Adam (Buffyverse)
Encyclopedia
Adam is a fictional character on the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003). Portrayed by George Hertzberg
, he is a monster created from parts of demons, vampires, machine, and a man, as a perverse experiment which the main character Buffy Summers
encounters in the fourth season. The premise of the series is that Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar
) is endowed with superhuman strength to fight vampires and evil creatures in the fictional town of Sunnydale
. In the fourth season, Buffy begins attending college, where she discovers her psychology professor, Dr. Maggie Walsh
(Lindsay Crouse
), is the head of a military-like organization called The Initiative that studies how to alter the harmful behavior inherent in demons. Adam is Dr. Walsh's horrible masterpiece, an allusion to Frankenstein's monster
, whose first conscious act is killing his creator. Adam and the Initiative are the fourth season's primary antagonists, or Big Bad
.
Adam's search for understanding himself and his true nature, combined for his penchant for chaos, leads him to orchestrate a massacre between demons and humans, where he will be able use body parts leftover from the melee to create an army of monsters to set loose on Sunnydale. Buffy's truest effectiveness is only with her close friends and family who assist her in her battles, called the Scooby Gang. The core members of the group must come together after being estranged from each other to defeat the apparently invincible Adam. Meanwhile, Buffy's romantic interest of the season, Riley Finn
(Marc Blucas
), is a top member of the Initiative who defects from it after learning its true mission. He aligns himself with Buffy, only to find his connection to Adam much closer than he imagined.
(Alyson Hannigan
), Xander
(Nicholas Brendon
), and mentor Giles
(Anthony Head
) at a crossroads. Series creator Joss Whedon
called it a "strange, sort of schizophrenic season" with a "weird incoherence", but admitted that the episodes in the fourth season were some of the series' best. The writers set out to explore the trials of characters discovering more about themselves following the defining years of high school. Although they had been a cohesive group of friends in the first three seasons, several occurrences separate them in the fourth, so the writers also focused on each of the four core characters who must come together to be part of a much more important whole to defeat the season's Big Bad.
Buffy studies
scholar Roz Kaveney states that estrangement from the self and from each other are the primary themes of the fourth season. To illustrate the absolute search for identity, the series writers created Adam, who is more estranged than anyone else. He is a concoction of vampires, demons, robotics, and a man. Adam was not the first re-animated corpse to be presented by the series. "Some Assembly Required" in the second season also had a Frankenstein monster-like creation and "Beauty and the Beasts" in the third includes references to Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; both touch on the theme of the misuse of science. Whedon has long been interested in science fiction
. He wrote the script for the film Alien Resurrection (1997), where an extra-terrestrial animal is recreated in a laboratory, and was a series writer for the television series The X-Files
, about a government agency that tracks supernatural occurrences and aliens. Buffy uses science and magic both as narrative devices to represent different ideas. According to author Andrew Aberdein, the series employs science in three grades: what contemporary science explains, what science may be able to accomplish, and the predominance of supernatural forces over science. According to Aberdein, Adam, code-named a "kinematically redundant, bio-mechanical demonoid", is the series' deepest exploration of science's potential. Adam, according to series writer Doug Petrie
, is the embodiment of the invasion of science in a world of magic. The series relied on its own form of magic to explain Buffy's superpowers and other supernatural occurrences up to the fourth season. Adam is "what happens when people who believe in science use demons for military gain", according to Petrie. The result is that science "gets its ass kicked" by magic.
George Hertzberg
, a University of Southern California
graduate with experience in sitcoms and commercials, was chosen based on one of Adam's monologues he was given to read for the audition. Hertzberg counted luck and being in the right place at the right time in helping him get the role. Many recurring characters on Buffy start with one or two episodes, and the writers or producers like their chemistry with other actors so much they make them a regular part of the cast. Hertzberg, however, understood Adam to be a major part of the fourth season in the reading. Casting director Amy Britt needed someone physically imposing for the part, with the 6 in 4 in (1.93 m) Hertzberg fitting the bill. Britt stated, "this is a guy we're going to want eventually to have some affinity for. We can't just see him as an evil being. He is evil to the core he should scare us with his actions; but there's also innocence. Like the Frankenstein monster, you realize the they're only doing what they know. Or what they've been programmed to do. These aren't born creatures, these are creations."
Hertzberg had no idea what Adam would look like in full costume and make-up when he auditioned. He had to be cast for prosthetic parts on his head and face, arms, chest, and legs, then fitted for contact lenses. Buffy used a company named Optic Nerve to build the materials to make Hertzberg look like a monster. Almost immediately after Hertzberg was given the role, Optic Nerve sketched and sculpted Adam's appearance. They had Hertzberg come in to get plaster molds of all the parts that had to be covered. They also created separate hands and a chest to film for close-up shots; Adam has a disk drive mounted on his chest which when used had to be filmed without Hertzberg behind it. Hertzberg's voice was also modified post-production. When he saw the full Adam prosthetic and costume, his biggest concern was being able to show nuanced facial expressions under so much latex. It took hours to get Hertzberg into his full costume, but even after it was fully applied on set, often he would have to wait even longer before he went in front of the cameras. He spoke of having to stay focused during all the waiting, while sweating underneath everything he wore for the part.
