Where The Wild Things Are

S04E18

Previously on Buffy we had couples: Anya and Xander, Tara and Willow, Riley and Buffy. They argued, mooned, and smooched like couples do.

We open in a Sunnydale graveyard at night. Buffy, clad in an eye-sore ensemble of curly hair, bulky rustic-knit gray sweater, and white snakeskin-pattern pleather pants, fights a vampire. She throws the vampire across the grass, and Riley is there is beat him up some more while Buffy loads her crossbow. She aims, but lowers her weapon to smile at Riley, who is in serious danger of having his saggy-ass pants sag right off his ass. Riley holds the vamp and right as Buffy is about to shoot him, a demon leaps out and smacks Riley to the ground. She and Riley re-group, and there's a sexual innuendo that I'm not even gonna write down since I'm marshalling my resources to get through the rest of this recap. Buffy fights the demon and finally stabs him, and Riley stakes the vamp. Buffy and Riley discuss the strangeness of seeing a demon and vamp teamed up together, and that it "never happens," which we all know is not true and a complete re-write of Buffyverse history. Why, just this season Spike told Giles that he used to have Fyarl demons working for him; as another example, we also saw Spike and Angel work with the Judge. Riley picks leaves out of Buffy's hair and they do the whole "slaying makes me horny" routine which is (1) sick-making and (2) what the hell are the writers trying to say? Ooh, ultra-violence gets the juices flowing! Go out beat the crap outta someone to spice up your sex life. Gack. Buffy says they need to tell Giles about the strange pairing, but she and Riley go to his room to have sex instead. All this irresponsible, wrapped-up-in-Riley Buffy is making me pine for the mopey Buffy I complained so much about at the start of this season.

Spooky music with ooe-ooe vocals plays as the camera sneaks up the stairs in Riley's frat house. Inside Riley's room, Lil' Buffy Foo-Foo and her love-bunny are snuggled in bed. Riley wakes up, creeps out of bed, and quietly puts his pants on. As he starts to leave his room, he hears a strange, muffled noise. He quietly walks through the house as the spooky music plays, and sadly, he has not thought to put a shirt on. Enough of the Riley chestage already! I don't like him and parading him around like so much flank steak isn't going to change that. Riley and his pecs enter the frat bathroom and his biceps flick on the light. He scans the room and sees nothing except a drawn shower curtain. The music gets spookier and more intense as he approaches the curtain, but when he pushes it aside all he sees is a dripping faucet. There's an extremely unflattering shot of Riley from the bathtub's point of view and then he leans over and shuts off the drip.

Daylight. An ice cream truck is tinkling its way down a quiet street. The truck pulls over to the curb and we see that Xander, wearing a striped poly uniform and hot-dog-guy paper hat, is driving. He's asking Anya, who is riding with him, why she doesn't want to attend the upcoming party at Riley's frat, Lowell House. Xander as ice-cream guy makes me snicker, because the ice-cream guy I used to buy cherry-banana bars from in high school was the skanky tattooed lead singer of a local punk band called Useless Pieces of Shit. It always amused me to think of him selling ice cream to small children. The only other person I knew who drove an ice-cream truck used it as a front to sell drugs, and in this way saved up enough money to open his own business. I wonder if that's Xander's plan? Anya sulks that she's not comfortable around the Initiative guys, and Xander replies that they don't even know she's a former demon. As Xander clambers out of his seat and begins to dig around in the freezers, he says that the Initiative guys will be too busy flirting with other girls to notice Anya, and she takes offense, snapping that he doesn't think she's flirt-worthy. Xander realizes that he's not going to win with anything he says and Anya whines that he doesn't find her attractive anymore. He replies that she's "gorgeous," and she pouts and wants to know why they didn't have sex the night before. Xander is surprised and mentions that it's happened before, and Anya knows the exact number of times, "twice." She looks very distressed and blurts out, "I can't believe we're breaking up!" Anya, news flash: if you want to have sex with your boyfriend, it's okay to initiate it. Please, please, please stop getting your relationship advice from 1950s Ladies Home Journal, 'kay? Xander insists that they aren't breaking up, obviously confused by her feminine illogic and emotionalism (that's a swipe at you, Buffy writers, in case you missed it), but Anya says she's seen it happen thousands of times during her stint as a demon. Xander tries to tell her that "there's a lot more to you and me than the sex," and at her desperate look, amends, "Well there should be!" He gives her some talk about a relationship being work you do together, but Anya, stuck in a groove like a record my cat did the lambada on, says she's pretty and young, so "why didn't you take advantage of me?" She asks if something is wrong with his "body" and starts talking about erectile dysfunction. Xander's manhood is insulted at that and, insisting that all his parts are working, he tells her they'll have sex right there and starts taking off his shirt. He offers her "hot, sweaty, big sex" and then he and Anya both look out the vending window of the ice-cream truck to see a number of confused-looking children and their aghast parents.

