[Preface: to avoid misunderstanding of the terms as I am choosing to use them, the Big Bad is the one who drives the season an the story arc; little bads are anyone/anything else, regardless of their degree of 'badness'.]

Season 4 evil comes from a federal government level conspiracy.

The BIG BAD

The Initiative and Adam

First there was the Initiative, an organization whose purpose was to capture the 'bad' creatures (vampires, demons, werewolves, and so on, also known as Hostile Sub-Terrestrials or HSTs) and attempt to render them harmless to human society. Unfortunately, in order to do this value judgments were not possible, there was no allowance for the possibility that anything (not anyone) non-human could be other than an animal, and therefore human standards governing interaction could be discarded. Experiments of all types were carried out with callous disregard and less regulation than legitimate animal research is granted. The entire operation is carried out clandestinely, underground. Not only were their prisoners tested to help determine that which might neutralize them, but also to see what stimuli would cause the demonic defenses to manifest and also, and most telling, to what use humans might put these defenses.
Unbeknownst to the vast majority of the members of the Initiative, there were other sets of experiments being performed. These experiments were not being conducted on the vampires, demons and monsters. They were being performed with the special ops commandos as the unwitting test subjects. Experiments that included supplements to increase strength, endurance and overall performance. When Professor Walsh was killed the schedules for their meds was thrown off, and the guys began to undergo withdrawal. Dr. Angleman and other scientists are aware of the issue and attempt to bring the guys in to get them back on an even keel. Of all the operatives, Riley has been the prime experiment, their showcase. Adam tells him that Maggie has shaped him, formed him, taught him how to think and feel, made his mind and body stronger. Adam is not entirely wrong. Riley, and the rest of the special ops teams have been carefully programmed to follow orders without questions, do their job well and responsibly and they will be rewarded for it. Riley remains with the Initiative until he realizes that they are every bit as hidebound, inflexible and callous as Buffy has described them when they are experimenting on a werewolf and it undergoes metamorphosis into Oz, a human whom Riley knows. When he protests at the treatment of Oz, Riley is removed from the room. When he attempts to free Oz, Riley is taken into custody for a court martial hearing. During the Scoobies' attempt to rescue Oz, they learn that Riley is also a prisoner, and free him as well. This act signifies Riley's final severance of the ties to the Initiative. What Riley didn't know at the time was that behavior modifier microchips were not for HSTs only - one had been implanted in him as well. When activated he is unable to disobey an order. During Buffy's battle with Forrest, on Adam's orders, Riley is able to secure a piece of broken glass, and possessing just enough free will to move in small amounts, uses it to cut the chip out of his chest. He is then free to take on Forrest/demon/cyborg freeing Buffy to go after Adam.
The Initiative operatives, and Riley specifically, overstate the degree to which the chip affects Spike when he says that Hostile 17 is unable to harm any living thing. Either he overestimates the chip's functionality, or he grossly underestimates the variety of life that should come under the heading of 'living things.' According to a very broad application of this definition Spike should be unable to walk on the grass without pain; he should be unable to attempt to kill any animals, including rats; and he very definitely should be unable to harm other demons because relatively few of them are dead/undead. It would be in character for the Initiative to dismiss anything other than human life in their definition of 'any living thing', however, and their prejudices in this area are shown many times throughout the season. Interestingly enough, for many of the members of the Initiative, this contempt extends to some extent to both women and civilians who are outside their group. This disregard costs the lives of many of the soldiers and scientists.

The other human experiment, Adam is a kinematically redundant, biomechanical demonoid... In addition to organic material, he's equipped with GP-2/D-11 Infrared Detectors. A Harmonic Decelerator, plus DC Servo. Pieced together from parts of other demons. And man. And machine. Adam uses the data about him to learn what he is, but being sentient he wants to know who he is as well. Adam knows his purpose ... he was created to kill. He himself says that he has a design flaw, and it appears that the flaw lies in the lack of boundaries to that directive - he has accepted his responsibility to extinguish life wherever he finds it. He is learning about the world, learning how things work, what the flaws are in other creatures. When reality is altered by Jonathan's spell, Adam is undeceived by it, albeit willing to wait and study the chaos that he believes will ensue because of the spell. He charismatically begins to round up the demons, monsters and vampires, uniting them as they have never been willing to unite before. Adam recruits Spike to assist in assuring that the Slayer plays the part he has designed for her by promising to remove the chip from his head once he had fulfilled his part of the bargain. Adam makes this promise in several ways, some of which leave themselves open to interpretation: "I will restore you to what you once were." He has killed Maggie Walsh and Dr. Angleman and reanimated them as mindless zombies; Forrest was also killed by him, but in his case he is turned into a demon/cyborg like Adam. In the end, Adam orders Forrest to take Spike's head off as the method for removing the chip because Spike had failed to deliver what he promised: a Slayer, alone, disenfranchised from her companions, ready to inflict maximum carnage on the demons held by the Initiative. Buffy is indeed there, but with the Scoobies, and a plan to inflict maximum damage, but on a single target: Adam. When Buffy seeks him out, Adam delays her by ordering Forrest to kill her, a gleefully accepted order. Buffy is detained until Riley frees himself and steps in. Buffy then follows Adam, and with the assistance of her friends and a joining of their abilities coupled with the essence of the power of the Slayer lineage, they defeat Adam by removing his power source.

Orders and regulations were necessary to maintain discipline within the Initiative. Questions regarding the purpose behind the organization were discouraged quite firmly, as was independent thinking, and information was disseminated on a need-to-know basis only. The Initiative had vast scientific and military resources at its disposal but these were applied only within the framework of its objectives. The Initiative ultimately failed because it's own structure prevented growth, did not allow for the possibility that there was more to the project than the military portion knew, prevented the flexibility needed to deal with its own mistakes (Adam) and it was destroyed by those mistakes.

VAMPIRE

Sunday & the campus vamps bring an old story to a new setting. They have been preying on college students, generally new Freshmen, for quite some time. Sunday has, as is expected, her minions who are more entertaining than some but still pretty much not the best and brightest. Sunday does achieve, for a short while, something that few other vampires have accomplished: she has the Slayer off-balance and slightly afraid of her. Most of this, however is due to Buffy apprehension about all the changes in her life, and the emotional upheaval that comes with it. This is one of the first times when we are shown that Buffy's Slayer abilities and skills are affected by her emotional state - when Buffy feels unsure and defeated her fighting skills seem to be less effective as well. Once Buffy is emotionally ready to deal with all of it she eliminates the nest fairly quickly. Buffy does have two individuals to thank for this. First ... Xander, who lets Buffy know that she is still the competent Slayer, the hero as it were. And secondly, Sunday herself, who makes the mistake of getting Buffy angry; and anger always boosts her strength and determination.

