 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| 76. The Yoko Factor Original Air Date: May 09, 2000 Written by: Doug Petrie Directed by: David Grossman Guest Cast: David Boreanaz (Angel) Emma Caulfield (Anya) Marc Blucas (Riley Finn) Amber Benson (Tara) Leonard Roberts (Forrest) George Hertzberg (Adam) Conor O'Farrell (Colonel McNamara) Col. McNamara is reporting to a white-haired man on a video screen. McNamara is upbeat about his Initiative soldiers, but worried about a series of setbacks and overcrowding among their inhuma ninmates. When his superior expresses an interest in retrieving Riley Finn, McNamara expresses confidence in their ability to capture him soon. The on-screen face says that they don't know much about Buffy and the Colonel tells him that she's just a girl. Spike is desperately trying to convince Adam that Buffy is not just any girl. Adam sees her as an interesting opponent, but Spike has a surprising confidence in her ability to stop evil; he practically tells Adam that she's unbeatable. Adam is looking forward to using her in his plans. Adam is surprised to hear that Spike has killed two Slayers, but that he cannot deal with Buffy. Spike whines that he's been unlucky and reminds Adam that he has a chip in his head, courtesy of the Initiative, keeping him from harming humans. Adam sympathizes and describes, in exquisite detail, the sensation of being trapped when all you want to do is let your savage impulses run free. Spike will only get the chip removed when Buffy is at Adam's mercy. Adam decides they will first separate Buffy from her friends. Spike warms to the idea immediately and begins to plan how he will drive them apart. Buffy arrives at her dorm room, to find Willow's bed undisturbed. [Buffy has just returned from L.A., where she went to warn Angel that Faith, the rouge Slayer, was headed in his direction. Buffy found Angel trying to save Faith from the psychological turmoil that drives her to be evil. Although Faith seemed more pathetic than dangerous, Buffy thought it was a ploy and Angel accused her of only being interested in revenge. The unspoken conflict was Buffy finding the first love of her life literally in the arms of her most hated foe and Angel learning that the only love of his life had found comfort in the arms of another, when he still missed their love. They argued and it ended badly, with Angel demanding that Buffy leave town (Angel - Redemption). Hiding, at the bombed-out Sunnydale High School, Riley is visited by Xander bearing some silly clothes for him to wear, while his are cleaned. As Xander rambles on about Angel and Buffy, Riley realizes that, while Buffy may have told him about her tragic relationship with Angel, she left out the part describing how Angel lost his soul. Xander fills in some details and Riley figures out that the one moment of true happiness that Angel experienced, that turned him evil, was having sex with Buffy. Xander leaps to the defense of Buffy faithfulness, but Riley is now nagged with doubts about her trip to L.A. Giles is practicing, alone at home, singing and playing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" on an acoustic guitar, when he is startled by the sudden appearance of Spike, who reminds him that he keeps his front door unlocked. Going to the refrigerator, Spike retrieves a packet of blood that he left when he used to stay with Giles. While microwaving the blood, presumably to body temperature, Spike teases Giles by offering to deal vital information from the Initiative files, but not to someone as lowly as an ex-Watcher. As he drinks his blood, he belittles Giles' influence over Buffy, even when he was her Watcher. Giles reaches for a drink and Spike leaves. Willow and Tara are enjoying a new kitten, black with white paws and a long white streak on her belly that reaches up to her mouth and nose. After Willow slips and refers to the kitten as theirs, Tara offers her joint custody and they get back to helping Willow pick classes for next semester. They discuss housing and Willow admits that for the first time she is considering whether she and Buffy should continue to live together, besides they barely see each other now. Buffy opens the door when Riley knocks and quickly makes fun of his clothes. She is concerned about him walking around campus while the Initiative is looking for them and especially him. He shows her a radio that he has modified to tap the Initiative frequency, so he can know their location. She is still upset from her conflict with Angel and her reluctance to talk about it makes him more suspicious. She puts off a serious discussion with a desire to get back into the field. Despite her protest, Riley takes that as his cue to leave. Xander and Anya deliver an Initiative commando outfit to Spike, in his crypt. Spike finds a pistol with the outfit and, while playing with it, discovers that he cannot even aim a weapon at a human, Xander, without the chip delivering a sharp pain to his head. He is further humiliated to discover that the pistol isn't even real. When ander dismisses his whining Spike makes a joke about what Xander will face in boot camp. Xander is confused and Anya is