Who Are You? (2)

(Episodes 16 Season 4)

The same watchers are preparing to take Buffy-in-Faith's-Body to England as this
week's episode opens, and no amount of protests from Buffy will convince them
she's not the rogue slayer.
Meanwhile Faith-in-Buffy's-Body infiltrates Buffy's world and completes a pass at Riley before growing troubled by mixed feelings. It's Willow's witch friend Tara who picks up the vibes which point to the soul switching, setting up a nicely filmed ritual scene in which she and Willow attempt to set things right.
Adam is still at work while all of the body switching is taking place. He forms a quick alliance with a trio of vampires and reveals his mission is to kill everything in his path. By episode's end his emboldened pals have taken over a church and taken parishioners hostage.

It's up to Buffy to escape her watchers and set things right, and she does in great fashion. The hopelessness of Buffy's imprisonment and her inability to make her captors believe her, forms the most engaging aspect of this installment. Her ultimate escape against bad odds makes for excitement.
The performances of Sarah Michelle Gellar and Eliza Dushku also enhance the
episode, quickly changing our perspective. It's easy to accept and cheer on
Dushku as Buffy, even though she's always done a good job of making us believe
how tough and mean she is in spite of her cherubic face.

Gellar does another nice job, becoming quickly convincing as a bad girl in Buffy's body and then a strangely conflicted rogue slayer as the episode unfurls. In a way the re-emergence of Faith seemed a detour from the Initiative/Adam storyline, but it has managed to merge old and new well and keep things entertaining and moving. As always it's fun to look forward to what will happen next. This season always keeps that question open.

read the first part of this review