Spike (aka 'Hostile 17) returns to Sunnydale with the intention of ridding the world of the current Slayer. He is instead almost immediately captured by the Initiative who use him for their experiments. In particular, they implant a chip in his head that gives him blinding pain whenever he attempts to harm a human. As a result of the chip, Spike finds himself starving, and appeals to a most unexpected source for assistance - the Slayer herself. Buffy very reluctantly assists him, only because he says he has information about the Initiative. They become very strange allies, with Spike's greatest frustration being that he cannot to convince the Scoobies that he is still evil; and the Scoobies keep forgetting that his assistance is quite conditional. His happiest moment seemed to come when he realized that he was not completely helpless, that he could indeed hurt other demons without the resultant pain. At that point he helped the Scoobies with great enthusiasm, just for the fun and exhilaration of the fight. Spike teams up with Adam, the demon/cyborg to help him kill the Slayer, but in the very end Spike assists the Slayer, primarily because he sees that the Slayer and the Scoobies are the winning side. We see that Spike, for all his talk, is actually a very social creature in that he feels the need to 'belong' somewhere. He was a member of the Fanged Four before Angel's re-souling broke the group apart, and then as long as he had Dru, or even Harmony, he had the interpersonal contact he craved. With the chip, he found himself excluded from the society of other vampires, and of course looked down upon by other demons. He then attached himself to the Scooby Gang, whether they liked it or not, at times using the antagonism as a means to assure that he would not be ignored by them.

We learn what happened to Harmony during the fight at Graduation. We had last seen her being bitten, and now find out that she was indeed turned. As vampires go she provides a greater degree of comic relief than any others we've seen so far. She remains just as shallow, just as whiny and sulky, just as much a pain as she was when she was alive. We do learn, to our collective amazement, that she is Spike's girlfriend. We also see that one other thing hasn't changed much - Harmony will take a great deal of abuse in order to maintain a false sense of self esteem. In high school, she was ecstatic to find out that a really cool guy was thinking of asking her to the prom if the other girls on his list ahead of her weren't available. With Spike she is clearly not his priority, but goes along with his moods as though it is all she deserves. Harmony is the catalyst for one of the high comic moments of the season, when she and Xander argue and it degenerates into a slappy / hair-pulling, very girly type of fight. It is never quite clear why Buffy never staked Harmony. This is a case of Harmony --> vampire, Buffy --> Slayer; her duty is clear, but Buffy never seems to be able to take Harmony seriously enough to see her as a menace. Why is inexplicable: if the very fact that Harmony is a healthy, well-fed vampire who is not very likely buying pig's blood from the butcher wasn't enough, then it should have become obvious when she kidnapped and held Dawn hostage, and lost control of her minions who were just about to feed on Dawn when Buffy rescued her.

The Boone and the boys are vampires recruited by Adam. They are swayed by Adam's arguments that they live in fear of death, in fear of light, in fear of god. They willingly take on the role of Adam's heralds. They face that fear by publicly and in the daytime confronting and confining a church congregation during the Sunday service. What they didn't take into account was that while, yes, they did indeed fear those things on a psychological basis, they also feared the Slayer on a very physical basis. When they put their fears aside, they put all their fears aside, believing that the empowerment Adam made them feel gave them the strength to win over her. It didn't, however, give him the ability to face two Slayers. What Boone and his companions showed Adam was that it was possible for him to dominate and command the vampires. And that his plan to unite the demons needed to also include the Slayer.

DEMONS

Buffy's first roommate, Kathy initially seems to be simply the 'roommate from hell' that one always seems to know about. Kathy is perky and very organized, immediately setting out the rules for the room, and decorating with choices that show her to be very mainstream in her likes, not the sort of person who would have spent evenings at a club like the Bronze listening to local bands, but would have all the top ten albums from the pop music list. Kathy also expected that by being roommates, she and Buffy would be automatic 'best friends,' hanging out together and such. Buffy, on the other hand, took an instant dislike to her perky and impervious roommate, visibly showing her reluctance to hang around, or share her friends in any way. It doesn't help when Kathy attaches herself during Buffy's patrol and then blames Buffy for making a mess of her clothes. They both get extremely territorial and adversarial, deliberately doing things for no other reason than to get on the other's nerves. Everyone thinks that Buffy is simply overreacting to having to share her living space for the first time, and go so far as to decide she's dangerous to Kathy, which results in her being ambushed by Giles, Xander and Oz, and tied up so she can come to her senses. Meanwhile, Giles did at least listen to Buffy's "proof" and confirms that Kathy's toenail clippings are still growing, which means that Buffy is right, and Kathy is a demon, a Mok'tagar Demon as it turns out who was performing a ritual to steal Buffy's soul. She has run away from her dimension and taken on a human guise because she wants to go to college. Unfortunately, she ended up with the one roommate who could bust her, even as she was stealing the soul so that Buffy would have been mistaken for her when her people came after her, except that Giles performed the reversing ritual just in time, and it's Kathy who is taken home. Buffy is then free to room with Willow (who did have the legendary 'roommate from hell).

Tapparich is Kathy's Mok'tagar Demon daddy, who comes to take her home once his henchmen have located her. He's interesting in that he's shown to be a very cliché father, demon or no, who isn't willing to listen to his daughter (even though she's 3000 already) because he simply knows best.

Gachnar is inadvertently called when a serendipitous series of events happen to complete the ritual invocation. He has great power over humans, using their fears to control them. We are given an insight into the fears of each of the Scoobies. Xander fears that he is invisible to the group, and to Buffy in specific. Willow fears that Buffy is dismissive of her suggestions and doesn't respect her growing power as a witch, and also is more distressed when Oz leaves her alone for her own safety. Oz fears that he will lose any control over the werewolf part of himself becoming a menace to those he cares about. Gachnar feeds Buffy's fear of abandonment, that every time she cares she'll be deserted. And, of course, Anya reveals her fear of bunnies without the assistance of Gachnar. When Gachnar is finally released and manifests, he is seen to be an itty-bitty Fear Demon, about six inches tall, and his power over them is broken by his own insignificance. It is interesting in retrospect to look at each of their fears. Xander feared that he was nothing to them, and yet he has always retained his position in the group. Oz feared that he would lose control of the werewolf within, and yet he was able to prevent his fear from fully manifesting that night, and also eventually gained the ability to control the emergence of the werewolf during the full moon. However, the second part of his fear turned out to be entirely justified - even when he had learned control over the wolf, he could lose it when it came to those he cared about. Willow feared that Buffy didn't respect her abilities as a leader or as a witch. As it turned out, Willow was the one who failed to give her abilities the respect they deserved. Her fears about Oz abandoning her however, were realized sooner than anyone thought they might be. Buffy's fears that she would be deserted by those she cared about were justified ... with her father's absence and Angel leaving for her own good, and even Parker's smarminess, it did begin to seem that if she allowed herself to care her reward would be heartache.

