Previously: Joyce got brain cancer, giving us all the feels.
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Into the Woods
Sweeney: We begin in the hospital. Buffy and Riley are sitting together while Dawn naps on Buffy’s lap. Giles is fretting about trying to be useful while Willow and Xander bicker about the painfully slow passage of time. Once we have sufficiently driven home the Everybody Feels Like This Is Lasting Forever-ness of the situation, we see a doctor walking down the hall and they all stand up. Then the credits roll to keep us waiting a little bit longer. Rude, show. Just rude.
Kirsti: SRSLY. Also: I love that all the Scoobies are there. I mean, yes, they’re there in part to support Buffy. But at the same time, as much as we’ve hated on Joyce in the past, she’s a surrogate mother to most of them.
Lorraine: This set-up was nicely done. Again, the infinite waiting room wait is something a lot of us can relate to, and as the music swelled and the camera panned in on Buffy as she sucked in a giant breath, waiting to receive the doctor? I almost broke down in tears right then.
Sweeney: Agreed on both points. I loved that the whole gang was at the hospital, and Buffy’s face when she was waiting just gave me all the feels. The news? They got the whole tumor! She’s going to be OK!
Lor:
Sweeney: Everyone hugs, including Buffy giving the doctor an overly aggressive slayer hug. From there, we jump to Xander’s apartment where Dawn is spending the night. It’s kind of precious and I’m going to pretend Kirsti never sent me that life ruining spoiler from the comics because I’m never ever going to read them.
K: Sorry I’m not sorry. I had to share that shit with someone.
Sweeney: Worst. Still the worst.
Xander is trying so hard to play older brother to Dawn and Anya’s having a thousand-year-old-demon-who-doesn’t-get-modern-society night. Eventually Dawn tells them to chillax because she’s just there “So Buffy and Riley can boink.” Ew. Thanks, Dawn. (K: I watched this moment while eating dinner. Goodbye, appetite…)
Over at the Summers home, Biley is dancing in the living room which is full of an annoying number of candles. They recap everything we already know, importantly, the fact that Buffy had sad feelings she never shared, and then we get a needlessly long sex scene. (K: Seriously and unnecessarily long. Like S04E18 kind of long…) (L: Awkward watching TV at work just got more awkward.) Outside, pervy Spike is watching Buffy’s window and smoking. Did having Angel as a grand-sire bestow some genetic vampire lurking skills? Is that a special coven trait of theirs or something?
This particular creepy stalker outside your window episode is useful for our plot, you see, because Spike sees Riley leave in the middle of the night and follows him to a building that he enters from what appears to be a sketchy alley.
At the hospital, Joyce is trying on wigs as Buffy is having fun mother/daughter time. They’re being super cute, though Joyce insists that Buffy has other stuff to do, like classes she stopped attending and a boyfriend she’s been ignoring. Buffy’s all, NBD — he’ll come over for “bible study” later. Joyce says that’s good, “As long as the two of you are spending quality time with…the Lord.” A+ and 1430 for you, Joyce. I know that’s a rare sentence on this blog, but you earned it.
K: It was pretty fabulous. I might even go so far as to extend her half a Sandy Cohen Eyebrow.
Sweeney: I forgot about all those negative Sandy Cohen eyebrows we gave her! Yeah, sure, Joyce. Have a whole eyebrow!
Meanwhile, The Temporary Initiative Team is doing some planning over maps and shit in what looks like a hotel room. There’s talk of a super cool mission and Graham suggests they get Riley in on it, though it’ll take some convincing. Boss man asks what’s so special in Sunnydale to segue magic us over to Buffy, who wakes up to a noise that she thinks is Riley. It turns out to be Spike. They banter, and Spike insists that he has something super important to show her.
K: Contrary to what you might think, it’s not in his pants.
Sweeney: 1430. Spike takes her over to the random place he saw Riley enter the previous night. Inside it appears to be a vampire den, of sorts. There are humans being fed on, though they’re all still alive. Spike tells Buffy not to start slaying because that’s not what they’re there for. They go upstairs where they find shirtless Riley telling the female vamp nomming on his arm to suck harder.
After a Not Commercial Break, Buffy and Spike run out. Spike sounds a little self-congratulatory with his, “I thought you should know,” but when he sees how hurt and upset she is, he gets sad puppy face. Buffy says nothing and runs off.
K: Really, Spike? How the hell did you think that was going to turn out?!
Lor: I’m thinking he thought it would end with, “oh, thank you Spike! Let me take off my clothes for you now!” Something like that.
Sweeney: Something like that. Riley is stopped as he tries to leave, because the vampires are pissed that he brought the slayer around there. He punches this vampire and runs out. Meanwhile, Buffy is returning to her bedroom and is full of feels. From there we cut to Riley entering his apartment to find some Initiative soldiers waiting for him in the dark. It’s pretty fucking creepy.
