Guest Starring: 
     
 Kristine Sutherland: 
 (Joyce Summers) 
   
 Clare Kramer: 
 (Glory) 
   
 Charlie Weber: 
 (Ben) 
   
 Ravil Isyanov: 
 (Monk) 
   
 James Wellington: 
 (Night Watchman) 
   
 
 
  5. No Place Like Home.  
   
  Buffy uses a spell to try to discover what is wrong with her mother, but instead she finds something disturbing about Dawn. Meanwhile there is a new big bad in town.  
   
  Great quotes:  
   
 
  • Giles is examining the Dagon Sphere: "It's paranormal in origin." Willow: "How can you tell?" Giles: "Well it's so shiny."
  • Dawn: "What are you doing?" Buffy: "My boyfriend!"
  • Glory: "I could crap a better existence than this."
  
  Fantastic moments:  
   
 
  • Spike is hanging around outside Buffy's house
    The new big bad.
    , this is the first time the pair have met since Spike had his fantasy about kissing her. She demands an explanation for why he is outside her house in five words, the answer: "Out For A Walk ... Bitch!" He then makes his best go at having a pop at her in order to hide his attraction "You need some satisfaction besides shagging captain cardboard, and I never really liked you anyway and you have stupid hair."
  • The dream-sequence stuff with Buffy under the trance spell is exquisitely shot with odd colours and fade-ins of Dawn coming into and out of existence. It is here that she realises something is wrong with Dawn and that she might not be real. Note the start of the drugs / magic metaphor, which will carry on over into season 6, in this sequence. Buffy's experience in the trance is a little bit like going on a chemically induced trip.
  
  Duff Bits:  
   
 
  • So we have the season's first Macguffins, the Dagon sphere and 'the key'. What is it the key for? Where did the Dagon sphere come from? Who knows? Who cares? Hooray!
  • The episode's plot threads are desperately unconnected, there's simply too much going on in too many different places. Giles opens a shop, Spike loves Buffy, a new big bad appears, there are monks, Dawn isn't real and Buffy is in a trance ... arrgh!
  
  Dean's comments:  
   
 
Giles the shop-owner.
The title of the episode might have us believe that 'Dorothy' (Dawn) is being outed and sent back home, and indeed we finally have the revelation about Dawn's true nature. A cursory glance might make one think than Dawn's introduction is nothing more than an excuse to introduce a new character to boost ratings. As it turns out her introduction was a device to allow Buffy to take on a new role in the series, to turn her into the mother as opposed to the daughter. Whether this is a weak method of advancing the plot or good use of science fiction is debatable, the benefit being that it allowed the writers to change the show's emphasis with regard to Buffy herself. However much one might have reservations over Dawn's introduction, the fact is that the production team succeeded in bringing her in and using the character to good effect, freeing up Buffy's character and allowing her to have the most testing and emotionally rending season of the series. Turning to this episode, I think that the writers could have done a better job of introducing all the new elements that they have tried to cram into this one show. Undoubtedly Glory was a great baddie, an evil blond uber-chick who is just as strong and pretty as Buffy.
Buffy casting a 'revelation' spell.
She's utterly psychotic; she goes on a rant about trying to find her key in which the camera angle cuts and shifts between her words (incidentally she says "... someone's gonna sit there on their tuffet..." a reference to Dawn being the key, but then it's revealed at the end of the episode anyway so there isn't much time to sit and decipher this) and then stamps her foot like a spoilt girl after Buffy escapes from her lair with the monk.		 
   
 6/10 
 
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