D'Hoffryn gave us a glimpse into an area of demonic activity that we were first shown when Anya attempted to get her vengeance demon status back. D'Hoffryn appears this season to recruit Willow for that very purpose after she shows her talent for creating mayhem in the name of vengeance, even though she doesn't realize she's doing it. When she refuses and insists on being sent back to fix things, he gives her his talisman with instructions to use it should she ever change her mind. With D'Hoffryn we see the recruiting of humans to become a specific type of demon, who then preys on human frailties.

The Vahral Demons were initially encountered by Buffy and then Riley who lets it get away but sets the Initiative guys after it. Apparently these demons were ones who inspired those who wrote about them to wax poetic, for the descriptions that the Scoobies find in their research are "Slick like gold and gird in moonlight, father of portents and brother to blight" and "Limbs with talons, eyes like knives, bane to the blameless, thief of lives." They were found digging up the bones of a child, which is a part of a ritual that uses the blood of a man, the bones of a child and the Word of Valios, in the sacrifice of three. They go looking for the Word while Giles continues researching. As he learns what the Word is he is attacked by the three demons, and the Word, which is a talisman that was in Giles unsuspecting possession, is taken completing the items needed for the ritual. Giles also learned that the purpose of the ritual was to open the Hellmouth. During the fight at the Hellmouth it is Xander who realizes that the demons themselves are the sacrifice, and Spike who finds he can hit the demons without pain. As Xander and Willow are escaping with Spike Riley comes in and shows he is well-trained to follow commands, immediately following Buffy's instruction to keep the final demon from sacrificing itself. Unfortunately a distraction allows the demon to jump in, but Buffy follows after Riley attaches a lifeline to her so he can be certain she comes back out. Buffy is able to drag the final demon out, preventing the completion of the ritual. We never do learn anything more about them than the few lines quoted during the research, and have to assume that the opening of the Hellmouth was done for the benefit of the Vahrals themselves, for the three to give themselves as willing sacrifices.

Giles was turned into a Fyarl Demon by one of our favorite agents of chaos, Ethan Rayne. While Giles had the outer aspect of the demon, he was initially 100% Giles on the inside. He goes to Xander for assistance first, but Xander is unable to understand him. As Giles wanders around trying to decide what to do, he runs into Spike, who happens to speak Fyarl and is able to understand him. Spike agrees to help him for an appropriate sum of money, and is also able to give Giles information about the type of demon he is. A sort of demon soldier, very strong and has a paralyzing mucous. He also finds that the demon instincts are very simple - crush, kill. Giles is able to override these instincts, but does give in to one Ripper moment when he gets out of the car solely to frighten and chase Professor Walsh, which he does quite satisfactorily. Giles is very nearly fully in Fyarl mode when he confronts Ethan and tries to kill him. He might even have been successful if Buffy hadn't intervened. Buffy fights with Giles and is ready to kill the demon when she realizes that it's Giles from the look in his eyes. We don't see how Giles is restored, but the implication is that Ethan is forced to reverse the spell.

The Polgara Demon is sought by the Initiative and they are briefed on it's appearance and their orders: it has bone skewers that protrude from its forearms in battle and they are not to damage it's arms. Because the Initiative does not believe it has ant relevance, all of the usual questions that the Scoobies research about motive and style are ignored. It is successfully captured, intact, and we learn that there is an experiment in which the forearm is being grafted onto Adam, their creation. While the demon itself was not difficult for them to subdue, nor was it significant except for the harvest of it's arm, the incident did serve to make Maggie Walsh even more suspicious of Buffy and the questions she insisted on continuing to ask.

MONSTERS

The Gentlemen and their ghouls were two parts of one of the creepiest groups of villains the Scoobies have faced. The Gentlemen are monsters from a fairy tale who first steal everyone's voices and then cut out the hearts from seven of them. They seem to be selective in the hearts they choose, passing several by before settling on one. The Gentlemen work in pairs, encouraging and congratulating one another with their ghoulish unchanging smiles. Part of their eeriness is due to that unchanging set smile in their cadaverous faces and the seeming implacability of their purpose. They waste no motion, floating smoothly to their destinations. In contrast, their lackeys are misshapen and straitjacketed, lurching along, with apparently no independent thought and great strength. They are presented as a mute parody of the cretinous minion from classic horror. It is their duty to secure the victims and hold them while the Gentlemen cut the beating heart out of the conscious victim. Only the sound of a human scream can defeat them - they are unable to handle noise, and the sound of a human scream will destroy them. [Although one does wonder what affect Slim Whitman amplified would have on them]. Buffy is able, with Riley's help, to regain her voice and destroy the menace of the Gentlemen and their goons. During the time while everyone was mute, they were forced to find alternate methods for communication, and it was interesting to observe that all of the extended Scoobies were able to cope by signs and body language with one notable exception. As Xander said in Fear Itself, "That's the funny thing about me, I tend to hear the actual words people say and accept them at face value." We see just how literally he meant that - Xander is almost incapable of interpreting body language and expressions, and quite often even obvious actions. Willow and Buffy quickly realize that both of them are affected, Spike realizes it almost immediately, but Xander doesn't get it until after the phone call from Buffy, when he realizes no one is talking. He is the one who misinterprets everything during Giles' presentation. He attacks Spike based on a single image without looking at the whole situation. (Of course, this makes Anya happy, and she makes a suggestion using the one gesture Xander understands on the first try). It was also interesting to note how people were shown to respond to the phenomenon, some coping, some taking advantage, some crying in distress, others becoming quite belligerent. The two groups that were shown attempting to either defuse or resolve the situation were the Scoobies and the Initiative. One other rather interesting aspect of the muteness was the degree to which everyone seemed to act as though deafness was also a part of it. Why didn't the Initiative operatives have a code they could tap, even something simple, like an idea code and a quadrant code so they could summon the others to help? Relationships seemed to develop clarity during this time as well: Riley and Buffy finally show they do care; Anya learns Xander cares enough to beat up Spike because he thought Spike had hurt her; Willow and Tara meet and join their abilities to keep each other safe. Even Giles and Olivia's relationship moves to another level as Olivia learns that these are the sorts of things Giles deals with routinely. There was only one question that seemed to remain at the end - what would have happened if the Gentlemen had been successful in getting the seven hearts? What was their goal?

