Disclaimer: This is not an mst, all dialogue is my own, no dialogue from the show is used. All characters, etc. belong to Joss Whedon and his company Mutant Enemy, not me. However, if anonymous masses want to mount a campaign to give me rights to royalties from the syndication, I’d be okay with that.
Lastly, added thanks to Lamiel, my sister and vigilant beta reader.
Maybe not the BEST line of the season, but a worthy one:
FORREST: She’s hot. She’s cool. She’s tepid. She’s all-temperature Buffy.
Buffy Season 4: Recap
BUFFY and WILLOW prepare for their first year of COLLEGE.
WILLOW
If we try hard enough, we’ll find classes stupid enough
for Buffy to take.
AUDIENCE
Didn’t she ace her SATs and get into Northwestern last year?
WRITERS
It’s called a plot device. Work with us.
BUFFY
I feel so lost and alone now that we’ve blown up the
high school.
BUFFY hits RILEY FINN with BOOKS.
RILEY
I’m Captain America with extra teeth!
AUDIENCE
He could brood more.
PROF. MAGGIE WALSH
I believe Introduction to Psychology should be more like
boot camp.
AUDIENCE
Don’t we all.
GILES
And then – all of a sudden – I have a girlfriend!
BUFFY
That freaks me out more than the gang of vampires that almost killed me.
XANDER
I spent my summer working at a male strip club in Colorado
and you’re my hero, Buffy! Sometimes I have sexual fantasies about you.
BUFFY
That was a strange pep talk.
VAMPIRES break BUFFY’S UMBRELLA.
BUFFY
That does it!
BUFFY kills VAMPIRES.
A VAMPIRE gets ZAPPED by MEN IN BLACK.
AUDIENCE
Let’s hear it for obvious set-ups of the season!
BUFFY meets PARKER.
AUDIENCE
Hey, he has handsome brood potential!
BUFFY’S roommate is a CELINE DION fan, a.k.a. SOUL-SUCKING DEMON.
WILLOW takes over as ROOMMATE.
BUFFY and PARKER spend a WEEK being LOVEY.
HARMONY
I’m a vampire! Fear me!
SCOOBIES
We’ll try.
ANYA
Xander! We have a relationship!
XANDER
You confuse me.
HARMONY reveals SPIKE is her BOYFRIEND.
SPIKE
I’m a mean blondy bear.
BUFFY
Why do you come to town every time Drusilla dumps you?
SPIKE
Maybe I’m a wildly popular character! Ever think of that?
AUDIENCE
Squee!
HARMONY
He’s searching for the One Ring, er, Gem of Amara.
GILES sneaks exposition in where he can.
GILES
The Gem of Amara will make any vampire invincible.
ANYA gives XANDER a lengthy DEPOSITION as to WHY they should have SEX.
While she’s in his room. Naked.
XANDER
I really can’t think of a reason we shouldn’t right now.
BUFFY sleeps with PARKER.
AUDIENCE
Sweet brooding man. Sleeps with Buffy. This will go well.
PARKER doesn’t call.
AUDIENCE
Villain!
ANYA
Having sex did not diminish my feelings for Xander. How
odd.
SPIKE
I get a scene in daylight! Hurray for me!
BUFFY
Yet if I easily take the ring OFF your finger, you start to burn. Now I’ll send it to Angel. I don’t think this will cause any problems for him.
SPIKE
I’m gonna be a ratings ploy!
AUDIENCE
Aren’t you always?
HALLOWEEN happens.
BUFFY
Maybe Parker will still call me.
AUDIENCE
Dear sweet girl.
OZ
I worry about Willow using magic.
AUDIENCE
That’s nice, a little early, but nice.
ANYA
I can’t get over Xander! Maybe if I follow him around
some more.
XANDER
Hey, I could be into the stalking ex-vengeance demon.
ANYA reveals the TERROR that is BUNNY RABBITS.
AUDIENCE
Yet does anyone address the teddy bear issue?
A HALLOWEEN PARTY shows us that we have nothing to FEAR except FEAR ITSELF.
AUDIENCE
Cute!
XANDER
I’m gonna be a bartender for this episode! I got to be one
with my fake I.D.
AUDIENCE
There are so many inaccuracies where do we begin?
WRITERS
Yet you accept the concept of a Hellmouth.
BUFFY meets BOYS who pretend to be SMART by using BIG WORDS.
AUDIENCE
Semantics does not equal intelligence.
WRITERS
Then how do you explain Dawson’s Creek?
AUDIENCE looks at WRITERS with INCREDULOUS WONDER.
