Season 6, Episode 4 | Aired: 16 October 2001 | Written by: Douglas Petrie & Jane Espenson | Directed by: Douglas Petrie
The Summers house has a burst pipe. Buffy doesn’t have money. This is the episode where the show introduces its most mundane Season 6 villain: adulthood, bills, financial reality. The Trio — Warren, Andrew (Tom Lenk), and Jonathan — appear for the first time as a collective, attempting supervillainy with varying degrees of competence. Giles returns from England. His first response to learning about the resurrection is anger, directed at Willow.
What Happens
The bank is robbed by a demon the Trio has set on it. Buffy fights it and fails to prevent the robbery. She’s applying for a loan she can’t get. There are bills Joyce was paying that nobody knew about. The Trio is introduced in their lair, planning criminal schemes. Giles arrives and embraces Buffy — a long, quiet embrace — and then later confronts Willow about the resurrection with more anger than Buffy managed.
Key Moments
Giles and Willow’s argument — his fury at her for performing a resurrection spell, her defiance, neither of them wrong. And the Giles/Buffy reunion: he holds her and she holds him and neither of them speaks. Anthony Stewart Head’s face does everything.
Monster / Villain
Glarghk Guhl Kashmas’nik demon — hired by the Trio. The Trio themselves: Warren’s competence, Andrew’s star wars references, Jonathan’s lingering dignity.
Notable Quote
“You could have been lost. Shattered. We don’t know what you brought back.” — Giles, to Willow. “I brought back Buffy.” “At what cost?”
Where It Fits
Flooded is the season establishing its unusual villain structure — the Trio as dark comedy big-bads, and real life as the persistent background threat. Both will become serious before the season is over.