atheneum

At Glory's apartment, some minions tailor a gown as she stands on a pedestal. Some more pack up her belongings. Glory reflects that she should be ecstatic at the thought of going home that night, but for some reason she's not. The camera pans back to show Dawn sitting in the room, tied and gagged.

At the gas station, everyone's ready to go find Dawn, but Buffy's in some sort of catatonic state. Giles speculates that after everything that's happened, Buffy's simply been pushed too far after losing Dawn, and can't take it anymore. Willow has no success in reaching her, nor does Spike when he tries smacking her out of it. Xander wails on Spike, saying they could be dealing with neurological damage. Spike counters that when all's said and done, he wagers "Buffy likes it rough." Xander punches Spike, and it looks like they're about to get into a fight, but Willow turns around and does some magic on them, separating them. They're both surprised, but Willow doesn't give a crap, and starts giving orders for what they're going to do when they get back to town. She instructs Xander to take Giles to the hospital, and Spike to find Glory. She will be trying to help Buffy.

Spike asks Willow what happens if they run into Ben. Everyone's confused, and Spike reminds them of how Ben turned into Glory. To his surprised and consternation, no one remembers this as having happened. Even more frustrating, he explains it about ten times, but nobody seems to be able to grasp the concept. Finally Spike realizes that Glory's got some kind of mojo going on so that if anyone sees her morph, or Ben morph into her, they instantly forget it.

We cut to a lot, where a bunch of crazy people are welding and stuff. They all bow and scrape as Glory pulls Dawn along after her. They go into a control room or something, and a minion dressed as a priest "anoints" Dawn by marking her forehead with some sort of blood mixture. Glory seems to suffer from an attack of compassion, and orders the minions all out, taking a tissue and wiping the mixture off of Dawn's forehead. She even asks her if she's okay. Dawn sobs that she wants to go home, and Glory tells her she's about to. Dawn snaps at her not to be nice to her, and this hurts Glory's feelings. She then suddenly wonders why she's even
having feelings. Why she's suddenly feeling guilty. She gets angry that Dawn's "making her" feel guilty, and orders the minions back into the room to anoint her. She informs Dawn that all she's got to do for this ritual is to "bleed her", and then she can go home.

Back at Xander's, Willow prepares to go into Buffy's mind to try and figure out how to help her. She leaves Tara in Anya's care, and goes into the bedroom, where Buffy's sitting all catonic. Willow lights some candles and sits on the bed opposite her, and goes into her mind.

Her mind just happens to be a house. Buffy's first house. Buffy is currently a little girl with pony tails playing in the living room. She greets Willow by name. Cut to Spike searching Glory's apartment, which is still trashed from when Willow attacked her in "Tough Love". Most everything's gone now, and Spike wanders into the back of the apartment, finding a door that leads to a small room that looks drastically different from the rest of the apartment. Spike fins some scrubs there with Ben's id tag affixed, and realizes that this is Ben's room.

Back in Buffy's mind, Willow questions the little-girl-Buffy. She tells her she needs Buffy to come back out; they need her. Suddenly Joyce and Hank come in, holding a newborn Dawn. Buffy is at first hesitant to greet the newest member of the family, afraid they'll give all their attention to the baby, and forget all about Buffy, but as soon as she holds Dawn she seems swayed, and asks if she can take care of her. Joyce says she can. Willow's attention is drawn to another Buffy, a present-day one, shelving a book at the Magic Box. Magic Box Buffy hesitates for a moment, and then walks off. Suddenly Willow is out in the desert, at night, in front of a fire.

Cut to the hospital, where Giles has just been released. Xander tells him that Willow's going to try to reach Buffy psychically. Spike arrives and tells them that Glory's moved out of the apartment, and Giles realizes this means she's nearly ready to perform the ritual on Dawn, and they don't have any idea where she might be. Spike, standing in front of a no-smoking sign, lights up a cigarette and tells them he knows a demon who's into the occult and stuff, and figures he might know something about Glory's plan. He's referring to Doc, the same guy who helped him and Dawn out in "Forever". He and Xander take off to go question Doc, and Spike tells Xander that he found Ben's room at Glory's place. Xander acts like it's all new information yet again, and Spike says to himself that this'll be worth it, and then smacks Xander upside the head. They both react in pain.

Back in the control room, Glory's freaking out because she's starting to remember Ben's memories. The veil between them is starting to come down, and some of his emotions and thoughts are bleeding over to her. It's getting harder and harder for her to stay Glory, and she actually morphs into Ben for a moment, as he says he can't kill Dawn. He morphs back into Glory, and she tells the cleric minion to get Ben out of her. He says he can't, and Glory, wanting it over with, grabs Dawn saying "We do this tonight."

Back in Buffy's mind, Willow's still out in the desert in front of the bonfire. She recognizes the First Slayer from "Restless", and then sees Buffy sitting across from the F.S.; it's the scene from "Intervention" when Buffy went on her soul-searching quest thing. She watches as the F.S. tells Buffy that death is her gift, and then she's back in the Magic Box, watching Buffy hesitate after shelving the book. Then there's another Buffy walking by Willow, and they're suddenly in the Summers house. Willow follows Buffy down the hallway.

In the control room, the minions plead with Glory not to kill Dawn, and she throws Dawn away from her. Glory says she's just a little emotional right now. She tells the minions to go away, and they leave. Glory rants to Dawn about emotions and how useless they are. Dawn says some people like having emotions. Glory says when she looks at the world, all she sees is pain, and tells her to name one person who can "take it here". Dawn replies "Buffy."

