"They didn't do the plucking. They're just as plucked as the rest of us," she said with no ambiguity over whether she also has a particularly similar sounding word in mind.

Frequently, Buffy lost her patience when trying to explain this fact to the newbies -- that whatever drew them here was not the Organization but something else. Something she couldn't pretend to understand. But she showed more patience with Spike because she knew how clever he was.

Or, perhaps, because she know how stupid he could also be.

"Faith's timing is awkward but not the worst that I've seen. The last time Will was here? Pre-veins. Add a brief cameo from Warren the Wonder Psycho into the village and...

My feet literally hurt from walking over so many figurative eggshells."