Buffy the Vampire Slayer S05 E04 – Engorgio!

Previously: A demon rolled into Sunnydale and his Slayer destroying plans backfired in a way that also, thanks to contrivance, allowed Xander to get a promotion and a sweet apartment.
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Out of My Mind

Sweeney: The episode begins with Buffy surveying the cemetery from the top of a crypt, clearly in full-on hunter mode. She runs around, staking vampires before they even come out of the ground. She’s interrupted by Riley, who stakes a few vampires before Spike also shows up and also fights off a vampire. Buffy is annoyed by all the interruptions (K: Can’t say I blame her. Get your own sacred calling, yo.) and takes this frustration out on Spike with some pointless stay-away-or-I’ll-make-more-empty-threats-at-you banter.

Kirsti: I mostly love how indignant he gets when she’s like “EW YOU JUST TASTED YOUR OWN NOSE BLOOD.” Vampire, Buff. What did you expect?

Lorraine: I don’t think she expected him to literally lick his own wounds.

Sweeney: Vampire or not, I’m with Buffy and Lor on the, “EW.”

Spike notices that Buffy is annoyed with Riley too and says she should send him on home to bed. They walk off and Riley overactive puppies, “I’M NOT ANNOYING YOU, AM I? I’M NOT TOTALLY IN THE WAY, AM I?” To be fair, in his life after The Initiative, it makes a lot of sense that he’d want to be back in the demon hunting game. Plus, he sees this as his primary link to Buffy — having just conceded that she doesn’t really love him.

All this Riley-at-the-present-moment defending aside, I’m not going to miss him the tiniest bit when he’s gone. (K: Cosigned) Behind them, Spike soliloquizes about turning Buffy’s neck into a chalice. Roll credits.

Lor: Seriously, how obsessed is this guy right now? He’s a great, counterpart to Riley’s puppy-ing. He’s an evil overactive puppy. 

Sweeney: On campus, Buffy and Willow are having a post-class debate about the French Revolution, and Willow has an adorable nerdgasm because she’s been waiting for that moment for forever. Then she makes a brain joke and loses Buffy, who insists that Willow’s still the smart one.

K: Aww. They’re so adorable. Shame Buffy’s boobs are making friends with her belly button again…

Lor: Additionally, I’m only now getting around to mention how ORANGE Willow’s hair is this season. I can’t even look directly at it.

Sweeney: Willow adds that Buffy has been very good with the book thing. Buffy laments that she really hoped it would be less actual hard work and more like movie!hard work, where there are montages and inspirational music. I feel you, Buffy. I have this thought all the time.

K: YUP. This whole job hunting thing would be much better in montage form.

Sweeney: You should make your own job hunting montage. I would hire you if you made your own job hunting montage.

At The Magic Box, Xander is making shelves for Giles as Anya helps arrange things. Buffy and Giles go off to train as Willow and Tara discuss the possibility of hiring a psychic to tell fortunes at The Magic Box. Willow suggests Tara do it, and Tara awkwards that she’s not that good, mostly as a means of changing the subject.

Buffy goes into the large empty space they’ve been using to train (I’m not even going to call contrivance on this because I’ll buy that mortality rate of Magic Box owners had a negative effect on surrounding businesses as well, so yeah, sure, The Magic Box just happens to have enough space to house another shop) and is tackled by Riley. Oof.  Riley. Stop it. Calm down. I was defending you mostly on principle to begin with so I only need about an 1/8th of a reason to abandon your cause.

K: I kind of wish she’d gone on Slayer reflex and punched him in the face. Because you can’t tell me that if anyone grabs the Slayer from behind, she’s not gonna start swinging.

Lor: She probably smelled Riley’s puppy smell a mile away.

Sweeney: Once Buffy gets up, she sees that Giles and Xander have fixed it up into a really super legit training area for Buffy. Riley continues to be fucking obnoxious in the background, bouncing around and babbling about whether or not she can take him (UGH). Buffy ignores him and goes back to her thank yous before running off to change.

Later that night the zoomy camera man is hopped up on something and running through the cemetery and breathing heavily because of all the running, you see. In Spike’s TARDIS Crypt, he’s watching TV (K: WATCHING DAWSON’S CREEK, NONETHELESS) when Harmony bursts in, panicking because Buffy is out there slaying with a stake and she’s totes certain that she is now Buffy’s arch nemesis. Spike gives her some excellent ORLY? face. Harmony promises to do anything in exchange for him giving her shelter from Buffy. Spike’s R U SRS face speaks for the audience, but Harmony’s actual best line ever is after Spike repeats the “Anything, will you?” and she responds “Oh…you mean will I have sex with you! Well, yeah!” A+ Harmony.

