Riley’s world falls apart when he discovers his mentor and mother-figure Maggie Walsh has been killed, and that she may have tried to kill Buffy. He doesn’t know whether to trust Buffy or not. Riley begins to get withdrawal symptoms from missing the superpower drugs he was unknowingly being fed, and begins to doubt everything he once trusted. Meanwhile, the Initiative is thrown into disarray after Walsh’s death, and Adam reveals some information about himself, while trying to learn about people by dissecting them.
| Airdate: | 15 February 2000 |
| Writer: | Marti Noxon |
| Director: | David Soloman |
| Cast: |
Xander: "Why am I not entirely comforted by the arrival of a man-sized microwave?"
Behind the Scenes Trivia
No bets
The following lines were deleted from Goodbye, Iowa for length:
Willow: “I bet you will.”
Buffy: “No. No bet. I will make it work.”
Cast and Crew Trivia
Amy Powell
Amy Powell, who played the newsreader in Consequences, played the same role in Goodbye, Iowa and Who Are You? Amy also played a reporter in The Bird Cage and Showtime.
J. B. Gaynor
J. B. Gaynor (John Bernard Gaynor) played the kid skewered by Adam in Goodbye, Iowa. He can also be seen in Venomous, Hellraiser: Inferno, The Contract, Come On, Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story (what a great title!), I’m Losing You, Touched by an Angel, Grounded for Life, Chicago Hope, Boy Meets World and Frasier.
Character Trivia
Dr. Angleman
Dr Angleman was a doctor in the Initiative. He was the head of the Xenomorphic Behaviour Modification field at the Initiative, and helped Professor Walsh to create Adam. Angleman was killed by Adam in Goodbye, Iowa.
Willy the Snitch
Willy was a human bartender who owned Willy’s Place, a demon bar in Sunnydale. Various Scoobies beat Willy up, threatened to beat him, or paid him money, to get information about new demons in town. Willy usually knew what was going on in town, but pretended not to.
Continuity
Channel 14 News
The Channel 14 News is seen in a few episodes: Consequences (Joyce and Buffy watch the news about Alan Finch’s murder), Goodbye, Iowa (when Adam kills a boy), The Harsh Light of Day (when a road caves in due to Spike’s tunnelling) and Who Are You? (when hostages are held in a church by vampires).
Dead children
Unlike Angel, children in Buffy the Vampire Slayer don’t die very often. The first child to be vamped was The Anointed One (by the Master in Never Kill a Boy on the First Date). He was killed by Spike in School Hard, after being exposed to sunlight.
The first child actually to be killed on Buffy was in Killed By Death, in which a child was killed by Der Kindestod in the hospital. We also saw a flashback to Buffy’s cousin Celia’s death in that episode. The only other kid killed on the show was in season four’s Goodbye, Iowa, in which a small boy was killed by Adam, using his Polgara skewer.
We saw two ‘dead’ children in Gingerbread but it was later revealed that they were not actually children, but a demon disguised as kids.
Giles’s tattoo
Giles’s tattoo, the mark of Eyghon, can be seen in the episodes Band Candy and Goodbye, Iowa. It was first seen in The Dark Age.
Hostile Seventeen
Hostile Seventeen was the Initiative’s code name given to Spike after they captured him in the episode The Initiative. Interestingly, Riley told Buffy in A New Man that he had captured or killed seventeen ‘Hostile Sub-Terrestrials’ (or HSTs, the Initiative name given to demons).
In Where the Wild Things Are, Spike goes to a party held by the Initiative boys. Xander calls out, “Hey! What a surprise! hostile 17! Can I get you a drink Hostile 17?”
In Goodbye, Iowa, Riley recognises Spike as Hostile 17. Spike attempts to fake an accent to disguise himself but gives up.
In The Killer in Me, when Buffy has Spike’s chip removed, the Initiative soldier calls Spike Hostile 17. In Lessons, Adam refers to Spike as “Number 17″.
Initiative rooms
In Goodbye, Iowa, Buffy and Xander accost Dr. Angleman in room 1317210. Leading off from this room are the rooms A18 and A17. Dr. Angleman is killed outside room A18.
Mirror, mirror
In Goodbye, Iowa, we see the mirror ball in Xander’s basement which he hung in The Harsh Light of Day.
Shirt pyjamas
In Goodbye, Iowa, Anya is wearing Xander’s shirt from Something Blue as a pyjama top.
Soldier Boy
A large part of the episodes Innocence and Graduation Day (Part 2) rely on Xander’s recollection of the events of Halloween, when he became a soldier for a short time. In Innocence he says he still has all his memories of being a soldier, including “procedure, ordnance, access codes, everything.” Xander’s military knowledge was a great plot device help to Buffy writers when they needed lots of gun power easily. We discover in the episode The Harsh Light of Day that Xander has lost his power when he has a girly scrap with Harmony, though in The I in Team, he says “My pseudo-soldier memory bank tells me that’s a tracer.” In Goodbye, Iowa, Anya says, “It’s not like he was in the ‘Nam. He was G.I. Joe for one night.”
