In Xander's basement, Willow, Anya and Xander play poker. Xander reflects that none of them have any money, but says that'll all change once his "merchandise hits the streets". He grabs a box stacked against the wall and opens it to reveal that his job of the week is selling "boost bars" now. He offers one to Willow but she turns it down, saying those never taste like much. Xander bemoans the fact that Buffy's not there, but Willow says she must be out with Riley. Xander says he's still kinda unsure of how to feel about the Initiative, and Anya sides with him, worried that they'll come after her because she used to be a demon. Cut to some commandos being all stealthy in the woods. They look like they're on the hunt for something. Suddenly a fight breaks out as Buffy jumps out of the bushes and wails on them; knocking several out, and pulling one guy in front of her to absorb an energy blast from another commando's taser. Maggie comes out of nowhere and says with awe that it took the team 42 minutes to track her, and she neutralized them in 28 seconds. Buffy tries to play it off as luck, but Maggie says it's still impressive. The commandos she knocked down reveal themselves to be Graham and Forrest, and they compliment her. Riley's all, "see, you're a hit. everyone loves you.", and Maggie watches with an indecipherable expression on her face. The next day, Buffy and Willow sit at that same old Cafeteria table, while Buffy goes on about the Initiative exercise the night before. Willow tries to be all "listening, supportive best friend" type girl, but she's obviously not down with the Initiative. They talk about how the original Scooby Gang is supposed to meet up at the Bronze that night, since they haven't all really had a chance to hang out recently. Willow feels left out. Cut to Spike's new crypt. Giles enters to settle his debt to Spike from "A New Man", and pays him the $300. As Spike counts the money, Giles basically wonders if Spike might consider a higher purpose, now that he knows he can only kill demons. Spike gets angry with him and throws him out, after basically severing all ties between him and the scooby gang. At Riley's dorm, he asks Buffy if she's "ready for this". We're supposed to think they're talking about sex, but when she says yes, they turn around to face the full-length mirror, and their retinal scans are taken. They enter the elevator which takes them down to Initiative HQ. Buffy is amazed at the size of the operation. Maggie Walsh comes up and gives Buffy her visitor's pass, and some reading material. She shows them around to the armory, the "pit" (where the hands-on research on demons goes on, and where Buffy sees two demons on surgical tables, unconscious), the hostile containment area, etc. Along the way, she mentions how the Initiative is working to reform demons, and Buffy realizes this is what was done to Spike. Buffy asks what's behind the security door that Maggie went through in "A New Man", and Maggie says it's a restricted area where some important research goes on. She then hands Buffy a security card and a pager, and welcomes her to the team. In the student lounge, Willow talks about doing some more spells with Tara. Tara says maybe they could tonight, but Willow tells her she's gonna be meeting with her other friends at the Bronze, and she'd invite Tara along, but it's kind of a specific group of people. Tara feels kind of secondary, and leaves. Back at the Initiative, Maggie goes through the security door and enters the room with 314 on the door. She talks about Buffy with a doctor in the room, and he says that she's an unnecessary risk. Maggie asks how "their baby" is doing, and the doctor says he's doing fine. Maggie looks down at a medical bed, where there's a creature / man laying. At the Bronze that night, Xander says maybe it's time to go, but Willow says he can't go yet; Buffy hasn't shown. Xander doesn't think she will; that she's out with Riley, but moments later Buffy enters. Willow's face falls as she sees that she's also brought Riley, and several guys from the Initiative. Riley and the guys go off to get drinks, and Willow says she thought this night was supposed to be for the Scooby core, and that she could have invited someone else too, if she'd known anyone could come. Buffy apologizes and asks who Willow would have invited, but Willow brushes off the question, still not telling anyone about Tara. Buffy tells Willow about the Initiative, and how big and involved it is, and Willow worries that Buffy's up and joined. She says there's too much about the Initiative they still don't know yet, and wonders what their ultimate objective is. i.e., okay, they study demons and make it so that they can't hurt people anymore, but what do they do with them after that? What's the point? Just then, Buffy is paged, and all of the beepers of the guys off getting drinks go off, too. Buffy apologizes and leaves with Riley and the others. At the Initiative, Maggie briefs Buffy and a whole commando team about the demon they're going after. Buffy's the only one not dressed in fatigues and stuff. The doctor from room 314 explains that the demon has bone skewers lodged in its arms, which it uses to stab attackers with. He advises the team to avoid the danger of the skewers, but not to damage them or the demon's arms when they corner it. He also reminds them that this is a capture, not a kill. Walsh