atheneum

We open moments after "Hush" ended, with Buffy and Riley still sitting on opposite beds in her dorm room, trying to think of what to say to each other. Finally Buffy starts, and Riley asks what she is. Buffy's taken aback by his bluntness, and he apologizes, but says she's amazing. She asks about him, and he says she already knows what he is, though he refuses to give details. Buffy basically guesses all of the truths of his organization, having realized that he's one of the commandos she's been seeing running around campus. It's Riley's turn to be taken aback as she penetrates with ease all of the closely guarded secrets he's not supposed to tell anyone. Buffy's a little bitter that Riley lied to her, but he points out that she was less than truthful, too. Buffy tells him she's the slayer, and he has no idea what she's talking about. Buffy tells him to look it up. Riley then notices that Buffy doesn't look beat up at all after their encounter with the Gentlemen the night before, while he's a walking bruise today. Buffy tries to brush it off, and then they each say they need to back up for a little while; figure things out. Just then, there's a small earthquake. Riley's excited because it's the first one he's ever experienced, and Buffy has a look of foreboding.

In Xander's basement, some pipes have been knocked loose by the earthquake, and Xander instructs Spike to fix it as he's heading off to his latest job as a pizza delivery boy. He also instructs him to do some laundry. Spike tries to hit Xander in the back of the head with a wrench, but his chip kicks in and he can't do it.

At the dorm, Willow comes back and informs Buffy of an "Aftershock" party at another dorm that night. Willow mentions that Buffy should invite Riley, but Buffy kinda avoids the subject. She heads off to meet Giles at his place. She reveals to Giles that the last time they had an earthquake, it was a portent of her dying; so she's kinda wigged. Giles understands, but tells her to calm down and focus on the current situation: the commando mystery. Buffy, knowing she can't say anything about the commandos because Riley's one of them, tries to turn the conversation back to the earthquake and what it might mean.

At the Initiative, Riley asks Forrest if he's ever heard of the Slayer. Forrest says she's just part of demon mythology; something else to explain all of the things they have to put up with every day. They pass by a scientist leading a demon around the facility, who is escorted by a soldier. After they pass, the demon breaks free of its restraints and attacks the soldier. Forrest and Riley intervene, and Riley knocks it out. They think the earthquake has something to do with all the freaking out the demons are doing in their cells, too.

At the party that night, Willow waits for Buffy alone amid the throngs of people. She spies Percy (from season 3) across the room, and goes over to say hi. He's polite enough, but his girlfriend is pretty aloof, and eventually Percy leaves with her, leaving Willow alone again. In one of the rooms, a topless guy mixes drinks, and then picks them up to carry them back out to the party. He turns around and there's a demon standing there, which slits his throat. Back out in the main room, Willow overhears Percy denying that he has a thing for "that redhead". He tells his girlfriend that she was just some egghead who tutored him a little in high school, and Willow's kinda hurt. She goes into one of the rooms and lies down on a bed in the dark. Suddenly the light turns on and she realizes she's lying next to the guy who got his throat slit. He's dead now, and he's got a mark carved into his chest.

Back at Xander's basement, Xander returns to find that the basement looks even worse than when he left. Worse still, Spike is wearing one of Xander's more obnoxious Hawaiian shirts, and a pair of short pants. He accidentally shrunk his own clothes in the wash. He orders Xander to go out and get him some more clothes and blood, but Xander tells him off. Spike threatens to "tear this place apart", but Xander basically says that even though he could totally kick Spike's butt right now, he's not gonna bother, because Spike isn't worth it. Xander takes off again, and Spike, for once, is lost for words.

Back at the party, only a few onlookers are still hanging around as the paramedics take out the body, and Buffy enters. She finds Willow sitting on the stairs, and she fills her in on how she found the body. She also gripes that Percy called her a nerd. They go off to report to Giles.