Jonathon's gift-with-purchase was created when Jonathan cast the spell to alter the BuffyVerse and become the best of the best as the balancing force, or the worst of the worst. The monster was inextricably tied to the augmentation spell so that destroying it would break the spell. Once Buffy began suspecting that things were not as they seemed, it rapidly led to the demise of the monster, and thus of the spell.

The zombies created by Adam from the Initiative personnel he killed were used by him to assist in the creation of more demon/cyborgs like himself. The two we were shown working for him were Maggie Walsh and Dr. Angleman, the two who knew the most about how the experiments were conducted, and therefore the ones most qualified to assist in the creation of new ones. It is ironic that the demon-cyborg they had built and intended to use as a tool had now reanimated them and was using them as his tools. They were successful with Adam beyond their wildest dreams, and their very inability to dream that wildly now confined their mindless bodies to the performance of basic maintenance functions on the other demon-cyborgs that Adam was creating and improving upon.

POSSESSION

Lowell House is the house the Initiative uses for its operatives, and the underground operations center. It seems that the increased sexual activity of Riley and Buffy awakened the suppressed spiritual energy of the children and adolescents who had lived there when it was a children's home. At first the manifestation is of thermal, beginning with a draining of the heat in the house and finally bursting into bonfire level flames from the fireplace, injuring one of the Initiative commandos. They are able to affect Buffy and Riley to the point where their whole concentration continually turns to sex, and eventually forcing them into a continual cycle that will end only when they are completed drained of energy. Then they die. As they consume the energy that that Riley and Buffy generate, more and more of those in the house are effected. The very walls are suffused by the sexual energy. Various persons are individually affected, acting out the horrid retributions that were inflicted on the children for nothing more than having normal thoughts and wanting to find out more about the changes they were going through. It is Xander, and also notably Anya, who save them. They return to the house while Giles, Willow and Tara distract the apparitions by attempting to convinced them to stop. The children didn't take kindly to the suggestion that they just get over it. The house attempts to drown Xander, who is saved by a very determined Anya, and together they manage to get to, and open, the door to Riley's room, which breaks the hold the childish spirits had on Buffy and Riley. At first it seems strange that this particular phenomenon had never manifested before, but when considering the two major players, perhaps it isn't so odd after all. Buffy and Riley present a very unique couple from this standpoint, not that they had a greater desire for one another than other couples had, but that both of them had stamina far beyond the norm. Riley is the prime human experiment of the Initiative and its enhancements program, and as for Buffy, as Parker so indelicately put it, "the word is stamina." So they may have been the first that could generate the energy necessary to awaken the repressed spirits.

ALTERED REALITY

The JonathanVerse was as impressive an alternate reality as the WishVerse had been, the difference being that the Jverse was an altered reality. It was a spell placed on the BuffyVerse reality. One of the more intriguing aspects of the Jverse is that Jonathan chose to be a hero, to be acclaimed for his positive contributions to life and happiness. Of course, nothing is ever that simple, and the Jverse was no different. The positive was countered by the negative, a monster who embodied all the negative aspects, the worst nightmares. The destruction of the monster, who was menacing people also meant the destruction of the spell and of the Jverse altered reality. Another difference of the altered reality from an alternate reality is that the inhabitants of the Jverse remained aware of what had been done, at least for a while.

SPIRIT AVENGERS

Hus is a Chumash Spirit-Warrior, manifested after the old mission was opened during the ground-breaking ceremony for a new cultural center. He materialized from a Chumash knife, and killed the professor who was in charge of the cultural center. Because it was Xander who fell through and opened the mission, he was cursed with syhphilis, a disease unknown to Native Americans until the Europeans brought it to them. He then goes after Father Gabriel at the church, whose family dates back to mission times, and Buffy finds him as he is cutting Father Gabriel's throat after hanging him. Hus is recreating the wrongs visited upon his people by the settlers who massacred his people. To aid him Hus summons the First People of Mishuipashup (ancestral spirits) and the Nunashush creatures of the night. They manifest as Chumash warriors as well. They seek out the strongest warrior, Buffy, and begin their attack. Through the combination of the Slayer, the Scoobies and Angel, Hus and his raiding party are vanquished. A unique aspect of this opponent is that he is not a demon, but a vengeful spirit, created by those who wronged his people and, ironically, released during the excavation of a cultural partnership center, to celebrate the contributions made by all cultures, including those who are no longer active parts of American culture because they were obliterated in the creating of America as a country. There is, however, one burning question that this episode raises that has nothing really to do with Hus or the Chumash: Who is Aunt Darlene?

CURSES

The Cave-men were the result of a curse placed on a favorite brand of draft beer at one of the campus area bar. The students who were targeted by this temporary curse were the ones who were viewed by the bar owner as coming in with their snotty attitudes and deserving to become the Neanderthals they seemed to think others were. Unfortunately, the beer was also shared by Buffy, which put a Neanderthal Slayer on the streets. When the cave-men went out, they generally looked to fulfill basic needs ... food and women. As it happend, though, they did not have any clue about even basic precautions and eventually caused a fire to break out where Willow was. Luckily, even though she was a cave-girl, Buffy's Slayer instincts remained strong as did her friend instincts and she was able to prevent people from dying. One of the interesting aspects of the caved-men was that for all the college level intellectual conversation, at the base they were the same as all others - seeking food, shelter and a way to reproduce. It was their intellect that set them apart and their attitude about their intellect that made them a target.

HUMANS

Parker Abrams is a guy who trades on his good looks and charm to convince whatever woman attracts him at the moment to sleep with him. He brings this considerable arsenal to bear on Buffy, who is taken in by it and succumbs, even initiates the romantic encounter, only to find come morning that Parker had no interest beyond the chase and catch. Parker is also known among the guys for both his 'prowess' and his bragging, as well as his willingness to share the details. Willow described him quite accurately and succinctly: "poophead."

Jack the pub owner felt justified in exacting a petty revenge against random college students because for years he felt condescended to with their intellectual attitudes. He has a brother-in-law who's a warlock and gave him the spell to use. Unfortunately, there is no way to control who is served the tainted beer, and so Buffy gets a share of it as well, when she is in a mood that allows her to get drunk. Jack is one the most irresponsible little bads the Scoobies have faced up to now. He seemed to believe that his responsibility regarding the spell ended with the knowledge that it would "wear off in a few days." In that time immeasurable damage could have been caused, and was to the lounge area; it was only due to the fact that the Slayer instincts seemed to still be functioning that there weren't several deaths that first night. If Buffy hadn't been able to figure a way out, the cavemen boys, the girls they abducted, Parker and Willow would all have perished in the fire. And Jack would never have seen the connection. His pettiness, short-sightedness and, well, lack of common sense actually make the college boys who condescended to him as being too stupid to do anything more demanding than serve beer to them right about him.