and the doctor get exasperated as Buffy keeps asking questions that she considers important, but they're used to the commandos just going where they're told, and doing what they're told. Walsh also says Buffy might want to change into commando gear, but Buffy reassures her that she's patrolled in this halter top many times. Willow goes to Tara's, and apologizes for the late hour but says her prior engagement kind of fell through, and wonders if they can still do something. Tara, obviously happy to see her no matter what the hour, invites her in. Out on patrol, Riley is also unaccustomed to Buffy's presence, as she keeps talking while they're looking for the demon. He asks her to keep it down, since he doesn't have her reflexes and needs to be on the alert. Elsewhere, Forrest bitches that Riley chose Buffy to be his "right hand" on this mission, instead of Forrest, who is apparently always Riley's backup. Graham asks him why he cares, considering that Forrest kind of got promoted into leading his own team, but Forrest is feeling like he got usurped by Buffy. Suddenly Graham spies "hostile 17" (Spike) walking along with a grocery bag, and the team fans out to re-capture him. Spike gets the best of them, however, and escapes, but not before being shot with a tracking device. Back at Riley's team, Riley gets the call from Forrest's team about Spike, just as the demon they're looking for crashes into the clearing and knocks Riley over. Buffy attacks the demon and keeps it off of Riley until he can get up. Then they attack the demon together. Then the scene starts alternating with later, when Buffy and Riley go back to his place and have sex for the first time, after catching the demon. (cool music in this scene, by the way) The scene cuts to Maggie Walsh, down in the Initiative, watching Riley and Buffy make love on a monitor in the security office: his room is bugged. The next day, Xander tries to sell some of his boost bars to Giles, but after tasting one Giles refuses to buy any. Suddenly Spike bursts in, saying the commandos shot him. Giles wonders why they should help him, and Spike says that's just what they do. Giles still doesn't help, until Spike gives his money back. Buffy wakes up in Riley's bed, and, remembering her other two sexual encounters and the lack of a guy present in the morning, turns around to see that Riley's still there. They kiss, and then Riley's alarm goes off. Riley stops and takes his "vitamins", and Buffy remarks that he's quite the good little soldier. Riley says he is what "they" made him. In the military you follow orders; you don't ask questions. Buffy asks if he ever gets curious, and he says basically that he believes in the cause, that they're doing good work, so he does what he's told. Buffy starts to ask him if he knows what 314 is, but just then his phone rings. It's Maggie, and she requests his presence down in the Initiative. Down in the HQ, Riley leaves the elevator and heads toward Maggie's station. Obviously a little affected by Buffy's inquisitive nature, he pauses to peer through the little window in the security door and sees the door marked 314. Maggie startles him from behind and orders him to take a team and track down hostile 17. Riley heads off to do so, and Maggie enters the room to talk with the doctor, who's operating on something on the table. She says they have a security problem. "The slayer?" he asks. Maggie says she already holds too much influence over Riley, and the doctor asks if they'll have to go to the contingency plan. She says yes, and he says it's a shame, because the slayer could have been a great ally. With that, he lifts the arm away from the demon on the surgical table; the same demon Buffy and the Initiative guys captured the night before, and takes it away. At Giles', Spike's topless (aaaaagh! : ) ), and Giles tries to get out whatever the commandos shot into his back. He discovers that it doesn't look like a bullet or a tranquilizer, but it's blinking. Xander says it's a tracer, and the commandos are probably tracking Spike right now. Giles says they have to do something to gain some time until he can get the tracking device out. Back at the dorm room, Buffy returns to find that Willow's bed hasn't been slept in either. Willow returns a moment later to learn the same thing about Buffy. Neither one tells the other where they were all night. Just then Buffy's pager goes off, and she leaves. Willow answers the phone; it's Giles and he needs Willow's help. Cut to Buffy down in the Initiative. Maggie tells her they've gotten a report of a possible class three demon in the sewers, and she needs Buffy to go and confirm. She gives her a blast rifle, and a headphone / radio thing that also monitors her heartbeat. Buffy says she's still got some questions about this whole operation, and Maggie says when Buffy gets back they can have a talk. Back at Giles', everyone huddles around a now-drunk Spike, who's laying on the table in the living room. Willow reads a spell from a book, and ionizes the atmosphere in the room so that the signal coming from Spike's tracer gets distorted; making it harder to track him. It also has the amusing side effect of making everyone's hair stand up straight. Cut to Riley and his team, who now are having a hard time tracking the signal. They decide to change into their civies since they're entering populated areas. Down in the