Superstar

Season 4, Episode 17
Written by Jane Espenson
Directed by David Grossman
Original Airdate: 3 April 2000

“I don’t care if it is an orgy of death, there’s still such a thing as a napkin.”
Willow

REGULAR CAST

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 CAST

Danny Strong as Jonathan Levinson
Amber Benson as Tara Maclay
Bailey Chase as Graham Miller
Robert Patrick Benedict as Jape
John Saint Ryan as Colonel George Haviland
George Hertzberg as Adam
Emma Caulfield as Anya Jenkins

CO-STARRING

Erica Lutrell as Karen
Adam Clark as Cop
Chanie Costello as Inga
Julie Costello as Ilsa

SYNOPSIS

Buffy and the gang slay vampires in the graveyard, but when they discover a nest of vampires that is too much for them all to fight, they go to Jonathan for help. At Giles’s place, Jonathan checks out weapons and even practices hand-to-hand with Buffy. Willow uses her computer to try and find a way to attack the vampire nest, but Jonathan quickly finds a better way to enter. With a plan in mind, Jonathan passes out weapons and tells everyone where to go. In the crypt, Jonathan slays the majority of the vampires, leaving Buffy to feel inadequate, as she allows one vampire to get by her.

As they leave the crypt, Jonathan poses for some pictures. He senses Spike hiding in the shadows and the two go face-to-face. Buffy’s at a lack for her usual puns, but Jonathan steps in to knock Spike’s confidence down. While putting pictures of Jonathan up on a wall, Willow and Tara talk about the fight earlier that night and Buffy’s relationship with Riley. At Riley’s dorm room, Buffy tries to play basketball, but she is too uncomfortable being around Riley to let him get close.

Jonathan comforts Buffy and he tells her that she’s really just mad at Riley because he doesn’t know her as well as she’d like him to. He tries to convince him to forgive Riley because deep down, her expectations are too high. All the while, Jonathan is encountered by overzealous fans, and signing autographs for them. Colonel George Haviland is the new commander at the Initiative, but Jonathan takes over and explains the plans to find and destroy Adam. One fan, Karen is spying on Jonathan’s house, but is attacked by a demon and barely manages to run away.

Jonathan talks to Riley about his relationship with Buffy, and then he shoots at apples atop of the heads of Initiative operatives, while blindfolded. When Jonathan takes centre stage singing at the Bronze, Buffy and Riley take the dance floor. Xander and Anya are inspired to go somewhere to have sex when he starts to play the trumpet. Buffy lets Riley know that she forgives him and wants to move on with their relationship. Karen goes to the Bronze looking for Jonathan, and when she is taken back to his place, Karen describes the demon’s appearance to them all. Jonathan seems to act weird when she draws a symbol she saw on the demon, but he dismisses it as a harmless monster that he’ll take care of.

Adam realizes right away that something is wrong with the world, and that Jonathan isn’t supposed to be as popular as he currently is. When twin blonde girls call for Jonathan to come to bed, he drops his robe to reveal a symbol on his shoulder that is just like the symbol Karen drew. On her way to her dorm room, the demon attacks Tara. She chants a spell and manages to escape with her life. The next morning, Tara identifies the demon by the symbol on its head, and Buffy suddenly has even more reason to question Jonathan.

Buffy stops by Xander’s, and only finds Anya and plenty of things on Jonathan. Buffy questions how Jonathan could be so perfect. He is credited for all the great things that have happened in the world, when it seems pretty impossible for him to do them all. Riley encourages everyone to follow Buffy’s lead. They look at Jonathan’s swimsuit calendar to see the monster’s mark on Jonathan’s shoulder. He arrives and explains to everyone that he has a history with the monster and every time he faces it, he is overcome by a great deal of confusion.

Buffy and Jonathan go look for the demon, and get some information on the demon’s location from Spike. Willow discovers that Jonathan did an augmentation spell that would make him everyone’s target of adoration. The downside is that a demon is created that would be everyone’s worst nightmare and if it is destroyed, the spell is reversed. The gang has a hard time dealing with the prospect of a world without Jonathan.

In a cave, Jonathan tries to push Buffy into a deep pit, but the demon interrupts them. Jonathan leaves it up to Buffy to fight the demon. Her fighting skills improve greatly as the fight goes on, and then Jonathan pushes the demon into the pit and his own life is saved by Buffy. After the demon falls into the pit, everything goes back to normal and Jonathan is back to being ignored. Buffy talks with Jonathan and asks him how he did what he did. At counselling, after his attempted suicide, another guy informed Jonathan about the augmentation spell, but he unfortunately skipped the demon part. Later on, happy again, Buffy and Riley are kissing on his bed… until she moans “Jonathan.”

TRIVIA

Jane Espenson, the writer of this episode, also wrote Earshot, which was the first to feature Jonathan as a key character. She and Danny Strong have since become good friends.

Jonathan’s singing voice is provided by Brad Kane – who was the voice of Aladdin in the Disney films. He also appeared as Tucker in The Prom. When Danny Strong performed the scene in the Bronze, he was apparently very sick with the flu.

Jonathan items include Jonathan-Os cereal, basketball posters, a variety of other posters, I Heart Jonathan t-shirts, an autobiography (Oh, Jonathan), an advertisement for training shoes, trading cards, comic books, and a swimsuit calendar. A lot of items are referred to but not seen: at least one CD, two movies (Being Jonathan Levinson and The Matrix). Jane Espenson says she collected as much of these products as she could, to keep as a memento. The Jonathan comic books are made by Dark Horse comics, the same company that made the Buffy and Angel comics.

The opening credits were redone, temporarily, to include lots of Bond-style shots of Jonathan interspersed with those of the regulars. One shot, of Jonathan disabling a bomb, could be considered a parody of Xander’s bomb scene in The Zeppo. A few days before filming, Danny Strong was brought into the studio to film all these shots, as well as having photos taken of him playing basketball etc. Apparently he had no idea what was going on. Jonathan walking towards the camera with his billowing coat is an obvious nod towards Angel.

CONTINUITY

Numerous events that have occurred in the show have been altered by Jonathan’s spell, or at least certain memories of those events have. It seems that in the altered reality, it was Buffy who gave Jonathan the Class Protector Award at The Prom. Jonathan also blew up the Mayor and also smashed the bones of the Master. There’s also a reference to Jonathan’s suicide attempt, which was thwarted by Buffy in Earshot.

Anya’s time as a vengeance demon is referred to, as well as worlds with or without shrimp, which’ll later be mentioned by Tara, and at some point is also visited by Illyria.

Buffy is still upset about Riley having sex with Faith, which happened in the previous episode.

GOOFS

When Buffy gives the yellow cup to Jonathan, it is turned in a different direction than the shot in which we see him receive it.

The same shot of Buffy and Riley dancing is used twice.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

EPISODE
Who Are You / Where the Wild Things Are

STORY ORDER
The Prodigal / The Ring