New Man
Episode 68, #12 of Season 4

The action opens with the patented "Let's show 15 sound bites from the season so far that somehow manage to summarize what's happened" before moving to the girls dorm room where Buffy's bed is occupied by two figures in a serious bout of necking.

Alas, even I can't delude myself that it's Willow.  Willow doesn't wear olive green knit sweaters. But, we all know who does.

Riley.

Okay, staccato summary time... Willow bursts in ... demon in the rec room ... breathing fire ... dogs and cats living in sin ... (no, that was Ghostbusters; but it is way bad) ... Buff and Riley go there armed to teeth and ...

Crowd shouts surprise ... happy 19th birthday Buffy, got to be better than your 17th.

CREDITS.  I love the song.  Anyway, the interesting thing about Buffy's credits (unlike a certain show where they are still showing a certain bard wearing a long skirt and holding a sword like it was a... a... something) the credits reflect who is in the show.  For example, when WolfBoy drove into the sunset Seth was out of the opening credit (except for one shoulder in bed with Willow) and Spike was in.  Riley is now in the opening credits.  Now, I digress; want to know how to have fun?  Say, oh so casually from the other room while listening to the song to your kids who are watching the opening credits:

"Is Giles still in the opening credits?"
"Why?"
"Oh no, reason."
"Why!"
"What?” (Innocent, hurt tone)
"What do you know!”
"Nothing!"
"What!"

You can (well, I can) actually amuse yourself for a good 30 minutes with this.

Anyway the show comes back from the after the credits commercial break with the rest of Buffy's party.  For this entire scene Giles is made to feel exactly what he is afraid he is; the old fogy that is totally out of the loop and whom the kids have no time for.  Oh, yeah, there's also Anya doing a cool kind of Seven of Nine anti social shtick but Giles is the main man of the scene.

All you psyche people know that both Giles and Buffy consider Giles to be Buffy's father figure, right?

Okay over the next day Spike moves out of Xander's basement flat, Buffy is introduced as the Slayer to Prof. Walsh, Giles finds out that some bad ass demon is going to rise, Giles meets Prof. Walsh who is an expert at verbal acupuncture, Giles finds out about Riley being a GIJoe, Ethan returns with the shows best "melodramatic soliloquy interuptis" to date, Buffy kicks Riley across the gym during a sparring match, Giles and Ethan go get rip snorting drunk and Ethan warns Giles that some group called 314 has the entire demon world's panties in a twist because they're not playing by the rules and upsetting the balance of the worlds.

Um, for those of you who have not met Ethan he is an old friend of Giles youth who is really into chaos.  This is, I think, his third appearance to the show - the first being the classic Halloween episode and the second being Band Candy.

Oh I missed a bit.  Really unimportant bit.  Willow and the BabyWicca are at the BabyWicca’s room.  Willow says "We'll start slow" and they hold hands.  After a few seconds BabyWicca asks "Start slow doing what?"  Apparently they are to start slow levitating a red rose and plucking the petals off one after another, their minds and power in perfect harmony.

I really wish they'd put some subtext into this show.

Anyway, they get the rose doing the floaty thing but then it goes whizzing off all over the room until it lands, sans petals in the middle of the pentangle.

Next day Giles wakes up and finds he's been transformed into a demon and Willow lies to Buffy by saying that she was alone during the rose experiment.

I'm not sure which shocked me more.  Well, yes, I had read about the Giles/Demon thing in the TV Guide but from a purely objective point of view I'm not sure which *should* have shocked me more.  Willow has lied to Buffy before but never so well.  The "I was alone in the science lab" just slid out of her mouth without any hesitation.  I'm not going to hazard a guess as to why she lied but the Willow character has basically been identified as "kinda gay" in show.  I mean you'd think that someone who was totally open with the idea of boyfriends who are vampires, werewolves and demon-hunters could handle a boyfriend who was... well... a girl.

Giles goes to Xander's place and finds out that he can't communicate with humans.  Xander chases off Giles, gathers the Scooby Gang and find Giles' apartment trashed and fear the worse.  Riley is brought in because the GIJoes are tapping the 911 calls.

The rest of the show is the Spike and Giles Road Show.  Spike is the only one who can understand Giles and so the two of them set off to find Ethan.  Meanwhile the Scooby Gang attempt to do the Giles research stuff and moan about how much they rely on him.  Typical kids.  Ingrates.  Torture and ignore their parents until they need them and then whine on and on about it when it's too bloody late.

Sorry.

Anyway, detective and research allow Giles to find Ethan just microseconds before Riley and Buffy find them both.  Needless to say a major double fight breaks out and Buffy stakes Giles with a letter opener.

The after the last attempt to brain wash us into eating at McDonalds and buying Mach 3 razors the show ends with Giles (apparently the letter opener only looked silver) warning Buffy to keep an eye on the GIJoes and Riley assuring Prof. Walsh that Buffy will work out.  And then Prof. Walsh goes into some secret room labelled 314 and we go to black.

I feel the urge to do a rating thing.  Not as good as Hush.  Some really good one liners and witty observations.  But I'm a fan so take it all with a grain of salt.  And I kind of miss Faith because while Spike is bad it's an evil bad, not a play bad.