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Season 7, Episode 1
Written by Joss Whedon
Directed by David Solomon
Original Airdate: 24 September 2002
"Do you have everything? Books? Lunch?
Stakes?"
Buffy
REGULAR CAST
SPECIAL GUEST STAR
GUEST CAST
CO-STARRING
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Mark Metcalf as
The Master
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Juliet Landau as
Drusilla
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Harry Groener as
Mayor Richard Wilkins III
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George Hertzberg as
Adam
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Clare Kramer as
Glory
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Adam Busch as
Warren Mears
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David Zepeda as
Carlos Trejo
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Jeremy Howard as
Dead Nerd
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Ken Strunk as
Dead Janitor
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Rachael Bella as
Dead Girl
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Ed F. Martin as
Teacher
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Simon Chernin as
Student
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Jeff Denton as
Vampire
SYNOPSIS
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In Istanbul, a young woman runs for her life as
several cloaked men chase after her. They eventually capture her and
hold her as a knife is raised and plunged down above her. Back in
Sunnydale, Buffy lectures Dawn about "power" in slaying as a new vampire
tries to rise from his grave. Dawn is a bit overconfident and gets in a
bit of trouble when Buffy lets her try to slay the fledgling. Buffy
saves her sister and as the two leave the graveyard, they talk about the
great horrible threat of the return of Sunnydale High School. In
Westbury, England, Giles rides a horse through a field to find Willow
sitting in the grass, making a flower grow out of the ground. They talk
about how the Coven has been teaching Willow to deal with her magic, but
Willow knows they are all very afraid of her power.
Clad in a business suit, Xander arrives at the Summers house. In
attempts to calm Buffy's nerves, Xander reviews the plans for the newly
rebuilt Sunnydale High, confirming that every possible effort was taken
to make sure the school was as guarded against evil as possible. He also
reveals that the Hellmouth is located under the principal's office now
instead of the library. Buffy checks to make sure Dawn is ready for the
first day of school and gives her sister a special "weapon." Xander
drops the Summers girls off at the new school and as Buffy tries to let
go of her own personal experiences at the high school. The new
principal, Robin Wood, welcomes them and then Buffy lets Dawn go off on
her own.
After the students have started their classes, Buffy walks alone around
the school's quiet and empty halls until a basketball is thrown across
her path into a locker. She follows the young teen that threw it, but
looses track of him. In the bathroom, Buffy finds a strange object on
the counter and then two creatures appear to her briefly and try to
scare her away. Dawn introduces herself to the class, but is interrupted
by her over reactive sister who barges into the class announcing that
it's not safe for them. Realizing her mistake, Buffy tries fix it, but
the damage to Dawn's social life has been done.
Anyanka and Halfrek have drinks at the coffee house while they watch a
couple of singers perform. Halfrek points out that Anyanka is losing her
"evil" touch and that she needs to start acting more like a Vengeance
demon because something evil and incredibly old is about to surface and
Anyanka cannot afford to be borderline evil. Buffy reports to Xander
about what she saw in the bathroom and worries that the return of
Sunnydale High School is a sign of something bad. A student asks Dawn
for a pencil and Dawn hands him one only to have the student be a zombie
creature that stabs her in the face with the pencil. Dawn freaks out and
as all eyes in the classroom turn on her, she realizes she's not injured
and excuses herself to the bathroom to recover from the second major
embarrassment of the day.
Dawn finds another student in the bathroom crying in one of the stalls
because she thinks there are others in the bathroom with them. Dawn
tries to comfort and befriend the girl, Kit, but the zombie creatures
appear in the mirrors and the girls are pulled through the bathroom
floor to the basement below. Meanwhile, Principal Wood finds Buffy
roaming the halls and starts up a conversation about Buffy and her
history at the school. In England, Willow suddenly starts to freak out
and Giles tries to comfort her. She reveals that she felt evil from the
earth, specifically the Hellmouth reopening.
