It was the first time in a long time, the show was back to good « monster of the week ». With good drama, humor and suspense. It was also one of the rare episodes that nailed to capture the early seasons charm, since season 7 was clearly going that route. It's after that things strayed... Help, has an interesting premise. First, it focuses on Buffy's new job as Sunnydale High's guidance counselor, after opening with repentant Willow, visiting Tara's grave for the first time. And introduced us with a new character, Cassie, who's having strange premonitions about her imminent death. The whole episode mostly revolves around that, and it's nice putting the pieces of the puzzle together, the same time the Scooby gang did. We even get to know more about that mysterious student, and her talent for writing poetry. Of course, it wouldn't be a BTVS episode, without a supernatural side of the story. And it delivered fine in that aspect too. Only to end in a predictable yet dramatic way. They also have « crazy » Spike helping out, but I just don't care about that storyline, that ruined most of the season for me. And Buffy coming to terms with not being able to save everyone, but they already addressed that earlier I think...
