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Episode 4.13: The I in Team | Episode 4.15: This Year's Girl
Characters:
| Buffy | Xander | Willow |
| Giles | Spike | Riley |
| Anya | Tara |
Overall (5/10)
Buffy:
This episode sees Buffy in a familiar situation. Her boyfriend is in danger. Formerly, this meant Angel. Now, this means Riley. However, unlike in years past, Buffy's reaction is far more muted. When Angel was in danger, she'd go into full Slayer-mode and not stop until he was safe. With Riley, she lets the Initiative take him away at the end. She's supportive and gentle with him. But her response lacks the fiery passion of earlier years.
Why is this? Well, different guys, for one. Angel was linked to her Slayer-identity, so an attack on him was also a metaphorical attack on Buffy. While she obviously cares for Riley, he doesn't hold that special bond with her as she did with Angel. Thus, this is a much more subdued Buffy than we would be seeing if Angel were in Riley's position.
Xander:
Xander finally gets a chance to be useful. For one, his basement is used as a safe place for the Scoobies to gather after the Initiative is shown to be a threat. They'll move back out once they learn that the attempt to kill Buffy was a personal vendetta on Walsh's part and not indicative of any wish of the Initiative in general.
Xander also gets to play sidekick to Buffy while infiltrating the Initiative. Course, as Anya points out, his "soldier skills" aren't very good reason for this, but he is the only guy in the group of the correct age to look like an Initiative solder. So he gets the part. He actually handles himself quite well during the mission and manages to keep both Buffy and Riley on track in tense situations.
Willow:
Willow plays a supporting role in this one. She gets a scene where she goes to Tara for help casting a spell, which I'll discuss further in Tara's section.
Giles is, unfortunately, fairly superfluous to this episode. He's along for the ride and doesn't have much more to do.
While this is, primarily, an episode about Riley, it does have some interesting developments for Spike that mirror Riley's own journey in this episode.
In terms of Riley, this episode is about how we're shaped by our "family" units and the acceptance we earn from those units.
How does this apply to Spike? At the same time Riley is being accepted back into the Initiative and being taken to a military hospital, Spike is being thrown out of a demon bar. One of the consequences of the chip is that Spike has no choice but to fight demons to sate his bloodlust. As a result, he's a pariah among his own kind. This is following up from The I in Team where Spike outright rejected Giles' invitation into the Scooby gang.
So where does this leave Spike? For now, on his own. Adam will take advantage of this at the end of the season to get Spike to work with him. And, of course, in later seasons it will bring Spike closer and closer to the Scooby gang.
This episode is All About Riley.
Riley, as a trained soldier, is used to seeing the world in terms of black and white. People are Good. Demons are Bad. You kill demons. If you don't kill demons when you have an opportunity to, you must be Bad.
However, his relationship with Buffy has introduced him to a world that is colored in shades of gray, and Riley doesn't know how to handle it. Couple this with the withdrawal effects he's going through and you get a guy going through a bit of a breakdown.
While Buffy does have a fairly simple moralistic world-view compared to what's actually shown on screen, she still realizes the importance of those gray areas. Thus, the non-slaying of Spike and going to Willy's for demon information. To Buffy, these are small sacrifices that must be made for the greater good.
For Riley, it makes him question who Buffy is and why he's with her. At the same time, he's dealing with the fact that Walsh tried to murder his girlfriend as a purely personal vendetta. He can't trust Buffy. He can't trust the Initiative. He's in something of a shitty place, in short.
All in all, Riley's struggle is well-handled here. At the end, he's taken back in by the Initiative and has a token to remind him of Buffy. We'll see in later episodes what conclusions he comes to as regard to what's right and what's wrong in the world.
Anya shows, once again, some possessiveness of Xander and concern for his wellbeing. Other than that, she, like most other characters, doesn't have much to do.
Now in the first scene between Tara and Willow, just replace the world "spell" with "sex" and you'll get some of the lesbian subtext that's running through these magic scenes between the two of them. It's about as "subtle" as the lesbian subtext in season 6 of Xena (Yeah. I said it.)
Tara hasn't been given much to do since her introduction, but we actually get a hint that there's more to her than meets the eye. This is a lovely Joss mislead that casts some doubts as to who Tara is and if she's really on Willow's side or not. We'll find out the reason for her sabotaging the spell in S5's Family.
Some monster escapes and starts killing people. Riley goes all nuts.
Adam is now the bad guy, having taken over from Walsh.
This is where I believe the S4 arc begins to lose its footing. Walsh was set up as a wonderful villain, especially fulfilling the maternal role so the big fight at the end would be between the two "families". However, for whatever reason, Walsh is killed and we're left with Adam. Adam is not nearly as interesting or as threatening as Walsh was. Plus, it phases out the very interesting "family" angle, which is a shame.
A solid episode for Riley, though at the expense of the other characters. Unfortunate in that Walsh is gone and a more lackluster bad guy has taken her place. It also doesn't hold up well as a follow up to The I in Team.
Special performance award goes to Marc Blucas for getting all sweaty and shaky.
5 out of 10
I actually rather like the cut between the Initiative guys helping Riley up at the end and then Spike getting thrown out of Willy's. It shows the inverse parallel between the two characters at that moment.
Episode 4.13: The I in Team | Episode 4.15: This Year's Girl
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