Previously: We got a blissful reprieve from the general season 4 terrible when Buffy and Faith switched bodies.
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Superstar
Lorraine: We start with a classic Buffy beginning: our titular character is fighting off a vampire. We quickly see that the Scoobies are with her, being helpful where they can be and pointing her in the direction of a vampire who scurried away. They follow him into a crypt and find a nest of vampires who are all busy noisily slurping on a person. It’s funny to me that sometimes vampires seem to insta-drain someone, but here we get more of an extended meal. I wonder if the quick slurp ever gives them vamp-indigestion.
Sweeney: I feel like this line of thinking can’t go anywhere good.
K: Truth. That said, I like to think that the vampification process moves things around so that their oesophagus joins directly into their aorta, and therefore bypasses that whole digestive system thing. Based on my head canon, they’d get the equivalent of brain freeze from the insta-slurp.
Lor: Uh, okay. Sorry I asked.
Back outside of the crypt, Buffy guesses she can take on two of those vampires, which goes against everything we’ve ever seen that suggests she can take on between 5 and 20. Roughly. Something is amiss. I originally wrote out, “clearly this is a dream,” but yeah, it’s not that either. Not being able to see the future is hard.
The Scoobies all head off to go get some help with the nest. They approach a desk and Buffy hesitantly says she has a problem. A chair spins around and reveals a more cleaned up Jonathan offering his help as James Bond-esque music takes us into the credits.
BRILLIANTLY, the credits are inter-cut with Jonathan doing various hero-y things, including smiling winningly and walking a la Angel, with his leather coat billowing behind him. I LOVE THIS. This moment and detail is definitely one of the better things to happen all season.
Sweeney: Agreed! I love the credits on this episode. I was super confused and couldn’t remember why I hated this episode, because it’s off to a great start.
K: The credits are FANTASTIC, and despite it being totally stupid, I kind of love this episode.
Lor: The Scooby Gang is all gathered at Giles’s New Wiggins Apartment. Buffy thanks Jonathan for helping out and he good-guy-smarms about being the guy you call when there is a nest full of vampires, but probably not when there is a box full of puppies. Buffy giggles in an affected way.
Giles announces that there doesn’t appear to be any sort of ritual going on, just a regular, vampire family meal. Willow pipes in with the news that she’s secured the schematics for the crypt. There only appears to be one entrance and Buffy quickly proposes a few tactics. They are mostly ignored as Jonathan finds another way in. Willow smiles at him admiringly and Buffy’s smile falters a bit.
Jonathan dispatches the troops, telling Buffy to take the front entrance and ordering the others to back her up, only stopping to finish a game of chess and I’m sure he does something impressive there but I know nothing about chess.
K: I know that I don’t have the strategic ability to play it.
Lor: Then that is all you need to know.
At the nest, Buffy dusts one vamp as Jonathan crashes through the skylight above the crypt. Although Buffy stakes one more vamp, it’s Jonathan who makes quick work of the rest of them, including one that slips past B. She feels terrible about almost letting one get away, but Jonathan says all that matters is that she did her best.
As they exit the crypt, Buffy protests that she hasn’t been doing her best. The Scoobies note that the nest wasn’t particularly well organized and Anya’s all, “yeah but they would’ve totally killed Buffy!” Jonathan says vampires tend to be loner, shadow lurker types and calls out to an off screen Spike to confirm. Spike emerges and Buffy tries to engage him in a quip war, but she’s even her super snark power has been dimmed! Jonathan, though, gets on with the threatening and assures Spike that he will instant-soup-mix him the second he’s back to his old tricks.
Later, Willow is recapping the slaying events to Tara, who asks after Buffy. Willow seems to think B did an outstanding job, but Tara was more asking about the Faith Body Rape aftermath. Will says she’s okay though not completely over the fact that Riley had sex with Faith. That whole situation was way weird and I know there were comments last post the rape-y implications of Riley/Faith, but also this episode is so far so silly that it feels weird to delve too deeply into that whole nitty gritty here.
