Previously: Buffy learnt that Spike was killing people and burying them in a basement. She went on a pretty epic staking spree, then decided to take Spike to Chez Summers because apparently her brain is broken.
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Never Leave Me
Kirsti: We open pretty much immediately after the end of the last episode because everyone’s wearing the exact same outfits. The Scoobies are putting the living room back together after that whole Dawn Fought A Demon thing blew everything up, with the girls cleaning up the broken stuff while Xander repairs the windows. Dawn is sassy about Spike’s presence, and Willow unconvincingly says that Buffy knows what she’s doing. Anya’s on Team Stake The Evil Bloodsucker, and asks Xander for his support. He refuses to give an opinion. She says that they need to prepare themselves for the possibility that William the Bloody is back.
Lorraine: We’re privileged as the audience, so we know more about Spike’s whole soul quest, but Anya and Dawn have a point. Buffy bringing Spike into her home (again, some more) leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It’s hardly her most questionable decision but I just had to mention it.
Sweeney: It’s only the million and sixth time this show has had us asking some version of this question. Anya, in particular, has reason to be upset with this. I’m actually impressed that her one comment about stabbing people in the heart is about the extent of it, because she’s got cause to be PISSED.
K: That throws us across to a shot of combat boots and a long coat walking down a darkened street. I mean, there’s a dude wearing that stuff, it’s not just the boots and coat walking on their own. That would be weird. Although this IS Sunnydale, so it’s probably not impossible. ANYWAY. The camera slowly pans up to show us that it’s Andrew, trying to be a badass. (L: Failing.) Warren informs him that they need to get to work, and this makes Andrew sad because a) he wants to walk around looking cool some more, and b) he doesn’t like doing “wet work.” Warren reminds Andrew that he can’t take corporeal form, at which Andrew sticks his hands into Warren and waves them around.
Andrew goes on to say that he doesn’t want to kill any more, at which point Warren morphs into Jonathan and tells him to stop worrying because being dead is “the best thing that’s ever happened to me!” He says that it’s his fault the ritual didn’t work because he’s little and therefore doesn’t have as much blood as other people and also that he was anaemic. Andrew says again that he can’t kill anyone else. Jonathan grins and says that they can work around that.
Lor: Little… and anemic? Are we for real right now? I guess I never really gave thought to the specifics of blood sacrifice?
K: Which is probably for the best.
Segue magic to Buffy tying Spike to a chair. In her bedroom, because apparently her brain has bypassed broken and just disappeared completely??? He tells her to make the ropes tighter, because if he gets free, someone might die. She looks at him with concern. Wolf howl.
After the credits, we’re in the principal’s office. He tells a couple of moody white boys that they have two choices – repaint the wall they damaged or have the incident go on their permanent records. One calls his bluff, and he admits that the permanent record thing is bullshit. He says that he could suspend them, but that involves phone calls and paperwork and UGH EFFORT (WORD). So maybe he’ll just call the police instead. If this weren’t Traumaland, that threat would probably be a lot scarier, dude… Anyway, the boys exchange a scared look and agree to repaint the wall.
There’s a knock on the door. It’s Dawn, informing him that Buffy won’t be in today. She says that Buffy’s puking all over the place, and that “her exact words were “I’ve got stuff coming out of both ends.” I cackle with laughter and Principal Wood gets a “I wish I had some brain bleach lying around” look of neutrality. He says that Buffy should focus on getting better, and Dawn replies that Buffy just needs to get some stuff out of her system.
Lor: Yeah, some of this stuff makes me want to vomit too.
Not what she meant? Oh.
K: A+, Lor.
Segue Magic to Chez Summers. Buffy’s on the phone to Quentin Travers, trying to track down Giles who isn’t answering any of his phones. Travers informs her that the Council doesn’t keep track of former employees and that basically he has no fucks to give. Buffy knows that the Council have ways of tracking people down, and insists that he do so. He reluctantly agrees, and hangs up.
The camera pans out to show that he’s sitting at the head of a long table, with masses of Watchers on both sides. “The girl knows nothing,” he says, as he walks over to a map of the world that has little boxes drawn all over it. I notice that there are four boxes for Europe, but none for Australia. Apparently all the sun and our quarantine regulations scare off the supernatural?
Sweeney: Australia: where the horrifying critters found in actual nature are terrifying enough to make the monsters go, “Fuck that.”
K: I want that on a t-shirt.
Anyway, Travers informs the Watchers that they need to find Giles ASAP.
Buffy’s room. Spike twitches in his chair. Buffy asks if she can do anything, and he vamps out and tries to pull out of the ropes. Cut to Buffy informing Willow that Spike’s going through human blood withdrawal (are we done with the drug user metaphors yet, show?) and that they should probably give him something to drink. “Want me to kill Anya?” Willow says enthusiastically, and I stop to get pissed off because UGH AREN’T WE DONE WITH THAT WHOLE “EVERYONE HATES ANYA” THING YET?
