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Season 6, Episode 9
Written by Drew Z. Greenberg
Directed by Turi Meyer
Original Airdate: 19 November 2001
"If rats could dance, they probably wouldn't
gnaw so much."
Amy
REGULAR CAST
GUEST CAST
CO-STARRING
SYNOPSIS
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Buffy saves a woman from being mugged and although
Spike tries to help, the human muggers are untouchable to him. They talk
about their occasional habit of making out and Buffy denies that there
be another repeat of that and leaves. Spike accuses her of teasing him,
but he is confident she'll return when she figures out he's the only one
out there for her. Still depressed over the loss of Tara, Willow is
inspired to try and return Amy the rat back to her human form and uses
her magic to bring the girl back.
Jonathan, Andrew and Warren break into a museum and steal a large
diamond. They use a Freeze Ray to encase the security guard (and by
accident, Jonathan's arm) in ice and escape. Willow fills Amy in on
everything that's been going on while she has been a rat for so long.
Buffy arrives and discovers Amy's return and also hears about the
security guard that was frozen at the museum. Spike is waiting for Buffy
outside the museum when she gets there to investigate the scene and they
banter and fight. Spike hits Buffy and he's shocked when the chip
doesn't go off, but pretends it does anyway and she leaves with a final
insult.
Excited about the opportunity to hurt humans again, Spike tries to
attack a woman on the streets, but his chip stops him. Tara and Dawn
spend some time together and Tara tries to explain the necessity for her
leaving. Dawn doesn't blame her and subtly mentions that Willow has been
not so obsessive with magic lately. The Scooby Gang meets at the magic
shop for updates on the frozen security guard and research. Just when it
looks like Willow has returned to a bit of her computer roots, she uses
magic to operate her computer and this disturbs her friends. They
mention her break-up with Tara, but Willow brushes it off and returns to
Amy at the house.
Spike goes to the threesome of geeky villains and demands that they
examine his chip to see what's causing him so much trouble. When the
chip appears to be in perfect working order, Spike concludes that Buffy
is the problem. Amy wants to get out of the house and persuades Willow
to join her for some actual fun. Tara brings Dawn home and although she
wants to leave to avoid Willow's return, Dawn convinces her to stay.
Willow continues to tell Amy of all the latest news of Sunnydale while
they play pool using magic. A couple of guys want to dance with the
girls and Amy tries to encourage Willow by putting a spell on a nearby
woman, but Willow doesn't like the idea. Later, when the two guys find
Amy and Willow chatting, they make a rude comment to Willow that results
in the guys locked in cages, dancing in their underwear. At the magic
shop, the gang is fed up with trying to find the demon responsible for
freezing the security guard and talk about Willow using too much magic,
instead. Spike calls and cryptically tells Buffy to meet him at the
cemetery.
She runs into Spike on the streets later that night and he taunts her
into hitting him. Given the motivation, he hits her back and happily
informs her that he felt nothing and she came back from Heaven not
completely human. The fight continues inside of an old abandoned
building as Buffy continues to deny the possibility and Spike reassures
her it's true. Meanwhile, Willow and Amy go crazy with magic at the
Bronze until they get bored and decide to find somewhere else to have
fun.
Buffy and Spike continue their fight, throwing punches and verbal
attacks at each other all the while weakening the building by knocking
into the walls and support beams. Just as the fight reaches an intense
peak, Buffy switches the game and kisses Spike. Their fighting takes on
another form as they kiss viciously and very obviously have sex,
ignoring the fact that the building is collapsing around them. Even when
they fall through the floor of one level and land on the one below, they
don't stop.
TRIVIA
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Amy Madison is finally transformed back
into a human in this episode, her first since
Gingerbread in season three.