Kit wakes Dawn and as the two search for an escape from the basement,
they run into another living student, Carlos. Before they can get to
know each other or find the way out, a janitor and two student zombie
creatures surround them and offer threats and cryptic warnings about
there not being an escape or help for them. Buffy tries to explain her
colorful record to the principal and out of fear for her sister,
attempts to convince him that Dawn's trouble and doesn't belong at the
school. After receiving a cell phone call from Dawn, Buffy finds her way
to the basement to rescue her sister. While waiting for her sister to
find them, Dawn is grabbed by one of the creatures. Buffy runs into the
creatures and learns that they're all mad at her for her failure to save
them from their deaths. Buffy is more concerned with finding Dawn and
suspects they're trying to keep her from the door behind them, so she
fights with them until she gets past.
Instead of finding her sister behind the door though, she encounters
Spike. She's stunned and wonders if he's real, but the zombies attack
and interrupt. Temporarily rid of the spirits, Buffy focuses on Spike,
but he only speaks crazy nonsense that she doesn't understand. Upon
closer examination, she finds that his chest is cut up and he explains
that he attempted to cut "it" out. While Buffy talks with Dawn on her
cell phone, Spike reveals that the zombie creatures are manifest spirits
and that a talisman is responsible for their vengeful actions. Still
confused by him, Buffy rushes off to find Dawn. Remembering the object
she saw in the bathroom, Buffy calls Xander on her cell phone. Dawn and
the others put together a weapon with Kit's bag and a couple of bricks
just in time for the creatures to appear and attack.
Xander makes his way to the girls bathroom and is momentarily pleased to
find the large hole in the ground for him to fix later. Buffy finds Dawn
and fights off the spirits while she waits for Xander to find the
talisman in the bathroom. He does, despite an attack from one of the
spirits, and breaks it just in time. Finally back upstairs, Buffy offers
some advice to Dawn, Carlos and Kit and the three head off to class
together. The principal is impressed with her ability to communicate
with the troublemakers, Kit and Carlos. He offers Buffy a low-paying job
as a counsellor who can reach the students on their own level and Buffy
eagerly agrees.
Spike talks out loud seemingly about what he could have done when he saw
Buffy and how she'll never understand him. It's revealed that he's not
alone as Warren appears and talks to him about how Buffy cannot
understand what he is. Warren morphs into Glory who warns that soon
she'll be the talk of the world. Glory turns into Adam who announces
that everyone is where they should be. The Mayor is the next figure who
comments about Spike's soul and then he turns into Drusilla, who
proclaims that Spike belongs to her. She turns into the Master, who
explains there will be a return to the real beginning in the eventual
future. Finally, the figure morphs into Buffy who reveals, "It's about
power."
TRIVIA
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D.B. Woodside plays Principal Robin Wood.
D. B stands for David Bryan. He told the BBC in an interview about how
he got the job on Buffy: "I'd never actually watched the show. The
summer before the seventh season I got a call from my manager - I guess
[the producers] had seen some of my work - and they wanted me to come in
and screen for this character. I said no, a week passed and they asked
me again - and I said no again. Finally, thankfully, my manager twisted
my arm and forced me to go in. Shortly afterwards I fell in love with
the role and the rest is history. I'm so glad my manager pushed me."
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Robin Wood is the new Principal at
Sunnydale High. Joss Whedon deliberately kept the unisex name as he
wasn't sure in his script if Robin would be male or female, or good or
evil.
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At the end of this episode, Spike is
confronted by various manifestations in the form of previous Big Bads
The Master, Glory, Warren, Drusilla, Adam and Mayor Wilkins. The actors'
names were omitted from the guest stars list in the opening credits so
as not to spoil the ending.
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The scenes of Willow and Giles in England
were actually filmed on location at Anthony Stewart Head's house in
England. They were directed by Joss Whedon. The place is named as
Westbury in the show, but he actually lives near Bath in Somerset.
