Season synopsis
Contains spoilers for this season and earlier seasons.
Buffy and Willow start at UC Sunnydale while Xander takes construction work, and Buffy’s new relationship with Riley grows alongside campus life. Riley is a member of the Initiative, a secret military project beneath the university that captures and studies demons. Its leader, Professor Maggie Walsh, first welcomes Buffy’s fighting skills, then treats her independence as a threat and tries to have her killed. The Initiative has also implanted a chip in Spike that prevents him from harming humans; he repeatedly bargains with Buffy’s friends and eventually fights demons on their side. Away from the Initiative, Oz leaves after losing control as a werewolf, Willow begins a relationship with fellow witch Tara, and Xander and Anya become a couple.
The Initiative’s experiments produce Adam, a powerful human-demon-machine hybrid who kills Walsh and escapes. Adam recruits Spike and manipulates Riley, whose body has been altered by the project, while planning to build an army of similar hybrids. Faith wakes from her coma and uses a device left by the Mayor to switch bodies with Buffy, but Buffy defeats her and Faith flees. After Adam turns the Initiative’s captive demons against the soldiers, Buffy reunites with Willow, Xander and Giles. Their combined magic, strength and knowledge empower Buffy to reach Adam’s uranium core and destroy him; the Initiative is shut down. In the final episode, the First Slayer visits the friends in separate dreams after their spell, insisting Buffy must work alone. Buffy rejects that demand and breaks the dream attack, allowing all four to wake.