Buffy 4.21: "Primeval"

Written by David Fury
Directed by James A. Contner

In which Buffy reconciles with her friends just in time to face Adam’s master plan at the Initiative, which requires the Slayer to tap into resources she never knew she had…


Status Report

The very fact that this episode is not the season finale, yet wraps up the fourth season arc, should be an indication of how fragmented the development of the arc truly was. The explanation for Adam’s behavior makes a certain amount of sense, especially the first time around, but it’s vague and convenient enough to be forgettable. It’s actually quite easy, watching episodes earlier in the season for the second or third time, to forget how the writers wrapped it all together.

In essence, Adam planned on making more of his own kind, super-soldiers created through the melding of human and demon parts. This was supposedly a twisted version of Maggie Walsh’s original intention for the Initiative’s work in Sunnydale, which would seem to link the original progression of the season arc with Adam’s emergence.

The problem is that it only makes sense if one tries to forget that Maggie’s work was primarily behavioral modification. The original arc, based on Riley’s character and its designed nature, seemed far more psychological and social in nature. It was meant to be a question of Maggie’s programming vs. Buffy’s influence. The Initiative commandoes were supposed to be conditioned to obey, thus providing a commentary on how one’s identity can be buried beneath the programming of authorities in life.

Adam’s quick inclusion into the season arc took that concept and turned it into something less defined and less applicable to the theme of the season as a whole. Sure, Adam manages to control Riley, forcing Riley to make one final choice to exert free will and help Buffy, but it doesn’t have the resonance that an entire season of psychological conflict would have provided.

The writers do everything possible to make this episode a strong enough ending to the season arc, and while it’s still quite clear that the budget wasn’t nearly large enough to provide the scale desired, the final battle is impressive. The score is just perfect, and the implied chaos actually manages to shine through on more than one occasion. It sounds and feels like a much bigger battle than it is; it’s a good bit of production.

Still, Adam’s plan is more or less thrown together (note that Buffy, meant to lead humans in Adam’s plan, never actually does that, which seems to point to a flaw in the plan). It doesn’t take much analytical ability (or attention span) to realize, just based on the hints from the writers, that Adam’s plan was basically worked out around the time of “This Year’s Girl”. For this reason, it is somewhat unsatisfying, and since it doesn’t quite lead into the theme of the fifth season as readily as the original concept would have, the writers wrap up the action early and rely on a finale that deals almost entirely with character development.

The end effect of this structure was a weak transition between the fourth and fifth seasons, because it never quite feels like the questions raised in the fourth season are adequately answered. If anything, the questions transform, as seen in the season finale. It’s also a quick reversal from the fractured Scooby Gang concept in the previous episode. It’s so fast and loose that it actually highlights the fact that the overall journey to that fracturing of the gang doesn’t quite hold up to scrutiny.

In terms of the season arc, this episode is what it is: a means to an end. It’s a way to close the door on Adam and the Initiative so they are unlikely to return again in any meaningful form. Joss, on the other hand, used this need to introduce the means of transition between the fourth and fifth season themes for Buffy: who Buffy really is, and how much of Buffy comes from the Slayer.

This is achieved by giving Buffy only one meaningful option for defeating Adam. The idea is that Buffy has a great deal of untapped power, all tied to the source of the Slayer’s true origins. In this case, Giles, Willow, and Xander use the grounding elements of mind, spirit, and heart to summon forth the primeval power of the Slayer and grant it to Buffy.

This, in turn, becomes the trigger for an exploration, at least in some vague sense, of what it means to be a Slayer in the fifth season. It also opens up a number of questions about the nature of the Slayer’s power. In retrospect, after the seventh season finale, this episode makes a lot of sense. The end of the seventh season revealed that the Slayer’s true origins were tied to the female aspect of magical energy, in effect a Goddess figure. This was then corrupted by the First Watchers through the melding of demonic power with that feminine energy.

While Buffy’s later explorations in the fifth season seem tied more closely to the negative, demonic side to the Chosen line, Buffy’s abilities while fighting Adam seem a lot more aligned with the feminine power aspect. Simple demonic power wouldn’t explain transformative abilities to manipulate matter on a subatomic level. The brute strength could be demonic in source, but it could also be like the Force: tapping into the general energy of Life itself to enhance existing strength and speed.

One interesting question is whether or not the emergence of the First Slayer in subsequent episodes, as a result of the spell in this installment, was always meant to coincide with the early fifth season. It’s not necessarily the case. If the original concept for the season arc was more psychological, it could have been a more subversive finale with hints that Buffy is, in fact, just as controlled by outside forces as Riley had been. That would have been a rather clever way to segue into the fifth season.

As the need for a big action finale came along, so did the introduction of Buffy’s Chosen legacy as a primal influence return as a big action concept. It wasn’t just another turn of Buffy’s psychology stemming from the questions raised by Faith’s personality in the third season; it was an excuse for “cool” special effects. If “Restless” hadn’t salvaged the idea in unusually strong form with the next episode, it would have been a waste of an idea. Sure, the special effects are neat, but it just doesn’t feel as nuanced as it could have been.

One other problem with this episode is that Riley Finn, a character designed for the sole purpose of tying the season’s theme to the Initiative arc, actually survives. There’s no compelling reason for that to happen, especially since ripping out something connected to one’s central nervous system ought to be rather fatal. The writers resist the proper urge to give Riley a fitting end, and thus the character would wander without purpose in the fifth season, losing much of his integrity and relevance in the process.

This is the perfect example of a problem that plagued the latter seasons of the series: characters that outlived their intended use for far too long. Riley is only the first example. Had he died in this episode, the character would have been remembered as a great character. Later examples are Tara and Dawn, both of which lingered in perplexing and even illogical extensions on their original plot purpose. (Tara, at least, merely received a stay of execution of debatable value; Dawn spent two seasons of absolutely no redeeming value as a near-complete nuisance.)

This episode stands as the culmination of the first season without Joss Whedon as a primary showrunner. More and more responsibility was handed to David Fury and Marti Noxon, and as the subsequent seasons would demonstrate, the less Joss was involved, the less the seasonal themes were able to shine through. With Joss spending so much time and effort on giving “Angel” a more focused and serialized structure in its second season, the lessons of the fourth season and this plot arc finale would only partially be learned when approaching the fifth season arc.


Memorable Quotes

SPIKE: “Slightly stiffer than usual. Subtle, but I like it…”

ANYA: “You said you wanted to check the board at the unemployment office this morning. You can’t go like that. They won’t even interview you if you’re naked.”

GILES: “Well, Spike can be very convincing when…when, uh…I’m very stupid…”

XANDER: “Spike’s working for Adam? After all we’ve done…nah, I can’t even act surprised…”

XANDER: “Does anybody else miss the Mayor? ‘I just wanna be a big snake’?”

GILES: “Xander, just because this is never gonna work, there’s no need to be negative.”

BUFFY: “Xander!”
WILLOW: “Oh, wonderful Xander!”
BUFFY: “You know we love you, right?”
WILLOW: “We totally do!”
XANDER: “Oh God…we’re gonna die, aren’t we…”

WILLOW: “It’s a gourd.”
GILES: “A magic gourd.”
COLONEL: “What kind of freaks are you people?”

ADAM: “Interesting…very interesting…”


Final Analysis

Overall, this episode is a functional if somewhat disappointing conclusion to one of the less satisfying season arcs. The budget simply wasn’t big enough to give the cobbled-together concept the scope desired, and while the producers did what they could with the limitations, it was the constant revisions to the arc itself that proved most challenging.

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

Final Rating: 6/10