In Riley's room, he and Forrest are taking turns tossing a styrofoam ball up at a little hoop he's got on the back of his door, as Riley thinks about the Buffy situation some more. Forrest basically is tired of hearing about Buffy, and asks him to concentrate on the game, when Graham walks in and reports on the corpse found at the party. Riley tells Forrest to go inform Walsh, while he tries to find out if it was a "hostile" that killed the kid. At Giles', the gang huddles around the desk as Willow tells them what she saw, and offers a drawing of the symbol on his chest that she made on a napkin while still at the party. Buffy feels like she's seen the symbol before, and Giles says that that symbol, coupled with the earthquake, means another impending apocalypse.

On patrol that night, Buffy realizes where she's seem the symbol before: on the side of a mausoleum. She goes inside to find a huge demon stealing the bones of a child. They fight, but it gets away just as Riley comes up. Buffy asks why he didn't go after it, and he says he has no weapons, no backup, and "you don't go after a demon of that side with no backup". Buffy says she does, and Riley says he's no slayer. He then reports the demon's location over a radio he's carrying in his pocket. Buffy, reminded of the side of Riley he never told her about, starts to go after the demon instead of staying to talk with Riley. He starts to talk to her anyway, but Buffy basically tells him that she can't be with him because the relationship is doomed, and she can't do doomed again. Riley's confused at why she wants to just walk away from it without even giving him a chance, and Buffy (kind of) explains that her past is all about pain and death. She says that for him, this is a job. For her it's destiny; something she'll never escape. Basically, she's thinking he'll get killed at some point if they're together, and she doesn't want that to happen, so she's just gonna cut it off before anything really starts. She tells him her answer is no, and leaves him in the cemetery.

Montage-type scene: Giles finds the demon in a book based on Buffy's description, and Buffy tells the gang about the bones the demon took. At the Initiative, Riley leads a briefing on the demon. Willow recalls the phrase "bones of a child", and points out a section in the book that involves the blood of a man, the bones of a child, and the word of Valios. It's part of "the sacrifice of three", but it doesn't say how the world is going to end. Buffy says they have to find the word of Valios before the demons get it; before they can do their sacrifice and bring about the end of the world. Willow wonders if maybe they already have it; they have no idea where the demon may have been. At the Initiative, Riley reveals that the demon's got a distinctive pheromone signature, and they can see it's been all over town. They head out to capture it, and Riley reminds them that this is a kill, not a capture. Buffy heads off to the magic shop to see if they've heard of this "word of valios". Xander and Willow swing by his place to pick up some weapons, and walk in on Spike attempting to stake himself. Xander's all for it, but Willow says it's weird because they know him; they can't let him do it. They take him with them as they leave with the weapons.

Out on the street in front of the coffee shop, Buffy runs into Riley, who's tracking the demon with a little hand-held device. Predictably, they get into another discussion about their relationship, during which Riley says he doesn't get where the bad is, here. He thinks that they're an even better match for each other than before; that they have this whole slaying thing in common. Buffy falls back on her "been there, done that, got hurt" spiel about relationships, and Riley basically says that's the way the world is. That things fall apart, but the way people manage is by not being alone. He accuses her of wanting to remain cut off, and can't believe she doesn't even want to give it a try. Buffy says it's her business, and tells him to leave her alone. Riley backs off, and Buffy leaves.

Xander, Willow and Spike are unsuccessful in their search for the Word of Valios, and Spike's happy because it means they're closer to dying in the apocalypse. Willow reprimands him for talking like that, saying maybe there's a higher purpose for Spike now that he can't kill anymore. He goes off on a tirade about how he doesn't need "geeks more worthless than" he is to try to make him feel better. Willow says they're not useless; that they help Buffy, etc. Spike insults them both, saying that most kids their age are going to college, and Xander made it as far as the basement. Willow couldn't even keep "dog boy" happy. He claims that they don't do anything except get in the way, and that Buffy would probably even be better off without them, because she wouldn't have to be saving them all the time. Xander and Willow are effectively put in their place, and say nothing as Spike turns away, grinning at his ability to hurt them emotionally, if not physically.

Back at casa de Giles, the ex-watcher finds an illustration of the word of Valios in a book, and realizes he's seen it before. He goes to a chest in his living room and rifles through its contents before pulling out a talisman: the Word of Valios. He grabs his jacket, obviously intending to take the talisman away, but several demons are suddenly in his apartment, and he only gets in one hit before they start beating the crap out of him.

