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.

At the hospital, 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. With the house to themselves, Buffy and Riley spend a romantic evening together. In the middle of the night, Riley sneaks out through the window and Spike follows him into an old building.

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

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

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.

Tara’s about to celebrate her 20th birthday. Her family arrives but not to celebrate the occasion. They’ve come to take her home before she turns into an evil demon just like her mother did at the same age. When Glory sends some Lei-Ach demons to take care of the Slayer, Tara inadvertently helps the demons toward their goal by casting a spell to keep her friends from seeing the demon inside her. When the gang have a fight the resulting group of invisible demons, 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.

Buffy’s mother continues to be sick and the doctors can’t figure out why. Buffy finds a strange orb while on patrol and later the security guard who pointed it out to her shows up in the hospital apparently crazy. Buffy suspects that there’s a supernatural reason behind her mother’s illness and goes into a spell-induced trance provided by Willow which reveals Dawn fading in and out of reality.

Riley is in bad shape due to the drugs pumped into him by Prof. Walsh from the Initiative. A special government doctor needs to operate on Riley before his body can no longer support his heart rate of 150. Riley, however, is doing everything he can to avoid the medical treatment. It may be because he is scared of what the doctor may do to him, or he may just not want to be a normal man again. It’s up to Buffy to get Riley to the operating room on time, which of course she does, but someone else gets in the way. Spike’s plan is to force the doctor to remove the chip from his brain, therefore freeing him for slayer killing.

Are two Xanders really better than one? We find out when a demon searching for the Slayer accidentally hits Xander with his weapon, splitting him in two; one with all the positive aspects of his personality, the other with all the negative. While each of them try to convince the Scooby Gang that the other is a demon, Buffy must find the real demon to put the Xanders back together.

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.

Giles tells Willow that he’s planning to move back to England since he’s feeling less than vital to the work in Sunnydale. Meanwhile on patrol, Buffy runs into a vampire who claims to be Dracula. He turns displays powers above and beyond the vampire norm such as the ability to turn into a mist and a bat. The gang sets about researching Dracula. He visits Buffy during the night and drinks some of her blood, leaving her alive but under his seductive spell. Xander runs into Dracula and also falls under his power and brings Buffy to him, leaving the gang to figure out how to save them both.

Buffy, Xander, Giles and Willow sit down to watch videos after defeating Adam. They enter a bizarre dream world where they are pursued by a primitive force that they released via their enjoining spell.

Adam tells Riley that he has a behavior modification chip wired to his central nervous system behind his heart. Through the chip Adam has control over Riley. When Buffy find Spike in Adam’s cave she figures out that he intentionally tried to split up the gang. Buffy tells the rest of them and the find that Adam wants Buffy to go to the Initiative as part of his plan. Xander suggests that they need the power of all the gang members combined to defeat Adam and Giles agrees. The gang all break into the Initiative.

Adam enlists Spike to turn the gang against each other, leaving Buffy alone and helpless. Spike plays on their fears of how the others perceive them, telling Xander that Willow and Buffy no longer think that they need him and that he would be better off joining the Army; telling Willow that Xander and Buffy believe her experimenting with magick is just a phase; and elaborating on Giles’ own beliefs that he no longer needs to be in Sunnydale. Giles ends up drunk while Buffy, Willow and Xander fight. Angel comes from L.A. to apologize to Buffy after their fight over Faith in ‘Angel’ but he ends up fighting with Riley. Buffy sees Adam kill Forrest and tells Riley. The distraught Riley goes to confront Adam while Buffy determines she has to face him alone.

Tara and Willow’s relationship seems to be progressing when Oz returns to town. Through his travels Oz has found a combination of charms, potions and meditation that allows him to avoid turning into a werewolf. When Oz discovers that Willow and Tara are more than friends he loses control and as a werewolf chases Tara.

Buffy and Riley are spending all their time in bed (and they’re not sleeping). Their round-the-clock exploration of each other awakens the spirits of children who were sexually repressed by their foster mother back when Lowell House was a home for orphaned and runaway kids. Willow, Giles and Tara divert the angry children while Xander and Anya go to try and stop Buffy and Riley.

Buffy, Willow, Xander and Anya are out hunting vampires and kill one of a pair. They track the other to a nest and decide to call in the big guns and visit… Jonathan.

