Yes; I like "Helter Skelter."

4.20: "The Yoko Factor"
4.21: "Primeval"
4.22: "Restless"


"God has nothing to do with it," mutters the re-animated demonoid who was formerly Riley's best friend, Forrest. Generally I've learned that when this statement is made, very rarely is it really true. I would say that God has an awful lot to do with it—or a "God complex," at least. Not only does Maggie Walsh re-create and re-animate a living being, Dr. Frankenstein-like, from assorted pieces of dead bodies, she calls him "Adam," just as God called the first man in the book of Genesis. I found this to be both rather presumptious and very unwise, and sure enough: parallel to the way that Adam rebelled against and disobeyed his Creator, from the minute that Dr. Walsh's Adam was brought to life he was going against her will. As it transpired, Dr. Walsh did not even have authority over when Adam was re-animated; he simply stood up, killed her, and said, "Mother," when she wasn't expecting him to be even active yet. "The best-laid plans of mice and men . . ." It really reminded me of the amusing exchange from Jurassic Park: Dr. Malcolm says, "God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs..." and the female doctor character interjects, "Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth."


By making the attempt to replace the spirituality of the universe and everything in it—or the "magic," if you will—with pure science and documentation, Dr. Walsh was rejecting whatever the writers of the show would deem the "Powers that be" and asserting her own will and authority over everything that Buffy represents. Buffy comes from a long line of Slayers and bears their ancient destiny and power. Not only did Dr. Walsh jeopardize her purpose in her attempts to take over her job and subjugate her to the Initiative itself, she even tried to kill her—a direct battle between science/reason and destiny/ancient magic. Her ignorance of Buffy's birthright and strength are her ultimate undoing, because if she had pursued her subject less scientifically and been more accepting of the spiritual/magical part of what she was doing, she probably wouldn't have made something like Adam. She should have realized how dangerous—and kind of crazy—it was to combine demon, computer, and human. At its core, the experiment was incompatible: demons and humans rarely—as Buffy testifies—comfortably co-exist. While computers and humans do manage a creator/created relationship, creating a computer that is physically stronger than you, with powers to reason humanly . . . It's just, in every possible way, a terrible idea. As Guy in Galaxy Quest asks in horror, "Didn't you guys ever watch the show?!"


Order vs. chaos is yet another problem in the Adam equation. What, for Adam, is "order"? Apparently, it is getting his own way and going about his own business. But, at the same time, his will, his desires, seem born from his humanity—the "chaos" of having emotions. It reminds me of when Data in one of the Star Trek: the Next Generation movies gets an emotion chip installed in HIS head so that he can be more "human." Of course, it is a disaster, because the emotions are completely simulated and have no real context; they cannot "jive" with the rest of Data's systems. But, since Adam is both computer ("order") and human ("chaos") (unlike Data who is always completely robotic), the way they work together is more terrifying than Maggie Walsh would have anticipated. He has all the reason and strategic planning of an able and resourceful soldier, with the problem-solving and info-downloading capabilities of a computer, as well as the evil strength and sheer autonomy of a powerful demon—but he has no human discernment and certainly no empathy or compassion. I really do not believe that he had too strong of feelings for Dr. Walsh—although he spoke admiringly of her as a great strategist and planner, his killing of her and re-animating her so that he can dominate and keep her as a servant smacks of the most primitive survivialist instinct.

And, as a P.S., I must of course mention how much I love all of references to The Beatles. Naturally. I think also that drawing a parallel between the Charles Manson murders and Adam through his reference of the song "Helter Skelter" was both perfectly and just subtle enough.