Lor: Just a lot of creepy going around in this episode.
Sweeney: SO MUCH. Anyway, they are there because they are headed to terminate a demon tribe in Belize and they want Riley to come. Riley tries to say that he’s a civilian and they’re all, “LOL, you’re a soldier.” Truth, yo. Apparently, they aren’t actually government and are also not The Initiative. Whatever. I’m going to keep calling them that. It’s the only life I know and also I don’t care. They tell Riley they’re leaving at midnight tomorrow and it’s up to him whether he wants to join that party and go back to having shit to do.
K: As the resident Snark Squad member of Team Currently Unemployed: Riley, dude. JOIN THE PARTY.
Lor: Money and benefits, son! Plus sometimes you get to watch TV at work.
Sweeney: At The Magic Box, Giles is hanging the most inclusive holiday banner of ever. “And so it begins – no longer a victim of crass holiday commercialization; I’m a purveyor of it.” Anya laments that someone ordered more chicken feet, though the others haven’t sold. She suggests a free-with-purchase holiday special and everyone teases her this idea. Anya gets very offended and her response is kind of adorable:
Said every retail employee ever. Anya continues to be nasty and a bit less adorable until Buffy enters to change the subject. She wants to research a vampire nest where people were probably paying vampires to bite them. “Now I know what to get for the person who has everything,” Xander jokes. I do vaguely remember this being the season where I started to really like him.
K: Agreed. Also, I feel like we should give Willow an award for wearing jeans and a pretty cute argyle sweater. Not a crazy birthday cake to be seen!
Lor: Her hair has been doing an adorably flippy thing as well. Just, as long as we’re talking about it.
Sweeney: It’s funny because a few people seem upset that we named the fashion disaster badge after her. When I say “we” I mean “me” because I was pretty adamant about that. IT’S ALL OUT OF LOVE, I PROMISE. But good for you, Willow, having decent clothes and cute hair. I won’t take the badge name back, but good for you.
Giles tells Buffy that some people get addicted to that and when Xander asks why the vampires don’t just stake people, Anya’s expertise makes her useful again. (Usefulness, that all-important character likability boost!) The vampires don’t kill because they get cash, hot blood, and don’t need to dispose of corpses. Giles than adds that it can be super dangerous for humans.
Buffy goes into hyperkill mode. Giles tells her to slow her roll because she has way more important fish to fry than the occasional accidental death of moronic humans who put themselves in harm’s way like that. Xander suggests waiting for a strategy and/or Riley. With that, Buffy’s all, “K, BYE!” So the gang all follows, leaving Anya to watch the store.
K: Her “Have a nice day! Don’t get killed!” is equal parts adorable Anya and completely plausible Sunnydale greeting.
Sweeney: Indeed. A+ for Anya.
When they get to the nest, the vampires have all fled. The gang isn’t too concerned, but Buffy is flipping a gasket. To deal with her pent up rage, she takes the fire pit they left behind and chucks it at the wall, lighting the building on fire. Calm down, crazy.
Back at Spike’s TARDIS Crypt, he’s drinking when Riley shows up and roughs Spike up a bit as Spike taunts him. This makes me giggle a little because this is how my brothers were growing up. They are eight years apart and my older brother is a BIG dude, but my little brother would taunt him mercilessly, even as he was getting his ass kicked. The witty quips were too fun for him to resist. ANYWAY, Riley stakes Spike!
K: I watched this episode with a 15 year old girl and she gasped in horror at this moment.
Lor: AS DID I! It was mostly a gasp of, “what contrivance will explain his ultimately living?!” It was a long gasp.
Sweeney: LOLJK. After a Not Commercial Break, Spike is screaming in pain for a bit before Riley pulls out the stake and points out that it’s actually plastic. (L: Oh.) Riley says he knows what’s going on with Spike and says to stay away from her or he’ll kill him real dead. Spike laughs at Riley as he leaves, telling him that Spike’s interest in Buffy isn’t Riley’s problem. Riley comes back and grabs at Spike’s open wound, as Spike continues through the pain:
“You’re not the long-haul guy and you know it. You know it, or you wouldn’t be getting suck jobs from two-bit vampire trulls. The girl needs some monster in her man, and that’s not in your nature — no matter how low you try to go.“
Riley releases Spike and, after a pause, asks if Spike really believes he has a chance. He doesn’t, but believes a fella’s gotta try anyway. Riley says he’d kill him real dead if he touched Buffy. Spike’s all, “LOLZ, if I didn’t have a chip, you’d be dead already,” and tosses Riley the booze.
Spike laments that he perhaps got the better deal than, Riley who gets to be that close to her and not have her. Then he’s all, “Nah, but you get the sex, so JOKES.”
