We begin this with the cliffhanger from Buffy's dream, who is that man? Ethan Rayne! He tells Buffy "my love" is just an expression, but she still wants to hurl. He somehow hitched a ride into her dreamspace via Amy. Dreamspace is different than a dream, it's a place comprised of all the dreams you could dream all the time. Does this place relate in any way to the new world Buffy and Angel will create? Is it the dreamspace of a world or of the Seed?
Anyway, this dreamspace of Buffy's has my eternal gratitude for the next image we see. Buffy, dressed as a sexy nurse, chained between naked Angel and naked Spike, watched by (they better not be Viking!) cherubs, with Georgia O'Keefe flowers and an erupting volcano and trains heading straight towards a tunnel and each other. Ahem...I'm back.
Ethan says Buffy's trapped in here and needs to get out. I'm not sure I'd ever leave, but whatever, Ethan.
In the real world, Willow and Amy are fighting high in the air above the castle battle. Amy taunts Willow about her unimpressive magicks, but Will is just tasting Amy's power so she can disrupt it. She tampers with the spell and the zombies stop trying to kill everyone and start asking the slayers to dance instead. Xander applauds but then Amy hits Willow hard.
In dreamspace, Ethan leads Buffy towards what he wants her to see. On the way, they tumble past a ton of snippets of Buffy dreams that come from her memories of the past. I can pick out pictures of Faith, Dawn, Angel, Caleb, Joss Whedon!!!, dead on the couch Joyce, and a grad pic. We see her walking the halls with Xander and Willow, talking about French, a necessary ingredient to all Whedon dreamscapes. Also a scene of Buffy reading the book Vampyr with Giles looking on. That comes back at the very end of the season when that book, part of their first conversation together in the pilot, is Giles' legacy to Buffy. I think I see Riley in there, possibly the Master, and a scrawled: Buffy & Angel 4ever. I can't remember if that's from the show specifically, like the Prom ep or something, or just a general sentiment. It's also another bit of foreshadowing of the events that happen towards the end. Not only because it comes back to that relationship, but also the 4ever part is implied in their created paradise.
Willow is pixelating from Amy's blow, and she goes all veiny and hits her back hard, knocking her to the ground. Xander calls in his final weapon with a fe fi fo that Dawn finishes with f%$#ing fum! And then stomps Amy like she's Gachnar. Nice. She also asks Willow if she's evil again. I love that most of the characters on the show have to ask each other that whenever they've been apart for too long. Because you really never know.
Ethan and Buffy reach a giant rat cage that Buffy recognizes as Amy's, so she knows who attacked her now. Ethan says he didn't know her, couldn't see outside of himself, but he managed to connect with Amy and therefore was able to get to Buffy. Amy's dreamspace has the rat cage, seems to be in a cavern that is fleshy and red and gooey, kind of like Warren, or the inside of the not-an-asteroid from Empire Strikes Back. There's some dead, orc-looking creature there too. And Ethan is framed by a three-sided construction of X's, leaving Buffy to wonder if it's all about sex. Ethan tells her, "Remember what you see here. Twilight is falling. You're going to need all the help you can get."
Willow is assessing Buffy's condition while Xander and many slayers look on, and Dawn stares in the window, asking about the undead playing Pride and Prejudice around her ankles. Will makes an offhand remark that when the ball is over, they'll go away. Hee. We get a first indication of some sort of time when Xander tells Willow it's been a long year. We don't know if that's since the Hellmouth collapsed or since they got settled in Scotland or started organizing or what, but it's something.
Amongst the slayers in the room are Rowena, Leah and Satsu. Willow says there is someone in the room who is truly in love with Buffy and can break the spell. We're left to wonder if it's Xander or Willow or one of the slayers, presumably one whose name we know already or it's no fun, because Willow has everyone close their eyes so the one person can kiss Buffy in private. Buffy wakes saying, "Cinnamon buns!"
Giles is parlaying with a demon. Apparently it was members of this demon's brood that were slain in the church in the first episode. Twilight's people sent two of their own as bait to lure the demons out and force a confrontation with the slayers. Whether this was just their standard practice, to make their enemies fight one another, or it was part of a bigger plan, we don't know. Amy found Buffy by magic after that, but maybe Twilight used that tactic to find her himself. I don't remember if we find out all the details of that. But Giles tries to convince the demon it was in both their interests to fight each other on their own terms, not someone else's, so they should try to figure out what the symbol means and share information.
Xander is talking to Andrew on the phone about the symbol as well, and warning him about the latest attack. Andrew says it's boring where he is, and he couldn't find out anything about the symbol, despite now having parchment fingers. There's a good sight gag of Andrew talking about how bored Xander would be if he were there, while slayers are playing strip poker in the background. Also, one of the other women in the scene is reading a book called Fray. This is another instance of comics being a different medium than TV. If that was on air, people would be debating whether that reference was too meta, or whether that meant that Fray was a fictional character in the Buffyverse and how could that be, etc. But you see sight gags like that, and like the picture of Joss in Buffy's dreamspace, in comics and they're meant to only be meta allusions. At least, that's how I read it.
Xander is dealing with the wounded. Oh, Renee was impaled on a broadsword in the fight last issue, and I totally forgot to mention it. She survived, but blames herself for letting the undead army breach the walls. Xander tough talks her down, saying she did good raising the alarm and has nothing to feel guilty about. They're cute. Uh-oh.
Buffy and Willow look over a magically shackled Amy. Willow says her spell reeked of tech so she is probably working with someone. She's trying to trace her teleportation origin. Apparently, as we guessed before from Xander's comment, Willow's been gone a while. Buffy wonders where. She doesn't get an answer. We will fill in this gap later at various points. From what I remember, she spent most of the time with the snake lady goddess, seeking mentorship or something. We'll get there.
Buffy asks about Kennedy and is told she died (don't cheer yet, people) -- but it was a mystical thing and only lasted a month. Get some good Willow language that you can really hear Alyson Hannigan say in your head. Xander walks in to find them laughing at the end of a Buffy story. "And I was covered in it!" I know I'm curious.
Xander calls Willow Elphaba, which is fun, and Buffy starts to remember her dream and the kiss that awoke her, then Willow starts getting an image from Amy. It's high tech military guys, and someone mentions the Initiative. Buffy senses a cavern. Is that from Amy's dreamspace or is that the Hellmouth crater? I guess they're the same thing ultimately. Or it could be the cavern of the shadow men that Buffy is reminded of because a portal activates. It pulls Willow through and closes. Xander calls for the mystics. Okay. Are their mystics different from their witches and their psychics? I'm positive we never get that sorted out, but I'm fascinated by all the non-slayer parts of their organization, so I'd like to know.
Willow is strapped to a table in a lab with Amy gloating again over her. They were contracted to bring in the Slayer, but she'll be here, etc. We? BaDum! Warren is Amy's boyfriend, and he's still skinless, and he's megapissed at Willow. End.
It was shocking to see him the first time through. Never would have predicted that. We'll get the story of how he survived in the next issue. What a couple he and Amy are. I'm interested in watching their relationship again as I reread. They start out as major threats and end up being played almost for laughs before Warren turns back to goo. But I'm sure I missed a lot of their thing the first time through. He's just so gross to look at.
This issue was pretty much all action, balanced a bit by Buffy's dream journey that we haven't fully interpreted at this point. I think that happens soon though too; we'll get back to Ethan Rayne. But there's not a lot here thematically that echoes down to the end, unless you count the idea of dreamspace which does tie in a bit to the new world space I think. But we're moving right along.
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