Writer:

Marti Noxon

Director:

David Solomon

Regulars:

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 Stars:

Amber Benson as Tara

George Hertzberg as Adam

Leonard Roberts as Forrest Gates

Bailey Chase as Graham Miller

Jack Stehlin as Doctor Angleman

JB Gaynor as Little Boy

Saverio Guerra as Willy

Emma Caulfield as Anya

Cast:

Amy Powell as Reporter

Andy Marshall as Scientist #1

Paul Leighton as Rough-Looking Demon

Karen Charnell as Shady Lady

Adam appears again in all his Frankenstein's monsteresque glory. (See last week's Monstervision for more info on the story of Frankenstein.) An interesting note: in Chapter 10 of the book the monster says: "Remember, that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam." Adam is also very philosophical, as was Frankenstein's monster. Also, the murder of the little boy is somewhat reminiscent of the monster's murder of a little girl in Frankenstein. In a twist on the original story, Adam is also a cyborg, who describes himself as a "kinematically redundant, bio-mechanical demonoid, designed by Maggie Walsh; she called me Adam and I called her Mother; ...in addition to organic material, I am equipped with GP2D-11 infrared detectors, a harmonic decelerator, plus DC servo." A cyborg is an organism which has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices. Cyborg comes from the contraction of "cybernetic" and "organism." An example of a cyborg would be Lee Majors as Steve Austin (not to be confused with Stone Cold) in the 1973 TV movie The Six Million Dollar Man and the 1974-1978 TV Series of the same name. The Six Million Dollar Man is an astronaut and test pilot who is rebuilt and equipped with nuclear powered artificial limbs and implants after being mutilated in a plane crash. Some people are referring to Adam as a triborg, since he is part man, part demon, and part machine.

Little Boy

Mutilated by Adam in a woodsy area of Sunnydale.

Initiative Member*

Dropped from a catwalk by Adam at the Initiative Headquarters.

Dr. Angleman

Skewered by Adam at the Initiative Headquarters.

Total: Three (* - Yes, it's possible that the commando Adam dropped didn't die, but it seems quite reasonable to think that he did. In fact, Adam probably killed him before he dropped him.)

Xander: "Storm the Initiative? Yeah, let's take on those suckers!"
Buffy: "I was thinking more that we'd hide."
Xander: "Oh thank God."

Buffy: "Maggie tried to kill me."
Anya: "It didn't work, but they're all upset anyway."

Riley: "That's hostile seventeen."
Spike (in his bad American accent): "No. I'm just a friend of Xander's... Bugger it. I'm your guy."
Buffy: "This is Spike. He's um... it's a really long story. But he's not bad anymore!"
Spike: "Hey! What am I, a bleeding broken record? I'm bad! It's just... I can't bite anymore, thanks to you wankers."

Xander: "I totally get it now. Can I have sex with Riley, too?"

More quotes from this episode...

• Buffy: "And the next thing I know, it's raining monsters."
  Xander: "Hallelujah."

This is a reference to the 1983 Weather Girls song "It's Raining Men." The applicable lyrics: "It's raining men, Hallelujah, it's raining men."

• Spike: "Gotta hand it to ya, Goldilocks. You do have bleeding tragic taste in men."

Goldilocks is the girl with golden hair in the Grimm Brother's fairy tale "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."

• Willow, Buffy, and Anya are watching a Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Originally, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were the stars of Warner Bros. theatrical cartoons. Like their contemporaries, they were packaged into Saturday morning's The Bugs Bunny Show, but by 1966, the two had become popular enough to earn their own spin-off. Created by legendary animator Chuck Jones, the series had a simple premise: The coyote, who was very hungry, tried to catch the Road Runner, who was very fast. Wile E. would try anything to catch his prey, utilizing a wide variety of products from the Acme Company (rocket skates, giant magnets, foot springs, etc.) Regardless of the scheme, it would always backfire, and Wile E. would end up trapping, flattening, or blowing himself up. It looks like the episode they were watching may have been 1959's "Wild About Hurry." (Info from YesterdayLand.)

• Giles (to Anya): "I'm surprised you could hear it over your Wagnerian snoring."

Richard Wagner (1813-83), pronounced "Vahgnur," was a German opera composer. His most famous work is probably Ride of the Valkeries (40K). Giles is comparing Anya's snoring to the notoriously loud operatic works of Wagner.

• Anya: "It's not like he was in The 'Nam. He was G.I. Joe for one night!"

