Summary: Buffy has just arrived at Giles’ after escaping the scenario Walsh set up to kill her. She tells the Scoobies about it, and Spike comments that she has horrible taste in men. Buffy doesn’t know what that has to do with her near-death experience. He thinks Riley was involved in the set-up. The Scoobies are willing to consider the possibility, but Buffy’s sure that Walsh sent Riley away to keep him out of it. Plus, as Willow notes, Riley doesn’t seem like the type to keep a big secret like a murder plot.
Whatever the details are, the Initiative clearly has it in for Buffy. Xander adds that they won’t be happy to learn that she survived and has most likely told the Scoobies what’s going on. That means they’re all in danger now. Giles wonders why Walsh would want to kill Buffy. Buffy and Anya guess that it’s because Buffy was asking a lot of questions and was getting too close to something. The question is, what was Walsh so desperate to hide that she would kill Buffy to keep it hidden? That’s Adam, of course, and he’s now fully alive.
Buffy passes around weapons for what Xander thinks is an attack on the Initiative. He’s all for it until Buffy says they’re actually going to hide. That’s much more up his alley. Buffy wants them to go underground until they can come up with a plan, but they’ll have to go somewhere the Initiative won’t think to look for them. They decide on Xander’s basement. Giles protests, wanting to stay at his place, since it’s unlikely that the Initiative will come looking for them there. That’s when Riley arrives.
He doesn’t know what all happened, so Buffy tells him that Walsh tried to kill her. “It didn’t work but they’re all upset anyway,” Anya says. Thanks, Anya. Riley wants all the details, thinking there was some sort of mistake. He doesn’t want people to jump to any conclusions. Just then he recognizes Spike as hostile 17. Spike tries to put on his American, friend-of-Xander’s persona again but he drops it pretty quickly and admits who he is. Buffy tells Riley that he’s not bad anymore. Spike takes offense to that.
Riley can’t believe that Buffy’s known where Spike was all this time. Spike decides to head out, and he leaves with a big, supportive pair of thumbs up for Riley in case he’s in on the plot to kill Buffy. Riley confronts Buffy for hiding a hostile, but Xander thinks Buffy gets to ask the questions here. Riley says he just knows what Walsh told him and what he saw on the monitors. He thinks someone or something was controlling Walsh.
Giles tells him that Buffy might have been getting too close to something. She asks Riley if it could have been 314. Riley, still in denial, says Walsh could have been trying to test Buffy. Buffy notes that she told Riley that Buffy was dead – that doesn’t sound like a test. Giles brings up what Ethan told him about the Initiative having a darker purpose, but Riley denies that they’re bad guys. He would know if they were. He vows to figure this all out on his own.
Adam comes across a boy who’s playing with an action figure that kind of looks like Adam. Adam asks what he is, and the boy tells him he’s a monster. “I thought so,” Adam says. He asks how the boy “works.” The boy doesn’t know; he just does. He asks about the skewer in Adam’s arm, and Adam smiles as if he’s going to offer the boy a demonstration. Run, kid, run! Riley takes a sad walk around campus, trying to decide if his mentor really tried to kill his girlfriend. Meanwhile, Dr. Angelman finds Walsh’s body in room 314.
The next morning, Giles wakes up in Xander’s basement, where Buffy, Willow, and Anya are watching a Wile E. Coyote/Roadrunner cartoon. Buffy notes that something in the cartoon would never happen. Willow reminds her that it’s a cartoon, not a documentary. Giles isn’t happy about the arrangements, and Buffy has to tell him and Anya not to fight over all the noise they made during the night (he was sleeping on a beach ball and she snores).
Willow assures Buffy that everything will be okay and Riley will come around. Buffy’s worried about him, since his whole world has just blown up. Anya advises her to find a boring boyfriend. Like Xander. But not Xander; Buffy can’t have him. Buffy says Riley was supposed to be “Mr. Joe Guy.” Anya urges her to dump him. But she still can’t have Xander. Buffy says it’s too late – she’s already in deep with Riley. She’ll have to figure out how to make it work.
Xander brings down breakfast and tells the Scoobies to turn on the news. There’s a report about the boy Adam encountered, who was found stabbed with a skewer and mutilated. Buffy quickly puts together that the polgara demon the Initiative captured must have been involved. She feels horrible that they captured it alive. She announces that she’s going to the crime scene while the others try to track down the polgara demon. She’ll kill it in a way that will get justice for its young victim. She wishes her pajamas, which are decorated with pictures of sushi, made her seem a little more commanding.
Forrest runs into Riley, thinking Riley was out all night because he was with Buffy. Riley says he needed to be alone and think some things over. He now believes that Walsh did try to have Buffy killed. Forrest can buy that Buffy got on Walsh’s bad side; she’s nosy and annoying. Maybe Walsh found out that Buffy was up to something devious.
Riley asks why Forrest is so against him hanging out with Buffy. Maybe it’s because she’s a better soldier than Forrest is. Forrest thinks she’s using Riley to infiltrate the Initiative. Walsh isn’t stupid – if she tried to kill Buffy, maybe it’s because Buffy needed killing. Graham comes in just then and announces that Walsh is dead. Now Riley has more deep thoughts to think!