Buffy is in her shmancy new training facility punching the shit out of a punching bag. Cut to Xander, asking how long she’s been at it. Anya says a while, and she’s srsbsns about it. She starts to have an awkward demon story moment, but it’s interrupted by Riley’s arrival. He tells them to go so he can have alone time with Buffy. On their way out, Xander lectures Anya about weird-demon-ness for the millionth time this episode and then rebuffs her suggestion that they go have sex. She looks a little hurt.
K: I kind of hate the fact that Anya’s been human for the better part of two years now and they still constantly bring up the “she just became human so doesn’t understand society” nonsense.
Lor: Agreed. Let’s just all agree that Anya, as a human, just has Cordy syndrome. Tact is just not saying true stuff.
Sweeney: YES. THIS. So much this.
Inside the training space, Riley says they need to talk, but Buffy would rather keep punching. Riley persists and says they better go ahead and fight it out. Buffy agrees to hear Riley out. He says it started with Buffy letting Dracula bite her — adding that he wanted to know what Dracula and Angel have so much power over her. He says that the girls — and Buffy interrupts, calling them vampires, killers, and whores — needed him, on some basic physical level.
He goes on about primal needs and crap, that Buffy never feels and Buffy’s all, “DAFUQ is this comparison?” Riley basically says that he needs her more than she needs him and I don’t care enough about this argument to rehash all of it. I hate this whole final plot for Riley, because it feels like some unnecessary villainization of his character. I’m not justifying it — it’s awful and after being largely sympathetic to Riley’s S5 feels, this is beyond that. I also hate, however, that it was written in the first place because it cheapens the actual dissolution of this relationship. It shifts the focus and makes me feel emotionally manipulated as an audience member, like I’m being told how I’m supposed to feel and where to assign “blame” for the end of this relationship. We get stuff like this often in what we cover and I need a name for this. (It’s what I was complaining about with Noel Kahn on Tuesday — that they added the skeezey blackmail element to make his actions evil, as if the only reason one would out Ezria is for evil blackmail purposes.)
K: Agreed. They’ve taken Riley from the guy who feels left out to a total douchebag who makes everything about him. Their relationship has been falling apart for a long time, and it’s been a fairly organic process. The sort of thing that just happens sometimes. Instead, they’ve turned that around and made it a giant Riley’s-an-asshat situation. It’s kind of like they wanted to get rid of Riley but didn’t quite know how to force the break up, so decided that an ultimatum was the way to go. In short: UGH.
Lor: I think I’m going to be alone in this opinion, and I’m not disagreeing with what you all have mentioned, but I’m a little more okay with this development. Yes, it sort of cheapens the big picture of just how much this relationship was falling apart, but at the same time it was a progression of that. Without someone hitting a wall, these two would be drifting in space forever, with nothing to bring them together or finish tearing them apart. The whole vampire whore thing is strange, but to me, a believable rock bottom for Riley. He saw what was happening, but was never going to speak up. Buffy didn’t even see what was happening. SOMETHING had to be the catalyst.
To me, the point of the speech at the end wasn’t to reassign blame but to make it clear that no one was to blame. Riley made mistakes, Buffy made mistakes, but also, he just wasn’t her long haul man.
Sweeney: I don’t think you’ll be entirely alone in this opinion, partly because I think that there are a lot of people who are super eager to see Riley fuck up so badly. While the relationship fell apart slowly, the actual end was pretty abrupt and hasty. Kirsti has a point at the end of the post about how this should have gone down and that’s pretty much where I sit on this issue.
End game is that Buffy insists that she’s given him all that she can and if it’s so deficient that he needs to get his kicks elsewhere, then that’s too bad. With that, Riley confesses the whole they-asked-me-back thing. He said he’s not sure if he’s going, but it basically depends on her. She flips out because he is definitely giving her an ultimatum; forgive me or I go.
Buffy finally leaves and outside she is met by the Whore Vamp Gang, who say they’re not running. She tells them not to do this right now, staking the whole lot of them in about 8 seconds. There’s one straggler, who Buffy remembers as the one she saw with Riley. She lets her go, but thinks better of it as the vamp runs and throws her stick, staking her in the back.
Xander appears, having also been lurking about, so that she could have someone to talk to. He asks if that made her feel any better. Buffy tells him to go home, but he says she needs to calm down because she’s acting all crazypants. He follows her into a random place I can’t identify. “Take this, for instance. You don’t want to deal, so you hide? Not very slayer-like.” Maybe not slayer-like, per se, but there’s a track record of this being Buffy-like.
K: I kind of love it when Xander plays this stating-the-obvious-and-also-talking-sense-back-into-people role. This is one of the first times we see it, but it’s most definitely not the last.
Sweeney: Again with usefulness! It took him a while to grow into his primary role in the group, but that does seem to be it from here on out.