Giles is sitting at the student center with Buffy and Riley and is surprised to hear that a vampire and demon were working as a team, despite the fact that he was present for the past three and a half seasons of this show. He explains that many demons think of vampires as "abominations" since they are mixed with human blood. Willow and Tara are there also, and Willow asks "what brought these two together"; Riley corrects her that they should be looking for a "who." "Adam!" realizes Giles, and Buffy says it's the most logical conclusion. Tara says Adam is "bridging the gap between the races" (and in Arizona and California, Ace and Sep are heard to yell, in unison, "By boring them into submission!"), and when Willow adds, "Like Martin Luther King," Giles gives her a look. She's rightly embarrassed. As Giles instructs Buffy and Riley to patrol the same area and keep an eye out for more demon/vamp teams, we see that the two fuck-bunnies are holding hands and feeling each other's hands up. As they continue to stroke palms, Riley says he'll inform the Initiative patrol and mentions the party being held at Lowell House. Giles is surprised at the mention of a party and inquires, "At a time like this? Who's idea was that?" A time like what, Giles? What the hell is going on that's so important? Adam has been on the loose for six episodes, none of you has done a thing about it, and nothing else seems to be going on. Riley says the party was his idea since his troops need "to let off steam." Giles sees Riley's point (but if Riley combed his hair just right it wouldn't show -- har) and then when Riley invites him, dryly says, "As much as I long for a good kegger, I have other plans." Hee. There's a song I sing to myself when recapping Buffy these days. It goes a little something like this: "Giles and Spike, Giles and Spike, only reasons for watching are Giles and Spike." Well, it might sound better if you could hear the tune. Giles says his plans are at the Espresso Pump and that it's a meeting of "grown-ups," which would be of no interest to the gang. As he talks, Buffy and her hump-hero moon at each other and let their fingers do the talkin'. Riley asks if Buffy should be at class, and when she says not for twenty minutes, Riley makes his amorous intent not very subtlely known by saying he has "a thing" to do, which would be Buffy, if you're paying attention. Buffy and her fry-daddy hop off into the woods for some bunny love. Willow shifts on her sofa and starts to explain to Giles what just occurred, but he interrupts her and says he went to university and recalls what it was like.

Lowell House. Sex noises emanate from Riley's room as Forrest and Graham walk down the stairs, complaining about how cold the house is. As they hear the heapin' helpin' of humpin' going on in Riley's room, Forrest bitches that Buffy and Riley never "come up for air." In Riley's room, Buffy and Riley are doing it, and they'll be doing it for the rest of the episode. Riley reaches into a bedside table drawer and pulls out a condom. I groan, and not in a sexy way, because of the ham-handed obviousness employed in this little PSA. In the lobby of the frat house a random Initiative guy -- not wearing a red shirt, although he should be -- throws logs onto a fire in the fire place. Forrest and Graham approach him shivering and Mason, the red shirt, says that it's still an "icebox" even though he's been working on the fire for an hour. Graham jokes about the two "heat generators pumping away" upstairs and Mason laughs. Forrest smirks. Riley and Buffy grope and moan. Ace grabs her head, then her stomach and goes to the bathroom to look for pain killers and antacids. Mason sits down in a chair near the fire and the ominous music starts. The camera pulls in close to the fire as we hear sex sounds and see Buffy and Riley grappling. The fire suddenly flares up and blasts right out of the fire place; Mason is engulfed in flame and rolls around on the floor, burning. Forrest grabs a banner off the wall to smother the fire and tells Graham to get help. Back in the fireplace, the fire is burning at a normal level again.