"The 'Nam" is, of course, The Vietnam War, which was conflict in Southeast Asia, primarily fought in South Vietnam between government forces aided by the United States and guerrilla forces aided by North Vietnam. The war began in 1954 soon after the Geneva Conference provisionally divided Vietnam into the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). It escalated from a Vietnamese civil war into a limited international conflict in which the United States was deeply involved, and did not end, despite peace agreements in 1973, until North Vietnam's successful offensive in 1975 resulted in South Vietnam's collapse and the unification of Vietnam by the North.

G.I. Joe debuted in 1964 as an 11-1/2 inch soldier "doll" for boys. Named after the 1945 movie The Story of G.I. Joe, it became the first boys' "action figure" in the world and was dressed in military clothing. Still a very popular toy for young boys, they are now approximately 4 inches tall and produced by Hasbro.

• Anya: "Can't you do something else to help them, like Xerox handouts or something?"

Xerox was founded in Rochester, New York as The Haloid Company, a maker of photographic paper, in 1906, and was renamed Xerox Corporation in 1961. Haloid coined the word "Xerox" as the trademark for their photocopy machines in 1948. The word Xerox is now used generically, like Kleenex or Frisbee, as both a verb and a noun for the act of copying and the copies themselves.

• The I in Team

  Since this episode picks up exactly where "The I in Team" left off, it's basically one big continuity note.

• The Buffy & Angel Chronicles and The Harsh Light of Day

  Spike refers to Buffy's "tragic taste in men," and Anya refers to "that whole thing with Angel." For a refresher course on the Buffy and Angel relationship, check out The Buffy & Angel Chronicles, the second video set released in the US. One could also argue that the "tragic taste in men" would also include Parker, whom Buffy slept with in "The Harsh Light of Day," and didn't want anything to do with Buffy afterwards. (Spike overheard a Buffy/Parker conversation and figured it out.)

• Hush

  Spike comments that Xander's basement is good enough for him to stay in, but not Giles. Spike was forced to stay there when Olivia came to town and Giles wanted Spike out of the house.

• The Initiative

  Riley recognizes Spike as Hostile 17 and states the Initiative has been looking for him for weeks. Though Spike was caught by the Initiative in "Wild at Heart," he escaped in "The Initiative," which is also when we learned that he was "Hostile 17."

• Doomed

  When Riley recognizes Spike, Spike begins to use the same accent and excuse that he used in "Doomed" when Riley first saw him (though at that time, he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and blue jeans, which threw Riley off the scent).

• A New Man

  Buffy makes more mention of 314, which she only knows about from Ethan having mysteriously told Giles about it in "A New Man."

• The Dark Age

  Giles' "tattoo," the Mark of Eyghon, is shown when he turns off the TV at Xander's. A conduit for summoning the demon Eyghon, it was first shown (and explained) in "The Dark Age."

• The Zeppo

  Willy mentions the Apocalypse demons (a.k.a. Jhe demons) who beat the crap out of him in "The Zeppo." That was the last episode we saw him in, as well as the last time Buffy was there.

• Halloween

  Buffy refers to Xander having "military experience," referring to when he was turned into a soldier in "Halloween" and retained the memories as though they were real (though the memories have been fading of late).

• When Buffy describes what took place in the sewers, she says that the gate slammed down, and then she tried to use the gun. However, she actually used the gun first, and the gate dropped a moment later. Sure Buffy's memory may not be flawless, but there's no good reason for it to have been written that way.
        Spotted by Ross.

• Buffy tells Giles that Walsh sent her on a one-way recon, followed by a shot of Giles looking concerned. A few moments later, after Spike implies that Riley was in on it, they cut to the exact same shot of Giles looking concerned.
        Spotted by CatieE.

• Spike no longer has a hole in his shirt from where he was shot with the tracer last week, even though the episode picks up where last week left off.
        Spotted by Danielle.

• Angleman slips (presumably in Walsh's blood) and lands with his hand in her blood at least a couple of feet away from Walsh's body. However, in the shot from above, the blood appears to stop much closer to her body, very much shy of where Angleman is. Later, the smear from where the blood was cleaned up does extend out to where it was when Angleman fell.

• When Riley and Forrest see Walsh's body and Forrest implies that Buffy killed her, Riley points at Forrest with his left hand as he says, "You better not be saying what I think you're saying." The camera cuts mid-sentence, and from the new angle, Riley is pointing with his right hand.
        Spotted by Max.

• It is very strange that Spike would have a TV in his mausoleum, especially a warm one (which means he'd been watching it). One would not expect electricity in a mausoleum. He could possibly have the extension cord plugged in to an outlet somewhere in the cemetery, but that's not very secretive for a guy who's supposed to be hiding from the Initiative. He must really want to make sure he doesn't miss Passions.