Sweeney: At first, I viewed it as an interesting touch to lend credibility to everything else that’s happening. “Yes, the rest of the timeline is unaffected by the as yet unexplained wonkiness. That did still happen.” Because this episode doesn’t seem like the place to work through/address that.
Lor: I’ll move right along: The camera pulls back and we see that during this whole conversation, the pair of them have been working on a Jonathan collage. Kind of like this but 87 million times less annoying:
Willow thinks Biley are probably kissing making up at this moment.
We SEGUE MAGIC over to where there is a decided lack of smooches at the Bedroom O’ Balls. Buffy notes that Riley is feeling better, and he is, though he says he isn’t taking his super soldier medicine anymore. They share a bit of a tender moment about wishing people would put trust in them. Riley sits next to Buffy on his bed, but she quickly and awkwardly stands. Aw, man. That just made me feel bad for Riley.
K: To be fair, he’s a) incredibly tanned, and b) not wearing a shirt for inexplicable reasons. She’s not used to tanned boyfriends, and the second is likely to make anyone uncomfortable in the aftermath of a “My boyfriend slept with my sort-of-sister-slash-enemy who’d pulled off a body swap so he thought it was me” deal.
Lor: I’m not sure Buffy’s problem right now is having a tanned boyfriend, but okay. We can pretend it is.
Buffy shoots his little foam ball into the mini-door hoop and misses. We also see that his BALLS. poster is replaced by one of Jonathan. I feel comfortable still calling this the Bedroom O’ Balls, however. Buffy pouts about missing the shot, so Riley stands to give her some pointers. He gets too close to her, though. She wigs and leaves.
The next day, Buffy is blaming everything on Faith, who she likens to an acid who eats through everything. She’s unloading on Jonathan and she’s also preparing him a cup of coffee. Jonathan Dr. Phils that he thinks this isn’t her being angry with Faith but rather with Riley for not looking into Faith!Buffy’s eyes and realizing something was off. That is absolutely stupid and Buffy says as much, as there is no way Riley could’ve noticed. Jonathan says he knows Buffy knows that, but she has to believe it. She needs to forgive Riley.
Sweeney: AND THEN: They are addressing that here. In this silly episode. This probably lends a lot to the general frustration that people have with how the whole thing was treated. They’re letting Jonathan play Dr. Phil for the lolz and it’s all too lighthearted for the rape factor to ever be investigated.
Lor: And not only is it not being investigated, it’s being pushed off on Riley. Like, yes Riley was violated, but still I blame him. YICK.
Also, this is another example of a third party coming in and noticing something the other Scoobies have missed, though in this case, Buffy is choosing to share with Jonathan.
K: I think one of the things I like most about this episode is that Jonathan is crazy observant. Unlike the Scoobies, who – this season at least – have a tendency to stumble around until something hits them in the face.
Lor: Anyways, Buffy wonders how to fix things with Riley and Jonathan pointedly says that if you really want something, you can make anything happen.
Somewhere that doesn’t look like The Abysmal Plot Arc Research Facility, a Colonel is introducing himself as the new commanding officer to a group of Initiative soldiers. Finding Adam is still a top priority, so the Colonel introduces their new consultant… Jonathan! This is like how he was all over a season, but crammed into one episode. Jonathan has discovered that Adam doesn’t eat, but is instead powered by a forever-lasting uranium store. To kill him, they will need to completely annihilate him.
Sweeney: I know that both of the primary people on this super secret deal are dead, but I can’t fathom that these are completely new facts to The Initiative.
K: You would think. Also, Danny Strong is TINY. Also, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I just went to IMDb to look up how short he really is (5’2″, for those of you wondering) and DANNY STRONG IS WRITING THE SCREENPLAYS FOR MOCKINGJAY. I honestly don’t know how to feel about this…
Lor: Maybe he wished that into being.
Outside of Jonathan’s house, he’s got a fangirl stalker. Fangirl Stalker is accosted by a demon.
After a Not Commercial Break, Fangirl Stalker is still screaming. She runs from the demon.