Anya, her hair done up in a poofy pony-tail, walks alone to Riley's frat party. As she rounds a corner, Spike leaps out at her, all vamped out, and shouts, "Aaah!" Anya screeches but as soon as Spike sees who it is, he un-vamps and flatly says, "Oh, it's you." Anya wants to know what Spike is doing and complains that he made her "yell really high." Spike's disappointment is dissipated by his realization that he scared Anya and he gets right up in her face, so close it look like he's going to kiss her (or at least that's where my mind went), and demands, "Gimme me money." Anya, her shock worn off, tells him she's not paying him and pushes him away. Spike insists that he's "robbing" her and Anya mocks him, saying she know he can't do anything because of the chip in his brain. She pushes by him, and he growls and grabs her arm, but she exasperatedly tells him he's "not even bumpy anymore." Spike feels his forehead and tries to get his game face back. Anya, her arms crossed, demands to know if he's actually successful at scaring people into giving him money and Spike happily replies that it "keep [him] in blood and beers." He add that he also is amused by frightening the humans, and when Anya snaps that she can see why he doesn't have any friends, he replies, "Look whose talking. I don't see Droopy Boy on your arm." Anya stares daggers.

At Riley's house, an incredibly dull-looking party is decidedly NOT raging. Buffy is standing with Willow, Tara, and Xander, and Riley is across the room with Forrest and Graham. As Forrest and Graham discuss Mason, the crispy critter, asking to go out on patrol, Buffy and Riley make googly eyes at each other. With his shiny dome sticking out of his high-necked turtle-neck sweater, Forrest looks like a penis. Graham attempts to speak to Riley but realizes that Riley's attention is elsewhere. Across the room, Xander is telling Tara and Willow about his ice-cream truck experience and indicates that Anya most likely won't be at the party because she was upset. What the hell was Anya upset about? She's such an albatross around Xander's neck. Xander asks, "Am I the crazy one?" and Buffy, too busy visually undressing her man-mountain, sweetly says, "Uh-huh." Willow figures out what going on, and telling Buffy that "someone" borrowed" her new peasant top and spilled something on it, she asks, "Still love me?" Buffy again says "uh-huh" and Willow smiles triumphantly. Obviously, mention of her wardrobe is more interesting to Buffy than mention of her friend's problems, and she suddenly tunes back in, asking, "What about my peasant top?" The gang affects incomprehension and explain that Xander was just talking about Anya. Xander muses that he's happy Anya no longer has her powers.

By Ace

Spike sits to the keg, which oddly enough doesn't have a huge crowd around it. One of the commandos tells him that he "looks familiar," but Spike just agrees that he hears that often. The commando looks at him curiously.

It's Xander's turn to spin the bottle and it ends up pointing to Julie, the craggy, overly made-up redhead in pink. He looks around and steels himself to give her a quick peck on the cheek. The surrounding circle giggles in approval, but Julie suddenly tackles Xander and clambers onto his lap, kissing him wildly. Xander grabs her arms and pushes her face from his, asking what's going on. Julie suddenly looks terrified and, saying that she's sorry, she gets up and runs away. After a moment of confusion, Xander gets up to follow her. He searches for her throughout the party but instead runs across Preppy Girl, shouting ecstatically and taking another turn at the orgasm wall. A circle of people surrounds her, each waiting to take their turn. Xander then hears crying in a closet and rattles the door handle. Inside we see Julie weeping and repeating "I'm bad, I'm bad" as she cuts of her hair with what looks like scissors or a knife.

Willow knocks at the bathroom door, calling to Tara, and then enters. She looks around the empty bathroom and then runs some water in the sink to rinse her face. As she dries off, she hears the same muffled noise that Riley did and approaches the same drawn shower curtain. She pulls the curtain aside and sees a boy under the water in the tub, his arms crossed over his chest, struggling to breathe. Willow grabs for the boy but he vanishes as soon as her hands touch the water. She looks scared and then turns to find the corpsey-looking boy standing right behind her. Willow screams. Nearby, Buffy and Riley are hot and heavy, still stuffin' the baked potato, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Riley asks if it was Willow screaming and Buffy replies, "I don't know. It doesn't matter." Wanton spud-loving hussy.

