Guest Starring: 
     
 Leonard Roberts: 
 (Forrest) 
   
 Bailey Chase: 
 (Graham) 
   
 Ethan Erickson: 
 (Luke) 
   
 Anastasia Horne: 
 (Laurie) 
   
 Anthony Anselmi: 
 (Partier) 
   
 
 
  11. Doomed.  
   
  It's the end of the world again; Buffy and Riley work together for the first time in order to prevent it.  
   
  Great quotes:  
   
 
An apocalypse demon.
  • Buffy is upset Riley has never heard of her: "Look it up. Slayer, comma, the."
  • Buffy: "... the dorm that brought us the 'somebody sneezed' party and the 'day that ends in a y' party."
  • Forrest responding to Riley going on about Buffy: "Yes she's cool, she's hot, she's tepid, she's all-temperature Buffy."
  • Buffy: "I told you! I said 'end of the world' and you were like 'poo poo Southern California poo poo'."
  • Spike to Willow and Xander: "Buffy fights the forces of evil. You're her groupies ... she's just too much of a softie to cut you loose." He then pulls a wickedly evil smile as he walks away from them.
 
  Fantastic moments:  
   
 
Spike's back and he's a "Bloody animal!".
  • Buffy rains on Riley's parade as she rips his ideas about battle evil to shreds. She asks him "Do you know what a Hellmouth is? Do you have a fancy name for it? 'Cos I went to school on it for 3 years." She also, much to Riley's distress, makes a very accurate guess at the military set up of the Initiative.
  • Spike re-discovering his 'evil' touch is the best bit of the episode, "I can hurt a demon; I'm back and I'm a BLOODY ANIMAL! ARGH!" In the final scene he then tries to convince Willow and Xander to "... go out and kick some Demon arse. Come on, for justice ... and the safety of puppies ... and Christmas. Come ON!" They merely sit in silence and look at the TV.
  • I loved Spike's rubbish 'Hick' accent that he puts on to try to avoid detection by Riley.
 
  Duff Bits:  
   
 
  • It's a big shame that the actual apocalypse stuff isn't taken the least bit seriously throughout the episode.
  • In the ritual to re-open the Hellmouth, the Scoobies and Spike manage to steal the blood and bone (apparently required for the ceremony) away from the demons' possession. So did they need the blood and bones or not?
 
  Dean's comments:  
   
 This episode feels oddly disjointed, and the world-ending stuff seems unnecessarily co-incidental to Buffy and Riley's new relationship. I think it would have been better to have them work through the mundane chore of vampire 'slayage' as opposed to an apocalypse. The episode encapsulates some of the forth season's major themes though, Buffy is being quite insular in her own life, not telling Giles things, ignoring Willow and avoiding Xander. Essentially she's living the university life and moving away from her old friends for better or worse. There are a couple of references to Faith as Buffy psychoanalyses Riley, telling him that it's immature and dangerous to think slaying and fighting is fun. 
   
 5/10 
 
Home, previous review, next review.