After Faith switches bodies with Buffy via the device that was left for her by the Mayor, she begins to slip into Buffy’s life. When the police try to take away Faith (Buffy in Faith’s body) she is kidnapped by a special group from the Watcher’s Council. As Buffy tries in vain to convince them that she is not Faith, Faith in Buffy’s body is out having a good time. Willow attempts to introduce Tara to Buffy but when Tara senses that something is amiss they perform a spell which uncovers the switch. The man/demon/machine Adam has determined that his purpose is to kill and recruits some vampires to help. The vampires take over a church and both Faith and Buffy arrive to stop them. Using a Katra that Willow and Tara conjured, Buffy gets her own body back and Faith runs and disappears without a trace.

Faith, still in a coma in the hospital, is dreaming of being pursued by Buffy. Riley, partially recovered from his encounter with Adam leaves the Initiative infirmary and joins up with Buffy. While Buffy and gang plot how to go after Adam, Buffy finds out that Faith has awoken. Faith wants revenge and confronts Buffy. A message from the Mayor and a mysterious device come to Faith through a friend of the Mayor’s (a demon who Faith kills). Later Faith goes after Joyce in her own home and of course Buffy arrives to save the day. Faith uses the device with unknown powers before Buffy strikes her down.

Buffy and Riley get mutually suspicious of each other when Buffy reveals that Professor Walsh tried to have her killed. When Professor Walsh is found dead things get even more out of hand, with the commandos quick to blame Buffy. Riley is even more agitated when he sees Buffy with Spike (hostile 17) and then again at Willy’s Place. Riley progressively gets sicker and we learn that the commandos have been taking medication to increase their strength. Meanwhile the man-demon-machine Adam that Professor Walsh created is roaming Sunnydale and even Buffy can’t seem to stop him.

Buffy becomes familiar with the Initiative and begins to work with them although they are still unaware of her true power as a Slayer. After Buffy abandons her friends at the Bronze for a mission with the Initiative, Buffy and Riley consummate their relationship unaware that they are being watched on a hidden camera by Walsh. Meanwhile, Giles and the rest of the gang remove a tracking device the commandos shot into Spike’s back.

At Buffy’s 19th birthday party, Giles finally realises that he is a middle-aged man hanging around with a bunch of teenagers and starts to get depressed about his life. He feels even more like the third wheel when he finds out about Riley and the Initiative, which Buffy neglected to tell him about. When Ethan Rayne returns to town, instead of kicking his butt back to England, Giles goes for a drink with him. The next morning Giles wakes up and notices that he has turned into a demon.

Buffy and Riley have to work out their relationship given their new understanding of what they do. An earthquake rocks Sunnydale and Buffy worries that it could signify the end of the world. They find out about a group of demons who are in town collecting sacred items which together have the power to end the world. When the plans of the demons are uncovered, the gang must return to their former sanctum inside the dilapidated Sunnydale High School (the library) to stop the Hellmouth from opening.

The entire town of Sunnydale goes silent when a group of fairy tale demons called The Gentlemen appear and steal everyone’s voices. Without being vulnerable to the one thing that can kill them (a human scream) they are free to steal the hearts of seven people. Buffy and gang must solve the mystery and overcome the bad guys without being able to discuss anything.

Willow, in her attempt to get over Oz, casts a spell that ends up causing all sorts of chaos for the gang. Giles goes blind, Xander becomes a demon magnet, and Buffy and Spike fall in love and get engaged.

Angel covertly comes to Sunnydale fearing Buffy is in danger after Doyle’s vision of her in Angel. While digging for a new Cultural Centre at the college, Xander falls into a sacred Indian burial area and releases Hus, a vengeance spirit of the Chumash Indians, the original residents of the Sunnydale area. Buffy is busily planning a traditional home cooked Thanksgiving while people around Sunnydale are being killed and Xander gets sicker and sicker. Hus summons a group of warriors and they attack Buffy and the gang at Giles’ house. With Angel’s help they repel the attackers until Buffy finds a way to kill Hus. As they sit down to dinner Xander lets it slip that Angel was in town.

Spike, after being captured by the commandos, is being held hostage by them in a hi-tech facility underneath the University. He manages to escape and heads to find Buffy, whom he assumes is behind this. Instead, he finds Willow…

Oz escapes from his cage during a full moon and runs across another werewolf, the sultry, sexy singer Veruca; and wakes up next to her naked in the wilderness the next morning.

Still trying to come to terms with Parker’s womanising, Buffy starts to hang out at the college bar where she and a group of upperclass students really regress when they start drinking a ‘special’ beer.