He and Forrest go down to the Initiative and sees Walsh’s body for themselves. Forrest thinks she was staked, which means Buffy’s the killer. Riley notes that it could have been a polgara. If Forrest is going to accuse Buffy of murder, he’d better be ready to back that up. Forrest tells him that the “supernatural freak” is blinding him. Angelman has to break the two up before they start hitting each other.
He tells them the government is sending in a team to investigate, so they’ll have to wait until they get orders. Riley doesn’t want to wait – if the polgara demon they captured killed Walsh, they need to find it. Angelman says the government called for a total lockdown until their team arrives. The commandos are to go to their rooms and wait. Riley pretends to agree, then tells the commandos that he’s in charge until the authorities arrive, and he wants them to find the polgara. This time, they’ll kill it.
They head to a cemetery and start searching crypts. They find Spike’s, but there’s no sign that he’s there. He’s actually hiding under the corpse housed in the crypt, and he’s not going to be happy that Forrest broke his TV. Riley meets up with Buffy at the spot where the boy’s body was found, and she apologizes for how tense things got with the Scoobies. He tells her that Walsh is dead and asks if Buffy’s happy to hear it. He won’t give her details, since they’re classified, but Buffy guesses that the polgara killed her. She promises to take care of that, and then Riley can stop asking if she’s happy about all this death.
Willow goes to Tara’s room and lets her know how much fun she’s been having doing spells with her. She wants it clear that she doesn’t just like hanging out with Tara because they do magic together – she likes the friendship they’re developing. Tara knows, but she guesses that Willow wants to do a spell. Willow thinks they have enough power together to conjure a goddess who will alert them to demonic energy in the area.
Buffy pays a visit to Willy the Snitch, who claims he’s getting away from his old image. He had a spiritual experience after almost getting killed by the apocalyptic demons in “The Zeppo.” He claims he doesn’t talk behind people’s backs anymore, and he’s working on improving his clientele. He can’t be seen talking to Buffy. “I’m gonna have to punch you, aren’t I?” she realizes. “Just once. And it don’t have to hurt; just make it look good,” he says. He yells in pain before she even touches him, then pretends she’s intimidated him into spilling that the polgara demons around recently were captured.
As Buffy’s asking about the Initiative and 314, Riley comes in. He tells her he was going to help her find the polgara, but now he can see that she’s socializing with demons (again) instead of hunting them. He asks Buffy who she is. Willy tries to get him to calm down, and Riley gets aggressive, threatening to take him in. Willy’s human, but since he “harbors demons,” Riley asks if that makes him a good guy like Buffy.
Buffy notices that Riley’s shaking. He’s also sweating a lot. He grabs her by the shoulders and demands to know the truth. She tells him he already knows it, but what happened to Walsh screwed him up so much that he can’t accept it. He spots a bar patron trying to leave and pulls his gun on her. Willy tells him there’s no killing in his bar, but Riley thinks that since other rules have been broken, there’s no point in following them. If he shot the patron, would she die, or is she a vampire? Who can he believe? Buffy tries to calm him, but he ultimately gets control of himself. He wonders what’s happening to him.
Buffy takes him to Xander’s and tries to take care of him, but he’s now scratching at his hand because he feels like something’s crawling inside him. She puts a bandanna from her hair over his hand and urges him to get some rest. He’s anxious about the fact that he doesn’t know what’s right and wrong anymore. “Maybe I’m the bad guy,” he says. “Maybe I’m the thing you should kill.” Buffy firmly says that he shouldn’t think that way. She gets him to lie down, assuring him that he’ll be okay.
She tells the Scoobies that something is physically affecting Riley and it’s getting worse. Anya guesses that Walsh did something to him. Buffy thinks she must have kept records, and there must be someone else who knows what she was up to. She tells Giles and Anya to keep researching while she and Xander go undercover. Anya objects to her enlisting Xander and his military knowledge, but he promises he’ll be careful. Giles asks how Buffy plans to get into the Initiative. She hopes that Walsh didn’t have time to revoke her clearance. He tells her that the polgara hasn’t been seen since it was captured.
Willow and Tara do their goddess-summoning, demon-locating spell…or at least Willow does. Tara only pretends to participate while Willow’s eyes are closed. She plays innocent when the spell doesn’t work. Buffy (who seems to think glasses and a doctor’s coat are a sufficient disguise) and Xander access the Initiative, and once he sees how big the facility is, he gets Buffy’s attraction to Riley. When he spots a couple of commandos, he tries to pull that ploy where two people who are trying to hide make out so the bad guys don’t see them. Buffy tells him that scientists and commandos don’t fraternize here. “Well, maybe that’s what’s wrong with the world,” he says.