BUFFY drinks BEER with the not-actually-smart BOYS. They turn into CAVEMEN.
AUDIENCE
Someone’s pushing a metaphor.
WILLOW tells PARKER off.
PARKER
But I’m sweet and slightly brooding!
AUDIENCE
We’re several million strong and all of us hate you.
BUFFY bashes PARKER with a STICK.
AUDIENCE
Yay, but, you know, that seems like it’d kill him.
WRITERS
Sigh.
SPIKE
I’m back in town! Ready to kill the Slayer!
AUDIENCE
This is starting to be pathetic.
SPIKE is ZAPPED. He’s gone for the episode.
VERUCA is in a BAND and a WEREWOLF.
VERUCA
I’d make an awful good girlfriend for Oz.
WILLOW
I’m starting to feel jealous.
OZ and VERUCA have SEX in WEREWOLF FORM.
WILLOW
Okay, I’m more than jealous.
VERUCA
If I kill you Oz will be mine!
AUDIENCE
Why do people on TV always think murdering
someone’s love will win that person’s heart?
OZ kills VERUCA in order to save WILLOW.
OZ
My taciturn ways convey much angst. I can’t be with Willow
and be a werewolf. I must go far far away now.
AUDIENCE
This was never an issue before, yet it somehow makes perfect
sense now.
Everyone takes a moment to miss OZ.
SPIKE wakes up in a STAR TREK BRIG.
SPIKE
Florescent lighting? That’s different.
RILEY punches PARKER.
RILEY
I may have feelings for Buffy.
AUDIENCE
You noticed that too.
SPIKE does an action hero thing. It looks AWESOME.
SPIKE
Now I will kill the Slayer!
AUDIENCE
Spike’s relentless quest to kill Buffy is kind of endearing
in its way.
XANDER and HARMONY have the BRAVEST, most HEROIC and DARING FIGHT in the HISTORY of TELEVISION.
AUDIENCE
Catfights have been seriously underrated.
AUDIENCE learns RILEY is one of those folks who’ve been ZAPPING VAMPIRES. And PROFESSOR WALSH is their LEADER.
AUDIENCE
So a campus house is the front for a military base? Does any of this make sense?
WRITERS
As far as you know.
SPIKE attacks WILLOW.
AUDIENCE
Sometimes we forget he’s a bad guy.
SPIKE
That’s funny. I think I would have noticed before that
trying to kill people caused intense searing pain through
my head.
RILEY
We implanted a chip in Spike’s brain that makes him
incapable of harming humans.
GILES, having missed out on some important exposition, tries to save face.
GILES
The Initiative is experimenting on vampires!
AUDIENCE
(in an effort not to hurt Giles’ feelings)
We had no idea. Really.
BUFFY and RILEY build ROMANCE.
AUDIENCE
Maybe we’re biased, but he could smile less.
SPIKE goes to the SCOOBIES for HELP, which seems counter-intuitive, but oh well.
SCOOBIES tie SPIKE up and are disinclined to help him kill people.
A CHUMASH TRIBE gives XANDER SYPHILIS. His IMPENDING DEATH is used as a point of COMIC RELIEF.
VENGEANCE SPIRIT
We’re upset that your ancestors massacred our people.
AUDIENCE
Makes sense. Have at ‘em.
SPIKE explains the concept of CONQUERING NATIONS.
AUDIENCE
Oh. Maybe they shouldn’t kill the main characters.
ANGEL shows up.
ANGEL
Hi everyone! Watch “Angel” weeknights on the WB after “Buffy”.
AUDIENCE
You can go away now.
ANGEL does.
BUFFY
If Angel’s gonna try and promote his show on my time, then
by golly I’m gonna try and promote it on his!
BUFFY goes to LA for no reason, then comes back.
WILLOW
I’m in a state of permanent emotional anguish now that
Oz has left.
AUDIENCE
There’s definitely a void of monosyllabic wit.
Everyone takes a moment to miss OZ.
WILLOW does MAGIC for purposes of COMIC RELIEF. She also proves she can turn AMY back from being a RAT (see third season), but doesn’t.
JOSS WHEDON
Okay. Time for some old fashioned brilliance.
JOSS WHEDON writes and directs an episode in which everyone loses the ability to speak. Popular opinion says this is flat out wow cool.
SPIKE moves in with XANDER.
AUDIENCE
Hm…Spike and Xander…
Improbable fan fiction is written.
XANDER proves he cares about ANYA.
ANYA
Well, for this episode at least.
WILLOW meets TARA.
AUDIENCE
Are we imagining romantic chemistry here?
JOSS WHEDON
I haven’t decided yet.
