Season 5 Episode Guide

Giles tells Willow that he's planning to move back to England since he's feeling less then vital to the work in Sunnydale. Meanwhile on patrol, Buffy runs into a vampire who claims to be Dracula. Dracula turns out to have powers above and beyond the vampire norm such as the ability to turn into a mist and then re-appear, and the ability to turn into a bat. The gang sets about researching Dracula. Dracula visits Buffy during the night and drinks some of her blood but leaves her alive and under his seductive spell. Xander runs into Dracula and also falls under his power and brings Buffy to him. Dracula claims Buffy's power derives from evil and invites her to feed on him. She does but overcomes his mind control. She is able to slay him as he re-appears from a mist but he keeps re-appearing and Buffy keeps slaying. Eventually he gives up. Buffy tells Giles of Dracula's comments about her power deriving from evil and her own feelings of hunting vampires rather than slaying as a duty. Giles agrees to stay on to help research the nature of the slayer.

Buffy's little sister puts forward her view on the slayer and her friends and feels nothing but contempt for all of them apart from Xander. Dawn feels in the way when Buffy complains about having to take her school shopping when she is supposed to be training with Giles. While on patrol, Buffy leaves Dawn with a babysitter, Xander and Anya, but she accidentally invites Harmony into the house which Buffy does not respond to kindly. Harmony kidnaps Dawn to draw Buffy into a trap and Buffy is obliged to save her sister, as usual. Meanwhile, Giles takes up tenancy in the recently vacated magic shop in order for him to slip back into the role of Watcher.

Tara's messed up family finds her on her 20th birthday to take her back home before she turns into a demon. Tara does a spell on her friends to hide the demon part of her. When demons attack her friends, Tara lifts the spell to help them and they find out her secret. Willow tries to stop her from leaving with her family, but Tara is convinced of what her father says about her. Spike ends the argument by punching Tara in the face and then flinching from the pain, proving that she is a human.

When a vampire impales Buffy with her own stake, she wants to find out how her predecessors have lost in battle. Because of Giles' lack of info on the final battles of previous Slayers she turns to the only person she knows who has killed two: Spike. In exchange for cash, he not only details why his victims lost their battles, but his personal history as a vampire. Meanwhile, Joyce's condition worsens and she has to spend the night at the hospital.

Riley is looking for Buffy at her house, but all he finds is Spike in her room smelling her sweater. Spike informs Riley of Buffy's mom's illness and rubs it in his face that Buffy told the vampire about it before her own boyfriend. Riley goes to the hospital, and Buffy gives him plenty to do, like taking care of Dawn and patrolling, but what Riley really wants is to take care of Buffy. He ends up taking Dawn to an amusement park where they talk about a few things. Despite her good intentions, Dawn makes Riley feel like he's not good enough for Buffy and that he can't compare to Angel. Later on in the episode he feels even further away from being close to Buffy, and he goes and gets himself bitten by a vamp whore.
Meanwhile, at the magic shop Giles accidentally sells two very bad, powerful ingredients for a spell to a "young woman", who turns out to be the all powerful lady who creamed Buffy the last time they fought. Buffy tries to stop her again, but she's no match for the lady in red who's name we later learn is Glory. With her spell, Glory conjures up a big reptile with the vision to seek out and find the Key. Once the snake finds out that Dawn is the key, Buffy must keep it from bringing the news back to Glory.

The Summers women are at the hospital when the doctor informs Joyce she'll have surgery in two days. The rest of the gang go vampire slaying. Willow and Tara are camping out on the roof of a building watching the stars when a large object crashes down in Sunnydale. A mental patient who has been released from the hospital is walking through the forest when a creature attacks him. At the hospital, the creature climbs along the ceiling, undetected. Buffy and Joyce talk the doctor into letting Joyce go home until her operation. The gang finds the location of the crash and the dead body of the released hospital patient. While everyone else goes to find help, Riley calls Graham. He later advises the military officers who answer the call on how to deal with the situation. At the hospital, the mental patients are attacked by the demon. Buffy's mom continues to act strangely and say things she doesn't remember. Dawn is hurt when Joyce calls her a "thing", but Buffy comforts her and tells her to ignore the comment. The gang finds that a Queller demon has been summoned to kill crazy people. Joyce is attacked by the demon who spits its slime onto her and Dawn comes to the rescue. Buffy eventually hears Dawn's scream and goes after the demon. Buffy finds Spike stealing pictures from her basement, but can't yell at him as the demon attacks again. Ben gets into his car at the hospital and Dreg is waiting in the backseat. Ben reveals that he summoned the Queller, to clean up Glory's mess like he has done all his life. Back at the hospital, Joyce asks Buffy for the truth about Dawn. She learns Dawn is nother child and asks Buffy to take care of her. Joyce is later wheeled away into surgery.

