Due to technical difficulties tied in part to sun spots and stuff, my copy of the episode has about a hundred three second holes in it. So, here's what I saw of the show.
Buffy is doing the counceling schtick. She get's slackers and goof offs but she also gets one or two kids who have real concerns. She chases off the slackers and tries to help the others. And then she gets Cassie.
Cassie knows that she's going to die. On Friday. She also knows that there will be a lot of coins, Buffy going into the dark, and a stained shirt. And each of these comes to pass as the Scoobies desperately try to find out who wants to kill her. Buffy accuses Cassie's drunken dad, Cassie's wannabe boyfriend, breaks up a demon summoning group that wants to use Cassie as the sacrifice and pulls a Xena on a crossbow booby trap and basically saves the girl.
But Cassie dies.
The Scoobies gather to mourn. To blame themselves for not trying hard enough and fate for being fate and question the point in fighting when there can be no victory. And we cut to Monday morning, Buffy setting up her desk at the school, fighting on. Fade to black.
2) It's a nice grave marker. And it totally took me by surprise until Xander asked if she was ready.
3) The thing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer is that the real monsters, the scariest, freakiest and most horrifying monsters, are the humans. They're the Fords and the Parkers and the Professor Walshs and the Warrens. They're Faith failing and Spike losing control and Willow lost in grief over permanently losing Tara. Because you can't fight or even change those things, just like you can't fight death.
Willow: "I even posted a melodramatic love poem or two back in the day."
Xander: "Love poems?"
Willow: "I'm over you now, sweetie."
Xander: "Luuv poems."
Cassie: "She'll tell you. Some day she'll tell you."
Buffy: "What do you do when you know you can't help?"
Death: (from Sandman by Neil Gaiman) "You get the same as everyone else. A lifetime."