Welcome to Rewatching Buffy, the part of the blog where I rewatch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Each Tuesday evening, you’re invited to join me as I attempt to rediscover what made me love this show 21 years ago.

Out of My Mind

• Buffy patrols in a cemetery, dusting a vampire before he’s even completely out of his grave.
• Another bursts out and Riley shows up to help. He manages to dust the second.
• And then Spike shows up and takes on a third. But Buffy shoves him out of the way and stakes the third.
• After Buffy and Riley leave, Spike does his villainous monologuing thing. And then he falls into an open grave because he’s not paying attention.
• Classic Spike.
• Giles has set up a pretty sweet training room in the back of the Magic Box.
• Riley is super hyperactive. Probably Initiative related.
• Spike is watching Dawson’s Creek in his crypt (obvious because he begins yelling at Pacey about how she doesn’t love him) when he’s interrupted by Harmony.
• She needs a place to stay because she’s still deluded herself into believing that she’s Buffy’s arch nemesis.
• Spike tries to convince Harmony that she needs to kill Buffy. She wants him to do it. But, you know, brain chip.
• Joyce is making breakfast for Dawn when she suddenly seems out of sorts. She looks at Dawn and asks, “Who are you?” before passing out.
• At the hospital, a doctor named Ben relieves everyone by saying that Joyce is gonna be fine. Probably just a low blood sugar thing.
• Dawn is playing with his stethoscope and discovers that Riley’s heart rate is incredibly elevated.
• Like, dangerously elevated.
• During the commercial break, a doctor examines Riley and tries to insist that he stay overnight for observation. He refuses.
• Later, Buffy’s worry over Riley hasn’t abated, so Willow suggests contacting the Initiative.
• But how?
• So she goes to his place when he’s not there and picks up the phone. Without dialing, she just says, “Riley’s in trouble. He needs help.”
• And then Graham and a couple of agents meet Riley in the park and he offers to take him to get some help.
• Riley doesn’t trust them.
• Thanks to his jacked up senses and adrenaline, Riley easily beats the crap out of the agents.
• Graham finds Buffy and tells her where Riley needs to be to meet the neurologist who can help him.
• But Riley is AWOL.
• Buffy thinks he might be hiding out in the old Initiative caves, so Giles suggests asking Spike to guide her through the caves that he clearly knows better than her.
• She offers to pay Spike to find Riley in the caves and bring him to the neurologist.
• Instead, Spike and Harmony show up at the hospital and threaten to kill the neurologist unless he removes Spike’s brain chip.
• Tara and Willow go to the bombed out high school to look for Riley since he’s hidden out there before.
• In the darkness, Willow uses a spell to make the whole place light up.
• This is planting the seed of Willow relying too much on magic for everything… We’ll see that harvest next season.
• Buffy manages to find Riley in the caves.
• He doesn’t want to be “fixed” because if he’s normal, he knows he’ll eventually lose Buffy.
• She convinces him he’s wrong. And that he needs to see this government doctor.
• They get to the hospital and Graham reveals that Spike and Harmony showed up.
• The neurologist does the surgery and claims he removed the chip. And as proof, we here a metallic clank when he drops it in a bowl.
• Buffy and Riley show up just as the doctor finishes stitching Spike’s head back up.
• Riley nearly dies taking on Harmony and Spike quickly discovers that the chip is still active.
• Spike sees that the doctor dropped a penny into the bowl, not the chip. And he and Harmony escapes.
• He rants at Harmony about how Buffy haunts him. “This has got to end.”
• Riley gets patched up and is back to normal.
• Graham tries to convince him to rejoin the Initiative.
• Back at Spike’s crypt, Buffy bursts in. He tells her to just do it and end his torment.
• She gets ready to stake him. But then they kiss instead.
• Buffy seems disgusted, but then she moves in for another kiss.
• Spike confesses that he’s in love with Buffy… and then he wakes up.
• Body count: Vampires – 3