In the town of Grizzly Peak, things are stirring, and its not just the wind. Wendigo, as well as vampires, stalk the streets, and a Old Money family with some fairly gruesome secrets presides over it all, or so they like to think. For the rest of the world, the town of Sunnydale has collapsed into a giant sinkhole just a year ago, and an odd riot in Los Angeles is still making headlines as it resulted in the destruction of the local branch of international law firm, Wolfram & Harte.
The series opens on a young woman's first day in public school. Lexa Townsend, whose just now starting school, is wandering the halls, trying not to draw too much attention to herself. She was the only survivor of the massacre at her private school up north, and has spent the last year in therapy. She dresses in clothes similar to her old uniform, and ignores everyone, preferring to spend lunch in the library. She has a run-in with the local gothboy and the school bullies, but manages to ignore them both. That night, she heads to the Underground, more out of boredom and an intense desire to get out from the gaze of her uncle, Warren.
Also there is Dawn Summers, a freshman majoring in anthropology at Townsend University. She's just returned to the States from Italy and found a suitable replacement for the much-lamented Bronze. While there, she spots a young woman getting picked up by a vampire. She follows them out and tries to save her, only to find she may have bitten off more than she can chew when two more show up in the back alleyway. Lexa bails her out, revealing herself to be a Slayer. The gothboy from school also puts in an appearance, wielding kukri daggers and riding a crotch rocket. He leaves without so much as a word, and Dawn explains to Lexa that she is a Slayer.
On the outskirts of town, another young man rides in on a Harley, following a voice inside his head. He comes to an ancient burial ground belonging to the Diroc tribe. There, he becomes imbued with the spirit of the Bear, becoming a new Totem Warrior. He is then instructed by the spirit of a Diroc shaman named Nathanel Running Deer to find the other Totem Warrior and guardian of the Hellmouth, Alex Hanover. Eventually everyone comes together when they find gothboy, who turns out to be the aforementioned Alex Hanover, being gang-banged by a group of Wendigo, intent on capturing him for someone called the Dweller. The four quickly dispath the group of demons, and Alex introduces himself formally.
Over the next week, Dante gets a job working stock at the JC Penney's. Alex seems exceedingly interested in Lexa and hits on her surreptiously, but never quite working up the nerve to ask her out. Dante and Dawn go out a few times, and things seem to be building with them. They encounter a young man name Matt Vannicut, who they find dusting a vampire out by the Underground late one night. Dawn remembers him from Sunnydale, and he seems to fit in, even though he doesn't bring anything cool to the table. Or so it would seem. Matt befriends a senior named Jack O'niell, Jr. who just relocated from Colorado. As time passes, both young men realize they have secrets they aren't in the mood to share, and poking at them because a kind of way to pass the time. These two form the Scoobies around our gathering of would-be heroes.
Things come to a head on Halloween. Lexa behaves more and more erratically, alternating between an extremely competent and overly flirtatious Slayer, and a quiet, over-achieving bookworm with an interest in medicine. Matt calls her on it, but she refuses to open up to him. A wish-granting demon called the Djinn is making a minor nuisance of itself, causing all kinds of local annoyances to suddenly explode into full-on super-villains, complete with simulations of TV heroes. To make matters worse, Alex's first wife from back in the day returns. Her name is Elizabeth York, and she was a Slayer turned by the Master of the Order of Aurelius in the late 1700s. She comes to town looking to raise the Master and maybe put the screws to her old flame.
To do this, she sets up for a massive ritual to be done in the caverns beneath the old Boyd Manor on behalf of a local vampire called the Professor.. The manor itself is haunted, and the caverns lead to the local Hellmouth. All in all, not a good place to be. So of course, a local frat decides to throw their annual Halloween bash there this year. Dante and Lexa follow Elizabeth's trail into the caverns, and wind up lost. While there, Dante gets sick of Lexa's attitude and the two wind up in a scuffle. He manages to restrain her, and the young Slayer's walls finally crumble. She confesses to him how she was the one who destroyed her school in an attempt to kill all the vampires who had turned her boyfriend and murdered her best friend. Sobbing, she tells him how she let the dormitory burn down, along with everyone inside while she sat out in the gardens, listening to the screams.
Dante, long ago jaded to the various cruelties of man's nature, felt moved by this girl who was essentially crucifying herself psychologically because she did something that was necessary, to stop the demons. Anyone left inside was already dead, and deep down, they both knew that. In that moment, he sees in her something that he had thought to be fictional: a kind soul who wanted to help others, not hurt or look for the best way to get ahead. The two come together just yards from the Hellmouth, and the dynamic of the group changes drastically.
That night, the gang shows up to the party, just in time to watch the ghosts of Boyd manor start killing off guests with some assistance from Elizabeth's gang of vampires, which just so happens to include Lexa's old girlfriend, Jessica McCormick, whom she thought died during the attack on the school. Lexa, who came as Bloodrayne, lives up to her costume by slicing-n-dicing the foolish vamps, while the rest of the gang rescue guests from the ghots. Meanwhile, the Professor is taking the souls of those who are murdered and using them to fuel some unknown ritual using a crystal skull. Once the mop up is down, Dante and Lexa storm the hellmouth cavern, and in perfect synchronicity, they decap the Professor and Alex catches the skull before it can fall into the Hellmouth. Dawn seems prepared to accept the fact that she's being pushed aside for Lexa, until Lexa quietly asks her to join them. The surprised young Watcher looks at Dante, and throws caution to the wind. And so it began, or so it goes in melodrama.
