The thing, for me, about Joyce's death was that, as Wolfram says, you see Dawn in the moments before. That scene has always sort of haunted me - the happy part - because you never know when your last moment of normal will be.

Yes, that was heartbreaking. Her scene breaking down in the hall at school gets me every time, too. Beautifully done.

Ok, now I am tearing up thinking about Dawn, and the nice boy in art class, and...and.... fruit punch!!!

Unfortunately, I was accidently spoiled for Tara and the whole bathroom scene as well, and I could not "enjoy" that episode, because I was just really angry.

I have to think about which death was hardest. Oddly, I'm leaning towards Fred, since they/we were left with her shell walking around as Illyria.

But what I wanted to say was that, as The Boy and I are watching BTVS and Angel all the way through in order (first time for him), we just got to Fool For Love/Darla, and I forgot how good FFL was. And I don't mean that in a "Spike ROOOOOLZ!!!1!" way; I mean the bit in the beginning where Buffy is talking to Giles and she wants to know why the Watchers didn't keep records of how their Slayers died, and Giles has that great delivery on "....painful." Meep.

And really, FFL was when JM was still reined in from chewing the scenery, and we got to see his ignominous past as William the bloody awful poet, and all Sex Pistoled up killing the Slayer on the subway, and -- oh, the subway scene!

The way the subway and alley scenes are intercut still blow me away. I think the editing on that section was flawless.

And Spike gets to make the "Death Is Your Art" speech, which is SO true, and poignant because we know what's coming in The Gift.

And then! The ending hit me completely differently this time than it did when it first aired. I'd seen it a kajillion times, because I loved this episode all along, so I re-watched it a ton, and then end, with Spike comforting Buffy, always just made me say Awwwww. But it's been a handful of years since I saw it, and that distance just made it really stand out to me how unexpected and yet totally in character it was for Spike to sit down next to Buffy and try to be comforting. That it was the only thing he could have done, and yet it was so unexpected.

And yes, I do mean unexpected even though I'd seen it a kajillion times before.

Good stuff, man.

I love how I see something new in almost every episode.

Damn, I need to rewatch that.

Quick question: I'm in a Buffyverse RPG on Livejournal (Dear God, there are more nerd points associated with that sentence than I ever thought possible) and I need to double check a bit of continuity.

Have Buffy and Lindsey ever met?

Nope.

Nope.

That was my thought, too, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

I don't think so. The one time that Buffy was in LA, W&H was not part of the ep at all.