Lor: No, because Anya is an ex-evil thing that only recently became ensouled. OH. WAIT. WE’RE JOKING ABOUT FEEDING HER BLOOD TO SPIKE. RIGHT. COOL.
Sweeney:
K: Agreed.
Buffy thinks for a second, then reluctantly says that they should probably just give him animal blood instead. Willow says she’ll go out and get some, then asks how it’s going. Buffy says that Spike’s in pretty bad shape, but Willow replies that she wasn’t asking about Spike. Buffy says that she’ll be okay.
Sweeney: I’m still mad about the Anya thing, Willow, but yes, good, this. Acknowledging the issues. Being a good friend. More, please.
K: YUP. Basement of Don’t Go In There 2.0. Andrew – holding a big knife – and Warren are staring down at something. Warren tells Andrew to kill “her” quickly, and the camera pans down to show that they’re looking at a piglet. Andrew starts talking about Babe 2: Pig in the City. Warren gives him a pep talk, and Andrew dives at the piglet. It darts away, then runs off down the corridor while he’s struggling to pick himself up off the floor. Warren rolls his eyes. Andrew says that he’s not good at stabbing and asks if there’s another way to get the blood.
Lor: 1 pig = enough blood, 1 Jonathan = sacrifice failure? Huh?
K: And not even a full pig! Just a teeny one…
Cut to a butcher’s shop. Andrew places an order for a bunch of cover up stuff and also eight quarts of pig’s blood. The butcher hands him the bag, and Andrew turns to leave only to collide with Willow. The bag spills its contents across the floor as they stare at each other in horror. Fade to black.
After the Not Commercial Break, Andrew makes a run for it. Willow follows, and corners him in an alley around the corner. Andrew begs to be allowed to keep his skin, and says that he’s good now. Willow’s all “Pff, sure. That’s why you needed all that pig’s blood.” Andrew admits that he’s still evil and claims to be under the protection of something that will kill Willow if she hurts him. He tries to act all powerful and superior, but she shoves him into a wall and does the powerful and superior speech back at him. Andrew looks terrified. Willow grabs him by the collar and drags him away.
Cut to Buffy holding a bag of pig’s blood for Spike to suck on (URGH) then back to Anya and Xander walking into the bathroom. They fangirl over their acting abilities in interrogations, and think that Andrew will spill the beans in no time. They decide to leave him to stew for a while as Buffy joins them in the bathroom. They ask how it’s going with Spike, and she says that it needs more time.
Buffy heads back into her room. Spike tells her that he doesn’t remember killing people, that all he has is flashes of memory and that he’s been losing time ever since he got back from motorcycling to Africa. He figured that it was just a normal part of having a soul. She asks how he got his soul back, and he gives her the basic gist – sought out a legend on the other side of the world, suffered through trials. Although he says that they were trials “of sorts.” She’s all “Dafuq?”, and he tells her that he’s come to redefine pain and suffering since falling in love with her. GO FUCK YOURSELF, SPIKE. I HATE EVERYTHING.
Lor: My notes are in fact, “FUCK YOU.” And I love that every time his soul is brought up lately he has to be all, “I DID IT FOR YOU.”
Sweeney: YUUUUP.
K: Bonus points for using a gif from Local Ambition, Sweeney.
Buffy’s facial expression is a lesser version of my reaction. He goes on to say that now that he has a soul, he understands that she was using him because she hated herself, because having a soul is about self loathing. He understands her, because he understands the violence inside. She “bitch, please”s him, and he replies that he never hated himself the way he has now. If I were Buffy, I’m pretty sure I would have staked him by now, because fuck this shit.
Lucky for everyone concerned, we cut to Xander walking into Dawn’s room. He’s playing good cop now, loosening Andrew’s bonds and saying that Anya shouldn’t have backhanded him. He says that Anya’s bad news, that “she’s killed more men than smallpox,” and that anyone who incurs her wrath will pay. He goes on to tell Andrew a story about this one guy who hurt Anya – clearly Xander – and in retaliation, she killed him slowly by replacing his heart with darkness and making him go through life like that. Andrew’s unimpressed, so Xander adds in some intestine ripping.
Lor: Yeeaaaah, Xander, I’m pretty sure you did that heart darkness to yourself. Maybe go talk to Spike. He’s pinning his soul on Buffy right now. Y’all can swap stories or something.
K: Don’t encourage them.
Andrew says that he didn’t do anything, and Anya bursts through the door, yelling and demanding answers. She jumps on him and starts pummelling. Xander pulls her upright, and she slaps him, then stops and mouths “SORRY!!!” before turning back to Andrew. He yells that he’ll tell them what they need to know. Back in Buffy’s room, she and Spike look towards the commotion. Buffy excuses herself to investigate. As the door closes behind her, a second Spike appears and says “Well. We’ve got ourselves a problem.”
