Um, guys? You know how I was worried about Ash? Well, I just went to the kitchen to see what he was making for dinner and he was singing to himself, in a perfectly stagey teenage girl voice:

We love you Spi-ike
Oh yes we do
We love you Spi-ike
And will be true
When you're not near us
We're blue
Oh, Spi-ike, we loooove you

That's some scary shit coming from a 6' 4" guy, I gotta tell you. Either he really is cracking up, or it's some nefarious plan to drive me crazy. So maybe I haven't really been going crazy during this episode after all! It's just that Ash is out to get me. Cool -- I feel just like Ingrid Bergman! ["Better give Ash a hug. He might be the First." -- Sars]

The gang approaches SHS, which looks, as Buffy earlier predicted, like a war zone. There's graffiti on every available surface and rubbish strewn all around. Fires blaze in oil drums, and from the faint noises in the background it sounds like the Future Farmers of America and the Band Geeks (high school's version of the Hatfields and McCoys) are still going at it. You always see fires in oil drums on television shows as a shorthand for chaos, but it's never really made sense to me that any group that hell-bent on destruction would take the time to make sure all of the fires are contained. "I'll be along to help with the pillaging and the plundering in a moment, Joe -- I just gotta blow on this kindling for a moment more! Get this one going properly." "No problem, Bob. You don't want to take any chances with fire. That could cause some real damage! Safety first, I always say." Wood makes a comment about the casualties being "easy pickings" for Spike. Spike bristles that someone would DARE think him CAPABLE of destroying the sanctity of human life. Andrew turns the camera on himself, calling Spike and Wood's exchange "sexual tension you could cut with a knife." Buffy and minions make their way through the halls as kids run and mill around them. Why are these children still at school this late at night? Wouldn't their parents be suspicious? "Mom, I'm going to be studying until late at the library. Oh, and could you drop off an Uzi for me at the office?"