atheneum

Buffy and Riley are fighting a vampire in the cemetery. Buffy is re-arming a crossbow while Riley fights with the vamp. She aims at it, but Riley's too busy knocking him down for her to get a good shot. Finally Riley picks him up and holds him up for a perfect shot. Buffy shoots, but then a demon knocks the vampire and Riley both down, and the shot misses. Riley goes tumbling. Buffy throws down the crossbow and fends both creatures off until Riley can get to his feet, and then they split them up so they're each fighting one. Fight, fight, Buffy stabs her demon, Riley stakes the vamp. Buffy wonders why the vamp and the demon were working together, but she and Buffy are too busy being all horny for each other to go tell Giles. They stumble back to his place and have sex. Oh yeah, I suddenly remember what episode this was. God. *buries head in hands*

So yeah. Riley's dorm, downstairs. It's still night. The camera wanders upstairs. Riley and Buffy are lying in bed together. Riley gets up and puts his pants on; then heads to the bathroom. One of the shower curtains is pulled as if there's someone in it, but when Riley pulls it back there's no one there, but the faucet is dripping. He turns it off. The next morning, Xander's driving an ice cream truck, as this is apparently his job of the week. Anya's tagging along in the passenger seat, telling Xander she doesn't want to go to the big party at Riley's dorm the next night, because she's still wiggy being around the Initiative guys. Xander points out that none of them know she's an ex demon, and * they * don't know that they would even care if they did. The discussion quickly dissolves into a breakup. Or is it? Anya is worried that Xander doesn't find her attractive any more, and that they're breaking up, just because they didn't have sex the night before. Xander tells her there's more to relationships than just sex (heh, unless you're Buffy and Riley ;), but when she isn't convinced he asks her if she wants to have sex right there, right then. Unfortunately, there's a gaggle of children outside waiting for ice cream, watching them. Woops.

The next day in the student lounge, Buffy and Riley tell the gang about the demon / vampire cooperation the night before. Giles says it doesn't make sense because most demons look upon vampires as abominations due to them mixing their blood with humans and all that. Riley thinks that Adam's the one who's getting demons and vampires to work together. As Buffy and Riley keep glancing at each other, and they keep stroking each other's hands, Giles orders them to patrol in the same area tonight; see what else they pick up. Riley mentions the party the next night, and Giles can't believe they're going to have a party at a time like this. Riley says it was his idea because his boys "are a little ragged", and they need to blow off some steam. He invites Giles, but Giles says he'll be at the Espresso-Pump for some "adult time", and requests that none of them go. More hand-play, and then Riley alludes to something they have to do before her class. Buffy catches on and they run off to have a quickie, which is horribly apparent to everyone else in the lounge.

That night, Forrest and Graham come downstairs, talking about how cold it is in the house, and they hear Buffy and Riley still going at it. Expressing their exasperation, they go down to the next level into a room with a fireplace that doesn't' seem to be doing any good. Cut back to Riley and Buffy having frenzied sex. As they near climax, the fire whooshes out of the fireplace and engulfs the student sitting in front of it. Forrest, thinking quickly, grabs a banner from above the doorway and smothers the flame, calling for an ambulance.

The next night, Anya's heading toward the Bronze when Spike jumps out at her in vamp-face, scaring her. He demands money, and Anya says she's not paying him for scaring her. Spike says she's got it all wrong, he's robbing her. Anya can't believe that works, and he says it not only works, it's funny watching the humans quail in fear. Anya says now she understands why he's so friendless, and he says she's just as much an outcast as he is. He notes that Xander's not with her.

At Riley's dorm, the party is in full swing. Buffy and Riley make googly eyes at each other from across the room, as they both hang out with their respective group of friends. Graham mentions that the fire victim's okay. In Buffy's group, Xander says he doesn't even know if Anya will come that night or not; she was pretty mad. He's glad she doesn't have her powers anymore.

Cut to the Bronze: Anya and Spike share a couch under the stairs and bond over their losses. Anya misses being a powerful demon; Spike misses being able to kill. Spike suggests they make a pact to each go kill the person who hurt them, Anya / Xander, Spike / Dru, but neither one of them really wants to do it, 'cause they're both still in love, etc.

Back at the party, one of the intellectual guys from "Beer Bad" talks to a pretty girl, and absentmindedly reaches out to lean on the wall. When he touches it, however, it seems to affect him in a rather pleasurable way. Inside, Xander walks up to another pretty girl and flirts with her. (BAD! Bad, Xander!) She reciprocates. Buffy runs up to Riley and asks him if he can take a look at her research paper for class, and he and Buffy run off to have sex again. Again, it's not a secret to the group they're leaving. Forrest and Graham exchange slightly annoyed but amused glances. By this point, a crowd has formed around the spot on the wall, and the first guy grabs a passing friend and has him touch it. He's similarly affected. On the stairs, Tara invites Willow to come horseback riding with her some time, and during the course of the conversation Willow touches Tara's knee. Tara jerks away and says "Don't touch me, it's disgusting". Willow apologizes and asks if she's okay, and Tara leaves to go to the bathroom, not sure what's wrong.

