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| 67. Doomed Original Air Date: January 18, 2000 Written by: Marti Noxon & David Fury & Jane Espenson Directed by: James A. Contner Guest Cast: Marc Blucas (Riley Finn) Leonard Roberts (Forrest Gates) Bailey Chase (Graham Miller) Ethan Erickson (Percy West) Buffy and Riley are continuing the awkward silence they began last episode. They are in Buffy's room, trying to discuss the secrets they each hold. Each saw the other in demon-fighting action and each wants to know as much as they can about the other, but they cannot say too much about themselves without giving away secrets that they share with others. The question of trust also hangs between them, because each now knows that the other is not what they once seemed to be. When they finally speak, Riley is the one at a disadvantage. Not only does he have a hard time even figuring out what questions to ask, but also Buffy's attitude-filled answers are not much help. He does not even know what a "Slayer" is. On the other hand, Buffy has been running across clues of the Initiative's existence for some time. To Riley's great discomfort, she is able to tell him, in general terms, the methods, means and motive of his secret organization. He stops her when she begins to question whether his name is Riley and he was born in Iowa, and he assures her that they are the truth. He wonders about her strength and physical abilities. He is a normal young man, still battered and bruised from fighting demons yesterday, but she looks flawless. . At least to his eyes. Buffy admits her disappointment that Riley is not really a normal young man, despite his protests to the contrary. They both agree that they need time to consider what they have learned, but also agree not to share these secrets with others. As Riley starts to leave, Amy the rat begins squealing and acting agitated. There is a low rumble as the ground begins to shake. Riley grabs Buffy and they wait in the doorway of her closet for a few seconds, until the quaking subsides. Riley is amused to have had his first earthquake experience, but Buffy's reaction makes clear that she's been through this before and it's nothing to smile about. At Xander's basement apartment, he and Spike are dealing with a leaky overhead pipe. Well, Xander is trying to get Spike to deal with the pipe, while he goes to work as a pizza deliveryman. Xander hands Spike a wrench and demands that he fix the pipe, then Xander turns his back. Only a sharp pain from the chip in his head prevents Spike from bashing Xander's skull in. Xander finishes complaining about Spike's sloth and leaves. Willow arrives back at their room and tells Buffy of the confusion she saw on campus. One dormitory is still blacked-out and the students are having a party. When Willow suggests that Buffy should ask Riley to the party, Buffy makes an excuse for Riley and tells Willow she will meet her there. She is going to meet Giles. Before she leaves she assures Willow that nothing is wrong. At Giles' she tells him that something is horribly wrong. He is not convinced. She reminds him that the last earthquake in Sunnydale occurred shortly before the Master killed her. To Buffy's great discomfort, Giles' in only interested in discussing his theories on the Initiative. Despite her efforts to change the subject, he does manage to tell her that he thinks there is a secret complex under the college and that secret operatives may be on the campus. In the secret complex under the college, Special Agent and Teaching Assistant Riley Finn is asking his friend Forrest about the Slayer. Forrest has heard enough in the field to convince him that she is a mythical being created to scare demon children. Forrest rationalizes that the demons and creatures they have seen are just strange animals or mutants, an unseen part of a perfectly normal world. Apparently, anything he hasn't seen for himself is imaginary. Their philosophical discussion is interrupted when a demon, being escorted through the complex, tries to escape. Forrest is nearly killed, but they manage to subdue the demon. He and Riley comment on how all the creatures imprisoned at the Initiative have been agitated all day. Forrest believes the cause to be the perfectly normal earthquake. At the dorm party, the student lounge is dark, except for a few flashlights scattered around the room. Willow stands alone, in the center of a crowd. She finally sees a familiar face in Percy, a student she tutored in high school. He attends USC and is visiting his girlfriend. Unfortunately, not only does Willow make Percy's girlfriend uncomfortable, but also his first question is about Oz. The couple quickly makes an excuse and leaves Willow alone again. A three-person conga line disappears through a set of double doors and before the doors close, a green, monstrous hand is seen. Inside one of the dorm rooms, a young man is mixing drinks. He gathers them up, turns and glimpses a large green monster, before his throat is slashed. Willow is still waiting for Buffy to arrive. She accidentally overhears Percy being teased by his girlfriend, so he tells her how NOT interested he is, in nerdy Willow Rosenberg. Hurt, Willow finds a quiet room to retreat to. She lies on the bed and tries not to cry. Suddenly, the room lights come on, as power is restored and Willow finds herself in bed with the young man with the slashed