To help Buffy get over the pain of having been used by Parker, the gang head to a fraternity Halloween party expecting a few cheap scares and a bit of harmless fun. Unfortunately, some accidental magic turns the party into a house of horrors where everyone’s fears come to life.

Spike returns to Sunnydale with his new girlfriend Harmony who is now also a vampire. Spike is searching for the Gem of Amara – a stone which makes vampires invulnerable, which he believes is buried somewhere under Sunnydale. Buffy is preoccupied with her budding relationship with Parker and sleeps with him but he proceeds to ignore her. Meanwhile Anya returns and throws herself at a flabbergasted Xander.

Dorm life proves to be a challenge as Buffy has to deal with a roommate who is more than a little bit difficult. Kathy continually imposes her idiosyncrasies onto Buffy and even begins to invade her dreams which has Buffy acting just a little too strange about the situation. Buffy sets her sights on Parker Abrams, the first college guy to pay her any attention, but when Kathy becomes more friendly with him than her, Buffy declares that she must kill Kathy.

Buffy moves into her dorm and attempts to adjust to college life. Everything around her seems to have changed without the constant interaction with the gang she had in High School. With Giles becoming a ‘gentleman of leisure’, Willow getting more and more excited about college and Xander still away on his road trip, she again believes that she must fight and survive on her own when she discovers a gang of tough vampires operating on campus.

After their ultimate ‘Fight-to-the-Death’ Faith escapes from Buffy, albeit in a coma, so Buffy offers her own blood to Angel to rid his body of the poison. When she recovers the gang finally devise a plan to defeat the Mayor, rallying the students and asking for their help in fighting the resulting serpent demon before Buffy leads him into the library which has been rigged with explosives.

The gang receive some valuable information from old enemy Anya who has actually witnessed an Ascension. She reveals that the Mayor plans to transform himself into pure demon, something that has not been seen for thousands of years. When Angel is poisoned by Faith to distract Buffy, Buffy faces Faith for the final time in order to get the only cure to the poison: Faith’s blood.

As the all time night-of-nights for the senior students peeks around the halls, Buffy must save her friends and the rest of the school from a scorned student who has trained a pack of hellhounds to attack formalwear. Meanwhile, Angel reveals his feelings that he and Buffy could never have a normal life together and has decided to do the right thing and break up with her and plans to leave town after the Ascension. Of course Buffy saves the day and her night doesn’t turn out so bad when she receives a special Class Protector award from her fellow students and Angel shows up looking very dapper in a tux and asks for one last dance.

Buffy’s acceptance to college leaves her with even more doubts about her life outside of Sunnydale with Faith and the Mayor still around. Buffy decides to take the fight to the Mayor and discovers a secret delivery for him, the Box of Gavrok which contains a mystical energy vital to the Ascension. Buffy and Angel successfully break into Town Hall and snatch the box but unfortunately, Willow is captured by Faith. Are they willing to give up their best chance at avoiding the Ascension to save Willow’s life? Is there any doubt?

After a close encounter with a mouthless demon Buffy is infected with the demon’s blood and she gains the ability to hear people’s thoughts. Her new found ability at first is good for cheating on schoolwork, but when the voices continue to flood her mind, she realises that she cannot control the power. While the gang tries to track down a would-be killer at the school, Buffy is slowly going crazy from the inability to block the noise from the minds of the people around her.

Faith’s new alliance with the Mayor goes as far as them conspiring to rob Angel of his soul. Faith tries to seduce him but he is thinking Buffy Summers in a big, one-track way. When the old-fashioned way doesn’t work, the Mayor summons a powerful sorcerer who does the job for them. Faith and Angelus team up and capture Buffy but while they are preparing to torture her, Faith lets loose some details about the Mayor and his upcoming Ascension; at which point Angelus reveals that his being evil was all an act for them to get information. Faith escapes after she and Buffy battle and Buffy tells Angel that she needs some time alone after having to watch him and Faith kiss.

While unknowingly participating in a spell with the wish-granting demon Anyanka in order for her to get her powers back, Willow accidentally brings forth the vampire Willow from Cordelia’s alternate universe. The vampire Willow sets her sights on turning Sunnydale into the vampire-ruled world she knows but when she learns of her counterpart, she decides to make Willow send her back. After trying to seduce Willow and freaking her out a bit, the vampire Willow is captured. The real Willow, dressed in her doppelganger’s outfit, attempts to stop the ensuing slaughter at the Bronze and is almost killed by the vampire Willow before Buffy saves her. Giles and Anya successfully send the vampire back to her world but she arrives at the exact same moment she left, right before she is staked by Oz.