) who does not return her calls. She is not as academically successful as Willow, who fits in immediately at college. Xander, never one for academics, was unable to go on an extended road trip and has to return home to live in his parents' basement. He is preoccupied with feeling his college-bound friends have left him behind while he is stuck working a series of dead-end jobs. Giles, who was once Buffy's Watcher—a position in charge of a Slayer who instructs her about the demons and monsters she must face—was fired from the Watcher's Council and is unemployed for the entire fourth season.
Each of the four main characters also encounters an element that separates them from their former ties to each other. Willow, a practitioner of magic, loses her werewolf boyfriend Oz (Seth Green
) who leaves her, devastating and disorienting her. She meets and falls in love with Tara
(Amber Benson
), but keeps the relationship a secret. Xander becomes involved with Anya
(Emma Caufield), a former vengeance demon whose abrupt way of speaking alienates everyone else. Without a job, Giles is adrift, feeling useless. He goes drinking with an old friend named Ethan Rayne
(Robin Sachs
), who tells him that the demons and monsters in Sunnydale have become uneasy about a new force they call "314".
Buffy's involvement is the deepest of all four. In the season premiere, she and Willow begin attending a challenging psychology class taught by Dr. Maggie Walsh
(Lindsay Crouse
). She also meets Dr. Walsh's teaching assistant Riley Finn
(Marc Blucas
) and they become attracted to each other. Riley is in charge of a military commando organization that hunts vampires and demons, and captures them for research. It is not revealed to audiences that Dr. Walsh is the head of the research branch of Riley's military organization, called the Initiative, until the seventh episode. Buffy does not discover Riley's extracurricular activities is until the tenth episode "Hush".
The Initiative's goals are gradually made clearer. A recurring character since the second season is Spike (James Marsters
), a mercenary vampire who has fought both against and with Buffy in the past, depending on what suits his interests. Recently wanting to kill Buffy, Spike is captured by the Initiative before he can get to her. He finds himself in a brightly lit industrial facility incarcerated behind glass that shocks him when he touches it. He is given drugged blood to feed on, but is able to escape. When he tries to attack humans to feed on them, or even to fight them, he discovers he has had a microchip implanted in his head that gives him extremely painful headaches as a form of behavioral conditioning. Depressed that he is unable to do what he loves the most, Spike becomes suicidal.
Giles is the last of Buffy's inner circle to learn that Riley is a part of the commandos they have seen for months. Buffy begins enthusiastically training with the Initiative, spending more time with Riley, and trying to impress Dr. Walsh. At different times, Willow, Xander, and Giles caution Buffy that she does not know the Initiative's true motives and there are questions about their mission that are unanswered. Buffy begins asking questions during "The I in Team". She wants to know why the Polgara demon, a being with a skewer in its arm, must be captured alive and unharmed as she is used to killing demons. Her questions at first confound Dr. Walsh—who answers to no one—then cement Dr. Walsh's decision to remove Buffy from the Initiative. It is revealed that Dr. Walsh has installed cameras in Riley's dormitory room, which she uses to spy on him and Buffy having sex. While Riley and the commandos are distracted after seeing Spike, who they have code-named "Hostile 17", Dr. Walsh asks Buffy to go on a mission, maneuvering her into the sewers to fight three demons with a faulty weapon, which is all caught on camera. The camera falls, making Dr. Walsh believe Buffy has been killed. She informs Riley that Buffy is dead, which is refuted by Buffy appearing once more on camera after killing the demons. A very confused Riley walks out, ignoring Dr. Walsh's calls for him to return. Dr. Walsh consoles herself by going into laboratory room 314 and speaking to Adam who is laying on a table, apparently unconscious. Adam rises and impales Dr. Walsh with the skewer in his arm—the one taken off the Polgara demon. His first word is "Mommy", which he says as Dr. Walsh falls to the floor, dead.
, who in the novel Frankenstein
(1818) tells his creator that he is the "Adam of your labours". Mary Shelley
wrote the novel to highlight the problems progress, science, and industry create for humanity. Throughout the action, the monster constantly asks what he is and why he was created. Likewise, Adam escapes from 314 and makes his way out into the world, and much like Frankenstein's monster, he finds a little boy and asks the boy who and what he (Adam) is, then murders and dissects him. Adam is a curious character, seeking the truth and pontificating on what he has learned, even if he gained the knowledge through heartless violence. Whedon wanted Adam to be inquisitive and introspective, directing George Hertzberg to "find the stillness" in the character. Roz Kaveney notes that Hertzberg's "flawed but impressive performance" includes Adam's interesting idiosyncrasy of pausing each time he speaks, as if he is creating meaning with his own words and must consider the implications of what he is saying. Author Nikki Stafford connects Adam's need to learn about the world around him to Frankenstein's monster: Adam must understand why other people are here and why he has emotions, a peculiarity of his creation as Dr. Walsh never encouraged others to question her. One Buffy studies writer draws comparisons between Dr. Walsh and Victor Frankenstein
, both of whom build monsters out of body parts "to compensate for human vulnerability". The moral of Shelley's novel is that what science can accomplish is not necessarily what it should.
