Superstar
Superstar
-- Quotes --
At the cemetery, Buffy,
Willow, Anya and Xander battle two acrobatic vampires. Buffy manages to
stake them both with some help from her friends and decides to check out
the tomb they came out of. The gang follows her into the dank chamber where
they encounter a nest of vampires feasting on a body. Greatly outnumbered,
they decide to retreat before their presence is noticed. Needing help,
they go to the one man that can aid them. After walking into a lush mansion,
they approach a massive desk and ask the person concealed behind the chair
for help. The chair swivels around to reveal Jonathan Levinson, the Sunnydale
High geek, looking suave and dangerous. At Giles' house, Buffy, Willow,
Xander, Anya, Jonathan and Giles discuss their plan of attack on the vampire
nest. Jonathan has all the answers and the group decides they should pretty
much stick behind him. When they enter the tomb to do battle, vampires
rush at the gang from all sides. Buffy manages to kill two of them but
Jonathan emerges as the real hero, dusting vampires right and left with
a crossbow while kicking and flipping his way across the room. When the
group emerges from the tomb, there's plenty of paparazzi waiting to score
a candid photo of the leather-clad Jonathan. When Spike appears on the
scene, Jonathan is quick to confront him. With no need to attack the harmless
ex-vamp, Jonathan settles for giving him a good tongue-lashing and swaggers
off.
That night at Tara's,
Willow details the night's action as they make a collage on the wall. Tara
is intrigued by Willow's tale and asks how Buffy is doing with Riley since
he inadvertently slept with Faith. Willow assures her that they'll get
over it as she puts the last cut-out Jonathan head on their tributary collage.
Meanwhile, in Riley's room, Buffy and Riley attempt to smooth out their
crumbling love life. When Riley tries to give Buffy a kiss, she just can't
get Faith out of her head and has to leave. She decides to get some sage
advice from Jonathan whom she meets at a diner. Between signing autographs
for starstruck fans, Jonathan explains to Buffy that her hang-ups with
Riley are in her head. If she wants everything to be alright with him,
she needs to let herself love him. Later, Colonel George Haddoway introduces
himself at the Initiative Headquarters as the new Commander In Chief until
someone else is appointed to take over command. In briefing the soldiers
on Adam, he introduces Jonathan to give his perspective. Jonathan, in military
fatigues, shows the men a blueprint of Adam's body. He explains that there
is a cache of Uranium 235 that will keep him alive forever. Cutting his
head off or stabbing him in the heart will not stop him; his body needs
to be annihilated.
After the meeting, Jonathan
gives Riley some advice on how women want to be treated. He explains to
Riley that Buffy needs to be reassured that Faith meant nothing to him
and her sexual maturity can't compare to Buffy's sensuality. That night
at Jonathan's mansion, a young woman is trying to catch a glimpse of her
idol from the backyard with binoculars. Suddenly she is attacked by a bony,
wolf-like demon that she barely fends off for the time being. Meanwhile,
at the Bronze, Buffy, Riley, Xander, Anya, Willow and Tara enjoy drinks
and discuss Jonathan. Suddenly he hits the stage in a white tuxedo and
sings a lounge song dedicated to Buffy and Riley. This inspires the troubled
couple to reclaim their love for each other. Suddenly Karen, the fan who
was attacked by the demon at Jonathan's estate, comes running in having
narrowly escaped its slashing claws. The gang takes her back to Jonathan's
where she describes it in detail. When she draws a symbol she saw on its
head, Jonathan begins acting suspicious. He tells everyone that it is nothing
more than an animal from the nearby woods that he will take care of on
his own.
Meanwhile, Adam and one
of his followers gather information at a house they invaded. When Adam
sees Jonathan on television, he tries to explain to his vampire soldier
that reality has been changed. Everyone is under a spell except himself
because his molecular structure is more in tune with the surrounding world
than any human, demon or member of the undead. Across town, when Tara enters
her building on her way to bed, she is attacked out of the blue by the
same demon that was outside Jonathan¹s house. She is instantly pinned
beneath the howling beast but manages to whip together a spell that shoots
dust in its face. With her attacker distracted for a moment, she bolts
out from beneath it and bounds into a janitor's closet. A few hours later
she is found by a student huddled up in shock, and brought to Willow and
Buffy's room. When Buffy comes home, she shows the symbol that Karen drew
to the still rattled Tara. Tara states that it was present on the demon's
head that attacked her. Buffy begins questioning Jonathan's bizarre lack
of compliance to help find the creature and calls a meeting at Giles'.
When the gang gets there she explains that it seems impossible that Jonathan
has done so many great things, including coaching the US Women's soccer
team to an Olympic Gold. She explains a theory that they could be living
in an alternate universe that could be created by a spell like the ones
Anya used to create. She shows them a photo in a Jonathan Swimsuit Calendar
in which the same symbol from the demon is displayed on his back in scar
tissue. Suddenly Jonathan walks in and questions their inquisitive glances.
When asked about the scar, Jonathan gives a bizarre explanation that seems
to satisfy everyone but Buffy. Buffy asks Jonathan to go on patrol with
her to put the demon¹s reign of terror to an end.
At the cemetery, Buffy
and Jonathan come across Spike, lurking by a tomb. To extract information
from him, Buffy threatens to put an embargo on the butchers that supply
Spike with blood. The reluctant Spike discloses the location of a vampire
lair that was recently invaded by something powerful. Knowing that this
is probably the handywork of their demon, the Slayer and the hero leave
in pursuit. Meanwhile, back at Giles', Willow finds Jonathan's symbol in
one of the Watcher's medieval tomes. It says that the bearer of the symbol
has performed an augmentation spell, affecting how everyone perceives him
or her. She immediately figures out that Jonathan must have used it to
make himself a para-god. It continues that, with the spell, comes a force
of evil to counter the power of its conjurer. The only way to end the spell
is to kill its evil spawn. It dawns on them that the demon Buffy and Jonathan
are after is obviously the spinoff of the augmentation spell and Jonathan
will probably do anything he can to prevent it from being destroyed. Meanwhile,
in the cavernous lair that Spike pointed them to, Buffy and Jonathan come
across the demon. Rather than helping it kill Buffy, Jonathan realizes
that the charade is going to hurt people he actually cares about and helps
her fight it. When it has Buffy on the edge of a vast pit, Jonathan attempts
to sacrifice himself, tackling the demon into the pit. At the last second
Buffy catches his ankle as the demon plummets into darkness and Jonathan
is returned to his normal self.
The next day the gang
sits on the front lawn of campus, marveling at the fact that they have
full memory of worshipping the high school twerp. When Jonathan shows up
to apologize, Buffy explains that people aren't necessarily as mad at him
for creating a demon that endangered lives, but for treating them as sock
puppets in his game. Jonathan leaves remorseful, but before he does he
tells Buffy that he did mean what he said about letting herself love Riley.
That night, as Buffy and Riley sink into a passionate kiss, their relationship
is restored.
~Episode Synopsis by: Zack Peacock