Tabula Rasa (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Plot

The episode begins with Spike pressing Buffy about the kiss they shared the night before. She insists it cannot happen again, then fights off a demon loan shark with a shark's head named Teeth who attacks Spike. Meanwhile, Willow, Xander, Anya, and Tara have realized they pulled Buffy out of Heaven, not Hell. Willow proposes a spell to fix things, but Tara calls her out for relying too heavily on magic.

Fearing she will lose Tara, Willow promises to abstain from magic for a week. Later, at the Magic Box, Giles announces he is returning to England so Buffy can become more independent, which devastates her. As the group heads to the shop for a meeting, Willow stays behind to cast a spell in the fireplace. She uses a crystal and Lethe's Bramble, a herb that causes forgetfulness, hoping to erase Tara and Buffy's painful memories.

She pockets the crystal but rushes off, leaving the full bag of herbs on the hearth. At the shop, Giles tells the Scoobies—including Spike, who is in disguise wearing a tweedy suit to hide from the loan shark—that he is leaving. Buffy tearfully says she feels abandoned by everyone. Back at the Summers house, a spark from the fireplace ignites the entire bag of Lethe's Bramble, knocking everyone unconscious.

They wake that evening with total amnesia. Spike, noting that Giles is also British and feels a strong sense of disappointment toward him, guesses Giles is his father. Anya, wearing an engagement ring and co-owning the magic shop with Giles, assumes she is marrying him. Willow and Xander, having woken up next to each other with Willow in Xander's jacket, believe they are a couple.

Giles, Anya, Xander, Willow, and Tara find their names on IDs, while Dawn learns hers from a necklace. Spike reads a label inside his coat and decides his name is Randy. Buffy, finding no clues to her identity, simply calls herself Joan.

Cultural references

The website Women at Warp compares the group amnesia in Tabula Rasa with the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Conundrum. In that episode, the Enterprise crew awakens after being scanned by an alien ship to discover they have no idea who they are, though they retain their unique knowledge and skill sets. In Sunnydale, the gang wakes up to the same situation; Buffy does not know her name but still knows how to fight. The main difference lies in what causes the amnesia: for the TNG crew, an outsider hijacks their memories, while the Scoobies' amnesia was caused by one of their own, Willow casting a spell.