Over at The (is this the) Abysmal Plot Arc Research Facility, now Jonathan is Dr. Phil-ing Riley about Buffy. And we discussed this already, using this fluffy episode to discuss a serious matter, but I’ve now further realized that it just sucks because it’s still Riley and Buffy and despite episode 16 being great, I still don’t care about Riley and Buffy. MAKE IT END.
Sweeney: I’m not OK with this, on the grounds that it makes light of it. Also, because it’s Riley and Buffy.
Lor: At The Bronze, the Scoobies appear to be on some sort of triple date. Xander is upset because apparently Anya moaned Jonathan’s name during sex. She sort of denies it and Riley notes that they are quite the interesting couple. He wonders if she and Xander will make it, and Buffy gives him SIGNIFICANT eyes.
Riley and Buffy get up to slow dance and it’s Jonathan singing with the band which I did not notice until this moment. I missed it at first because I was busy focusing on wishing for less Biley. Anyways, this dance goes on forever and it seems Riley and Buffy forgive each other. Tara is excited because Jonathan is playing a song off the new album. Anya looks at him lovingly and suggest to Xander that they go have sex RIGHT NOW. Xander looks like he may be moaning Jonathan’s name tonight too.
The Fangirl Stalker comes running into The Bronze and Buffy stops her and tries to help, but she goes running straight for Jonathan, who promises to help her. Later, at Jonathan’s office, Fangirl Stalker is giving Jonathan a description of the demon. This demon is one of those super helpful ones that comes with a nice, identifying symbol. It’s a segmented triangle.
K: Every time I watch this episode, I think it’s the symbol of nuclear waste.
Lor: Fangirl Stalker draws the symbol and Jonathan seems to recognize it. He quickly passes the demon off as a non-threat he can handle on his own. Buffy has suspicious face.
Adam is doing library research or some other such nonsense. I don’t even fucking know. He’s watching footage of Jonathan and proclaims them all lies. The world has been changed. Adam says he knows because no one has ever been as awake and alive as he is, and that’s great because I feel like sleeping and dying every time he’s on screen. (K: A+) Adam isn’t going to do anything about Jonathan- just sit back and watch his MAGICKS! self destruct.
At Jonathan’s place, two blonde twins (ewwwwwwwwwww. Twincest.) come out and tell him to come back to bed. He says he’ll be up in a minute before taking off his robe to reveal the evil segmented triangle has been carved on his back.
Buffy is walking along with Willow and Tara, and hey. Even though this episode is a little out of the normal, it’s nice to see Tara being integrated into the group. They slipped her in there, didn’t they? Tara figures they have to go off and help fight the Triangle Demon, but Buffy says it’s a no go. Jonathan said not to worry about it. Buffy thinks he seemed scared about the Triangle Demon, but Willow brushes that off. Jonathan doesn’t get scared. That’s what Buffy’s speech said when she gave Jonathan the class protector award. A little heavy handed in delivery, but this is another nice shout out detail. Tara takes her leave and there is a pause where Willow would lean in for a kiss if the 2000’s weren’t so prudish. Instead she tenderly strokes her arm, and gives her hand a little squeeze.
Once she’s gone, Willow brings up Riley and Buffy dancing at The Bronze, but thankfully we cut away from that because seeing it was enough, thanks.
Tara is attacked by the Triangle Demon, who moves in a monkey-esque way. Weird. She manages to chant out a spell. Fog streams out of her hand long enough to detain the demon while Tara hides in a closet.
Some time later, Buffy is arriving at Tara’s Palatial Dormroom and Willow fills her in on what happened. Tara is able to give enough details about the demon that Buffy identifies it as the Triangle Demon.
Buffy heads to Xander’s Fruit Roll-Up Basement. Anya is there, but Xander is not, and she receives B with as much grace and hospitality as you would expect from Anya.
