Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S7/E07 Conversations With Dead People

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Buffy has a heart to heart talk with vamp who used to be her classmate. Willow is visited by the spirit of Cassie. Dawn is terrorized at home by a ghost. Spike chats up a girl at a bar. Andrew and Jonathan return.

Holden: Buffy, I'm here to kill you, not to judge you.

Dawn: I cast you out with every prayer from every god that walked the Earth and crawled beneath. (thrown across the room, landing on her butt, she continues talking through a bloody mouth) I cast you out with the strength of those who love me. (stands) I cast your out with the strength I have inside me! I cast you out into the void. (throws bowl forward) That's right! Die, you bastard!

    • And Cassie as the First.

Cassie: (mocking) Oh, baby, you left such a big hole. It hurt so bad. (serious, leans in) You don't know hurt. This last year's gonna seem like cake after what I put you and your friends through, and I am not a fan of easy death. Fact is, the whole good-versus-evil, balancing the scales thing...I'm over it. I'm done with the mortal coil. But believe me, I'm going for a big finish.

Willow: From beneath you, it devours.

Cassie: Oh, not it. Me.

Buffy: My parents weren't exactly the paragon of stay-togetherey-ness.

  • Brick Joke: In the 6th-season's "Gone", Warren declares to Buffy that "We are your arch-nemesises...ses." When they fail to open their escape door, Buffy mockingly says to Willow: "I give you my arch-nemesis...ses...ses." Holden marvels that he and Buffy are now enemies, saying, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we became nemeses?", Buffy responds, "Is that how you say the word?"
    • Buffy leaves money for Dawn so she can buy herself something to eat, but the note specifies NO PIZZA. Next time we see Dawn she's eating pizza and singing the praises of anchovies.
  • Can You Hear Me Now?: Buffy's mobile falls out of her pocket during her initial fight with Holden. When Dawn tries to call Buffy, she doesn't hear it ringing because she's too busy insisting to Holden that she's connected to a lot of people.
  • The Confidant: Buffy finds herself opening up to Holden Webster.
  • Continuity Nod
    • "That time on the bridge when you sang to each other" was in "Once More With Feeling" when Tara sang "Under Your Spell".
    • Buffy briefly dated Scott Hope at the beginning of Season 3, only for Scott to dump her on the excuse that she seemed too distracted (as she was caring for a recently Back from the Dead Angel). Holden suggests another reason.
    • "Strong like an amazon" is what Willow said in response to Tara saying "We can be strong" (about Joyce Summer's death in "The Body"). Likewise Dawn's "Mom? ...Mommy?" when trying to reach Joyce echoes Buffy's first reaction on seeing her mother dead.
    • Dead Joyce lies on the couch in the same position Buffy found her at the end of "I Was Made To Love You".
    • The music Dawn is listening to while home alone is the same Buffy was listening to while washing dishes in season 5, before breaking down and crying over their mother's sickness ("Listening to Fear").
    • Dawn talks on the phone to an off-screen Kit ("Lessons").
  • Conveniently Precise Translation: Andrew and Jonathan reveal that, while in Mexico, they've had dreams with the refrain "Desde abajo te devora." Andrew translates the phrase as "It eats you, starting with your bottom". The literal translation is "From below, it devours you", but this particular phrase probably would translate fairly closely to Spanish and back. Andrew provides his own lampshade a little earlier in the scene when he complains that Klingon was easier to learn than Spanish because the former "had much clearer rules on transitive and intransitive verbs."
  • Couldn't Find a Pen: "Mother's Milk is RED Today" appears on the wall of the Summers house.
  • Crucified Hero Shot
  • Dead Person Conversation
  • Did I Just Have A Therapy Session With Cthulhu?
  • Distracting Disambiguation
  • Divided We Fall: The First's Evil Plan.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Buffy lying on a sarcophagus as a make-shift Freudian Couch.
  • Dramatic Wind / Dramatic Shattering
  • Episode Title Card: The only regular Buffy episode to get one (the other is the Musical Episode "Once More, With Feeling", which gets completely new credits).
  • Fast Roping: Jonathan rappels down into Sunnydale High, followed by Andrew who loses his grip and crashes into the floor.
  • Foreshadowing: Holden tells Buffy not to beat herself up about her failed relationships as she's too young to settle down with a guy. This sets up her "cookie dough" speech in "Chosen".
    • Dawn playing with Buffy's weapons foreshadows her later belief that she is a Potential.
  • Forgotten Friend, New Foe: Justified as Holden was just another boy in Sunnydale High crushing on the beautiful and mysterious Buffy Summers; he gripes about having to spend 30 minutes reminding Buffy who he was.
  • Freudian Excuse: Buffy admits that her parents divorce might have been due to an affair by her dad. Holden suggests that Buffy's inability to connect with men might be because she subconsciously thinks she's better than them. Buffy promptly threatens to stake him, showing Holden he's hit a nerve.

