We open with Buffy perched on top of a mausoleum, scanning the cemetery for vamps.  She jumps down suddenly, and runs amongst the tombstones, arriving at a grave moments before a fledgling starts to emerge.  She stakes him quickly, and then pummels the vamp that erupts from the grave next to the first one.  Suddenly Riley comes out of nowhere and stakes the vamp, having thought Buffy "had the north sector".  Another vamp rises, and Buffy starts forward but then Spike comes out of nowhere and pummels that one for a bit, "out for a spot of violence before bedtime".  The vampire knocks Spike over while he's busy talking to Buffy, and Buffy quickly pushes Spike out of the way and stakes the vamp.  Buffy admonishes Spike for getting in her way, and Riley sides with Buffy, saying Spike shouldn't be out there when she's patrolling.  Buffy shoots Riley a look that say "Hello?  You're doing the same thing!", and Spike sees it, and tells Riley he should go home and work on his knitting.  Riley and Buffy take their leave of him, and Riley says he hopes he wasn't bothering Buffy.  She says no, she was just startled.  She comments on the way he wailed on that vamp; it didn't give him any trouble at all.  Back at the mausoleum, Spike vows death to Buffy, stalks off.only to fall into an open grave. The next day on campus, Buffy and Willow debate the meanings of a college lecture they just sat through, and Willow's proud that she and Buffy are having an academic discussion.  Willow says Buffy's been studying a lot, and Buffy says any time she's not busy with school, Giles fills with training.  At the Magic Box, Xander is helping Giles put together some shelves when Willow and Buffy come in.  Buffy heads off to the back room to train with Giles, and Willow sits down and has her palm read by Tara, who thinks it would be cool if they got a psychic to tell fortunes in the shop.   Buffy, Giles and Xander go into the back room, and Buffy is surprised to see that they built a whole big training room for her, with punching bags, parallel bars, mats, and everything.  Buffy thanks them, after Riley comes out of nowhere and tackles her, saying he's just keeping her on her toes.   Kind of wondering what's up with Riley, Buffy's nevertheless happy with the training room, and thanks them. In the crypt, Spike's watching Dawson's Creek on his television when Harmony shows up, looking haggard and hunted.  She says that Buffy's looking for her, because she's her "arch nemesis".  She asks Spike for a place to hide out from her, and Spike agrees to let her stay, and starts manipulating her, saying that Buffy will hunt her down and kill her, unless she kills her first.  Cut to Riley and Buffy in bed, having just finished having sex.  Riley wants to go again, and Buffy's surprised by his stamina (yeah, not like they've never had continuous sex before, like in "Where the Wild Things Are", maybe?). The next morning, Dawn fishes out the prize at the bottom of the box of cereal while Joyce makes eggs.  Suddenly Joyce seems disoriented and dizzy, and when she looks at Dawn she asks who she is.  Dawn looks confused and then horrified when Joyce faints.  Dawn calls 911.  Cut to the hospital.  Buffy and Riley come in to find Dawn waiting in a chair outside Joyce's room.  Buffy and Dawn hug, and an intern comes up.  Dawn introduces him as Ben, and he says he's an intern.  He's lent Dawn his stethoscope, and she listens to first his heartbeat, then Buffy's as Ben and Buffy discuss Joyce's physical history.  Then Dawn holds the 'scope to Riley's chest, and hears his heart beating way too fast. In a hospital room, a doctor tells Riley that she recommends he be admitted, but that she can't legally keep him there.  He's all thanks, but no thanks, I'm going home.  Apparently his heartbeat is irregular, on top of beating at far too rapid a pace, and Buffy worries that he'll have a heart attack.  Dawn and Joyce come in, and Joyce is feeling much better.  Back home, Buffy sets Joyce up on the couch.  Joyce says she feels fine, and doesn't think she should just sit there all day like a big lump.  Buffy tells her to take it easy.  Upstairs, she worries to Willow and Dawn that Riley's in real trouble, but he won't get help for it. Willow recommends that she call the Initiative, and maybe they can help him, since they're the ones who messed him up in the first place ("The Yoko Factor" and "Primeval", last season).  