Intervention (Buffy episode)

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“Intervention”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
Episode no. Season 5
Episode 18
Written by Jane Espenson
Directed by Michael Gershman
Production no. 5ABB18
Original airdate April 24, 2001
Episode chronology
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"Forever" "Tough Love"
List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes

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

Contents

[edit] Plot synopsis

[edit] Summary

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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.[1]

In some fight scenes in "Intervention", Xander was played by Nicholas Brendon's identical twin, Kelly Donovan, because Nicholas was sick.[2]

[edit] Acting

[edit] Starring

[edit] Guest starring

[edit] Co-starring

  • Sharon Ferguson as The First Slayer
  • Todd Duffey as Murk

and

[edit] Cultural references

  • Spike tries to convince Glory that Bob Barker is the key.
  • Xander calls Glory's minions hobbits with leprosy.
  • Giles's ritual for the vision quest resembles the Hokey-Pokey.
  • Buffy asks if the quest is for finding a grail.
  • When Buffy sees the mountain lion that leads her on the quest, she says "Hello Kitty".
  • In this episode, Dawn reads Twist magazine.

[edit] Quotes and trivia

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  • 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.[citation needed]
  • 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

[edit] Continuity

  • 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.

[edit] 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 7.

[edit] 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")

[edit] Timing

  • Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:
Location, time
(if known)		 Buffyverse chronology: January 2001 - Spring 2001
(non-canon = italic)
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.12 Checkpoint
L.A., 2001 A2.12 Blood Money
L.A., 2001 A2.13 Happy Anniversary
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.13 Blood Ties
L.A., 2001 A2.14 The Thin Dead Line
L.A., 2001 A2.15 Reprise
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.14 Crush
L.A., 2001 A2.16 Epiphany
Sunnydale, 2001 Buffy book: Wisdom of War
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.15 I Was Made to Love You
L.A., 2001 A2.17 Disharmony
L.A., 2001 Angel book: Vengeance
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.16 The Body
L.A., 2001 A2.18 Dead End
L.A., 2001 Angel book: Haunted
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.17 Forever
L.A., 2001 A2.19 Belonging
Sunnydale, 2001 Buffy graphic novel: Ugly Little Monsters
Sunnydale, 2001 Buffy comic: 'Chaos Bleeds' prequel
Sunnydale, 2001 Buffy video game: Chaos Bleeds
L.A., 2001 Tales of the Slayer: Again, Sunnydale
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.18 Intervention
Sunnydale, 2001 Buffy book: Tempted Champions
Sunnydale, 2001 Buffy book: Little Things
Sunnydale, 2001 Buffy book: Crossings
Sunnydale, 2001 Buffy book: Sweet Sixteen
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.19 Tough Love
L.A., 2001 A2.20 Over the Rainbow
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.20 Spiral
L.A., 2001 A2.21 Through the Looking Glass
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.21 The Weight of the World
Sunnydale, 2001 B5.22 The Gift
L.A., 2001 A2.22 There's No Place Like Plrtz Glrb
Sunnydale, 2001 Buffy graphic novel: Death of Buffy: Lost & Found’
Sunnydale, 2001 Buffy graphic novel: Death of Buffy

[edit] References

  1. ^ “Episode Guide: Intervention”, BBC, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/indetail/intervention/trivia.shtml>. Retrieved on 15 September 2007 
  2. ^ “Biography for Kelly Donovan”, IMDB.com, <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0233010/bio>. Retrieved on 15 September 2007 

[edit] External links

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