Buffy and the gang take on some vampires in the cemetery.  Buffy's fighting style seems to be lacking.  They chase another vampire into a crypt, where four more suck on a victim, lying on a tomb thingy.  Buffy and gang retreat, saying they can't take that many on at once.  Buffy says she knows who they need to call for help.  Cut to a big white mansion.  Buffy and the others enter a large study and address a swivel chair behind a desk; the person in it swings around to face them.  It's Jonathan.  (Note, if you've got the credits for this episode, you should save them.  They're a bit different, with scenes of Jonathan being all super-hero-y sprinkled among the regular credits  ;)   Pretty amusing.  ) At Giles', Buffy thanks Jonathan for coming along with them to help take out the nest of vampires.  Jonathan helps Willow hack into some plans for the cemetery so they can find another way into the crypt, he checkmates Giles in their on-going game of chess, and then starts laying out the plan for their coordinated attack on the crypt.  Cut to said crypt, where Buffy enters first and dusts a vamp with her crossbow.  Jonathan comes through the skylight and gets another one, then another that Buffy misses as it passes her by on the stairs.  Buffy says she should have gotten that one, and Jonathan says she can only do her best.  Buffy says that's just it, she doesn't think she's doing her best, and she doesn't know why.  Jonathan gives Buffy vampire tips, and then confronts Spike, who the rest of the gang did not notice hanging out in the shadows.  Jonathan and Spike trade verbal jabs, while Buffy stands by and looks dumb-blonde-like.  Spike hardly even spares Buffy a glance; it's clear he considers Jonathan to be his nemesis.  Jonathan gets the better of him and he and the gang leave.  At Tara's, Willow and Tara hang up pictures of Jonathan while discussing that night's slayage. Willow mentions that Buffy's still kind of down about the whole "Riley sleeping with Faith" thing, from "Who Are You".  Speaking of which, Riley himself is shooting hoops with his little styrofoam balls in his dorm room, while Buffy sits on the bed.  Riley, topless, sits next to her, but Buffy quickly gets up under the pretence of tossing a ball in the hoop on the back of the door (which, by the way, in a nice touch, is covered by a poster of Jonathan playing basketball, rather than the usual poster that illustrates the different kind of sports balls).  Riley, trying again, gets up and stands behind her, giving her pointers.  Buffy reacts negatively to his closeness, and leaves.  Riley looks downtrodden. At the coffee shop, Buffy complains about her current status with Riley, blaming it on Faith.  Jonathan, who's sitting there with her, and keeps getting interrupted by girls coming up to get his autograph, says that in reality he thinks she's partly blaming Riley.  Buffy says she knows he couldn't have known that she and Faith had switched bodies, really, but Jonathan says that doesn't mean she doesn't blame him a little anyway, for not realizing that it wasn't her in there, when she'd thought she was having this amazing connection with him.  He says if any part of her blames Riley, she's going to have to forgive him before she can move past it.  Another girl named Karen comes up for his autograph, and Buffy thinks maybe Jonathan is right, but doesn't know how she's supposed to get past it. Jonathan basically says that anything worth anything is worth working for. At the Initiative, some military Colonel says that even though he's there to review the recent events, their primary objective is to recover Adam.  He turns the briefing over to Jonathan, who's in fatigues, and is at least a foot shorter than every other guy there.  Spreading some plans on the table, he points out that Adam hasn't been known to eat yet, and it's always bothered him.  He pulled some of Walsh's original designs, and discovered that Adam's power source isn't biological, he's got some kind of power supply (uranium 235)  located in his chest that will essentially last forever.  It also means he can't be killed by ordinary means.  In order to kill him, they will have to annihilate him completely.  Cut to Jonathan's mansion, where the girl who got his autograph earlier  Karen  is staking the place out with binoculars.  Suddenly she's attacked by a demon.  She drops all her stuff and runs away.  Back at the Initiative, Riley confides in Jonathan that he feels terrible, and that he doesn't know what to do to make it up to Buffy.  Jonathan tells him that Buffy is ready to forget, but he hopes that Riley is, too.  He says that Buffy's worried about what Riley's thinking, and Riley realizes that Buffy's worried that Riley would be comparing Buffy in bed to Buffy when she was Faith, in bed.  He says that Buffy's the only one he cares about, and Jonathan asks him if he's told Buffy that.  