Riley, meanwhile, learns of Dr. Walsh's death and his comrades Forrest (Leonard Roberts
) and Graham (Bailey Chase
) suspect Buffy to be her murderer. Extremely agitated and showing signs of drug withdrawal, he follows Buffy and demands to know the truth in "Goodbye Iowa". None of them are aware of Adam until he re-emerges in the underground laboratories of the Initiative, killing Dr. Walsh's assistant and another soldier. He tells Riley that he knows Dr. Walsh created them both, that she gave Riley chemicals to strengthen him, which makes them brothers. When Riley refuses to acknowledge their bond, Adam skewers Riley, and knocks Buffy across the room while Forrest and Graham are trying to enter the locked door. Adam leaves and the Initiative are tasked with hunting him down and killing him.
When one of Sunnydale's residents, Jonathan Levinson
(Danny Strong
), casts a spell making him the center of everyone's attention in "Superstar", Adam is the only character in town who realizes it is an illusion. He explains his insight by saying he is "aware". His uniqueness has set him apart. Adam is interested in how the illusion will play out, however, and watches it unfold. During the illusion, Jonathan—temporarily a part of the Inititative—tells Riley that Adam has a uranium core power source which will never die. Riley and Buffy learn that vampires and demons are working together—a very unusual set of circumstances—to get caught by the Initiative's commandos. The Initiative's holding cells are becoming overcrowded and the soldiers spread very thin and overworked. Riley finally leaves the Initiative in "New Moon Rising", after seeing Oz get tortured so the scientists can study him as a werewolf. Spike simultaneously discovers Adam to be communicating with the town's demon underworld, asking for favors through a charisma he has over them. Adam promises if Spike can drive apart Buffy and Riley and their friends, he will remove Spike's microchip.
Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles realize they must work as one unit to defeat Adam. They are captured sneaking into the Initiative. As they are warning the commanding officer, Adam trips the power, releasing all the demons and a fight breaks out all over the facility. Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles get themselves into a room adjacent to 314 as Willow starts to cast the spell to join them all temporarily. Buffy sees Riley unable to move, then is attacked by Dr. Walsh and Forrest. Riley cuts out his own microchip so Buffy can confront Adam who, after modulating his arm to dispense a minigun
, is able to overpower her. The spell begins to work: to function as one unit, Willow becomes the spirit, Giles the mind, Xander the heart, and Buffy the hand, or strength of their ensemble. They work through Buffy to neutralize Adam, telling him "You could never hope to grasp the source of our power". Adam, alone but intrigued, shoots at them and they force the gun to retreat from his arm, then change his missiles to doves. They are able through Buffy to punch inside Adam's chest, remove his uranium core, destroy it, and him.Series writer David Fury
cited graphic novel author Alan Moore
's Promethea
—a story combining science fiction, mysticism, and a female superhero—as inspiration for the storyline, and another nod to Frankenstein as its original title was Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Fourth Season; "Fourth Season Overview" Featurette (2008). [DVD]. 20th Century Fox; Wilcox and Lavery, pp. 133–142.)
did in the Garden of Eden
—and making plans to take over the world. Buffy asks Adam what his name was before he was a monster, but he cannot tell her. Riley calls her "Killer" and Adam tells her "Aggression is a natural human tendency. Although you and me come by it another way." Buffy tells him they are not demons and he replies, "Is that a fact?", opening the possibility that the Slayer is part demon. Buffy looks down in her bag where she usually keeps stakes and holy water and comes up with mud, which she smears on her face. She walks outside and encounters the First Slayer, who insists she must fight alone: it is what a Slayer does. Buffy, however, rejects the First Slayer's demands, and tells her that her role as the Slayer does not define who she is.
Questioning tradition and authority, specifically institutional authority, is a repeated theme on the show. Buffy was created to subvert the media trope of a young, petite girl who easily falls prey to a male monster. Resisting patriarchy
is exhibited in Buffy's opposing the first season's Master (Mark Metcalf
), the leader of a cult determined to cause the apocalypse, and again in the third season where exploring the issues of power and its abuse is a primary theme. Buffy opposes Sunnydale's secretly evil Mayor (Harry Groener
), who is planning to transform into a giant demon and feed on the graduating class of Sunnydale High School. The military-industrial complex is at the heart of the authority question in season four, again drawing comparisons to Frankenstein. Where Frankenstein's monster had no parental love, Adam has a "design flaw". Unlike Frankenstein's monster, who needs his creator to make him a mate, Adam supplants Dr. Walsh's existence with technology, finding her unnecessary and killing her. Adam is the embodiment of the lack of moral guidance in pursuing scientific and technological advancement. He represents the cannibalistic nature of relentless and unchecked power: what that power wreaks comes back to devour its source. Buffy, however, subverts Shelley's novel in the way Adam is defeated. Both Frankenstein and the monster must suffer alone. Frankenstein itself is an inversion of the Romantic era ideal of a solitary hero who must endure struggles by making the monster and its creator isolated and miserable. Buffy's embodiment of the postfeminist Romantic hero and the source of her success, according to Anita Rose, is that she fights with friends. Only then is she able to defeat Adam.
