"Conversations with Dead People" is the seventh episode of the seventh and final season of the television seriesBuffy the Vampire Slayer. It is the only episode other than "Once More, with Feeling" where the title appears on screen.
Plot synopsis
Several encounters take place around Sunnydale on one night, which are told in real time. Uniquely among Buffy episodes, the main characters do not interact with one another. According to the staff writers, this was intended to enforce the idea of "being alone." On patrol, Buffy discovers that her latest vampire foe is an old high school classmate named Holden Webster. Upon recognizing her, "Webs" stops their fight and takes on a friendly demeanor – seeming pleasantly surprised to have run into her and asking how she has been. Because she doesn't immediately remember him, Webs begins to jog her memory about the half dozen times they interacted with each other. Buffy finally recalls him, and the two begin to reminisce. The vampire, a psychology major in life, proceeds to psychoanalyze Buffy, and she opens up to him about her innermost conflicts and problems while at the same time fighting. She slays him in the end, but not before he identifies Spike as the vampire who sired him. Back at Revello Drive, Dawn prepares for a night alone at home. An unnaturally loud banging sets her nerves on edge. She talks with her friend Kit on the phone, asking, "See? Do you hear that?" when the banging begins again. Eventually, Dawn comes to believe that her mother is trying to contact her, and the malevolent force is working to prevent her. Dawn manages to exorcise the malevolent force and Joyce appears to warn her that when the time comes, Buffy won't choose her. In a story entirely devoid of dialogue, Spike picks up a woman at a bar, walks her home, and feeds on her, leaving her dead on her own doorstep. Jonathan and Andrew return from Mexico to dig up an artifact hidden near the Hellmouth. Andrew is secretly in contact with what appears to be the ghost of Warren, while Jonathan is having a personal revelation that he misses high school and still cares for his old friends. After they dig up the artifact, Andrew, on Warren's instructions, insults and kills Jonathan, causing his blood to spill all over a 'door' in the dirt. In the library, Willow is visited by the ghost of Cassie, a girl Buffy once helped, who claims to have been sent by the deadTara. The ghost relays Tara's message that Willow will end up killing everyone if she ever uses magic again, and recommends suicide as a solution. This tips Willow off that she has not been talking to Cassie, and she demands to know who the being really is. The being reveals itself as The First and threatens Willow and all her friends before vanishing.
Production details
Writing
The writing of this episode is credited to Jane Espenson and Drew Goddard. However, according to the commentary by Espenson and Goddard on the DVD, this episode actually had four distinct writers: Espenson wrote the Dawn scenes, Goddard wrote the Geek Trio scenes, Joss Whedon wrote the Buffy-Holden scenes, and Marti Noxon wrote the Willow-Cassie scenes. Since Whedon and Noxon were the executive producers of the show, they would often forgo formal credit for their contributions to various scripts.
Amber Benson was initially going to appear as Tara, taunting Willow instead of Cassie, but Benson chose not to because, among other reasons, she "didn't want Tara to be bad". In the commentary for this episode on the DVD, the writers claim that Amber Benson simply wasn't available.
Other story lines considered were for Eric Balfour, who played Jesse McNally in the pilot episode, "Welcome to the Hellmouth", to have conversed with Xander; and, according to Drew Goddard on the "Selfless" DVD commentary, for Kali Rocha to return and haunt Anya, but she was unavailable.
On the DVD commentary for the show, Jane Espenson revealed that the image of Joyce is The First. In the original draft of the script, Dawn was going to try to raise her mother. When Joyce appeared, she was to say, "They said I couldn't bring someone back." To which The First/Joyce would reply: "Maybe I'm the First."
The Futon Critic named it the 42nd best episode of 2002, saying it was "Heartbreaking and deliciously evil at the same time—that's Buffy at its best for sure."
