History Recap / BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E19EmptyPlaces

* HoiseByHisOwnPetard: Buffy's falling out with Giles and Robin by the end of "Lies My Parents Told Me" comes back to haunt her, as they both decline to lend her their support when the Potentials and Scoobies oust her.

* FirstNameBasis: Spike pointedly addresses Giles as "Rupert".

Buffy continues to argue her point and the reasoning that Caleb is protecting something crucial at the vineyard, but no one agrees with her. Faith and Giles express their logical opposition and the Potentials jump in with attacks of Buffy's decisions. Willow questions Buffy's judgment and Anya informs Buffy how her Slayer powers don't earn her the right to be the sole leader, they just makes her more fortunate than the rest of them. Buffy stresses that she's the one in charge who has to make the decisions regardless of their opinions on the situation. Everyone else disagrees, and the idea is raised that Faith is a Slayer, too — and maybe they should vote on who the leader is. Faith rejects the idea of taking over command, but questions whether Buffy could actually handle someone else taking the lead. Even Xander expresses his displeasure with Buffy's point of view. Buffy refuses to go along with the others, and so Dawn stands up and regretfully asks Buffy to leave, since she's unable to accept the overwhelming vote of everyone else.

* SunnydaleSyndrome: Finally averted as virtually the entire population decides ScrewThisImOuttaHere.

** When Roma makes a quip after Buffy has been thrown out, Dawn gives her a DeathGlare and a BigShutUp.

* WhamEpisode: After the failed attack on the vineyard, the group kicks Buffy out of the house and makes Faith leader instead.

* PlotMandatedFriendshipFailure: All of Buffy's friends (including her own sister) remove her from leading them and kick her out of her own house after one bad mission that results in two dead Potentials and Xander losing an eye. PlayedWith slightly in that Giles connived things so that Spike and Andrew were sent away for the day, likely so they wouldn't be there to take Buffy's side.

* OlderAndWiser: Before Faith had murdered, served as TheDragon for the Mayor, started {{Bar Brawl}}s, tortured people and used a GrandTheftMe -- now she looks out for the underage girls and stop them from drinking alcohol, doesn't retaliate when Buffy hits her, and is genuinely upset for Buffy when the others turn on her.

* JerkassBall: Outside of Buffy, Spike, Andrew and ''Faith'' of all people, all of Buffy's friends turn on her despite everything she's ever done for them (including ''dying for them twice'') in the most under-handed way possible.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Fan consensus has largely settled against the mutiny, which, fair enough, was a dick move that went ''way'' too far and involved a load of hypocrisy and KickTheDog behavior, but the fact is that the Potentials had no chance going up against Caleb (they could hold out against Bringers, who don't have super powers), and even Buffy will only succeed by [[LightningBruiser dodging his every attack]]. In other words, going back into the vineyard is the right call, but ''not with the Potentials''. On top of that, to say that Buffy did a shit job arguing her case is to understate the fucking union.

** Kicking out Buffy, the leader and physically strongest member during a time of war, ultimately proves to be a terrible decision. Plus, it never occurs to any of them that divide and conquer might play to the First's advantage.

** Faith, a wanted fugitive, takes the Potentials for a night out at the Bronze. Inevitably, the police show up and attack the group.

** When Roma makes a quip after Buffy has been thrown out, Dawn gives her a DeathGlare.

* ConflictBall: The Potentials stage a coup voting for Faith to be put in charge instead of her after a perfect storm of failures is set up for Buffy ''and'' somehow all of the Scoobies have lost faith in her so none of them back her up (leading to Dawn of all people giving her the boot, which is particularly galling as the episode didn't give her an excuse to turn on Buffy like the other Scoobies). Faith herself seems utterly stunned by the turn of events, as she'd only raised the argument because she had a few issues with Buffy's tactics. Also Spike, Buffy's biggest supporter, is noticeably absent on a mission for the episode just so they can have ''everyone else'' turn on her (which he promptly calls them on when he returns). It's undone within two episodes, making it even more jarring.
** It could be argued that everyone involved had been dealing with an intensely dangerous and stressful situation for months (passage of time is unclear), and there were apparently 20-30 people living in a small 3-bedroom house at this point, leading to everyones' nerves being frayed. Now, why they decided to have that many people living in a tight confined space is unclear, especially when it was shown that Caleb had previously used explosives to destroy an entire building of their allies.....

* FunnyBackgroundEvent: While Anya gives her briefing to the Potentials, Andrew is behind her writing key words from her speech on TheBigBoard, [[ComicallyMissingThePoint plus some not-so-key ones like "break-up sex"]].

* JerkassHasAPoint: Fan consensus has largely settled against the mutiny, which, fair enough, was a dick move that went ''way'' too far and involved a load of hypocrisy and KickTheDog behavior, but the fact is that the Potentials had no chance going up against Caleb (they could hold out against Bringers, who don't have super powers), and even Buffy will only succeed by [[LightningBruiser dodging his every attack]]. In other words, going back into the vineyard is the right call, but ''not with the Potentials''.