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Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 5, Episode 10 - Uncut Version (Patreon)

Published:
2026-09-30 22:13:04
Imported:
2026-10

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Into the Woods

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Neill Shaughness

Buffy telling Riley to hang out with his "friends" demonstrates how little she knows about him. I don't condone Riley's actions in the last few episodes, but he isn't wrong about Buffy taking him for granted.

Youtalkingtome

It's not an unfair criticism. I wish we had been shown a bit more of Buffy being dismissive (I might care more about the breakup than I do), but it ultimately feels to me like two people not on the same page that should move on from each other.

Neill Shaughness

I agree. Riley acts super immature in this and the last few episodes so by this point I was happy to see him go. With rewatches I've grown a bit more understanding of where he's coming from, but I still think he's in the wrong

Lyla

Haven't managed to get myself to watch this yet but god, I find this episode so frustrating. I think there are some interesting things in here around their miscommunication, Riley's insecurity and lack of accountability, and Buffy's distance/ somewhat ambiguous feelings for Riley.. but I kind of hate how the episode seems to end up framing it. With Xander's speech and the swelling music as Buffy runs to stop him.. it kind of feels like the show wants us 1. To care way more about this outcome when their relationship this season has been pretty dull, and 2. Is tacitly endorsing Xander's perspective, which I find unhelpful, superficial and pretty off base. It's subtle in places but in my opinion, Xander's never quite gotten over Buffy not feeling the same way about him when he asked her out at the end of S1, and that sting has never quite left him ever since (as hinted at throughout the show from then on, most recently in S4's excellent dream episode 'Restless'). And so he has an uncomfortable tendency to be extra harsh with her at times, especially re her relationships. Mostly notably with Angel of course, but now with Riley too, particularly in regards to his insecurity over whether Buffy loves him or not. And well..to quote the ever wise Cordelia, 'over identify much?' I didn't hate Riley at all, and I do think he's understandable and fairly sympathetic, but I'm not too sad he's gone, especially with how he's been acting in the past few episodes or so. Way too defensive and insecure for Buffy. Looking forward to the rest of the season though! So much brilliance to come.

Youtalkingtome

You read our minds. We had a very similar reaction to the breakup.

Lyla

I knew I could count on you two to get it!

ScarlettMi

I really dislike that Xander's speech to Buffy is so uncontested. He acts like he intuited and saw the obvious signs that Riley was worried about whether Buffy cared about him, when the only thing he saw was Riley's lips moving as he explicitly said he didn't think Buffy loved him. If Riley had been half as open and honest about his insecurity with BUFFY instead of Xander, then maybe they could have worked on their relationship.

Lyla

THIS! A good friend would have told Buffy about what Riley said.

Pam Nail

There was some stuff that was worth exploring here with Buffy and Riley, and maybe with a few more episodes it would have been well done. But it seems like Riley had already made up his mind to leave and gave Buffy juuuust enough notice so that he could *say* he did. And I can't *believe* he got mad that he DIDN'T GET TO BE THERE when Buffy broke down and cried. Spike absolutely poked that particular resentment and it worked like a charm!

ScarlettMi

Or, at the very least, encouraged Riley to discuss this with her and stood up for how Buffy doesn't really let herself rely on others too much.

Kimba

I really think the writers got this one wrong. I think they wanted the audience to endorse Riley and Xander’s perspective that she pushed him away. She absolutely did not and gave him everything that was reasonable. What he wanted was unreasonable. And then they tried to contrast that with Xander’s speech to Anya saying that she made him feel like a man. Something Buffy supposedly could never do for Riley even though she never did anything to make him feel less than. He blamed his insecurities on her, and then took action that hurt her. He didn’t have to be like that. I wish they could have had an amicable breakup, like “I need to go to the military because I’m depressed without it.” Maybe that’s boring TV. But Riley wasn’t letting Buffy in. He was withholding. He wasn’t sharing his emotions or asking for support about his struggles, which okay maybe he wasn’t ready to talk about his depression . Thats okay. But then he tries to make it like it’s her, like shes the one not letting him in as opposed to the other way around. And the show tries to make that be a valid perspective, which sorry but no.

Jeff

I love how you guys are more forgiving of the junkie vampires than you are of Riley! But I understand. At this point, Riley just needed to put his life on hold and find a really good therapist. But I guess joining a secret paramilitary organization works just as well, and I'm sure it's cheaper.

