Ep 13. The Killer In Me

Willow starts feeling strange after a night out with Kennedy. She is hit with bouts of dizziness and her eyes briefly change colour. After researching her symptoms, she fears that she may have inadvertently cast a spell on herself. Tara's ghost appears to Willow, warning her about dark magic and to be careful of what she does. Meanwhile, Buffy and the Potentials come across a new demon that they have not encountered before called the Gnarl, which is able to paralyse its victims so it can slowly eat them alive. They track it down to an abandoned building and a fight breaks out, however, Willow has disappeared just before the fight. Willow meets up with Amy, an old friend she hasn't seen since high school, in a magic shop. She reveals that the spell she cast on herself was actually a powerful one that turned her into Warren, the man who killed Tara. She had been mad at Buffy for never avenging Tara's death, so she took matters into her own hands. As Warren, she had been disrupting Buffy's operations, attempting to bring down the slayer and her friends from within, but the transformation had taken its toll on her psyche. Amy offers to help Willow reverse the spell, but warns that it may be impossible to do so. Willow's change is now deeper than merely physical; she has become a manifestation of the toxic masculinity and entitlement that Warren represented. Despite this, she agrees to try and reverse the spell, but not before going after Warren's brother, Jonathan, who had been working with and under Warren's influence. Buffy and the Potentials continue their search for Willow, but after they find her and follow her trail to Jonathan's, Willow-as-Warren takes the Potentials hostage. Willow has to confront her own demons while under the influence of a dangerous spell, putting herself and the gang in harm's way.