History Recap / BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E17Superstar

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Jonathan [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E1WhenSheWasBad crushed the bones of the Master]], [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E22GraduationDayPart2 blew up a big snake made out of Mayor]], and coached the U.S. Women's Soccer Team to a stunning World Cup victory.

* AnAesop: At the end, normal schlubby Jonathan stops by to apologize, and Buffy offers him some advice. Jonathan retains enough of his memories to remind her that he gave her the same advice regarding her relationship with Riley.
-->'''Buffy:''' Jonathan, you can't keep trying to make everything work out with some big gesture all at once. Things are complicated. They take time and work.
** The other aesop is that you shouldn't use other people the way he did, turning them into sock puppets to feel better about himself. You can't make people be your friends, you have to make friends.

* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: A movie marquee advertising ''[[Film/BeingJohnMalkovich Being Jonathan Levinson]]'' changes to "Closed for repairs".

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Jonathan [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E1WhenSheWasBad crushed the bones of the Master]], [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E22GraduationDayPart2 blew up a big snake made out of Mayor]], and coached the U.S. Women's Soccer Team to a stunning World Cup victory.

* RetargetedLust: implied. Anya asks Xander for sex while watching Jonathan on stage.

At the crypt, Jonathan slays the majority of the vampires, leaving Buffy to feel inadequate, as she allows one vampire to get by her. Jonathan reassuringly tells Buffy that it's okay, "As long as you do your best." As they leave the crypt, Jonathan is ambushed by paparazzi. He senses Spike hiding in the shadows and calls him out to posture and trade insults. Jonathan wins the verbal battle with Spike, while Buffy is at a loss for words (amusingly, Spike refers to Buffy as "Betty" and does for the rest of the episode).

At the Initiative headquarters, Riley seeks advice from Jonathan about his relationship with Buffy. Riley echoes the same concerns that Buffy expressed to Jonathan earlier at the coffee shop. As he tells Riley not to worry, that "people don't always see what's in front of them," Jonathan nonchalantly dons a blindfold and raises a pistol to shoot apples off the heads of three Initiative commandos.

Buffy calls a Scooby meeting at Giles' place, where she expresses doubts about Jonathan. She does not know how he starred in "The Matrix" without ever leaving Sunnydale, or how he graduated from medical school when he's only 18 ("...effective time management," Xander proclaims to defend his idol). She asks the group if Jonathan might not be too perfect, but none of them can see her point. Even Riley thinks her ideas sound like nonsense, but "having learned to trust her," he encourages everyone to follow her lead, in spite of the scoobie's lack of trust in her abilities compared to Jonathan's. They look at Giles' copy of Jonathan's swimsuit calendar to see the monster's mark on his shoulder. Jonathan arrives and explains that he does have a history with the monster and becomes confused every time he faces it. He says that he had the monster's mark tattooed on him so that he "would not underestimate it next time."

Buffy suggests that the two of them go after the monster. Jonathan says it has probably left town, but agrees to try to find it with Buffy. While searching a cemetery, Jonathan and Buffy meet Spike. Buffy threatens Spike, telling him that the butchers in town respect Jonathan, and Spike might get "kinda thirsty" if he doesn't give them some information. Spike tells them several vampires have been kicked out of a cave by something "probably pretty big."
Back at Giles' place, Willow finds the mark in a book and learns that Jonathan did an Augmentation spell to make himself a paragon of all that is ideal and great. The downside is that the spell must create an opposing force of evil to balance the new force of good. Giles concludes that if Jonathan's monster were killed, the spell would be broken and the world, including Jonathan, would revert to "whatever he was before." Anya says that Jonathan will not want Buffy to "get very far."

A band of white light passes through Sunnydale, erasing all the signs of Jonathan's celebrity. The next day, under a tree on the UC Sunnydale campus, the Scoobies reflect on how things are changed. Xander misses the way Jonathan made him feel about himself. Riley says that, in the alternate reality, he felt "way too tall." Buffy sees Jonathan standing alone at a distance and walks over to join him. Jonathan explains that he learned the spell from a boy he met during counseling after his attempted suicide. "He glossed right over the monster," Jonathan says. Buffy warns him not to "try to make everything work out with some big gesture all at once." She says "things are complicated; they take time and work." She basically gives him back the advice he gave to her earlier about mending her relationship with Riley.

