Out of My Mind
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| Buffy the Vampire Slayer | |
| Season 5, Episode 4 | |
| Air date | October 17, 2000 |
| Written by | Rebecca Rand Kirshner |
| Directed by | David Grossman |
| Episode Guide | |
| previous The Replacement | next No Place Like Home |
"Out of My Mind" is the fourth episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Contents |
[edit] Summary
Buffy seeks help for Riley when she learns that the meds that the Initiative gave him are having a deteriorating effect. Meanwhile, Spike and Harmony kidnap one of the Initiative's doctors to try to get Spike's chip removed.
[edit] Plot
Buffy's boyfriend Riley Finn was used in super-soldier experiments in Season 4. In this episode we learn that Riley has been becoming progressively more powerful, but that power is having a deteriorating effect on his health, and without medical intervention he will die of a heart attack. We also learn that Riley is afraid to submit to the needed medical treatment because he fears that without the ability to contribute in a fight alongside Buffy, that their relationship will weaken. Along the way Buffy recruits Spike to help get Riley to the doctor. Spike uses the opportunity to instead abduct the doctor to remove the pacifying chip that the Initiative put into him in Season 4. Though this effort fails, it leads to a fallout between Spike and Buffy that leaves the audience wondering how much longer Buffy will tolerate even the neutered version of Spike, while ironically introducing the "Spike loves Buffy" storyline.
[edit] Trivia
- In keeping with one of the themes of the season first raised by Dracula in the first episode of Season 5, "Buffy the Hunter", the show opens with Buffy atop a crypt, laying in wait. She surveys the graveyard, and then 'pounces', killing a vampire before it even rises from the grave.
- Ben, the hospital intern who Buffy is attracted to, makes his first appearance.
- Three separate hospitals appear in this episode - the one Joyce is in, the one where the government doctor is waiting to perform surgery on Riley, and the place where Spike kidnaps the doctor to have his chip removed.
- Harmony reflects off of the glass walls of the operating room where the doctor is trying to remove Spike's chip.
- Spike is watching Dawson's Creek. ("Oh Pacey, you blind idiot, can't you see she doesn't love you?") This could be foreshadowing to his future situation with Buffy, or it could simply be commentary on the Dawson's Creek series/character itself.
