Tabula Rasa

"Tabula Rasa" is the eighth episode of the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and is the one hundred eighth episode altogether. It was written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner and directed by David Grossman. It originally broadcast on November 13, 2001.

The Scoobies all lose their memories when a spell goes awry.

Synopsis
Buffy patrols and runs into Spike who wants to talk about their kiss. Teeth, a demon loan shark (with a shark's head) confronts Spike about his kitten debt, but Buffy steps in and takes care of the thugs looking to beat 40 Siamese out of Spike. Willow, Xander, Anya, and Tara talk about calling Buffy back from Heaven and their feelings in the aftermath of the truth. Willow suggests fixing the mess with a spell and Tara confronts her about her excessive and damaging use of magic. At the threat of losing Tara, a desperate Willow offers to go a month without magic to prove that she is not dependent. Tara asks her to try for a week.

Giles informs Buffy that he is leaving for England and Buffy takes the news very badly. He knows she is too dependent on him and he must leave if she's ever going to learn to survive on her own. Without her magic, Willow is late getting ready to leave the house so Tara and Dawn leave without her. She then uses magic to get dressed quickly and starts another spell by the fireplace that will make Tara and Buffy forget the damages of the spells Willow used on them. In her rush, she accidentally leaves a bag of the Lethe's Bramble by the fireplace.

The whole gang, including a disguised Spike on the run from the loan shark, gather at the Magic Box during the day. Giles confesses that he is leaving and Buffy tearfully reveals that she's feeling deserted by everyone. Willow has a crystal in her pocket that was used with her forgetting spell and it glows brightly in her hand. However, back at the Summers' house, a spark from the fireplace ignites the entire bag of Lethe's Bramble. Instead of just Buffy and Tara forgetting their recent upsets, the entire gang falls unconscious. They wake up later that evening with absolutely no knowledge of who or where they are. Spike suspects Giles is his father (because they're both British) and Anya assumes she's getting married to Giles (because they jointly own the magic shop). Alexander, Willow, Anya, Giles, and Tara get their names from their IDs and Dawn gets hers from her necklace. Buffy names herself Joan, and Spike mistakenly assumes the name Randy from the inside of his stolen coat is his name.



A couple of vampires outside the shop scare the entire gang and they hide in fear. Looking for Spike to repay his debt, the vampires attack the shop. Joan discovers she's a superhero of some sort when she stakes one of the vampires and saves Randy. Anya and Giles stay at the magic shop while Joan and Randy run outside to fight off the vampires. Randy unknowingly assumes his vampire visage to fight off the vampire thugs, which sends Joan running away in fear.

The rest of the Scoobies retreat to the sewers but they encounter vampires down there too. Anya turns to a random page in a book and reads the incantation there, which causes a bunny to appear and frighten her. Joan attacks Randy when he catches up with her and informs him that he's a vampire. He's confused by it, but assumes that he's a good, noble vampire -- a vampire with a soul -- because he doesn't want to bite her (Joan thinks the idea of a vampire with a soul is incredibly lame). The loan shark and his minions attack the two and a fight ensues. Anya continues to try random spells, which makes many more bunnies, a dark green cloud to form inside the shop, and a big beast to appear. Giles and Anya fight while hiding behind the counter and Giles reveals that he found a one-way plane ticket in his pocket for London, assuming he must be abandoning Anya. Anya begs him not to leave her and they kiss passionately. Xander (or Alex, as Dawn calls him) fights with the vampire chasing them in the sewers, finally stakes it, and then accidentally steps on the crystal that fell from Willow's pocket. The breaking of the spell finds Giles and Anya kissing, Willow atop Tara after a fall, and Spike and Buffy deep in mid-action conversation.

Tara and the others realize that Willow used magic, despite her promise. The spell broken, Buffy is momentarily too stunned to duck a few painful hits. Spike finishes off the rest of the vampires and promises to make up his debt to the intimidated Teeth. While Willow cries in the bathroom, Tara packs all of her things into boxes; then, receiving a hurt cold shoulder from Dawn, she leaves. Full of grief, Giles takes his plane back to England. Spike finds Buffy at The Bronze, but she turns her face away and he stalks off. She doesn't let him get far though, and they kiss passionately beneath the stairs of The Bronze.

