inhabiting.  Buffy says she's faced Glory, and she didn't look much like a man to her.  The general tells her that her power was too great to be completely contained, and she's found a way to escape  for short periods of time, before being forced to retreat back into her prison. Dawn is at the door, and wants to know what about her?  The general says that the key is almost as old as Glory herself.  He says he doesn't know where she came from, or how she was created, but that countless generations of his kind have died searching for her, trying to destroy the key.  But the monks found it / her first.  Buffy wants to know why they didn't just destroy the key, and the general says because they were fools and thought they could harness its energy for the forces of good.  Dawn wants to know what it is she does; what she was created for.  He tells her that she unlocks the gates to all of the dimensions.  Glory wants her so that she can get back into the hell she was banished from and seize power, but in the process, all gates to all dimensions will be unlocked, and they will all bleed over into one another, resulting in chaos and pain and death.  Later, Buffy tries to comfort Dawn, who's upset that she's the destroyer of the universe.  Buffy holds Dawn and promises that she won't let anything happen to her.  Back in the back room, the general tries to get Ben to kill Dawn, saying that he can save millions of lives by taking only one.  Cut to Ben walking up behind Dawn, who's watching over Giles.  He startles her, but he's only taking Giles' pulse.  Dawn asks if Giles will be okay, but Ben says he was hurt pretty bad; they have to get him out of there.  Dawn says he was hurt because of her, but Ben denies it, saying as he fills a syringe behind Dawn that sometimes bad stuff just happens to good people.  The scene is shot so we're supposed to think that Ben's going to stick Dawn with the shot, but he gives it to Giles instead.  He then starts to feel woozy, and recognizes that Glory's trying to come through.  He runs out into the front room, demanding to be let out.  Buffy starts to tell Willow to open a door, but it's too late.  Ben morphs into Glory, and she's ecstatic to find her key right there.  Spike growls and attacks Glory, but she knocks him into Xander and they both fall down.  Then Buffy attacks, but Glory knocks her over to Willow, and they both fall down.  Dawn is left alone.  Glory rushes forward and grabs her right out of Anya's grasp, and zips outside with her.  She runs into the invisible wall, but then punches her way through it.  The hole closes after they go through, and when Buffy comes out she can't get through.  As sounds of battle come from the field where the KoB were waiting for Glory, Buffy runs back into the building and orders Willow to take the barrier down.  When Buffy runs back outside, the KoB are all dead.  All slain in an instant by Glory.  Dawn and Glory are gone.  Spike and Xander run for Ben's car, to take off after Dawn, but Buffy, crying, sinks to the ground unhearing.    FLAWS:           I'm sorry, but that scene in the beginning where Buffy picks Dawn up and carries her looks sooooo fake.  Partly because Dawn's like, taller than Buffy, I suppose...but partly also because the effect is done so badly.                  Also, Buffy's stunt double is apallingly apparent in the fight scene on top of the camper.  I mean, you don't even have to pause or slo-mo any of it.  You can see her face plain as day in half the shots.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE:            Good ep.  We finally learn where the hell Glory came from, what her agenda is, and why she needs Dawn.  We learn that Ben's got quite a bit of animosity toward Glory built up, and that he's unsure of where he stands in this whole Key situation.  If Glory gets to the key, Ben will cease to exist.  If she never gets the key, he'll live.  But his own sense of morality wars with the idea of killing Dawn.  Buffy finds out that Glory is trapped in a human body, and that if you kill the man, Glory will also be killed.  Dawn gets kidnapped.  Ooh, ooh.  I'd also like to point out how incredibly cool Spike was in this episode.  First of all he comes through on the transportation, he saves Buffy from getting stabbed in the head by a sword, he gets his hands cut to ribbons doing so...he doesn't get mad when Tara scorches him with the sun, he helps put Giles up on the counter in the gas station, getting himself burned by the sun again, he protects Buffy from an axe-wielding knight, causing his chip to go off, and at the end of the ep he's running off to get Ben's car, so they can go after Dawn.  I mean...this guy's supposed to be evil, but look at everything he's doing to help.  Which leads me into my next topic:  The Buffy / Dawn / Spike thing.  I love the way that Spike has grown to not only love Buffy, but really feel genuine affection for Dawn, too.  His friendship with Dawn has kind of grown over the season, and it presents itself very nicely in these last four episodes.            My only real beef with this entire episode is how they handled the "Buffy killing humans" thing.  In season three, it was considered a big deal.  Faith killed one guy, and all of the sudden she's subject to a review, and psychological testing, and whatnot.  And she's considered to have "gone bad".  Yet Buffy can kill 10 KoB guys in this episode, and they never even talk about it.   I mean...I understand the difference between Faith killing one innocent guy, and Buffy defending the gang from a bunch of sword-wielding maniacs.  But it bugged me that they never even talked about this.  Never again did they bring up the fact that Buffy killed humans.  I wouldn't care so much except that they've made such a big deal of it on this show, in earlier episodes.  On numerous occasions Buffy has lamented that she's not supposed to kill humans  (for instance: "Gingerbread" and  "Checkpoint"), yet she kills ten in this episode alone, and they never even bring up the subject. Not just this episode, either. Never again.  That annoys me. One last thing that annoys me is Xander playing First Lieutenant to Buffy when they go to talk to the KoB.  I mean, I kind of like it in the sense that Xander has always backed Buffy up.  What bugs me is the way they keep referring back to his damned "military" thing.  I have never seen any other episode on this show referred to more than "Halloween".  Every time they want to give Xander something useful to do, they have him draw upon his questionable source of military knowledge from when he was Private Harris in "Halloween."   Some examples include:  "Innocence", (when he snuck in to steal the rocket launcher) "Graduation Day pt.2" (when he led the entire assault on the Mayor-snake), "Goodbye Iowa" (when he backed Buffy up down in the Initiative), and this episode, for starters.  I'm sure there's more that I'm just not thinking of right now.  But it's like, come on.  There were some really defining moments on this show.  But the one they keep relying upon is contrivance from an admittedly-funny-but-basically-pointless-episode from season two?  Jeez. BEST LINE: Xander:  "Would you just give it a rest?  Or..." Spike:  "Or what?  You'll toss your cookies on my shoes?" Xander:  "Or can be undead man walking.  See how fast you catch a ride with a flaming thumb." Spike:  "Fine.   (deliberately tries to make Xander puke)  Shrimp." and: Xander:  "Arrows!  They're throwing arrows!" and: Xander:  "We've got company....and they brought a crusade." and: Xander:  "How are your feelers?" Spike:  "Nothing compared to the little bits we're gonna get chopped into when the Renaissance Fair kicks the door in."

"Spiral"