Lor: Buffy asks if it isn’t a little weird that Jonathan is so good at everything. Anya is a little put off as she’s reading a book about Jonathan and apparently he just invented the Internet. A timely reference back in 2000. (S: Al Gore joke written for the cast’s lone conservative!) (K: Are we adding that to the drinking game?) Buffy wonders if it isn’t weird that Jonathan is better than she is at slaying when she’s the Slayer. Anya mistakes this as a moment to validate Buffy and again, does it as well as you would expect from Anya. There’s a shoulder punch and a, “kill, kill, kill!” involved.
Buffy asks Anya about her days as a wish granting vengeance demon and gets confirmation that you could change the whole world with a wish- create alternate realities, like say, one where Jonathan is a loser-y mouth breather. “Just don’t ask me to live there,” Anya finishes. Anya is best when they don’t go overboard with her. It’s a fine line between funny, brash, slightly confused ex-demon and OKAY WE GET IT.
Sweeney: I felt this way the first time around. I consistently love her this time. I’m not sure what changed for me, but it’s probably that there is so little good in S4 that I appreciate even excessive Anya.
K: Honestly, I think our thoughts about things have bounced off each other and formed a giant snowball of shared thoughts. Because I was never “YAY ANYA” or “Ugh, Joyce/Xander” up until rewatching for Snark Squad…
Lor: At the New Wiggins, Buffy has gathered the Scoobies and is trying to point out the ways Jonathan doesn’t make sense: he starred in the Matrix but he never left town. The Scoobies aren’t getting it and are really just waiting for Jonathan to show up and start the meeting. Buffy meekly offers that this is the meeting. It’s about Jonathan being too perfect.
Xander protests. Jonathan is just perfect enough, what with his crushing the bones of The Master, blowing up the snake Mayor and also coaching women’s soccer. (One of these things is not like the other.) Buffy asks Anya to explain alternate universes, but her chosen shrimp example (Blah, I wish there weren’t any shrimp, you say to yourself…) isn’t communicating what Buffy wants. She stops her and explains that Jonathan is doing something and they are all his pawns. Or prawns, Anya adds. Okay: LOL.
K: This reminds me of a fun fact: “Throw another shrimp on the barbie” is something that no Australian ever would say. Because we call them prawns. Paul Hogan was lying to you, America.
Lor: TV LIES? I think not.
Riley says that even though this all sounds like nonsense, they should trust Buffy. I’m so surprised by this development. I will temporarily not think mean things about Riley. Buffy remembers something and asks Giles for a Jonathan swimsuit calendar, which he begrudgingly reveals he has. (S: I loved this. Best.) (K: Agreed) They all look as Buffy finds a picture of Jonathan where his segmented triangle is clearly on display. As they wonder out loud why Jonathan would be marked like a demon, he shows up. Anya gives Buffy’s theory away immediately. He said the mark was safe, and it wasn’t.
Jonathan offers to explain: Buffy is right. He says that he has a history with the monster and when he faces it, his mind goes fuzzy. And that’s why he had the mark tattooed on his body: to never forget. It was a pretty good excuse until that last bit, but when you’ve created a whole alternate reality, you don’t need a good excuse. The Scoobies buy it. Buffy thinks on her feet and suggests that they go find the demon and fight it then. Jonathan reluctantly agrees.
In the cemetery, Spike crosses paths with Buffy and Jonathan. B offers a lame, “shut up Spike!” and alternate reality or not, there is just the slightest hint of follow-up between Spike/Buffy when he threat-flirts to take her on.
Jonathan cock blocks. I mean, stands up for Buffy and pushes Spike off. He asks if Spike knows anything about the Triangle Demon. Spike’s all, “nope!” and Jonathan’s all, “OKAY.” He starts to leave but Buffy takes matters into her own hands when she pushes Spike back again and threatens to cut off his butcher’s blood supply. Spike is shocked that she’s suddenly growing back her Slayer Balls, but offers what he knows: some vampires were kicked out of a cave nearby.
At the New Wiggins, Riley asks if the spells he’s looking at in a book really work, like “excrete gold coins.” Anya: That one’s not so much fun. Willow says they work, but require concentration. Cue Xander not quite concentrating and setting a book on fire. Giles: Xander, don’t speak Latin in front of the books.
