Season 4, Episode 13

Written by David Fury

Directed by James A. Contner

Original Airdate: 7 February 2000

"Everyone's getting spanked but me."
Willow

REGULAR CAST

• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers

• Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris

• Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg

• Marc Blucas as Riley Finn

• James Marsters as Spike

• Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

GUEST CAST

• Amber Benson as Tara Maclay

• George Hertzberg as Adam

• Leonard Roberts as Forrest Gates

• Bailey Chase as Graham Miller

• Jack Stehlin as Doctor Angleman

• Emma Caulfield as Anya Jenkins

• Lindsay Crouse as Professor Maggie Walsh

CO-STARRING

• Neil Daley as Mason

SYNOPSIS

• Willow, Anya and Xander play poker and discuss Xander's plans to start selling the incredibly healthy Boost bars. They question the intentions of Riley and the Initiative. Buffy impresses Professor Walsh as she quickly passes a test of her strengths and fighting talents. Buffy talks about her night, but Willow's quiet evening spent with friends doesn't seem to compare. The Scooby Gang has plans that night to meet at the Bronze.
  
  Giles visits Spike at his new crypt and gives Spike his money. Spike tries to make it clear that he has no interest in helping them anymore. Riley takes Buffy into the Initiative, which she is incredibly impressed to see. Led by Professor Walsh, Buffy is given the tour of the facility, and then is basically made a member of their team. Tara tries to give a crystal to Willow, but Willow doesn't want to accept. Professor Walsh enters their secure labs and room 314. After exchanging words with her colleague, Dr. Angleman, Professor Walsh checks up on her special project, a part-demon, part-human creature named Adam.
  
  Buffy is an hour late meeting her friends, and when she does show, she brings Riley and other Initiative members. Willow and Buffy talk about things, and Buffy reveals that she's now working with the Initiative. Willow questions how much trust Buffy should put in with them, and then Buffy rushes off with Riley and friends when all of their pagers go off. After being abandoned by Buffy, Willow goes to Tara's dorm room. Buffy and the commandos go out in teams to find and bring back a missing demon. Forrest is head of his own team, but is still upset because Buffy took his spot on Riley's team.
  
  Forrest spots Hostile 17 and sends his team after the vampire. As Spike is running away, they shoot him with a tracer so that'll they'll be able to keep track of his location. The demon attacks; Buffy and Riley team up and fight it together. Afterwards, they go to Riley's dorm room to spend some quality time together and consummate their relationship. Professor Walsh watches from a secret camera hidden in Riley's room. Desperate, Spike goes to Giles for help and is forced to give up the last of Giles' money in exchange for that help. That day, Buffy is surprised to see Riley is still in bed by her side when she wakes. They talk, but when Buffy asks about 314, Riley gets a call from Professor Walsh, requesting his help. Walsh talks with Dr. Angleman and they decide it's time to go with their plan to get rid of Buffy.
  
  Giles tries to remove the tracer from Spike's shoulder, but it's difficult and they don't have much time. Buffy gets back to her dorm room just as Willow is also returning from her night out. Buffy is beeped by the Initiative and is sent on a solo mission. Wearing a microphone and camera, complete with a heart monitor, Buffy goes on the mission, but it turns out to be a trap set by Professor Walsh. Riley goes out with a team to find and recover Hostile 17.
  
  With Willow doing a spell to buy them time, and Spike passed out from drinking, Giles continues his attempts to get the tracer out of the vampire's shoulder. It is finally removed and flushed down the toilet just in time to save Spike from Riley and his team. Buffy fights with two demons, and the heart monitor looses her heartbeat when she drops it to the ground. When Riley returns from his mission, Professor Walsh informs him that Buffy is dead. Having killed the two demons, Buffy comes on to the video camera and informs Walsh that her attempts to kill the Slayer failed. Riley sees this, and then walks out on Walsh.
  
  Buffy returns to Giles's place, now very upset that the Initiative cannot be trusted. Walsh talks to the sleeping creature, Adam. An arm from the demon Buffy and Riley were sent out to capture has been attached to him. The Initiative has not only been running tests, but using various body parts from demons to build Adam. When Adam wakes, he skewers Professor Walsh with a tusk growing from his hand, speaking one word: "Mommy."

TRIVIA

• George Hertzberg becomes the season's Big Bad, and makes his brief, first appearance as Adam in this episode. Jack Stehlin also makes the first of three appearances as Dr. Angleman.

• Dr. Angleman and the Polgara demon were named by David Fury after regulars at the Official Buffy site's posting board (Angle_man and Polgara).

CONTINUITY

• Buffy states to Giles that Ethan Rayne 'worships chaos and tries to kill you.' She's referring to the events of the previous episode, as well as Ethan's prior appearances in Halloween, The Dark Age and Band Candy.

• Giles pays Spike the money he promised him for helping him while he was Fyarl demon, again referring to A New Man. Giles however, gets the money back before the end of the epsiode.

• Riley tells Buffy that Professor Walsh liked Buffy before he did, referring to the conversation he had with Maggie in The Initiative.

• While helping Spike, Xander says that 'My pseudo-soldier memory bank tells me that’s a tracer.' He's referring to the time he temporarily became a soldier due to a spell in Halloween.

• Adam awakens at the end of this episode and will become the chief villain from this point on. He also kills Maggie, but reanimates her corpse before Primeval.

• Buffy's surprise at Riley being there when she wakes up is a reference to the only two times she's had sex, with Parker and Angel. After those encounters, Buffy woke up and was alone.

GOOFS

• Buffy holds Walsh's papers at different heights in different shots when she first goes to the Initiative.

• Walsh goes into room 314, and the door shuts behind her. In the next shot, we see Walsh entering the room and the door shuts again.

• When Buffy and Riley have sex, the pillowcases change from striped green and white to dark red.

• Spike has a hole in his t-shirt from where he was shot by the Initiative, but his coat has no hole in it.

• When Buffy is crouched over the map of the sewer system, her arms are crossed with her hands near her elbows. In the next shot, her hands are clasped together. In the next shot they are crossed again.

• When the demon in the sewer knocks Buffy down, she falls in front of the gun, with her head to it. In the next shot, she's shown to the right of it, with the gun near her left arm.

• In the last episode, Giles got a new phone but in this episode his phone has returned to the old one.

• In this episode, Buffy tells Maggie that she was thinking about getting a pager, but she already had one in season one's Never Kill a Boy on the First Date.

The Freshman | Living Conditions | The Harsh Light of Day | Fear, Itself | Beer Bad

Wild at Heart | The Initiative | Pangs | Something Blue | Hush | Doomed

A New Man | The I in Team | Goodbye Iowa | This Year's Girl | Who Are You | Superstar

Where the Wild Things Are | New Moon Rising | The Yoko Factor | Primeval | Restless