Buffy doesn't know how she could possibly contact anyone, though, considering that the Initiative has been disbanded, and claims to have never existed in the first place.  Dawn says that if they're still keeping tabs on her, all she's got to do is say something that she knows they'll be able to hear.  Thinking, Buffy leaves. She goes to Riley's place and picks up his phone.  Over the dial tone, there's a clicking sound.  Buffy says only "Riley's in trouble; he needs help.", and hangs up.  Cut to Riley playing basketball on a cement court with a gang of guys.  He sees Graham sitting on a bench across from the court and goes over to talk to him.  Graham says they've got to get him into an operating room, immediately.  Riley doesn't want to go, because Graham's still involved in all the undercover military stuff, and he doesn't know what orders he could be following.  He doesn't trust the government after what Walsh did to him in the Initiative, and he doesn't want to give them the opportunity to do anything else to him.  Riley starts to look swayed by Graham's sincerity, but then he punches him out and runs off.  At the student center, Graham tells Buffy that Riley wouldn't go with them.  Buffy wants to know what's wrong with him, and Graham tells her that basically he's got some super-adrenaline thing going on, and he's feeling no pain.  His heart can't take it.  He also tells her that they've "been after him for weeks about it."  He informs her that they've got specialists at the hospital waiting for him, and tells her to get him there.  Buffy says she will.  That night, Riley walks into a cave.  Back at the Magic Box, the gang all wonders where he is, after Buffy tells them there's something wrong with him.  Xander kind of hints that maybe Riley's just feeling like Buffy doesn't care about him, based upon what Riley told him in "The Replacement", but nobody knows what he's talking about, so he shuts up.  She tells Xander and Anya to go check the docks, Willow and Tara volunteer to go check the burnt-out high school, and then Buffy wonders if Riley might gravitate toward the Initiative caves.  She says she doesn't know them very well, though, and Giles points out that Spike does. Buffy says she really doesn't want to deal with him right now. Cut to Spike and Harmony, playing 20 questions in his crypt.  There's a banging at the door and Harmony jumps up and runs to go hide in the coffin thingy in the center of the room.  Spike closes the top of it over her, and sits on it.  Buffy comes in and tells him that Riley is sick with "some Initiative thing", and she wants him to go search the caverns for him.  If he finds him, bring him to the fourth floor of the hospital, and she'll pay him.  Spike's interested and wants to know if Riley's going to die.  Buffy slaps him, and says Riley's not the only person who could die.  Spike says if it's that important to her, he should get paid half up front.  Buffy tears the wad of bills in half and slaps the bills against his chest, and then leaves.  At the hospital, Graham enters a surgical room and tells the doctor that Riley will be there any minute, and asks if it'll be soon enough.  The doctor says he's not sure it would've been soon enough if they'd brought him in yesterday.  There's a knock at the door, and when Graham answers it he finds Harmony there with a dead guard.  She knocks him out, and enters the room, followed by Spike.  He tosses Harmony a crossbow, and tells the doctor he's got a new patient. Cut to Buffy searching the caves.  Then back to a lower-level surgical room, where Spike orders the doctor to take the chip out of his head.  The doctor says he doesn't know how, but Spike says he has faith in the doctor's survival instinct.  If he doesn't, Harmony will kill him.  Cut to the burnt-out high school, where Willow and Tara search for Riley.  It's too dark to see, however, so Willow does a light spell.  Tara looks stunned, and asks how she did that.  Willow says Tara taught it to her, but Tara says what she taught Willow was much smaller and less effective.  Willow says she did tinker with it a little bit. Back in the caverns, Buffy finds Riley repeatedly punching a stone wall.  He tells her it doesn't even hurt.  She tries to get him to come with her to the doctor, but he doesn't want to go.  She asks him what the deal is, and he says that "best case scenario they turn me back into Joe Normal".  