Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S4/E22 Restless



"You think you know who you are, what's to come. You haven't even begun."

The spirit of The First Slayer tries to kill The Scoobies in their sleep.

This was the last appearance of Oz and Principal Snyder.

This episode provides examples of:
"Heckler: You suck!
 * A Form You Are Comfortable With: Tara in Buffy's dream, speaking for the First Slayer.
 * And Show It to You: The First Slayer rips out Xander's heart.
 * Final Boss: The First Slayer, since Big Bad Adam was defeated in the previous episode.
 * Freudian Slip: Dream!Xander to Hot Mom Joyce, saying "I'd like you" instead of "I'd like to" in answer to "Would you like to rest awhile?"
 * Ambiguously Gay: Giles as a theatre director in Willow's dream.
 * Anxiety Dreams: Willow dreams that she's turned up for a play and doesn't know her lines ("Your whole family is in the front row -- and they look really angry!"). Later she has to deliver a talk in front of a classroom of jeering friends. Xander realises the Initiative is taking notes while he takes a leak.
 * Bad Bad Acting: Milkmaid!Harmony
 * BLAM Episode / Denouement Episode
 * Blessed Are the Cheesemakers: The Cheese Man.
 * Call Back: Willow asking if the play in "Madame Butterfly", refering to her Anxiety Dream in Season 1's "Nightmares". Xander says he was glad Snyder was eaten by a snake ("Graduation Day").
 * Cliche Storm (In Universe): The war movie showing on television in Xander's dream.
 * Comically Missing the Point: Anya as a stand-up comic.

Anya: Quiet! You'll miss the humorous conclusion."

"Xander: Sometimes I think about two women doing a spell, and go and do a spell by myself."
 * Creepy Basement: Dream!Xander's basement becomes this.
 * Dark Action Girl: The First Slayer
 * A Date With Rosie Palms

"But what else could I expect from a bunch of low-rent, no-account hoodlums like you? Hoodlums, yes, I mean you and your friends, your whole sex, throw 'em in the sea for all I care, throw 'em in and wait for the bubbles, men with your groping and spitting all groin no brain three billion of you passing around the same worn-out urge. Men! With your ... sales!"
 * Death By Irony: The Scoobies are killed according to their roles in the Enjoining spell they performed in the previous episode:
 * Willow (the spirit) has the life sucked from her
 * Xander (the heart) has his heart ripped out
 * Giles (the mind) is scalped
 * Buffy (the hand) breaks the circle by refusing to fight.
 * Deliberately Monochrome: Spike in Giles' dream.
 * Dissonant Serenity: Dream!Willow's friends look on indifferently as she is killed. Joyce puts a brave face on being trapped in a wall.
 * Director!Giles' reaction to Harmony's attempts to bite him. "Stop that, it's very annoying."
 * Does Not Like Men: In Willow's dream, Flapper!Buffy delivers a long tirade on the male sex to Cowboy!Riley.

"Anya: And then the duck tells the doctor that there's a man that's attached to my ass! You see, it was the duck and not the man that spoke."
 * Don't Explain the Joke: In Giles' dream, Anya is doing stand-up comedy and is so abysmal at it that she has to explain every joke just to get the crowd to laugh.

"Comm Voice: The demons have escaped. Please run for your lives.
 * Double Entendre: Between Cowboy!Riley and Milkmaid!Harmony in the play. ("Would you like me to hold those milk pails for you?") And in the same scene, Willow meeting Tara between the red folds of the curtains.
 * Dreaming of Things to Come / Foreshadowing: Tons of it! For instance:
 * Count Dracula in the playground scene -- Buffy will encounter him in the Season 5 premiere.
 * Tara telling Buffy to "be back before Dawn."
 * Tara telling Willow "You don't know everything about me". This relates to "Family".
 * Buffy confronts the First Slayer in the desert. In "Intervention" Buffy goes to that same place for real on a Vision Quest, and her Spirit Advisor takes the form of the First Slayer.
 * Arc Number 730 turning up again - the first time was in the season finale, exactly 2 years before . Now, we're told, "it's so late (...) that clock's completely wrong".
 * In Xander's dream, Spike is wearing the tweed suit he ends up wearing in the season 6 episode "Tabula Rasa", where Giles (after losing his memory) thinks Spike is his son. That episode also has "a shark with feet, and much less fins" in the form of a shark-headed demon.
 * Adam hinting to Buffy that their power comes from demonic, not human origins. The origin of the First Slayer's power will be shown in Season 7.
 * Giles' dream that he neglected his chance at a life with Olivia to be Buffy's Watcher. At the start of Season 5 he decides to return to England in the belief that Buffy no longer needs him.
 * Buffy's bag of weapons turns out to contain mud and a path to the First Slayer; the same bag turns up in season 7 "Get It Done", containing exposition on the source of the Slayer power. The brief shot of the First Slayer chained to the ground is also explained in that episode.
 * The gnome lawn ornaments -- the Trio use a camera hidden in one to spy on Buffy in Season 6.
 * Dream Within a Dream
 * Driving a Desk: Anya and Xander in the ice cream truck.
 * Foot Focus: A lot in Buffy's dream. Then again, the episode was written by Joss Whedon.
 * Gayngst: Subverted. Willow's dream first appears to be about this, but what she really fears is everyone discovering that underneath all her Character Development, she's still the Shrinking Violet from Season 1.
 * Girlish Pigtails: Buffy in Giles' dream, where he imagines Buffy is his daughter.
 * Girl On Girl Is Hot: Xander fantasizes about Tara and Willow as porn-style Lipstick Lesbians.
 * Government Conspiracy: Mocked with Buffy's dream of Riley and Human!Adam, where he says the government is planning World Domination through sentient coffee machines.