throat. As she recoils in horror from the dead man, she sees a design of an open eye inside a triangle, carved into his chest. Upon his return, Xander is horrified to find that not only has Spike done nothing about the leaking pipe, but also due to a laundry accident, Spike is forced to wear Xander's clothes. When Spike tries to demand that Xander get him new clothes, Xander goes off on him. First, Xander let's Spike know that he is a burden on Xander's budget. Xander continues by reminding him that since he had a chip preventing him from hurting people planted in his head by the Initiative, before he escaped them, he no longer poses a threat to anyone, including Xander. Xander than dismisses the vampire as no longer worth an ass-kicking. As Xander storms off, Spike is left to consider how things have changed. The police are already at the party this time, when Buffy arrives. Willow tells her how she found the dead man and how Percy said she was a nerd. They quickly leave to tell Giles... about the dead guy. Riley and Forrest are hanging out, as Forrest has to listen to Riley talk about Buffy again. Graham arrives to tell them about the killing at the party. Riley decides to check it out, to see if it qualifies for the Initiatives' attention, while the others go to tell Prof. Walsh. At Giles', Willow has trouble forgetting about Percy long enough to tell Giles, Buffy and Xander the details of the death. She does tell them about how the man looked literally drained of blood and shows Giles the triangle design. Giles is instantly convinced that these details, combined with the recent earthquake means that the end of the world is near. While the others take an "oh-no-not-again" approach, Buffy is busy with "I-told-you-so". She is determined, of course, to stop the danger. Buffy finds the eye and triangle engraving outside a mausoleum, inside she finds a large, green demon stealing bones from a child's casket. A crossbow bolt in the shoulder barely slows it down. A furious fight takes place inside the mausoleum and continues after Buffy knocks the creature out the door. The monster finally picks up Buffy and slams her spine across a headstone. While she lies recovering, the demon escapes. A shadow moves across the grass and using a leg kick move, Buffy instantly regains her feet. She whirls and swings, but Riley blocks her fist. When Buffy asks Riley why he did not follow the demon, he tells her that it was too big for him to take on alone. That's what she does, she tells him. Buffy wants to chase it, but Riley radios his team and tells Buffy that they will take care of the creature. With no excuse to run off, Buffy is forced to tell Riley that she sees no future for them, because a relationship would be doomed from the start by the danger and necessities of her job. He almost begs for a chance, trying to tell her how he feels when she's around. He won't take her fears for an answer. She tries to explain how dark, dark can get. He's a soldier-boy/adventurer, playing at big, bad monster-hunter. He doesn't even know what the Hellmouth is, let alone how hard it is to survive the fight against evil in Sunnydale year-after-year. Her final answer is no. The next day, Buffy and the gang find a drawing of their demon, a Vahrall Demon. As they read a graphic description of the beast from a book of lore, at the Initiative, Riley is giving his men a more technical description of what he saw. Willow remembers a reference and finds The "Sacrifice of Three", that involves the sacrifice of three people, a man's blood, a child's bones and the "Word of Valios". The volume does not give more details, although Giles seems particularly concerned. Riley's men have determined a way to track the creature using pheromones and the teams will go out in civilian clothes, not drawing weapons until after dark. They intend to kill the demon on sight. Buffy will hit the magic shop to find out more about the Word of Valios. Xander and Willow are assigned to check the museum after getting some weapons from Xander's apartment. As they enter Xander's, they see Spike take a swan dive off a chair, hoping to impale himself on a stake he's attached to the coffee table. He only succeeds in smashing the coffee table flat. Xander is upset that Spike didn't ask him to help. Willow is horrified. But Spike agrees with Xander; he has lost the will to live, since he has lost all reason for living. He is depressed by how low he has sunk - living at Xander's, not able to kill, not even scary anymore. Willow tries to give him encouragement, but when Spike charges her with his fangs bared, she doesn't even flinch, further discouraging him. Finally she insists that in his current state, they have to take Spike with them. Xander tries to cheer him up, by telling him the world may end soon. It seems to help. Buffy comes across Riley while he is trying to track the demon. He cannot get a fix, though. He tries again to get her to reconsider a relationship. In desperation, he tells her that she's being stupid - he thinks her bleak outlook leads to her making her fears come true. She calls him an amateur psychiatrist and an amateur demon slayer. When he makes the mistake of calling the job dangerous, rewarding and fun, he reminds her of Faith's attitude and how she ended badly. Buffy accuses him of naivete. Then, he begins to address her fear, not of monsters, but of men. To him, she is