Buffy The Vampire Slayer Episode Guide

Season 1, episode 8

I Robot, You Jane

Written by Ashley Gable and Thomas A. Swyden
Directed by Scott Brazil
Original air date: April 28, 1997
Episode #: 4V08

Cast:
Buffy Summers: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Xander Harris: Nicholas Brendon
Willow Rosenberg: Alyson Hannigan
Rupert Giles: Anthony Stewart Head
Cordelia Chase: Charisma Carpenter
Jenny Calendar: Robin LaMorte

In fifteenth-century Italy, the demon Moloch is imprisoned in a book by a monk. The demon can be freed only if the text of the book is read aloud. The book is sealed in a box, where it remains for 500 years.
In the present, Giles examines his newest additions to the library, including the book that holds Moloch. The book is scanned into the computer as part of a project developed by the school's computer-science teacher, Jenny Calendar. This releases Moloch into cyberspace.

One week later, Willow tells Buffy about Malcolm, a boy she has an online romance with. Buffy, who's a bit worried about Willow, asks Dave, a computer geek, to find out what Willow is up to. He tells Buffy to leave Willow alone. Later, Dave tells Buffy he had seen Willow in the girls locker room. When Buffy goes looking for her friend there, she almost gets electrocuted by Fritz, a friend of Dave. As later turns out, both of them are under Moloch's influence.

Back in the library, Giles explains to Buffy and Xander that in the Dark Ages, the souls of demons were sometimes trapped inside the texts of books. To release them from the books, the texts had to be read aloud. So when Willow scanned the books, Moloch's soul was released into the computer, and through the internet he has access to any computer in the world.
When Buffy goes looking for Willow in the computer lab, she finds Dave's body. Apparently he committed suicide. Meanwhile, Fritz goes to Willow's house, puts her to sleep using chloroform, and brings her to a mysterious warehouse where Dave was spotted earlier.

Giles finds out that Jenny Calendar knows a lot about the mystical realm when he asks her for help. Together they try to repeat the spell the monks had chanted while they link up computers around the world. Buffy and Xander try to save Willow at the warehouse. When they arrive, Moloch has left the computer and now lives inside a robot, which resembles the horned demon he was back in the Dark Ages. He just killed Fritz and is about to kill Willow when he's caught by the spell Giles and Jenny are casting. Buffy manages to electrocute him to death, and they all live happily ever after, except for Dave and Fritz.

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