As Glory prepares for the ritual that will allow her to return home, Buffy has fallen into a catatonic state that Willow must wake her from.

There's something not right here, and I think it's the fact that the storyline seems to have run out of steam. Another mystery is cleared up as we find that Glory and Ben being one and the same is hidden from normal humans through magic. However, there's so little going on that although the writing is thoughtful and interesting, on first viewing at least this is rather heavy going.

The Glory storyline simply shows her starting to lose her fight with Ben and the nurse getting a chance to briefly reclaim his life and help Dawn before giving in to the futility of escape. While it's explained that the time is almost right for Glory's plan, you're still left wondering why she hasn't tried this before and why she can't put the magic into practice a bit earlier. Did she miss a chance earlier in the season that she could have made use of by finding the Key? I'm no clearer where this is going, but the character is getting a little boring now, coming out with long speeches and generally doing nothing of great villainy.

The Buffy plotline is good for bringing Willow closer to her friend than she has been in a while, forging the main Scooby Gang together in a strong bond, but it smacks of a desperate last-minute complication that isn't required at the point in the season where all Hell traditionally breaks loose. While Buffy's traumas of the last year get a degree of closure here along with her responsibility for bringing death to the ones she loves, it's still poor timing and an unlikely thing to happen, especially with no magical aspect brining it on.

We also get another look at the mysterious Doc, who handily has a bunch of stuff about Glory neatly tucked away, yet still is a bit of curious addition, and Spike joins the good guys and is finally accepted at last as one of the team. That said, there's little humour here, and without anything much to lift the episode up, it's a rather boring piece of television. We know for a fact that next week's will be the slam-bang finale, but it would have been nice to have had a bit more action here, not to mention for the usually pre-possessing Dawn to have made an attempt to escape.

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