"The I in Team"
Airdate: February 8, 2000

Some freak fluke this week lead to an 11th Hour reviewer actually getting something she wanted. In other news, the seas boiled and the skies fell.

In my review of "A New Man", I wished ever-so-wistfully that Buffy and the gang would come to their senses about The Initiative -- and therefore see that it is bad. Here it is just a week later, and my wish is granted. I'm not sure whether I should faint from the shock of it or check to make sure the world isn't ending.

But more than the wish-fulfillment factor, "The I in Team" was an oddly satisfying episode -- and I say odd because when I look back on my viewing experience, it really doesn't seem like it should've been satisfying. It just sort of... was.

In this episode, Buffy went the whole nine yards and actually joined the Initiative. She got a beeper and everything. She corrupted Riley and just generally stirred things up, that little troublemaker. She also got laid -- and the guy didn't turn evil. In fact, so far, the whole getting-laid thing has worked out for her. This just can't be Joss' world.

We also found out that Maggie Walsh is a secret porno addict and that we should actually call her Doctor Frankenstein. Which leads me to the mysterious, the ominous, the generally bad: 314.

On Buffy, there's sometimes a penchant for using mysterious numbers. (Remember Buffy's Faith-dream in "Graduation Day" where the other Slayer's rambling on about Little Miss Moffet counting down to seven-three-oh? What was that all about?) This time, though, they didn't keep us in suspense. The "314" that Ethan Rayne warned Giles about in "A New Man" is revealed with the very next episode, and we find out that the project is actually a creature called "Adam": a Frankenstein's monster created by Walsh and her cohorts for reasons as yet unknown. He's a pretty ugly bastard, but he's also tough, and his first conscious act is killing his creator.

About goddamn time.

See, if I disliked Walsh before, "The I in Team" helped me to learn how to hate her. Not because of her attempt to kill Buffy, which was pathetic -- Two demons in a sewer? Please. But because of her apparent crush on Riley Finn. Agent Finn, actually, her subordinate and by far her junior, age-wise. She's apparently got a thing for him. Had a thing, anyway. Turned my stomach. Glad she's dead. She had a wicked witch of the west thing going anyway, and the character just got a bit too over the top there in her last days, what with the "Sniff, sob, Buffy's dead" routine and the whole Riley crush and the ranting to her unconscious creature-thing.

On the other hand, I am learning to love Riley. Despite the very odd, very stupid, and very confusing way that Riley and Buffy's first love scene was intercut with a demon-fight, it still managed to be steamy, and Riley's getting more loveable with each passing week. Everybody say it with me now: "Awwwww. Isn't he cute?"

And that leads me to the highlight of the episode. Mainly, the shirtlessness. James Marsters removes his T when Forrest and Graham (a couple of characters who could use some more screen time) spot our own Hostile 17 in the field and shoot him, embedding a tracer in his back. He goes to Giles for help and ends up drunk and topless for the tracer-removal "surgery". Just the way I like 'im. Well, maybe minus the drunk part. But this is leading to more integration of Spike into the gang, which I can't say is a bad thing... since it leads to more James on my television, and more of the guy charitably removing his shirt for our viewing pleasure.

And Marc Blucas... oh, that Marc Blucas. When Marsters warned him that he'd have to remove his shirt in the future, the boy apparently took it to heart. When he finally loses the clothes, he's buffed out and very lickable, and he's so cute and he's got this haircut that --

Errr, right. The episode. Well, there was a lot to dislike here, and some of it even inspired outright heckling. Willow and Tara's scenes, mostly pointless except for an apparent attempt to build sexual tension and naughtiness, inspired a lot of comments of this nature: "H-here's a rock. I-I want you to h-have it. Will y-you be my lesbian lover now?" And Professor Walsh... well, she was too easy. That was more like, "It's alive! It's aliiiiiive!" But I shouldn't repeat that one, 'cause it makes me feel a little cheap. Still, somehow the enjoyment snuck past my cynical reviewer defenses and left me strangely satisfied.

It also left us with a good set up for next week's "Goodbye, Iowa". Buffy and Riley have had sex -- hooboy, she's seein' some action this season! -- and there's always consequences. Usually bad ones. Riley knows that Walsh tried to kill Buffy. Buffy and her crew are now very much anti-Initiative. And Walsh is dead at the hands of her Teenaged Mutant Ninja Thingy, which apparently is now on the loose and ready to bust some heads. Not to mention that with Walsh gone, the fate of Riley and the Initiative is somewhat up in the air, which leaves us viewers right there with it, in twitchy anticipation approaching nervous-ticdom.

-- Lisa Kincaid

Buffy the Vampire Slayer airs Tuesdays on the WB.

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