Anya and Spike arrive, and Spike thinks he recognizes some of the people at the party. Anya confirms that they're Initiative commandos, and Spike's all "Agh! And you brought me here?!" Xander comes up all jealous that she brought Spike there, thinking she's rebounding or something. Whatever, Xander, like you weren't just flirting with that redhead! Anyways. Spike, just to get Xander's goat, taunts him about how he won't follow through on his jealousy, and Xander starts welcoming him as hostile 17, at the top of his lungs. Nobody seems to notice, however, and Spike goes off to find the liquor. Xander says they had a fight, and she's just overreacting, but Anya says she's seen this a million times. The arguing and the lack of intimacy are sure signs of a breakup, that it's what always comes right before the vengeance. Xander's eyes go wide, but Anya tells him to relax; she's not going to do anything, but she's the one to say it's over, and it's over. Xander tells her she doesn't deserve to be the one to walk away, and he says it's over. They walk away from each other, each one intending to make the other suffer by watching the other have fun without him / her. Xander goes into another room where a circle of people are playing spin the bottle. He kinda mocks their low-level game and starts to leave until he notices the girl he was flirting with earlier in the group. She invites him into the game with her eyes, and he joins.

Cut to Spike nursing a drink. A frat guy sitting opposite him tells him he looks familiar, and Spike shrugs it off, saying he gets that all the time. Back at the spin the bottle game, Xander spins it and it points toward Julie, the girl he'd been flirting with. Looking apprehensive, he kisses her quickly on the cheek. Julie suddenly tackles him, however, and kisses him thoroughly even though Xander's quite confused. He finally rips her off his face and asks her what's going on. She says she's sorry and runs away; he runs after her. He sees the group of people gathered around the spot in the wall, but gets distracted from them when he hears Julie crying in a darkened bedroom. He asks through the door if she's okay, but she doesn't answer, and instead just sits in the room cutting her hair off with a knife saying she's bad over and over.

Willow's looking for Tara, and goes into the bathroom that Riley went into in the beginning of the episode. That same shower curtain is pulled shut, and she hears dripping behind it. She opens the curtain to reveal a boy drowning in the tub. She reaches for him but he disappears. She turns around and he's suddenly standing behind her. Willow screams. In the bedroom, Riley asks "Is that Willow?" Buffy doesn't know, but says it doesn't matter, and they continue having sex.

Xander asks the people playing spin the bottle if any of them are friends with Julie, but no one pays any attention to him. Willow runs in and tells him about the ghost-boy drowning in the tub, and Tara joins them right after, saying that she doesn't like this house; there's something wrong. Just then the bottle spinning in the center of the group starts going faster and faster, and suddenly bursts, sending flying shards of glass into the eyes of the people who'd been playing the game. Deciding they need to find Buffy, Xander, Willow and Tara race up the stairs. They knock on Riley's door and call to Buffy, but suddenly these funky vine-looking things sprout out from underneath the door and crisscross over the door so it can't be opened. Xander pounds harder and calls to Buffy, but she and Riley are still inside having sex and either don't hear him, or ignore him.

Suddenly the house starts to shake, and people start running out. From his chair, Spike smiles and says the party's finally livening up. Forrest runs into Graham in the hallway and says something about getting "these people to safety", but Graham seems to have flipped out, and he starts ranting about God. Forrest is like, yeeeeeeeeeah. He grabs Graham and takes him into the elevator to go down to the Initiative. Anya rides out the earthquake in a doorway, and then a female ghost goes running and screaming through her. The gang comes running back down stairs and run right into Anya, and they all run out the front door, along with Spike. Xander looks back and sees Julie come out of the room with all of her hair not only cut, but practically shaved off, and he goes back to take hold of her, dragging her out with them.

Down in the Initiative, Graham seems to be feeling better. He and Forrest report the trouble to a guy in a lab coat. They already know about it. He gives them some cryptic orders, and they head off to "lock it down". Outside, Xander says they have to go back in for Buffy and Riley. Spike volunteers to help, but then kinda wonders what he's doing and leaves. Anya wants to get out of there, and Xander tells her to go, but he goes inside the house. He's thrown out a moment later by an unseen force, and Willow suggests that they go to Giles. Tara reminds her that he's at the Espresso Pump and didn't want to be bothered because he needed some adult time.

