Background
In the series, Buffy Summers is a teenager who, at the age of fifteen, was chosen by mystical forces to be the latest Slayer, a girl endowed with superhuman powers to fight and defeat vampires, demons, and other evil forces. After moving with her mother, Joyce (Kristine Sutherland), to the fictional town of Sunnydale, she befriends Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon), who join her in the struggle against evil. They are guided by Buffy's "Watcher", Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), who is well-versed in demonology and is responsible for Buffy's training as a Slayer. The group collectively refer to themselves as the Scooby Gang. During season two, Willow begins to experiment with magic, eventually becoming a formidable witch.
Each season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (often simplified as Buffy) presents an overall story arc which episodes tie into, as well as a specific manifestation of evil known as the Big Bad. As noted by Buffy scholar Roz Kaveney, episodes in the fourth season address authority, order, and the estrangement from the self and others as Buffy and her friends take on new roles after high school. An ongoing theme in the series is Buffy's complex relationship to her destiny as the current Slayer and how she uniquely expresses this role, and this plot element is further explored in season four in general, and in the episode "Restless" in particular.
Season four begins with Buffy and Willow starting college, attending U.C. Sunnydale, while Xander works at a series of odd jobs and begins dating Anya Jenkins (Emma Caulfield), who lived for 1,100 years as a vengeance demon before losing her powers and getting stuck in the body of a teenager. In the fourth season, Willow becomes romantically involved with fellow-student Tara Maclay (Amber Benson), an experienced witch. The Big Bad in season four is the result of the work of a covert military force called "The Initiative" who are capturing and performing experiments on vampires and demons in Sunnydale. Buffy and her friends discover that chief amongst these experiments is the creation of a human-cyber-demonoid hybrid known as Adam (George Hertzberg), whose programming has gone terribly wrong, leading him to wreak havoc on the town. Buffy's challenge is to find a way to disempower him, something she and the Scoobies achieve in the penultimate episode of season four, "Primeval". In order to do this, the four magically join their essences together to create a single "super Slayer"; while the others perform a ritual, Buffy confronts and defeats Adam while mystically empowered with Giles' mind, Xander's heart, and Willow's spirit aiding her. The ritual employs four tarot-like cards: Manus (meaning hands) represents Buffy, Sophus (meaning teacher) represents Giles, Animus (meaning courage, or heart) represents Xander, and Spiritus (meaning spirit and magical power) represents Willow. These symbols will become relevant to the central motif in each of the episode's four dream sequences.
Read more about this topic: Restless (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
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