Veruca is first seen when she and Oz pass one another and each seems to sense the presence of the other, turning to glance at one another. They meet and connect, seemingly over music as a shared passion. Veruca is mildly mocking of Willow but not obviously so. We then see Veruca is in werewolf shape. She and Oz attack one another, the implication when they wake the following morning that more than just an attack happened. Veruca is quite comfortable with the situation, but Oz is clearly disturbed by it. Veruca tells him he should let that part of his nature run free. Her demeanor is very seductive, quite predatory and very on-the-prowl-ish. Oz, however, is very uncomfortable when he sees Willow later, who comes by hinting about getting cozy; he finds he can't be close right now. Veruca finds Oz as he's locking himself into his cage, and tries to convince him to come out with her, let the animal out, enjoy it. Oz refuses and pulls Veruca into the cage with him. Willow finds them entwined, naked, in the morning when she comes by to find Oz. Oz attempts an explanation, but Veruca's suggestive manner only makes things worse. Veruca then seeks out Willow and finds her alone, and threatens her, but before she can do anything, Oz gets there and challenges her. Veruca and Oz both wolf out and attack each other, ending with Oz tearing her throat out. Oz then starts after Willow but is stopped by Buffy. Veruca shows us clearly what the full acceptance of the wolf inside means, and lets us understand more of the conflict that Oz feels with a part of his nature that manifests only three nights a month, and his determination that he never give those impulses free rein. In the end, it is Veruca's assertion and his own attempted attack on Willow that convinces Oz that in some ways Veruca is right, that the wolf is always there. She is the catalyst for Oz's decision to leave until he can fins a way to be certain that he controls the wolf and the wolf does not control him the way it controlled her.

Willow uses her power as a witch for the first time in a completely selfish manner, giving us a glimpse into just how far she considers going in the name of vengeance when she's feeling hurt, and also how recklessly she is willing to use magic. She begins and very nearly completes a spell to curse Oz and Veruca, to break their hearts, to assure that they will have no love, no solace, no peace, only hate. She waivers at the last moment and stops the spell. Which may be more to the good than she knew ... with the wording of the spell, their hearts may well have been 'broken' in a much more literal manner than she had intended. After Oz leaves town, Willow wants to make her heartache stop hurting so she performs the 'my will be done' spell but is disappointed when her first requests are not granted. The actual results of the spell range from the amusing and absurd to downright dangerous and life-threatening; all of them things Willow 'wills' inadvertently. Giles comes by the next morning to find out what happened to her, and when she gets upset that he is not being as sympathetic to her situation as she thinks he should be, she causes him to go blind merely by saying he doesn't se anything. When she is telling Buffy her frustration with her magic ability an offhand reference changes Amy into human form, and an equally offhand comment turns her immediately back. Later, after Buffy has had to leave to find Spike, Willow is expressing her anger that Buffy left, and says sarcastically that Buffy will probably find him just standing there, and to the great surprise of both Buffy and Spike, she does. When Xander tries to defend Buffy's duties and priorities, Willow takes it personally, and in saying Spike is more important than she is, also says Buffy should just marry him ... resulting in a sudden proposal and acceptance. When Xander tries to tell her things will get better she turns on him, listing a few of his relationships and labeling him a demon-magnet. Willow has no idea any of this is occurring. But that final willing very nearly costs her all of her friends, for Xander does indeed become a demon magnet, and no matter how many they kill or take out, more and more just keep coming. When they look for Willow she has been abducted by d'Hoffryn, who offers her a position as a vengeance demon. Anya realizes what has happened and attempts to call d'Hoffryn but is rattled by the fact that while she is making the attempt, they are all beset by more and more demons. It is d'Hoffryn who opens Willow's eyes to the chaos she has created for her friends, and she immediately wants to make it stop. d'Hoffryn allows her to leave and she appears in the crypt where they are and cancels the spell. While Willow learned that she had great power and that her spell had not gone awry, neither she nor any of the others seem to realize that the spell only worked when there was strong emotion behind the command. And, at least in this spell, emotions generally classified in the 'negative' category: frustration, anger, irritation, annoyance. It also seems that no one noticed that the spells she did cast on them were not of a trivial nature ... if it had been intentional, there would have been a great deal of malice behind it. As it was, there was just petulance, and no real intent to harm, which in a way should have thrown up more red flags than if there had been intent. If she could do this much damage unintentionally, what could she do if she wanted to. This is one reason why she was very fortunate she aborted the spell against Oz and Veruca - she would have been devastated if she had caused them to die when their hearts broke. Willow showed herself as being capable of self-absorption to the extent of wanting everyone else around her to wallow with her in her self-pity. She also showed the level of magic she was capable of producing when emotion was driving her, as well as the extent to which she might go for revenge. One does wonder though - what would have happened if Joyce had died while this spell was in effect and Willow's reaction had been to say, "No! She can't be dead!"?

Jonathan has been on the edges of the gang for years now. He has been a source of amusement and of pity. Jonathan was allowed once to wait on Cordelia at the Bronze, after she was kidnapped by the frat guys, and was the butt of the joke by Harmony after Cordelia and Xander spilt up. He was at Buffy's 'welcome back' [from rehab?] party. He was in her law enforcement group during career week - which was rather surprising actually. Jonathan came front and center when he attempted to kill himself and was mistaken for the person who was going to murder the students. Although, how he was planning to commit suicide with a rifle is somewhat less clear. Then again, Jonathan was never the planner. Jonathan is selected to present Buffy with the Class Protector Award at the prom, which he does with great pride, and which he attends with a very attractive date. But all of the moments Jonathan has shared with the Scoobies have been merely peripheral, with no true connections happening. When we see him this season, Buffy had already exhibited a reluctance to take on a mere five vamps with Willow, Xander and Anya to help and they go for help, and lo and behold the help is Jonathan. Which comes as a surprise. Jonathan is clearly perceived by Buffy and all the Scoobies as well as Giles [Rupert] to be the go-to guy when things get rough. He handily defeats Giles at chess, he exterminates the nest of vampires with ease ... and is met by a gaggle of photographers afterward. Jonathan offers advice to both Buffy and Riley regarding their relationship problems. He's approached regularly with autograph seekers. The Initiative commander, Colonel George, brings in a tactical consultant to help them work out the plan for finding and stopping Adam. Jonathan. Who also, by studying Adam's design schematics informs them that Adam's power is a small reservoir of U-235, which now means that Adam will 'live' forever unless the power source is destroyed. Jonathan is a surprise singer at the Bronze, mesmerizing the crowd with a ballad (which also gets Buffy and Riley back in each other's arms when they dance), then electrifying them by beginning to sing his newest song for them. He is interrupted by one of his groupies who was hanging around outside his mansion hoping for a glimpse of him when she was attacked by a monster with a mark on its head. Jonathan is noticeably shaken by this for a moment, and then brushes it off, telling Buffy not to worry about it. However, Jonathan does worry about it. As Buffy gets closer and closer to the truth, Jonathan does admit that the monster and he are connected, and that is why he had the mark tattooed on his back. When Buffy suggests going after it with him, he reluctantly agrees. While they are searching, the Scoobies do research and learn that the mark is an augmentation spell, and that the monster is a result of the spell, the opposite force of evil, and that if the monster is destroyed, the spell will be cancelled. To Jonathan's credit, while he doesn't help Buffy in confronting the monster, he also doesn't hinder her. And when it looks like the monster is going to kill Buffy, Jonathan intervenes and pushes it into the bottomless pit, nearly going with it; only Buffy grabbing his ankle saves him. The whole of Sunnydale is then seen reverting back to reality; a reality in which Jonathan is just an insignificant person who is always on the sidelines. And once again, this is where they leave him. Jonathan showed that he wants very much to have recognition and accolades - but is this what he truly wanted? Or did he want to belong somewhere ... somewhere he could contribute and make a difference. Jonathan, through his spell, gained the acceptance of the 'world' but more specifically of the Scooby Gang, and acceptance he wanted very badly. By being an integral and important part of the group, he was able to contribute to their efforts, rather than be shut out of them. Given the power that he had to be able to use to successfully perform a spell of that magnitude, it is telling that he chose to use a spell that would make him a hero.