Holden: Just answer me this -- whose fault was your parents divorce?
Buffy: (rolls eyes) OK, you know, this is beyond evil. This is Insane Troll Logic.

  • Get Out!: The poltergiest to Dawn, who instead slams the door and declares she's staying to protect her mother.
  • Have You Seen My God?: Holden asks Buffy if there really is a God. "What's the word on that, by the way?" Her own experiences in the afterlife not withstanding, Buffy has to admit there's "nothing solid".
  • Deadly Change-of-Heart: Jonathan
  • Heel Realisation

Buffy: I feel like I'm worse than anyone. Honestly, I'm beneath them. My friends, my boyfriends. I feel like I'm not worthy of their love. 'Cause even though they love me, it doesn't mean anything 'cause their opinions don't matter. They don't know. They haven't been through what I've been through. They're not the Slayer. I am. Sometimes I feel... (sighs) this is awful -- I feel like I'm better than them. Superior.
Holden: Until you can't win. And I thought I was diabolical -- or, at least I plan to be. You do have a superiority complex. And you've got an inferiority complex about it.

Buffy: The last guy I was with, it got really-- I behaved like a monster, treated him like... But at the same time, I-I let him completely take me over. Do things to me that-- (starts to cry).

Andrew: Check communications?
(Still standing beside each other, they both reach into the pockets of their cargo pants and pull out walkie-talkie radios.)
Jonathan: (to radio) Check. Check.
Andrew: (to radio) Check. Check.
Jonathan: Check.
Andrew: Check. Check.
Jonathan: Check. Check.
Andrew: Check. Check. Check.
Jonathan: Check.

Buffy: I think I'm gonna kill you just a little bit more than usual.
Holden: (later) OK. But are you killing me 'cause I'm evil or because you opened up?

  • Prop Recycling: The monster appearing to strangle Joyce is actually the Gnarl costume from "Same Time, Same Place", shot from the back and spray-painted black.
  • Sickly Neurotic Geek: After his Pratfall while trying to rappel inside Sunnydale High, Andrew blames his shin splints -- this starts a Running Gag throughout the season of him complaining of various prior injuries.
  • Relative Button: Dawn gets Wicca on the poltergiest's ass.
  • Rule of Three: Holden says Buffy is afraid of commitment.

Buffy: I commit! I'm committed. I'm a committee.

Buffy: I'm the Slayer. It's sort of a thing.

Holden: "The" like as in "The only one?"

Buffy: Pretty much.

  • Stake The Messenger: Buffy kills Holden after he drops the bombshell about Spike siring him. Due to a scene cut we don't see if it was because Holden attacked or in a violent response to what he said, but Buffy's position as Holden's dust swirls around her is the same, implying that it happened immediately afterwards.
  • Super Window Jump: While fighting Buffy and Holden go crashing through a stained glass window into a crypt.
  • Suspiciously Apropos Music: Hardly surprising as the lyrics were written by Joss Whedon for the episode.
  • Sword Over Head: Buffy doesn't stake Holden when she has the chance, because she finds she likes talking to him. Averted when Holden reveals that Spike has been killing again.
  • The Team Wannabe: Jonathan wants to hook up with the Scoobies, and thinks they're gathering information on the Seal of Danthazar they can present to Buffy as an olive branch.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Holden Webster puts up a good fight for a newly-sired vampire because he got into Tae Kwon Do after leaving school.
  • Verbal Backspace: A Running Gag with Holden.

Holden: Oh, my God!
Buffy: Oh, your God what?
Holden: Oh, well, you know, not my God, because I defy him and all of his works...

  • Warrior Therapist: Buffy tangles with a rather literal version of the trope -- a vampire who had been a Psychology major prior to being sired. He was at least as, if not more, interested in analyzing Buffy as in fighting her.
  • Wham! Line: "Spike? He's the one who sired me."
  • What Could Have Been: Originally, Amber Benson was supposed to return as The First's guise of Tara, but declined because she knew the episode was going to be Nightmare Fuel and thought neither the characters nor the fans deserved just how bad she knew Joss Whedon would try and torture both.
    • Also, it was originally intended for Xander to have his own experience in which The First appears as Jesse and call him out for making a Forgotten Fallen Friend out him. A combination of Eric Balfour being unavailable and the episode already having too much story led the writers to scrap this plotline.
  • Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Dawn is playing about with Buffy's weapons when she has an accidental crossbow discharge. She tries to yank the quarrel out of the wall only for a large lump of plaster to come out as well, which she tries to conceal with a potted plant. She also gets pizza sauce on Buffy's dress, which she doesn't worry about as she figures Buffy will assume it's blood (this sets up a Brick Joke in "First Date).
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