Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S5/E11 Triangle

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


YOU CANNOT APPEASE ME! DO NOT TRY!

Willow and Anya are fighting over Xander's affection. They accidentally summon a troll.

Dawn: What are you doing?
Buffy: Playing soccer.

YOU FIGHT WELL, ALTHOUGH YOU ARE A TINY MAN!

Olaf: YOU THERE! DO YOU KNOW WHERE THERE ARE BABIES?
Spike: (To Xander) What do you think, the hospital?

  • Exact Eavesdropping: Dawn overhears Giles, Buffy and Joyce talking about the Key, and that it has something to do with her.
  • Get Thee to a Nunnery: For a moment it appears Buffy is coping with her man problems this way, then she appears and stakes a vampire who's about to eat the young blonde-haired nun. After staking the vampire...

Buffy: So, um, a-about being a nun... (They begin to walk along together) You know, um, with the whole ... abjuring the company of men ... you know, how's that working for you? The... abjuring.

Anya: You [Willow] have known him [Xander] since you were squealing infants together. You will always know him better than I do!

Olaf: IT WAS ONLY ONE WENCH. I HAD HAD A GREAT DEAL OF MEAD. NEXT THING I KNOW, I'M A TROLL! OH, YOU SHALL PAY FOR THIS ANYANKA!

Xander: But you seem to enjoy the -- the being a troll.

Olaf: (shrugs) I ADJUSTED!

Giles: Um, Anya, while, while I completely trust you uh, uh, to take care of the inventory and the money, um ... dealing with people requires a certain, uh ... finesse.
Anya: I have finesse! I have finesse coming out of my bottom! I can completely lie to the health inspector. I can, you know, distract him with coy smiles, and, and bribe him with money and goods.

    • Willow is using the Magic Shop supplies to do a spell, so Anya accuses her of stealing

I'm not stealing. I-I'm just taking things without paying for th... (pauses) In what twisted dictionary is that stealing?

  • Large Ham: ALL OF OLAF'S LINES WERE WRITTEN IN CAPS.
  • Moral Dissonance: Olaf demands babies to eat. Spike turns to Xander and asks, "What do you think, the hospital?"
  • Nerdgasm: Giles is going on about the Watcher's Council library.

Buffy: Don't talk about the books again. You get all ... and sometimes there's drool.

  • No Bisexuals: Anya thinks Willow might put the moves on Xander like she did when he was seeing Cordelia.

Willow: Well, hello, gay now.

  • Noodle Incident: Whatever fishbowl balancing act Willow did that got her banned from owning fish for five years.
  • Now You Tell Me: Anya tells Buffy that Olaf's power is in his hammer -- after Olaf loses it, Buffy rushes in to finish him off only to get Punched Across the Room.

Anya: Oh, yeah! I forgot he still has all that troll strength.

  • Pet the Dog: Hoping to impress Buffy, Spike gives first aid to injured people at the Bronze without feeding from them. Buffy is incredulous that he "wants credit for not feeding on disaster victims" and storms off, causing Spike to exclaim, "What does it take?"
  • Power Floats: Willow doing a spell.

Anya: Hey! Don't float the merchandise!

Buffy: Their love! Will last! Forever!

Willow: I wish Buffy were here.
Buffy: I'm here!
Willow: I wish I had a million dollars! Just checking...

Willow: Anya, I have faith in you. There is no one you cannot piss off.

Anya: He probably got sent to the Land of the Trolls. He'll like it there. Full of trolls.

  • Trash the Set: The Bronze and the Magic Shop.
  • Trick Dialogue: Spike (holding a gift-wrapped box of chocolates) appears to be apologizing to Buffy for his part in the Riley affair. It turns out he's rehearsing his lines with the shop dummy he'd dressed up as Buffy. Eventually Spike loses his temper over Buffy's imaginary rejection and hits the dummy over the head with the box, only to calmly put things back in order and start again.
  • Villain Has A Point: Olaf's "condition" is the reason Anya is a Vengeance Demon - the man cheated on her once and he claims he was drunk at the time. Regardless, turning him into an ugly brute and then sending him to an interdimensional jail for centuries, well, you can hardly blame the guy for being angry at her.
  • We Need a Distraction: Anya being irritating.

Anya: Your menacing stance is merely mildly alarming and your roar is less than full-throated!
Olaf: DESIST! MY GOD, WOMAN, IT'S BEEN A THOUSAND YEARS AND YOU ARE YET AS AGGRAVATING AND EMASCULATING AS EVER YOU WERE!

Anya: Xander? If you ever decide to go, I want a warning. You know, big flashing red lights, and-and-and one of those clocks that counts down like a bomb in a movie? And there's a whole bunch of, of colored wires, and I'm not sure which is the right one to cut, but I guess the green one, and then at the last second "No! The red one!" and then click, it stops with three-tenths of a second left, but then you don't leave. Like that, okay?
Xander: Check. Big bomb clock.

  • Woman Scorned: Olaf turns out to be Anya's ex, whom she turned into a troll after he cheated on her, thereby getting her job as a vengeance demon. The full story is shown in Season 7's "Selfless".