Skipping quickly over the previouslys, we flashback to Giles kneeling next to Robson in London. The Bringer swings his ax, and without looking back, Giles whips out his hand and grabs the shaft. Hee. I said "shaft." Anyway, Giles pulls the ax towards himself, punches the Bringer in the gut, whacks it in the face with the ax handle, and then chops off its head. Cool! Go Giles.

Giles, Buffy, Kennedy, Millie, and the new Junior Miss from China, Chao-Ahn, are patrolling in a cemetery. Giles explains his near escape from the Bringer's ax, fatuously rambling on about training, instinct, and reflexes. As if this show hasn't broken my heart enough already over the past few years, now they're making a buffoon of the only character I still care about. He's mid-brag about his "wary watchfulness" when he's suddenly tackled by Spike. Ah. I see. It's a running joke about Giles getting knocked to the ground or something. I think I just broke a rib laughing. Giles and Spike slap each other's hands away and both exclaim, "Hey!" While Giles is surprised that Spike's chip didn't fire, Spike is equally surprised that Giles is all corporeal and not the First Evil. Huh? Spike explains that Anya told him Giles was the First. Wow, either Spike's really out of the loop or Anya was playing a practical joke on him and Giles. Maybe Giles did some little thing to piss her off, like ignore their three-week anniversary, and this was her human attempt at a little vengeance. Giles had better hope he got her something nice for Valentine's Day, because I'd hate to see what else she has up her sleeve. Spike bitches that Giles was "supposed to be all go-throughable," and Giles dryly demands to know why, in that case, Spike tackled him. Well, nobody ever credited Spike with an excess of brains, and Spike admits as much. Giles demands to know why Spike could hit him without pain, and Buffy and Spike explain with some embarrassment about the Initiative and how they had to make a choice and decided to have the chip removed. Giles is really very surprised and not a little disgusted, and I'm just perplexed about how these people spend their days all cooped up in a house together if they're not actually ever talking about anything. Buffy and Spike came back from the Initiative and just never told anyone what happened there? And no one asked, despite the fact that Spike wasn't rolling around on the ground in pain any longer? Anyway, I think it's something Buffy was obligated to tell everyone in the house as soon as she could, and I'm not at all sorry to see her catch some crap from Giles. If she'd been up-front about it earlier, he wouldn't be so cranky about having been caught off his guard by the new development. The Junior Misses are very confused by this conversation about chips, and then Chao-Ahn pipes up (with handy subtitles), "I don't understand a word any of you are saying!" It's endemic this season, honey. Don't sweat it.