History Recap / BuffyTheVampireSlayerS5E17Forever

** Willow's hesitation in explaining why bringing back Joyce would be wrong and magically pulling out the book for Dawn to notice are signs of her abusing magic and then justifying it.
** Doc makes Dawn uncomfortable and takes a peculiar interest in her. He's a follower of Glory and will make her far more than uncomfortable come the season's final episode.

* CameBackWrong: Implied with Joyce. Dawn makes her first venture into witchcraft, invoking a spell to bring Joyce back. Buffy is furious at Dawn; witchcraft can produce horrific results, especially when done by amateurs. Dawn is obstinate, accusing Buffy of not even understanding how much she misses their mom — until they hear a knock outside their door. Suddenly Buffy, who has been trying to be strong for her sister this whole time, breaks down and rushes to the door, yearning to see her mother again. At the same moment, Dawn realizes how much Buffy has also been suffering and that she isn't as alone in her grief and loss as she thought. Dawn revokes the spell, and whatever was on the other side of the door disappears before Buffy can open it. We never learn whether or not this trope happened to Joyce Summers -- although considering Dawn got the spell from a guy later revealed to be an ally (possibly TheDragon) of Glory, odds are good it would have.

** Dawn turning to Willow/Tara as a [[HasTwoMommies surrogate family]] when she thinks her sister is emotionally distant.

* AnAxeToGrind: Spike vs. the Ghora Demon.

* ArmourPiercingSlap: Buffy slaps Dawn when she accuses her sister of treating Joyce's funeral arrangements like "just another chore."

* CameBackWrong: Implied with Joyce. Dawn makes her first venture into witchcraft, invoking a spell to bring Joyce. Buffy is furious at Dawn; witchcraft can produce horrific results, especially when done by amateurs. Dawn is obstinate, accusing Buffy of not even understanding how much she misses their mom — until they hear a knock outside their door. Suddenly Buffy, who has been trying to be strong for her sister this whole time, breaks down and rushes to the door, yearning to see her mother again. At the same moment, Dawn realizes how much Buffy has also been suffering and that she isn't as alone in her grief and loss as she thought. Dawn revokes the spell, and whatever was on the other side of the door disappears before Buffy can open it. We never learn whether or not this trope happened to Joyce Summers -- although considering Dawn got the spell from a guy later revealed to be an ally (possibly TheDragon) of Glory, odds are good it would have.

* OminousKnocking: Dawn attempts to resurrect her dead mother and is implied to have created a malevolent undead version of her. We don't see much of the undead mother except for a few flashes, but we hear a knocking on the door. Buffy tries to resist for a while and goes to open it, at which point Dawn finally thinks better of it and breaks the spell.

* SayingTooMuch: Ben tells Jinx he won't help find the Key, because he refuses to harm an innocent. He realises too late that he's just tipped off Jinx that the Key is in human form.

* ShoutOut: To ''Literature/TheMonkeysPaw'' by W.W. Jacobs.

** Dawn gets her own moments later when she sees, far from being emotionless about Joyce's death, Buffy has been bottling up her emotions because it's the only way she can deal with the grief. Dawn's expression as Buffy steadily breaks down into grief-stricken sobbing goes from cold anger to tearful horror as she realises just how much her older sister is hurting. The clencher is when Buffy turns at Joyce's knock and says, "Mommy?".

* CharacterDevelopment / PetTheDog: Spike helps Dawn because "I just don't like to see Summers women take it so hard on the chin" (as opposed to last year's "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E20TheYokoFactor The Yoko Factor]]," when he enjoyed making Buffy miserable).

* CameBackWrong: Implied with Joyce. Dawn makes her first venture into witchcraft, invoking a spell to bring Joyce. Buffy is furious at Dawn; witchcraft can produce horrific results, especially when done by amateurs. Dawn is obstinate, accusing Buffy of not even understanding how much she misses their mom — until their mother's silhouette appears outside their window. Suddenly Buffy, who has been trying to be strong for her sister this whole time, breaks down and rushes to the door, yearning to see her mother again. At the same moment, Dawn realizes how much Buffy has also been suffering and that she isn't as alone in her grief and loss as she thought. Dawn revokes the spell, and whatever was on the other side of the door disappears before Buffy can open it. We never learn whether or not Joyce Summers came back wrong. Considering Dawn got the spell from a guy later revealed to be an ally (possibly TheDragon) of Glory, odds are it was probably ''designed'' to make the person it was used on come back wrong.

* TheBusCameBack / CharacterOverlap: Angel turns up simply to comfort Buffy.

* SpecialEffectsFailure: The Gora is a giant immobile puppet; they did their best to make it look dangerous with cuts, smoke, and mirrors.

** Dawn gets her own moments later when she sees, far from being emotionless about Joyce's death, Buffy has been bottling up her emotions because it's the only way she can deal with the grief. Dawn's expression as Buffy steadily breaks down into grief-stricken sobbing goes from cold anger to tearful horror as she realises just how much her older sister is hurting.

* HeroicSafeMode: Buffy is in this state throughout the episode, suppressing her emotions and keeping herself busy because it's the only way she can deal with the grief over Joyce's death. Sadly, Dawn misinterprets her actions as [[AngstWhatAngst not even caring]]