Riley Finn
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Riley Finn (born in Huxley, Iowa) was an agent of the Initiative and a short-time member of the Scooby Gang. He was portrayed by Marc Blucas.
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[edit] Biography
A native of Huxley, Iowa, Riley was Buffy Summers' boyfriend for part of her freshman and sophomore years in college. Leading a double life as part of a secret government organization known as The Initiative, but also as a regular college guy, Buffy found some normality in Riley, but she also found someone to whom she could relate. Initially, each kept the other from knowing of the secret lives, but the truth came out when monsters called The Gentlemen stole everyone's voices.[1]
Buffy and Riley fought demons together and continued saving each other's lives and the world, although Riley was never quite let into Buffy's inner circle. It was discovered that Maggie Walsh implanted a Behavior Modifier in Riley after he joined The Initiative. Adam exploited this and used the chip in order to pacify Riley before the final battle. The Initiative was destroyed in late 2000, and Riley was relieved of his military standing. He was left at loose ends, and his behavior became reckless. Seeking thrills, Riley began to let vampires feed from him, which Buffy discovered with Spike's help.[2] His behavior, as well as a sense that Buffy would never truly love him, led to their breakup. Riley left Sunnydale to join another black ops army unit fighting demons elsewhere.
Riley returned unexpectedly in the next year, tracking a demon about to hatch eggs that could wipe out Sunnydale.[3] However, he did not return to make up with Buffy, having recently gotten married to a fellow demon hunter named Sam. The battle done, Riley left Sunnydale, never to return again. He was, however, mentioned later when Buffy asked for The Initiative to remove the malfunctioning chip in Spike's head.
In contrast to both Angel and Spike, Riley held out the possibility of normalcy in Buffy's life. He is also notable in that he is the only boyfriend of Buffy who was accepted by and developed a friendship with Xander Harris, who usually displayed jealousy of the males in her life.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Due to his military training, Riley possesses immense knowledge of and expertise in strategy, hand-to-hand combat, vampire hunting, tracking, and weapons handling techniques. Also, for a time, he possessed superhuman physical attributes (at least equal, if not superior, to that of a Slayer or a powerful vampire) due to the drugs he was secretly fed, but lost these abilities after suffering symptoms of withdrawl from the drugs, including a heart attack. ("Out of My Mind")
Despite the loss of his increased abilities, Riley's combat experience still made him a match for the supernatural creatures that the Scoobies and his military group normally dealt with.
[edit] Writing and acting
Marc Blucas was asked how the character was described to him during the audition process, he replied that "They said that Riley is a nice, charming guy, and there's going to be some kind of dichotomy, some kind of double role going on. But that was never really specified."[4]
Whedon defended the character of Riley Finn, "The important thing for us was to find a character that was the anti-Angel and to have Buffy go through something very different, part of which was the question, 'How do I get over Angel?' That was the same thing the audience was going through. We knew it wasn't going to be easy and it was very hard trying to find somebody. But Marc [Blucas] has a quality that I love very much: he has sort of an un-David-like, firm, strong, trustworthy quality. I always think of him as Gary Cooper."[5] During the fifth season, writer/co-executive producer, Marti Noxon, noted that they were making Riley a more tortured complex character, "He's starting to fray around the edges. That's very compelling to me - that this straight guy is starting to get a little strange."[6]
Actor Christian Kane also auditioned for Riley Finn. Kane went on to play the role of Lindsey McDonald on the spin-off show Angel. Kane says he played his audition for Riley "perhaps a little less than wholesome", which he feels resulted in Joss Whedon later casting him as a darker character.[7]
[edit] Appearances
[edit] Buffy Season 4
- The Freshman
- Fear, Itself
- Beer Bad
- Wild at Heart
- The Initiative
- Pangs
- Something Blue
- Hush
- Doomed
- A New Man
- The I in Team
- Goodbye Iowa
- This Year's Girl
- Who Are You
- Superstar
- Where the Wild Things Are
- New Moon Rising
- The Yoko Factor
- Primeval
- Restless
[edit] Buffy Season 5
- Buffy vs. Dracula
- Real Me
- The Replacement
- Out of My Mind
- No Place Like Home
- Family
- Fool for Love
- Shadow
- Listening to Fear
- Into the Woods
[edit] Buffy Season 6
[edit] Notes and References
- ↑ "Hush"
- ↑ "Into the Woods"
- ↑ "As You Were"
- ↑ Stokes, Mike, "The Life of Riley", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #14 (UK, November 2000), page 11.
- ↑ Bassom, David, "Meet the Master", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #11 (UK, August 2000), page 7-8.
- ↑ "High Five", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #18 (UK, March 2001), page 6.
- ↑ [of the Spirit Boy: an Exclusive Spotlight on Christian Kane]