Riley leaves Sunnydale, the best part of the last two seasons! The ugly, annoying woman is out of here! The Scooby Gang awaits news from the doctor about Joyce's surgery and they are all relieved when the surgery is a success. Dawn spends the night with Xander and Anya. Buffy learns how stupid and idiot Riley really is. Riley is an attention whore and wants Buffy's. Good ridance fool!

Giles goes off to England to talk to the council about Glory. Meanwhile, Anya and the gang tend to the magic shop. While attempting a new spell to assist Buffy with her slaying, Willow is distracted by her and Anya's constant bickering and accidentally conjures a troll. Actually Anya turned the guy into a troll 1000 years ago when he dumped her and she was then offered the chance to become a vengeance demon. The big, dumb guy goes around smashing things with his hammer until the gang is able to stop him and send him off to troll land.

A team from the Watchers Council show up in Sunnydale with some info on who or what Glory is. Before they allow Buffy the details however, they want her to pass a series of psychological and physical tests. They even interview her very nervous gang of friends. Glory shows up at Buffy's house and has a chat with her about the Key and Buffy freaks and takes Dawn and Joyce to Spike so that he can protect them. After being attacked by a group of human Knights who claim they will send an army to defeat her if she continues to protect the Key, Buffy decides she's had enough and the Watchers will have to play her way. Buffy lays down the law and the Watchers agree and reveal to her what Glory is. Not a demon but a god.

Buffy finally tells her friends about Dawn being the Key and they start acting weird around Dawn, which leads to her seeking answers. She sneaks into the magic shop with Spike and reads Giles' notes. After finding out what she is, Dawn is very upset and has so many questions. She knows that crazy people know what she is, so she goes to the mental ward at the hospital. While she's there, she runs into Ben. Ben freaks when she tells him she is the key and tells her to run away fast, but before she gets a chance to get away from him, he turns into Glory. Fortunately, Glory doesn't know anything about the conversation between Ben and Dawn, so she has no idea that Dawn is her key. Buffy and gang find Glory and Dawn chatting, and Buffy fights to protect her sister. Eventually, Willow completes a transportation spell sending Glory away, but Willow doesn't know exactly where. In the end, Dawn has made up with her family, and Buffy has made up with Spike.

Buffy notices that Dawn is spending a lot of time around Spike and surmises that she has a crush on him, which Dawn shoots down saying that Spike has a crush on Buffy.
Meanwhile a vampire has attacked the passengers on a train and Buffy is finding it hard to concentrate on investigating with the thought that Spike is in love with her. Spike takes her to the home of a pair of vamps saying that they were responsible for the attack but Buffy realises that he has really taken her on a date. Spike admits his feelings for her but she is disgusted with the thought of having a relationship with him. Spike returns to his crypt to find Drusilla waiting for him and she tells him that the chip could never hold back his vampire instincts and takes him to the Bronze and makes him feed off a girl. Buffy goes to Spike's crypt and finds a shrine he has made which has all the pictures he took from her house. Drusilla and Spike return and attack Buffy but Spike ties them both up and tries to make Buffy admit she has feelings for him by saying he will stake Drusilla for her. Harmony interrupts the confrontation and after a brief battle, Spike saves Buffy from Drusilla and she leaves telling him that there is no hope left for him. Buffy declares that she has no feelings for Spike except anger and disgust and tells him to leave town. He follows her home and tries to come inside but realises that she has revoked his invitation to her house.

Buffy is very upset about Spike falling in love with her instead of a nice, good boy that she could date. Spike shows up at the same party as Buffy, and he gets thrown out a window by a strange girl who has been wandering around looking for a guy named Warren. The whole slaying team agree that the girl is a robot because of the way she acts. Buffy pays a visit to the girl's supposed boyfriend, Warren and finds out that Warren made the girl, April, to be the perfect girlfriend. April thinks only of Warren and devotes her entire existence to making him happy. The only problem is that Warren doesn't want her anymore, he has fallen for a real girl and has been running away from the robot. After fighting with the girl, Buffy ends up talking to her and consoling her about Warren. The girl has some insight of her own for Buffy about boys. After their talk, April's batteries run out completely, and Buffy is left to think about things. Earlier on, Buffy and Ben were hanging out and obviously have feelings for each other. They even had a date planned, but after talking to April, Buffy calls Ben to cancel. It's Glory who gets the message though, as Ben seems to share a body with her. We still don't know exactly what's going on with those two, but we see Glory turn into Ben again. When Buffy returns home after the fight with April, she finds her mom lying on the couch completely out of it, seemingly dead.

After finding Joyce unconscious on the couch, a terrified slayer calls 911. Unfortunately, it's too late to do anything. The paramedics tell Buffy that her mom had been dead for a while already. We see Dawn at school for the first time, and she's just getting over the freakout she had after finding out she was the key. Rumors were spread and Dawn was hurt by them, but she feels better after talking about it with a nice boy in her art class. Buffy interrupts this conversation though to tell her sister the bad news. Everyone is devastated by this tragedy and they spend the episode grieving, and dealing with their pain in all sorts of ways. Xander punches through a wall while Willow changes her outfit continuously. They are obviously very shaken up, especially since they were all so close with Buffy and her family. Even Anya sheds her first human tears.