Then she earns a bonus point for hacking through a cigarette. “I am a villain, Spike. Hello??” Spike then goes on to say that he’ll need Harmony to kill Buffy. She relents, but only if Spike agrees to do the thinking. That’s probably best, Harm.

K: As much as Harmony’s a pain in the arse, she’s kind of great in this episode.

Lor: It’s a good thing they are entertaining together, because I swear to you we’ve seen this “let’s kill the Slayer!” scene one time or twenty.

Sweeney: This is aggressively recycled, but yeah, they’re entertaining enough that I don’t mind it much.

Unpleasant Biley sex times, with more of Riley’s overcompensating for his lack of alternative hobbies and sense that his relationships is dissolving. In the Summers kitchen the following morning, Dawn is talking about how every kid tries to make the substitute cry. As a former substitute teacher: STFU, DAWN. I never thought I was going to cry on the job. I once heard some kids say atrocious things I’ll never forget about my sister and wanted very badly to smack them, but never cry. Joyce says that being a sub is extremely difficult job. LOL. Mostly not really.

K: I’ve never in my life tried to make an emergency teacher cry. But we DID manage to convince three consecutive Mandarin teachers that they’d said every single test they set us over the course of two years was an open book test. It’s incredible how fast my grades in Mandarin dropped once we got a teacher who called us on our bullshit. Sigh.

Sweeney: Anyway, then she has a really bad headache, asks Dawn who she is, and faints. Dawn presumably manages to call an ambulance because we cut to Buffy and Riley arriving at the  hospital to find that Dawn has been hanging out with a hospital intern named Ben. They chat as Dawn tunes them out and plays with the stethoscope, holding it up to everyone’s chests. She gets to Riley’s and finds his heart beating insanely fast.

K: I find it hard to believe that Buffy wouldn’t have noticed that at SOME point during their oh-God-make-it-stop sexytimes. Or that Riley himself wouldn’t have been like “Huh. 150bpm seems a little high. Maybe I should get that seen to…”

Lor: Additionally, these two scenes are more, “Dawn was written younger,” evidence, IMO. I mean, cereal toys?

Sweeney: SO MUCH. This was all clearly written for a much younger kid.

After a Not Commercial Break, a doctor is telling Riley that it’s insane for him to leave because as high as his pulse is, he’ll probably have a heart attack soon. Buffy tries to get him to stay, but Riley’s all, “Meh. I was used a lab rat, so now my heart’s magic!” I’d be more on team, “You were used as a lab rat so fucking yeah you stay and have non-crazy doctors observe you,” but maybe that’s just me. (K: NOPE. Not just you.) Riley is saved by Joyce who enters with Dawn to say that the doctors are all done with the tests, so it’s time to go home.

Lor: You guys have me freaked out about this whole Joyce thing. Damn it.

Sweeney: At the house, the girls (Willow included) are trying take care of Joyce and it’s precious. It would get very boring very quickly and not very much like a TV show, I suppose, but they’re all so precious right now. Can’t they just freeze frame and sit around and be precious for a little while longer? Joyce ruins it by being worried about Riley. Buffy insists that it’s NBD if he says it is before we cut to her in her bedroom telling Willow and Dawn that she doesn’t get why he’s being the way he is. “I’m sorry Buffy, I’m trying too hard to make it OK,” Willow offers, after offering too many Rileysplanations. Yerp.

Willow suggests that Buffy go to The Initiative for help, but she has no idea how to go about that. She says that while Big Brother can spy all they want there’s no way to make them listen to her when she has something to say. I feel like I failed my university for being unable to find a suitable Snowden/NSA-related joke here. Dawn, who has mostly been making useless little kid contributions up to this point, says that Buffy should just try to say something to get their attention if she believes they’re spying, like how she occasionally writes fake shit in her diary to see if anyone’s snooping. With that, Buffy gets IDEA face and runs off.

K: Clearly, she’s going to write an email and leave it in drafts for the NSA to find. #currentaffairsjoke

Sweeney: Thanks for the save, Kirsti.

Buffy goes to what I assume is Riley’s post-frat-house apartment. He’s out, but she picks up the phone and we hear a weird wiretappy click. Buffy says that Riley’s in trouble and needs help before she hangs up.

