Overall Rating: 8.5 Matt: 8.5 Eric: 8.5 Writer/Director: Marti Noxon Cast : Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers, Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris, Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg, Marc Blucas as Riley Finn, Emma Caulfield as Anya, Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers, James Marsters as Spike, Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles. Main guest stars : Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers, Bailey Chase as Graham Miller, Nick Chinlund as Major Ellis, Randy Thompson as Dr. Kriegel. Original broadcast date : December 12, 2000 My one-line description: Correction – meet Riley the vampire vending machine. The Scoobies watches as the nurses wheel Joyce off to surgery. Then the whole gang waits with Buffy and Dawn (who has fallen asleep). Sometime later, Willow asks Xander the time, and she can’t believe how much of it has passed… Finally, the doctor comes out to see them, looking very tired. He reports that he was able to spot and remove the entire tumor – Joyce should be fine. The gang happily hugs and shakes hands to celebrate. While Dawn spends the night at Xander’s place, Buffy and Riley enjoy an evening together. Riley marvels at how strong she’s been, but Buffy confesses that she did cry – which makes him sad. Later, the two make love, and then fall asleep – or at least Buffy does. Riley gets up quietly and leaves; he doesn’t notice Spike following him as he heads to an old, abandoned building. The next day, Buffy is at the hospital trying to convince her mom to wear a wig. Joyce decides to settle for a scarf, and points out that Buffy should go out and have fun. However, Buffy wants to spend time with her mom instead. Somewhere else in town, Major Ellis, Graham and other soldiers are discussing the presence of a demon nest in Belize. Graham suggests to Ellis they enlist Agent Finn’s help, but comments that it may be hard to convince him to go. Ellis wonders what could possibly keep Riley in Sunnydale. That night, Spike appears in Buffy’s bedroom and explains that he needs to show her something. She reluctantly gets dressed and follows him to an abandoned building. As they go in and encounter a lot of vampires, Spike tells Buffy not to react. As Spike leads her upstairs, she notices there are also a lot of humans in the place… Spike and Buffy enter a room, where she discovers Riley getting blood sucked out of his arm by a vampire… Buffy and Riley stare at each other, and she runs out of the room. Spike goes after her, quite pleased with himself, but sobers up when he sees the pain in her face. "I thought you should know," he says. Riley tries to catch up with Buffy, but he’s slowed down by a vampire who is angry he led the Slayer to their hideout. Numb with disbelief, Buffy walks slowly into her room and shuts the door. An equally distraught Riley enters his apartment, where he finds Graham and Major Ellis. He doesn’t want to talk, but Ellis asks him to listen. He tells him about the demon nest in Belize, and they need him for the mission – high risk, low pay. The transport leaves the next evening at midnight. The next day, Buffy bursts into the Magic Box, looking for information on a vampire nest where humans go to have their blood sucked. Giles and Anya state that they have both heard of such things, and Giles explains the advantages for the vampires : hot and cold running blood, money, no bodies; the humans go there for the thrill of it. He comments that Buffy’s time might be better spent going after Glory than busting vampires, but Buffy insists that vampires are vampires, and her job description is pretty clear. Xander suggests they at least wait for Riley, but she wants to take care of the nest right now. Buffy and the gang arrive to find the building empty – the vampires have upped and left. Buffy is frustrated, and burns down to place to alleviate her anger. Giles and the others looked stunned and worried at her behaviour. Riley bursts into Spike’s crypt, goes straight for the vampire and stakes him. You’d think Spike would have burst into dust, right? Not. The stake was plastic. Riley intended it as a warning – stay away from Buffy, or next time the stake will be real. Spike laughs at the threat, saying that even if he himself weren’t in the picture, Riley wouldn’t be able to hold on to Buffy – the girl likes a little monster in her man, and that’s not in Riley’s nature. He tosses Riley a bottle of booze he was drinking from; as Riley takes a nip, Spike expresses his envy that the soldier actually gets to touch her, to be with her, to hold her – but Riley knows he doesn’t really have her. At the Magic Box, Xander and Anya listen worriedly as Buffy takes out her anger on a punching bag in the training room. Riley enters, asks if she’s in there, and goes in. She stops for a moment, and tells him she doesn’t want to talk unless he wants to fight. Riley proposes they do indeed fight and let it all out. She accepts to listen to him, and he explains that he let vampires bit him to even the score after she let Dracula bite her – he wanted to understand why men like Dracula and Angel held such power over her. Buffy can’t believe he blames her for this, but Riley quickly agrees it’s his fault. However, he says, the vampires he went to made him feel needed, something he craved. "And I don’t make you feel that way?" she asks. Riley replies that when he’s with her, the whole world falls away until there’s only her. But he thinks she doesn’t feel the same way – she keeps him at a distance, and he wants to be able to take care of her, so she doesn’t have to be on top of things all the time. Buffy claims that comes with the Slayer package, and believes Riley has issues with her being stronger than him. He says it’s hard sometimes, but that there’s something else. "I’ve given you my heart, my body and my soul!" exclaims an outraged Buffy, wondering what else she could possibly give him. He replies that she may say that, but he doesn’t feel it… "And whose fault is that?" she asks. Silence ensues. "They want me back, Buffy." Riley tells her about the invitation to join the deep undercover mission, no contact with civilians. The transport leaves the same evening, and if they can’t work this out… Buffy is outraged that he would hand an ultimatum to her, but he says that unless she gives him a reason to stay, he leaves tonight… Buffy walks out of the training room. Walking alone and angry in an alley, Buffy is surrounded by the vampires from the nest she torched. She warns them to walk away, but they want retribution. So she fights them all, using her anger to dust all eight of them. The last one left is the woman who was drinking from Riley. Buffy orders her to run, then throws a javelin at her back. The vampire explodes into dust. Xander shows up behind her, asking if she needs any help. She asks him to go away, but he refuses. He follows her inside an empty warehouse, and she snaps that he doesn’t know what’s going on. But Xander has realized that she and Riley are imploding, and she tells him about Riley’s ultimatum. "You gonna let him go?" Xander asks. Buffy replies that it’s not fair, but Xander points out that "fair" doesn’t matter – Riley is leaving. She balks at the thought of begging Riley to stay, but Xander wonders why she wouldn’t. He points out she’s been treating him like the rebound guy, when he’s the kind that comes around once in a lifetime. He adds that Riley has never held back with her, and wonders at the fact that she’d let him go because she doesn’t like ultimatums. If he’s not the guy, he says, then she should let him go; but if she’s ready for real, messy and scary love, then she should think about what she’s going to lose. Buffy looks at Xander, a world of fear in her eyes. "Run", he urges. As Buffy runs through the streets of Sunnydale, Riley waits beside a helicopter whose propellers begin to rotate. He waits, and waits… and finally boards the helicopter, which lifts off just as Buffy arrives in the park. She shouts his name, but he can’t hear her over the noise of the propellers – doesn’t know she’s down there. Buffy watches, powerless, as he flies off into the night. Xander arrives at his apartment and tells a stunned Anya that he’s in love with her – the things she does, the way she thinks, the way she moves – she makes him feel like a man. And he just thought she might want to know. Overcome with emotion, Anya hugs him. Back home, Buffy starts walking up to her bedroom, but she sits down in the middle of the stairs, overcome by despair. Riley flies off into the night, stone-faced. Summary by OttsFiveByFive.