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"Something Blue" is the ninth episode of the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the sixty-fifth episode in the series. Written by Tracey Forbes and directed by Nick Marck, it was originally broadcast on November 30, 1999, on the The WB network.

Synopsis[]

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW... — Buffy is only one of many who must bear the repercussions of a spell gone awry when Willow, pining over the disappearance of Oz, tries to imbue herself with the power to have her will done. The fallout includes Buffy falling in love with Spike and planning to marry him, Giles going blind and Xander becoming even more of a demon magnet.[1]

Summary[]

Willow, still hurting over Oz's departure, sneaks into his bedroom at night. In the next day, Buffy talks to Riley and he invites her out on a picnic. Willow and Buffy talk about a possible relationship with Riley, and the consequences that may result from any relationship. Buffy wonders if the passion of her relationships comes from the pain and fighting.

Spike is chained up and kept in the bathtub at Giles's apartment. Buffy tries to get information from him, and feeds him pig's blood, but he doesn't give up much. Willow suggests a truth spell to make Spike talk. She promises to gather the ingredients and return the next morning. After she leaves, Buffy and Giles discuss how well Willow is coping since Oz left, only for Spike to offer his insight warning that in fact she's close to breaking down. This is proved right when Willow goes back to Oz's place to find the room stripped bare of his possessions. Later, she tells Buffy while crying that Oz asked for his stuff to be sent on to him, which has crushed her last hopes that he might return someday.

The next day, Buffy and Riley arrange a date. When Willow doesn't show up to perform the truth spell as planned, Giles calls her but gets no answer. That night at the Bronze, Willow opts to drown her sorrows drinking beer. After she insults Xander, Buffy takes her back to their dorm. Later, in the bathroom, Willow performs a spell to let her will be granted in order to make her pain go away.

Willow tries to see if her spell worked, but her commands don't work. Giles drops by to find out why she didn't show to help him perform the spell. She feels like there's too much pressure on her that she can't live up to, and Giles when he tells her that she needs to focus on her responsibilities and not to perform any more spells alone while she's in such a fragile state. Angry, she says that he can't see anything, and then Giles suddenly begins to have trouble with his eyesight and leaves. He then tries to perform the spell on Spike alone but is having difficulty reading. After Giles drops the key to the chains keeping Spike captive, Spike is able to break free and run away. While talking to Buffy, one of Willow's casual comments briefly returns Amy to human form (unseen by either girl), before Willow just as casually — and unwittingly — turns her back into a rat.

After Giles calls, Buffy goes to find Spike and both are surprised when she manages to find the vampire within seconds (once more due to a hyperbolic comment from Willow), she brings him back to Giles's apartment. While talking to Xander, Willow sarcastically mentions Buffy and Spike getting married. At Giles's place, Spike proposes to Buffy and she accepts.

Xander continues to try to console Willow, assuring her she'll feel better in time and will meet someone else, but Willow instead lists Xander's past (and current) relationships stating he's a "demon magnet." While Buffy and Spike cuddle and kiss and make plans for the wedding, Giles calls Willow for help and, moments later, reaches the conclusion that he is totally blind. Buffy visits the magic shop for supplies to undo the spell that caused Giles to become blind. She then runs into Riley outside of a bridal shop and tells him about the wedding, which confuses and upsets him.

Xander and Anya's romantic time is interrupted by various demons that attack them, so they rush to Giles's place. When Xander sees Buffy and Spike together and engaged, he puts the pieces together and the gang realizes that everything Willow says is coming true. D'Hoffryn, the demon responsible for making Anya a vengeance demon, comes forth and takes Willow through a portal into his demon world to make the same offer. When the gang goes to look for her, Anya recognizes the remains of the portal.

