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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 5x5 Full Reaction

"No Place Like Home"

Comments

Jaime Allred

So excited for this one!

CeNedra

I know I'm only watching via the subtitles but still excited to watch 😁

Melissa

So excited! Also so busy at work but I'm kind of dropping everything to watch this right now, that's how much I love it. And I still haven't watched 5x4, but this takes priority.

Chloe A.

With episode 7 of both Buffy & Angel coming up. It's best if you watch them back to back (if possible).

Melissa Reynolds

AHHH I’m out right now but this is my treat for when I get home this eve. So excited!

doctrfaustus

More answers will come! Such a good episode, loved watching your reactions :D :D :D

Michael Labs

Two observations: Considering that the building collapse was directly caused by the "big bad" foot stomping... any real harm to the villain is extremely unlikely. The magic tracking didn't detect any obvious magic around Joyce. Is the impact an indirect impact or is it because of something else? I'm excited to find out.

Matthew

Another great reaction. Season 5 is my favorite and its nice to see you enjoying it. I just wanted to mention one thing, when you were theorizing about the show title. Just keep this thought in the back of your mind. For those of us that watched the show in real time on the WB. We didn't know the episode titles, and we didn't know that Buffy would be picked up for later seasons.

Melissa

My favorite side character - Exposition Monk! Sarah was absolutely brilliant in that scene with him. She usually is, but this time she just really makes what could seem like such an absurd and ridiculous premise so gutwrenchingly heartbreaking.

nataly

The only problem with the new setup is that I have to wait to get home to watch and sync up with my TV! 😭

Rebecca

This is such a great episode. I love the colourful, dynamic Magic Shop and Willow's adorable excitement when asking Giles where his hat and cloak are. I also love Buffy misunderstanding the French Anya speaks. With Willow popping up to translate it correctly. It felt like a cute callback to 'School Hard' when Buffy is studying French with Willow in the Bronze, and she's literally awful at it 😂. The blonde lady is a real scene stealer! I kind of love Dawn's little-sister petulance. As someone with two sisters, the annoying-ness is weirdly comforting 😂. I also appreciate that you called Spike out for being a bit of a creeper!

Antonio

I love the Karma cameos at the end. It's almost as if she's wearing a watch and tapping her paw on it as if to say, OK, are we almost done? 🐶

Tim Goens

what a glorious episode!

x_Rhi_x

nice shout with calling out dawn as they key early in the ep! And yep, some questions answered, but a lot more are created hehe

DanielOrme

You're catching on to how the show loves to mislead you. Dawn's lines at the end of episode 5x2 ("they think I'm little miss nobody ... are they in for a surprise") sound like a self-knowing conscious threat when they're really just teenage self-overdramatization. When you rewatch you can enjoy the irony. In the closing scene we see Buffy showing Dawn genuine affection for the first time. It's not the fake memories, but her new knowledge that Dawn is an innocent in need of protection. It's a beautiful thing, showing how special Buffy is, not as a slayer, but as a person.

RavenLord

Yep! During Season 5, no one knew if the series would even continue. It really kept things tense for us watching.

Raymond Simon

Clare Kramer's performance is so iconic.

Ryan Garlick

I have been so keen for you to get to this episode!!! So much unveiling ❤️

Ahmad

This is where the season really starts getting good, glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully all your questions will be answered by the show. Can't wait for more Buffy and Angel, both shows are so amazing these seasons.

Michael Hoffmann

I wholeheardetly disagree with "starts getting good", because "The Replacement" already was a phantastic episode!

Douglas Robertson

"She doesn't know that" is one of my favorite lines in Buffy.

Andrea Frank

Dawn is the key….portal is a portal, separate things.👍. Clarification seemed needed. 👌. Next episode is one of my favorites. So looking forward to it. 🙌

Antonio

So true. I've seen lesser performances than Exposition Monk's win Emmys, and I'm not even exaggerating!

Chet Erez

This rewatching has let me appreciate the show's world building. I can now see how Jonathan's spell in "Superstar" set the context for the ritual done by the monks. I am very impressed that Cass hypothesized this several episodes ago (but couldn't comment then without it being a spoiler).

