Previously on Buffy: Buffy told a chained-up Spike she believed in him, which seems like a bit of a mixed message; The First sent its X-eyed monks to kidnap Spike; Willow sniffed some bad magic, as addicts do; Giles returned to Sunnydale with a gang of girls snagged from the "attractive teen female" pen at Central Casting. Buffy took a bad beating from Notsferatu, which prompted her to tell the Junior Misses that they "just became an army." As we will see later in the episode, it is an army of dumb.

Passengers disembark a bus at the Sunnydale bus depot, along with yet another Junior Miss Slayer. This one has a whole urban-pastoral look going with her dreadlocks and overalls. Maybe she's representing New Jersey? ["Dude, leave us out of this." -- Sars] Anyway, she goes to use a pay phone, and really, this is the moment I've been waiting for all season -- someone reads a phone book. She's quickly startled by the silent approach of one of the Harbingers, with his robes and scarred eye holes. I dunno -- seems an awful lot like your average Greyhound customer, up to and including the knife in his fist. Miss New Jersey spins away in panic, only to find her way between two buses blocked by more Harbingers. As she slumps to the ground in fear, two of the Harbingers are tossed aside by Buffy who, with a quip, manages to eliminate all three baddies with their own knives. She then approaches Miss New Jersey, and addressing her as "Rona," gives her a hand up. "You're her!" exclaims Rona, and then, still frightened, explains, "You know, I thought, uh, I'd be safe here." Buffy, not so reassuringly, tells Rona she'll be "safer" around the Slayer. She continues, "Next time you're attacked…" and Rona interrupts in protest, "You sayin' I'm going to get attacked again?" I get the feeling Rona is new to the game. As they walk off between the buses, Buffy replies, "Welcome to the Hellmouth." Not much of an explanation for someone who has no idea what you're talking about, Buffy.

The camera pans across a miscellany of tribal objects to indicate that this is Willow's room, I suppose. Willow wriggles about uncomfortably in a flannel-lined sleeping bag on the floor as Kennedy, on Willow's bed, invites her up. Not in a lascivious way, but certainly in a pointed way. Get some boundaries, Kennedy. That sort of forced intimacy turns off the saner people you might meet. I admit that I was a little put off by the possible age difference between these two, but then I happened to read in the shooting script that Kennedy is nineteen. So there you have it. Those of you who bemoan the lack of research on this show should realize that there is research, but its focus has just shifted. Now, it's the audience who is expected to put in a little extra time to figure out things like Kennedy's age or what Spike's motivation was in going to Africa. Shame on you for not knowing that! So. It's okay for Willow to diddle her. Still not okay for me to watch. Willow stutters and hand-gestures that no, she'd rather stay on the nice "firm" floor. Then she claims to be worrying because Buffy is out fetching a new pageant contestant, and expositions about Giles getting in contact with the British coven to locate more endangered girls. Kennedy cutesys some dialogue about the bathrooms in the Summers home getting too crowded and then keeps talking, giving Willow and the audience some back story that none of us are interested in hearing. Shut up, Kennedy. Just shut your privileged cakehole. Kennedy's story is that she's a rich almost-only child, raised in a large house with multiple wings. There was a summer home in the Hamptons too, with only one wing. What is this, the Lizzie Grubman story? Or maybe Kennedy is, y'know, one of those Kennedys.