OLIVIA
If I end my relationship with Giles, demons will not attack me.
AUDIENCE
You’re probably right.
BUFFY and RILEY discover each other’s SECRET IDENTITIES.
BUFFY
Well our relationship is doomed. Doomed doomed
doomed.
RILEY
Nuh-uh!
SPIKE tries to stake himself in the least effective way imaginable.
WILLOW
We can’t let him kill himself!
AUDIENCE
Well he does seem physically incapable of it.
SPIKE learns he can kill demons, and thereby finds joy. BUFFY decides she and RILEY have a shot and they all save the world.
GILES
I feel like a single, unemployed, middle-aged man who
spends all his time with kids less than half his age.
ETHAN RAYNE
Time for a metaphor!
ETHAN RAYNE turns GILES into a DEMON.
BUFFY becomes involved with the INITIATIVE.
AUDIENCE
Stupid toothy Riley put our Slayer in the military.
ETHAN RAYNE is ARRESTED by the INITIATIVE.
AUDIENCE
You know, as harbingers of Chaos go, he wasn’t that bad.
SPIKE finds a CRYPT pretty much ANYONE would want to live in.
TARA and WILLOW have HEART-BREAKINGLY SWEET moments.
AUDIENCE
Aww!
PROF. WALSH
By building Frankenstein’s monster with added bloodlust, I will no doubt bring prosperity and joy to all. Now let me fail to kill Buffy.
BUFFY
Well I’m a bit more anti-Initiative now.
WALSH
Me and my monster – whom in a fit of originality I’ve named
Adam – are going to be villains and take over Sunnydale together.
ADAM kills WALSH.
ADAM
Off I go adventuring.
RILEY
For some reason, having my mentor try to kill my girlfriend and then die makes me feel inner-turmoil.
ADAM and a LITTLE BOY enact a scene from FRANKENSTEIN together, only with more MURDER and DISSECTION than in the original.
TARA
I’m a sweet shy girl who may be a demon. Audience beware.
AUDIENCE
Well that will no doubt be explained soon.
It isn’t.
BUFFY learns the INITIATIVE has been secretly DRUGGING its SOLDIERS and RILEY is in WITHDRAWAL.
RILEY
My inner-turmoil is rising…rising…
DEMONS oust SPIKE from the DEMON SUB-CULTURE.
DEMONS
It is against our moral code for demons to kill other demons.
AUDIENCE
Since when??
WRITERS
Name one show without blatant inaccuracies. Just one!
AUDIENCE
ER.
WRITERS
Oh shut up.
ADAM
Let me formally introduce myself to the main characters. I’m Adam, Professor Walsh built me out of human, demon and electronic parts. She intended to turn Riley into another version of me, so we’re brothers.
RILEY
None of this is helping my inner-turmoil.
GILES is quietly saddened that he didn’t get the biggest moment of exposition in the season.
RILEY is taken to a MILITARY HOSPITAL to recover from the DRUGS.
SHOW revisits the THIRD SEASON.
FAITH and BUFFY make a BED in FAITH’S coma-induced DREAM.
FAITH
Add some strange foreshadowing about a little sister and
wa-la! We have confusion.
RILEY
I’m drug recovered and out of the hospital. I was able to overcome the worst of it by clinging to Buffy’s handkerchief in desperate hope.
AUDIENCE
We don’t actually care about you.
FAITH wakes up from her COMA. Her NURSE calls in WATCHER’S COUNCIL MEANIES.
XANDER
Faith may be a super-powered villain who tried killing me and all the people I care about, but she slept with me once so we have a bond.
AUDIENCE
Dear sweet boy.
FAITH gets a DOO-HICKEY from her dead father figure, THE MAYOR.
FAITH
Now I shall go be villainous!
FAITH switches BODIES with BUFFY.
AUDIENCE
It’s unoriginality without a twist!
WATCHER’S COUNCIL MEANIES capture BUFFY in FAITH’S BODY.
WATCHER’S COUNCIL MEANIES
We comprise the impolite and dare we say violent portion of
Britain.
BUFFY
Well I’m just having a rotten old day.
In a blatant display of one demon killing another, ADAM rips the HEAD off a VAMPIRE, thereby WINNING RESPECT.
VAMPIRES
He’ll teach us the way to Enlightenment. Let us be his
minions.
WILLOW introduces TARA to FAITH.
TARA, who has NEVER MET BUFFY BEFORE, figures out that someone else has taken over her body in about two seconds flat.
RILEY, who is in a SERIOUS RELATIONSHIP WITH BUFFY, does not figure this out and sleeps with her.
