Synopsis of A New Man
Buffy is blissfully happy in her new relationship with Riley, and her friends throw her a great surprise birthday party for her 19th. Riley introduces her to his boss at the Initiative, Maggie Walsh, and Maggie questions Buffy a bit about what it's like to be the Slayer. Maggie proudly tells Buffy that Riley has killed or captured 17 hostiles, and asks Buffy how many she has slain. Although we don't get to hear Buffy's answer, Riley is suitably impressed and a bit intimidated. Buffy tells him stories of some of her highlights, and he his male ego is a little bruised. They end up sparring for fun in the gym, both holding back. They agree not to hold back, and Buffy accidentally kicks Riley across the room. Although it's a bigger blow to his ego, he handles it fairly well. Later, Buffy admits to Willow that she was still holding back a little.
Giles finds out from Willow and Xander that Buffy's new boyfriend, Riley, is one of those commandos he's been researching. He's a bit hurt that everyone knew about it except him. He goes to Maggie Walsh looking for Buffy at one point, and they get along extremely poorly.
Willow gets back together with her witchy friend, Tara, from "Hush." They are practicing a spell in which they float a rose together, and then slowly pluck off each petal. It's an exercise in getting their minds in sync. They successfully float the rose, but then it goes flying around the room like a missile, destroying itself. Willow and Tara are shocked and surprised. Later, Willow tells Buffy about it and says that she thinks there's someone else doing some strong dark magic in the area, and that was messing with the spell.
Giles's old friend Ethan Rayne pops back into Giles's life. Giles's first instinct is to thrash Ethan, but Ethan convinces him to listen to him instead. Giles and Ethan go out for a drink, and Ethan starts to ask Giles about the Initiative, saying that there's some new player on the board that's really pissing off the dark side. Ethan gets Giles drunk, and Giles babbles a bit about the Initiative, and how they get all the attention and Giles is just a retired librarian.
Giles wakes up the next morning, looks in the mirror, and realizes he's a demon. He struggles around his apartment, trying to call for help and get dressed, but finds that he doesn't know his own strength and ends up destroying his apartment in the process. He finally wraps himself in a blanket and goes to find Xander. When he gets to Xander's basement, he tries to explain what's going on, but he doesn't realize that he's speaking a demon language, and so Xander doesn't understand him and just thinks he's being attacked by a demon. Xander starts throwing things at the demon until it leaves. Giles doesn't know where to go, and comes across Spike. Spike understands Giles's new language, and Giles bribes Spike into helping him find Ethan. While in his car with Spike driving, Giles starts to feel more and more carnal rage building up inside him. He tries to control it, but when he sees Maggie Walsh on the street, he has Spike stop the car so he can just get out and scare her.
Xander tells Buffy and Willow about his encounter with the demon, and when they go to Giles's apartment to talk to him about it, they find the apartment damaged and abandoned. Riley shows up, following up on some 911 calls that the Initiative was tracking. From Xander's physical description and Giles's books, they figure out what kind of demon it was, and read about how it's usually a pretty dumb demon. When Riley hears that the demon terrorized Professor Walsh, and then got back into a car, the gang figures out that the demon must have stolen Giles's car. They think that for a dumb demon, this one seems like it's got a method to its madness. Buffy asks Willow if the strong magic she felt at work before could be being used to control this demon. Willow says it's possible. They read that the demon can be killed by being stabbed with something silver, so Buffy grabs a silver letter opener off Giles's desk, and she and Riley go to the magic store to see if they can find any evidence of someone buying stuff for this kind of magic. Buffy breaks down the door of the magic store, and Riley says she shouldn't have done that. Buffy says she doesn't have time to play by the rules, and Riley tells her that he actually has a master key that opens all the doors of stores on main street. In the magic store, Buffy finds a receipt for Ethan Rayne. Riley calls into home base and gets a search on Ethan Rayne, finding out within a few minutes which hotel he's staying in.
Spike, on Giles's advice, questions the waitress that served Giles and Ethan the night before, because Ethan gave her his phone number. She gives them the name of Ethan's hotel. On the way, they pick up a tail of military vehicles... the Initiative. Giles jumps out of the car, and Spike leads them on a wild goose chase, managing to lose them just before crashing the car. Giles shows up at Ethan's hotel room, and although he knows he needs Ethan alive to help transform him back, his demon rage takes over and he starts trying to kill Ethan. Buffy and Riley show up, and Ethan says the demon that killed Giles is trying to kill him now. Buffy attacks the demon, and while Riley gets ahold of Ethan to keep him from running, Buffy fights Giles and ends up stabbing him with the letter opener. She looks into the demon's eyes as she does this, and realizes that it's Giles. She asks Giles if he's okay, and he says he's okay except for the rage. He's bleeding green blood, but he's not dead. Buffy realizes that the letter opener is not real silver.
Ethan cures Giles, and then tells Buffy that he'll be on his way. Buffy asks Ethan why she would let him go. He reminds her that he's human, and she can't kill him. Riley's backup finally arrives, and they take Ethan away.
Later, back at Giles's apartment, Buffy apologizes that she didn't tell Giles about Riley and the Initiative sooner. Giles warns Buffy about what Ethan said about the Initiative, and his own misgivings, and tells her to be careful in her dealings with them. Meanwhile, Riley is telling Maggie Walsh how amazing Buffy is, and Maggie reassures him that she's sure she'll be impressed.
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