'Buffy the Vampire Slayer': "Lessons"

• Dawn is surprisingly likable in this episode. I love her little walk away from Buffy: "Bye. I know. You never know what's coming. The stake is not the power. To Serve Man is a cookbook. I love you. Go away!"
• Very obviously, this episode attempts to return the show "to the beginning" with the reopening of Sunnydale High. I think thankfully the dialogue is quippier ("Let's just start with dead and pissed," "Dead guys? Resentful dead guys?") than the dialogue of season six and the Evil Of The Week easily defeated. However, it seems like the show is trying too hard to be season one without acknowledging that these characters are not the same people who they were six years ago.
• I like the scenes between Willow and Giles in England. I think that Alyson and Tony do a wonderful job of conveying from where Willow has come on her journey toward recovery. I wish that Willow had stayed in England longer because A) more Giles and B) I love Willow and Giles together.
• How maddening that in the first episode of supposedly Buffy of The New Leaf she hides the fact that she saw Spike in the school basement. Her protection of Spike is never explained even though people keep challenging it throughout the season, and I still don't understand her attachment to her manipulative, would-be-rapist ex-boyfriend.
  
• While the reintroduction of The First isn't particularly creepy, I did find it interesting on the first viewing. I loved seeing The Mayor again — Harry Groener is simply a genius in that role. However, I knew from that last scene that The Big Bad of the season would be The First from "Amends." I'm disappointed that the writers did not attempt to hide that plot point longer.