Genevieve Holt was a woman who did great evil and harm in the name of righteousness. She was very proud of what she had done, and the medal she was given saying how good she was with the children. The disadvantaged children: runaways, juvenile delinquents and the emotionally disturbed. She punished them for vanity, for having 'impure' thoughts or deeds. She truly believed she was 'saving' them from sin, helping them to gain admittance to the kingdom, cleansing them of their lust. What she achieved instead was physical and emotional abuse of adolescents who were already identified as a risk group; and the residual of a malevolent spirit that fed on sexual energy and very nearly killed Riley and Buffy in their need to feed. In some ways, Mrs. Holt is the worst kind of human villain, one who firmly believes that her actions are necessary in order to save the souls of others, who believes that the crimes of vanity and lust (normal adolescent feelings) require extreme measures to assure that they will not be repeated. And who is proud of herself for doing it. She was also a difficult villain for the Scoobies because, other than stopping the current manifestation of the adolescent poltergeist, there is nothing they could do about the damage Mrs. Holt had inflicted on those children all those years ago ... the adults they would have grown into would be in their mid-50's to mid-60's, and well past any real intervention. The one consolation was that Mrs. Holt was no longer in a position to inflict her views on defenseless children.

Maggie Walsh. An acclaimed psychologist with a specialty in operant conditioning. Also 'The Evil Bitch Monster of Death.' Professor Walsh had two significant functions. First she was an influential instructor who was very tough but fair in that rules were adhered to and not administered on an individual basis. As a psychology professor, she was quite good, encouraging without favoritism. One small surprise is that a professor of her stature in the psychology community was teaching introductory psych, but perhaps that was more a reflection of the size of the UC/Sunnydale faculty that anything else, but it would have been more likely that she would be teaching at the upperclassman and graduate levels. Second and more significant though, Maggie Walsh was in charge of the Initiative, a [seeming] government and military sponsored group that researched demons, vampires and other monsters. In some ways, it seems as though the Initiative may have been partly her brain-child - she seems to be the guiding force behind much of the experimentation and technology that is used by the group. Because the Initiative is composed of both scientific and military personnel, there are widely varying degrees of autonomy within the group - and Maggie Walsh has the greatest amount. She is very determined that nothing undermine the group's goals, and that ultimately puts her at odds with Buffy and the Scoobies in ways she doesn't even realize. When Riley brings Buffy into the group, she welcomes her outwardly, but seems to harbor inner doubts about having her on the team. When she interviews Buffy she is politely condescending about the methods of the Slayer when contrasted to the technology of the Initiative, and is likely not pleased to learn of the efficacy of a 'pointed stick' when wielded by Buffy. Maggie has also been involved in experimentation far beyond that of trying to learn how demons function, and thus how to neutralize them, and possibly use them. She has been experimenting on the special operatives themselves, without their knowledge, to enhance their performance in the field. She has also been working with Dr. Angelman to construct a demon-human-techno hybrid, or a demon-cyborg. Maggie uses others in her research with little regard for their individuality, not making much of a distinction between using the 'animals' and using the humans. Unfortunately for her, the first and foremost of those humans, Adam, has been a much more successful project than she ever imagined - he is sentient, has all of the technology at his fingertips (and can understand it), and he knows his purpose: to kill. And he does. Starting with Maggie herself - "Mommy."

Forrest Gates is one of the Initiative operatives who poses as a student at the college and one of Riley's best friends. He and Riley went through training together, and Forrest is Riley's second-in-command. Forrest is the one who first notices Buffy, while Riley seems oblivious to her. It is Forrest who questions Parker about Buffy, which forces Riley to the realization that he likes her. It is also Forrest who cautions Riley about Buffy, that he can't share with her who and what he is. When Riley begins to take a greater interest in Buffy, Forrest reacts almost with jealousy. He doesn't want to hear Riley talk about her, tries to change the subject when Riley brings her up. When Riley brings Buffy into the initiative, Forrest is not very welcoming. He resents Buffy's abilities and is actually angry when she is tested and bests them all easily. Forrest is disgruntled when Riley makes Buffy his second on patrol, even though he assigned Forrest as a team leader - a step up. His conversations with her are generally brief, and somewhat acidic. When Professor Walsh is killed, Forrest immediately assumes it was Buffy who did it, not changing that opinion even when a demon with a bio-weapon that is a skewer is known to have escaped. He is resentful of the time Riley and Buffy spend together, nearly contemptuous of the fact that they are sleeping together. His dislike of her is nearly irrational, with very little fact and a great deal of emotion driving it. Ultimately, they face one another while they are independently searching for Adam, which gives Adam an advantage, and he kills Forrest. Or so we think, until Adam captures Riley and we learn that he has done the same thing to Forrest that Professor Walsh and Dr. Angleman did to him - turned him into a demon-cyborg. Forrest is now helping Adam to do this to Riley. When Buffy arrives to rescue Riley, Adam orders Forrest to kill her, an order he gladly follows. He successfully delays Buffy, and they seem evenly matched, but Riley manages to free himself and takes over for her. This fight, between Forrest and Riley, has been a long time coming. Finally, Forrest will learn, in a fight in which no holds are barred, which of them is the superior - and Forrest knows he's been enhanced by Adam. But Forrest hasn't the creative edge, he tends to go straight in, while Riley uses everything he has available around him, which in combination proves fatal for Forrest. Forrest is mostly peripheral to the Buffy and Riley relationship, but he provides a constant disapproving force that casts a shadow over him. From the start he did not see Buffy as an individual, a person in her own right. When he first noticed her it was in terms of her being mattressable. He did not like knowing that she was more capable than a team of Initiative special operatives. When Buffy took Riley's time and attention away, and also showed herself to be a partner in every sense of the word, Forrest was not able to cope with that change, or to adjust his perception of the opposite sex to allow for it.