Gail Hislop

best part of this episode- Xander telling Anya that he's in love with her and her reaction. And Buffy dusting all those vamps in about 30 seconds! that last one was pretty cold tho.

acidnova

I always wonder what Marc Blucas must have thought when he was getting the scripts for this season. I love season 5 but the Buffy/Riley stuff is a real low point in the quality of writing.

Jontor11

Great one guys! Yeah, this whole Riley situation makes me feel embarrassed as a man. Riley is the type who thinks his only purpose in the world is to take care of a (helpless) woman, and when he meets a woman who is strong and independent, he can't handle it. It's such a ridiculous caveman thing...and unfortunately, it is still relevant today with a lot of men.

nj

do i even want to watch this one again? (sigh) here goes . . . .

Neil Writes Things

The most frustrating episode of the season. I feel like they just didn't know what to do with Riley once The Initiative had gone. Buffy has been under a lot of stress in this season so far, so I think some effect on their relationship is natural, but this episode asks us to give Riley's version of events more weight than the actual evidence we've been shown.

vala p

well he did get to go make a movie with bill nighy after he left Sunnydale , so thats some consolation I guess

Youtalkingtome

Good point. I just felt like (at the time) Buffy was misdirecting her anger. Of course, she redirected it as soon as she got the chance.

Youtalkingtome

For sure. I had a hard time garnering much sympathy for Reilly here, and felt kind of taken aback when Xander was sent in to make us pull for him.

Heather

I usually skip Xander/Buffy's talk, I think he said mostly very dumb things and it irritates me. Riley and the Initiative are my least fav part of the show, so it's always a relief to see Riley leave lol. I just don't think there was a ton of chemistry between them, I find him boring for the show, he had an inferiority complex with her, and I do think Buffy wasn't that interested because she had too much else going on. Buckle up for the rest of this season, season 5 & 6 are my fav ❤️

Leah W.

I can't stand that the writers had Buffy run after Riley. Just let the man go! What he did was unforgivable. The two of them are better off without each other.

Stephanie P.

I agree with you both’s feelings on Riley and I think a lot of fans feel that way. The writing was a little bit of a miss even though I could see what they were going for. They should have showed Buffy “shutting down” more because Riley acting off put because Buffy cried about her mother having cancer when he wasn’t around is not a way to garner sympathy for him. In fact, I would argue a major miss is trying to build this set up using what Buffy was going through with Joyce to make fans feel bad for Riley. That was not the situation to use for this storyline. They maybe should’ve illustrated the passion aspect more showing Buffy “settling” for someone loyal who she used as an afterthought, but there wasn’t a lot of circumstances that was painted to justify what this episode did. Then it immediately went to Riley demanding her to understand why he ran off to vampires or he was leaving. I remember watching the show for the first time wondering what was going on in this episode. Lol. In any case, I would like to add that they obviously try to parallel Buffy/Riley to Xander/Anya as in Xander considered that maybe he was treating Anya as a rebound and nothing special so he chooses to be clear with how in love with her he is because he wants her to know that. The difference is his love always seemed sincere to begin with in my opinion, and it was really heartwarming to see that commitment because we’ve watched Xander’s journey from moving out of his parents’ basement and getting a carpenter job to becoming a grown man who has a healthy relationship after 5 seasons. So there’s actual weight to their little moment compared to everything else happening this episode. Not to ramble on so much. Just one last tidbit, I didn’t want to mention this before this episode so I wouldn’t give a spoiler away concerning the previous episode “Family” with Tara being accepted in the group. But it was slight foreshadowing in that group scene in my opinion when Tara’s dad says, “We’re bloodkin. Who the hell are you?” Buffy: “We’re family.” You see almost all of the main cast and Riley is noticeably absent.

Kelsey Krehbiel

This stupid episode and that stupid speech and that stupid music as she runs infuriates me to an absurd degree. Riley wasn’t a monster, but he was not a perfect, amazing guy either. He was boring at best, gross and misogynistic at worst. And I…don’t buy Xander’s speech to Anya either. He says it, but that is not often how he treats her. Anyway, glad for Riley to be gone.

sharkey197

I think the writers looked at Buffy and Riley and the rest of the season and decided the Riley story would just be dead weight so they wrote him out. I think it was a good decision.