That night at the Bronze, there is for some reason a jazz band playing, even though this place has always featured mainly alternative and complaint rock.  The gang sits at a table, and Xander complains that Anya moaned Jonathan's name the night before when they were having sex.  Jonathan gets up on stage and dedicates a song to Buffy and Riley, and starts singing some slow old-style jazz song.  I'm gonna guess that it's called "Serenade in Blue", 'cause that's what Jonathan keeps singing.  Riley takes Buffy to the dance floor, and tells her that he's sorry; that she's the only one he wants.  Buffy says she knows, and THAT'S THE END OF IT!  They like, never talk about it again!  ARG!  Anyways.  Jonathan then picks up a trumpet and starts doing "something off his new album", according to Willow.  Just then, Karen comes running in, looking all disheveled and scratched up.  Buffy asks her if she's okay, but she breaks free of her and goes to Jonathan, instead, who has halted the music.  He jumps down from the stage and asks Karen if she's okay.  He and the gang take her back to his mansion, where she gives them the description of the demon that attacked her. She says it had a mark on its forehead, and she draws it for them.  Jonathan looks at it and kind of looks taken aback for a moment, then tells the gang it's nothing to worry about, and tucks the sketch away in his pocket.   He says he'll take care of it on his own, despite Buffy's offer to patrol for it.  And here there is an utterly pointless scene where Adam and a vampire are sitting in some office beside the dead body of a human Adam killed.  There are several monitors on the wall, and Jonathan is featured on one of them.  Adam says the world has been changed; that the images are lies, etc.  Adam says he's aware of all of the molecules around himself and within himself. Blah blah.  It really has absolutely no bearing on the episode or the story-arc.  Back at the mansion, Jonathan stares into a roaring fire thoughtfully, clad in a silk robe.  Two blonde Swedish twins come out onto the balcony above him and ask if he's coming to bed.  Jonathan takes his robe off and we see that he's got what looks like a scar of the symbol Karen drew on his shoulder.  Out on the quad, Buffy, Willow and Tara walk together.  Buffy's begun to kind of wonder at Jonathan's behaviour, and says he almost looked kind of scared when he saw the symbol Karen had drawn.  They get to Willow's path, and she parts company with them after a meaningful look shared with Willow.  Tara enters the dorm building and starts looking around aprehensively. Suddenly she's attacked by the same demon that attacked Karen.  Tara casts a little smoke spell, which blinds the demon long enough for Tara to lock herself in a utility closet.  The next morning Buffy rushes over to Tara's dorm room, where Willow tends to a traumatized Tara.  Apparently, she was in the closet all night.  In the closet. Heh.  And now she's not. * g *   Anyways.  Buffy draws the symbol and shows it to Tara, asking if that mark was on the demon.  Tara confirms that it was.  Willow's confused because Jonathan had said it was safe. Buffy goes to Xander's place, "hoping to look at some of Xander's stuff", she tells Anya.  She notices all of Xander's Jonathan comics, and Jonathan trading cards, etc.  Anya herself is reading Jonathan's latest book.  Buffy asks her if she doesn't think it's strange that Jonathan is so good at everything, but Anya just replies "He's Jonathan".  Buffy asks Anya about when she was a demon, and if certain wishes can change the whole world. Anya tells her about alternative dimensions / universes.  That night Buffy calls a meeting, and everyone's surprised that Jonathan's not there.  Buffy points out all of the things that don't make sense about Jonathan, and thinks that he's done something to the world that is manipulating all of their memories.  Everyone thinks she's nuts, as everyone's got a huge thing for Jonathan.  Everyone, except for Riley.  He supports her, and Buffy says she thinks Jonathan's ignoring evidence about this demon.  She remembers the mark, and asks Giles to get his Jonathan swimsuit calendar.  He pulls it out, and the gang finds a picture of Jonathan in it where his bare shoulder is turned to the camera, clearly showing the mark.  Just then Jonathan enters, and Buffy confronts him about the mark.  He confirms that he has a history with the monster, but every time he faces it, his mind becomes confused; that's why he had the mark tattooed on him to remind himself to never underestimate it.  Buffy wants to go find the monster now; Jonathan tries to put it off, but Buffy says they should at least try.  In the cemetery, Jonathan and Buffy come across Spike again.  Jonathan throws Spike up against a mausoleum wall when he makes advances on Buffy, and questions him about the demon / monster.  