Later, Buffy enters the apartment to find the place a mess, and Xander and Willow tending to Giles' wounds. His face is all scratched up and he's bruised and stuff. He laments that this is all his fault, because he'd had the Word of Valios there, but had forgotten about it. He says they're on their way to perform the sacrifice now that they have all of the necessary ingredients. Buffy asks * where * they're going, and Giles informs her they're going to open the Hellmouth.

At the devastated highschool, Buffy, Xander, Spike and Willow walk through the burned-up hallways toward the library. Buffy asks why Spike is even there, and Willow says how he was trying to stake himself. Buffy doesn't see anything wrong with that. They get to what used to be the library, and find the three demons there with their ingredients. Buffy starts fighting them, and gets one of the demons to drop his little jar of blood. Xander scampers down to the fight and snatches the jar up, running off with it. Without the ingredients, the demons can't perform the ritual. Willow takes his cue and grabs the bag of bones from another demon. The demons come after them, and one of them pummels Xander while the other chases Willow. She tosses the bag of bones up to Spike (who's just sitting there watching) as a last resort, and Spike is like "Oh, perfect," when the demon focuses on him. The demon starts to beat the crap out of him, and Spike drops the bag. The demon fighting Xander finally grabs the bottle of blood back from him, turns and runs away, and jumps through the crack in the floor, into the Hellmouth. Xander realizes the demons
are the sacrifice.

Back on the upper level, the demon continues to pound on Spike until he finally gets pissed enough to hit it back, in a rage, even knowing the chip's gonna hurt him for it. He's surprised and ecstatic when it doesn't, realizing that he can hurt demons without the chip zapping his brain. He beats the crap out of the demon, but is so focused on kicking its ass that he doesn't hear Willow's warning and throws the demon right into the crack in the floor; the bag of bones clutched in its hand. The ground rumbles. Buffy shouts for the others to get out, as she continues to fight the last demon. A beam falls down and hits Spike, knocking him to the floor. Xander jumps forward to help him up, and he and Willow move him out.

Buffy and the demon fight. The demon's about to whack her a good one when Riley shows up and starts fighting with the demon too. Buffy warns Riley not to let the demon jump into the Hellmouth, but Riley's too busy getting thrown across the room to heed her. In fact he hardly gets any hits in at all before the demon starts pummeling him. Buffy kicks him off of Riley, and the demon falls to the floor. Grabbing the talisman, it slithers forward and drops through the hole. Buffy starts to go after it, but Riley first pulls a line from a container on his belt and snaps it onto hers. Buffy dives into the hole, and Riley plays out the line as she descends. Shot of the demon falling inside the hole, shot of Buffy falling. Riley continues to play out the line. Finally he stops, and starts pulling Buffy back up. She emerges from the hole with the demon, and they pull it back up before the hole closes up; the ritual incomplete. The Hellmouth stays closed.

Out in the Hallway, Xander, Spike and Willow greet Buffy and Riley when they come out of the library (Guess we didn't need to see the part where Buffy and Riley killed that last demon as it lay unconscious on the floor ;) ), Riley in his commando outfit. Xander makes the connection, though Riley tries to deny it and come up with some other reason for why he'd be dressed like that. He asks Spike if they've met before, and Spike doing a bad American accent says no, he's just a friend of Xander's.

The next morning Riley's once again throwing the styrofoam ball at the hoop on his door when Buffy enters. Riley tells Buffy he's a dead man. He bemoans the fact that now not only she knows about him and the Initiative, her friends do too. Buffy basically says it's not the end of the world, and she kisses him. At Xander's, he and Willow are watching tv in the basement until Spike obstructs their view, and then turns the television off. He has a pretty funny rant about how they should go "kill something"; go fight some evil. Obviously, he's happy to be back in the game ;)

FLAWS: When Willow tells the gang at Giles' place about the body she found on the bed, she says "he was kinda propped up, like whatever killed him wanted to drain the blood out of him." This is totally wrong, because when the lights pop on in the room we can clearly see the body lying flat in the bed next to Willow. There was no propping. This line was clearly contrivance, meant to help the gang leap to the conclusion that something took the guy's blood away with them.