Buffy and Riley are kissing on his bed, both happy that things are better between them. Buffy jokingly moans, "Jonathan."

** Another one comes due in Season 7's "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E1Lessons Lessons]]". Anya has a throwaway line here describing the vengeance wishes she'd enact on wronged women's ex-boyfriends: "I'd wish he was a dog or ugly or in love with President [=McKinley=] or something." Three years later, [[spoiler: chastising Anya for going soft, Halfrek says: "You were the single-most hard-core vengeance demon on the roster, and everybody knew it. Do I have to mention Mrs. Czolgosz?" President William [=McKinley=] was assassinated by a man named Leon Czolgosz.]]

* DarkMessiah: A vampire jokingly calls Adam "the evil messiah guy."

* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: A movie marquee advertising ''[[Film/BeingJohnMalkovich Being Jonathan Levinson]]'' changes to "Closed for repairs."

* TheFifties: Mostly during the Bronze sequence. Everything has an eerie "fifties" feeling. Note the Teddy Boy handing the mike over to Jonathan on stage. The tune ''Serenade in Blue'', however, is a Music/GlennMiller tune, made popular as early as ''1941''.

* ResetButton: ZigZaggedTrope. The death of the demon reverts reality back to normal, and memories of the events fade away over the next few days. (Such a shame.) But Jonathan's advice to Buffy and Riley, and his theory about how to stop Adam, still hold up.

* SublimeRhyme: "Scampered like a big bumpy bunny."

* SpecialEditionTitle: The spell even spills over into the TitleSequence, with scenes of Jonathan defusing an IncrediblyObviousBomb and doing a PowerWalk in a BadassLongcoat.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Jonathan's desire to use magic as a shortcut to the good life causes him to become one of the villainous Trio in Season 6.

** When Jonathan advises the Initiative on how to fight Adam, he makes an astute observation: while they've known Adam to kill, he doesn't seem to eat anything. This leads Jonathan to realize that Adam's power source is mechanical, not biological - and this information helps Buffy kill Adam later on in the season.

** Another one comes due in Season 7's "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E1Lessons Lessons]]". Anya has a throwaway line here describing the vengeance wishes she'd enact on wronged women's ex-boyfriends: "I'd wish he was a dog or ugly or in love with President [=McKinley=] or something." Three years later, chastising Anya for going soft, Halfrek says: "You were the single-most hard-core vengeance demon on the roster, and everybody knew it. Do I have to mention Mrs. Czolgosz?" President William [=McKinley=] was assassinated by a man named Leon Czolgosz.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Subverted; Buffy realizing that Jonathan is ''everyone's'' Someone Better (even hers, and she's the Slayer and thus the Chosen One) leads her to the conclusion that there's something wrong with the world.

* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: Spike caresses a [[TheChick frightened Buffy's]] hair in a very suggestive manner.

* TwinThreesomeFantasy: Jonathan has a couple of [[SexyScandinavian blonde Swedish twins]] in his BigFancyHouse. Those lucky twins (as the spell makes Jonathan the best at everything...).

* TheChick: Spike is shocked when "Betty" suddenly slams him against the side of a crypt.
-->'''Spike:''' Hey! You're not supposed to do that!

* DoubleStandardRapeSciFi: Jonathan brainwashing twins into having sex with him is overlooked and at the end he just mentions that they left his mansion.

** Another one comes due in Season 7's "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E1Lessons Lessons]]". Anya has a throwaway line describing the vengeance wishes she'd enact on wronged women's ex-boyfriends: "I'd wish he was a dog or ugly or in love with President [=McKinley=] or something." Three years later, chastising Anya for going soft, Halfrek says: "You were the single-most hard-core vengeance demon on the roster, and everybody knew it. Do I have to mention Mrs. Czolgosz?" President William [=McKinley=] was assassinated by a man named Leon Czolgosz.