Dr. Angleman is the lead physician on the Initiative team. He is the one who works most closely with Maggie Walsh. It is Dr. Angleman who is responsible for the patchwork that is Adam. Dr. Angleman in some ways is one of the more frightening members of the Initiative. At some point in his life, when he became a physician, Dr. Angleman took an oath to above all do no harm. And yet he finds it possible to experiment on the men in the special ops division, and to create the demon-cyborg that is Adam. To his credit, he did not agree with Maggie that Buffy needed to be killed. To his discredit, he did nothing to stop her. Had he actively opposed her, he may have jeopardized his position, and this he would not do under any circumstances. However, this dedication doesn't help him once Adam determines he is no longer necessary. Dr. Angleman finds out firsthand how well the nice Polgara arm with skewer works.

Colonel McNamara takes over temporary command of the Initiative after Professor Walsh and Dr. Angleman are killed. He is very by-the-book military in his outlook. No one and nothing has much of an individual identity for him. The demons and monsters they capture and experiment on are animals. Riley is "the boy." Buffy is "the girl," and "just a girl" at that. He is dismissive of the potential havoc that the overcrowding could cause, quite satisfied for the demons to fight with and kill each other, complacently certain that the containment system cannot go down. Buffy and her friends are considered "freaks" by him, anarchists, too backward for the for the real world. Perhaps he's right. But what the colonel hasn't yet realized is that Sunnydale is not much like that 'real world' he's referring to. He's incapable of thinking outside the box, of comprehending that the well-regulated world in which he lives is perhaps not so well-regulated after all. Unfortunately, this inability, this narrow outlook costs him very nearly all the lives of the Initiative. As a villain, he is possibly the most human we've seen before - it is only his desire to keep his ordered world intact that blinds him to the fact that it is crumbling around him.

Faith is back again, rising from her coma against all expectations. She harbors great resentment for Buffy, for everyone really. Her first act is one of violence - beating and stripping a hospital visitor for her clothing. After stopping for a look at the destroyed high school, she goes over to Giles' and eavesdrops outside his window. The next day she then goes to the college campus and waits for Buffy, who comes walking by with Willow. What is intriguing about the exchange is that the first accusation Faith makes is not about Buffy trying to kill her, but that for eight months Buffy never came to visit her. Faith sums up Buffy's motivation and current status quite succinctly, but missing a few salient details. What she really wants is the chance to retaliate. They fight, ending it only when a police car shows up, and Faith skedaddles pronto. Faith is found by a demon, who has a remembrance for her from the Mayor. Faith thanks him for his troubles by unceremoniously snapping his neck and then watches the videotape he had for her. He gives her a gift that will allow her the revenge they both seek. She goes to Buffy's house and invites herself in with a fist to Joyce's eye. Faith also hits home in another way, pointing out that she's sure Buffy hasn't spent much time with her mom since she left for college. When Buffy arrives, they once again fight, but something different happens this time - during the fight Faith slips the device she received from the Mayor, and grabs Buffy's hand with it tightly clasped between their palms. It glows from between their hands, and both react strongly to it. Then Buffy knocks Faith out. Joyce has called the police and now looks to see if Buffy is okay. Buffy assures he that she's "five by five." Faith is then taken into custody by the police. When Buffy and Joyce talk afterward, Joyce is a little surprised by Buffy's callousness about Faith, but we the audience are not. We now know she's Faith. She makes herself at home, then finds Buffy's passport, and Joyce's wallet. She uses Joyce's credit card to book a flight, and steals the money from the wallet. Faith/buffy then goes to Giles' for a meeting of the Scoobies, and learns that Buffy/faith is now in the Council's hands. Faith/buffy says she'll patrol, but instead goes to the Bronze and is having a great time. She evens encounters Spike,, with whom she has a very sexually suggestive conversation, although Spike never knows she's not really Buffy. Willow and Tara run into her there, and Tara, who is insulted by her realizes that she is not Buffy. Meanwhile, Willow spots a vampire hitting on a girl and heading outside, and Faith/buffy realizes that she'd better do her job. When she does, though, she's taken aback and confused by the girl's very sincere thank you. After a casual question from Willow, Faith/buffy decides to pay a surprise visit to Riley, one that turns out far differently than she ever expected. Riley is the type of guy she always insisted didn't exist, who truly cared, and acted that way. Faith/buffy is completely thrown when Riley tells her he loves her after they've made love. Afterward, when she is leaving, she runs into Forrest who is his usual charming self and begins to defend Buffy to him, then realizes what she is doing and stops. She heads to the airport, and while waiting for her flight hears on the news about three "frighteningly disfigured" men who were holding a church congregation hostage. What she doesn't know is that Willow and Tara have devised another katra to reverse the switching spell, and Giles now knows that Buffy has Faith's appearance. Faith heads to the church and confronts the three vampires, now getting more and more into Buffy's persona. When she tells them they are not going to kill the hostages "because it's wrong" she now means it. And 'gets it.' The real Buffy arrives and dusts the final vampire. Faith/buffy attacks her counterpart, and beats her mercilessly, saying to her all the things that have been said about Faith - and showing that Buffy was more right than even she knew when she told her (after Faith had killed the deputy-mayor) that she could "shut off all the emotions you want ... but eventually they're gonna find a body." And they had. Faith was able to pour all of her inner hatred and contempt out upon her own body while she was possessing Buffy's. Buffy manages to get the katra into place and they shift back to their own bodies. Both are in shock and disoriented, possibly from the switch, possibly from the emotion that had just been released. Faith runs out, and disappears. During this time Faith went from a single-minded desire to destroy Buffy to an understanding of why Buffy feels the way she does, and understanding of just what "because it's wrong" really means. And when she understands that, she finds herself in tremendous inner turmoil, finally realizing what she had allowed herself to become. She took the first small steps on a long road when she did what Buffy would have done, solely "because it was right."