Downstairs, the spin-the-bottle game is still in progress. Xander tries to tell them that Julie is having a hard time, but the bottlers don't really listen and just continue to giggle at their game. Willow races down the stairs, calling for Tara, and finds Xander. She explains about the ghost boy in the tub and how she tried to save him. Xander exclaims, "Is every frat on this campus haunted? And if so, why do people keep coming to these parties? 'Cause it's not the snacks." Tara finds them and looks apologetically at Willow, saying that she thinks they should leave the house. The spin-the-bottlers shout happily but the bottle they are playing with starts to spin more and more quickly until it explodes into shards. The players clutch their eyes and run away screaming. Willow, Tara, and Xander decide they need Buffy and race up the stairs to Riley's room. As they pound on the door and shout, giant rubber Alaska King Crab legs poke out from under the door and wave about in a silly manner. Oh, my bad, I guess those are supposed to be vines. We are treated to a ceiling-cam shot of Buffy and Riley, frantically kissing in bed. The camera pulls up and up and up, until the bed is just a tiny square of blue adrift in a black background. The World's Smallest Porn Set, as one of Sep's friends observed. At one point, as Sars pointed out on the boards, Marc Blucas does indeed start to stick his hand between Sarah Michelle Gellar's legs (outside the sheets), but then thinks better of it and awkwardly moves his hand up to her back.

By Ace

Spike and Anya the Albatross are drinking at the Bronze and bonding over their loss of powers. Anya complains things were simpler when she was a demon, and Spike commiserates that he took "the killing for granted" but now that he can't do it anymore, he thinks, "I wish I'd appreciated it more." Oh, Spike's so cute, and he's just smoldering at Anya through this whole scene. There's something about his focus on other actors that is just so appealing and he always plays scenes with females like seductions even when they aren't. Mmmmm, Spike. Anya seems tipsy and is clutching a beer bottle, so I guess she landed a fake ID since last season when she had so many problems buying a beer. Spike muses that he was once in love but that it "ended badly," and Anya agrees that it "always does." She says that in relationships, first comes love and sex, quickly followed by vengeance. Spike obviously has a thought and he leans in close to Anya, puts his arm around her shoulders, and says that they should do some vengeance: "You eviscerate Xander and I'll stake Dru. Like a project." Anya smiles and looks quite taken with the idea but says she can't. Spike withdraws his conspiratorial arm and looks disappointed. Anya suggests that he can still go stake Dru, and Spike says that he will, later. They sit.

Back at the frat party, a random guy is attempting to chat up a young lady with her sweater preppily tied around her shoulders by talking about the sensuality of language. What was that Maggie Walsh said? Spare me college boys in love? Well, spare me college boys' lame pseudo-intellectual pickup lines too. As the cut-rate lothario talks about the difference between words in English and French, he casually leans one arms against the wall. As he does so his whole facial expression changes and he starts to gasp, "Wow!" Seeing his expression of bliss, Preppie Girl comments, "You really like French."

Xander wanders through the party and starts to chat up an overly-made up redhead in a pink top. She smiles at him and they flirt. She tells Xander that he's funny and gives him a flirty look. When she asks him who he is at the party with, he replies, "Right now, I seem to be here with you." She smiles at him again.

Buffy approaches Riley and tells him she needs him to look at an essay. As Buffy rushes off up the stairs with her boff-biscuit, Forrest looks disgusted and Graham smirks, joking about Riley's lack of subtlety. They both swig from their beers.

By Ace

Cut-Rate Lothario calls to a friend, Evan, telling him he has to see something, and Preppy Girl smiles behind him. Lothario, Jr. grabs Evan's hand and places it on the wall, telling him not to move. Evan is worried that he's being tricked, but then he gets the rush and starts to moan, "Oh GOD!" and pants heavily.

Willow and Tara are sitting together on some steps, discussing horses. Willow is afraid of horses, due to a bad pony experience from childhood, but Tara assures her that horses aren't dangerous. "You should ride with me sometime. I guarantee safety and fun," smiles Tara. I'll bet you do, witchy-poo, I'll just bet you do. Willow simpers and agrees to go if Tara promises she'll look after her. As she says this, she reaches out her hand to pat Tara's knee but Tara jerks away, exclaiming, "Don't touch me." Willow looks shocked as Tara draws further away from her, saying that "it's disgusting." Willow asks what's wrong and apologizes, but Tara says she wants to go to the bathroom and runs up the stairs.

