Lessons (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Plot

Istanbul: A dark-haired girl runs through an arched hallway, looking over her shoulder and panting. She's being chased by two people in hooded cloaks. After trying various escape routes, she is trapped in a dead-end. She sees a drain pipe and tries to use it to scale the building. The people chasing her grab her foot, but she manages to escape their grip and easily climbs up to the roof. There, another hooded figure is waiting and pushes her off the building. She screams, but she lands on the ground alive, on her back. Two hooded figures hold her down, yet she fights back. A third figure raises an arched, shiny, silver dagger and stabs her.

Buffy is in Sunnydale training her sister how to fight vampires. She instructs Dawn that fighting and slaying are about power. They discuss the fact that Sunnydale High has just reopened; Dawn will be attending for the first time.

Meanwhile, Willow is studying with Giles in Westbury, England. She studies magic and meditation with a coven of Wiccans that Giles knows. She is learning control, but feels frightened and distraught because she "killed people".

Xander is working construction at Sunnydale High School. He notes that the principal's office is right over the Hellmouth. Buffy follows Dawn into the school where she meets Principal Robin Wood. She goes into a bathroom, where she finds a mysterious talisman. Upon seeing the talisman, she sees a dead girl who threatens her. She says Buffy was unable to protect her, and that she will not be able to protect Dawn either.

Anya is still in the vengeance business, and is drinking coffee with her fellow vengeance demon Halfrek. "Hallie" tells Anya that the other demons are noticing a lack of quality in her work. She adds, "Something's rising. Something older than the old ones, and everybody's tail is twitching. This is a bad time to be a good guy."

Buffy tries to warn Dawn, but winds up only embarrassing her in front of her whole class. Dawn then sees a similar dead student. She hurries to the bathroom where she meets Kit Holburn, who has also been seeing things. They are about to leave the bathroom when the floor caves in and they wind up in the high school basement.

Back in England, Willow has a terrible vision of "the Earth's teeth"—the Hellmouth. She tells Giles, who has taught her that everything is connected, that not everything that is connected to the earth is good.

Dawn and Kit run into another student in the basement, Carlos Trejo, who says he saw a dead janitor. They are soon confronted by the three dead people. The dead people tell them that everyone dies in Sunnydale, and they will be no different. Dawn calls Buffy on her new cell phone. Buffy descends into the basement to help Dawn, only to run into the three dead people herself. After a brief conversation (the dead girl, for example, says that she "was ripped to death by a werewolf"), Buffy realizes that the three dead people are trying to prevent her from going through a certain door. Buffy makes it to the door on her second try. She opens the door, but instead of finding Dawn and the other two students, Buffy finds a deranged Spike.

Once Buffy and Spike are alone in this part of the basement, Buffy having locked the dead people out on the other side of the door, she realizes that not only is Spike in a poor mental state, he is in terrible physical condition as well. She asks him about a series of cuts on his chest, and he replies that he tried to "cut it out". Before their conversation can continue, Dawn calls Buffy again. In spite of Spike's mad rambling, he is able to tell Buffy that the dead students are not zombies or 'ghosts', but "manifest spirits controlled by a talisman, raised to seek vengeance." Buffy tells Dawn to find a weapon because the spirits are corporeal, and then leaves Spike's presence once she realizes that he is in no shape to help her.

Buffy then calls Xander and tells him to find and destroy the talisman. Buffy follows Dawn's screams to another room in the basement, where she finds Dawn has made a weapon from a purse filled with bricks. Dawn throws the weapon to Buffy, who then fights the spirits off as Xander wrestles with one in the bathroom after finding the talisman. Xander breaks the talisman and the spirits disappear.

Back in the school proper, Buffy sends Dawn, Kit, and Carlos off to class with some words of advice. Principal Wood is impressed that Buffy is able to convince Kit and Carlos, the only two students with school records as long as Buffy's, to socialize and to go to class. He offers her a job working as a counselor at the school, and she gladly accepts.

Spike huddles in the school basement and tells an apparition of Warren Mears that he has prepared a speech to give Buffy, but she will not understand what he has to say. As Warren paces around Spike, he morphs successively into Glory, Adam, Mayor Wilkins, Drusilla and the Master - the previous villains of the series in reverse order. They all speak to Spike about a plan "to go back to the beginning," and finally, the Master morphs into Buffy, telling Spike that "it's not about right, not about wrong... it's about power."

Starring

Special Guest Starring

Guest Starring

Production

The scenes set in Westbury were actually shot at Anthony Head's house in Somerset, England. He owns the horse seen in the episode, and it is named "Otto".

Kali Rocha filmed all of her scenes for this season in one day, including those in "Selfless".

Continuity

Arc significance

Pop culture allusions