You guessed it — something I like to interpret as a “Preacher” hommage. Sure, it’s probably just a coincidence — after all, insane preachers are neat things — but since Joss’s a comic fan, Id like to pretend.

Beyond that, this episode was on level with most other episodes this season, although many things gave it its own kind of uniqueness:
- Of course, there was Nathan Fillion’s (also known as Mal from Firefly) part as the crazy preacher.
- There was another excellent speech by Xander. (Whose fate at the end was horrible, by the way.)
- There was the fire baptizing of many of the “green girls”, many of whom didn’t survive.
- There was the First, finally entering into the game again for real after a small intermission with more character related episodes.
- And finally! Finally, there’s Faith making her re-entry to “Buffy”, and various stuff related to her. First, there was the realization of the meaning of the wickedly curved knife Faith was attacked with in an episode of “Angel”’s season 5, and on the other hand Andrew’s little story where she killed a Vulcan, “the most pacifist of all races”. :lol:

Looks like things are picking up pace.