angry to hear that Xander is joining the Army. Spike tells Xander that he heard Buffy and Willow discussing how it would be good for Xander to join up. Xander is hurt to find that he isn't considered vital to fighting evil by his friends. Anya speaks up for Xander's abilities in bed, but Xander is on a roll, thinking his friends must joke behind his back about the series of jobs that he has been fired from. Once again he figures that the fact that he didn't go to college divides them further. Anya thinks they look down on him and he thinks that they hate Anya. Buffy is walking through the woods, armed with the blaster rifle that she took from the Initiative after her last mission for them. She suddenly comes face-to-face with a similarly armed Forrest. Forrest suggests that they part in peace, but they both have plans to check out the same cave. Forrest has no backup because the Initiative is shorthanded. He refers to the problems in the Initiative as family trouble. He called the Initiative family once before, when talking to Riley. Adam also referred to Dr. Walsh as his mother and Riley as his brother. Like Riley, Buffy scoffs at the family analogy; she compares them to the Godfather's family. As they enter the cave together, they are still arguing. They face-off and almost come to blows, before Adam speaks up and they realize they are in great danger. Buffy strikes first and pushes Forrest away when he attacks Adam. Adam throws her aside and extends the long skewer from his left wrist. Forrest hits Adam with a lightning-like bolt from his blaster, but Adam only absorbs the energy. Forrest rushes the monster and Adam runs him through, the bony spear bursting from Forrest's back. Adam throws Forrest's body on top of Buffy and retrieves a rifle. Buffy manages to get to her feet and takes a blaster charge directly to her chest, knocking her back. She flees and Adam barely misses with a second shot. She runs, limping, from the cave and loses her footing on a sloping path. She falls and rolls until she hits some rocks, where she comes to rest unconscious, her face bruised and bleeding. Outside Giles', Spike prepares for his performance. He rushes inside and convinces Giles, Willow and Tara that he just ran there after escaping from the Initiative. He gives Willow some computer disks and she looks at them on her laptop. Giles speech is slightly slurred and he is still drinking, as they wait to find out what information Spike has brought them. Spike picks at Giles' reluctance to pay him as impotence - waiting for Willow's permission to pay, still serving the whims of a girl. The files are encrypted and, as Giles wanders off, Willow worries over how difficult it will be to crack a government code. Spike undermines her confidence in her computer skills and implies that her friends think she is too distracted by her new hobby. He has noticed Tara, playing with Willow's hair and now he tells them that the others are talking about how Willow is going through a "phase". Pretending that her friends were perhaps talking about her witchcraft, but knowing that Willow will interpret the supposed remarks as being about her relationship with Tara, he tells the women that Xander dismisses Willow's new lifestyle as her just being trendy. When Tara suggests that Willow should just talk about it with her friends, Spike reminds them that they have a code to break first. At the Initiative, the Colonel is unconcerned about the violence the demons do to each other due to their prison-overcrowding problem. He enters a command center, where a desperate voice is calling for help over the radio. At Sunnydale High, Riley hears the same pleas, over his modified radio, and runs to help. He enters an alleyway just as the last Initiative team member hits the ground. His flashlight shines on the attacker - Angel. Angel instantly recognizes Riley and Riley quickly figures out the identity of this dark stranger. Angel is belligerent, perhaps because of just finishing a battle, but also perhaps because of jealousy. Riley is suspicious that Angel isn't acting like a good guy and since he only knows of one thing that can turn Angel evil and since Buffy was just with Angel in L.A., he isn't very happy with his conclusions. Angel wants to see Buffy and Riley is determined to keep that from happening. They begin to fight and despite being over-powered Riley manages to fight Angel off. When Riley hits Angel with a taser, Angel changes to full vampire mode and tosses Riley around the alley. An Initiative vehicle approaches and Angel, in a series of jumps, escapes across the rooftops. Riley limps into a space between the buildings. Buffy returns to her dorm room and examines the damage to her face in the mirror. Angel soon arrives. At first she is so non-committal, about seeing him, that he is forced to ask her to be more inviting when inviting him into her room, in order to remove the magical barrier to uninvited vampires. They barely have time to notice each other's injuries and start another argument, when Riley bursts in and aims his pistol at Angel's head. Buffy is horrified to find that these two men, her lover and her ex, have been battling each