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Conversations with Dead People

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season 7, Episode 7
Air date November 12, 2002
Written by Jane Espenson
Drew Goddard
Directed by Nick Marck
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"Conversations with Dead People" is the seventh episode of the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and is the one hundred twenty-ninth episode altogether. It was written by Jane Espenson and Drew Goddard and directed by Nick Marck. It originally broadcast on November 12, 2002.

Several separate encounters take place around Sunnydale on one night.

Contents

Synopsis

Holden and Buffy reminisce mid-fight.
On patrol, Buffy discovers that the latest newly-risen vampire she must face was Holden Webster, an old classmate. The two reminisce. The vampire, a psychology major in life, predicts that Buffy will never truly connect with others and reveals that Spike -- believed by the Scooby Gang to be unable to harm humans because of his chip -- was the one who sired him.

At home, Dawn is attacked by a malevolent force. She drives it off, and is visited by what appears to be her mother's ghost, who predicts that she and Buffy will become enemies.

Andrew kills Jonathan.

Spike picks up a woman at a bar and takes her home, where he feeds on her.

Jonathan and Andrew return from Mexico to dig up an artifact hidden near the Hellmouth. Andrew is secretly in contact with what appears to be the ghost of Warren, while Jonathan is having a personal revelation. After they dig up the artifact, Andrew, on Warren's instructions, kills Jonathan, causing his blood to spill all over a seal in the dirt.

In the library, Willow is visited by the ghost of Cassie Newton, a girl Buffy tried unsuccessfully to save in "Help", who claims to have been sent by the dead Tara. The ghost relays a prediction that Willow will end up killing everyone unless she commits suicide. Willow is not fooled, and the figure reveals itself, and by implication the other ghosts, to be manifestations of The First. Buffy is briefly seen staking Holden.

Starring

Guest Starring

Co Starring

  • Stacey Scowley as Young Woman


Trivia

  • What makes this episode extremely unusual is none of the major characters (Buffy, Dawn, Willow, the Geeks) interacts with each other.
  • Amber Benson was initially going to appear as Tara, taunting Willow instead of Cassie, but she turned it down on the grounds that she thought having Tara as a villain would ruin her character. According to the commentary for this episode on the DVD, the writers said that Amber Benson simply wasn't available.
  • With this episode, Kristine Sutherland becomes the only actor to appear as a guest star in all seven seasons.
  • In addition to the two credited writers, show runners Joss Whedon and Marti Noxon also made significant contributions to the script of this episode. Each of the four plot strands were written by a different writer: Whedon wrote the Buffy-Holden scenes, Noxon wrote the Willow-Cassie scenes, Espenson wrote the Dawn scenes, and Goddard wrote the Geek Trio scenes.
  • On the DVD commentary for the show, Jane Espenson revealed that the image of Joyce was actually The First. In the original draft of the script, Dawn was going to try to raise her mother. When Joyce appeared, she was to say "They said I couldn't bring someone back." To which The First/Joyce would reply: "Maybe I'm the First."
  • This episode was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.
  • Andrew references Back To The Future when he says "Think, McFly" to Jonathan
  • This is the only episode with a specific date and time given at the beginning of the episode - November 12, 2002; 8.01pm. This is the same date and time as the original airdate of the episode.
  • This is one of only two episodes in the whole Buffy series that has the episode title appear on-screen at the beginning of the program. The musical episode "Once More, with Feeling" was the only other.


Quotes

Holden - "Oh, my God!" 
 Buffy - "Oh, your God what?"
Holden - "Oh, well, you know, not my God, because I defy him and all of his works, but—Does he exist? Is there word on that,
by the way?"
Buffy - "Nothing solid."
Holden - "Oh. I keep getting off topic because my mind is racing here. All right. I'll make a deal with you. We fight. To
the death. Great. That last fight was just exhilarating. And I actually had a move coming up to block that stake. But you
have to answer one question, and if I'm right, I get to ask anything—no secrets, no defensiveness, anything I want to know."
Buffy - "What's your question?"
Holden - "Your last relationship: was it with a vampire?"

Continuity

  • Holden Webster pronounces "nemeses" correctly and Buffy replies "Is that how you say that?" This is an allusion to the Season Six episode "Gone" when both Warren and Buffy mispronounce it "nemesis-es."
  • Holden mentions that some of Buffy's classmates thought she was some sort of religious fanatic, presumably because Buffy invariably had crosses on her person and in her vicinity in order to ward off vampires. Others, he notes, thought she was involved with an older man, which she indeed was: the centuries-old Angel.
  • Buffy learns that Scott Hope, a boyfriend in season three, came out as being gay in college. This may have been a nod to the fact that the actor that played Hope, Fab Filippo had gone onto have a major role in the Showtime television series Queer as Folk as an openly gay gifted violinist at a private University.
  • The shooting script establishes that Dawn's been learning magic from Willow.
  • This episode further establishes the season's "Big Bad", whose shape-shifting ability was displayed in the season premiere, "Lessons", and, previously, in Season Three's "Amends".
  • Dawn accidentally gets pizza sauce on one of Buffy's shirts in this episode, shrugging and saying, "She'll think it's blood." In "First Date", Anya scrubs at the stain and says that she thinks it's pizza sauce and not blood.
  • Cassie, supposedly speaking for Tara, reminds Willow that she is "strong like an Amazon", referencing a conversation that Willow and Tara have in "The Body". She also reminds Willow of the time when Tara sang to her on the bridge ("Under Your Spell") in "Once More, with Feeling".
  • The First appears as Warren Mears, who was killed in Season 6. It is revealed in the canonical comic storyline The Long Way Home that Warren was saved from death by Amy Madison. On the letters page of Buffy Season Eight #6, Whedon responds to the question of how the First could have impersonated Warren if he'd never died, by saying, "He was legally dead for like a second. Amy didn't tell him 'cause she didn't want to upset him. I forgot, okay?!"


Music

  • Angie Hart - "Blue" - Used at the beginning and end of the episode. Joss Whedon wrote the song for this episode. It was sung by Angie Hart, and can be heard in both the beginning and end of the episode. This is also available on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Radio Sunnydale album.
  • Los Cubaztecas - "Nicolito"
  • Scout - "The Never Never"
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