Riley’s in the middle of a basketball game when Graham (!) (While I hate all things associated with The Initiative, I always liked Graham, so he gets an exclamation point.) (K: Agreed. I’m glad it was the Orange Wiggle who died and got monster-ified and not Graham) appears with some other army dudes that Riley recognizes. They say that Riley needs help, having been pumped with the most chemicals of all. Riley’s not really down with trusting the government to knock him out and do experiments, which, you know, fair enough. This is why you should have stayed at that damn hospital, though, but whatever. Graham tries to reason with him but ultimately says that they’re not really giving him a choice. Then Riley goes crazypants and takes them all out before running off.

Then we see a badly bruised Graham explaining the situation to Buffy. In short: a less cool version of The Bourne Legacy.

K: Less cool AND lacking in Jeremy Renner. LAME. 

Sweeney: Riley’s mega strong and feels no pain but also his heart is probably going to fail and kill him. He tells Buffy that there’s a doctor who can help if she can just get him to the hospital.

We see him wandering around looking for Adam’s cave before jumping to The Magic Box, where Buffy is all sorts of pissed. As much as Riley has annoyed me in this episode, I’m not a big fan of what-is-empathy?!Buffy. Xander subtly tries to suggest that the issue is Buffy’s lack of feelings for Riley, but Buffy doesn’t pick up on it.

Lor: To be fair, he does it by way of, “I have this friend,” and he lost me too…

Sweeney: They start coming up with potential locations, of which The Initiative caves are one and Spike happens to know them far better than any member of the gang.

She says something about how nasty Spike’s crypt activities must be before we jump to him playing a very innocent game of 20 Questions in the TARDIS Crypt. Innocent re: Buffy’s comment, that is. Spike looks just about ready to stake Harmony. Then they hear Buffy making a thunderous approach and Harmony hides. Buffy offers Spike cash to deliver Riley to the hospital. He asks for half up front and she rips it in half and hands it to him. OK, Buffy, now your mood has just become nonsensical. Given that you haven’t recently found a bag of leftover racist bank money, you should be a bit more careful.

K: Seriously. I kind of wish Giles had been on hand to make disapproving faces. Especially seeing as it’s probably his money.

Lor: It’s great that I giggled when she slapped Spike, but when she tore the money in half, I was all, “WELL. Why’d you have to go and do that?” #poorbloggerproblems

Sweeney: +1 to all the things you both just said.

At the hospital, Graham goes to talk to this magic military doctor, who says that it might already be too late. They hear a knock on the door and it’s Spike and Harmony, who have killed the security guard posted outside. Spike tells the military doctor that he has a new patient.

After a Not Commercial Break we get a nighttime shot of Buffy at that same just-outside-the-cave spot where we saw Riley earlier. We cut directly to a medical teaching facility of some sort where Military Doctor is trying to say that this procedure is way complicated and could leave Spike a vegetable. Harmony is there with a crossbow to kill this doctor in the event that he fucks up. No pressure!

Lor: People are making very interesting health choices this episode. I’m not sure Spike should be all, “yeah, just use whatever you got!” about brain surgery.

Sweeney: Willow and Tara are wandering through the ruins of Sunnydale High School (!!!) (Several exclamation points for SHS) (K: Appropriately, I’m wearing my SHS t-shirt right now) and Willow pulls a magic light trick which is better than the version Tara taught her, which makes Tara antsy.

K: I don’t blame her. It’s kind of like this:

Sweeney: In the cave, Riley is punching rocks. He tells Buffy that it doesn’t even hurt as his hand is bleeding. More rah-rah-I-can-handle-this and Buffy tells him to cut the crap. He says that if he goes back to the government doctor, the best case scenario is that he’ll be “Joe Normal” and that’s not enough for Buffy. He goes on to say that as she gets stronger she pulls farther away.

Buffy is taken aback by this, insisting that he knows her better than anyone and that it’s insulting to suggest that she’s only been with him because he had super powers. Also, because I know it’ll feature heavy in the comment-analysis of this episode (or at least this conversation) she adds, “If that’s what I wanted, then I’d be dating Spike.” I’m just gonna leave that line there and let you all do with it what you will.

K: Ehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe. This is made even better by the fact that Sweeney had a little Freudian slip while writing this post and put “Spuffy sex times” instead of “Biley sex times.” I fixed it against my own better judgement, but this gives me the opportunity to mention it. 

Sweeney: You’re the worst.

Buffy continues to say that she needs Riley and that even if he doesn’t trust her, she’ll still make him go. He relents and asks her to take him there.

Lor: I don’t even know what to do with the conversation, though I suspect I’d have much more to say if I knew the future. Whatever problems that Riley and Buffy have, though, I don’t think it’s a super power thing. I mean, not that I think B could date a “normal” guy, but just that this was over regardless of if Riley was super or not. This was over way before he ever he decided to go to the doctor.

