YMMV / Buffy the Vampire Slayer S5E10 "Into the Woods"

• Character Shilling: It's almost like the writers knew fans didn't really like Riley and wanted to convince them that his departure was a serious problem for the show.
• Ho Yay: Xander's speech to convince Buffy not to break up with Riley was surprisingly impassioned.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: While not exactly a hated episode, this tends to be one of the more disliked Season 5 stories thanks to the writing's blatant Character Shilling for Riley, and thus blaming Buffy for his actions which really didn't go down well with the fandom. But Marc Blucas puts in one of his best performances in the entire show, even as Riley's actions are generally seen as pathetic at best and outright unsympathetic at worst, Blucas does a decent job at portraying Riley's inner turmoil, culminating in a very haunting and despairful stare outside the helicopter as he leaves the main cast for good, even many fans who were glad to see the back of captain cardboard tend not to fault Blucas's performance here.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic/Designated Hero: Riley definitely hits this trope in this episode in particular. Firstly, he continues being insecure about his girlfriend one-upping him in the strength department, which is a guaranteed Berserk Button to most fans of a Feminist Fantasy show. Then he starts paying to be fed on by female vampires - which he initially claims is "evening the score" for Buffy "letting" Dracula bite her, even though the viewer is aware that Riley only quite recently started seeking out vampires after being confronted with evidence that Buffy cared more deeply for Angel than she did for him. He decides to indulge in this habit after having spent a romantic night with Buffy. Upon getting caught and Buffy getting validly upset about it, he jumps on the defense and, in her view, issues her an ultimatum that she needs to give him a reason not to leave her and rejoin the army. Not only is Buffy presented as the wrong party for being upset at such a demand, but Xander even tells her off for being a supposed "bad girlfriend" and all but guilt-trips her into taking Riley back. By the end of the episode, the audience was apparently intended to view Buffy just barely missing Riley before he leaves in a helicopter as some sort of grand tragedy. This is despite the entire season and episode making it about as clear as it possibly could be that they were just entirely incompatible and she wasn't in love with him. Which he already knew.
  • Riley does have a point about Buffy not letting him in and feeling like she has to put up a mask of invulnerability all the time even around her own boyfriend, and as the viewer knows, not even telling him the truth about Dawn (Riley doesn't know this exactly, but he can sense she's holding back about something). However, the correct response would be to have an honest conversation with her about how he feels, not see vampire prostitutes behind her back. Riley never takes responsibility for his own actions in this or acknowledges they were wrong, which is why he stands out next to the other Scoobies who, while they have all screwed up majorly at some point, eventually apologized for their mistakes.
  • It's not brought up how reckless he was being by taking the risk of being killed or, even worse, turned, which would have endangered the entire group. Although Giles does point out how dangerous and reckless seeing vamp prostitutes is, in general.

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