TARA
Willow, we must do a surprisingly erotic spell now in order
to help your friend.
WILLOW
I’m really okay with that.
AUDIENCE
Wow…
ADAM gets the VAMPIRES to go to CHURCH.
EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS
We could learn from him.
FAITH
All the love people keep showing me thinking I’m Buffy
makes me want to be good. ‘Cause I’m a complex character.
FAITH goes to rescue the CHRISTIANS.
BUFFY escapes the MEANIES and goes to rescue the CHRISTIANS too.
CHRISTIANS are promptly rescued.
BUFFY switches bodies back with FAITH.
FAITH
Nothing for me to do now except go to L.A. and do a two-
part episode on Angel’s show.
AUDIENCE
Of course.
BUFFY learns that RILEY slept with FAITH. And so does he.
RILEY
Oops.
Tension is caused.
JONATHAN goes SUPERSTAR.
JONATHAN
I made myself the world’s greatest movie star/soldier/ inventor/writer/ambassador extraordinaire ever!
AUDIENCE
…In order to hang around a small town and be friends with the main characters. Seriously, if ever there was a time to move to New York…
WRITERS
Maybe he wants to stay near the Slayer where he knows he can help save the world?
AUDIENCE has far too much dignity to admit the WRITERS may have a point.
JONATHAN figures out ADAM’S WEAKNESS and he resolves the BUFFY/RILEY tension.
AUDIENCE
Every world should have a guy like that.
BUFFY figures out JONATHAN isn’t BRILLIANT, and ruins it for everyone.
JONATHAN
I just wanted people to like me.
BUFFY
Well we don’t. Now shoo.
DEMONS and VAMPIRES team up together.
BUFFY
That never ever happens! Adam’s up to something!
AUDIENCE
Um…hasn’t the show always said vampires are just another
form of demon? And didn’t Spike just get in trouble for killing demons?
WRITERS
You know, sometimes we doubt your willingness to
suspend disbelief.
ANYA decides to DOUBT her relationship with XANDER for a change.
SPIKE mugs people, which makes so much sense it almost doesn’t belong on this show.
ANYA takes SPIKE to an INITIATIVE PARTY.
SPIKE
No one has recognized me in the first thirty seconds!
I think I’ll stay and fraternize with the people who want to
lock me up, torture and experiment on me while I am
incapable of defending myself in any way.
SHOW does a no-holds-barred attack on SEXUAL REPRESSION.
AUDIENCE
Nice.
RILEY
The Initiative is at maximum holding capacity for
demons while Buffy can’t seem to find and kill any.
SCOOBIES
Well isn’t Buffy just a lousy Slayer.
OZ appears.
TARA has an intense emotional reaction and runs away.
SCOOBIES are oblivious and slightly stupid.
OZ
I cured my werewolf issues and am ready to resume my relationship with Willow!
AUDIENCE
This is all very heartbreaking.
TARA finds OZ in WILLOW’S ROOM, has an intense emotional reaction and runs away.
OZ is oblivious, though one just can’t call him stupid.
WILLOW
Buffy, I’m in love with Tara.
BUFFY
Of all the things I expected you to say just now that was
not one of them.
OZ – with his smelling ability – learns TARA and WILLOW are in LOVE.
OZ
Allow me to express my emotions in a dance entitled
“Kill Tara”.
OZ – via his always-bad special effects – turns into WOLF FORM.
The INITIATIVE shows up and ZAPS him.
ADAM
Help me Spike and I’ll get the chip out of your head. Don’t
help me and I’ll kill you.
SPIKE
Decisions, decisions.
RILEY
In expression of my black and white views of society, I’m
gonna kill Oz.
OZ reverts back to HUMAN FORM.
RILEY
In expression of my understanding of the shades of gray that compose our society, I’m gonna help Oz escape.
INITIATIVE
But we wanna torture the naked boy!
INITIATIVE arrests RILEY. BUFFY, XANDER and WILLOW rescue RILEY and OZ.
RILEY is officially OUT of the INITIATIVE.
BUFFY
So, Riley, time for you to hear a quaint little story entitled
“Angel: the One True Love of Buffy Summers”.
WILLOW
Back to my own emotional drama. I choose Tara.
OZ
Did I mention my dance?
OZ leaves town rather than demonstrate it again.
Everyone takes a moment to miss OZ.
TARA
But you have me now!
AUDIENCE
Are you quietly confident?
TARA stutters nervously in response and looks away.
BUFFY
I’m gonna go down to LA for absolutely no reason
whatsoever! Back in a jiff!
AUDIENCE
We’ll watch Angel’s show! Really! Just please stop with the pointless crossovers!