Adam appears once more in the series as one of the faces of the First Evil
, the seventh season's Big Bad, in "Lessons".
George Hertzberg
George Hertzberg is an American actor best known for his portrayal of the cyber-demonic soldier Adam in the fourth season of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer...
, he is a monster created from parts of demons, vampires, machine, and a man, as a perverse experiment which the main character Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers is a fictional character from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise. She first appeared in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer before going on to appear in the television series and subsequent comic book of the same name...
encounters in the fourth season. The premise of the series is that Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Gellar
Sarah Michelle Prinze , known professionally by her birth name of Sarah Michelle Gellar , is an American actress, singer and executive producer...
) is endowed with superhuman strength to fight vampires and evil creatures in the fictional town of Sunnydale
Sunnydale
Sunnydale, California is the fictional setting for the U.S. television drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Series creator Joss Whedon conceived the town as a representation of a generic California city, as well as a narrative parody of the all-too-serene towns typical in traditional horror...
. In the fourth season, Buffy begins attending college, where she discovers her psychology professor, Dr. Maggie Walsh
Maggie Walsh
Professor Maggie Walsh is a fictional character in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Lindsay Crouse.-History:...
(Lindsay Crouse
Lindsay Crouse
-Early life:Crouse was born in New York City, the daughter of Anna and Russel Crouse, a playwright. Her full name—Lindsay Ann Crouse—is an intentional tribute to the Broadway writing partnership of Lindsay and Crouse. Her father and his writing partner, Howard Lindsay, wrote much of...
), is the head of a military-like organization called The Initiative that studies how to alter the harmful behavior inherent in demons. Adam is Dr. Walsh's horrible masterpiece, an allusion to Frankenstein's monster
Frankenstein's monster
Frankenstein's monster is a fictional character that first appeared in Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. The creature is often erroneously referred to as "Frankenstein", but in the novel the creature has no name...
, whose first conscious act is killing his creator. Adam and the Initiative are the fourth season's primary antagonists, or Big Bad
Big Bad
Big Bad is a term originally used by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series to describe a major recurring adversary, usually the chief villain or antagonist in a particular broadcast season...
.
Adam's search for understanding himself and his true nature, combined for his penchant for chaos, leads him to orchestrate a massacre between demons and humans, where he will be able use body parts leftover from the melee to create an army of monsters to set loose on Sunnydale. Buffy's truest effectiveness is only with her close friends and family who assist her in her battles, called the Scooby Gang. The core members of the group must come together after being estranged from each other to defeat the apparently invincible Adam. Meanwhile, Buffy's romantic interest of the season, Riley Finn
Riley Finn
Riley Finn is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Portrayed by Marc Blucas, Riley was introduced in the 1999 season four premiere episode, "The Freshman", and Blucas was part of the series credited cast for the second part of season four...
(Marc Blucas
Marc Blucas
Marcus Paul "Marc" Blucas is an American actor, known for playing Riley Finn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.-Early life:...
), is a top member of the Initiative who defects from it after learning its true mission. He aligns himself with Buffy, only to find his connection to Adam much closer than he imagined.
Creation and casting
Buffy the Vampire Slayer had been very successful in its first three seasons on television, but some of the characters left the series and storylines ended, creating a need for an entire shift in location and mission. Buffy and the core group of friends who fight with her leave high school; the high school itself was blown up in the third season finale. The fourth season, therefore, presents viewers with Buffy, her best friends WillowWillow Rosenberg
Willow Rosenberg is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed throughout the TV series by Alyson Hannigan...
(Alyson Hannigan
Alyson Hannigan
Alyson Lee Hannigan is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Willow Rosenberg in the cult classic television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Michelle Flaherty in three American Pie films, and Lily Aldrin on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.-Early life:Hannigan was born in...
), Xander
Xander Harris
Alexander LaVelle "Xander" Harris is a fictional character in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as in numerous items in the series Expanded Universe, such as comic books, tie-in novels and video games...
(Nicholas Brendon
Nicholas Brendon
Nicholas Brendon , is an actor best known for his character Xander Harris in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer .-Early life:...
), and mentor Giles
Rupert Giles
Rupert Giles is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Anthony Stewart Head. He serves as Buffy Summers' mentor and surrogate father figure...
(Anthony Head
Anthony Head
Anthony Stewart Head , usually credited as Anthony Head, is an English actor and musician. He rose to fame in the UK following his role in television advertisements for Nescafé Gold Blend , and is known for his roles as Rupert Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and as Uther Pendragon in...
) at a crossroads. Series creator Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon
Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures...
called it a "strange, sort of schizophrenic season" with a "weird incoherence", but admitted that the episodes in the fourth season were some of the series' best. The writers set out to explore the trials of characters discovering more about themselves following the defining years of high school. Although they had been a cohesive group of friends in the first three seasons, several occurrences separate them in the fourth, so the writers also focused on each of the four core characters who must come together to be part of a much more important whole to defeat the season's Big Bad.