Buffy tries to say that he doesn’t know what’s going on. Xander’s all, “Ha. Right. I’ve been watching this shit implode for weeks now. HOW COULDN’T YOU SEE IT?” (To be fair, Xander, she has recently been somewhat distracted.) Buffy then recaps the news of this episode, which Xander did not know. He asks if she’s just going to let him go, and she’s all, “Not my decision and also NOT FAIR.”
Xander then picks up where Spike left off in pointing out the actual reality of their relationship, independent of this stupid sub-plot. He tells Buffy that when she says she thought Riley was “dependable” what she actually means is “convenient.” Accurate. Then Buffy plays the, “I know I am, but what are you! NEENER NEENER!” game, comparing his relationship with Anya to this. I mean, that definitely started out pretty true, too. I’d say that relationship has shifted in ways that Riley/Buffy never did, but Buffy’s not entirely pulling that out of her ass.
Xander gets defensive, but says that what happened here was that she got burned with Angel and shut down when Riley came along, never really letting him in. He adds that if what Riley needs from her really isn’t there, she should let him go and make it a clean break. If, however, she really thinks she can love him, “I’m talking scary, messy, no-emotions-barred need,” then letting him go is ridiculous.
With that, Buffy gets FEELINGS face and Xander tells her to run, which she does. Riley is waiting just outside the helicopter. Lots of waiting/running cut back and forth. When Buffy arrives, however, the helicopter has just taken off and he can’t hear her shouting below. Realizing she lost him, she leaves and we get sad shots of Buffy walking home.
K: Womp womp. But also, Team Heartless Cow says WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
Sweeney: Meanwhile, Xander is at Anya’s place, telling her that he’s powerfully, painfully in love with her. This is a lovely little moment, because their relationship has happened so in the background that it has been easy to view it as we did in the beginning, partly because that’s still how Buffy sees it, I suppose. I like Xander/Anya together; they improve each other. This scene was a nice counter-point to the end of Biley.
Lor: Additionally, Xander was fantastic in this episode. Anya, being sort of new to everything herself, highlights how much Xander has grown.
Sweeney: Definitely, and not just by comparison, in a Xander >Anya sense, but in that we see his maturity and empathy more when he is with her.
Back to Biley: we get two more sad shots of Buffy and Riley before the episode ends. I really liked Xander’s little speech, but not so much the decision to go after him. I’m glad Biley is done, I also just really hate the way they ended it. The relationship was a good demonstration of the complexities of maintaining a love life as a slayer (whereas Angel being a vampire was the core issue with Bangel) I think this ending fell short for some of the less mystical character-driven aspects (and short-comings…) of this relationship. Spike and Xander both had great little speeches that addressed those issues, but I feel like everything got weirdly tangled up by that stupid sub-plot.
K: Agreed. I feel like this is something that could have been better played out over the course of several episodes rather than forcing a breaking point all at once. Like, have one episode where Riley’s asked to come back, an episode or two in which he debates the decision, maybe mentions it to Buffy and talks about how useless he feels in Sunnydale. And THEN force a breaking point. But not in an ultimatum-y way, because GROSS. It’s not Wednesday on Snark Squad, Whedon.
Lor: Again, I’ll be the odd man out. I really liked this episode and it gave me all sorts of feels. The ultimatum sucked on Riley’s part, but it was supposed to. I just think that they were never going to get to a, “this isn’t working for me. You either? Okay! Bye!” point. And also it wouldn’t be very good TV. I think Buffy couldn’t sit down and talk about the issues of this relationship just yet, because she hasn’t even been able to recognize them as issues.
This episode does a good job of highlighting all the things Riley doesn’t get about Buffy: the way she caps her emotions, her need to take everything on, and her strength. I don’t excuse any of Riley’s behavior but I understand it.
I find it funny that Spike calls Riley NOT the long haul guy, because Riley has white picket fence written all over him. Unfortunately, that just isn’t Buffy’s long haul.
In the end, Xander asks Buffy if she is willing to stop treating Riley like Mr. Convenience, and actually open up herself to love and a serious relationship. She decides at that moment, that yes she can, but it’s too late. Things don’t always happen perfectly, and less for our dear Buffy. She arrived at a place where she thought she could open up to Riley just a tick too late. And as he flies off and she walks back home, it again highlights that they were just always going two different places.
I don’t like Riley. I will cheer the end of Biley. But this episode was well done IMO.
Sweeney: RIGHT, so I agree with everything that you are saying about their relationship. That’s all true. My point is that the vampire bite sub-plot distracts from those issues. Whatever, I’ll stop complaining: Biley is done! Huzzah!
Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Marc Blucas is out of the credits and we meet someone from Anya’s past on S05 E11 – Triangle.
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 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.
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.
