Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S7/E13 The Killer in Me

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Spike's chip begins malfunctioning. Willow is transformed into Warren.

Tropes used in The Killer in Me include:
  • Call Back: Riley Finn leaves the decision-making re Spike to Buffy, as he did in "As You Were" when he'd been given permission to kill Spike for selling demon eggs but (realising Buffy was now in a relationship with Spike) refused to unless she agreed.
  • Chained to a Bed: For once not done for robbery or kinky sex. Spike is chained to his bunk in the basement in case the First activates him again.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The pistol Willow/Warren buys becomes a plot point in the next episode.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Amy returns and still a rat.
  • Continuity Nod
    • Buffy's description of the Vision Quest as involving the "hokey pokey" was from a quip she made in "Intervention".
    • Willow assumes she's put a spell on herself due to subconscious guilt, as happened in "Same Time, Same Place".
    • Willow threatens to tell some "Non-yellow crayon stories" about Xander, referring to Xander talking Dark!Willow down from destroying the world with his story about Willow in kindergarten crying over a broken yellow crayon.
    • The Wiccan group in UC Sunnydale last seen in "Hush", where Willow and Tara dismissed them as mere pretend witches. It appears they now have some genuine talent, though the practice of serious magic scares them off. And they still do bake sales.
    • Willow/Warren recreates the shooting of Buffy and Tara in the garden of Buffy's home ("Seeing Red").
  • Beautiful All Along: Willow asks why Kennedy would be interested in her. She replies, "Have you seen yourself?"
  • Buffy-Speak

Willow: For someone who's sick, you look surprisingly robust and casual dressy.

Willow: What you think you have some special lesbidar or something?
Kennedy: OK, you know there's a better word for that, right?

  • Gender Bender: Lampshaded in the scene where Willow (a lesbian in the body of a man) complains when Andrew (an Ambiguously Gay male with a Ho Yay attraction to Warren) keeps touching her/him.
  • Genre Savvy: Andrew doesn't want to be left alone in the house as something bad will happen to him.
  • The Glomp: Andrew hugs 'Warren', much to Willow's annoyance as he's inadvertently groping her breast region. Xander, Anya, Dawn and Andrew establish Giles' corporeal state by tackling him to the ground.
  • Held Gaze: Willow and Kennedy at the Bronze.
  • I Never Said I Was A Potential: Tips off Kennedy that Amy knows more about what Willow has been up to than she claimed.
  • Karma Houdini: Last appearance of Amy, though she returns as a villain in the Season 8 comics.
  • Layman's Terms

Kennedy: What did you do to her?
Amy: Oh, just your standard penance malediction is all.
Kennedy: OK, and that's magic crazy talk for what?
Amy: I put a hex on her.

  • The Lost Lenore / Tear Jerker: The hex is triggered not by Willow's guilt over killing Warren, but her guilt over forgetting Tara in the moment she kissed Kennedy.

Willow/Warren: I'm being punished. I k—I kissed you just-just for a second, but it was enough. I let her go. I didn't mean to.
Kennedy: Kissing me didn't mean th--
Willow/Warren: No, she was never gone. She was with me. We should have been forever, and I-- (cries) I let her be dead. She's really dead. (breaks down into tears) And I killed her.

Giles: Now wait a minute. You think I'm evil... if I bring a group of girls on a camping trip and don't touch them?

  • Noodle Incident / Spot the Imposter: Willow-in-Warren's-body convinces Xander that she's Willow by mentioning that there are other kindergarten stories where he doesn't look very heroic, such as the one about Aquaman underoos.
  • Nostalgia Filter: Averted

Buffy: Remember when things used to be nice and boring?
Willow: No.

Amy: This is not about hate. It's about power. Willow always had all the power, long before she even knew what to do with it. Just came so easy for her. The rest of us...we had to work twice as hard to be half as good. But no-one cares about how hard you work. They just care about cute, sweet Willow. They don't know how weak she is. She gave in to evil...stuff worse than I can even imagine. She almost destroyed the world! And yet everyone keeps on loving her? So what's wrong with having a little fun, huh? Taking her down a peg or two?

Kennedy: OK. Safe to say no one will ever accuse you of being too butch.

Soldier: We're to provide you anything you need to help assface here. (Buffy and Spike stare at him) Those were [Riley Finn's] exact words, ma'am.

Spike: This one seemed easier than the others. See? Probably just gonna fade-- (starts screaming in agony)

Willow: (as Warren) You were there, bitch! You saw it!

Buffy: No, it's not a book thing. It's a phone thing.
Spike: Who ya gonna call? (beat) God, that phrase is never going to be usable again, is it?
Buffy: Doubt it.

  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Kennedy pretends to be sick so she can stay back and have some private time with Willow.