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"Bring on the Night" is the tenth episode of the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the 132nd episode in the series. Written by Marti Noxon with Douglas Petrie and directed by David Grossman, it was originally broadcast on December 17, 2002, on the UPN network.

Synopsis[]

WAITING FOR TOMORROW — Giles returns to Sunnydale, bringing three slayers-in-training with him. Meanwhile, Buffy and the gang try to discover more about the First, but don't find much to work with. Spike remains a prisoner of the First and is tortured by the newly arrived Ubervamp, who then brings the havoc to Buffy.[1]

Summary[]

The Scooby Gang are recovering from the attack by the Bringers and the loss of Spike, who is still being tortured by the First Evil in the guises of himself, Buffy, and Drusilla. Spike, however, refuses to give in, telling the First that Buffy believes in him.

Back at Buffy's house, the somewhat overenthusiastic Dawn and Anya help Buffy question Andrew, who leads them to the Seal of Danzalthar in the Sunnydale High basement. They find Spike's blood and cover the seal up again with shovels they find next to it. Still carrying the shovels, the leave the school, meeting Principal Wood on the way. He is also carrying a shovel, having just been burying Jonathan.

Back at the Summers house, Willow's locator spell goes terribly wrong. Explosive bolts send Anya and Buffy flying while Willow is briefly possessed by the First Evil. Xander smashes a bowl used in the spell which breaks the effect and sends Willow crashing. Buffy promises the panicked witch they will not call on her to use magic until they know what they are doing.

Giles suddenly appears at the door, bringing three Potential Slayers and the news that the Watchers Council has been destroyed. He also has information on The First's plan to destroy the Slayer line. After assessing the situation, Giles tells Buffy that she is the only chance the Potentials and in fact the world have. The Potentials try to settle in, with Kennedy showing a definite interest in sleeping in the same room as the slightly flustered Willow.

Buffy and Giles go back to the Christmas tree lot where Buffy first found the Bringers. She falls in a hole and meets the Turok-Han, and barely manages to escape alive after a stake to the ubervamp's heart fails to kill it.

Giles and Buffy return to the house to find the three Potentials hanging out in the kitchen. Giles tells them all about the vampire Buffy fought. He explains that the Turok-Han are part of a separate race of vampires that is far superior to and feared by the everyday vampires Buffy is used to. At work, Buffy researches "evil" on the Internet as Principal Wood stops to check on her. Again, in the cave, Spike is smacked around by the ubervamp while Drusilla dances about and tries to convince Spike to decide to be on their side of the game. Spike doesn't fall for the mind tricks and earns himself more of a beating from the ubervamp.

Buffy reviews her wounds as her mother pays her another visit. Joyce talks to Buffy about evil and its constant presence in everyone and about the pressure Buffy's feeling to deal with this evil. She wakes up to find that she's still at work and had been in the middle of a meeting with a student. The student walks off and Principal Wood watches on from his office as a very tired Buffy tries to deal with the stress. Later that evening, the gang prepares for sundown and the potential danger it brings to them. The Potentials get weapons while Andrew tries unsuccessfully to convince Buffy and Xander to untie him. As Buffy watches for the sun to set, Giles reminds her that she's the one being depended on and then Molly interrupts, informing them that Annabelle ran off.

Annabelle runs through the streets of Sunnydale until she's captured by the ubervamp and quickly killed. Buffy shows up in time to find the dead body and be attacked by the ubervamp herself. She is hurt and runs off in search of better fighting grounds and a useful weapon. Again, the vampire has the upper hand, but Buffy drops a bundle of heavy steel beams on the creature, smashing it to the ground. Practically unaffected, the ubervamp rises from the mountain of beams and goes after Buffy again. He throws her around some more, finally tossing her through a stone wall where she's buried under rubble and steel on the other side.

The First in Drusilla's form gets angry with Spike as he continues to refuse to cooperate. Because of Buffy's faith in him, he feels strong enough to refuse. A terribly wounded Buffy sits alone at home as she listens to Giles and Willow talk in another room. They worry about Buffy's condition and their ability to fight this thing that seems so much bigger than them all. Buffy finally comes downstairs and gives an inspirational speech about this huge challenge before them that is bigger than any evil they've ever faced. She tells the group that she's more scared than ever, but she's not about to back down now. There's a new plan: they're declaring war on this evil instead of waiting for it to make a move.

Continuity[]

  • Buffy's final speech, as she asserts her own and her friends' confidence and acknowledgment of the severity of what they are facing becomes a recurring trait of the season. In fact, in later episodes both Buffy ("Lies My Parents Told Me") and Andrew ("Storyteller") poke fun at this fact.
  • Xander refers to his repairing windows as a "loop" like the "mummy hand." He is referring to the Ancient Mummy Hand in the episode "Life Serial," which made Buffy complete a menial task over and over until she completed it to the satisfaction of a customer.
  • The First-as-Drusilla saying "ring, ring, ring" is a gag recycled from the Angel episode "Reunion."
  • Giles notably does not touch anyone nor handle any objects throughout the whole episode. He is also uncharacteristically bad at consoling or encouraging Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies. Coming directly after the previous episode that was ambiguous whether Giles died or not, this makes it unclear whether he is really Giles or the First in disguise, which will be questioned by the Scoobies and confirmed not to be true in "The Killer in Me."
  • Buffy tells Giles about the now abandoned Christmas tree lot where she first saw the First Evil in "Amends." Coincidentally, they mention that Christmas is coming up, meaning this episode takes place almost exactly four years after this first meeting.

