Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S7 E1 Lessons

"It's about power. Who's got it. Who knows how to use it."

Sunnydale High is reopened. Buffy discovers the place is infested by zombie spirits. She also finds a crazed Spike living in the basement.

"Dawn: Isn't this reception amazing? I'm in the freakin' basement!"
 * Aesop Amnesia: Buffy is still letting her guard down around Spike (she turns her back on him several times even though he's clearly Not Himself) and lying to her friends about him.
 * Arc Words / Book Ends / Ironic Echo: "It's about power." Buffy's words to Dawn when she's training her to fight vampires are repeated back to Spike by the First (manifesting as Buffy).
 * Bait and Switch: Buffy fights her way through the zombies guarding the door she thinks Dawn is behind, only to find it opened by Spike who she hasn't seen since his Attempted Rape in "Seeing Red".
 * Bad Liar: Buffy (as usual), but averted with Dawn who thinks up the 'bee in my eye" explanation for her Eye Scream on the spur of the moment. I guess that delinquent behaviour last year had a useful purpose after all.
 * Big Bad: The First.
 * Brick Joke: Principal Wood mistakes Buffy for Dawn's mother, causing Buffy to check to see if she's got "Mum hair". After his life is saved, Carlos calls her "the coolest mom ever", causing Buffy to check her hair again.
 * Buffy-Speak: Willow says that the Earth is "not all good and pure and rootsy." Xander sees the hole in the toilet floor and says, "Woah! Contracty goodness."
 * The Can Kicked Him: The school toilet has zombie ghosts and floors that give way beneath you.
 * Can You Hear Me Now: Dawn's cell phone.

"Spike: Buffy, duck.
 * Carlos Scare: Buffy startled by Carlos throwing the basketball. Dawn and Kit running into Carlos.
 * Character Development: Buffy, Xander and Dawn are acting a lot more mature than last year. Willow's old self is shining through as well. Spike and Anya however are feeling the pressure without the support of their old friends.
 * Chekhov's Gun: The gift-wrapped 'weapon' Buffy gives Dawn.
 * Season 7 opens with the murder of a Potential.
 * Comes Great Responsibility: Willow is being taught control of her powers rather than abstination.
 * Comically Missing the Point

Buffy: What? Duck? There's a duck? (zombie hits her over the head with a pipe)"

""I planned to get killed, come back as a vampire, and bite you.""
 * Continuity Cavalcade: The First torments Spike while shifting into the Big Bads of the previous seasons (choosing Warren for the sixth and Drusilla for the second) in reverse order.
 * Continuity Nod: Buffy missed the heart first time she staked a vampire. Spike raving about being caned after dropping his slate in the water is a reference to his origins in the Victorian era.
 * Creepy Basement
 * Daydream Surprise / Eye Scream: The boy next to Dawn asks to borrow a pencil. Suddenly he's a zombie jabbing the pencil into her eye.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Dawn has dropped the whiny-ness and reverted to good 'ole Summer snarkiness.

"When you brought me here, I thought it was to kill me or to lock me in some mystical dungeon for all eternity or...with the torture. Instead, you go all Dumbledore on me."
 * Description Cut: From Giles saying "In the end, we all are who we are, no matter how much we may appear to have changed" to Xander back in Sunnydale in a suit and tie, getting out of an expensive car.
 * Designated Parents: Xander as the bread-winning Dad, Buffy with her Mom hair, and Dawn as the kid. Unfortunately Xander is still recovering from the Anya disaster, so the Ship Tease implications of this haven't occurred to him.
 * Easily Forgiven: After murdering Warren and Rack, trying to kill her friends, and attempting to bring about The End of the World as We Know It, Giles has taken Willow to the coven in Devon.