Cut to the coffee shop, where Giles is sitting on a stool playing a guitar and singing for a group of people! And he's awesome! The gang show up and they're at first astounded, and then Anya, Willow and Tara all remark that his voice is great, and Willow says now she knows why she used to have that crush on him. Xander seems to be the only one still wigging. Giles is surprised when he sees them, but doesn't miss a beat and keeps singing. Cut to the dorm, where the tendrils of plant-like stuff have grown all over the door, and up onto the ceiling now, spreading out over all surfaces. Inside the room, Buffy and Riley break apart for a few mere seconds, barely able to breathe, but then they can't stay away from each other any more and start having sex again. In the library, the gang has filled Giles in, and Xander thinks that Buffy and Riley were too busy having sex to answer when he called to them. Willow says that everyone at the party was starting to act weird, sexually. Willow finds some old newspaper clippings about how the house was a home for runaways, juvenile delinquents and emotionally disturbed kids from 1949-1960. Tara wonders if any of them died, but the article doesn't say. It only mentions the woman who ran the place, who is still alive. Giles and the gang go on over to her place to question her, and Giles asks if there was any paranormal activity present when she ran it. She says no, and seems almost offended at his suggestion. She goes off on a tangent about "her kids", and how she fed them and clothed them and taught them the ways of the lord, and she was also the one who punished them "when they were dirty".

The gang quickly realizes this woman isn't quite right, and easily lead her into talking about the things she'd done there. She confesses freely performing "baptisms" on the more spiritually unclean of her kids, and cutting off the hair of girls who admired their own beauty, and so forth. Giles tells her off, saying she's ruined lives with her cruelty, and traumatized the children in her care. And now that pent up angst and trauma and repressed sexuality is manifesting itself in the house. Out in the hallway Giles explains to Xander and Anya that he doesn't think it's ghosts in the house, but more of an energy thing, manifesting as poltergeists. Xander guesses that Buffy and Riley sparked this thing, and now the energy is feeding off of them. Xander wonders what happens when Buffy and Riley are drained of all of their energy; Giles says they'll die.

Back in the dorm room, Buffy and Riley continue to have sex even though they're both obviously frazzled. Back in Willow's dorm room, Willow, Tara and Giles are going to try a binding spell. Xander and Anya head back to the frat house. Tara leads the spell, calling to the children of the past, who soon manifest themselves in the room, leaving the house alone.

At the house, the front door swings open and Xander and Anya enter, trying to hurry before the children return. They hack their way up through the foliage that has grown down the stairs. Cut to the dorm room, Willow, Tara and Giles implore the children to let go of their power; let go of the past. Xander makes it to Riley's door and puts his hand on the knob, but a wind blows suddenly. The wind also rips through Willow's dorm room and all of the children disappear. Tara says they lost them. Xander flies back from the door and gets slammed into the bathroom; the door shutting behind him. Anya starts toward the door to help him, but the wind knocks her through a railing and off of the second floor. She lands down in the living room. In the bathroom, Xander's being held under water by the manifestations of the children. Anya comes to downstairs, and makes her way back up the staircase. She finds Xander drowning in the tub and pulls him out. They make their way back to Riley's door and force it open, startling Buffy and Riley, who are finally able to stop.

The next day Buffy's more wigged over the idea of Giles singing than the fact that she and Riley were powering the whole manifestation thing. She and Riley both say they were like Zombies during the whole thing, and it was kinda awful, but they both look at each other, obviously not thinking it was as bad as all that

FLAWS: In "Hush", Maggie indicated a sign next to the elevator which read "Use Stairs in case of emergency", and both Riley and Forrest saw it. Yet in this episode Forrest pulls Graham into the elevator to go down to the Initiative during the house-shaking. I guess it's not really a flaw, it just bugs me. If there are stairs, why would anyone in their right mind use an elevator instead during an earthquake?

I suppose it's possible, but I really have a hard time believing that perfectly NORMAL, HUMAN Riley could have done the continuous sex thing, the way it was portrayed. I won't get into details here, because this site is rated PG-13, but let's just say: reserves ;) There can only be so much.

THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE: Man, what a waste of an episode. This episode is like, the perfect example of this entire season. Filled with way too much sex, little or no plot, lots of contrivance, and very few parts that were actually worth it. Also, by this point I don't even like Anya anymore. I tried really hard to pin down exactly when she stopped being refreshingly frank and direct, and became instead overwhelmingly crass and insensitive, but I just can't. For whatever reason, they gradually changed her into a greedy, oversexed freak. Bah.

BEST LINE:

Anya: "You don't think I'm desirable enough to be flirted with, is that it?"

Xander: "I'm just not gonna win here, am I?"

and:

Willow: "Xander. Ghost boy, drowning in the tub. I tried to save him but, being a ghost, I was way too late."

Xander: "A ghost? What's the deal? Is every frat on this campus haunted? And if so why do people keep coming to these parties? Because it's not the snacks."

"Where the Wild Things Are"