Sweeney: Agreed. I’m on the fence about whether I think Riley knew that or not, but mostly I think he did. I feel like this little suicidal temper tantrum was more about a desperate wish to salvage the relationship than his actual belief that THIS is the sole issue. He pointed out in the last episode that he knows Buffy doesn’t love him. He’s spewing a bunch of bullshit about Buffy only being interested in him for the superpowers, but I think it’s more about the fact that without them, he suspects the last thread holding the relationship together will break. He’s not entirely wrong, but his fixation on this issue isn’t helping.

Our magic military doctor is poking around Spike’s brain while Harmony rambles. She asks if she can touch Spike’s brain and both Spike and the doctor are all, “NO!” so that we see that Spike is awake.

They keep using these downward shots of Spike and they’re awful because it’s so blatantly obvious that the the blue curtainy thing doesn’t even have a hole in it where his head might be. Spike also moves his head around a whole bunch and this is such a ridiculous gripe, but it’s sloppy and annoying.

K: Agreed. Derek Shepherd this doctor is not. 

Lor: My favorite is that he bleached coif is perfectly in tact. Ain’t no brain surgery threatening his supernatural hair gel.

Sweeney: Spike’s gel-coated helmet of hair is a magic all its own. Somebody should spread the word to other vampires that investing in magical hair gel seems to enhance Buffyverse longevity.

Buffy and Riley arrive and find Graham coming to. He explains that “Hostile 17 and a blonde girl” were there. Buffy quickly guesses what Spike would have wanted the doctor for and adds that he wouldn’t have stayed at the hospital because it would be too risky. As Riley gets visibly weaker, Graham becomes Captain Obvious, noting that they don’t have much time to get him help.

As they go off to figure out where Spike could be, Buffy talks about killing him so we can segue magic to Spike talking about killing Buffy. Then the doctor says the chip is out, so Spike orders him to stitch him up so he can get to the killing. After a Not Commercial Break Spike is being stitched up on the back of his head — which hadn’t been at all exposed to the doctor so also makes negative sense. This annoys me less than the lazy blocking because obvs they weren’t going to mess with THE HAIR. (And seriously, the blocking thing was just pure laziness.)

Anyway, Spike thinks he’s fine so he goes to eat the good doctor, but Buffy and Riley arrive just in time to stop him. There’s a brief stand-off that ends when Harmony accidentally fires an arrow into Riley’s leg. Fighting ensues and eventually we see that Spike’s chip is still very present.

Lor: …but…but. He can’t bite her, but he fought her headache free. WTF?

Sweeney: They cheated a little here, having him do a lot of weird jumping around and stuff. I don’t know what the shit he was doing, or why he wasn’t putting up a more sincere fight (contrivance!) but he didn’t really get serious until he went in for the bite. They definitely played it fast and loose with that chip in this scene, but I’m not entirely clear on which part was the least sense-making.

The fighting is interrupted when Riley collapses. Spike sees that the doctor merely tossed a penny into the random dish to trick Spike into thinking he removed the chip.

K: Pretty ballsy move considering Harmony has a crossbow and an itchy trigger finger.

Lor: I think a few minutes of Harm babbling convinced the doctor that bitch is slow.

Sweeney: Agreed. He knew Harmony wasn’t a hugely significant threat. Buffy calls for him to help and Spike and Harmony take that opportunity to flee.

In the cemetery, Spike freaks out to Harmony about the Buffy situation. She’s everywhere and he can’t get rid of her. “She’s haunting me. This has got to end.”

Riley and Buffy have a, “See, we’re still OK,” chat after his surgery, but then she runs off and Riley gets a serious, “Nope, not OK,” face. Later, he’s limping around with Graham who tries to convince him that there’s nothing for him here. He points out essentially what everyone has been saying in the comments: that he used to have a purpose and now all he really does is be Buffy’s boyfriend.

We see Buffy enter the TARDIS crypt, vowing to kill Spike once and for all. She goes in for the staking, but can’t do it, so Spike kisses her.

She pulls back but then kisses him again. Just in case you hadn’t already guessed DREAM SEQUENCE, Buffy throws in a, “Spike, I want you,” moan before Spike wakes up, freaking out. “Oh, God no. Please, no.” Yerp.

K: That whole mortal enemies thing really took an unexpected twist, huh Spike?? LOLOLOLOLOL.

Lor: Fantastic.

 

Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy learns more about her little sister who has been around “forever” in S05 E05 – No Place Like Home.