Appearances[]

Individuals[]

Organizations and titles[]

Species[]

Events[]

Locations[]

Objects[]

Rituals and spells[]

Death count[]

  • Annabelle, killed by the Turok-Han.

Behind the scenes[]

Production[]

Broadcast[]

  • "Bring on the Night" had an audience of 2.7 million households upon its original airing.[2]

Pop culture references[]

  • Xander calls Andrew "Sleeping Ugly," referring to the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty.
  • Xander references M. Night Shyamalan's film Signs when he suggests that they could try trapping the Turok-Han in the pantry.
  • Andrew cites Lex and Voldemort as good villain names when being interrogated about the First.
  • Andrew compares the school basement to the Wonder Woman comic book issue #298: Catacombs (1982).
  • Dawn mentions the series Jackass.
  • Dawn mentions the energy drink Red Bull.
  • When everyone is prepping for the ubervamp's attack, Andrew says: "My spider sense is tingling," referencing Spider-Man's catchphrase.
  • While talking to Principal Wood, Buffy mentions the movies The Exorcist and Blair Witch Project.
  • Andrew says he was a supervillain like the comic characters Dr. Doom, Apocalypse, and the Riddler, but now he's a good guy, like "Vader in the last five minutes of [Return of the] Jedi."

Goofs[]

  • The sequence of events in this episode is somewhat muddled. Buffy states that it is December, and the First as Dru indicates that Christmas is near. However, the episode "Conversations with Dead People" had a caption reading "November 12, 2002" and ended with Buffy learning Spike was siring vampires. The next episode, "Sleeper," picks up the same night with Buffy looking for Spike at Xander's. Buffy follows Spike into town the next night, Nov. 13, and the night after, Nov. 14, is when Spike takes her to the cellar where he buried his victims. This leads into the episode "Never Leave Me," which would take place Nov. 15, the date the Watchers Council HQ blows up and the Bringers kidnap Spike. This leads directly into the events of this episode, which would have to take place Nov. 16. The only possible gap in this sequence occurs during "Sleeper," between the scenes where Buffy wakes up Spike and where she's at home trying to prove his innocence. Logically, this scene would take place later that same day. Thus, the only way this episode could take place in December is if Buffy decided to wait more than two weeks to start searching for Spike's potential victims.
  • When Buffy is fighting the Turok-Han beside Annabelle's corpse, Annabelle's hair alternates from hiding her face to showing her face.
  • In the scene where Andrew, Buffy, Xander, and Dawn go to the Seal of Danzalthar, Dawns hair is straight. When she turns to tell them there is blood on the wheel, her hair is curly.
  • When Buffy is dreaming about talking to her mother, Xander can be seen sweeping in the background. However, his broom isn't actually touching the floor; he's sweeping the air.

Music[]

International titles[]

  • Armenian: "Գիշեր է գալիս" (Night Is Coming)
  • Czech: "Noc přichází" (Night Comes)
  • Finnish: "Uhanalaiset" (Endangered)
  • French: "L'aube du dernier jour" (The Dawn of the Last Day)
  • German: "Wenn die Nacht beginnt" (When the Night Begins)
  • Hungarian: "Az éj küldöttei" (The Delegates of the Night)
  • Italian: "Ombre della Notte" (Shadows of the Night)
  • Japanese: "夜の闇に抱かれて" (Embraced by the Darkness of the Night)
  • Polish: "Zapada zmrok" (Dusk Falls)
  • Portuguese (Brazil): "Que Venha a Noite" (May the Night Come)
  • Romanian: "Bring on the Night"
  • Russian: "Наступает ночь" (Night Comes)
  • Spanish (Latin America): "Comienza la Noche" (The Night Begins)
  • Spanish (Spain): "Los portadores de la noche" (The Bearers of the Night)
  • Swedish: "Ge mig natten" (Give me the night)

Adaptations[]

  • The book Chosen: The One includes a novelization of this episode, along with all season 7.

Gallery[]

[]

Quotes[]

Andrew: "I'm, I was about to be dead. You saved me."
Buffy: "For the time being. But if you don't tell us what we need to know, then I'm gonna offer you to the First on a platter and let him chop you into tiny pieces."
Andrew: "The first what?"
Anya: "The name of the evil thing that pretended to be Warren to get you to kill Jonathan."
Andrew: "Oh. Not very ominous-sounding."
Dawn: "No, it is if you understand the context."
Andrew: "No. Evil names should be like Lex or Voldemort or..."
Buffy: "Hey! I was intimidating here."
Andrew: "Oh, sorry. Um, go ahead."
Buffy: (sighs) "Forget it. Where's the seal?"
Giles: "Sorry to barge in. I'm afraid we have a slight... apocalypse."
First Evil: "And what makes you think you have a choice? What makes you think you will ever be any good at all in this world?"
Spike: "She does. Because she believes in me."
Buffy: "I'm beyond tired. I'm beyond scared. I'm standing on the mouth of hell, and it is gonna swallow me whole. And it'll choke on me. We're not ready? They're not ready. They think we're gonna wait for the end to come, like we always do. I'm done waiting. They want an apocalypse? Oh, we'll give ‘em one. Anyone else who wants to run, do it now. ‘Cause we just became an army. We just declared war. From now on, we won't just face our worst fears, we will seek them out. We will find them, and cut out their hearts one by one, until the First shows itself for what it really is. And I'll kill it myself. There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that's us. Any questions?"

References[]

  1. "Season 7." Craig's BuffyVERSE 4ever. Retrieved on December 19, 2021.
  2. "Nielsen Ratings for Buffy's Seventh Season." Nielsen Ratings for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, & Firefly. Archived from the original on July 19, 2008.
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