sewers, Buffy finds the two demons with axes waiting for her, and remembers them as being the two she saw in "the pit" at the Initiative the day before. She tries to fire at them with the blast rifle she was given, but it explodes in her hands. Simultaneously, a gate comes crashing down, trapping her in the room with the demons. On her monitors, Maggie Walsh watches from Buffy's point of view as the slayer engages the demons in hand to hand combat. Suddenly however, the view becomes slanted on the level of the floor, and the heart rate goes flat-line. Maggie looks around guiltily. In the neighborhood, Riley and his team continue tracking Spike as the signal slowly clears. In the apartment, Giles finally gets the tracer out and hands it to Xander, who runs off to the bathroom with it. Out on the street, the team registers a change in the direction of the tracer, and realize it's been flushed. Back down in the sewers, Buffy fights the demons as her headset lays on the floor. She ducks a swing of the axe from one, which continues on to kill the other demon. She then throws her defective blast rifle into a puddle of water the second demon is standing in, electrocuting it. At the Initiative, Riley reports to Walsh that they couldn't find Spike. Walsh turns around and tells Riley she's sorry, but that Buffy went on a mission alone, and is now dead. Riley is shocked and upset. As Walsh yammers on about how Buffy refused backup, Riley focuses on the monitors behind her, where Buffy's image appears. She's still in the sewer, looking into the headset. She speaks to Walsh, saying that "that simple little recon" she sent her on, turned out to be her trapped in the sewers with a faulty weapon and two of her pet projects. That if Walsh thinks that's all it takes to kill her she really doesn't know what a slayer is. Riley, having heard it all and realizing that Walsh tried to kill Buffy, stalks off without a word. Walsh orders him to come back, but he walks away. Back at Giles', Spike puts his shirt back on (aw, DAMN! ;) ). Giles tells Spike he should leave town, because it's not safe for him there with the Initiative hunting him. Buffy comes in and says it's not safe for any of them. Fade to room 314, where Maggie talks to the man / creature on the table. She says that Buffy has no idea who she's dealing with, and that once she's gone Riley will understand it was all for the greater good. She walks around the room as she talks, and turns her back to the table. Suddenly one of those bone skewers pierces through her chest, and she turns around to find the man / creature awake and sitting up behind her. "Adam?" she says, and then dies, falling off the skewer. "Mommy," Adam says. FLAWS: Um. You know how you're not supposed to mix water and electricity? And how you're not supposed to touch any wires that fall down after a storm? That's because electricity can be conducted through like, a lot of things. Metal, water, people. Yet when Buffy pulls that commando in front of her to absorb the taser blast, she doesn't get shocked, even though she's holding on to him. When Buffy and Riley go back to his place and have sex, he unlaces the back of her top and then pulls the straps down over her shoulders. Only problem: she'd been wearing a halter top before. She even said so. The only "straps" involved connected up at the back of her neck. It looks as if they traded her halter top for a regular strappy top of the same colour so they could get the scene of him pulling the straps down over her shoulders. And speaking of clothes: Buffy returns to her dorm room the morning after she and Riley have sex wearing a totally different outfit than she was the night before. She couldn't have had the clothes with her, because her purse was much too small to fit a pair of jeans and a shirt. This is the first time she and Riley were together, so she wouldn't have had clothes stashed at his place yet, and we see her enter the dorm room, so she couldn't have changed before the scene cut to her. Also, Riley deduces that the tracer was flushed when his team registers the signal passing underneath them, in the sewer. But, um, vampires travel through the sewers in the daytime all the time. Why would they assume it'd been flushed, and that it wasn't just Spike down there running around in the sewers? THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE: Eh. We learn that Riley follows orders and doesn't ask questions. He's pretty mindless in that department. Buffy manages to work with a coherent team for like, five minutes before getting herself targeted for assassination. The Initiative's still after Spike, and their little pet project wakes up and kills Walsh. Buffy and Riley have sex, and the group shows more signs of estrangement as Buffy's off doing her own thing, Willow's hanging out with Tara a lot, Xander's got Anya, and Giles has nothing to do. BEST LINE: Giles: "Remind me, why should we help you?" Spike: "Because, you do that. You're the goody good guys. You're the bloody freakin' cavalry." Giles: "No, you can come up with a better answer than that. Why should I help you?" Spike: "Oh! Because I helped you. When you turned into a Fioral demon, I helped you, didn't I?" Giles: "Yes, and that was out of the uh, evilness of your heart?" Spike: "Oh hell no, I made you pay me." (realizes where he's going with that and gives the money back to Giles) |
"The 'I' in Team" |