Barbara Panigot

And that word below is supposed to be "speculation" 😄😄

dys

I genuinely had forgotten Riley made it this far into season 5, I always think of him as just being a season 4 character. I think Spike may have gotten Riley right when he connects (as he says) Buffy "needing a monster in her man" to why Riley got into the vampire junkie thing. I don't think it's actually true for Buffy, she never needed Riley to be that, but that is what Riley thinks and at some level is why he was drawn to putting that darkness inside him. Him saying "or what? you'll hit me?" while *he's* the one manhandling her is enraging, I don't care that she is stronger than him. I didn't want to badmouth him in the season 4 reactions but I was never the biggest fan of his character, all his insecurities about being in Angel's shadow were never part of how Buffy actually saw him but they *were* true for how a lot of the audience sees him.

Kimba

I think Xander wants to think those things and part of him or maybe even all of him does love Anya. But I think the speech has some motivation he’s not really realizing related to Buffy rejecting him.

Erica

Xander often treats anya incredibly poorly. It's one thing to tell someone that what they said was inappropriate, it's another to do that in the form of a put down in front of a bunch of other people. On more recent rewatches, those moments stick out like a needle or something. The worst imo is when she says something a little strange but that doesn't harm anyone, and immediately gets put down

dys

The only part of this I disagree with is I do think Buffy was genuinely interested. Riley was mostly not that interesting a character for the audience but SMG is a great enough actor to convince us that she was head over heels for him.

lee

It's been a while since I've watched this episode as it's not exactly high on the list of anyone's faves to rewatch on their own. I only get to it during full rewatches of the series so there's a bit more time in between viewings of it than fan or personal favourites. This time around I have to say a lot of it really clunked for me, and I think the cold open is such a mission statement (or red flag) for the tone of the rest of the episode. That tease feels so cheap after the incredible scene between Buffy and Joyce that the last episode ended on, which is one of my favourite scenes in the entire show and one that I have braved the Queller many times just to watch. It had such incredible heart and gravity and maturity so this opening and everything it shares with the rest of the episode feel kind of cheesy by comparison. Obviously they had to get Riley out of the picture because his character was feeling like a loose thread flapping in the wind, but it couldn't be done quietly or unceremoniously because he's been around so long. Every crack and fault in his character and his relationship with Buffy had to be pressed to even approach the level of drama the season is operating on but there still wasn't quite enough there to make an appropriately momentous exit, not even with the hasty groundwork laid in the margins of the past two episodes. The entirety of Riley's vamp addiction before this episode consisted of two completely wordless interstitial vignettes, him getting fed on in a dark room last episode and him staking Sandy in the alley in the episode before that. The scene (if you can call it that) with Sandy didn't even establish his motivation or feelings about what was happening, it too felt like a bit of a cheap tease. This episode handles and talks about his habit like it has been a season long descent into a perverse addiction, but with how slight and rushed the actual depictions of it have been, it unfortunately feels unearned and melodramatic. Characters act and speak in ways that don't feel entirely right or true, and it definitely lands like everything and everyone is getting positioned and contorted in whatever way is needed for this episode to end the way it does. Putting all the Riley advocacy on Xander doesn't really help either since he can be so unbearable when he gets sanctimonious and mansplainy, especially where Buffy's love life is concerned. He doesn't really have the experience, emotional intelligence, or much of a leg to stand on to be lecturing anyone about their relationships. It also bugs me how he says that no one told him anything about Buffy and Riley's troubles when Riley said in very plain language what his core insecurity was seven episodes ago. Xander has this massive talk with Buffy after she acts closed off and edgy and sets a vamp den on fire, but he did practically nothing when Riley did the exact same thing and blew up a vamp nest with a grenade. He actually came off as rather dense and accusatory when semi-confronting Riley about it, basically saying "what the hell is going on with you dude?" even when Riley told him exactly what's going on five episodes prior. Many things in this episode feel like continuity errors in both a narrative and emotional sense. Also, when Buffy says Riley can hang out with "his friends" who on EARTH is she talking about? She was literally there when Riley's best friend was killed, and there again when the majority of the rest of the initiative were killed. The only surviving friend of Riley's is Graham, and Buffy knows he no longer lives in town. I'm not even complaining about the fact that Riley has no friends of his own, because he can and should go out and make some, but that line makes no sense and is just one of many that feel out of place in this episode. It almost feels like the writers were so stumped that they brought in someone to write an adequately dramatic exit for Riley but this person only got the broad strokes of where all the characters are at and didn't have full recall of previous scripts, but decided that details weren't a priority when said exit required blowing a big hole in the wall of the season through which to evacuate Riley. There's good ideas here and if you squint you can definitely see how this episode could arise in a more balanced and natural way given everything we know about these characters, but the kinda wonky pacing and setup of this huge emotional episode makes a lot of it feel VERY soapy. I don't write for television and I have a lot of respect for people who wrestle with dense and complicated stories and characters to produce satisfying and engaging entertainment for massive audiences on unpredictable and often unforgiving schedules, so I choose to believe that this was the best the writers could make of what they had in order to close the book on Riley in a way that didn't feel like a fizzling anticlimax. It got the job done and gave us some good moments like Buffy's back alley John Wicking of those vamps and Anya finally getting the verbal declaration of love that she deserves. That being said, this episode feels like a detour out of the mounting brilliance of this season into a weird daytime soap called Sunnydale Hospital. There's not a huge amount of drama that can be squeezed out of two people just fundamentally not being on the same page about their relationship and wanting different things, so maybe vampire "suckjobs", vague jungle missions, and cheesy helicopter exits were the only way out of a dull dead end storyline. There's also something to be said about the deliberate framing and blocking choices that beat the "vamp bite as oral sex" metaphor to death, and the literal demonisation of addiction and sex work going on here. They didn't have to lean so hard into making this addiction so sexualised or have it take place in a network tv approximation of a crack den, but they did. And writing a story where a picture perfect white suburban couple are torn apart by this caricature of urban poverty and vice that makes "junkies" and "whores" literal monsters is....um. certainly a choice! But I think I've yapped enough for this week. Great reaction as always! Really loving revisiting this season with you guys, even the episodes I usually skip or the ones that have grown to bother me a bit over time. I really enjoy this community and its forum for discussing all the things we watch together.

