Buffy realizes there's no way she can take on Glory and win, so she leaves town with the gang in tow, only to run into the knights who want the Key destroyed, and will do anything to get their wish.

There's a certain sense of inevitability about this episode, mainly caused by the fact that we're heading towards the end of the season, so this seems like an unnecessary attempt to slow down a final confrontation. On the one hand it's certainly the right choice, Glory being way too powerful to fight one on one, but it does lead to an episode that's desperately in search of ideas.

What it doesn't have is a shortage of fight scenes; Buffy takes on the knights, there's nasty injuries galore as another member of the gang is taken out of the picture for the foreseeable future, and there's a foregone conclusion ending. The biggest problem still afflicting what's going on here is the desperate plot strand where Dawn discovers Ben and Glory are one and the same, only to conveniently forget minutes later. Because of this, we get a very iffy way of prising Ben into the action so that Glory can find the gang once again.

The knights aren't the most useful people in the world, being stubborn and unable to realize that they and Buffy are fighting on the same side, which takes up way too much of the story with them arguing and trying to get to Buffy and co, and despite their attack on the truck the guys are using to leave Sunnydale, they never come across as particularly worthy opponents, there mainly to be slaughtered by Glory at the end. What they do provide is some explanation. We find out exactly what the Key does, what Glory wants and, rather disappointingly, how she can be stopped. All they need to do is kill Ben, something that will be obvious to them by now, and Glory will die too. The only troublesome aspect of it all is killing an innocent man, but the first Slayer has already told Buffy her gift is death. Could it all be that easy, or are there more twists in store? Let's hope so.

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