Lor: The fact that Buffy is being way too lax about Spike losing chunks of time and being an occasional murderer?
K: Buffy heads into Dawn’s room and asks if everything’s okay. Anya freeze frames and says that things are fine. Buffy heads back out into the hall, closing the door behind her.
After the Not Commercial Break, Buffy pulls Spike off Andrew and throws him headfirst into the door. Xander and Anya burst in, and tend to Andrew as Spike looks confused in the background. Buffy coldly heads towards him. We see the second Spike standing behind her looking disappointed. Buffy kicks Spike in the face, knocking him out.
Downstairs, she fills in Willow and Dawn. Xander and Anya come downstairs to join the conversation. They tell the others that Andrew’s hurt but will be okay, and that they tied him up again. Xander then asks what happened. Buffy says that Spike was fine, then she left the room, and when she came back he was a different person. Also, he was singing. Anya wonders if they’re getting Once More With Feeling’d again, and I think we’re all a little sad that they’re not because that would improve things dramatically. Xander joins the dots, and says that the song is Spike’s trigger, just like sleeper agents in the military. Willow asks if that’s left over from That One Episode Where He Became A Soldier, which I mention only because I can’t remember if we had that on the drinking game or not.
Lor: I don’t know. I don’t really keep track of these things; if someone says drink, I take their word for it. The soldier thing used to bother me, IIRC, but now I see it through my nostalgia glasses. Yay continuity!
Sweeney: Yay nostalgia glasses! Yay drinking!
K: Anyway, Buffy asks how to get rid of the trigger. Xander has no helpful ideas. She asks Dawn and Willow to hit the books.
Cut to New Sunnydale High School. Principal Wood heads out of his office for the night, turning lights out as he goes. The Orchestra of Up To No Good strikes up as he stops and turns towards the basement access door with a blank expression. He heads down to the Basement of Don’t Go In There 2.0, and through the corridors to the Seal. Jonathan’s body is still lying there. He stares blankly at it.
Chez Summers basement (of don’t go in there). Spike’s unconscious on the floor, feet and hands shackled to the wall. (L: YOU HAD SHACKLES AND YOU DO THIS NOW?) Buffy walks in with a towel and a bowl of water and starts dabbing at the blood on his face from where she kicked him. He wakes and asks if he hurt anyone. She tells him that Andrew will be fine. He says that he doesn’t remember, and she tells him that it’s okay. She fills him in on their theory, and he tells her to kill him because she has no idea what he’s really capable of, how much of a monster he really is. I’m pretty sure this is all meant to be giving me “poor Spikey” feels, but after season ew6, I have negative infinity fucks to give and am firmly on Team Go Get Mr. Pointy.
Lor: POINTY! POINTY! POINTY!
Sweeney: POINTY! POINTY! POINTY!
CHANTING! CHANTING! CHANTING!
K: Buffy, on the other hand, starts talking about all the good Spike’s done fighting by her side and tells him that none of it is his fault. He tells her that she likes men that hurt her, and that she needs the hate caused by men who hurt her to keep doing her job.
Lor: In retrospect, I think he may be trying to goad her into killing him, which is really nice since Mr. I Love You So Much I Got a Soul For You is… trying to goad her into killing him. And her last memory of him would be him saying, “you like abuse.” This romance really touches the heart.
K: Doesn’t it just?
She tells him that she doesn’t hate like that any more, that they can keep him locked up, that he’s alive because she’s seen his penance. She knows he can be a better man, because he risked everything to get his soul back. She believes in him.
Lor: It’s like they were a manifestation of my rage ninjas. I didn’t really know I had rage ninjas until these guys showed up and embodied my desire to destroy things.
Sweeney: That’s a really unsettling superpower, particularly given your lack of control over this. You should probably go on some sort of TV Watching Spirit Quest to handle that. (I’m pretty sure TV Watching Spirit Quests basically involve pantsless, chocolate-fueled binge watching shows where fictional characters go on Spirit Quests.)
K: Ooooh, can I go on one too?
After the Not Commercial Break, Principal Wood is digging a hole out in the desert somewhere. He rolls Jonathan’s body into it and starts covering it up. Back at Chez Summers, Willow and Dawn each fight off one of the robed men. Dawn delivers an awesome back elbow to the face. Buffy gets knocked through the basement door fighting her own robed guy. More robed guys burst in and head upstairs. Buffy gives chase. Dawn, meanwhile has knocked her attacker out while Willow lies on the floor unconscious.