Anya guides the Scoobies into a mausoleum where they hope to stop D'Hoffryn from turning Willow into a demon. In the cemetery, several demons attack, still drawn to Xander because of Willow's spell. In the meantime, Willow turns down D'Hoffryn's offer and the demon accepts her decision without argument, giving her his talisman if she changes her mind, then sends her back. At the mausoleum, Willow breaks the spell. While the demons disappear, Buffy and Spike act disgusted by having been kissing each other. Willow apologizes and tries to make up for her messed-up spell with cookies, while Giles tests his restored sight.

The next day, Buffy finds Riley and manages to convince him her talk of her upcoming wedding was a joke.

Continuity[]

  • The "Lesbian Alliance" banner that Buffy sees Riley hanging up in the beginning of the episode is a foreshadowing of Willow's upcoming lesbian relationship, beginning in the next episode ("Hush").
  • Buffy mentions having met with Angel for five minutes (from her point of view) in "I Will Remember You."
  • Buffy interrogates Spike about his contact with the Initiative ("The Initiative"), as he offered her information in "Pangs."
  • Spike tells Buffy she must have fed Angel blood before, which she did with her own in "Graduation Day, Part Two." She'll feed Spike a bag of blood in "Never Leave Me" and a mug of blood through a straw again in One Girl in All the World.
  • Both Buffy and Giles are unable to see how a member of the Scooby Gang, here Willow, is truly feeling. Spike is able to see it right away. This perceptiveness is later exploited by Spike in "The Yoko Factor."
  • Spike's interest for the soap opera Passions is first mentioned; in I Wish, Part Two, he moves in with boxes of soap opera digests, mentioning Passions and that he often watches them.
  • Buffy talks to Riley about not driving often, as she was notably a bad driver in "Band Candy."
  • When seeing Willow drunk, Buffy references the time she herself became one of the Neanderthals in "Beer Bad."
  • Willow says "Can't I just make it go poof?" about her sad feelings for Oz leaving. This is similar to her line in "The Wish" waiting for the demon to go "poof" which will be echoed again in "Hell's Bells."
  • Willow talks with Buffy about not having the guts to cast a spell on Veruca in "Wild at Heart."
  • Willow accidentally turns Amy back into a human then a rat again while talking about the spell Amy was able to cast in "Gingerbread."
  • The white and orange shirt Xander wears is the same one Anya will wear to sleep in "Goodbye Iowa."
  • This episode foreshadows two major plot lines of season 6: Willow's abuse of magic for her own ends and Buffy and Spike in a relationship ("Once More, with Feeling").
  • This episode marks the first time that Buffy and Spike kiss (albeit under the influence of magic). They will kiss for a second time in "Intervention," then at the beginning of their relationship, in "Once More, with Feeling."
  • Xander tells Willow that she will meet someone new. In the next episode, "Hush," Willow will meet Tara, her eventual lover.
  • This episode is the first to show Spike to be left handed, also seen in "Fool for Love."
  • While discussing ways of reversing Giles's blindness, Spike picks up a book bearing the same mark of protection Willow tried to use for a protection spell in the episode "Gingerbread."
  • The shop in which Buffy admires the wedding dress, April Fool, is the same one in which Cordelia Chase worked in "The Prom."
  • Anya describes D'Hoffryn as the lower being who made her a vengeance demon 1120 years before, as will be shown in the episode "Selfless."
  • Anya goes to a mausoleum where she can communicate with D'Hoffryn, as she did in "Doppelgängland." Spike will live in this mausoleum from "The I in Team" to "Grave."
  • In "Selfless," Willow will use the talisman D'Hoffryn gave her in order to talk to him about Anya.
  • Buffy remarks that they may be into a "forgetting spell." Later, in "Tabula Rasa," that comes to pass.

Appearances[]

Individuals[]

Organizations and titles[]

Species[]

Locations[]

Objects[]

Rituals and spells[]

Death count[]

  • Unidentified vampire, staked by Buffy.
  • A Serparvo demon, drowned by Xander.

Behind the scenes[]

Production[]

  • The episode's title refers to both Willow's grief, as there's something blue about her, and Buffy's engagement, as the tradition of a bride wearing, among other things, something blue during her wedding.