Stephanie Kinman

This is such a good season. I'm really excited for the next episode!

JBK405

In the late-'90s book series "Animorphs", the main characters are young-teens granted superpowers to defend the Earth against an alien invasion. They cannot tell their family or friends about it, so they have to shoulder the emotional trauma and mounting distress all on their own. In one book, when Jake is feeling particularly overwhelmed, his mother comes to him and he can't say what's going on, so all she can think is that it's normal teenage stuff. And Jake expects her to be dismissive and think that he's just being a whiny teeny. But she says that of COURSE it's serious. Of course it's horrible. No matter what she as a grown adult is going through in life, she is comforted that at least it's not as bad as it is to be a teenager. Because to a teenager, it really IS that bad. Even if they're not a Slayer, or fighting aliens, or paying rent and holding down a job, it is still Serious.

spikeysnack

Ultimate toxic mean girl energy! Buffy is looking for her role in the world, and she sees her childhood leaving her, with Dawn as an example of it right in her face all the time. What she resents about Dawn is that the free ride that kids get, free to be concerned about little things, oblivious of the big scary things, that she is now so keenly aware of -- dangers to her friends, her town, (her faith in god?) and so on. Now she sees that her family is a target, specifically. Her turn-around on Dawn, realizing she could really get hurt, and needs her help, not her pushing her away is a new kind of guilt and responsibility. Buffy and Dawn were at odds because of the low stakes, not with Joyce and some uber glamor biatch gunning for her, it is time to really explor her feelings about it all. Probably gonna be messy. Killing priests and "Holy Men" -- targeting Churches and so on is a recurring theme in Buffy and Angel, sort of a way of being "Extra evil" beyond just being killers. Faith talked about a church bus getting attacked, then Adam sent vamps to kill people in a church on Sunday. Buffy apparently is friendly with some Catholic priests and Nuns and gets holy water from a local sanctuary.. but other than that they just use the old vampire movie tropes of crosses and garlic and holy water, and consecrated ground. "The Beast" I guess breaks all those rules, busting into monestaries and murdering the monks. Having a priest die in Buffy's arms has to be double trauma, especially after what he told her.

David Allan

My favourite moment in this episode is Giles standing in his cloak and pointy wizard hat with Buffy just looking at him and he has this big mad smile on his face, and it's just silence between the two of them it makes me laugh so much each time i see that part.

Bud Haven

I noticed when Buffy left her house she could sense Spike hiding behind the tree. Similar to when Buffy was able to sense Angel's presence in Pangs. The stronger the connection she has to a vampire the clearer it is for her it seems.

nataly

Regarding your Spike speculation (Spikeulation?), I think you have to remember that with or without the chip, he is still very much a soulless vampire. He’s like… Angelus, but with a chip in his head. So I think it’s safe to assume this is the only love he CAN feel. It’s immoral, selfish, based solely on his desires. That’s why it’s obsessive and creepy. The only reason she was able to have a real selfless love with Angel is because, despite also being a vampire, he has a soul.

Rebecca

Interesting theory! Although, the only thing that doesn't align is that Buffy is still able to sense Angel as a human in 'I Will Remember You'.

Morgan Williams

The key is not a portal, the key opens a portal. The monks made the key in the form of human that is Buffy's sister.

Morgan Williams

I'd say Dawn finding out she's the key and newly human has gotta be even scarier than it was for Buffy finding out she's a vampire slayer. I mean just imagine.

Jontor11

I looove this episode. That trans Buffy did was so cool, and the reveal of Dawn was so heartbreaking. What a mind-f*ck for Buffy.

dreamsofspike

So, what makes you think that what's happening to Joyce is DEFINITELY supernatural? Buffy's trance revealed no magic around Joyce, nothing like that. I think that's kind of the very solemn sort of realization at the end of this episode: if it's NOT being caused by magic or the supernatural... then what is wrong with her? The presumption is - just something ordinary and human and mortal. :(