Westbury is in Wiltshire and is famous for a massive horse drawn into a
hill with chalk. There were going to be more scenes in England, but bad
weather interrupted the filming. Head explains: "The shot of me on Otto
[the horse] has rain running down me ... my hair is plastered to my
forehead, but you wouldn't know. It looks glorious because our brilliant
director of photography made everything look great."
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Anthony Head explains how the shoot
happened: "Basically, Joss had always wanted to shoot in Britain. He
announced that he wanted to shoot some scenes with Willow in England,
and I was very excited, because it's my neck of the woods and it meant I
could stay longer with my family before I went back to the States. Then
he said he wanted to shoot in and around Bath, because that's where we
said we'd set it if we ever do the Ripper series. I'd pitched
Bath as an interesting environment, a good backdrop because it's a cool
place. Somerset is just riddled with myths and legends and folklore -
ley lines and all sorts of things ... it's very spiritual. Joss said
yes, so when it came to shoot Giles at home he said, "Can we do it at
your house?" I thought I'd better ask my partner, Sarah, and she said,
"Go on." I said, "Yeah, but a film crew?", and she said, "Get over it,
it'll be fine!" Actually the house loved it, it was very "smiley" ... it
loved having all the attention. It's a lovely house."
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This season's opener is the first since
the start of the show where there have been no changes to the regular
cast. Each of the previous seasons there have been either cast members
added or removed at the beginning.
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Mark Metcalf, George Hertzberg, and Clare
Kramer were originally intended to return again by the end of the
season, but they were unable to make their schedule work with Joss's.
Harry Groener filmed his segment three weeks after the other actors in
that scene. David Solomon and Joss Whedon also note in their DVD
commentary that Kali Rocha was performing on stage during the beginning
of season seven, but they managed to fly her in and film all of her
season seven scenes in one day (including the scene here and all her
scenes in
Selfless).
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The scenes of "Istanbul" were actually
filmed at Universal Studios, and the graveyard shown in the teaser was
built indoors. Dawn's classroom was constructed in the same location of
the Scoobies' classroom in their high school years.
CONTINUITY
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Xander makes references to the last two
Principals of Sunnydale High (which coincidentally is built on the same
site as the last one). Both of them were eaten. Notably, Principal
Wood's office is in the location where the library used to be...
directly over the Hellmouth.
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Spike is back in Sunnydale, living in the
basement of the school where he is 'haunted' by hallucinations
(apparently) of the show's previous villains. In the order in which they
first appeared, he sees the Master, Drusilla, Mayor Wilkins, Adam, Glory
and Warren, and for some reason, Buffy.
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Willow is in England with Giles,
seemingly recovering from the end of last season and Tara's murder.
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Buffy tells Dawn not to worry, as she
missed the vampire's heart the first time she killed one too, which was
seen in a flashback to Buffy's calling in
Becoming (Part 1).
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Buffy references the past dangers of
Sunnydale High when she warns Dawn to watch for hyena people (The
Pack), fish monsters (Go Fish)
and invisible people (Out of Mind, Out
of Sight). She also claims that she's the one who dates dead guys,
referring to both Angel and Spike.
GOOFS
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Joss Whedon points out in his commentary
that Buffy's clothes don't have any pockets, yet she manages to put her
phone into an "invisible" pocket at the back of her trousers a couple of
times. At one point she tucks it into the back of her trousers but in
the next shot it's gone.
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During Buffy's fight scenes you can see
that she's wearing trainers - but before and afterwards she's wearing
high heels.
Lessons |
Beneath You |
Same Time, Same Place |
Help |
Selfless
Him |
Conversations With Dead People |
Sleeper |
Never Leave Me |
Bring on the Night |
Showtime
Potential |
The Killer in Me |
First Date |
Get It Done |
Storyteller |
Lies My Parents Told Me
Dirty Girls |
Empty Places |
Touched |
End of Days |
Chosen
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