In Never Leave Me, Xander realises that Spike has a “trigger”, to which Willow replies, “Is this left over from your days in the Army?” He admits that knowledge comes from Army movies. In Potential, Dawn says to Xander, “Well, you had that sexy Army training for a while.”
Music Trivia
Mythology Trivia
Floppy boy
In Goodbye, Iowa, Adam says he is a, “kinematically redundant, biomechanical demonoid. Designed by Maggie Walsh. She called me Adam and I called her mother. In addition to organic material, I’m equipped with GP-2/D-11 Infrared detectors. A harmonic decelerator, plus DC servo.” Yeah, all that and he’s still only got a floppy-disk drive.
Thespia
In Goodbye, Iowa, Willow tells Tara about the demon-finding spell: “When the potion mixes and Thespia is called, it creates this mist over the parts where the demons are. It even makes different colors for different breeds.” She then embarks on the spell: “Thespia, we walk in shadow, walk in blindness. You are the protector of the night. Thespia, goddess, ruler of all darkness, we implore you… open a window to the World of the Underbeing.”
In Greek mythology, Thespia was the daughter of the River God Asopus and his wife Metope. The city of Thespiae was named after her.
References
Frankenstein
In Fear, Itself, Giles says, “It’s alive!”, which is from the 1931 movie Frankenstein. Buffy’s “Fire bad” line in Beer Bad also comes from that movie. The monster in the movie (played by Boris Karloff) is chased by angry villagers with torches, when he shouts, “Fire Bad!”
In Goodbye, Iowa, the shot with Adam and the little boy is an homage to the 1931 movie Frankenstein. When Frankenstein’s monster escapes, he walks through a forest and comes upon a little girl, Maria, who is throwing flowers into a pond. The monster joins her in the activity but soon runs out of flowers. At a loss for something to throw into the water, he looks at Maria and moves toward her. In all American prints of the movie, the scene ends here. But as originally filmed, the action continues to show the monster grabbing Maria, hurling her into the lake, then departing in confusion when Maria fails to float as the flowers did. This bit was deleted because Karloff - objecting to the director’s interpretation of the scene - felt that the monster should have gently put Maria into the lake. This scene is restored in the video cassette reissue. Both monsters were created using body parts from other people/demons and both encountered a child and expressed curiosity, which ended in the child’s death.
Goldilocks
Spike calls Buffy “Goldilocks” (after the children’s story Goldilocks and the Three Bears) twice in Buffy: in Goodbye, Iowa, he says, “Got to hand it to you goldilocks - you do have bleeding tragic taste in men I’ve got a cousin married to a regurgitating Frovalox demon that’s got better instincts than you.” and in Gone, he says, “So what should I call you then? Pet? Sweetheart? My little goldilocks?”, to which Buffy replies by cutting off her hair.
It’s Raining Men
In Goodbye, Iowa, Buffy and Xander spoof The Weather Girls song It’s Raining Men (Buffy: “…it’s raining monsters”. Xander: “Hallelujah”).
Road Runner
The Scoobies watch a Road Runner cartoon called ‘Wild About Hurry’ on Xander’s TV in Goodbye, Iowa.
Yummi Sushi pyjamas
In Goodbye, Iowa, Buffy wears ‘yummy sushi pyjamas’ (”That probably would have sounded more commanding if I wasn’t wearing my yummy sushi pajamas.”). They are made by the same company, The Cat’s Pajamas, that made the butterfly pyjamas she wore in Beer Bad. The Yummi Sushi flannel PJs cost $86.
Goofs
Seen at 00.46 minutes:
When Buffy describes what took place in the sewers, she says that the gate slammed down, and then she tried to use the gun. She actually used the gun first.
Seen at 00.56 minutes:
The same shot of Giles looking concerned is used twice.
Seen at 14.18 minutes:
Riley points at Forrest with his left hand as he says, “You better not be saying what I think you’re saying.” In the next shot, Riley is pointing with his right hand.
Seen at 23.45 minutes:
Buffy takes the bandana out of her hair and wraps it around Riley’s hand. A few moments later, she’s wearing it again. The bandana appears and disappears throughout the scene.
Seen at 36.00 minutes:
Adam puts a second floppy disk in his drive without having taken out the first.
Quotes
Buffy: "Maggie tried to kill me."
Anya: "It didn't work, but they're all upset anyway."
Anya: "You know you really should get yourself a boring boyfriend. Like Xander. You can't have Xander."
Anya: "Hey! Remember before? No Xander. Not in a boyfriend way; not in a lead-him-to-certain-death way."
Xander: "Why am I not entirely comforted by the arrival of a man-sized microwave?"
Xander: "I totally get it now. Can I have sex with Riley, too?"
Spike: "Double shot of O-Neg, keep. Make it the good stuff. I don't want no freakin' Orangutan."
Buffy: "I feel an attack of dumb blonde coming on."