Anya and Spike enter the party together. Spike looks around curiously and says he recognizes some of the partiers. Anya explains that they're the Initiative soldiers who put in his chip and then chirps, "Let's have fun!" Spike is aghast that she brought him there and suddenly Xander appears, also aghast that Anya brought Spike there. Xander tell Anya that they just need to work through their problems and she shouldn't "rebound with the evil undead," but Anya, in her maroon flowered sweater set, isn't having any of it. Xander demands to know what Anya has been doing with Spike, and Spike, amused by Xander's jealousy, calls him "puffed up" and "splotchy and possessive." Anya says that Xander isn't very convincing and Spike agrees, saying that he can see Xander has "no follow through" as Anya told him earlier. Xander starts shouting that Hostile-17 is in the house, making Spike jumpy and uncomfortable, but he soon realizes that nobody at the party seems to care about his demonic nature, so he goes off to find a drink. Xander again asks what Anya was doing with Spike; Anya sulks that she didn't have sex with him and that that's all she does now, "not have sex." Xander tries to tell her that they just had a little fight, which is normal, but Anya says it means their relationship is ending. She shouts that they have nothing in common except that they both like his penis and "now I don't even have that." She tells him that it's done between them. Xander finally gets ticked off and tells her since he's put up with so much from her, she doesn't have the right to end things and instead he's ending it. He heads off to enjoy the party and Anya flails off, shouting that she's going to have more fun than him. Xander shouts back, "I'm having fun already" and Anya storms away. Oh, if only that were to be the last we would ever see of Anya. Xander enters another room where he notices a circle of partiers playing spin-the-bottle. He's derisive of the grade-school activity until the flirty redhead from earlier motions that he should join them. Xander slips into the circle and settles down for fun.

Back inside Lowell House, there is disembodied screaming and the vines have grown to cover the entire part of the hallway near Riley's room. I'm content to stay outside, but the camera doesn't oblige me and I'm (mis)treated to the sounds of a gasping Buffy demanding that Commander Pomme de Terre keep touching her.

The gang has assembled at Fort Giles; Giles is questioning them trying to figure out why Buffy and Riley didn't respond to their knocks and shouts. Anya suggests that they were dead but Xander thinks they were "too busy doing it." Giles doesn't get the reference immediately and Xander quips, "For a god of acoustic rock, you're kind of naive." "In the midst of all that do you really think they were keeping it up?" Giles replies. He pauses for beat and then moans, "Oh, for a different phrasing." Willow explains that everyone at the party was acting odd in a sexual way. Giles asks her to clarify, but she's uncomfortable and just says, "You know. Ways." Giles suggests it's a succubi (again I question your word choice, Giles) or a satyr's prank. Willow has been thumbing through a book of newspaper clippings and has discovered that Lowell House used to be a home for wayward children. Tara haltingly asks if any of the children died there. Willow tells them that the article doesn't mention it and is about the home's director, Genevieve Holt. Giles asked when she died and Willow says that she's still alive. It must have been a very recent article to have that information in it.

Genevieve, an unassuming senior in her bathrobe, shows the gang (minus Willow and Tara) to her sitting room, assuring Giles that she was up praying. Giles questions her about any "disturbances" in the house when she lived there. Genevieve says that it sounds like "crazy talk." Anyway, as you probably figured out as soon as you saw her, the transformation from kindly maternal figure to creepy religious wacko is swift. The gang learns that Genevieve would cut off the girls' hair to release them from vanity and would "baptize" (read "drown") the worst offenders in the tub. Giles leaps to his feet to deliver a rousing chastisement but Genevieve just waves his concerns away, saying that she "refuse[s] to listen to this when [she] can smell the sin on each and every one of you." "Yeah," snaps Xander, "she who smelt it dealt it!" At Giles's confused look, Xander explains, "It's like what you said, but faster." As they're leaving Xander remarks to Anya that "this totally adds to my 'old people are crazy' theorem." Giles says that they're dealing with "apparitions," not ghosts, which is odd because I thought he said they were the same thing in the second-season episode, "I Only Have Eyes for You." Anyway, they decide that Riley and Buffy released the poltergeists because of all the sex they're having, and Xander uses the word "poltergasm." Ew. Giles says that Buffy and Riley are in danger because they can't stop having sex and when their energy runs out they'll die. I'm okay with that. I mean, sure, I'd miss Buffy a bit, but she's not my favorite character, and look on the bright side -- Riley would be history and we can change the name of the show to Faith, the Vampire Slayer. Who wouldn't enjoy that?

