Intervention (Buffy episode)

Infobox Television episode
Title=Intervention


Series=Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season=5
Episode=18
Airdate=April 24 2001
Production=5ABB18
Writer=Jane Espenson
Director=Michael Gershman
Episode list=List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes
Prev=Forever
Next=Tough Love

"Intervention" is the eighteenth episode in the fifth season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

Plot synopsis

ummary

Buffy goes on a spiritual quest in the desert; she encounters the First Slayer, who tells her death is her gift. When Xander and Anya see Spike and the Buffybot have sex, they mistake the robot for Buffy and stage an intervention. Spike is tortured by Glory for the Key's location, but after Buffy rescues him, she kisses him after learning he didn't betray Dawn.

Expanded overview

At the Summers's home after dinner, Buffy confesses to Giles that she's worried about her ability to love. Giles suggests he and Buffy go to a sacred location in the desert so that she can undergo a vision quest. When they arrive, Giles performs a ritual to create Buffy's guide. A mountain lion appears and directs Buffy into an open desert that reminds her of her dream from "Restless."

Glory orders her minions to watch the Slayer and see who is new and special in her life, as that person is likely the Key. That night, one of the minions watches the group through a window; Dawn secretly takes Anya's earrings from a table.

Spike receives his Buffybot from Warren, commissioned in "I Was Made to Love You". Spike and his Buffybot pretend to fight, which inevitably leads to sex. While Spike is sleeping it off, the Buffybot heads out to patrol for vampires. She runs into Xander and Anya in a graveyard and successfully masquerades as Buffy. Later, Xander and Anya oversee Spike and the Buffybot having sex in the cemetery, and shocked, Xander goes to confront them. However, Glory's minions assume Spike is the Key, and knock Xander unconscious and take Spike. Glory is upset when she sees Spike, as she knows a vampire cannot be the Key. Nevertheless, she decides to torture him in hopes that he knows where the Key is.

Buffy wakes to find the First Slayer on the opposite side of a large fire. The First Slayer advises Buffy that love is at the center of all Slayers and that love will bring Buffy to her gift. When Buffy asks "What gift?", the First Slayer tells her death is her gift.

Worried about Spike, the Buffybot leaves Xander unconscious at the crypt and goes to the Summers' residence for help. Willow sternly talks to the Buffybot (whom she mistakes for Buffy) about her sexual relationship with Spike, until realizing Glory has a captive who knows that Dawn is the Key, and the gang prepares to kill Spike before he can reveal Dawn's secret. When the Buffybot goes upstairs to change, the real Buffy enters, which clears up all the confusion. Meanwhile, Glory is brutally torturing Spike, who refuses to tell her the Key's location. Spike manages to escape through the elevator, where he finds the Scooby Gang waiting, and they fight off Glory's minions and leave the mansion.

At the Magic Box, Willow examines the Buffybot. Spike rests in his crypt, beaten and bloody. Pretending to be the robot, Buffy enters the crypt and curiously asks Spike why he didn't give Glory the information she wanted. Spike says he could never hurt the real Buffy, and she kisses him. Spike pulls back as he realizes it is actually Buffy; she says she'll never forget what he did for her and Dawn.

Acting

tarring

*Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers/Buffybot
*Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
*Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
*Emma Caulfield as Anya Jenkins
*Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers
*James Marsters as Spike
*Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

Guest starring

*Clare Kramer as Glory
*Adam Busch as Warren Mears
*Troy T. Blendell as Jinx
*Amber Benson as Tara Maclay

Co-starring

*Sharon Ferguson as Primitive
*Todd Duffey as Murk
*Kelly Donovan (as Xander Double)

Production details

Writer Jane Espenson explains the Buffybot was introduced out of "the necessity of story", as it was "interesting to see what Spike would do with this bot... to see how those personalities affect each other." Providing Sarah Michelle Gellar with the chance for comic relief during a period of particular grimness for her character was a "bonus... an extra scoop of ice-cream," says Espenson.Citation |title=Episode Guide: Intervention |journal=BBC |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/indetail/intervention/trivia.shtml |accessdate=2007-09-15 ]

In some fight scenes in "Intervention", Xander was played by Nicholas Brendon's identical twin, Kelly Donovan, because Nicholas was sick. [Citation |url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0233010/bio |title=Biography for Kelly Donovan |journal=IMDB.com |accessdate=2007-09-15 ]

Translations

* Italian title: "Pronto Intervento" ("Prompt Intervention")
* German title: "Der Zorn der Göttin" ("The Rage of the Goddess")
* French title: "La Quête" ("The Quest")
* Spanish title: "Intervención" ("Intervention")

Cultural references

* "The Price Is Right" - Spike tries to convince Glory that Bob Barker is the key.

