This episode takes off from when Buffy returns home. She is unpacking her clothes, and she decides she wants to go find Willow and Xander. Her mother is reluctant to let her go, and babbles on about Buffy not eating enough. She is hanging a rather frightening Nigerian mask of leather and teeth when Buffy comes in. She lets Buffy go out, and Buffy goes looking for Xander and Will.
She is out waking in the cold night, looking lonesome when she sees a tall man ahead of her. Upon approaching, Buffy realizes that it is Xander, and he almost stakes her in his fright. He reacts to her with mixed emotions of shock and joy and anger. Suddenly, a vamp explodes from a wall next to them, and Buffy and Xander are focused upon eliminating him. The walky-talky on Xander's hip asks "Nighthawk" if he is okay, and upon hearing no response, Cordy, Oz and Willow appear to help him fight. None of them can stop the vamp, and Buffy kills him. The others, who have been thrown on the ground, look at Buffy with shock and disbelief.
They go to Giles' house to tell him that Buffy has returned. Buffy is frightened of his reaction, but Xander forces her to knock on the door. Giles opens it, and has a look of unadulterated relief on his face. They all come in and start talking about the summer. Giles leaves the room to make tea, and he just sits in the kitchen trying to process the newest turn of events. Everyone asks Buffy where she has been, but she does not feel ready yet to reveal all that she has been through.
The next day, Buffy and Joyce go to talk to Principal Snyder, but he is adamant about her expulsion. He seems to relish her suffering, and Joyce threatens to go all the way to the mayor if that's what it takes to get Buffy back into school. Buffy leaves for an afterschool meeting with Willow. She is stood up, and walks home in misery. There she meets Pat, a friend of Joyce's from her bookclub, who tells Buffy to bond with her mother and reminds Buffy how much pain she caused everyone. Buffy goes inside her home, and her mom tells her that Willow called to cancel the afternoon plans. Joyce tells Buffy that she invited the gang over for a nice, semi-formal dinner the next evening. buffy is somewhat reluctant, but she acquiesces. She goes to the basement to ge thte nice china, and finds a mangled cat. She and her mom bury it in the yard. Later that evening, the cat rises from the grave, still dead, but functioning because of the African mask Joyce hung in the living room.
Giles comes over to catch the cat, and enlists the help of the rest of the gang. At he library, Oz brings up the question as to what type of party to throw for Buffy: a gathering, a shenanigan or a hootenanny (a gathering is a quiet, elevated atmosphere, a hootenanny is a wild party with loud music and dancing, while a shenanigan is somwhere is between). Not wanting a quiet introspective dinner, all but Giles votes for a hootenanny. Oz's band will play, and tons of people will be invited.
At Buffy's house, Buffy is setting up for a quiet dinner. Joyce has invited Pat, much to Buffy's chagrin. When the doorbell rings, Buffy opens the door expecting her friends. Instead, Oz's bandmates are at the door. Within minutes, the party is in full swing for "some girl who just got out of rehab", according to one clueless partygoer. ?Buffy tries to talk to Willow, but Willow is too absorbed with Oz's guitar playing to have a deep conversation, while Xander and Cordelia are too busy making out to pay attention to Buffy. Giles did not show up because he was still trying to solve the cat mystery. Buffy goes to look for her mom, and hears her tell Pat that it seems harder having Buffy home than not knowing where she is.
Buffy returns to her room, grabs a duffel, and starts throwing clothes into it. Willowcomes looking for her, sees her packing, and freaks. Buffy tells her that everyone was better off without her, but Willow denies this, saying that everyone was just getting along. No one was really happy without Buffy. Willow accuses Buffy of abandoning her while she was struggling with life changes: a new boyfriend and the study of witchcraft. Joyce comes to Buffy room, sees the duffel, and starts screaming at Buffy. Buffy decides she can't handle the presure, and runs down the stairs. Joyce follows her to the party and begins to chastise her in front of everyone. Xander, Cordy, Oz and Willow also get involved. Xander is being very harsh on Buffy for selfishly abandoning her post and friends. Cordy tries to defend Buffy, but ends up making Buffy feel worse. Buffy and Xander almost resort to fisticuffs when Oz intervenes to stop them. Willow tells Oz that some violence might solve the problem, and suddenly, a zombie comes flying through the living room window.
Whil ethe party was going on, the mask had been summoning the dead from the morgues, funeral homes, and graves. Back at the library, Giles figures out belatedly what was summoning the dead, and tries to get to Buffy's house to stop the zombies. His car becomes surrounded by dead people attacking him. He narrowly escapes.
Meanwhile, at Buffy's house, chaos ensues. Buffy and the gang have tried slaying the dead people, but cannot because they are vamps. They can only beat the zombies away in order to escape. Partygoers, including Pat, are killed and are later rising to join the zombie crew. The zombies chase Buffy, Joyce, Xander, and Willow upstairs, while Oz and Cordy lock themselves in a closet downstairs. Everyone upstairs is locked unwittingly in a room with the mask and PAt's dead body, trying to fend the zombies off and keep them from busting into Joyce's bedroom. Downstairs, Giles arrives and tells Oz and Cordy, who have emerged from the closet, that the mask is raising people from the dead, and that if any of the zombies dons the mask, they will embody the demon which possesses the mask.
Upstairs the zombies are close to breaking in to Joyce's room. The mask glows and summons Pat from the dead, but because no one is paying attention to her limp form, she is able to reach the mask and put it on before Buffy can stop her. She puts the mask on and becomes the demon. Her eyes flash, and temporarily hypnotizes Willow. Before Willow can be killed, Buffy hits the demon. The demons eyes flash and arrest Buffy. Buffy is then attacked. When she get her bearings back, she pushes the demon out the window. Buffy ends up crashing out the window after the demon and they begin to fight on the lawn. Buffy fights the demon without looking at the demon's eyes.
Inside the house, Giles, Cordy and Oz hear the window shatter as Buffy and the demon jump through it. Giles instructs Oz to tell Buffy that the demon's weak spot is its eyes. As Oz goes to tell her, the demon flashes its eyes at Oz and he freezes. Taking advantage of the distraction, Buffy grabs the shovel and stabs the demon in its eyes. The demon explodes, and Buffy and Oz shakily go back inside.
All the dead people disappear, and everyone tries to recover. Joyce, just experiencing the supernatural for the first time, asks if being the slayer is always so difficult. Buffy replies that it is usually harder. They smile and hug. The experience has erased all of the anger and hurt of Buffy's absence, and Buffy is forgiven.
The next day, Buffy and Willow are hanging at the local coffee house. Willow describes her sometimes crazy witchcraft experiences to Buffy and Buffy apologizes once again. Willow likes to lord her moral superiority over Buffy's head, and the show ends with the two teasing each other with names like "runaway" and "witch".
Back to Season Three Episode Guide
Back to Spike and Dru's Paradise