Season 6 Episode 17 - Normal Again

The Slayer scopes out a neighborhood. A video surveillance monitor is tracking her. When the Teen trio see her they need some help, fast. Buffy turns to see a big, red-eyed demon with a switchblade-like stinger dripping with venom which it buries into her. When Buffy wakes up, she's in a white walled Asylum with a hypodermic needle in her arm. Two orderlies try to hold her down.

Buffy gets off the floor. She's back in the alley. What the heck just happened? The next day, Buffy's co-workers turn into a group of white gowned mental patients. Buffy is back in the Asylum, as a Nurse tries to give her medication.

But mid-sentence Buffy's transports to Doublemeat Palace as if she'd never left. At Buffy's house, Xander stops by, back from his dissapearing act at the altar. He confesses he misses Anya, his demon-bride to be, and wants her back. Buffy runs into Spike at the cemetery, and Xander and Willow step up to join them. The boys argue and fight as Buffy has another dizzy spell...falling back to the Asylum where her doctor tells her that all her friends at Sunnydale are part of an elaborate delusion she's been trapped in for 6 years. Sitting with the Doctor are Buffy's mother and father. But in an instant she skips back to the fight. Concerned about their friend's health they stop their brawling and take her home.

Buffy tells the Scooby gang about her hallucinations, that the doctor told her Sunnydale and all the demon slaying are figments of her sick mind. She mentions the stinging demon and her friends resolve to locate it. But Buffy starts drifiting, back to her Asylum where the doctor continues explaining the specifics of her psychosis. It's a chronic case of schizophrenia and wrestling her free of her internal demons will be as difficult as, well, closing up a hellmouth.

Buffy's friends track down the stinging beast on a demon database. The stinger carries an antidote to its own poison. They track down the beast and Willow tears off the demon's stinger to concoct the antidote. Willow returns later to Buffy's room and offers her a mug of antidote brew. She leaves Buffy alone to drink it. Spike enters the room for a little heart to heart with his secret lover. But Buffy's mind is elsewhere, literally. She pours the antidote into the trash - which transports her back to: The Asylum.

Buffy turns to her mother filled with excitement. She wants to get well. Her Doctor tells her that those illusions she calls friends are what is keeping her locked away, and she must do whatever it takes to break free.

When she zaps back to Sunnydale, she locks Xander in a choke hold and drags him to the basement, where Willow lies also in chains. Buffy goes after Dawn, chasing her through the house, all while she explains to her fabricated sister how utterly absurd her delusion now appears. Concocted Sisters, Vampire lovers, a small town hopelessly infested with demons. She nabs Dawn and brings her downstairs with the others.

In the Asylum, Mom coaches Buffy through the difficult task of confronting her psychoses, one by one. In the basement, Buffy unleashes the demon turning it on her friends. In the Asylum, Buffy is distraught. This is difficult for her. The demon grabs Tara by the neck, but when Buffy's mom tells her that all she needs to survive this is to believe in herself, The Slayer has a moment of clarity. She says goodbye.

A pummeling Slayer punch hurls the demon back. It's Buffy back in action. Buffy and the demon battle it out. One final punch pierces through the demon's chest. It's over. Buffy turns to her friends, apologizing. She demands the antidote. As Buffy walks with the Scooby gang back to her Demon fighting her mother and father sit in an Asylum cell a universe away with their now vacant eyed daughter, the doctor telling them "I'm afraid we've lost her."