Carl Wilson

I really don't understand what the writers were thinking with the whole Riley plotline. Xander's speech to Buffy is great but it really doesn't correspond to anything we've seen - Riley *has held things back, he *hasn't been giving his whole heart and soul. He has his reasons - unprocessed trauma from what happened to him in S4, and even in the early parts of this season - just as Buffy has reasons when she withholds parts of herself. But that doesn't make him "the one who comes along once in a lifetime," especially *the day after* she catches him in a vampire brothel/crackhouse on the very night her mother has just come through life-threatening surgery. It's his choice whether to stay and work on it or say he can't handle things and bail, they're both actually reasonable choices, but giving her an ultimatum is nuts. And then that chase ending with Buffy just missing the helicopter. Really just bad.

Carl Wilson

Oh, also a real Riley would just have staked Spike not played fake-out. Just as a real Buffy would have staked Spike about a dozen times for the things he's done and tried to do. Talk about plot armor, wow.

Carl Wilson

I really don't think Xander's past feelings for Buffy are operative here. When they were he tried to undermine her relationships and this is the opposite. He's changed a lot by now. Even if I think he's basically wrong about Riley.

lee

I was actually just thinking that I kind of wish that Cordelia were around to give her two cents on the situation. It would likely be diminished and played for laughs like when she was the only one to come to Buffy's defense in Dead Man's Party, but I feel like if she could find some middleground between how she confronted Buffy in When She Was Bad and the times when she was genuinely there for her like in Passion or Helpless, I feel like Cordy could approach this situation with her trademark blend of bluntness and hidden sensitivity. To have this speech come from Xander feels so wrong because who is he to talk to Buffy about any of this when he literally destroyed his own last relationship through infidelity? I think having been betrayed by a partner herself and never being afraid to tell Buffy things she may not want to hear makes Cordy uniquely qualified to have a complex conversation about this situation. Coming from Xander it so tainted by his history of jealousy and hypocrisy and it detracts from any points he could be making. And I've always wondered, couldn't he have thrown Buffy his keys so she would only have to run (presumably) to the magic box and then drive to Riley? And we never saw Riley tell Buffy ANYTHING about where he would be leaving from so how does she know where to run? It really is such a frustrating episode!

lee

That line is so bizarre to me because Buffy is just not that oblivious. It's more interesting, and in my opinion more accurate, to say that deep down she knows something is wrong and that she is in some kind of denial, but to suggest that she genuinely has no idea anything is off or that Riley is isolated or dissatisfied feels like an insult to her intelligence.

