Giles arrives, with a group of young girls in tow, introducing them as 'potentials', the people who could one day be Slayers, and who are being systematically wiped out by the First's troops, the Bringers. Of course, when they see Buffy face the Ubervamp and lose, their faith in winning is seriously tested…

This seems like a bit of a time waster. It consists of a lot of talking without much doing, and is pretty unsatisfactory. The new arrivals are kind of annoying, and we should be thankful one of the British Slayers is killed so we don't have to listen to her any more. The other English one is clearly from the Juliet Landau school of acting, as her accent is simply awful. Haven't we been through this enough times now to actually hire a Brit for the role? It can't be that difficult surely? The rest of the girls at least provide some humour via Giles' exasperation and Xander and Dawn's reaction to them, but at the moment it's a close-run thing about whether they should be killed off or kept on.

Speaking of Ms Landau, she's back this episode, and very much her usual loopy self. However, she seems a little wasted here, as without the ability to touch things, all she can do is threaten Spike and order the Ubervamp to beat him up a bit. I'm not entirely sure what she's trying to accomplish with this plan, either. Presumably Spike is more integral to what's going on than we're currently aware, because if not the First might as well have him killed. Indeed, with Andrew now part of the team – albeit a tied-up part – I'm starting to think he's going to play a bigger role than we might expect as well, even if it requires him sacrificing his life to save the others.

It seems from the evidence here that Robin Wood isn't evil; he seems to be looking to Buffy for help, without actually outwardly stating that he knows who and what she is. What is thrown up here, though, is what's happened to Giles. He seems more restrained, quiet, and seems to be making people help themselves rather than joining in. In fact, he could very easily be the First, as we still haven't seen how he asked the giant axe from a couple of episodes ago.

Basically, what we have again here is a load of signs and portents, predicting things but not giving a lot away. We know it's the First now, and we know what it wants. But Joyce seems to be trying to tell Buffy something in dreams, and there are again hints that more is going on than we currently realize.

As it stands, this is passable entertainment, but it's all a bit something of nothing. Buffy takes on the Ubervamp, and, contrary to my theory, it wins and doesn't die when it's staked. But all that does is keep a not very interesting creature on the loose for next week, which somehow seems rather pointless. Okay, so it makes the Potentials quiver in their boots, but that's not what we want here. We want some ass kicked, and having Buffy beaten isn't the best way to get that done. Despite her motivational speech at the end, it's difficult to believe that Buffy can get a competent force together to fight the First. Still, at least she's keen…

***

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