At Hemery High, Kimberly, Jennifer and the rest of the committee, hang decorations for the school dance while gossiping about Buffy’s increasingly strange behaviour, convinced she’s having some kind of breakdown. When Buffy arrives late to help, she tries to warn them about the disappearances and the danger in town, but they dismiss her and walk out, leaving her alone again.

Later at the mall, Pike finds Buffy shopping for a dress. He confronts her for abandoning her Slayer duties, but Buffy insists she just wants to be normal — to choose shopping over vampires for once. Pike storms off, saying Benny was right about her: she’s just like everyone else.

In his lair, Lothos learns Buffy’s name from Benny, who recognises her from school and knows she’ll be at the dance.

That night, Buffy arrives at the dance looking for Jeffrey, only to find him with Jennifer.

He ends their relationship with all the tact of a brick, telling her she can get the details from the message he left on her answering machine. Hurt, Buffy is soon joined by Pike, who has crashed the dance in a tuxedo. Before they can talk, vampires burst through the walls, trapping the students inside. When Buffy warns they can’t enter without an invitation, Kimberly sheepishly admits she already invited them, assuming they were seniors.

The vampires demand Buffy come outside. Mr. Murray tries to calm the panicking students, but Kimberly insists they’ll all die unless Buffy goes. The crowd begins to turn on her. Pike suggests finding another exit, but Buffy decides to face the threat head‑on. She kisses Pike and warns him not to “tick her off” before stepping outside.

Outside, Buffy attacks the vampires with holy water and stakes them as the students watch from inside. When another vampire crashes through a window, Pike arms himself and tells the others to aim for the heart.

Chaos erupts as the survivors barricade the gym and search for an escape through the janitor’s tunnels.

Pike confronts Benny, who tries to convince him to join the undead. Pike refuses and stakes him, telling him to “rest easy.”

Meanwhile, Buffy searches the grounds and finds Jeffrey and Jennifer having sex in a car. When vampires surround her, she throws one through the windshield, startling the couple. She stakes the vampire on the hood and dryly tells them to carry on.

Buffy is then confronted by Lothos, who tells her she has dreamed of him and boasts of the Slayers he has killed.

Inside, Amilyn attacks Pike as Andy calls for help. Lothos attempts to hypnotise Buffy, but she breaks free and faces him with a cross. He mocks her faith, so instead she reaches into her bag

Using a can of hairspray as a makeshift flamethrower, Buffy sets him alight before staking him and declaring, “For Merrick — and for me.”

In the gym, Andy is killed and Pike is overpowered by Amilyn, but Buffy arrives and kills him with the hairspray torch. Together, she and Pike escape the burning building, chaining the doors shut to contain the remaining vampires.

News reports later blame the chaos on “crack‑crazed gunmen,” claiming twelve students died at the dance. Weeks later, Kimberly and Jennifer gossip that Buffy was expelled, her parents divorced, and she was either sent to juvenile detention or moved overseas.

Across the Atlantic, Quentin Travers informs a colleague that Merrick hasn’t reported in. A new Watcher must be sent to California before the Slayer goes rogue or disappears entirely. Of the two candidates available, only one is free: Rupert Giles — young, inexperienced, and only recently returned to the Academy after what Travers calls “extra learning duties.”

Giles enters, reluctant but willing to take the assignment. Travers hands him a file. Giles opens it, sees a photograph of the Slayer — blonde, sweet, impossibly young — and feels an immediate protectiveness toward the girl he hasn’t met. Then he reads the name on the file, looks up in horror, and says:

“Buffy? Her name is Buffy?”