"Halfrek: Waitress downtown wished her husband was a frog? You made him French."
 * Expository Hairstyle Change: Spike with Crazy Hair.
 * Failed Attempt At Drama / Musicalis Interruptus: Mentor!Buffy is giving Dawn a dramatic speech about how dangerous the vampire just breaking out of the soil is, when the vamp in question interrupts to ask for a helping hand as he's got his foot stuck on a root. After Buffy frees the vampire he snarls evilly that it's the last thing she's ever do, only to revert to a squeak as Buffy grabs his throat and points out that he really doesn't want to mess with a Slayer.
 * Fantastic Drug: Averted -- magic is not an addiction. Thank you for confirming that, Rupert.
 * Foreshadowing
 * Spike tells Buffy "it's just the three of us" in his hideout.
 * Principal Wood already knows about Buffy having read her file, but mistakes her for a mother.
 * Halfrek's warning causes Anya to overcompensate in her wish-granting.
 * Willow believes she's not getting the punishment she deserves. This sets up "Same Time, Same Place".
 * Get Out!: Zombie!Janitor shouts "Get out. Get out. Get out!" to Buffy in the toilet (if only he'd said it to Dawn it would have been a great Ironic Echo).
 * Gory Discretion Shot: The Instanbal Potential being knifed.
 * I Just Want to Be Normal: Giles asks Willow if she wants to be punished. Willow says she wants the power she has taken out of her. "I just want to be Willow."
 * I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Three dogs in fact. All dead. Principal Wood is appropriately shocked.
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: The Resentful Dead guys.
 * In the Hood / Sacrificial Lamb: The episode opens with hooded men chasing and murdering a young woman in Instanbul.
 * Improvised Weapon: Buffy tells Dawn to find a weapon. Carlos finds two bricks, Dawn places them in Kit's bag, and Buffy swings it to good effect.
 * Laughing Mad: Spike when Buffy asks if he's real -- it's not until the very end of the episode that we see why Buffy asking him this question would provoke such a reaction.
 * Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Dawn says that as the vampire she's facing is new so "he might not know all those fancy martial arts skills they inevitably seem to pick up." She also points out that she's taller than her sister when Buffy calls her "a little woman".
 * Limited Social Circle: Anya accuses Halfrek of doing an "intervention" and says if that's the case shouldn't all her friends be here? Halfrek says pointedly, "They are."
 * Literal Genie: Averted by Anya.

"Buffy: Vampires, demons... they're nothing compared to what's coming.
 * Mirror Scare
 * My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Willow can feel the Hellmouth flexing its chompers all the way from England.
 * Not Named in Opening Credits
 * Not Himself / Talkative Loon: Spike has gone insane, and it's not just his newfound soul that's the culprit.
 * Not So Dire

Dawn: I know. I just can't believe it's back.

Buffy: Believe me, I thought I was long past it. I guess you never are. Just a few more days 'til it starts. Then we'll never know what's coming next."

"Spike: Manifest spirits controlled by a talisman, raised to seek vengeance. A 4-year-old could figure it."
 * Off with His Head: Buffy killing Dawn's 'training vampire'.
 * Our Zombies Are Different: These ones can pull a Stealth Hi Bye, yet Buffy can hit them so they can't be ghosts.

"Zombie Janitor: You can thank your sister for this.
 * Poke the Poodle: Halfrek warns Anya that she's being perceived as doing this, and now is not a good time in the demon world to be seen as 'good'.
 * Repeat After Me: The zombie janitor is attacking Dawn.

Buffy enters and kicks zombie butt.

Dawn: Thanks, sis."

"Buffy: You have everything? Books, lunch, stakes?
 * Rule of Threes / The Last of These Is Not Like the Others

Dawn: Checked thrice."

"Dawn: I know! -- 'You never know what's coming'. 'The stake is not the power'. To Serve Man is a cookbook."
 * Later when Buffy keeps fussing...

"Kit: (seeing a zombie walking towards them) It's not real.
 * Buffy warns Dawn to be on the lookout for hyena people, lizard-like athletes, and invisible people -- Dawn points out that keeping an eye out for the latter is rather difficult.
 * Scenery Porn: The green fields of Westbury, England. Plus there's Giles on a horse!
 * Self -Harm: Spike has scars on his chest from where he tried to 'cut out' his soul.
 * Shape Shifter: Unlike the Final Boss Preview in "Amends" where the First only took the form of Jenny Calender, this one morphs freely while Circling and Monologuing.
 * Smash Cut: From the Potential being killed to Buffy saying, "It's about power."
 * Sunnydale Syndrome: And How To Not Let It Kill You.

Dawn: Lesson One -- It's always real."

"Spike: No visitors today. Terribly busy."
 * Teach Me How to Fight: Buffy is teaching Dawn how to fight vampires, using an actual vampire. She doesn't intervene until Dawn is in imminent danger of being eaten.
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Spike watching zombies pound on Buffy.

"First (as Adam): Everything is well within parameters. She [Buffy] is exactly where I want her to be."
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Despite the implication that Carlos and Kit will join with Dawn to form their own Scooby Gang, we don't see them again.
 * Xanatos Gambit

"Dawn: What do [the zombies] want?
 * You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry

Buffy: So far, to piss me off.

Dawn: Please tell me it's working.

Buffy: Oh, I'm damage bound."

"Nerd Zombie: I think I'd like Dawn to be my girlfriend.
 * Zombies Need Women

Buffy: Again, wrong sister. I'm the one that dates dead guys. And, no offense, but they were hotties."