Willow returns to Xander’s basement and laments that her and Tara’s spell didn’t work. Giles and Anya don’t think they’re looking for a polgara after all; they don’t normally mutilate their victims, and they have to eat every two hours, so they’d have trouble staying hidden this long. Riley’s up and about now, and he spooks Willow. He wants to go after Buffy, even though he’s visibly worse now. He’s upset to realize that Buffy went to the Initiative. Willow tries to stop him from leaving, but he shoves her aside and runs off.
Buffy and Xander eavesdrop as Angelman and another scientist discuss the commandos not getting their meds and being off their schedules because of Walsh’s death. They could cause a lot of damage while they’re in withdrawal. They don’t know that they’ve been getting meds through their food. The scientists have rounded up and stabilized most of the commandos, but not Finn. Angelman is concerned about him the most: “He’s too important to the work to lose now.”
Spike goes to Willy’s bar, since it’s not safe for him to go back to his crypt right now. A demon comes up to him and knocks him out. Back at the Initiative, Buffy and Xander see Angelman heading toward room 314 and follow him. He’s not surprised to see Buffy. She demands to know what’s going on with Riley and what’s in room 314. Angelman tells her that she’s probably already been spotted on the security monitors, so someone will be coming to get her soon.
Riley appears and says the monitors are all down. Buffy says she had nothing to do with that. Angelman orders Riley to take Buffy into custody, but she asks her boyfriend to wait, since they can get answers from Angelman. Angelman confirms that Walsh wanted Buffy dead, but not on the Initiative’s behalf – she had her own vendetta. It had something to do with 314, who escaped.
Riley doesn’t like Angelman talking about Walsh like she was a psychopath. She just wanted to help people. Buffy tells him that he was being given drugs. Riley gets paranoid and accuses Buffy of messing with him. After all, this all started when she came into his life. Buffy insists that she’s trying to get to the truth. Riley asks what she did to Walsh. She tells him she wasn’t involved, and they need to find out about 314 to get all the answers they’re looking for. A commando’s body suddenly drops from the ceiling, and they look up to see Adam on a catwalk above them.
He tells them he wanted to see the world and learn more about it. He looked inside the boy, but instead of teaching him anything, it made him feel. Now he wants to know why he feels and what he is. He came home to get a computer disk that holds some answers. He inserts it into a drive in his chest and reports that he’s basically a robot who contains some organic materials. Buffy realizes that he was pieced together from demons. Adam says he’s part human and part machine, too. But that still doesn’t tell him who he is.
Walsh wrote down both data and feelings, which means Adam has a job here, and he knows that Walsh loved him. Riley tells him that she didn’t, and she wasn’t Adam’s mother. She was just a scientist. Xander’s like, “Don’t anger the robot.” Adam inserts a disk about Riley and says that Walsh created him, too. She changed his “basic operating system,” taught him how to think and feel, and strengthened him with chemicals. Adam and Riley were her favorite children, “her art.” That means they’re brothers.
Riley denies that he’s like Adam. Adam recognizes that he’s feeling pain, either from the interruption in his feeding schedule or because he misses Walsh. Riley threatens to kill him, but Adam says he won’t do it. He hasn’t been programmed to. Riley says he’s human and can’t be programmed. Adam replies that Walsh had it all planned out, and it will happen. Does Riley want to hear how it ends?
As Riley pulls his gun on Adam, Buffy steps up to fight the robot. But Adam is way stronger than both her and Riley (and definitely Xander), so they barely have any effect on him. Angelman tries to run but gets skewered by Adam’s polgara arm. Commandos try to get into the lab to help as Adam thanks Buffy, Riley, and Xander for the “interesting” encounter, then leaves.
The commandos break in, and Forrest finds it suspicious that Buffy was there when a part-human, part-robot demon attacked. Riley backs her up and sends the commandos after Adam. He needs medical attention, and Forrest refuses to let Buffy accompany him. Xander gets her to back off.
Spike’s attacker is a demon upset that he’s been fighting demons with Buffy. If the demon sees Spike again, he’ll break the no-demon-on-demon-violence code again. Buffy laments to Willow that she’s not allowed to have contact with Riley, so she doesn’t know what’s going on with him. Willow’s sure she’ll find a way to reach him.
Buffy would like to take down the Initiative, but Adam is the bigger threat right now. He’s way too strong for Buffy to fight alone. Walsh made him into a superior warrior. Willow says Adam must have a flaw. “I think the part where he’s pure evil and kills randomly was an oversight,” Buffy replies. She regrets letting the commandos take Riley. Everything he believed in was taken away and he’s alone, with nothing to hold on to. But he does have one thing: The bandanna Buffy put around his hand, which will remind him that she cares about him.
Thoughts: As I’ve said before, Adam is the worst villain in the series, but he makeup and effects the crew used to put him together are really impressive.
Leaving aside people’s views on Riley, I think Marc Blucas is excellent in this episode.
No way would a by-the-book military guy like Riley ever refer to Walsh, his superior, by her first name, even when she’s not there.
In a cute detail, the shirt Anya wears to bed is one we’ve seen on Xander before.
I like how Xander still has his military knowledge. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
'90s Flashback 
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