The Watchers' Council has had one of their field operatives on duty at the hospital to keep an eye on their comatose rogue Slayer, so they are notified that Faith is gone almost as quickly as the police are. The special operations retrieval team, with great presumption, make themselves comfortable at Giles' home after arriving by helicopter. When Buffy/faith is being transported but the police the Council's retrieval team takes her into custody by force. Once she is awake, Weatherby makes it clear that he holds her in the deepest contempt, referring to her as "it" and spitting in her face because he couldn't kill her at that point. Collins is much more business-like, simply viewing her as a job to do. While they are waiting for their next instructions, the third man, Smith, decides to interrupt Buffy/faith's incessant banging against the inside of the armored van. When he does, she captures him and attempts to use him as a hostage, but Weatherby and Collins both tell her to go ahead and kill him. She can't do this, of course, so she lets him go to his vast surprise. Once they have the word to kill her, Collins goes to shoot her, but she manages to get his gun from him and knock him unconscious, through the bars with her feet no less, then use the gun to free herself. She then gets into the front of the van, knocks Weatherby unconscious by slamming the door into his face, and escapes. After this spectacular failure, the team is called off. Once again showing that the Watchers' Council's main shortcoming is not unlike that of the Initiative - a failure of imagination. It never once occurred to them that a Slayer could escape from their best special ops team, even though the Slayer is still living after facing much less favorable odds than that, and against those who actively sought her death from the moment she encountered them.

The First Slayer visited each of the Scoobies in dreamscapes, attempting at the end of each dream to kill the Scooby whose dream it was. Willow is left choking, Xander is left with gasping and writhing after his heart is wrenched out, Giles' head is attacked. Buffy is physically attacked, a fight that spills over into the Summers' living room when the dreaming Buffy wakes up - a fight that is ended when she refuses to fight any longer. The First Slayer is not used to being ignored. According to Giles, the dream manifestations were brought on as a response to invoking the power of the First to enjoin them as spiritus, animus and sophus to combine with Buffy as manus to defeat Adam. As a little bad, the First Slayer is quite enigmatic ... and wouldn't be an evil at all were it not for the attempts to kill each of them. In the process of the dreams much is revealed in an obscure manner, and much about the inner psyches of the Scoobies [none of which will be dealt with here]. At the same time, questions are raised, in particular about the actual nature of the Slayer. The First does not speak, borrowing Tara to be her voice, and is most primitive, primal. She admonishes Buffy for having her friends, instructs her. "I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound ... I am destruction. Absolute ... alone." Buffy denies that. She is not alone. "The slayer does not walk in this world." Again, Buffy's denial and demand that her friends be returned. "No ... friends! Just the kill. ... We ... are ... alone!" But Buffy is not alone, has never been alone except when she faced Angelus for the last time. She has always prevailed, at times when other Slayers would have failed, in part due to her changing the rules, the her not being alone, relying on friends for moral support, for research, and physical assistance. What is not known is whether the First Slayer would have killed them all, or if the attempt itself was the message; nor do we know why the First Slayer came with such a message. Is there something more to the message than we yet know?

This season the Scoobies faced a Big Bad that was organized at a level they had never faced before. The Initiative was a combined military and scientific experiment to determine whether or not the HSTs could be harnessed to work for the humans, for the government. In this season not only the Big Bad but a far greater percentage of the little bads they encountered were either human themselves, or caused by human action. The Initiative is a strictly human endeavor, ultimately creating the hybrid monster that was Adam. Hus and the warriors he called to aid him exist to avenge the wrongs done by the encroaching settlers to the Chumash tribe. Lowell House is haunted because of the evil done to the children who lived there in the name of saving their souls by Mrs. Holt. The JonathanVerse altered reality and the monster generated by the spell that created that new reality were Jonathan's fault. The cave-men were degenerated by the bar owner, Jack, to spite the intellectual college students that he felt condescended to him. The zombies, Maggie Walsh, Dr. Angleman and the others were created by the Initiative's failed grand experiment, Adam. Even some of the demons that they face this season are there because of human foibles: Gachnar is inadvertently called through a series of unconnected events that, in sequence, completed the ritual to call the Fear Demon. A demon who has great power only so long as those affected grant power to their fears. d'Hoffryn appears in response to the chaos and pain caused by Willow's spell to have her will done, a spell she was certain was a failure. There is a growing list of human little bads, including a few returning evils, most notably Faith and the Watchers' Council. There are still vampires - Sunday, Spike, Harmony and Adam's recruits: Boone and his two minions - Sunnydale just wouldn't be the same without vampires. And a smattering of other demons, most notably Buffy's first roommate, Kathy, and the Vahral Demons who very nearly succeed in re-opening the Hellmouth.

And of course, one of the most chilling villains the Scoobies have faced: The Gentlemen and their goons. Monsters from the old fairy tales, who silence all and gather the hearts of seven. The silence is as much their nemesis as the Gentlemen themselves are. Communication and human interaction is an underlying aspect to this season. As they began this season the Scoobies found that they had moved apart ... Giles as an unemployed librarian/watcher tells Buffy that she has to take care of things herself; Xander, the 'townie' who isn't part of the college life, is not even present at the very beginning; Willow is so excited about starting college and being near Oz that she is blind to everything else, and Buffy is on her own as the Slayer. While they come together loosely to battle the evils they face, they lack the cohesion that marked the previous three years. When Buffy insists that her roommate is a demon, no one is willing to believe her - they go so far as to tie her up to prevent her from confronting the roommate. Giles does at least check on Buffy's facts and determines that she is quite correct. As relationship start, falter, blossom and crumble, they support one another, but are also withdrawing from each other. At almost the central point of the season, the communication breakdown becomes complete - no one can even speak to one another, or to anyone else for that matter. They continue their drifting apart, Buffy becoming more involved with Riley and the Initiative, Willow with magic and Tara, Xander with Anya. Their estrangement reaches the point where once Faith has switched bodies with Buffy, none of the Scoobies, or even Buffy's mother or boyfriend, realize the change. It took an outsider, Tara, to see it immediately, although Tara saw it as a disruption of the energy flow about her. The introduction into their lives of an evil Spike who can't harm anyone both divides and unites them. After they learn that Spike has deliberately and far too easily divided them, playing on their insecurities and resentments, they are both chagrined and determined to put it behind them. After this they become closer and in greater communication than they have ever been before - they must merge themselves to give Buffy the power she needs to defeat Adam. Even the dreams they have as a result of the spell they used and the use of the power of the Slayer line have commonalities, and each has integral parts in the other's dreams. The group that began only loosely associated and disintegrated to the point where none of them were communicating, ended as tightly cohesive as they had ever been.

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[Liberal use of Psyche's transcripts for details.]

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