During all this, the Djinn has been running around making a merry mess of things. The Dweller tracks down Jessica, Lexa' former girlfriend, and ensouls her to distract the group from his various schemes. It works, especially when Alex takes an interest in the reluctant vampire. A relationship begins to develop, as the lost Jessie seeks someone to cling to while she deals with her new existence. Lexa begins to figure out that the Boyd-Townsend family has a darker side than she first suspects when zombies attack their annual Thanksgiving reunion, out of revenge for past wrongs that led to their deaths. After the incident, she takes her trust fund and with some surprising assistance from Uncle Warren, she moves out on her own. Lexa opens her new home to all her friends, but especially her two lovers. The slightly kinky family dynamic grows, and Lexa begins to become the heart of the group.
As the season progresses, the vampiress Danika is introduced as the owner of a Goth/Fetish club in Portland that hires Dante's band to perform one night. Dawn and Dante manage to thwart a vampire attack on her club, supposedly sent by a rival underworld figure. Danika later approaches Alex, curious about purchasing his copy of the al-Azif, to which he refuses. Bored, Danika seduces Matt and pumps him for the gang's secrets before wiping his mind of the incident. She takes an unhealthy interest in the "soap opera" revolving around the gang. Dante says to hell with his stockboy job, and manages to finagle a position in the school library so he can be more in the loop. Of course, this means wearing a tie, which earns him no end of teasing, especially from Lexa.
Alex's crystal skull creates a fracture in space-time when the human-form Illyria uses it pull Wesley Wyndham-Price ahead in time from a moment before his death at the hands of Syvas Veil. While trying to repair the damage, Danika shows up and "manipulates" Alex and Lexa into giving into their represssed desires for each other. Dante nearly kills Alex when he smells Lexa all over him. Lexa and Dawn wind up in ancient Egypt, helping an ancient Slayer fend off a demon army. As they leave, Lexa is confronted by a being known as the Black Pharaoh, who promises to destroy her and her family for what she's done today.
Things then take a 1950s spin as giant prehistoric insects begin attacking Grizzly Peak citizens. While tracking down the bugs, the gang runs into a military operation running out of a nearby military base called the Initiative thats charged with stopping supernatural activity. Dawn remembers them, and fills the gang on on being careful around them. Still, with the help of one Lt. Riley Finn, they stop the bugs. On the way back, Dante is ambushed by Elizabeth and hospitalized. Lexa goes into a fury and she and Alex hunt down Elizabeth, but not before she finishes the ritual to raise the Master from his own powdered bones. The Master then sacrifices her to the pair before he makes good his escape and dissappears into the underworld.
Jack finally reveals the secrets of his identity and past when he discovers a Stargate address in Alex' copy of the al-Azif. Jack's "dad" permits them to go offworld to retrieve a mystical artifact locked inside an Ancient outpost, as well as a Zero Point Module. They succeed, but not before being captured by Ba'al and Dawn is made into his Queen. Ba'al will later trade the ZPM he recovered from the outpost to the US government in exchange for a pardon agreement and the recognition of his legal status as one Dorian Gray, corporate entrepreneur. He'll be seen more in later seasons, much to Jack's annoyance.
After this incident, the team is later invited to assist the Atlantis expedition when they uncover a relic of a more mystical, rather than scientific, nature. The artifact appears to be some kind of holy relic to the Wraith, and its power calls to Lexa. She gets a slight power boost from the device, and the gang has to go some extraordinary lengths to keep her from escaping with the obelisk. Why it called to her is a mystery that will remain unsolved for the time being. A meeting with the Ancient, Athar, confirms that Matt is more than who he claims to be when she seems to recognize him. He admits that he's been around for about 400 years, and that his identity is only a showpiece. Thats when Alex comes clean that the two of them have known each other off and on for about 200 years.
Dante's old flame, Kei, comes to him for aid against a clan of demonic ninja holding her parents hostage for a gem she stole from them. Lexa and Kei butt heads, and when Dante runs off to help her without calling for their assistance, Lexa goes off to a shareholders meeting of LuthorCorp, a company she just invested in at the suggestion of her uncle's financial advisors. There, she meets the young CEO, Lex Luthor, and the two hit it off almost immediately. Lex invites her and her associates to a party back at his home in Smallville, where Lexa and Co try to foil an attempt to rob Lex, and the emergence of one Isabelle Theroux, seeking to steal a Kryptonian artifact Lex had concealed in his vault. At the party, Alex encounters Danike again, who takes a twisted pleasure in tormenting him over how he failed to win Lexa's heart, twisting his psyche a bit in the process, actually breaking him.
After all this, The Master comes out of hiding and attempts to open the Hellmouth by using Dawn's blood as a sacrfice to open the interdimensional gateway. The gang shows up to stop him, and Lexa and Jack wind up destroying him, but not before the Hellmouth opens wide. As the Master's last act, he tries to throw Lexa in, but Alex manages to save her, only to fall in himself. Dawn and Lexa dedicate themselves to finding a way to bring him back. Heartbroken, Jessica goes off to see the world, with the vampire Spike for a chaperone.