Broadcast[]

  • "Something Blue" had an audience of 3.7 million households upon its original airing.[2]

Deleted scenes[]

  • This line was cut:[3]
    Buffy: "So she did a good spell — but the plan kind of sucked. I mean, she's the one stuck eating pellets out of a plastic cup—"

Pop culture reference[]

  • Willow suggests a girls' night to eat sundaes and watch the comedy-drama film Steel Magnolias (1989).
  • Spike references the Zagat Survey, a collection of ratings and reviews for restaurants and other establishments in various cities.
  • Willow calls Spike "the undead English Patient," a reference to the 1992 novel and 1996 drama film The English Patient.
  • Spike references the daytime soap opera Passions (1999–2008).
  • Xander calls Willow a "brave little toaster," a reference to the 1980 children's novel and 1987 animated film The Brave Little Toaster.
  • Buffy refers to her Neanderthal experience by referencing the film One Million Years B.C. (1966).
  • Spike teases Buffy for wanting her first wedding reception dance to be to the song "Wind Beneath My Wings" (1982).

Music[]

  • Blink-182 — "All the Small Things"
  • Joe 90 — "Truth"
  • Sue Willett — "Night Time Company"
  • Christophe Beck — "Willow and Oz"
  • Christophe Beck — original score

International titles[]

  • Armenian: "Ինչ որ կապույտ բան" (Something Blue)
  • Czech: "Něco modrého" (Something Blue)
  • Finnish: "Syrjähyppy" (Escapade)
  • French: "Le Mariage de Buffy" (Buffy's Wedding)
  • German: "Mein Wille geschehe" (My Will Be Done)
  • Hungarian: "Valami kéklik" (Something Blueish)
  • Italian: "Qualcosa di blu" (Something Blue)
  • Japanese: "少しだけブルー" (A Little Blue)
  • Polish: "Odrobina błękitu" (A Touch of Blue)
  • Portuguese (Brazil): "Uma Ligeira Tristeza" (A Slight Sadness)
  • Romanian: "De nuntă" (Wedding)
  • Russian: "Нечто синее" (Something Blue)
  • Spanish (Latin America): "Algo Triste" (Something Sad)
  • Spanish (Spain): "Algo Triste" (Something Sad)
  • Swedish: "Något Blått" (Something Blue)

Adaptations[]

Gallery[]

Behind the scenes[]

[]

Quotes[]

Giles: "We can't let you go until we're sure that you're impotent or..."
Spike: "Hey!"
Giles: "Sorry, poor choice of words. Until we know that you're... you're..."
Buffy: "Flaccid?"
Spike: "You are one step away, missy."
Buffy: "Giles, help. He's gonna scold me."
Buffy: "Honey, we need to talk about the invitations. Now, do you want to be 'William the Bloody' or just 'Spike'? Cause... either way, it's going to look majorly weird."
Spike: "Whereas the name 'Buffy' gives it that touch of classic elegance."
Buffy: "What's wrong with Buffy?"
Giles: "Oh... such a good question."
Buffy: "Spike and I are getting married."
Xander: "How? What? How?"
Giles: "Three excellent questions."
Spike: "This is the crack team that foils my every plan? I am deeply shamed."
Spike: "Don't I get a cookie?"
Buffy: "No!"
Spike: "Well, I gotta have something. I still have Buffy taste in my mouth."
Buffy: "You're a pig, Spike."
Spike: "Well, I'm not the one who wanted 'Wind Beneath My Wings' for the first dance."
Buffy: "That was the spell."

References[]

  1. "The Mortuary." Buffy.com. Archived from the original on June 9, 2001.
  2. "Nielsen Ratings for Buffy's Fourth Season." Nielsen Ratings for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, & Firefly. Archived from the original on July 6, 2008.
  3. "Something Blue Script." BuffyWorld. Archived from the original on August 14, 2018.
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