When Buffy jumps into the Hellmouth Riley plays out the line for her as she descends. The problem? She's falling. The line would be going a lot faster than it's shown to be, and Riley's hands would've been burned by it. I don't care the line was made of. Run anything that fast across your skin and the friction will burn you. It's not guesswork, that's factual. Also, while we're on the subject, there's no way that Buffy would have caught that demon, after the head start it had. Sarah Michelle Gellar is like, a size 2, which means Buffy can't weigh any more than like, 100 pounds. 110 max. The demon was like, 9 feet tall, and pretty height weight proportionate. We're looking at say, 250 pounds or more on the demon. With a hundred and fifty extra pounds, that demon would have dropped a lot faster than Buffy would have, and by the time Buffy jumped into the hole his speed would already have been much higher than hers, at his lower depth. In other words, his rate of speed would have been increasing with every second he was falling in that hole before Buffy even jumped in. Weighing so much less than him, there's no way Buffy could have dropped at the same speed. Much less faster than his, which is what would have needed to have happened if she were to actually catch up with him. Total crap.

Man, this episode is chock-full of flaw-y goodness. During the montage scene, Riley instructs the rest of the Initiative to go out in their "civies" only, meaning civilian clothing. Day clothes, he calls them. And admittedly, when he meets Buffy on the street later he's wearing normal clothes. But only a little while later he shows up in the library and helps Buffy, and he's wearing his commando gear. I know the writers wanted to find a way to let the rest of the gang know that Riley was one of the commandos, but they coulda put a little more thought behind it than this.

And I guess this isn't really a flaw at all, it's just weird. When Giles finds the illustration of the Word of Valios, he takes his glasses off with one hand and says dramatically "Oh, - as usual, - dear." He then stands, puts his glasses back on, and turns to the chest behind him. Um, why did he even take his glasses off? It's not like he cleaned them or something. He just took 'em off, and put 'em back on, within like, 4 seconds. I don't get it.

THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE: Okay, first off, how many times are they gonna play the Hellmouth card, anyway? It seems like every time they need some big drama, it revolves around someone opening the Hellmouth. I mean, you've got the Master crapping on about it for all of season 1, those Shea sisters, or whatever, trying to open it in season 3's "The Zeppo", these guys trying to open it in season 4, and you just know that's not the end of it. Bah.

Okay so yeah, the rest of the episode. I kinda think it sucks, considering it had three writers on it. Marti Noxon (Riley's biggest supporter, so that makes her bad, but she also brings us the very best Angel / Buffy angst in the Ats episode "I Will Remember You", and she did a good job on "Wild at Heart", too), David Fury, and someone else, who I can't be buggered to go look for, but I know it was three. But you'd think that with three experienced writers, this would be a really tight episode, with a flawless plot and some brand spankin' new ideas. Instead we get the threat of the Hellmouth reopening again. We get contrivance, and pseudo-angst, with lines like "you have this gloom and doom mentality. you keep thinking like that, and things're probably gonna turn out just like you expect." That sounds more like a Mayor Wilkins line, than something a guy in his early 20's would say. The Buffy / Riley scenes come across like they're trying to be all angsty, and failing miserably. And it's not just because I don't like Riley, either. I just think that SMG and David Boreanaz had way much more chemistry than SMG and Marc Blucas do, and next to the emotion that Angel and Buffy were able to evoke from the viewer, Buffy and Riley don't have much at all.

And the rest of the plot? Your typical "big bad's come to do evil, Buffy intervenes and saves the day and everything's back to normal" episode. The only thing we really learn is that Spike can commit violence against other demons.

BEST LINE:

Giles: "It's um, the earthquake; that symbol"

Buffy: "I told you! I said end of the world. And you're like ' pooh pooh, southern California, pooh pooh'."

and:

Xander's fighting the demon with the blood in the library, and it suddenly runs away from him and jumps into the crack in the floor (the hellmouth)

Xander: "Ooookay, I guess I won."

"Doomed"