lee

It also drives me crazy that Xander gives himself credit for being wise and perceptive and like he's advocating for poor Riley when Riley explicitly said "SHE DOESN'T LOVE ME" in episode 3, and Xander hasn't had a single followup conversation with Riley, said anything to Buffy, or even offered Riley an encouraging word or scrap of patience or sympathy. It's like he deleted Riley's moment of vulnerability from his mind, acted like it never happened, and then is now acting like he figured everything out on his own and is Riley's lone champion because that's what allows him to tell Buffy what to do and how to feel. He was totally content to shrug and let their relationship fall apart until he saw an opportunity to get on his high horse

Neill Shaughness

Respectfully, I do think that line is in character, though I don't think it's an insult to her intelligence. Buffy has more on her plate than any teenager could possibly be expected to handle. The result is she has a sort of tunnel vision (that's why the splintering of the friend group in s4 caught her off guard). If someone tells Buffy they are doing fine, she will take that at face value. She surrounds herself with emotionally intelligent people to help her in that regard, but Buffy herself can be a tad oblivious in that department.

Lyla

Great points Lee! Totally agree

Kimba

Also, does Spike have a key to Buffy’s house? Maybe she should do something about that. Even if she’s not going to do the spell to lock him out, figure out why he keeps being able to sneak in.

Kimba

I wonder why Riley has a plastic wood grain stake on hand

Lyla

I know what you mean Carl! It's only my head canon. I agree he's definitely changed a decent amount, but psychologically he's still Xander. It's not been that long since S1/S2, none of them are even 20 years old yet! And I don't think if Whedon never wanted us to think about his and Buffy's history ever again, that he would have reminded us of it in Restless personally. So much of that ep continues to be relevant in a thematic/ psychological sense. I will say that I don't think how he feels/ felt about Buffy is on any level a conscious thought, though, especially here. Rather, my idea is just that it's a very quiet layer to his entitlement and his sharp attitude with her at times. Especially in the fact (as other commenters have pointed out) he did nothing with the pretty major info he got from Riley in ep 3. I see your point about his undermining of her previous relationships, but tbh I don't think he identified with or related to any of her past dates or boyfriends. His immature(r) younger self saw them as a more direct threat/ competition, whereas I think he really places himself with Riley, in some way imagining he understands his pain of being rejected by Buffy, even if it's in a totally different sense and context, and not relevant at all in this case. Either way though, I love how rich all these characters are, so every moment almost can be interpreted or linked back to something different about their character! It's the best show for that.

Jamie Morgan

Right...don't get me wrong, because Riley is clearly The Idiot in this situation, but Buffy telling him she's given him "my heart, my body and soul" when she can't even say "I love you" drives me insane. She HAS kept him at a distance and she DOES take on too much. If either of them had bothered communicating with each other this could have been fixed, but it's now spiralled into a weird power dynamic and they are BOTH at fault for that. That being said, this is absolutely the good ending for Riley. He needs this, and she doesn't need him.

Vicky N

Loved the reaction but I disagree with you about two things. 1. In my opinion the conversation between Riley and Spike wasn’t “stupid”, it was illuminating. 2. I really disliked Xander interaction with Buffy for all the reasons stated by others commentators: the mainsplaining, the obfuscation, the supposedly moral superiority over Buffy.

cruzinbosco

At the beginning of this episode, Buffy strongly implies to her mom that Riley is essentially just a warm body. The reality is that she hasn’t fully let him in... not the way she did with Angel. Because she doesn't need Riley the way she needed Angel, she simply doesn't love him with that same intensity. I really feel for Riley here. It must be incredibly painful to sense that emotional distance and feel like you have nothing left to offer. However, as others (like Jamie Morgan) have pointed out, it all comes down to communication. Unfortunately, these are college students who lack the emotional maturity required to have those tough conversations, which is sad to watch. Riley has a fundamental need to feel wanted and needed, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It frustrates me when viewers act like his desires are unreasonable. We all have emotional needs, and his are currently being neglected. While that isn't entirely Buffy's fault, the breakdown happens because they don't understand each other's love languages or how to communicate them. If Buffy knew what he truly needed from her, she might actually be able to provide it, and vice versa. We’ve seen Xander observing this dynamic over the past several months. He immediately clocked what was happening right in front of him, and he knows Buffy better than almost anyone. He has watched her push people away before, including himself, Willow, and Giles. It's a recurring pattern she desperately needs to break, though the heavy burden of being the Slayer likely makes it incredibly difficult for her to open up because no one else understands what she is feeling every single day.

that girl

"Speculative computation"

I🖤Kraken

Everyone should rewatch their lovemaking scene. Buffy told Riley many times that he was perfect and that she loved him and she loved them together. Also, her mother was dying from brain cancer. Everything else in the world stops. It wasn't his place to demand anything from her from that moment on. Also, if my partner took the time to go to a traphouse where a dead thing--a literal demon-- could suck the blood out of his body?! Yeah, there's not enough silkwood showers in the world to ever make that skin-crawling, shudder stop. And lastly, if the military knew what he had just been up to, I dare say they would not have taken him back. Fun reaction, guys!