Spike says he doesn't know anything, and Jonathan calls to Buffy and starts walking off.  Buffy instead throws Spike up against the same wall herself, and threatens to have Spike's source of blood (the butcher shops) cut off (because the owners all respect Jonathan and would do him a favor) if he doesn't tell.  Spike's surprised at Buffy's temerity, considering that she's "just the sidekick", but he tells what he knows, and she and Jonathan head off toward the creature's lair.  Back at Giles', Riley's still kinda surprised that magic really works.  Willow says it does, but you have to be in tune with the universe and stuff.  Xander agrees, saying you can't just read stuff out of books and expect it to happen, which he demonstrates by reading out of a book, and then being surprised when it ignites on fire.  Giles admonishes him to be careful.  Willow finds an illustration of the mark in the book she's looking through, and finds out it's part of an augmentation spell, causing everyone to see the person casting the spell as the best of everything; a paragon.  The side effect is that to equal the new force of goodness, there's a new force of evil, which is the monster.  They realize that the monster is linked to Jonathan; if it's killed his spell will be broken, and Jonathan will go back to being whatever he was before.  Anya thinks that Jonathan won't want Buffy to be able to defeat the creature. In the creature's lair, Buffy steps to the edge of a great chasm.  Jonathan reaches a hand out toward her, and it looks almost as if he's thinking about pushing her in, but it turns out that he's actually just taking hold of her arm to turn around and look for the monster.  At that moment, however, the monster shows up and throws Jonathan across the room.  Back at Giles', the gang wonders what the real world will be like, if * this * is the alternate universe.  Xander doesn't want to be in a world without Jonathan, and Willow wonders if Buffy can do this?  If she can defeat the creature?  Giles says he doesn't know, she's never had to defeat a foe like this on her own before.  Cut back to the lair, where Buffy's getting thrashed by the monster.  Jonathan wakes up and attacks it.  Buffy asks what she should do, and Jonathan says she'll have to do this solo, because the more she hurts it the less powers Jonathan will have.  The creature tosses him off, and Buffy attacks it.  The creature gets kicked and pummeled a bit, and Jonathan suddenly loses his dramatic fighting stance, instead running to hide behind a rock wall.  The creature gains the upper hand again, and Jonathan jumps out, strong again.  And so it continues to go until the creature almost knocks Buffy into the chasm.  Jonathan rises from his hiding crouch, and rushes the creature, knocking it into the chasm on his own, and almost falling down with it.  Buffy grabs his ankle, however, and saves him.  Shots of the town as a magical energy wave runs across everything and turns everything back to normal. Out on the quad the next day, the gang has a picnic under a tree, and everyone talks about the world going back to normal; everyone's already starting to forget stuff.  Buffy sees Jonathan standing over on the path, looking at her.  She gets up to go meet him; he says he wasn't sure if she'd come over, some people are kinda angry at him.  Buffy asks him how he did it, and he says he met a kid at the support group thing he had to go to after attempting suicide the year before, and the guy totally glossed over the whole monster thing.  Buffy explains that that's not even what everyone's mad about, it's the way he made them all sock puppets in his own personal theatre.  Jonathan says it wasn't like that; they were friends.  Buffy says he can't just have everything work out that way, things that are worth it take time and work.  Jonathan reminds her that he said the same thing to her when they were talking about her relationship with Riley.  Later on, Buffy and Riley kiss on his bed, and Buffy says she's glad they "talked this all out".  Riley says they haven't talked at all, but Buffy thinks whatever they're doing, they're doing it great.  Then Riley pulls back in surprise as Buffy says "Jonathan  " FLAWS:          none found. THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE:              Well, it intensely annoyed me that all it took for Riley and Buffy to get over the "Riley slept with Faith" thing was one freaking dance, and they like, never talk about it again, but the rest of the episode was hilarious.  I've always liked Jonathan, and I love when he guest stars.  This episode was totally built around him, and I just soaked it up   : )   Gotta love those credits, too   ;) BEST LINE:   Xander:  "Right, I mean you can't just go - (reads from book)  'Liberum Incinderae', and expect (book explodes into flames)   " Giles:  "Xander, don't speak latin in front of the books."

"Superstar"