Buffy The Vampire Slayer: What Happened To Riley | Screen Rant – Screen Rant

BesidesBuffy the Vampire Slayer's (Sarah Michelle Gellar) two main vampire beaus, Angel (David Boreanaz) and Spike (James Marsters), her only other long-term boyfriend in the show was Riley Finn (Marc Blucas), who arrived in season 4 and made his final appearance in season 6. The last time fans saw Riley in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he had more or less managed to move on from Buffy and had even gotten married. However, after his departure from the show Riley's story continued in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics.

When Buffy first met Riley, he was posing as a teaching assistant in a Psychology class that she was taking at UC Sunnydale. She later learned, however, that Riley was actually a soldier with a top secret military program called the Initiative, which had moved to Sunnydale to monitor demonic activity around the Hellmouth and experiment on the local supernatural creatures. Among the Initiative's projects was the creation of a bio-mechanical demonoid called Adam, who rebelled against his creators and was ultimately the cause of the Initiative's downfall.

Related:Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Why The Original Willow Was Recast

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5, Riley went through a serious rough patch after being turned loose from the military and then being forced to give up the performance enhancing drugs that allowed him to keep up with Buffy's strength and stamina, but were also slowly killing him. No longer a super-soldier and increasingly unhappy in his relationship with Buffy, Riley went down a dark path that ultimately led him to allow vampires to feed on him. Eventually he and Buffy broke up and Riley returned to the military - but that wasn't the last we saw of him.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6, episode 15, "As You Were," Riley returned to Sunnydale on the hunt for a demon called a Suvolte, which had come to the Hellmouth to lay its eggs. It was a somewhat embarrassing reunion for Buffy, whose life had taken a downturn; she had dropped out of collegeafter the death of her mother, then died herself and been resurrected, and was currently working at a dubious fast food restaurant called the Doublemeat Palace - a job that required her to wear a hat with a cow on it.

Riley, meanwhile, had managed to get his life back together after hitting rock bottom and leaving Sunnydale to join another demon-hunting black ops team. Since his absence he had fallen in love with and married Sam (Ivana Milicevic), a fellow member of his squad. The two had been hunting Suvolte demons in South America before they tracked one back to Sunnydale. Despite a great deal of awkwardness along the way (not least when Riley walked in on Buffy in bed with Spike), the two exes ultimately parted on good terms, with Riley and Sam setting off for Nepal and promising to keep in touch.

After Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended with season 7, the story continued in comics published by Dark Horse. A lot happened in the comics, from time travel to Dawn turning into a centaur to Willow getting a girlfriend who was ademonic goddess with the body of a snake. Riley returned in one of the early comic arcs when he worked as a double agent for Buffy, infiltrating the following of a villain called Twilight. He returned again in the Angel & Faith comics in a storyline whereFaith teamed up with Sam to rescue Riley from the clutches of a vampire villain called Walt Zane. During this arc, Faith finally got a chance to apologize to to Riley for tricking him into sleeping with her while she was in Buffy's body.

Sam and Riley continued to work together in military operations against demonic activity, and Riley was later appointed as a member of the Magic Council.In the final appearance in the comics, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 11,the Finns succeeded in exposing a conspiracy to drain and weaponize magical energy. As of the end of the comics, Riley was still married to Sam and still working with her within themilitary as an ally for the Scooby Gang.

More:What Faith Did After Buffy The Vampire Slayer Ended

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Hannah has been with Screen Rant since the heady days of 2013, starting out as a humble news writer and eventually clawing her way up the ladder through a series of Machiavellian schemes and betrayals. She's now a features writer and editor, covering the hottest topics in the world of nerddom from her home base in Oxford, UK.Hannah enjoys weird horror movies, weirder sci-fi movies, and also the movie adaptation of Need for Speed - the greatest video game movie of all time. She has lived and studied in New York and Toronto, but ultimately returned home so that she could get a decent cup of tea. Her hobbies include drawing, video games, long walks in the countryside, and wasting far too much time on Twitter.Speaking of which, you can follow Hannah online at @HSW3K

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