• There are a couple of continuity errors. The Polgara demon was captured the night before this episode starts. However, the second day into the episode, Riley says that "the Polgara demon [we] captured last week" must have killed Walsh. Later, Willy says that he heard a Polgara demon was in town and taken off the streets "a week or two ago."
        Riley's goof spotted by JosephB.

• Buffy takes the bandana out of her hair and wraps it around Riley's hand. A few moments later, she's wearing it again (though of course it's still on Riley's hand).
        Spotted by Kim.

• Adam puts a second disk in his drive without having taken out the first. The only explanation is that he may be designed to "eat" the disks once they're inserted, but that would seem odd.

• Riley doesn't have a tear in his shirt from being skewered by Adam.

• Angleman also does not have a tear in his lab coat from his skewering, nor is he even bleeding (though there was blood on Adam's skewer).
        Spotted by Mathew.

• When the commandos burst into the room after Adam leaves, Forrest doesn't believe Buffy that there was a demon in the room, even though Adam should have been visible through the window in the door.
        Spotted by Ross.

• Yes, we noticed that Riley isn't wearing the bandana on his hand when he goes to the IHQ and that he has it on later at the hospital. However, there is no good reason why he couldn't have put it in his pocket, and there are many reasonable reasons why he may have taken it off in the first place (the simplest being: to scratch his hand), so in our minds, it's not a goof. Please don't email us about this. Thanks!

• They are watching the news on Channel 14 again, which they watched for the news in "Consequences" and "The Harsh Light of Day ."

• Buffy's "yummy sushi pajamas" are real, and are made by the same company (The Cat's Pajamas) that made the butterfly pajamas she wore in "Beer Bad." Click here to see the sushi pajamas (or order a pair for yourself).

• A new goddess mentioned by Willow: Thespia, "protector of the night" and "ruler of all darkness." In Greek mythology, Thespia was the (not extremely well-known) daughter of the River God Asopus and his wife Metope. The city of Thespiae was named after her.

• Lou Reed - "Romeo Had Juliette" (From New York, Warner Brothers, 1989)
  This song plays when Buffy enters Willy's Place.
  Official Site

Jeremy:

In this big-screen worthy performance by the whole Buffy cast, there is one definite standout: Marc Blucas. If this episode can't bring around all of the people that don't like his character, I guess nothing will. His performance was astonishing. We finally get a Buffy boyfriend who will actually speak his feelings. I also thought that Tara was becoming a better character when we first see her again in this episode. She seemed more confident and pretty, but in a matter of moments her stoner-like personae reappeared. My feeling about the spell's sabotage by her is simply that she was scared to invoke Thespia in order to pinpoint demonic activity. I have a feeling that Willow hasn't bothered to tell her yet the whole scoop on demons, vampires, etc. Either that, or Tara has a pet demon cat in the closest that she didn't want Willow finding. (Oh wait, I guess that would be our cat.) I never really thought one way or another about Willy, but he was a welcome face to see again. Now, I think, would be the perfect time for an X-Files cross-over to investigate the deaths of the two principal Initiative scientists. I'll have to admit it, my eyes felt strangely wet during some of the scenes from this episode. (9/10)

Jamie Marie:

Well, by golly, that was fun. Marc Blucas is not only a cutie-patootie, but he can act, too. :-) Not that I thought he couldn't, but he hadn't been tested much. I think he did excellently with this material. I felt both sorry for him and yet frustrated with him at the same time. Adam is pretty darn cool — I don't understand most of those big words that he used to describe himself, but he's an interesting opponent. Intelligent, philosophical, violent as hell, and just plain different. He's set up to be not easily destructed, which is good. (If he gets killed in less than a few weeks, I'll be a cranky Jamie.) Loved the Spike development, because it makes sense. And, of course, it leaves him with no choice for socialization other than the Scooby Gang. The Scooby Gang sleepover was also a pleasure, as was Forrest's performance — in an "I would love to kick that boy's ass" kind of way. Grrr. Graham, while clearly not as bad as Forrest, also disappointed me. When he moved in front of Buffy to take Riley away, I totally expected him to at least mumble an apology under his breath. Bad Graham! My major gripe this week is the whole "medication in their food" thing. Huh? Food? We have never seen them eat at IHQ, though we have seen them eat in the cafeteria. They made a very big deal last week out of showing Riley taking his vitamins, and then they go and say it's in their food?! Way to waste a setup. Grr again. Aside from that, definitely an excellent episode. (9/10)