He says that every day she get stronger; every day she gets a little more out of his reach.  He's afraid if he gets fixed, she'll eventually leave him because he won't be able to keep up.  Buffy tells him basically that that's all bull crap; that she needs him, etc.  She says bottom line, she's taking him to that doctor.  Riley finally acquiesces and they leave. Down in the lower surgery room, the doctor has opened Spike's head.  Harmony babbles away to the doctor as he tries to do surgery, and Spike (who's still awake; only has a local anesthetic) tells her to shut up.  Up on the fourth floor, Buffy and Riley enter surgery to find Graham knocked out.  He wakes up and tells them that Spike took the doctor, and Buffy realizes that Spike's trying to get his chip out.  They tell Graham to check medical facilities  in the area, and Buffy and Riley head off together.  Back down in the surgery room (which is actually on campus), Spike rants about how he's going to kill Buffy as soon as he gets the chip out.  Harmony, smoking a cigarette, sees the chip in his brain. The doctor, annoyed, tells Harmony to put the cigarette out, pointing to a no-smoking sign. Harmony says "Oh sorry!  I didn't see the sign!" and goes to put it out. She comes back just as the doctor drops the chip into a pan, and says he's done.  Spike orders him to sew him back up so he can go kill Buffy. As the doctor finishes the stitches, Spike comments that he's hungry, and will have to have a little snack first. He looks at the doctor.  Just then, however, Buffy and Riley come in and square off.  Spike tells  them his head's all clear now, and Buffy says that's good, because it means she gets to kill him.  They all fight.  Spike tries to bite Buffy, but recoils in pain instead.  Riley, fighting with Harmony, clutches his chest and collapses in pain.  Buffy runs to him, and Spike goes to the metal pan and sees that the doctor had put a penny in it, and never removed his chip at all.  The doctor says "I told you I couldn't do it."  Spike and Harmony rush out, as the doctor runs over to the fallen Riley.  Spike and Harmony run through the cemetery, and Spike rants about Buffy and how she's haunting him.  He can't get rid of her, he can't kill her.  In a rage, he picks up a headstone and smashes it to the ground.  "This has got to stop", he says.  Cut to the doctor patching Riley up. Buffy puts her head to his chest and can hear that his heartbeat has returned to normal.  Riley seems disappointed, and half afraid that Buffy's going to disappear.   Buffy takes his hand and puts it to her chest and says she's still touchable.  Only a moment later, however, she says she has to go and check on her mom, and wants to know if he'll be okay.  He says yeah, and watches her leave, looking as if he thinks it's already starting. Later, he and Graham walk through the halls and Graham says it's a good thing Buffy got to him when she did, but he knows he doesn't belong there.  Riley says he belongs with Buffy, but Graham counters with "You used to have a mission.  Now you're what, the mission's boyfriend?"  He tells Riley that he belongs with them, but Riley just walks off. Cut to the crypt.  Spike's sitting in his chair when Buffy barges in.  They trade a little verbal banter, and Buffy says she's done with this.  She pulls out a stake and says she should have killed him years ago.  Spike rips off his shirt, and tells her to just do it.  He's tired of seeing her every day, every where he goes.  Buffy starts to, but then hesitates.  Spike grabs her, yanking her to him, and then kisses her savagely.  Buffy pulls away for a moment, shocked, but then kisses him back.  She tells him she wants him, and he responds by telling her he loves her.  Suddenly Spike wakes up from the dream, in bed with Harmony.  "Oh God no," he says, panting.  "Please no." FLAWS:                        none found. THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE:                 An okay episode, I guess.  It lays the ground work for the upcoming Riley story line, and also gives us the first hint that something's wrong with Joyce.  (Well, the 2nd hint, if you count her headache in "The Real Me" as the 1st)  This is also the moment all the B/S'ers out there had been waiting for, when Spike realizes he's got a thing for Buffy.  Hehee. BEST LINE: Spike, watching Dawson's Creek in his crypt:  "Oh Pacey, you blind idiot.  Can't you see she doesn't love you?"

"Out of My Mind"