Elizabeth Anne Allen had this to say on her return to the show: "This
year it just happened to fall together really brilliantly. I was
available, they had an open space in their storyline and voila! They
asked me and I said, "Heck, yeah". I love it. Managers and agents talk
once a year and sort of touch base with what's going on in our lives,
where they are in the storyline and what's going on in my career. It
just seemed that, brilliantly, everything seemed to fall together so
neatly this year. I love that I'm back for more episodes. It gives you
more time to create your character and grow and show all the ways that
you've changed. I'm thrilled with it. I can't wait to see where Amy
goes, I'm looking forward to it."
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When interviewed by the BBC, the writer
of this episode, Drew Greenberg, mentioned that Alyson Hannigan had
difficulty with doing the Italian spell in this episode: "The only issue
that Alyson may have had, was the Italian spell that she had to do at
the beginning. She was unhappy with me for forcing her to speak lines
and lines and paragraphs of a language of which she wasn't completely
familiar." Willow's spell was "Cio che fu non e piu. Cio che fu fatto
disfa. Passata e il pericolo, finita e la prova. Mette le cosa a posto."
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Drew Greenberg also told the BBC his
feelings when he discovered that Amy's de-ratting would be in his
episode, "I was excited too because I've been a fan of the show from the
first episode myself, even before I was even working on it, so I've been
waiting for Amy to come back. When I found out that that was going to be
part of my first Buffy episode ever, I jumped up and down as a fan.
Then, as a writer, you sit down and you're like, "Oh God, how am I going
to make this happen?""
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Marti Noxon, executive producer also had
comments on the Spike and Buffy situation that was started int his
episode: "This was the beginning of the most divisive story we've ever
had, which was Buffy and Spike boning. Really, I've never seen such a
strong reaction on both sides. People either love it or hate it. To this
day, people either truly believe that Spike is completely redeemed and
should be treated a lot better, or they truly believe that Buffy is a
fool for trusting someone who's been evil and how can she be so unheroic
as to allow herself to be caught up in this really sordid romance? So
you get the total Buffy/Spike shippers or you get the attitude, 'I just
don't respect Buffy any more.' It's fascinating to see. The thing I keep
saying is that it's not black and white. I'd love it to be, but it's
not. To me, this is much more real. If these two crazy kids can make it
work, it will be a lot more interesting than a kind of perfect romance
with obstacles thrown in. To me, this is real life; this is people
making their own problems. If they can get it together, that would be
amazing. But it was never going to be easy. That's why Spike did
something radical at the end of the year. Joss came up with the idea of
the house coming down around them while they made love. It was perfect,
because we needed something catastrophic to go along with this huge
dangerous union."
CONTINUITY
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Willow explains to Amy that a) Larry is
gay (Phases), b) Larry's dead (Graduation
Day (Part 2)) and c) high schools' kinda over. Amy also references
the 'big-snake' which is reference to the Mayor and also learns of
Snyder's death.
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The diamond that the Trio steal is on
loan from the British Museum, which is where Giles used to work as
curator.
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Amy sees an advert for the Doublemeat
Palace on the television. Buffy ends up working there in...
Doublemeat
Palace.
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Xander mentions Buffy's "exploding lint"
from Life Serial.
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Willow tells Amy she can provide a
forgetting spell “only, you might wanna sew your name into your clothes
first”. She’s referring to the events of
Tabula Rasa when her spell caused the Scoobies to forget their
memories.
GOOFS
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Why is Amy's hair longer and a different
colour?
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Andrew claims to have seen every episode of
Doctor Who. However, over 100 episodes of Doctor Who have
been missing from the BBC archives since before he was born. Considering
he's a complete nerd, Andrew would have known this and commented on it.
Bargaining
(Part 1) |
Bargaining (Part 2) |
Afterlife |
Flooded |
Life
Serial
All the
Way | Once More, With Feeling |
Tabula Rasa |
Smashed |
Wrecked |
Gone
Doublemeat
Palace |
Dead Things |
Older and Far Away |
As You Were |
Hell's Bells |
Normal Again
Entropy |
Seeing Red |
Villains |
Two to Go |
Grave
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