By Ace

I hate those Church's Chicken ads. If the wives are such bad cooks, why don't the husbands just make their own freaking dinner?

We're back to the World's Smallest Porn Set. Willow, Xander, and Tara are outside banging on the door, trying to get Buffy and Riley's attention. The boinkers don't respond, and the thorny branches continue to grow out from under the door. Tara walks over to the railing and observes the party below as a giant earthquake hits. Spike, sitting in his chair with his beer, gets a little smirk on his face until suddenly his chair grows straps, all the better to hold him down with. Various shots of milling panicky people, and the camera comes to rest on Graham, the giant cleft chin that emotes like a two-by-four. Forrest in his orange turtleneck (ew) rushes up to Graham and tells him that they've got to help get everyone out alive. Graham just starts babbling some crap about being "unclean" and "impure." Forrest largely ignores him and then right in front of the throng of people he activates the secret elevator down to the lab. Don't they have stairs? Hasn't anyone ever taught them not to take an elevator in an earthquake?

By Ace

The shaking stops suddenly, leaving a breathless Anya alone in the hallway. A nameless girl runs screaming, because of Anya's outfit I presume, from the back of the house right through Anya. Anya clutches her stomach and looks bewildered and then the shaking starts again.

Willow, Xander, Tara, and Anya all meet up downstairs near the trophies; books fly out from the shelves, attacking them as they flee. Meanwhile Spike has managed to break free from his restraints (damn!) and high-tails it out of there. Julie comes stumbling and crying across the room, and she's almost completely bald except for a few tufts in the back. I'm amazed at how close she managed to shear her hair with only scissors. Xander catches sight of her and helps her to safety.

The Initiative is a hubbub of activity. A white-jacketed man tells Forrest and Graham about several pieces of equipment that are malfunctioning and they go to "lock it down." Graham is acting like his old self now, which is to say nothing about his demeanor or tonal inflection has changed -- just that he isn't channeling Jerry Falwell anymore. I guess Forrest and Graham locked it down a little too tight because they aren't seen again for the rest of the episode. Somewhere a forgotten, unfilmed page of script containing the conclusion to Forrest and Graham's plot cries quietly in a corner.

Outside of Lowell House, the gang (plus Spike) convenes, and Julie runs off to hide in shame. Willow says that they have to go back inside but Anya doesn't understand why. Xander explains that Buffy and Riley are still trapped inside. Anya still doesn't get it and Xander says, "Look around, there's ghosts and shaking. People are going all Felicity with their hair. We're fresh out of stupid people and somebody's got to go back in there." ["Xander stole my Felicity joke!" -- Sep] Xander asks for volunteers to accompany him. He gets scared looks from Willow and Tara until Spike surprisingly speaks up: "I know I'm not the first choice for heroics and Buffy's tried to kill me more than once. And I don't fancy a single one of you at all. But -- actually, all that sounds pretty convincing." With that Spike strides off and goes back to his crypt to look over his script for week, planning sexy leers and suggestive eyebrow waggles. Anya entreats Xander to leave with her once more. He gives her a disgusted look and tells everyone that he's going back into the house and won't come out without Buffy; 2.3 seconds later he flies head-over-heels backwards and comes to rest on the (ouch!) pavement. He suggests that they seek Giles's counsel; Tara remembers that Giles is at the coffee shop and they set off.

By Ace

At the coffee shop the camera pans over the gathered crowd and rests on Giles, playing an acoustic guitar and singing "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who. I bet Giles knows why the caged bird sings. Oh man, every time I see this I start laughing so hard. I really can't describe how priceless this moment was -- if you missed it, you should move heaven and earth to rectify the situation. Anyway, the gang looks on in shock and horror and Xander asks if they can go back to the haunted house now. Tara inquires if Giles does this often, and Xander replies, "Sure, every day the earth rotates backwards and the skies turn orange." Willow gets a little smile on her face and muses, "Now I remember why I used to have such a crush on him" Anya and Willow agree that Giles's voice is sexy and, if possible, Xander looks even more stricken than before. See, Xander, this is probably how Giles feels every time you young'uns get all TMI on him. ASH is really giving a killer performance here. I wonder how many takes it took for him to stop laughing. His singing sounds very soulful and I'm convinced it's his own voice, just very badly synched. Maybe the sound crew had to work overtime on all the Buffy/Riley moaning and ran out of time for the important things. Bad prioritization, guys. For a whole week following this episode, my poor cat is tortured by me following her around the house and bellowing, "No ooooone knows what it's liiiiike/Toooooo be the baaaad cat/Tooooo be the saaaad cat/Behind blue eeeeeyeees." I swear, one of these days she's going to lose her patience, pack her little kitty suitcase and leave. Well, at least I don't make her watch The Others with me anymore.

