Buffy 4.20: "The Yoko Factor"

Written by Doug Petrie
Directed by David Grossman

In which Spike, working for Adam, plays on the negative emotions that have been building between the Scoobies for months, as Adam triggers the final piece of his endgame…


Status Report

With the season arc taking several unexpected turns during the course of the season, largely unanticipated by the writing staff, it was a bit of a surprise to find that the arc still wasn’t apparent going into the two-part finale in episode 20. Certainly the writers did everything to make it all come together, and there’s evidence that many plans and character arcs were coming to fruition. Unfortunately, some of those elements don’t come together as well as the writers might have intended, largely due to mixed messages earlier in the season.

The haphazard nature of the Initiative arc is in evidence right from the beginning. There’s the distinct impression that the military doesn’t know what to do about Sunnydale in the wake of Walsh’s death. Ironically, the final season of “Angel” would reveal that the Initiative has been around since at least World War II. That being the case, why would they be so blind and foolish as they are in this episode? And why wouldn’t they understand the role and nature of the Slayer?

Meanwhile, Adam’s plan evolves in a way that salvages much of the wasted opportunities, and by bringing Spike into the fold, the writers turn the arc in a direction that aligns with the season’s main theme. The characters have been more or less discovering themselves, but they’ve done a poor job of revealing themselves to each other. That leaves them vulnerable to their own fears of acceptance and self-doubt.

Spike is right about one thing, at least to a certain extent: Buffy is special because of her unique and loyal support system. Eliminate the support system, without making them rallying points by killing them, and Buffy is weakened as a result. It all makes a great deal of sense, but to get to that point, the writers have to make it seem like this is the end of a process that has been building towards a break for quite some time. And looking back at the season as a whole, that isn’t where the writers took the season at all.

To be fair, Buffy does set herself up when it comes to Riley. By only telling him part of the story with Angel, she leaves an opening for someone else to make an offhand comment and tip him off to the nature of the curse. Considering how important that was to the whole equation, she really should have said something to him. Buffy really betrays Riley in a fundamental way, and while it’s never said explicitly, it begins building the case that takes Riley in a horrible direction in the fifth season.

Giles, on the other hand, has been jumping in and out of Buffy’s life all season. Initially it was his choice to distance himself and find a new purpose, and so those seeds were planted by his own sense of impending freedom. Yet in several episodes, Buffy seeks out Giles for advice and support, and his apartment has been a gathering place for the gang week after week. It all sounds very convincing within the context of the episode, and it was clearly the intention of the writers to place Giles in this position over time, but the process wasn’t that straightforward.

While Buffy has been centering her life around Riley for quite a while (ever since “Hush”, actually), she hasn’t been all that distanced from Willow until very recently. When Buffy and Willow have been at odds, it’s been more on Willow’s part, in response to her depression over Oz and his departure. Buffy did distance herself from the others for a short time when she joined the Initiative, but she and Willow have been working through the recent troubles together. This is one area where the case is well overstated.

Earlier in the season, there was a lot made of the fact that Xander, like Giles, wasn’t part of the college gang. So to a certain extent, Xander has every reason to feel like he’s been left behind by the others. Yet the same issue that comes with Giles applies to Xander: when push comes to shove, Xander has been there, week after week. Xander’s reaction to the suggestion that he might join the Army is out of proportion to the fact that he himself has bemoaned his many, many jobs. But if it wasn’t a strong reaction, of course, then it wouldn’t culminate in the argument at the end of the episode.

What does move the arc forward is the clash between Buffy, Forrest, and Adam. This seems more like the logical progression of a season arc, since the clash between Buffy and Forrest was destined to end badly. It also serves to demonstrate that Adam doesn’t need Buffy dead. He lets her live for a purpose, even if that is still left unclear.

Spike makes a point of insinuating that the others have a problem with Willow’s relationship with Tara, and there’s a certain extent to which that works thematically. Yet it takes a bit of a leap for that to occur, and Willow takes it a bit out of proportion. Granted, Spike is meant to come across as the double agent, getting his revenge on the Scoobies for all they’ve done to him over the past several months, but even he shouldn’t have it so easy.

The arrival of Angel, and his nearly immediate clash with Riley, come out of left field. It makes sense that Angel would want to make good after the debacle at the end of “Sanctuary”, but this seems designed to place Angel and Riley at odds, as if the audience needed to see that. It’s a situation that Angel could have easily defused, even if Riley was looking for a fight. Angel never explains himself, and so it just seems out of place with the rest of the episode.

