At the cemetery, Buffy, Willow, Anya and Xander battle two acrobatic vampires. Buffy manages to stake them both with some help from her friends and decides to check out the tomb they came out of. The gang follows her into the dank chamber where they encounter a nest of vampires feasting on a body. Greatly outnumbered, they decide to retreat before their presence is noticed. Needing help, they go to the one man that can aid them. After walking into a lush mansion, they approach a massive desk and ask the person concealed behind the chair for help. The chair swivels around to reveal Jonathan Levinson, the Sunnydale High geek, looking suave and dangerous. At Giles' house, Buffy, Willow, Xander, Anya, Jonathan and Giles discuss their plan of attack on the vampire nest. Jonathan has all the answers and the group decides they should pretty much stick behind him. When they enter the tomb to do battle, vampires rush at the gang from all sides. Buffy manages to kill two of them but Jonathan emerges as the real hero, dusting vampires right and left with a crossbow while kicking and flipping his way across the room. When the group emerges from the tomb, there's plenty of paparazzi waiting to score a candid photo of the leather-clad Jonathan. When Spike appears on the scene, Jonathan is quick to confront him. With no need to attack the harmless ex-vamp, Jonathan settles for giving him a good tongue-lashing and swaggers off.

That night at Tara's, Willow details the night's action as they make a collage on the wall. Tara is intrigued by Willow's tale and asks how Buffy is doing with Riley since he inadvertently slept with Faith. Willow assures her that they'll get over it as she puts the last cut-out Jonathan head on their tributary collage. Meanwhile, in Riley's room, Buffy and Riley attempt to smooth out their crumbling love life. When Riley tries to give Buffy a kiss, she just can't get Faith out of her head and has to leave. She decides to get some sage advice from Jonathan whom she meets at a diner. Between signing autographs for starstruck fans, Jonathan explains to Buffy that her hang-ups with Riley are in her head. If she wants everything to be alright with him, she needs to let herself love him. Later, Colonel George Haddoway introduces himself at the Initiative Headquarters as the new Commander In Chief until someone else is appointed to take over command. In briefing the soldiers on Adam, he introduces Jonathan to give his perspective. Jonathan, in military fatigues, shows the men a blueprint of Adam's body. He explains that there is a cache of Uranium 235 that will keep him alive forever. Cutting his head off or stabbing him in the heart will not stop him; his body needs to be annihilated.

After the meeting, Jonathan gives Riley some advice on how women want to be treated. He explains to Riley that Buffy needs to be reassured that Faith meant nothing to him and her sexual maturity can't compare to Buffy's sensuality. That night at Jonathan's mansion, a young woman is trying to catch a glimpse of her idol from the backyard with binoculars. Suddenly she is attacked by a bony, wolf-like demon that she barely fends off for the time being. Meanwhile, at the Bronze, Buffy, Riley, Xander, Anya, Willow and Tara enjoy drinks and discuss Jonathan. Suddenly he hits the stage in a white tuxedo and sings a lounge song dedicated to Buffy and Riley. This inspires the troubled couple to reclaim their love for each other. Suddenly Karen, the fan who was attacked by the demon at Jonathan's estate, comes running in having narrowly escaped its slashing claws. The gang takes her back to Jonathan's where she describes it in detail. When she draws a symbol she saw on its head, Jonathan begins acting suspicious. He tells everyone that it is nothing more than an animal from the nearby woods that he will take care of on his own.

Meanwhile, Adam and one of his followers gather information at a house they invaded. When Adam sees Jonathan on television, he tries to explain to his vampire soldier that reality has been changed. Everyone is under a spell except himself because his molecular structure is more in tune with the surrounding world than any human, demon or member of the undead. Across town, when Tara enters her building on her way to bed, she is attacked out of the blue by the same demon that was outside Jonathanšs house. She is instantly pinned beneath the howling beast but manages to whip together a spell that shoots dust in its face. With her attacker distracted for a moment, she bolts out from beneath it and bounds into a janitor's closet. A few hours later she is found by a student huddled up in shock, and brought to Willow and Buffy's room. When Buffy comes home, she shows the symbol that Karen drew to the still rattled Tara. Tara states that it was present on the demon's head that attacked her. Buffy begins questioning Jonathan's bizarre lack of compliance to help find the creature and calls a meeting at Giles'. When the gang gets there she explains that it seems impossible that Jonathan has done so many great things, including coaching the US Women's soccer team to an Olympic Gold. She explains a theory that they could be living in an alternate universe that could be created by a spell like the ones Anya used to create. She shows them a photo in a Jonathan Swimsuit Calendar in which the same symbol from the demon is displayed on his back in scar tissue. Suddenly Jonathan walks in and questions their inquisitive glances. When asked about the scar, Jonathan gives a bizarre explanation that seems to satisfy everyone but Buffy. Buffy asks Jonathan to go on patrol with her to put the demonšs reign of terror to an end.

At the cemetery, Buffy and Jonathan come across Spike, lurking by a tomb. To extract information from him, Buffy threatens to put an embargo on the butchers that supply Spike with blood. The reluctant Spike discloses the location of a vampire lair that was recently invaded by something powerful. Knowing that this is probably the handywork of their demon, the Slayer and the hero leave in pursuit. Meanwhile, back at Giles', Willow finds Jonathan's symbol in one of the Watcher's medieval tomes. It says that the bearer of the symbol has performed an augmentation spell, affecting how everyone perceives him or her. She immediately figures out that Jonathan must have used it to make himself a para-god. It continues that, with the spell, comes a force of evil to counter the power of its conjurer. The only way to end the spell is to kill its evil spawn. It dawns on them that the demon Buffy and Jonathan are after is obviously the spinoff of the augmentation spell and Jonathan will probably do anything he can to prevent it from being destroyed. Meanwhile, in the cavernous lair that Spike pointed them to, Buffy and Jonathan come across the demon. Rather than helping it kill Buffy, Jonathan realizes that the charade is going to hurt people he actually cares about and helps her fight it. When it has Buffy on the edge of a vast pit, Jonathan attempts to sacrifice himself, tackling the demon into the pit. At the last second Buffy catches his ankle as the demon plummets into darkness and Jonathan is returned to his normal self.

The next day the gang sits on the front lawn of campus, marveling at the fact that they have full memory of worshipping the high school twerp. When Jonathan shows up to apologize, Buffy explains that people aren't necessarily as mad at him for creating a demon that endangered lives, but for treating them as sock puppets in his game. Jonathan leaves remorseful, but before he does he tells Buffy that he did mean what he said about letting herself love Riley. That night, as Buffy and Riley sink into a passionate kiss, their relationship is restored.

Episode Synopsis by: Zack Peacock