Buffy studies
Buffy studies
Buffy Studies is a term applied to the collection of written works about, and the university courses that discuss aspects of, the television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, to a lesser extent, its spin-off program Angel. It explores issues related to gender and other philosophical issues as...
scholar Roz Kaveney states that estrangement from the self and from each other are the primary themes of the fourth season. To illustrate the absolute search for identity, the series writers created Adam, who is more estranged than anyone else. He is a concoction of vampires, demons, robotics, and a man. Adam was not the first re-animated corpse to be presented by the series. "Some Assembly Required" in the second season also had a Frankenstein monster-like creation and "Beauty and the Beasts" in the third includes references to Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; both touch on the theme of the misuse of science. Whedon has long been interested in science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. He wrote the script for the film Alien Resurrection (1997), where an extra-terrestrial animal is recreated in a laboratory, and was a series writer for the television series The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
, about a government agency that tracks supernatural occurrences and aliens. Buffy uses science and magic both as narrative devices to represent different ideas. According to author Andrew Aberdein, the series employs science in three grades: what contemporary science explains, what science may be able to accomplish, and the predominance of supernatural forces over science. According to Aberdein, Adam, code-named a "kinematically redundant, bio-mechanical demonoid", is the series' deepest exploration of science's potential. Adam, according to series writer Doug Petrie
Doug Petrie
Doug Petrie is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. Best known as a writer, director, and co-executive producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He co-wrote the screenplays for the Fantastic Four film and Harriet the Spy. He has also written for the television shows Angel, The 4400 and Tru...
, is the embodiment of the invasion of science in a world of magic. The series relied on its own form of magic to explain Buffy's superpowers and other supernatural occurrences up to the fourth season. Adam is "what happens when people who believe in science use demons for military gain", according to Petrie. The result is that science "gets its ass kicked" by magic.
George Hertzberg
George Hertzberg
George Hertzberg is an American actor best known for his portrayal of the cyber-demonic soldier Adam in the fourth season of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer...
, a University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
graduate with experience in sitcoms and commercials, was chosen based on one of Adam's monologues he was given to read for the audition. Hertzberg counted luck and being in the right place at the right time in helping him get the role. Many recurring characters on Buffy start with one or two episodes, and the writers or producers like their chemistry with other actors so much they make them a regular part of the cast. Hertzberg, however, understood Adam to be a major part of the fourth season in the reading. Casting director Amy Britt needed someone physically imposing for the part, with the 6 in 4 in (1.93 m) Hertzberg fitting the bill. Britt stated, "this is a guy we're going to want eventually to have some affinity for. We can't just see him as an evil being. He is evil to the core he should scare us with his actions; but there's also innocence. Like the Frankenstein monster, you realize the they're only doing what they know. Or what they've been programmed to do. These aren't born creatures, these are creations."
Hertzberg had no idea what Adam would look like in full costume and make-up when he auditioned. He had to be cast for prosthetic parts on his head and face, arms, chest, and legs, then fitted for contact lenses. Buffy used a company named Optic Nerve to build the materials to make Hertzberg look like a monster. Almost immediately after Hertzberg was given the role, Optic Nerve sketched and sculpted Adam's appearance. They had Hertzberg come in to get plaster molds of all the parts that had to be covered. They also created separate hands and a chest to film for close-up shots; Adam has a disk drive mounted on his chest which when used had to be filmed without Hertzberg behind it. Hertzberg's voice was also modified post-production. When he saw the full Adam prosthetic and costume, his biggest concern was being able to show nuanced facial expressions under so much latex. It took hours to get Hertzberg into his full costume, but even after it was fully applied on set, often he would have to wait even longer before he went in front of the cameras. He spoke of having to stay focused during all the waiting, while sweating underneath everything he wore for the part.
Introduction
Adam does not appear until the thirteenth episode of the season; the first twelve establish the overarching themes. Buffy and Willow begin attending college. Buffy is overwhelmed with the experience and immediately thrust outside her comfort zone. She is beaten badly by a vampire on campus, then she makes the wrong choice to sleep with a man named Parker Abrams (Adam KaufmanAdam Kaufman
Adam Kaufman may refer to:*Adam Kaufman , fictional character in the American television series 24*Adam Kaufman , American actor...
) who does not return her calls. She is not as academically successful as Willow, who fits in immediately at college. Xander, never one for academics, was unable to go on an extended road trip and has to return home to live in his parents' basement. He is preoccupied with feeling his college-bound friends have left him behind while he is stuck working a series of dead-end jobs. Giles, who was once Buffy's Watcher—a position in charge of a Slayer who instructs her about the demons and monsters she must face—was fired from the Watcher's Council and is unemployed for the entire fourth season.
Each of the four main characters also encounters an element that separates them from their former ties to each other. Willow, a practitioner of magic, loses her werewolf boyfriend Oz (Seth Green
Seth Green
Seth Benjamin Green is an American actor, comedian, voice actor, and television producer. He is well known for his role as Daniel "Oz" Osbourne in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as Dr. Evil's son Scott in the Austin Powers series of comedy films, Mitch Miller in That '70s Show, and the voice of Chris...
) who leaves her, devastating and disorienting her. She meets and falls in love with Tara
Tara Maclay
Tara Maclay is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed by Amber Benson from the fourth to the sixth season until the character's death. Tara is a shy young woman with magical talents who falls in love...