Once the silly Angel/Riley posturing is over, there is a nice scene between Buffy and Angel that brings their relationship to the post-hostility phase, as it should be. It’s nothing that couldn’t have been done at the end of “Sanctuary”, of course, but since that episode was about making Angel’s mission palpable and this episode is about showing Buffy in a good light, there is a method to the madness. It’s good to see them laugh and talk to each other like people with a history, who also understand that they can’t be together like they were.

Of course, history isn’t always the best thing, especially when people get to thinking about things in a negative light. If one accepts the premise that Spike has reminded everyone of the things that have been bothering them all season, even if the episodes themselves don’t quite add up to the conclusions made, then the final act makes a lot of sense and follows up nicely on the issues Joss brought up in “Fear, Itself”.

It also poses the question that gets answered in the next episode: what can Buffy’s friends really bring to the table, when all is said and done? More correctly, the question is, what can they bring to the table now? As it turns out, the answer to that question helps to bring some of the themes for the season to a head. Not only have the characters spent a significant amount of time figuring themselves out, but now they have the chance to figure out who they are in relation to Buffy and her destiny. All of which, in the end, serves to ask the primary question of the fifth season: Buffy may finally have some idea of who she is, but what does it really mean to be a Slayer?

At the same time, this season arc, while a nice metaphor for early college life, doesn’t really culminate in the kind of definitive answers provided in the second and third season arcs. It’s more correct to say that this is the second part of a three-season arc about self-awareness. The third season taught Buffy how her support system helps her to resist the extremes that can take control of a Slayer otherwise, since Faith is a Slayer ruled by the primal instincts of the Chosen line.

The fourth season comes in direct consequence: if Buffy is a relatively stable mixture of varying influences, then who is she when her support system begins to break down? Inevitably this leads to introspection and an attempt to understand choices and personal moralities, but the end result must be one final question: how much of Buffy is driven by the subconscious demands of the Chosen line? Where does the Slayer end and Buffy begin? And that means figuring out what the Slayer is at the core.

Up to this point, Buffy has managed to survive through her support system and by tapping into the basic Slayer abilities without care or concern for where they come from. The point of this episode is to set the stage for a situation where Buffy only has that wellspring to rely upon. Stripping away her support system is vital to that goal, but it would have worked better if the season itself had organically and consistently developed towards that end.


Memorable Quotes

SPIKE: “You’re like Tony Robbins, if he was a big scary, Frankenstein-looking…you’re exactly like Tony Robbins!”

XANDER: “Try these on. You’ll feel like a new man.”
RILEY: “Would this man have a bright red nose and big, floppy feet?”

GILES: “I’m her Watcher.”
SPIKE: “I think you’re neglecting the past-tense there, Rupert. Besides, she barely listened to you when you were in charge. I’ve seen the way she treats you.”
GILES: “Oh yes? And how’s that?”
SPIKE: “Very much like a retired librarian.”

ANGEL: “Going to see an old girlfriend.”
RILEY: “Oh, you really think I’m gonna let that happen?”
ANGEL: “You think you’re gonna stop me?”
RILEY: “I surely do…”

ANGEL: “This was an accident.”
BUFFY: “Running a car into a tree is an accident. Running your fist into somebody’s face is a plan!”

BUFFY: “OK, that’s enough! I see one more display of testosterone poisoning and I will personally put you both in the hospital. Anybody think I’m exaggerating?”

RILEY: “I’m not leaving this room. I mean it! Not moving a muscle…”

RILEY: “Seriously? That’s a good day? Well, there you go. Even when he’s good, he’s all Mr. Billowy Coat, King of Pain…”

GILES: “You never train with me anymore. He’s gonna kick your ass.”
BUFFY: “Giles!”
GILES: “Sorry, was that a bit honest? Terribly sorry…”

XANDER: “Just because you’re better than us doesn’t mean that you can be all superior!”

XANDER: “Since you two went off to college and forgot about me! Just left me in the basement to…Tara’s your girlfriend?”
GILES: “Bloody hell…!”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode was written with all the right intentions, and in a general sense, the characters arrive where they were meant to go all season long. Unfortunately, this episode also highlights a number of problems with the structure and flow of the season as a whole. The Angel/Riley conflict is woefully contrived, but a number of individual scenes make it worth the time.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4

Final Rating: 6/10