Starring

 * Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
 * Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
 * Emma Caulfield as Anya Jenkins
 * Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers
 * James Marsters as Spike
 * Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg

Special Guest Star

 * Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

Guest Starring

 * Raymond O'Connor as the Loan Shark
 * Amber Benson as Tara Maclay

Co Starring

 * Geordie White as Vamp #1
 * Stephen Triplett as Vamp #2
 * David Franco as Vamp #3

Trivia

 * Tabula Rasa is Latin for "blank slate."


 * The demonic Loan Shark has a literal shark's head -- an indicator that this was to be a mostly humorous episode (despite the lasting consequences of the ending scenes).


 * Michelle Branch makes a special guest appearance singing "Goodbye to you".
 * Anya mispronounces her name as "EHN-ya" instead of the usual "AHN-ya."


 * "Tabula Rasa" does not translate well. A sizeable part of the humor is the interplay between Giles and Spike, laced with British idiom and Americans' stereotyped views of England; the puns based on "Randy" are meaningless in other languages. In French, "Randy" is translated to "Candide", possibly a reference to the Voltaire novel. Buffy's assumed name "Joan" is left as "Joan" in French, and the reference to Joan of Arc ("Jeanne d'Arc" in French) is mostly lost. Dawn's reference to Xander as "Alex", a more common shortened form of "Alexander", lacks significance in the French translation because he has been named Alex in France since Welcome to the Hellmouth.
 * As Spike walks away from Buffy at The Bronze, a fake severed hand can be seen under a glass lid on the counter.

Quotes
Teeth - "Time is what turns kittens into cats"

Giles - "We'll get our memory back, and it'll all be right as rain." Spike - "Oh, listen to Mary Poppins. He's got his crust all stiff and upper with that nancy boy accent. You Englishmen are always so... bloody hell. (Counting on his fingers) Sodding, blimey, shagging, knickers, bollocks. Oh, God. I'm English." Giles - "Welcome to the nancy tribe."

Spike - "You don't suppose you and I... we're not related, are we?" Anya - "There is a ruggedly handsome resemblance." Giles - "A-And you do inspire a, um, particular feeling of familiarity and... disappointment.... Older brother?" Spike - "(snorts) Father! Oh, God, how I must hate you." Giles - "(Surprised) What did I do?"

Spike - "I must be a noble vampire. A good guy. On a mission of redemption. I help the helpless. I'm a vampire with a soul." Buffy - "A vampire with a soul? Oh my God -- how lame is that?" This is a reference to Angel'' and, of course, Spike's tendency to make fun of Angel, as well as "We help the helpless" being the slogan for Angels detective agency, Angel Investigations.''

Spike - "Randy Giles? Why not just call me Horny Giles or Desperate for a Shag Giles?  I knew there was a reason I hated you."

Spike - "Dad can drive. He's bound to have some classic mid-life crisis transport. Something red, shiny, shaped like a penis." A very good guess.

Continuity

 * Even with the characters memories gone, certain elements of their personalities crop up;
 * Tara and Willow are attracted to each other.
 * Xander is immediately attracted to Willow.
 * Xander and Anya fail to sense any mutual connection, foreshadowing their doomed engagement.
 * Although Buffy retains many of her Slayer instincts, she and Spike feel no instinctive animosity towards each other, foreshadowing the significant change in direction of the relationship between the two in that season.
 * Buffy and Dawn feel a sisterly connection


 * When Willow tells Dawn about her attraction to women, she uses the exact same words she did in the season 3 episode "Doppelgängland" to describe her evil vampire self: "I think I'm kind of gay".


 * Tara finally leaves Willow, who continues her downward spiral into magic addiction.


 * The brown outfit Spike wears in this episode is the same one used in "Restless" for Xander's dream.


 * Teeth, the loan shark demon that hassles Spike to pay his debt, reappears in Angel: After the Fall as one of the Demon Lords of Los Angeles that Angel must defeat to return the city back to Earth.

Music

 * Michelle Branch - "Goodbye To You" - The dialogue-less scene at the end is accompanied by a performance in The Bronze by well known singer Branch, one of the most famous musical guests on the series, singing her song "Goodbye To You". The version used on the show was slightly different from the radio version.