Get It Done

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"Get It Done" is the fifteenth episode of the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer television show, and is the one hundred thirty-seventh episode in the series. Written and directed by Douglas Petrie, it originally broadcast on February 18, 2003 on UPN.

Synopsis

BACK TO THE FUTURE — Buffy introduces Principal Wood to the Slayer headquarters and he gives her a slayer hand-me-down in return. When the First brings about a death amongst the potentials, Buffy and friends turn to Principal Wood's gift for help. But help is not necessarily what it will bring when Buffy is sent back in time and a demon is let loose in Sunnydale in her place.

Summary

The First Slayer tells Buffy in a dream that "It is not enough". Anya and Spike take a walk together when Anya is attacked by a demon D'Hoffryn sent to kill her. Spike attacks the demon and the pair then run away.

Principal Wood tells Buffy to go home and concentrate on her "real" job: Killing monsters and getting ready to battle the First Evil. Buffy takes him to the house and introduces him to the rest of the crew, including Spike. The tension between Spike and Wood is tangible. Wood gives Buffy a bag that he got from his mother and should have been passed on to Buffy anyway.

Chloe commits suicide after the First talks to her all night. Buffy delivers a strong lecture, angering many of the others, including Spike by telling him he was a much better warrior before he got his soul back and that since then he has been holding back. She then calls an emergency and opens the slayer's bag. Inside is a set of shadow casters and a book that trigger a portal. Against the advice of her friends, Buffy jumps in, sending back an enormous demon who beats everyone up and flees. After Spike recovers, he gets his leather coat out of a trunk, kills the demon, and drags it back to Buffy's house.

On the other side of the portal, Buffy is back in the desert where she once met the First Slayer. There, three men tell her she is the last Slayer to guard the Hellmouth, and try to infuse her with the essence of the demon that gives all the Slayers their strength. Buffy refuses the power, telling the men that they were wrong to have created the Slayer line in the first place. As a parting gift, they give Buffy a vision: An enormous army of Turok-Han just waiting to be unleashed on the world.

After struggling with the incantation, Willow manages to reopen the portal by sucking energy from Anya and Kennedy. Kennedy is visibly shaken by Willow's power, which causes a brief strain in their relationship. Spike throws the dead demon in, and Buffy returns. Later, she tells Willow about the vision, and admits that the First Slayer was right: What they have will not be enough.

Continuity

• When Spike is talking to Robin Wood, he says since he had a soul he was "unique, more or less," an obvious reference to Angel.
• Spike puts on his leather coat, last seen in episode "Seeing Red", and with it regains his love for a good fight. Unfortunately, the coat proves to Wood that Spike is the vampire who killed his his mother, setting the stage for their battle.
• In response to the line "You can't just watch, you must see," Xander claims he dislikes cryptic messages because someone gets hurt, usually him. When the demon replaces Buffy, Xander is the first person attacked. This might also be a hint that his eye would be gouged out by Caleb in the future.
• A similar exchange portal is used to carry Buffy to the future Haddyn in Time of Your Life, Part One.
• Buffy finds out how the very first Slayer was created, and it disgusts her, foreshadowing her decision to bring down the whole system in "Chosen".
• This episode marks the beginning of Buffy's estrangement from the rest of the Scooby Gang, following her expulsion from the group in "Empty Places".
• The vision given to Buffy by the Shadowmen reveals the First's army of Turok-Han vampires inside the Hellmouth, which she'll face in "Chosen".
• Kennedy finally sees the violent nature of Willows powers, and is uneasy, causing a brief strain in their relationship.

Appearances

Locations

• Sunnydale
• Desert of the Primitive

Death count

• Chloe, suicide.
• Unidentified demon, killed by Spike.

Behind the scenes

Production

• Buffy's response to Wood regarding the Hellmouth "blowing around May" is referencing the fact that the apocalypses usually occur as the season finales, which tend to air in May.
• The Shadowmen speak in Swahili.

Deleted scenes

• Andrew welcomes Wood:

Andrew: "Welcome to our perfectly typical American household where nothing unusual happens."

• After Spike learns that Buffy has told Wood that he has a soul:

Spike: "What are you spilling next, that I bleach my hair?"

Wood: "But it has such a natural sheen."

• In the shooting script, Buffy's vision of the First's Turok-Han army was of the creatures on a rampage within a ravaged, post-apocalyptic Sunnydale.

Pop culture references

• There are at least two references to Winnie-the-Pooh in this episode. Apart from "TTFN" - "Ta-ta for now", which is explained as what the Pooh character Tigger says when he leaves, Spike shows familiarity with the book when he goes away to do "what he does best": This is what Tigger claims about everything until he actually tries it.
• Andrew's line "They're gonna see everything. They'll see the Big Board." is a reference to Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
• When Kennedy is trying to convince Willow to use magic she says "Why not try all 32 flavors" a reference to Ani Difranco, a bi-sexual musical icon.
• Xander says, "The First hates puppets. Now if we could just airlift Kermit, Fozzie the Bear, and Miss Piggie into town..." a reference to characters from The Muppet Show.
• In attempting to cover up the Potentials' practice in the backyard to Mr. Wood, Willow blunders through a speech about the Potentials practicing for cheerleading tryouts. She then sarcastically remarks, "Bring it on!", referencing the 2000 film Bring It On!, which stars Eliza Dushku.

Goofs, bloopers & continuity errors

• When we see Dawn saying that the book she reads isn't in Sumerian anymore and changes to English, the writing beforehand wasn't Sumerian at all, it was a transliteration of Greek letters in the place of Latin letters in English. For example the word "see" in English in the book was written as "ΣΕΕ" in the Greek letters; Sumerian is written in cuneiform script, the ancient Sumerian, Akkadian/Babylonian alphabets, not in Greek.
• The door behind Buffy and Dawn when they walk into the bathroom to Chloe's body is open and closed in changing shots.
• When the demon appears and Xander says "Ah, this must be the exchange student." looking at the ceiling, you can see the top of the set on the sides.

International titles

• French: "Retour aux sources" (Return to the Sources)
• German: "Das Angebot" (The Offer)

Other

• Anya tells Buffy her role on the team is to provide much-needed sarcasm. This is actually true. In season 4, the writers noticed that some scenes involving the main characters could get too mawkish and sentimental, so they decided to bring Anya in to fill the gap left by Cordelia to keep things from getting too hokey. Spike also ended up serving this purpose (although Marsters defined his role as being the one who had to say "Buffy, you're stupid and we're all gonna die").^{[citation needed]}

Quotes

Spike: "Would you let it go? You're like a dog with a bone!"

Anya: "So what?"

Spike: "It's my bone! Just drop it."

Kennedy: "I love this job! Did you see that? I called that girl a maggot!"

Buffy: "Then why are you here? Besides getting rescued, what do you do?"

Anya: "I provide... much needed... sarcasm."

Xander: "Uh, that'd be my job actually."

Shadowman: "We cannot give you knowledge. Only power."

Willow: "Via, concursus, tempus, spatium, audi me ut imperio... Screw it. Mighty forces, I suck at Latin, okay? But that's not the issue! I am in charge here and I am telling you, open this portal now!"