Aw, guys. I’ve missed them all and I’ve been watching the whole season.
Sweeney: YES. This season has been tragically lacking in excellence from the Scoobies.
K: See, this is why you learn Latin in school. Because if you did, you’d know that librum = book and incendere = to burn. And sure, there should probably be a subject and verb in there (my Latin is rusty, but the internet suggests probably volo – I want), but apparently it still gets the job done regardless.
Lor: Alternately, you could just know a Latin-based language and figure out enough to know what not to say.
Willow locates the segmented triangle in her book and it’s part of an augmentation spell. Riley uncomfortably shifts as he wonders what he, you know… augmented. Not his penis, Ri. Just him in general, and how he is perceived. It turned him into everyone’s dream, but it also created an opposing force of evil– that is, everyone’s nightmare. Apparently, all of our nightmares equal a bumpy thing that flops about like a monkey. If the monster dies the spell is broken, but Anya astutely points out Jonathan probably won’t let it go that far.
In the cave, the Triangle Demon knocks Jonathan out.
Back at the New Wiggins, Willow is amazed that Buffy was right. She’s afraid everything is going to change. Giles says everything will pretty much remain the same, except that Jonathan won’t be there. Things changed a lot more for Buffy than they did for every one else, though Xander seems to be taking the news pretty hard. He even kind of roots for Buffy to die. I’ll blame the alternate reality.
K: Either that, or it’s just Xander getting in touch with his Douchey High School Self.
Lor: In the cave, the Triangle Demon is besting Buffy. Jonathan comes around and helps her out a bit, but Buffy has to handle this beastie solo. As she fights it, the Slayer Skillz start to come back to her. She gets pushed down, and Jonathan takes this chance to push the demon into a conveniently located giant cave hole. He almost goes down with the demon, but Buffy grabs him at the last minute.
We watch as Super Jonathan gets erased from Sunnydale. A Jonathan poster goes back to being a Dingoes Ate My Baby poster and I cry forever.
The Scoobies in their pairs are all sitting together, wrapping up the episode. They seem to clearly remember the alternate reality. Xander blathers something about feeling empty in the post-Jonathan wake. Riley actually gets a couple of funny lines about the swim suit calendar sticking out in his mind, but he delivers them so blandly, he might as well be talking about boiling water.
Buffy spots a re-nerded Jonathan standing a little ways away, so she heads over to talk about them as the Scoobies conversation about who really starred in The Matrix fades out. Jonathan clarifies that only some people remember what happened and they are angry. He got the spell from someone he met in counseling, though he didn’t know the monster thing would be quite the big deal.
K: Poor Jonathan. All he wanted was friends. If he’d gone about it a more normal way, perhaps his arc would have ended very differently… *spoilers, sweetie*
Lor: Buffy says people are more angry about being sock puppets in his dream theater. She advises him to ixnay the grand gestures and just put effort into the the things he’s trying to accomplish. Though the memories of the alternate reality are getting fuzzy, he remembers that he offered Buffy some similar advice about her relationship with Riley. She smiles.
In the next scene, Buffy and Riley make out because that’s how they are going to solve their problem. Mid kiss, Buffy moans Jonathan’s name.
The comments on this episode were sort of split down the middle but I enjoyed it. It reminded me of some of the campy fun we used to have back in seasons 1 and 2. I think it suffers just because it comes after the heavy hitting Who Are You though it shines because there is so little Adam/Suck-nitiative. Danny Strong did a great job as well. Compared to some other disasters we’ve seen this season, this was fun!
Sweeney: I thought I hated this episode, but I mostly +1 all of that. Mostly. I’m pretty #meh on the episode, but it will definitely do fairly well on our S4 ranking.
Lor: Speaking of disasters, though, Kirsti’s been complaining about the next episode since forever. Have fun!
K: Excuse me while I go and cry. I think I’d rather rewatch The Zeppo…
Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tragic Magic Vagina makes it’s grand return as too much sex awakens forces of evil in S04 E18 – Where The Wild Things Are.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
