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Conversations with Dead People is the seventh episode of the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the one-hundred and twenty-ninth episode overall. The Scoobies are haunted by ghosts of people from their past, including Joyce, Warren, and Tara speaking through Cassie.

Guest Stars: Danny Strong (Jonathan Levinson), Adam Busch (Warren Meers), Tom Lenk (Andrew Wells), Jonathan M. Woodward (Holden "Webs" Webster)

With: Azura Skye (Cassie Newton)

And Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers

Co-Stars: Stacey Scowley (Young Woman)

Contents 1 Plot Overview 2 Notes 2.1 Monster of the Week 2.2 Body Count 3 Arc Advancement 3.1 Happenings 3.2 Characters 3.3 Referbacks 4 Trivia 4.1 The Show 4.2 Behind the Scenes 4.3 Allusions and References 4.4 Memorable Moments 5 Quotes 6 Reviews

[edit] Plot Overview

Buffy has an odd encounter with a vampire in the cemetery while the rest of the scoobies deal with demonic entities. The vampire Buffy encounters is a former classmate whom she had not noticed much in high school. The vampire presses Buffy on her life, and deals specifically with her choice in men. Instead of dusting the vampire, as per the norm, Buffy opens up somewhat too him about how she feels alone in her slayer destiny. Meanwhile Dawn has an encounter with a ghost/demon in her home who is also causing pain to Joyce, who appears in the closing minutes of the episode. Meanwhile Willow sees Cassie, the girl from a few episodes back who had visions of her own death. Cassie tells Willow that she has a link to Tara, and the two talk about the events of season six. Cassie tells Willow that she must give up magic or she will wind up killing everyone. Eventually Willow discovers that it is not really Tara, or Cassie, that she's talking to but rather something else.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Monster of the Week

• There is no monster of the week in this episode, as this episode deals mainly with The First.

[edit] Body Count

#	Whom	By Whom	How	Where
1	Demon	Dawn	Magicked to Death	Buffy's home
2	Random Woman	Spike	Bitten	Outside her home
3	Jonathan	Andrew	Impaled	School basement
4	Holden Webster	Buffy	Staked	Graveyard

[edit] Arc Advancement

[edit] Happenings

• From Beneath You: The First appears to Dawn, Willow and Andrew. Andrew kills Jonathan in this episode, which presumably begins the start of whatever is to come.

[edit] Characters

• Spike: This is the first human Spike has killed on screen since getting his soul back.

[edit] Referbacks

• 5x09 - Listening to Fear: The Spanish mariachi music Dawn listens to in the house is similar to the music Buffy is absently listening to in Listening to Fear.
• 5x16 - The Body: The talk about being "strong like an amazon" comes entirely from The Body when Tara is comforting Willow after Buffy's mother's death.
• 6x07 - Once More, With Feeling: Cassie mentions Tara still singing in the afterlife and references the time when they sang on the bridge during the musical episode.

[edit] Trivia

[edit] The Show

• Clarification: According to an interview with Jane Espenson, the figure of Joyce that appears in this episode is The First impersonating her, not Joyce herself.
• Music: The song that plays in the episode is Blue by Angie Hart and Joss Whedon.
• Title Card: This is the second episode in the series that displays the name of the episode at the beginning, the first being Once More, With Feeling.

[edit] Behind the Scenes

• Where Are You?: This is the only episode in which Xander does not appear. Also, although Spike does appear in this episode, he has no dialogue.
• Original Design: It was originally intended to get Amber Benson to appear as The First, disguised as Tara. However a deal with Benson could not be agreed. Instead Cassie Newton, from the episode Help, was brought back.
• Rumors: The original plan for this episode was not only to have Amber Benson be present as Tara, but also for Eric Balfour to reprise his role as Jesse and for Kali Rocha to reprise her role as Halfrek. Although Eric Balfour never panned out, Kali Rocha originally wanted to guest star but was unable to due to previous commitments. Had both Jesse and Halfrek appeared on the show, it is not known how Xander and Anya would be written into the plot and still fit into a single episode. Additional rumors persist that this was meant to be a 90-minute episode.
• Non-Credited Writers: Although Drew Goddard and Jane Espenson are credited as writers for this episode, Joss Whedon and Marti Noxon wrote two of the four scenes. Goddard wrote the Trio's scene, Espenson wrote Dawn's scene, Noxon wrote Willow's scene, and Whedon wrote Buffy's scene.
• Anchovies: The brief song that Dawn sings while eating pizza, Anchovies, anchovies, you're so delicious!, comes from Jane Espenson's anger at a local pizza company who stopped selling anchovies as a topping on their pizza.
• Playing Favorites: This episode is Joss Whedon's ninth favorite episode according to the Last Sundown featurette.

[edit] Allusions and References

• Václav Havel: Václav Havel was the last president of Czechoslovakia before it became the Czech Republic. He was also the first president of this new republic. Beyond being the president, Havel was well known as a playwright.

Holden: I let you crib off my Václav Havel essay that time.

• Marty McFly: Marty McFly was the main character of the film trilogy, Back to the Future. Whenever Biff Tannen talked to George or Marty, he referred to them by their last name. "Think, McFly!" implies that Andrew is berating Jonathan.

Andrew: Think, McFly.

• Short Round: Short Round is the nickname for Indiana Jones' asian street urchin sidekick in Temple of Doom. He was played by Jonathan Ke Quan.

Warren: If Short Round pulls off his end of the bargain, we'll both become gods.

• Hellraiser: Hellraiser is a series of horror movies starring Pinhead, a sadomasochistic villain who finds joy in torturing his victims in Hell. Pinhead is notable as a villain who can be bargained with.

Andrew: Everything's shifting around. I feel like we're in Hellraiser. I hate Pinhead.

[edit] Memorable Moments

• Buffy being psychoanalyzed by Webs, a vampire who was a former classmate of hers.
• Jonathan being stabbed by Andrew, under the sway of the First imitating Warren.

[edit] Quotes

• Holden: Oh, my God!
  Buffy: Oh, your God what?
  Holden: Oh, well, you know, not my God, because I defy him and all of his works, but... Does he exist? Is there word on that, by the way?
  Buffy: Nothing solid.

[edit] Reviews

• Overall Grade: A with 1 review
• Review Breakdown: A+: 0 A: 1 A-: 0 B+: 0 B: 0 B-: 0 C+: 0 C: 0 C-: 0 D: 0 F: 0

1. As soon as you see the episode title flash on-screen, you know that this episode is going to be different. The haunting song that starts off the episode is very reminiscent of the next 42 minutes that transpire on-screen, most of which is high-quality Buffy reminiscent of seasons past. In a way, it almost humiliates how hamfisted and clunky the "dark" writing was in season six because it's done very well here, with awkward humorous moments [Check. Check check. Check. Check.] and some of the most frightening scenes to ever pop up on the show [Mother's Milk Is Red Today]. My only real gripe with the episode is that some of the Buffy/Holden scenes came off as very exposition-happy, especially the 5-minute segment in the middle with nothing but talking and Buffy lying down on an oh-so-clever coffin shaped to resemble a couch. It also probably marks the last truly outstanding Buffy episode in the entire series, which is a shame, because there's still 15 episodes left to go. Grade: A --Wizardryo | ✎ 18:31, 23 Dec 2005 (EST)