(Amber Benson
Amber Benson
Amber Nicole Benson is an American actress, writer, film director, and film producer. She is best known for her role as Tara Maclay on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but has also directed, produced and starred in her own films Chance and Lovers, Liars & Lunatics...
), but keeps the relationship a secret. Xander becomes involved with Anya
Anya Jenkins
Anya is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also appears in the comic book series based on the television show. Portrayed by Emma Caulfield, the character appears as a guest star in the third and fourth seasons of the show before...
(Emma Caufield), a former vengeance demon whose abrupt way of speaking alienates everyone else. Without a job, Giles is adrift, feeling useless. He goes drinking with an old friend named Ethan Rayne
Ethan Rayne
Ethan Rayne is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer, portrayed by Robin Sachs.-Character history:...
(Robin Sachs
Robin Sachs
Robin David Sachs is an English actor.Sachs was born in London, the son of actors Leonard Sachs and Eleanor Summerfield...
), who tells him that the demons and monsters in Sunnydale have become uneasy about a new force they call "314".
Buffy's involvement is the deepest of all four. In the season premiere, she and Willow begin attending a challenging psychology class taught by Dr. Maggie Walsh
Maggie Walsh
Professor Maggie Walsh is a fictional character in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Lindsay Crouse.-History:...
(Lindsay Crouse
Lindsay Crouse
-Early life:Crouse was born in New York City, the daughter of Anna and Russel Crouse, a playwright. Her full name—Lindsay Ann Crouse—is an intentional tribute to the Broadway writing partnership of Lindsay and Crouse. Her father and his writing partner, Howard Lindsay, wrote much of...
). She also meets Dr. Walsh's teaching assistant Riley Finn
Riley Finn
Riley Finn is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Portrayed by Marc Blucas, Riley was introduced in the 1999 season four premiere episode, "The Freshman", and Blucas was part of the series credited cast for the second part of season four...
(Marc Blucas
Marc Blucas
Marcus Paul "Marc" Blucas is an American actor, known for playing Riley Finn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.-Early life:...
) and they become attracted to each other. Riley is in charge of a military commando organization that hunts vampires and demons, and captures them for research. It is not revealed to audiences that Dr. Walsh is the head of the research branch of Riley's military organization, called the Initiative, until the seventh episode. Buffy does not discover Riley's extracurricular activities is until the tenth episode "Hush".
The Initiative's goals are gradually made clearer. A recurring character since the second season is Spike (James Marsters
James Marsters
James Wesley Marsters is an American actor and musician. Marsters first came to the attention of the general public playing the popular character Spike, a platinum-blond yobbish English vampire in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off series, Angel from 1997 to 2004...
), a mercenary vampire who has fought both against and with Buffy in the past, depending on what suits his interests. Recently wanting to kill Buffy, Spike is captured by the Initiative before he can get to her. He finds himself in a brightly lit industrial facility incarcerated behind glass that shocks him when he touches it. He is given drugged blood to feed on, but is able to escape. When he tries to attack humans to feed on them, or even to fight them, he discovers he has had a microchip implanted in his head that gives him extremely painful headaches as a form of behavioral conditioning. Depressed that he is unable to do what he loves the most, Spike becomes suicidal.
Giles is the last of Buffy's inner circle to learn that Riley is a part of the commandos they have seen for months. Buffy begins enthusiastically training with the Initiative, spending more time with Riley, and trying to impress Dr. Walsh. At different times, Willow, Xander, and Giles caution Buffy that she does not know the Initiative's true motives and there are questions about their mission that are unanswered. Buffy begins asking questions during "The I in Team". She wants to know why the Polgara demon, a being with a skewer in its arm, must be captured alive and unharmed as she is used to killing demons. Her questions at first confound Dr. Walsh—who answers to no one—then cement Dr. Walsh's decision to remove Buffy from the Initiative. It is revealed that Dr. Walsh has installed cameras in Riley's dormitory room, which she uses to spy on him and Buffy having sex. While Riley and the commandos are distracted after seeing Spike, who they have code-named "Hostile 17", Dr. Walsh asks Buffy to go on a mission, maneuvering her into the sewers to fight three demons with a faulty weapon, which is all caught on camera. The camera falls, making Dr. Walsh believe Buffy has been killed. She informs Riley that Buffy is dead, which is refuted by Buffy appearing once more on camera after killing the demons. A very confused Riley walks out, ignoring Dr. Walsh's calls for him to return. Dr. Walsh consoles herself by going into laboratory room 314 and speaking to Adam who is laying on a table, apparently unconscious. Adam rises and impales Dr. Walsh with the skewer in his arm—the one taken off the Polgara demon. His first word is "Mommy", which he says as Dr. Walsh falls to the floor, dead.
Establishment
Adam is a clear reference to Frankenstein's monsterFrankenstein's monster
Frankenstein's monster is a fictional character that first appeared in Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. The creature is often erroneously referred to as "Frankenstein", but in the novel the creature has no name...