Human!Adam: This could be trouble.

Riley: We'd better make a fort.

Human!Adam: I'll get some pillows."

"Snyder: Are you a soldier?
 * Hannibal Lecture: Kurz!Snyder to Xander.

Xander: I'm a comfortador.

Snyder: You're neither. You're a whipping boy, raised by mongrels and set on a sacrificial stone."

""No friends...just...the kill.""
 * Hong Kong Dub: Dream!Xander is confused when Giles and Anya try to tell him what's going on in poorly-synced French.
 * Hot Mom: Joyce in Xander's dream.
 * Human Notepad: Willow paints Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite on Tara's back.
 * Jaw Drop: Xander when Porn!Tara and Porn!Willow ask if he wants to come in the back with them.
 * Kissing Discretion Shot: Tara and Willow's porn make-out is portrayed via Xander's stunned reaction and lots of lip-smacking sounds.
 * The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: During the Exposition Song, Giles says he's going to warn Buffy, Willow is to search the chronicles, and Xander is help Willow and avoid bleeding on his couch, as he's just had it steam-cleaned.
 * Willow: "This drama class is just ... I think they're really not doing things in the proper way, and now I'm in a play and my whole family's out there, and ... why is there a cowboy in "Death of a Salesman" anyway?
 * Buffy completing her Shut UP Hannibal by critiquing the First Slayer's hairstyle.
 * Leaning On the Fourth Wall: There's a scene where Xander goes from Joyce's house to the college to Buffy's dorm to Xander's basement in a single take -- which is easy to do as all the sets are right next to each other.
 * Likea Son to Me: In Xander's dream, Giles says that Spike is "like a son to me". Xander replies, "I was into that for a while."
 * Like Brother and Sister: Dream!Xander looks heartbroken when Buffy calls him 'big brother'.
 * The Men in Black: Riley and Human!Adam in Buffy's dream, hinting at some lingering trust issues.
 * Mind Screw
 * Mr. Exposition: Spoofed when Giles sings "The Exposition Song".
 * Pass the Popcorn
 * The Power of Friendship: Rejected by the First Slayer.

""Faith and I made that bed.""
 * Psychic Link: Confirmed - Buffy remembers Faith's dream from "This Year's Girl".


 * Riddle for The Ages: Cheese Man.
 * Shout Out: Principal Snyder as Colonel Kurtz, and Xander as Willard from Apocalypse Now.
 * Shut UP Hannibal: Buffy to the First Slayer.
 * Smash Cut: When Buffy wakes up from a dream.
 * Something Completely Different: From the usual action-packed season finale.
 * Talking in Your Dreams
 * Tarot Motifs
 * Tempting Fate: Giles telling the First Slayer that he can defeat her with his intellect just before she cuts his head open.
 * Vampiric Draining: The First Slayer killing Willow.
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: According to Joss Whedon the Cheese Man doesn't symbolise anything; he's just one of those weird things that happen in dreams. Not that it has stopped fans from analysing him.
 * You Are Not Alone: Buffy is being haunted by the spirit of the First Slayer who is trying to show her that the life of a slayer is marked by its loneliness. She looks down at a tarot card in her hands that pictures Giles, Willow, and Xander, and replies: "I am not alone."
 * You Can Never Leave: Averted; Riley assures Buffy that the Initiative is not going to make him disappear.
 * Your Mind Makes It Real: Inverted; Buffy refuses to take the dream seriously and so can wake up from it.