afraid of another relationship and the job is her excuse for throwing away their chance. They part, without getting any closer to a resolution. Xander and Willow are depressed that they found nothing in the museum to help them defeat a Vahrall Demon, but Spike is looking forward to the end of the world. Willow's pep talk backfires, when Spike turns on them. He thinks it's ironic that they are trying to raise his spirits, he paints their lives in the most pathetic terms possible and spits on the idea that he may end up like them. Willow thinks it's a ploy to get them to kill him or let him kill himself. He finally gets to them, by demeaning their work to fight evil. He ridicules the idea that they are more than a hindrance to Buffy. Then he plants the idea that they're the same losers they've been all their lives, but their friends are too kind to tell them. As he turns to leave Xander and Willow in stunned silence, he smiles. Giles', at last, finds a reference to the Word of Valios, a 15th Century talisman, including a picture. He is deeply concerned when he realizes that buried in a chest among a pile of trinkets, he possesses a Word of Valios. No sooner does he dig it out, then three of the Vahrall Demons attack him in his living room. He tries to struggle, but Buffy later finds the others tending to his obviously painful injuries. He manages to tell them that the demons intend to complete a ritual to re-open the Hellmouth, beneath the wreckage of Sunnydale High School. Buffy and her team of Xander, Willow and a reluctant Spike enter the dynamited High School and soon find the three demons performing the ceremony. They see no sign, however, of the sacrifices. Buffy rushes the demons and while they are occupied, Xander steals the blood and Willow takes the bones. Playing a deadly game of keep-away, Willow tosses the bag of bones to Spike. The demon fighting Xander manages to take the vial of blood from him and the demon then flees and jumps down a crevice in the floor. The rumbling and quaking that follows causes Xander to realize that the demons themselves are the sacrifices and they must be prevented from jumping into the hole with the ritual items. Buffy is fighting one demon while the other is beating on Spike. Eventually, in a rage, Spike lashes out, with a fist to the demon's face. Flinching in anticipation of the pain, Spike is surprised to find there is none. Testing his theory he smashes the demon again, in the face. He is delighted to discover that he can hurt demons without the chip in his head protesting. He begins to take out a lot of his recent frustrations on the monster. Unfortunately, in his fury, he throws the monster with the bag of bones into the hole. As the rumbling and quaking become constant, Buffy instructs the others to get out, before the damaged building collapses. A falling beam hits Spike and Xander is the first to leap to his aid. Xander and Willow carry the dazed Spike out as Buffy continues to battle the remaining demon. He gains an advantage and has her down, about to pummel her. Buffy's hand finds a stake and plants it in his chest, but besides a howl of pain, it has no effect. As he raises his hand, Riley grabs it, spins the demon around and begins to punch him. Buffy warns Riley that everything depends on keeping the demon from reaching the Hellmouth hole. Another falling beam knocks Riley down, giving the demon a break. He grabs the Word of Valios from the floor and crawls into the hole. Buffy moves to follow him into the hole, but not before Riley attaches to her a thin rope, from a spool on his belt. Buffy and the demon free-fall, deep into the abyss. Above, Riley plays out his line, until he reaches an end and wraps it around a cement-reinforcing rod as an anchor. He then struggles to pull her back, using the slim lifeline. Finally, a small hand emerges from the pit. Riley manages to pull her out and her other hand has the demon by the arm. As they both emerge from the hole, the demon falls dead and the rumbling quake stops. Together they have prevented the ceremony from being completed and survived it. When they emerge Riley, in full commando dress, tries to make lame excuses to Xander and Willow. He tries a couple of times, but he can see in their eyes, that the jig is up. When he eventually notices Spike, whom he knew as Hostile 17, he asks if they've met. Spike slurs his words into a strange accent and claims to be a buddy of Xander's. Willow can't help but smile as Riley and Buffy walk out together. The next day, Riley is in his room when Buffy arrives to talk some more. He is upset over how quickly something he has treated as an important secret is now known to even more people, and it's due to his inability to maintain his cover with Buffy and her friends. Now, HE has a depressing outlook on the future. Buffy uses a different approach to snap him out of it. She kisses him, repeatedly. Meanwhile, Spike interrupts Xander and Willow's television viewing with pleas for them to all go out Demon hunting. As they sit watching in stunned silence, he tries to pep talk them into getting out there and fighting evil. He struggles a little trying to come up with a list of puppies and things they're supposed to defend, but his enthusiasm to visit violence, on whatever he can do violence to, is genuine. Summary by: OBCooke at EpisodeGuides.com |
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