, who in the novel Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
(1818) tells his creator that he is the "Adam of your labours". Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
wrote the novel to highlight the problems progress, science, and industry create for humanity. Throughout the action, the monster constantly asks what he is and why he was created. Likewise, Adam escapes from 314 and makes his way out into the world, and much like Frankenstein's monster, he finds a little boy and asks the boy who and what he (Adam) is, then murders and dissects him. Adam is a curious character, seeking the truth and pontificating on what he has learned, even if he gained the knowledge through heartless violence. Whedon wanted Adam to be inquisitive and introspective, directing George Hertzberg to "find the stillness" in the character. Roz Kaveney notes that Hertzberg's "flawed but impressive performance" includes Adam's interesting idiosyncrasy of pausing each time he speaks, as if he is creating meaning with his own words and must consider the implications of what he is saying. Author Nikki Stafford connects Adam's need to learn about the world around him to Frankenstein's monster: Adam must understand why other people are here and why he has emotions, a peculiarity of his creation as Dr. Walsh never encouraged others to question her. One Buffy studies writer draws comparisons between Dr. Walsh and Victor Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein
Victor Frankenstein was born in Napoli, is a Swiss fictional character and the protagonist of the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley...
, both of whom build monsters out of body parts "to compensate for human vulnerability". The moral of Shelley's novel is that what science can accomplish is not necessarily what it should.
Riley, meanwhile, learns of Dr. Walsh's death and his comrades Forrest (Leonard Roberts
Leonard Roberts
-Early life:Leonard Roberts was born on November 17, 1972, in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1995, Roberts graduated from DePaul University Theater School with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting.-Career:...
) and Graham (Bailey Chase
Bailey Chase
Bailey Chase is a stage and television actor known for his role as Butch Ada in the television series Saving Grace, his recurring roles as Graham Miller in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Christopher "Chris" Robert Hughes in the soap opera As the World Turns and Beckett 'Becks' Scott on Ugly...
) suspect Buffy to be her murderer. Extremely agitated and showing signs of drug withdrawal, he follows Buffy and demands to know the truth in "Goodbye Iowa". None of them are aware of Adam until he re-emerges in the underground laboratories of the Initiative, killing Dr. Walsh's assistant and another soldier. He tells Riley that he knows Dr. Walsh created them both, that she gave Riley chemicals to strengthen him, which makes them brothers. When Riley refuses to acknowledge their bond, Adam skewers Riley, and knocks Buffy across the room while Forrest and Graham are trying to enter the locked door. Adam leaves and the Initiative are tasked with hunting him down and killing him.
When one of Sunnydale's residents, Jonathan Levinson
Jonathan Levinson
Jonathan Levinson is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Danny Strong.-Character history:Jonathan was born in 1981 and raised in Sunnydale, California...
(Danny Strong
Danny Strong
Daniel W. Strong is an American actor and writer in film and television.-Early life:Strong was born and raised in Manhattan Beach, California. where he would rent videos from Video Archives, becoming friends with Quentin Tarantino who was then a clerk there...
), casts a spell making him the center of everyone's attention in "Superstar", Adam is the only character in town who realizes it is an illusion. He explains his insight by saying he is "aware". His uniqueness has set him apart. Adam is interested in how the illusion will play out, however, and watches it unfold. During the illusion, Jonathan—temporarily a part of the Inititative—tells Riley that Adam has a uranium core power source which will never die. Riley and Buffy learn that vampires and demons are working together—a very unusual set of circumstances—to get caught by the Initiative's commandos. The Initiative's holding cells are becoming overcrowded and the soldiers spread very thin and overworked. Riley finally leaves the Initiative in "New Moon Rising", after seeing Oz get tortured so the scientists can study him as a werewolf. Spike simultaneously discovers Adam to be communicating with the town's demon underworld, asking for favors through a charisma he has over them. Adam promises if Spike can drive apart Buffy and Riley and their friends, he will remove Spike's microchip.
Demise
The plan to drive Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles apart works for a while; at their lowest, the four refuse to speak to each other, but each of them realizes in "Primeval" that they were manipulated by Spike and return, apologetic. They realize that Adam has been orchestrating the capture of the town's vampires and demons so he can release them in the Initiative, where the soldiers and demons will try to kill each other. Adam then intends to use the body parts to create an army of monsters much like himself. Riley, meanwhile, after finding that Adam killed his best friend Forrest, goes looking for Adam and finds the cave where he has established his headquarters. Adam informs Riley that he also has a behavior modification chip that Adam controls, commanding Riley to speak or move. Adam takes Riley to 314 in the Initiative where they encounter the re-animated bodies of Dr. Walsh and Forrest, and Adam tells Riley that he will join them.Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles realize they must work as one unit to defeat Adam. They are captured sneaking into the Initiative. As they are warning the commanding officer, Adam trips the power, releasing all the demons and a fight breaks out all over the facility. Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles get themselves into a room adjacent to 314 as Willow starts to cast the spell to join them all temporarily. Buffy sees Riley unable to move, then is attacked by Dr. Walsh and Forrest. Riley cuts out his own microchip so Buffy can confront Adam who, after modulating his arm to dispense a minigun
Minigun
The Minigun is a 7.62 mm, multi-barrel heavy machine gun with a high rate of fire , employing Gatling-style rotating barrels with an external power source...