other. She tries to get both of them to back down, but they are more interested in taunting each other into another fight. As they trade punches, Buffy jumps between them and pushes them apart, violently. She threatens them both with bodily harm, if they don't calm down, and convinces them that she's serious. Buffy wants to hear Angel out, but Riley stubbornly refuses to leave the room, so Buffy and Angel go into the hallway to talk. Riley takes solace in the fact that they couldn't force him to leave the room. Buffy immediately lists the wrongs that she feels Angel has committed, from his treatment of her in L.A. to his attack on Riley. In his defense, Angel says that he was only trying to help which makes both of them laugh. He explains that he came to try to patch things up between them, because he felt bad about the way they parted and battling Riley was all a misunderstanding. Buffy admits that she barged into the situation in L.A. without knowing much about his current life. They both apologize and Angel promises next time to just phone it in. He offers to stay and help with an obviously bad situation, but she thinks it will just make things worse. Before he leaves, he tells Buffy that he doesn't like Riley and she thanks him. Spike reports his success to Adam. He compares the situation with the Scooby Gang with the Beatles and Yoko Ono. All Adam knows is that he likes "Helter Skelter". Spike opines that Yoko got the blame for breaking up the Beatles, because she was convenient, but the Beatles had just grown apart after so many years together, just like the Slayerettes. Spike pushes to get his reward, but Adam insists that there is one more thing he needs. Buffy prepares to deliver bad news to Riley and he assumes that she is returning to Angel. She is disappointed in him for being so wrong about how she feels, but he explains that he found out from Xander what makes Angel turn evil and he looked pretty evil to Riley. Riley is surprised to find out that he just met the good Angel. Even so, he thinks that the dark, moody Angel is probably more attractive than him, but Buffy cuts him off and assures him that he can trust her. He pleads love-sickness and they hug. She then tells him that Forrest is dead. Riley buries his face in his hands, as Buffy describes the fight. He suddenly rises and with barely a word to Buffy, he leaves. Willow tells Buffy, Giles, Xander, Anya and Tara that she has had no luck cracking the code and cannot predict how long it will take. Desperate for a lead, Buffy suggests going back to the cave, but Willow protests that she could get killed that way. Giles, still drinking and showing the effects, reminds Buffy that she doesn't train with him like they used to and she will lose. Xander proposes that they all arm themselves and go with her. Buffy quickly nixes the idea of Xander going and he is offended. Buffy doesn't want any of them to go and they are back where they started. Tara and Anya retreat to the safety of the bathroom together as the argument heats up. Xander complains that they have been talking about him behind his back and Buffy lashes out at him for talking to Riley about her and Angel. Willow whines that she is the one left out, while Xander and Buffy talk about her and Tara. Xander accuses them of wanting to ship him off to Fort Dix and Giles seems to think that Fort Dix is the funniest name that he has ever heard. Buffy finally realizes that Giles is drunk. Buffy tries to rally them to help her, but Willow challenges her to tell them how they are needed. When Buffy mentions Willow's wicca skills, Willow is reminded of Spike's comments earlier, when he referred to witchcraft, but Willow thought he was talking about lesbianism. Giles decides to retire upstairs to bed, as Willow takes a shot at Xander and Anya's relationship. Buffy pleads for unity, but Willow thinks that they have been putting off dealing with their feelings, since she told Buffy that Tara is her girlfriend. Xander thinks the problem goes back to when they went to college without him, but he suddenly realizes what Willow just said and is stunned. Even Giles gives an exclamation of surprise from upstairs. Buffy mocks the idea of going up to the cave together, in their current state. She concludes based on prophecy and presumably her current loss of support that all Slayers are destined to walk alone. She storms out, with a vow to find someone she can truly count on. In his underground lair, Adam is waiting for a visitor. He greets the arrival of Riley Finn. Continued in #077 - Primeval Summary by: OBCooke at EpisodeGuides.com |
 |
 |
 |
| Disclaimer Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Twentieth Century Fox, Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the United Paramount Network, and whoever else has a legal claim to it. All pictures in this site were collected freely from the internet and are believed to be in the public domain. If you are the owner of any of the images that appear on this site, please send an email to Spacenewt. This site is run by fans of BtVS, for Fans of BtVS. This is a strictly not for profit site. No copyright infringement is intended nor implied. |
|