ADAM kills RILEY’S friend FORREST.
XANDER tells RILEY that BUFFY slept with ANGEL once.
RILEY
I am unbelievably upset that Buffy had sex with her ex-boyfriend a year into their relationship and two years before she met me!
AUDIENCE
Since clearly you were a virgin.
ADAM tells SPIKE to break the SCOOBIES up.
ADAM
If Buffy has no friends, she can’t stop me.
AUDIENCE
You’re probably right.
SPIKE, the always keenly observant one, figures out the exact thing that will make each SCOOBY feel separated from and unloved by the others.
AUDIENCE
Seriously impressive dialogue.
WRITERS
Truce?
ANGEL goes to SUNNYDALE to beat RILEY up.
AUDIENCE
You just ruined it.
ANGEL
Buffy, on my show we had an argument. I was completely
right about everything and you were completely wrong, but I decided to come up here and say I was wrong, thereby instilling the audience with a sense of muted frustration.
BUFFY
Cool. You can leave now.
BUFFY tells RILEY that ADAM killed FORREST. RILEY leaves in a fit of INNER-TURMOIL.
SCOOBIES fight and break up thanks to the ingenuity of SPIKE.
ADAM activates a CHIP in RILEY’S CHEST, thereby controlling the MOVEMENTS of RILEY’S BODY.
ADAM
I’m gonna turn you into a demon like me, just like Walsh
wanted.
RILEY
You can tell I object by the way I blink.
ADAM
My Evil Master Plan is to lock the soldiers and scientists in with the demons, set the demons loose on them, let them all kill each other, and then build an army of Frankenstein creatures like me and go on from there.
RILEY
Blink blink.
GILES
I could’ve given that exposition…maybe…if I had any clue what was going on…and wasn’t drunk…
ADAM then introduces RILEY to the corpses of PROF. WALSH, FORREST and some scientist guy we don’t know.
SCIENTIST GUY
I helped build Adam. I had lines and everything.
AUDIENCE
Well that worked out well for you.
FORREST
I’m a Frankenstein monster! Hee!
WALSH
Given that I came up with the idea, it’d be nice if I had been made into one too. He was already making me an animated-corpse, he couldn’t take it just a step farther?
AUDIENCE
Some people are never happy.
BUFFY
Slayer that I am I resolved all my friendship issues, figured out Spike’s working for Adam and deduced Adam’s Evil Master Plan, all in less than five minutes!
AUDIENCE
Go you!
SCOOBY UNION destroys SPIKE’S chances to have his CHIP taken OUT.
SPIKE
I’ll be fleeing for my life now.
SCOOBIES break into INITIATIVE.
SOLDIERS
We are masculine stereotypes without dimension or
character. Arrest the Scoobies!
ADAM sets DEMONS loose.
SOLDIERS
Time to die!
SCOOBIES
To the secret lab!
SCOOBIES do a SPELL.
RILEY digs the CHIP out of his CHEST, which is an interesting talent since it’s been established he can’t move any body part on his own.
RILEY
Now I can express emotion! Watch me blink and flex my jaw muscles!
RILEY kills FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER FORREST.
SCOOBY SPELL makes BUFFY’S BODY a combo of all the SCOOBIES.
COMBO-BUFFY
We will turn this bullet into doves, symbolizing peace. We will then beat the heck out of Adam and rip out his innards, symbolizing that peace is for wusses.
ADAM dies.
SCOOBIES, RILEY and SPIKE join the massive HUMAN/DEMON battle. This is not important.
The PENTAGON decides to shut down the INITIATIVE.
PENTAGON
But we’ll still monitor the Slayer and her friends. ‘Cause
we’re government and all.
PENTAGON doesn’t monitor. Or maybe they want the world to end and see no need to ever interfere.
AUDIENCE
Was that the season finale?
JOSS WHEDON
Nope!
JOSS WHEDON composes an episode out of dream sequences.
FIRST HALF OF AUDIENCE
Brilliant!
SECOND HALF OF AUDIENCE
But…it doesn’t make any sense.
FIRST HALF OF AUDIENCE
Sure it does. See, the Cheese Man symbolizes…oh, wait,
you’re right, it doesn’t make any sense.
But it does have a follow-able narrative plot with perhaps the most believable dream sequences ever shown on television and a focus on character aspects that had not yet been fully explored on the show. Plus it’s funny.
So it’s still brilliant.
BUFFY
Wait…dream sequence…time to foreshadow a little sister!
AUDIENCE
Just give it up already. We’re not gonna get it.
So ends Season Four, anticlimactic, weird, and maybe just a touch existential.
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