Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Primeval"

Airdate: May 16, 2000

Each season on Buffy, there's some big bad guy, and by the end of the season he has to be vanquished. That's just the way it is, and it's working so far. In the first season, the Master met a spectacular end at Buffy's hands. In the second, Spike was the baddie, but he was crippled halfway through the season and Angelus took his place as resident bad-ass; not only did they turn him back into Angel The White Hat, but poor Buffy had to send him to Hell anyway. Season three saw the introduction of the delightfully evil Mayor, and ended with his transformation into snake-chunks. So it just stands to reason that with Adam being season four's Evil Menace To Society, he should die by the end of the season.

Die he does, and quite niftily thank you very much. But first, let us recap. The holding cells in The Initiative are all full; as it turns out, Adam's been having demons get themselves caught so that there'll be a lot of them in there when the shit hits the fan. Riley's in Adam's clutches; turns out he's got an implant of his own, a chip that allows Adam to control him. This allows the character to be even more boring than usual, poor guy. Spike, meanwhile, demands payment: he wants the chip out of his head. Adam, however, is less than satisfied with the vampire's performance, and orders Forrest -- now a "new man" and very Adam-like in his Frankenstein way -- to kill him; Spike escapes, and they don't bother to give chase.

Buffy realizes that the current rift between her and her friends was stirred up by trouble-making Spike -- though she also seems to realize that the problems were always there. With a somewhat reunified Scooby Gang, Buffy figures out Adam's plan: he's going to shut down The Initiative, releasing the demons, and trapping them inside along with the soldiers, so they'll kill each other. Determined to prevent the evil plot from going down, Buffy and friends infiltrate The Initiative -- and, incidentally, make up with a big group hugging session while rappelling down an elevator shaft -- only to be caught once they're inside. When all hell breaks loose, the Scoobies discover where Adam's secret labs are; Buffy goes inside to fight him and his zombified assistants, while the rest of the gang prepares in another room to cast a spell that will combine their power, and that of the First Slayer, to make Buffy stronger.

Somehow, Riley overcomes his chip long enough to get something sharp, cut himself open, and pull the chip out. Ouch. Ridiculousness of that aside, he then kicks Evil Forrest's ass, which is even more improbable. But I'll put the ridiculousness of that aside, too, because some logicalness has to be sacrificed in the name of storytelling.

Now, I've heard it loudly complained that Buffy's final fight with Adam was Matrix-like. And I say... well, yeah, okay, it was, a little bit. But it was so cool. Anyway, Buffy got all red-eyed and super-special and primordial and primeval on Adam's ass, and kicked it. Back at the ranch, the rest of the Scoobies are recovering from casting their spell when an escaped demon busts through the door, and they're saved by Spike, who's been kicking demon ass since escaping from Adam. This is probably the only thing that keeps poor Spike from being staked.

I did experience a bit of disappointment with this episode, though, I'll admit it. Though it's otherwise solid and entertaining despite the occasional glitch, I'm displeased with the way Adam died. He had a disk drive in his chest, people! The opportunities don't get much better than that. How do you defeat a big strong cyborg demon? The same way you defeat alien hordes. Didn't you people see Independence Day? I was really looking forward to somebody sticking a virus-infected floppy in the guy's chest. Predictable, maybe, but the computer nerd in me thinks it would've been funny.

Or, alternatively, they could've had Spike do a striptease on a table. I'm not picky.

-- Lisa Kincaid

Buffy the Vampire Slayer airs at 8pm EST, Tuesdays on the WB.

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