Cut to Buffy, still in her catatonia. Willow sits opposite her still, in a trance. Inside Buffy's mind, Willow follows Buffy down the hallway into a room that contains Joyce's grave and tombstone. They stand at the end of the grave and Buffy tells Willow that death is her gift. She then leads Willow into Dawn's room, where Dawn lies on her bed crying. Buffy says this is what she does, and picks up a pillow and smothers Dawn.

Back in the control room, Glory morphs into Ben again, and he asks if Glory has hurt him. She says not yet. Ben practically collapses, and starts remembering the people Glory has killed. Dawn tells him about how the magic keeping them separate is falling apart, and they're merging together. She asks him to help her, and he asks her how. Just then the minions knock at the door and Ben gets up, opening the door and knocking the cleric minion out. He promises to take Dawn as far as he can, and then ditch her before Glory comes back. They split.

Back in Buffy's mind, Willow finds herself once again with six year old Buffy, and asks her why they're there. She only gets cryptic answers from little-girl-Buffy, before Joyce and Hank come in with baby Dawn again. The grown-up Buffy walks by and shelves a book; hesitates.

Xander and Spike show up at Doc's, and ask for information about Glory, and where she might have taken Dawn. Pretending to be all "Gee, I wish I could help but I can't," he gives them the runaround until Spike notices he's standing in front of a box. Doc attacks Spike with a sword and knocks him down. He then tongues Xander (heh, not as gross as it sounds. Ever seen D'Argo do it on Farscape? Then you know what I mean. Basically he just shoots out a really long tongue and knocks Xander over with it), and throws the box in the fireplace (fireplace? hullo, still southern California, right?). He says he worships the Beast, and grabs Spike. Xander attacks Doc, and plunges the sword into his chest as Spike snatches the box out of the fire. They leave, and Doc's eyes open.

Buffy's mind: Willow tries to stop Buffy from walking down the hallway and killing Dawn again. She tries to convince her that none of this is real; that she never killed her sister. Buffy says she did. Willow tells her she's stuck in some kind of loop, but Buffy's not hearing her and just keeps on going. Cut to Ben and Dawn running down main street together. Ben pulls Dawn into an alley to avoid some minions. Ben peeks his head around to gauge where the minions are, and when he comes back around Dawn hits him over the head with a length of chain, recognizing that just being with him will be putting her in danger. She starts to run off, but Glory regains consciousness and threatens to hurt Dawn. She says she knows she can't spill her blood until the ritual, but she knows a thousand ways to hurt her that won't spill a drop. Ben morphs in, saying he won't let Glory hurt her. Glory morphs back, saying she's stronger than Ben is. What follows is an intriguing scene where Ben and Glory argue with each other, each one taking control of the body momentarily before the other regains control. Finally, Ben threatens to kill Dawn now, if it means keeping Glory from performing her ritual and going home. Glory says she knows he won't hurt her, he's just scared. She tries to make a deal with him, but he says she can't trick him; he knows that if she uses Dawn to get home he'll cease to exist. Glory promises that once she's a hell-god again, she can give Ben a life of his own, if he'll give up the girl. Ben says he couldn't live with himself for a day, if that's the price, never mind eternity. Glory continues to persuade him, and finally Ben chooses his own life over Dawn's, and takes her out to the minions.

Back in Buffy's mind...again. Willow stops Dawn-killing-Buffy, and makes her observe the book-shelving-Buffy with her. She asks her what happened in this moment that she feels the need to keep living it over and over? Finally, both Buffys tell her that in that moment she quit. It hit her that Glory would win; she felt that Glory would win, and in that moment she didn't care. She just wanted it over. She imagined what a relief it would be, and Mind-Buffy has taken this to mean that she killed Dawn. She thinks that since some part of her wanted it, she caused Dawn to die.

Willow tells her all she's feeling is guilt, but she can't be blamed for wanting out of the situation for the one second she thought it. Buffy says she is guilty, she got Dawn killed. Willow says Dawn isn't dead yet, but she will be if Buffy stays locked inside her head like this. Willow turns to leave, saying she's going where Buffy is needed, and asks if Buffy is going to come with her. Out in the bedroom, Buffy suddenly snaps awake, as does Willow. Buffy immediately starts crying, and Willow hugs her.

Everyone meets up at the Magic Shop. Giles tells Buffy about the ritual Glory must perform with Dawn's blood, and how if she succeeds all of the dimensional walls will crumble down, and all of the realms will bleed into each other. Reality as they know it will be destroyed, and chaos will ensue. Buffy wants to know how they stop it. Giles says that the portal will only shut after the blood has stopped flowing. The only way to do that is to kill Dawn.

FLAWS: none found. How could I have found any? There were only like, three scenes in this entire episode; they just repeated over and over.

THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE: I know most people didn't really think much of this ep, and I've gotta agree with them for most of it. The three scenes in Buffy's head got really old, really fast, as did the ignorance of the rest of the gang about the Glory / Ben thing. It's like...once is good. Twice is acceptable. But I hate it when people just pound stuff into the ground. God. Anyways...most of the episode sucked. But what did intrigue me was the battle for dominance between Ben and Glory. I think I already mentioned this in another episode, but I'll say it again here anyway. Ben interested me because I really liked the idea of his human soul finding what Glory was doing repulsive, and rejecting her. Kind of like, the underdog comes through for the side of good, and does the whole noble sacrifice thing. But I had forgotten that Ben had innocent crazy people killed in "Listening to Fear" when he summoned the Quellor to kill Glory's byproducts, mostly to protect himself. Barring that, I still thought this episode was interesting because it showed that he was conflicted. I was rooting for him for awhile, but then he went and chose himself over Dawn's life, and the lives of everyone else in every dimension, soeh. Certainly, this was the least interesting of the "Final Four" episodes.

Also, does anyone else think Buffy looked as thin as a freaking rail in that black outfit in her mind? Seriously.

BEST LINE: n/a

"Weight of the World"