Out of My Mind

"Out of My Mind" is the fourth episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Buffy's boyfriend Riley Finn was used in super-soldier experiments in Season 4. In this episode we learn that Riley has been becoming progressively more powerful, but that power is having a deteriorating effect on his health, and without medical intervention he will die of a heart attack. We also learn that Riley is afraid to submit to the needed medical treatment because he fears that without the ability to contribute in a fight alongside Buffy, that their relationship will weaken. Along the way Buffy recruits Spike to help get Riley to the doctor. Spike uses the opportunity to instead abduct the doctor to remove the pacifying chip that the Initiative put into him in Season 4. Though this effort fails, it leads to a fallout between Spike and Buffy that leaves the audience wondering how much longer Buffy will tolerate even the neutered version of Spike, while ironically introducing the "Spike loves Buffy" storyline.

Quotes and trivia
In keeping with one of the themes of the season first raised by Dracula in the first episode of Season 5, "Buffy the Hunter", the show opens with Buffy atop a crypt, laying in wait. She surveys the graveyard, and then 'pounces', killing a vampire before it even rises from the grave.