Lola Lirola

Ah, Riley. The square peg of the show. The writers didn't really know what to do with him at all, and it all ended up bland and disappointing. In a way, I kinda love how realistic it is. They truly haven't been around each other much for months (to us, I mean, we've barely seen scenes with them together for several weeks of airtime, and when they did, it was kinda boring), they just stopped having a common goal, he started resenting her success, cowardly pushed things so she did the difficult part of breaking up... It's basically too realistic! 😅 On the one hand, I appreciate that they gave Buffy a stable, dependable man as a relationship. But they really didn't know how to sustain that for more seasons. We're messy benches who live for drama, and drama we will get!! But also, I read somewhere that Buffy gave her heart to Angel but couldn't give him her body safely, and then gave Riley her body safely, but couldn't really give him her heart, and I think that's true and poetic.

Lola Lirola

Me too! I completely forget big chunks of his presence. And that's not the fault of Marc Blucas, it's just that they wrote him like the most boring piece of wonderbread possible, and then they really didn't know what to do with him this season. I always considered him a slog, narratively speaking, and I was actually surprised in this rewatch that in Season 4 he was often actually likeable! 😅

Roland

I think it's partly the fault of Marc Blucas, twenty years later his acting range in the recent season of Reacher seems identical to that in Buffy (i.e. negligible)....

Roland

Agreed

Roland

It was the disappointingly weirdest part of a disappointingly weirdest episode. You couldn't even make the start of a mope session for Spike and Riley interesting...?

Roland

Exactly. I like SMG's acting range (I hope the lads watch Cruel Intentions eventually), but I've never found her affection for Riley to be sincere, let alone head over heels in love.

BrummaGen

I'm not surprised that this episode has gathered so many comments! For many of us this is far from being a favourite episode, and I'm not alone in finding parts of it very frustrating. I think we are pretty much all agreed that Riley's departure is a good thing, if not overdue. But the way the breakup and his departure is handled certainly elicits much discussion and some disagreement. The Passion of the Nerd, in his episode by episode analysis videos on Youtube (excellent but very spoilery so not to be viewed until you've finished the whole show), ended up making a video twice as long as most of his other ones about this episode, despite it being one of his least favourite - just trying to unpick what the issues are and why it comes across so unsatisfactory.

TalynOne

I think Riley is way better off without Buffy than vice versa. She could never be what he needed. Emotionally Buffy is a bit broken and really can't be anyone's good long term partner. Not her fault, she's just got too much going on. Her not telling Riley that she was in hospital with her mother is a red flag that he was a boyfriend of convience. She didn't really consider him as someone for support. Freaking Spike knew and Buffy used her other friends for emotional support, a phone call takes 10 seconds, he wasn't there because she didn't want him there, it's that simple.

Lola Lirola

😅😅 Okay, fair! We'll split the blame!

Tina

I always thought Riley was at least trying to fight against his own programming re the role a man has to take. It's just that he lost that fight in S5. This is something I do like to see because its realistic, even if I would have liked it more if he hadn't given up trying. Struggling and losing is better than not even trying!

Anjali Agarwal

Buffy chasing after Riley is one of the weaker moments for her character, but at least he’s gone now.

Joseph Irizarry

I can’t stand how this show tries so hard to make Riley look like some kind of bad ass

Kt B

You all kept saying that you didn’t understand why Riley was risking it all to go to the vampire dens. If you can’t relate to indulging in self-destructive behavior, sabotaging your happiness, and being addicted to the false fulfillment of codependency, consider yourself lucky. What Riley did was harmful to Buffy and to himself, and he shouldn’t be excused for it, but boy do I understand it. Thank God for therapy.

Jiiinx1753

Wow so much hate! I’m not the biggest fan of Riley but damn . I personally liked Xander speech saying hey Riley’s a good guy that loves you don’t close off if you love him. But if you don’t then it’s ok to let him go. I don’t see anything wrong with that. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I think that’s a good friend, I guess I’m alone on that island! 🏝️