After dealing with the pain of Joyce's funeral, Buffy falls into the arms of Angel who has come from LA to pay his respects, and he consoles her on the future and about getting her and Dawn's lives back together. Dawn becomes fixated on using witchcraft to resurrect her mother and despite her best intentions, Willow actually helps her toward her goal. Dawn gathers information for a powerful spell and enlists Spike to help her complete the task. He takes her to a witch doctor who gives Dawn some advice and warning. After collecting the final ingredient Dawn performs the spell. Willow warns Buffy about Dawn and she confronts her. Dawn cries that she has no one, Buffy has been pushing her away since Joyce died and hasn't even cried yet. Buffy tells her that when everything is over her mother will be truly gone, and she can't face that. Someone approaches the door and knocks and Buffy rushes to let Joyce in, but Dawn, realising that she was wrong, breaks the spell. Buffy opens the door to an empty porch, before turning to Dawn and finally crying with her sister.

Buffy and Giles leave for the desert on a self-discovery/guidance quest led by the First Slayer. While they are gone, Spike decides to have a little fun with his Buffy Bot but the gang mistakes it for the real Buffy and think that she has gone crazy. Meanwhile, Glory's minions also mistake the Buffy bot for the Slayer and, noticing how it acts around Spike, begin to suspect that he is the Key.

While Buffy tries to control a motherless Dawn and bring their lives back to some sort of normalcy, Tara is captured by Glory who is desperately trying to find the Key. Tara is rescued unharmed but could not escape Glory's mind-suck and is left more than a little disturbed by the encounter.
Willow finds some powerful spells and heads to confront Glory, despite Buffy's attempt to stop her. Willow attacks with all her power and weakens Glory but is left severely exhausted and Glory takes the upperhand. Buffy arrives in time and saves Willow. Buffy, Willow and Dawn are with Tara in her room when Glory finds them and Tara's crazed ramblings inadvertantly reveal to Glory who the Key is.

Buffy, Willow, Tara, and Dawn nearly escape from Glory when Glory's hit by a truck. Buffy and the Scoobies leave Sunnydale in Spike's RV to run from Glory, as Buffy realizes they'll never beat Glory. Meanwhile, the Knights of Byzantium are back, and take their fellow brain-sucked knight with them, to go after Dawn. As the Scoobies are in the RV, the knights track them down, as they nearly kill Giles, and Spike gets hurt. The Scoobies are then trapped in a gas station, with Spike and Giles hurt. They let in a knight, and the knight tells them that Glory wants to go back to her hell dimension, and the reason she wants the key, is so she'll be able to get back. Once the key is activated, all the worlds will blur together, and hell will happen. Ben comes to help Giles, but turns into Glory, and Glory flees with Dawn, leaving Buffy in a horrified stupor.

The Slayer in Buffy is catatonic due to Glory's abduction of Dawn so Willow psychically enters her mind. Willow goes through a loophole in Buffy's mind and sees several replays of Buffy's childhood when she first sees her sister; and of Buffy as she is now smothering Dawn to death. Buffy's guilt over Dawn being kidnapped finally proved to her that she is no match for Glory and she believes she killed Dawn herself. Meanwhile, Glory vents her frustrations about being stuck on Earth to Dawn and is beginning to feel real human emotions as the barrier separating her and Ben's psyches becomes weaker. She and Ben fight in a confusing switching back and forth argument as he tries to help Dawn. Eventually, Ben is the one to give Dawn away to Glory, knowing that it is his life or hers. Spike, Xander and Giles are left to try to figure out how to undermine Glory's plans, but the options don't look good. Buffy may have to end up choosing between killing her own sister or letting the world be destroyed.

Another imminent apocalypse is at hand in Sunnydale. Buffy must square off against a true God when Glory prepares to use Dawn to break down the walls between the dimensions and unleash all Hell on Earth but she needs Dawn's blood before her home dimension portal can be opened. Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, Anya, Tara and Spike go to battle with the knowledge that they may not all survive. Xander proposes marriage to Anya, and she accepts, but only if they survive the apocalypse. The gang uses everything they've got, with the help of a few very helpful suggestions from Anya. Using a troll mallet (a weapon of a true god), Willow's witch powers, Buffy's slayer strength, and yes, Xander's construction skills to use a wrecking ball, the group fairs well against Glory, considering she is a God. The shocking ending of the season finale is finding out who it is who doesn't survive the battle. None other than the slayer herself. The first slayer had told Buffy that death was her gift. She gave that gift to Dawn when she realized that Dawn was a part of her and the Summers sisters had the same blood. Buffy could therefore close the portals between the combining dimensions by ending her own life.