History Recap / BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E3AfterLife

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Unable to cope with her friends, Buffy retreats to her bedroom. Somewhat thrown by this, Willow says, "She's normal. She used to go to bed all the time!"

-->'''Dawn:''' Skaggmore demons, Trellbane demons, Skitterers, Large and Small Bone-Eaters... If we get to pick, I say we go with the Small Bone-Eaters.\\

After telling Giles of Buffy's return, Willow and Tara go to bed and talk about the spell and the changes in Buffy.
In her room, Buffy looks at photographs surrounding her and sees the faces briefly turn into skulls.
During the night, Willow and Tara are visited by Buffy who hints at Willow killing the deer for the resurrection spell. When the girls get up to investigate further, they find Buffy asleep in her room and neither know the source of the incident. A moving lump appears in the ceiling, motivating Willow to call Xander. In the background while Xander talks, Anya enters the room with a knife and white eyes. She starts laughing maniacally and slitting her cheeks with the blade before collapsing. The lump then travels across the floor.

Led on by Spike's hint that Willow's spell was more dangerous than she let on, Xander questions whether the witches knew of such dangers but is quickly quietened. Willow reveals that the creature was made by the spell that brought Buffy back. The demon currently doesn't have a body so it has been possessing members of the Scoobies. A reversal of the spell will kill the demon but would reverse Buffy's resurrection spell too.
After Dawn freaks out at the concept of losing Buffy again, Willow discovers that the demon can only survive if Buffy is killed. The demon, which had hold of Xander's body when Willow revealed this information, thanks Willow and leaves to find the Slayer.

* FalseReassurance: Buffy to the Scoobies

** All the talk of EquivalentExchange: Willow gets Buffy back from the dead [[spoiler:but her girlfriend Tara will be dead by the end of the season.]]

* OutofTimeOutOfMind: Spike informs the newly-resurrected Buffy that she was dead for "147 days." He asks her, "How long was it for you...where you were?" To which Buffy responds vaguely: "A lot longer." It screwed up her life for some time afterwards, and she never ''quite'' got back to her old self. She was in a Heaven dimension, and rather unceremoniously ripped out of it to end up in a coffin where she had to dig her way out and then find herself in a Sunnydale temporarily overrun by demons.

* ShipTease: On seeing Spike, Buffy does up her blouse even though she'd been indifferent earlier. Spike recites the [[LovingDetails exact number of days]] Buffy has been dead without pausing for thought. Buffy goes 'patrolling' but instead seeks out Spike and listens to his own confession, and later tells Spike what she doesn't dare confide to the others.

-->'''Buffy:''' Longer.

* DamagedSoul

** Buffy also tells Spike "It's okay. I can be alone with you here," foreshadowing her destructive relationship with him.

* HoldingHands: Used for foreshadowing -- Willow breaks away from Tara to finish the spell, while Spike holds Buffy's injured hands while waiting for Dawn to fetch anti-septic to clean them up.

* PigLatin: Surprisingly ineffective as a secret code to avoid demons listening in on your conversations.

* ShipTease: On seeing Spike, Buffy does up her blouse even though she'd been indifferent earlier. Spike recites the exact number of days Buffy has been dead without pausing for thought. Buffy goes 'patrolling' but instead seeks out Spike and listens to his own confession, and later tells Spike what she doesn't dare confide to the others.

** All the talk of EquivalentExchange: Willow gets Buffy back from the dead but her girlfriend Tara will be dead by the end of the season.

** All the talk of EquivalentExchange: Willow gets Buffy back from the dead [[spoiler:but her girlfriend Tara will be dead by the end of the season.]]

** Spike lets Xander and Anya have it for not informing him of the plan [[DudeWheresMyRespect despite all they went through that summer,]] [[FireForgedFriends fighting demons alongside each other in the wake Buffy's death.]] He comes to the realization that Willow didn't want to take the chance of him stopping them from performing a MercyKill if Buffy CameBackWrong, and storms off [[PowerAtAPrice remarking that magic always has consequences.]]

** All the talk of EquivalentExchange: Willow gets Buffy back from the dead, but Tara will be dead by the end of the season.

Buffy goes outside into the alley behind the shop, where she finds Spike in a patch of shade. He tries to talk to her and offer her help. She admits to him that she wasn't initially sure but she knows she wasn't in Hell. Buffy had gone to Heaven and her friends had pulled her out. She tells Spike that this reality is Hell but stresses that her friends must never know. The cedits roll as she walks away, leaving a horror-stricken Spike alone in the alley.

[[quoteright:284:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/btvs_s6_ep03_afterlife.JPG]]

** Buffy tells Spike that, since she was torn from Heaven, she is in Hell. This echoes the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode [[spoiler:when Angel took the elevator ride down to Hell and landed on the same level, Earth.]]

** All the talk of EquivalentExchange: Willow gets Buffy back from the dead, [[spoiler:but Tara will be dead by the end of the season.]]

* MyGreatestFailure: Spike's confession to Buffy elaborates on how ashamed he is for not being able to protect Dawn from Doc in "The Gift". He talks about how he relives the moment every night, thinking of things he could have differently to keep Buffy from having to sacrifice herself.

* MyGreatestFailure: Spike's confession towards Buffy elaborates on how ashamed he is for not being able to protect Dawn from Doc in "The Gift". He talks about how he relives the moment every night, thinking of things he could have differently to keep Buffy from having to sacrifice herself.

** Dawn becomes protective of Buffy, worrying that the gang is pestering her too much when they all regroup for the first time. When it's discovered that the spell led to the creation of a demon, and that one of the ways to defeat it would be to reverse the spell (thereby negating Buffy's resurrection), Dawn freaks out, saying that this is exactly the kind of thing she had worried about, and that losing Buffy now would be worse than never bringing her to life at all.

** Giles' reaction is only given through Willow's description, saying that she felt like she could actually ''hear'' him clean his glasses over the phone. His thoughts on what happened will be further elaborated on in the following episode.

** Possessed Anya laughs manically as she cuts open her face with a kitchen knife. Fortunately it's another hallucination.

** As Buffy walks through the cemetery, the camera angle changes so [[BackgroundHalo she appears to have the wings of an angel statue growing from her back]]. This foreshadows TheReveal that she actually came back from Heaven.

Buffy goes outside behind the shop and finds Spike in a patch of shade. He tries to talk to her and offer her help. She admits to him that she wasn't initially sure but she knows she wasn't in Hell. Buffy had gone to Heaven and her friends had pulled her out. She tells Spike that this reality is Hell but stresses that her friends must never know.

* UnwantedRevival

* EnvironmentalSymbolism: Buffy sees the faces of the Scoobies in a collage on her wall turn into skulls. The [[RunningGag BEWARE OF THE DOG]] sign is in the alley where [[{{Foreshadowing}} Buffy opens up to Spike]].

* RuleOfSymbolism: As Buffy walks through the cemetery, the camera angle changes so [[BackgroundHalo she appears to have the wings of an angel statue growing from her back]]. This foreshadows TheReveal that she actually came back from Heaven.

* RuleOfSymbolism: As Buffy walks through the cemetery, the camera angle changes so she appears to have the wings of an angel statue growing from her back.

* LaughingMad / SelfHarm: Possessed Anya laughs manically as she cuts open her face with a kitchen knife. Fortunately it's another hallucination.