By Ace

We're back for a brief visit to the porn set, where Buffy and Riley are still scalloping the potatoes, and then mercifully we're in the home of The Slayer, the Witch, and their Wardrobes. Tara, Willow, and Giles are setting up for some spell casting. Anya and Xander are rooting through the weapons chest; they decide on a machete and take off.

Outside Lowell House, Xander and Anya are waiting for the spell to take effect. Xander asks Anya what she's feeling; her reply is, "Sad, afraid of being without you and a little bit hungry." Xander clarifies he was asking about the house, and Anya, her ear pressed up against the door, informs him that it's still haunted. Back at Willow's, Tara is directing the spell. She calls on the spirits of Lowell to "come forth and be known to us." They do, and our gang is suddenly ringed by a circle of grim-faced children in greenish Halloween makeup from the 99-cent markdown bin.

Xander and Anya enter the house and see that the vines have taken over the stairs. They machete their way up their stairs. At Willow's, they try to soothe the spirits. Willow asks them to "transform [their] pain. Release [their] past and uh -- get over it."

At the top of the stairs outside Riley's room, Xander puts his hand on the knob that will lead him to a bigger knob, but as he does so the spirits at Willow's room become very agitated and a fierce wind blows. Tara implores them to "find here the serenity you seek." But the spirits throw the table across the room and disappear as the room returns to normal. At Lowell House, Xander is thrown on the floor and dragged into the bathroom by the ghosties. When Anya tries to follow him, she's thrown backwards against the railing and she falls to the living room below. She looks dead, but I'm sure I'm not that lucky.

By Ace

Inside the bathroom Xander is struggling underwater as he's "baptized" by the spirits. Downstairs, Anya gets up, and with a determined look on her face she stumbles up the stairs. "Shut UP you repressed crybabies," she admonishes the shrieking spirits. I don't think they liked being called names, because the thing you know Anya's hand is impaled with a giant thorn. I guess being a former vengeance demon makes you tough, because she just pulls it right out and forges onward. Xander is still struggling in the tub, and to make things more interesting we get the view with an underwater cam. Suddenly, instead of creepy apparitions, we see Anya looming above the tub, and although we have no idea how she got in the bathroom, she pulls Xander out of the water with ease. I hate to say it, but this is the best his hair has looked all season.

Anya and Xander attempt to get to Riley's room again, but are menaced by the Weeds of Belabored Metaphor. Finally, by working together, they reach the door and I guess our little ghosties have gotten tired or maybe they realized they didn't have to be repressed anymore and went off to have a big orgy, because this time the door opens to show Buffy and Riley covered by a sheet, everything back to normal. "Xander!" shrieks Buffy, "Don't you knock?" We could ask the same of you, Buffy Pot. An overexerted Anya and Xander just exchange a look and turn around to leave.

Cut to the cafeteria, where we hear Buffy saying, "I just had no idea. It's so creepy. He was really singing?" Xander asks Anya to remind him to skip the mid-life crisis. Anya demurely agrees and gives Xander a pleased little look. Willow maintains that Giles's singing was "kinda sexy." Xander: "Please stop saying that. I'm willing to offer cash incentives." The rest of the episode talks about Buffy and Riley having sex, and after sitting through many more minutes of footage than was necessary, I don't feel compelled to write about it, except the little fact that Riley is happy that no one was hurt. Umm, if by no one you mean Xander, Anya, the kids who got an eyeful of glass, and scalped Julie, then I guess you're right, Riley.

So there you have it. Riley and Buffy rilly, rilly have chemistry, it was so foolish of me to doubt. Because Joss says so and Joss is never *cough* Adam *cough* wrong.