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Episode 4.11: Doomed | Episode 4.13: The I in Team
Characters:
| Buffy | Xander | Willow |
| Giles | Spike | Riley |
| Anya | Tara |
Overall (6/10)
Buffy:
It's Buffy's birthday again. Which, of course, means something bad is going to happen. The girl can't catch a break.
The beginning of the season saw Buffy struggling to adjust to her new life at college. With this episode, she seems to have fully embraced that life, along with Riley and the Initiative. This is where we start seeing the fracturing of the Scoobies. In this episode, Buffy would rather make with the loving with her new boyfriend than spend her birthday with her friends. She also is hailing the glory that is Professor Walsh instead of keeping Giles filled in on what's going on. In short, she's neglecting her friends as she becomes more integrated into the Initiative and her relationship with Riley. This will cause conflict very soon.
But let's look at her current relationship with Riley first. Even though Buffy has established herself as the Slayer, she is almost afraid of Riley finding out about her strength. Instead, it's something she's almost ashamed of as she knows that a lot of guys would find it off-putting. She constantly tries to downplay her own accomplishments to him. At this point in the series, Buffy has yet to fully embrace her status and strength as the Slayer and this shows in her willingness to sacrifice her strength for Riley's ego.
That being said, once Giles is presumed dead, Buffy quickly takes charge of the Scoobies and of the situation in general. Buffy hasn't had many opportunities to be the leader yet, but she very capably delegates tasks and does what needs to be done. We also see, when it comes down to it, Buffy will assert her independence from the Initiative.
Xander:
Xander gets little to do in this episode. We see he's still with Anya, of course. And he still seems to be schooling her on "proper" human behavior, usually to humorous effect.
While Buffy is embracing her new romantic relationship, Willow is keeping hers hidden, for obvious reasons. Right now, the Willow/Tara relationship is still being played as subtext, but we can assume that there's a romantic element at this point given what comes later. Willow has finally found someone who she can practice magic with. It's telling that their minds are able to be in tune so easily with the rose. This speaks to the similarities between the two that I noted in Hush.
This episode primarily belongs to Giles. While Buffy is spending her days with Riley and Willow's with Tara, Giles is left out of the loop. He's reminded that he's older than the Scoobies and that the title of being their "former librarian" isn't exactly a strong bond. When his role as a father figure is directly challenged by Professor Walsh (And indirectly by Buffy), Giles is at his wit's end.
In typical BtVS-fashion, the show takes his feelings of being an outsider and makes them literal as he's turned into a demon by Ethan Rayne. Not only that, but he's slowly gaining more and more demon-like traits as the episode progresses. This is in contrast to human-Giles in this season, where he is at a fairly stagnant part of his life. It's almost as if Giles has been stationary so long he's started moving backwards on the cultural scale, which is indicated by his fumbled mythological references to Professor Walsh.
His conversation with Walsh provides interesting conflict and insight into his viewpoint regarding Buffy. We see that Giles is of the belief that one should take a "hands-off" approach (As noted in The Freshman). This is consistent with his later actions in S5 and S6. It also pits Giles, the father figure, against Walsh, the mother figure. Too bad she didn't stick around because this could have led to some interesting developments.
At the end, Buffy realizes how necessary Giles is to her and they are able to move forward. But it doesn't exactly fix the problem of Giles' midlife-crisis. That's something that won't really be resolved until S5.
Now that it is known that Spike can defend himself against demons, he moves out of Xander's basement. It's appropriate that he be the one to help Giles. As Giles tries to figure out where he is in his life, Spike is doing the exact same thing with his new situation. In that way, they are on a similar character journey for the season.
This is also the first time since Becoming Part 2 that we see Spike actively help a Scooby (outside of a spell). Given that Giles was in demon-form at the time, Spike could have just killed him to quench his bloodlust. But, apparently, money is more important to Spike. Actually, even before the offer of money, Spike doesn't seem particularly inclined to kill Giles upon realizing who he is. One might wonder if Spike feels some hint of loyalty to him for the help earlier in the season.
This is a big episode for Riley. He and Buffy have decided to move ahead with their relationship. But it's in this episode that he's faced with the full truth about the Slayer. Buffy may try to downplay it, but Riley can tell how incredibly strong and capable she is. I think his line that he's not sure he could take her is telling. He's okay with strong women as long as they're not stronger than him. With Buffy, he's suddenly confronted with a woman who's not only stronger than him, but is more independent and better in a leadership role.
By the end of the episode, he says he likes it. But events in S5 seem to contradict this, and I think this deserves a harder look.
I think Riley is swept up in the complete adventure that comes with the Slayer. He seems excited whenever he talks about it, while at the same time looking unnerved by the strength Buffy shows. In the previous episode we saw that Riley seems to like the excitement that comes along with demon-slaying. The Slayer must surely be seen as the embodiment of that. So I don't think Riley was lying at the end of this episode. I think he is enthusiastic about her simply because of what she is. He's infatuated by the novelty of the Slayer, if you will.
This will fade, though, as reality sets in and he sees that the Slayer isn't always "fun". That will happen in S5.
Anya's still getting involved in Scooby-business. Her actions when Spike is leaving are interesting. There is the feeling that she is trying to emulate human behavior that she's witnessed before in giving Spike the lamp, and is unable to understand Xander's reasons for not wanting it. Her treatment of Spike, though, is fairly friendly and it seems like there's hints of the shared understanding the two have as demons or former-demons. This will be highlighted again in Where the Wild Things Are and will play a big part in S6's Entropy.
Tara doesn't have too much to do. She remains Willow's dirty little secret for now.
Ethan Rayne comes back to town. Chaos ensues.
This is Ethan's last episode on the show, and what a shame. He's an interesting villain because he doesn't have much in the way of motivation besides "make chaos". That opens a lot of possibilities when he's around. It's disappointing he never came back.
This episode has the first mention of 314 and of the imbalance caused by the Initiative. It further hints at the conflict between the Slayer and the Initiative while at the same time having Buffy become closer to Riley and, through him, the army guys.
A surprisingly rich episode that develops Giles, Buffy, and Riley quite a bit. It integrates well with the arc. Has a good villain. I don't have many complaints, really.
Special performance award goes to Anthony Stewart Head for the demon make-up. Oh, you knew that was coming.
6 out of 10.
The conversation between Giles and Professor Walsh. It highlights Walsh's character while also providing insight into Giles' character. If only more had been done with the conflict between these two later on.
Episode 4.11: Doomed | Episode 4.13: The I in Team
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