Upstairs, Andrew is lying on Dawn’s bed, tied hand and foot. He tries to loosen the ropes with his teeth but stops when he sees an eyeless robed man walk in carrying a wooden staff. He drops the staff and pulls out two curved silver daggers and advances towards Andrew, who rolls off the bed as Buffy bursts in and attacks the guy. They fight as another robed dude enters the room. Downstairs, Dawn – a little hurt – pulls herself upright and grabs her attacker’s staff. She heads towards him slowly, and he sweep kicks her legs out from under her. He pins her to the ground and pulls out a dagger. Xander knocks him out.
Upstairs, Buffy grabs the daggers from one of her attackers, and uses them to stab both robbed men. They fall to the ground, dead. Xander rushes in and lets her know that Dawn’s fine before saying that he thought there were more attackers. “Spike,” Buffy says in a panic. They rush down to the basement to find him gone.
In the living room, the Scoobies regroup. Buffy mentions that the robed guys were after Spike all along, then studies one of the corpses in more detail. She realises that she’s fought them before, and that she now knows what they’re up against – The First. (GOOD, NOW WE CAN CALL THEM BRINGERS.)
Lor: And I can give myself a little Good at TV pat on the back. I mean, you all basically confirmed it in comments, but yay! I was right!
K: Cut to the Watchers’ Council. It’s chaos. A man is updating Travers, and says that they’ve been crippled, their records are gone, they’re losing communication with operations all over the world, and there are casualty requests from as far away as Melbourne(!!!!). Travers addresses the room, saying that The First has declared war on them and that it’s time to strike back. He orders the troops mobilised for a visit to the Hellmouth. He quotes the Bible, and that throws us to a shot of the exterior of the building, which explodes into a fireball of truly terrible special effects.
Sweeney: The shots of the outside of this building are all so terrible. It’s like they phoned a teenager in the UK with a crappy camcorder and said, “Hey, we need shots of the outside of a building. Can you hook us up with that?” There’s a noticeable decline in quality between the rest of the footage and those outside-building shots.
K: YES. Like how in Desolation of Smaug the footage when the dwarves are in the barrels in the river looks like it was filmed on a 90s video camera… #segue
Close up of Spike’s face, followed by a close up of torture instruments. The camera zooms out to reveal that we’re in the Basement of Don’t Go In There. The Bringers are tying Spike to a wooden frame. The First, still in the form of Spike, says that this is all Spike’s fault for not being able to kill Andrew like he was supposed to. The Bringers start to cut at Spike’s torso, and he groans in pain. The First says that it’s fitting that Spike gets to do the honours, then morphs into Buffy to add that Shirtless!Spike trumps Shirtless!Andrew. The Bringers crank a level and the wooden contraption Spike’s tied to rises into the air. He ends up face down over the Seal of Danthazar, blood pouring from his chest.
“Now, Spike. Want to see what a real vampire looks like?” says Buffy!First. The seal starts to glow, then each of the points lifts into the air. They join together, and the seal sinks into the ground. Spike looks at The First in confusion. A grey hand with long sharp fingernails reaches out of the hole, and a leather-clad monster follows. The First smiles menacingly before the camera pans up the monster to reveal a vampire even more ancient and gross-looking than The Master. It growls as we fade to black.
Nine episodes in, and we FINALLY get the reveal on the Big Bad. THANK GOD. I really didn’t enjoy this episode. Yes, we finally get progression in the overarching storyline. And yes, Anya and Xander’s good cop/bad cop routine to Andrew was pretty hilarious. (S: Best part of the episode, for sure.) But the rest was a giant barrel of “UGH, SPIKE” and Hulk smashing from start to finish. Sorry not sorry.
Lor: I’m still confused by how much blood they needed. Were they just a few drops short?
Anyway. On the positive side (I try) we learned some stuff about the Big Bad, namely that it can’t take on corporeal form and that it’s gotten rid of the only network Buffy could count on as allies, if she could count on anyone. That was nice plot progression as far as setting up just how bad the Big Bad is.
Sweeney: I like that you’re putting it this way, too. It’s a callback to one of my favorite Buffy scenes – the “take all that away, what do you have left?” “Me.” exchange in the S2 finale. We’re setting up a similar, “This is all you have,” thing, only it’s being done on a much larger scale, to emphasize the scale at which the Big Bad operates. All around good.
Lor: As far as the Buffy and Spike stuff… I truly find it so difficult to express myself. Having Spike talk about how terrible his past was makes his entire presence near and around the Scoobies all the more insane to me. This of course could’ve also been part of his plot to get Buffy to kill him, but that doesn’t make me hate him less. The fact that he would use rape and Dawn in his attempt to achieve that? No words.
I get that Spike is on a journey, and it appears overwhelmed by self-loathing is the current step on this journey. That makes a certain amount of sense, story-wise, but it does absolutely nothing to endear me to such a problematic character.
K: Pretty much exactly.
Next time: A new and exciting beastie comes to town, and an old favourite returns. Find out more in Buffy the Vampire Slayer S07 E10 – Bring on the Night.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
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