, is able to overpower her. The spell begins to work: to function as one unit, Willow becomes the spirit, Giles the mind, Xander the heart, and Buffy the hand, or strength of their ensemble. They work through Buffy to neutralize Adam, telling him "You could never hope to grasp the source of our power". Adam, alone but intrigued, shoots at them and they force the gun to retreat from his arm, then change his missiles to doves. They are able through Buffy to punch inside Adam's chest, remove his uranium core, destroy it, and him.Series writer David Fury
David Fury
David Fury is an American television Screenwriter and Producer, best known for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Lost, 24, and Fringe.Fury was a Co-executive producer and Writer for the first season of Lost...
cited graphic novel author Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
's Promethea
Promethea
Promethea is a comic book series created by Alan Moore, J. H. Williams III and Mick Gray, published by America's Best Comics/WildStorm....
—a story combining science fiction, mysticism, and a female superhero—as inspiration for the storyline, and another nod to Frankenstein as its original title was Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Complete Fourth Season; "Fourth Season Overview" Featurette (2008). [DVD]. 20th Century Fox; Wilcox and Lavery, pp. 133–142.)
Influence
Adam's most significant influence following his death is in the next episode "Restless", where the cost of defeating Adam is made apparent. Buffys fourth season was a first in the series in that the Scoobies' defeat of the Big Bad did not occur in a two-part grand season finale. "Primeval" is not the last episode of the season. Joss Whedon felt so strongly about the importance of the four core characters that he dedicated the finale to exploring their development. "Restless" opens with Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles arriving at Buffy's mother's house still brimming with the energy of the spell that bound them together in "Primeval". Each of them falls asleep quickly, however, and their dreams are a pastiche of enigmatic episodes that both reveal much about each character, but also foreshadow what will occur in seasons to come. Their dreams also mirror their roles in the spell they performed to kill Adam. The magic they used to defeat the influence of science creates an inverse crisis, violating the series' set of laws. In their dreams, they are each stalked by a shadowy figure they come to realize is the First Slayer, which they learn, they awoke with their enjoining spell. She attacks each of them, sucking out Willow's spirit, pulling out Xander's heart, and scalping Giles. Both Riley and Adam, now only in human form, appear in Buffy's dream. They are wearing business suits, sitting together at a glass conference table as Buffy walks into the room, telling her they are naming things—as AdamAdam
Adam is a figure in the Book of Genesis. According to the creation myth of Abrahamic religions, he is the first human. In the Genesis creation narratives, he was created by Yahweh-Elohim , and the first woman, Eve was formed from his rib...
did in the Garden of Eden
Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
—and making plans to take over the world. Buffy asks Adam what his name was before he was a monster, but he cannot tell her. Riley calls her "Killer" and Adam tells her "Aggression is a natural human tendency. Although you and me come by it another way." Buffy tells him they are not demons and he replies, "Is that a fact?", opening the possibility that the Slayer is part demon. Buffy looks down in her bag where she usually keeps stakes and holy water and comes up with mud, which she smears on her face. She walks outside and encounters the First Slayer, who insists she must fight alone: it is what a Slayer does. Buffy, however, rejects the First Slayer's demands, and tells her that her role as the Slayer does not define who she is.
Questioning tradition and authority, specifically institutional authority, is a repeated theme on the show. Buffy was created to subvert the media trope of a young, petite girl who easily falls prey to a male monster. Resisting patriarchy
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
is exhibited in Buffy's opposing the first season's Master (Mark Metcalf
Mark Metcalf
Mark Howes Metcalf is an American actor in both television and film.-Early life:Metcalf attended Westfield High School in Westfield, New Jersey.-Film and television work:...
), the leader of a cult determined to cause the apocalypse, and again in the third season where exploring the issues of power and its abuse is a primary theme. Buffy opposes Sunnydale's secretly evil Mayor (Harry Groener
Harry Groener
Harry Groener is a German-born American actor and dancer, perhaps best known for playing Mayor Wilkins in Buffy the Vampire Slayer .-Early life:...
), who is planning to transform into a giant demon and feed on the graduating class of Sunnydale High School. The military-industrial complex is at the heart of the authority question in season four, again drawing comparisons to Frankenstein. Where Frankenstein's monster had no parental love, Adam has a "design flaw". Unlike Frankenstein's monster, who needs his creator to make him a mate, Adam supplants Dr. Walsh's existence with technology, finding her unnecessary and killing her. Adam is the embodiment of the lack of moral guidance in pursuing scientific and technological advancement. He represents the cannibalistic nature of relentless and unchecked power: what that power wreaks comes back to devour its source. Buffy, however, subverts Shelley's novel in the way Adam is defeated. Both Frankenstein and the monster must suffer alone. Frankenstein itself is an inversion of the Romantic era ideal of a solitary hero who must endure struggles by making the monster and its creator isolated and miserable. Buffy's embodiment of the postfeminist Romantic hero and the source of her success, according to Anita Rose, is that she fights with friends. Only then is she able to defeat Adam.
Adam appears once more in the series as one of the faces of the First Evil
First Evil
The First Evil is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The First Evil first appeared in the third season episode "Amends", and became the main antagonist of the 7th and final season.A being manifested from all evil in existence, the First is an...
, the seventh season's Big Bad, in "Lessons".