* AloneWithThePsycho: Buffy goes off alone with Jonathan to hunt the demon. Then the Scoobies discover that if Buffy kills the demon, Jonathan's alternate universe will collapse. Ultimately subverted, as Jonathan really just wants to help.

%%* EverybodyWasKungFuFighting

* TwinThreesomeFantasy: Jonathan has a couple of [[SexyScandinavian blonde Swedish twins]] in his BigFancyHouse. Those lucky twins (as the spell makes Jonathon the best at everything...).

* EquivalentExchange: Jonathan magically turns himself into an amazing paragon who effectively takes over Buffy's role as hero. Unfortunately, the spell also creates a homicidal monster not even he can beat.

Adam sits in front of several television sets at his lair. When he sees Jonathan on the screens, he knows at once that "these are lies" and that Jonathan has cast a spell. Adam claims to be "more awake and alive" than any human or demon has ever been. He sees no need to do anything about Jonathan because "these magics are unstable."

* AwesomeButTemporary: Adam tells his vampire minions that he doesn't have to kill Jonathan, as the spell is inherently unstable and bound to lead to disaster.

* AwesomeButTemporary: Adam tells his vampire minions that he doesn't have to kill Jonathan, as the spell is inherently unstable.

* AntiMagic: Adam is the only one not affected by Jonathan's spell, because he has absolute knowledge of every part of his body.
* AudienceSurrogate: Rather oddly, Adam takes on the role as he's immune to the spell and confused at this Jonathan person suddenly being so huge.
* AwesomeButTemporary: Adam doesn't have to kill Jonathan, as the spell is inherently unstable.
* BackstoryInvader: Though Jonathan ''was'' a character prior to this episode, the way he inserts himself into the action created a template for later, straighter uses of this trope (such as Series/{{Torchwood}}'s "Adam").

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Subverted; Buffy realizing that Jonathan is ''everyone's'' Someone Better (even hers, and she's the Slayer) leads her to the conclusion that there's something wrong with the world.

** When Jonathan advises the Initiative on how to fight Adam, he makes an astute observation: while they've known Adam to kill, he doesn't seem to eat anything. This led him to realize that his power source is mechanical, not biological - and this information helps Buffy kill him later on.

* BrokenAesop: The moral seems to be "dreaming about being super-cool perfect is just selfish narcissism." The way it does it is by having Jonathan cast a spell that turns him into a MartyStu. The moral has two halves; the first is that the spell creates an equally perfect evil opposite that torments people. This qualifies, since the only reason the evil opposite exists is that the writers put it there. The other half can be considered a type 1 version: in the real world, people ''aren't'' perfect, so claiming perfection is narcissistic. But if it really were possible to be perfect, claiming perfection is not narcissistic, merely realistic. "Genuine" perfection just isn't a good metaphor for imaginary perfection.
** Though it does have some relevancy with the idea that, by making Jonathan so great at everything, the spell also made everyone around him a little bit worse (i.e. Jonathan being a great demon fighter means Buffy is now a less capable and confidant Vampire Slayer, unsure how to save the day without Jonathan's help). OTOH, if that's the case, then isn't it also a case for Willow, or Giles, or Buffy herself? Or anyone who is above average in something?
** It also seems to be an example of the fairly standard Aesop NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction - since Jonathan didn't have to work for his achievements they were ultimately hollow and built on sand.
** Also a BrokenAesop because Jonathan identifies Adam's one weakness (his nuclear power core), which is how Buffy later defeats him. The spell actually did give them an advantage they wouldn't have had otherwise, although they had noted in an earlier episode that Adam doesn't need to eat and had to charge up some sort of power core.

** Also a BrokenAesop because Jonathan identifies Adam's one weakness (his nuclear power core), which is how Buffy later defeats him. The spell actually did give them an advantage they wouldn't have had otherwise.