* "The Lord of the Rings" - Xander calls Glory's minions hobbits with leprosy.

* Hello Kitty - When Buffy sees the mountain lion that leads her on the quest, she says "Hello, kitty".

* Buffy asks if the quest is for finding a grail.

* Giles's ritual for the vision quest resembles the Hokey-Pokey.

* In this episode, Dawn reads Twist magazine.

Quotes and trivia

* In Intervention, the Buffybot pronounces "Giles" with a hard g (as in "guy-els"). Joss Whedon and Marti Noxon have said on several occasions that they get annoyed with 'fans' of the show when they pronounce "Giles" in this way.Fact|date=August 2007

* Tara avoids telling Dawn what Spike really made the robot for, informing her instead that he built the Buffybot to play Checkers with; Dawn is not fooled.

* According to Buffybot's system screen Xander: Friend. Carpenter. Dates Anya. / Anya: Dates Xander. Likes Money. Ex-Demon. / Willow: Best Friend. Gay (1999-Present). Witch. Good with computers.

*Buffy and Spike share their first kiss at the end of this episode not influenced by a spell ("Something Blue") or as the Buffybot.

*While having sex, the Buffybot calls Spike a "big bad." This term is used by Buffyverse fans to identify the major villain of a season.

Continuity

*In the season four finale, "Restless", which also had a psychological bent, the First Slayer made an appearance but did not speak except for the words "No... friends...just...kill." Here she speaks fluently because she is actually a spirit guide in the form of the First Slayer there to tell Buffy things about being a Slayer, and in three episode's time this conversation with the spirit guide will lead Buffy to believe that she is just a killer, as the First Slayer was.

* Xander says of Buffy and the Buffybot in "Intervention", "They're both Buffy". This is a reference to the catharsis of "The Replacement", also written by Jane Espenson who said on multiple occasions she enjoys adding references to episodes she wrote.

* Spike's dislike of Angel manifests when we see the Buffybot's programmed opinion of Angel is that he is "lame. His hair grows straight up and he's bloody stupid."

* The desert in which the mountain lion leads Buffy on the vision quest in "Intervention" is the same desert which Buffy dreamed about in "Restless", in which she met the First Slayer. She says she remembers it.

Arc significance

* The Buffybot, first introduced in this episode, plays a crucial role in "The Gift" and "Bargaining".

* Dawn is shown to steal Anya's earrings; her increasing kleptomania is eventually discovered in the Season Six episode "Older and Far Away".

* In this episode, Buffy finds out that "death is [her] gift", which leads to her decision to die to save the world in "The Gift".

* This episode, like "Something Blue", foreshadows the romance between Buffy and Spike.

* The emphasis in this episode on the First Slayer as a beginning of the slayer tradition (and not just a hostile force, like in "Restless"), foreshadows her role in Season Seven.

* When Spike was running through the cemetery and met up with the Buffybot, Xander, and Anya, he was out of breath, but in the season one finale, Angel said he couldn't give Buffy the kiss of life, because he "has no breath"

Timing

*Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:

References

External links

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* [http://www.buffyguide.com/episodes/intervention.shtml BuffyGuide.com]
* [http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/season5/summaries/96_summ.htm#top Buffyworld summary] , [http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/statistics/intervention.php statistics]
* [http://www.restlessbtvs.com/trivia/episodes/season-5/518/ Buffy Trivia Guide]
* [http://www.atpobtvs.com/54.html#518 All Things Philosophical -- Metaphysics in "Intervention"]
* [http://www.buffy-vs-angel.com/intervention_music.shtml Music in "Intervention"]
* [http://www.buffy-vs-angel.com/buf_guide_96.shtml Buffy vs. Angel Episode Guide]
* [http://www.perpetualwednesday.org/intervention/ A mock-up of the Buffybot programming]