"" is the sixth episode of season 5 of the television show ''
Buffy The Vampire Slayer ''. See also
List Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Episodes .
Tara's about to celebrate her 20th birthday. Her family arrives — but not to celebrate the occasion. They've come to take her home before she turns into an evil demon just like her mother did at the same age. When Glory sends some Lei-Ach demons to take care of the Slayer, Tara inadvertently helps the demons toward their goal in her attempt to keep her friends from seeing what she believes lies beneath her surface.
Buffy tells
Giles that
Dawn is what
Glory is hell-bent on finding. They decide to protect Dawn without telling others about it. Buffy moves back to her house with the help of her friends, whom
Willow reminds about Tara's birthday party.
At the hospital,
Ben enters the locker room. A moment later, Glory is there and captures a Lei-Ach demon, who tells her that Buffy is the Slayer. Glory sends it and its friends to kill her.
While researching Glory in the magic shop, Buffy and
Xander admit that they do not know Tara, though she is nice. A hick comes into the Magic Box and disparages magic. He is Tara's big brother. Her father and a cousin have come, too. Tara is not thrilled.
Tara returns to her room to find her father there. He is disappointed that she has not quit magic and berates her for being out of reach for months. He tells her she is going home before her friends find out about her evil self. After he leaves, Willow returns and wants to repeat the demon location spell that Tara sabotaged before. Tara fakes fatigue, so Willow returns to the magic shop. Tara follows her and casts a spell to prevent her friends from seeing manifestations of evil.
In his crypt,
Spike fantasizes about fighting with Buffy while having sex with
Harmony . She tells him that the Lei-Ach is on his way to kill Buffy. Spike leaves, saying he wants to catch a front-row seat. Meanwhile,
Riley is drinking heavily in the demon bar after another argument with Buffy.
Sandy hits on him.
Tara's cousin finds her on campus. Tara refuses to go home. The cousin derides her for being selfish, and realizes that Tara has cast a spell on her friends. She tells Tara to tell her friends before she does.
Thanks to Tara's magic, the Lei-Ash enter the Magic Shop unseen. They search for the Slayer and attack everyone in their path. Giles hides Dawn under a desk. Only Buffy manages to put up a decent fight. Spike gets there and defends her, too.
Tara reaches the shop and ends the spell. Now visible, the demons are quickly beaten. Tara tries to explain her mistake when her family arrives to claim her. They tell the Scoobies that the females in the family turn evil when they become adults. Willow asks Tara if her love was deceitful, but Tara emphatically denies it. Tara's father insists on taking her away, but Buffy leads the Scoobies in steping up for Tara. Spike hits Tara across the face, hurting them both and proving there is no demon in her. Her family made up the story to control the powerful women. Tara stays with her new "family."
Riley arrives at the birthday party and kisses Buffy. Willow saves Tara from Anya by asking for her dance. They embrace on the dance floor and begin to levitate in their cocoon of love.
Buffy continues her habit of keeping secrets from the others. Giles goes along with it.
Tara's family is the stereotypical hick family, right down to the accent and the demented brother.
It also becomes clear why Tara botched the attempted "detection spell" in season 4. She was afraid she was a demon, and that Willow would discover this when she lit up on the map.
German title: "Familienbande" ("Family Ties")
- "Only losers drink alcohol." — ''Dawn reminds us of the moral in " Beer Bad "''
- Dawn brings Tara a new broom as a present, an obvious witch joke.
- Melanie Doane 's "I Can't Take My Eyes Off You" plays at the end as Willow and Tara dance. The love song suited the beautiful moment.
- This episode reveals Tara's surname to be Maclay.
"Family" answers questions raised about Tara in previous episodes and Tara is accepted as a true Scooby; by the end of the episode, she has lost her stutter. Spike's crush for Buffy intensifies, as does Riley's despair about being kept at a distance. We find out that Riley has a dark secret. Glory now knows who Buffy is, another step towards finding the Key.
- Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
