Goodbye Iowa

Infobox Television episode
Title=Goodbye Iowa


Series=Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Season=4
Episode=14
Airdate=February 15, 2000
Production=4ABB14
Writer=Marti Noxon
Director=David Solomon
Episode list=List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes
Prev=The I in Team
Next=This Year's Girl

"Goodbye Iowa" is the 14th episode of season 4 of the television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

Plot synopsis

ummary

Riley realizes that Walsh had tried to kill Buffy, and finds Walsh dead. He subsequently goes into withdrawal symptoms when he does not get fed the Initiative's drugs.

Expanded overview

Buffy fills the gang in on everything that's gone on since she started to work with the Initiative, and they question whether Riley was involved in the death mission on which Maggie sent Buffy. Buffy arms the group with weapons and makes plans to hide out in Xander's basement. Riley shows up at Giles' place asking Buffy for information, and becomes upset when he recognizes Spike as Hostile 17. Riley does not want to accept what the rest of them are saying about Professor Walsh and the Initiative.

Leaving Dr. Walsh's body, Adam escapes the Initiative through a vent. He approaches a young boy playing in the park and questions him about his nature. Dr. Angleman slips in a pool of blood as he enters room 314 and finds Professor Walsh stabbed to death. When Riley and Forrest see Walsh's body, Forrest accuses Buffy of staking Maggie.

Giles is grumpy when he wakes up in Xander's basement the next morning. The girls are watching cartoons when a news story comes on about a young boy who has been killed and mutilated. Believing it to be the Polgara demon captured in the previous episode, Buffy goes after it. Riley - against Dr. Angleman's orders - also instructs the commandos to search for the Polgara demon; he and Buffy both end up at the park where the boy was killed. While Buffy tries to apologize to Riley, Riley informs her that Walsh is dead and asks if Buffy is happy about that.

Willow goes to Tara's dorm room, planning to find the Polgara using a spell that shows nearby demonic activity. However, Tara secretly sabotages the spell and it fails to work. Meanwhile at Willy's bar, Spike is badly beaten by demons for associating with the Slayer. They tell him if he is seen around again, they will kill him.

Buffy searches for information at Willy's but Riley also shows up, very angry. He is shaking and sweating and scratching his hand so badly that it bleeds, as he questions Buffy's intentions and pulls a gun on an innocent woman. Buffy consoles Riley as she sees that he is sick and only getting sicker, leaving him at Xander's to rest. When Riley wakes up, Willow tries to stop him from going after Buffy but he pushes her to the ground and runs.

Disguised as a scientist, Buffy gets herself and Xander - dressed in fatigues - into the Initiative. They overhear Dr. Angleman talking to another scientist about their commandos having withdrawals from the drugs they had been secretly putting in their meals. Buffy grabs Dr. Angleman, demanding information about 314. Riley arrives to help Buffy, still unwilling to accept Professor Walsh's sinister motives. Adam drops a dead body to the floor, revealing his presence. Adam is searching for answers about the world, and has returned to the Initiative so he can get answers about himself and who he is. He has a disk drive in his chest and when he inserts a disk labelled "Adam" he offers information that reveals that he is part human, demon and machine. He explains that even though Riley had a real mother, Maggie was also his mother as she shaped and built him into a human machine for the Initiative. Adam kills Dr. Angleman and injures Riley before escaping again. The other commandos enter and take Riley away. The next day, Buffy talks to Willow about how Adam is out there and very dangerous. At the hospital, Riley lays in bed holding a scarf Buffy gave him earlier. Even though Buffy cannot see him, he has part of her to hold on to.

Acting

tarring

*Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
*Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
*Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
*Marc Blucas as Riley Finn
*James Marsters as Spike
*Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

Guest starring

*Emma Caulfield as Anya
*Amber Benson as Tara Maclay
*George Hertzberg as Adam
*Leonard Roberts as Forrest Gates
*Bailey Chase as Graham Miller
*Jack Stehlin as Dr. Angleman
*JB Gaynor as Little Boy
*Saverio Guerra as Willy the Snitch

Co-starring

*Amy Powell as Reporter
*Andy Marshall as Scientist #1
*Paul Leighton as Rough-Looking Demon
*Karen Charnell as Shady Lady

Production details

Music

*Andrew James - "My Last Romance"
*Lou Reed - "Romeo Had Juliette"
*Mark Cherrie - "Big Ed"

Themes

In "", Gregory Stevenson argues that this episode pays homage to Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and its warning about the dangers of scientific progress without adequate ethical safeguards. For example, like Frankenstein's monster, Adam approaches a boy in the woods. The boy is playing with a cyborg soldier action figure in the park, shortly before Adam - a genuine cyborg - kills him. In the scene that follows, Anya, Willow, and Buffy are watching Roadrunner cartoons in Xander's basement. As Wile E. Coyote's Acme technology once again backfires, Buffy complains, "That would never happen." Stevenson claims the irony is it "does" later happen: the Initiative's embrace of technology unfettered by moral guidance ultimately causes its own destruction. [Citation
last =Stevenson
first =Gregory
title =Televised Morality: The Case of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
publisher =University Press of America
year =2003
location =Oxford
url =http://books.google.com/books?id=r7spi5_StNIC&pg=PA134&ots=7Q3AWjsij1&dq=Buffy+the+Vampire+Slayer+glory+christian&sig=iYqmhwiM4ZQqyaz2xDLQBezEGlo#PPA16,M1
isbn = 0-7618-2833-8]

Quotes and trivia

The action figure that the boy is playing with resembles Adam.

Translations

* Italian title: "La fabbrica dei mostri" ("The factory of monsters")
* German title: "Die Kampfmaschine" ("The fight machine")
* French title: "Stress"
* Spanish title: "Adiós, Iowa" ("Goodbye, Iowa")

Continuity

Arc significance

* Adam announces himself and his intentions to the Initiative and Buffy.

* This episode marks the final appearance of Saverio Guerra as Willy, although dialogue in future episodes makes it clear that the character remains in Sunnydale.

* The reason for Tara sabotaging the spell will not be made clear until the Season 5 episode "Family", where it is revealed that she is afraid she may be part demon.

Timing

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

External links

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Episode guides

* [http://www.buffyguide.com/episodes/goodbye.shtml BuffyGuide episode guide]

Reviews

* [http://www.soulfulspike.com/spikecentricity/GoodByeIowaReview.htm Soulful Spike Society analysis of "Goodbye Iowa"]
* [http://www3.sympatico.ca/jenoff/btvs414.htm Peripheral Visions Review]
* [http://www.section31.com/guideextras.php?id=200 Section 31 Review]
* [http://tv.swingthesickle.com/ststv/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer/Season_4/14.review Swing the Sickle Review]

References