Previously: Dawn found out she was a newborn ball of energy and took that news about as well as you could take it. Plus, Glory is Ben but not really.
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Crush
Lorraine: The Bronze is having a grand re-opening, which is a sweet little piece of continuity, since Olaf (otherwise known as the Troll Gone Wild) destroyed it pretty good in the last episode I covered. Xander was also wearing a cast the last couple of episodes. I like to positively reinforce the show when I can, so it doesn’t feel too bad when I yell at it for plot devices or contrivance or Season 4.
ANYWAYS. Inside, The Bronze has gotten a bit of a facelift. A band is playing on stage while Anya and Xander dance together, right next to Willow and Tara. Buffy is sitting nearby, alone, and watching all the fun she isn’t having.
Sweeney: I can’t even feel bad about the happy times she’s not having because it was so delightful watching Tara and Willow have all the fun.
Lor: We hear Spike off screen before he has a seat across from Buffy, looking for all the world like he just fell out of a Gap catalogue. Bless his heart.
Kirsti: It’s like he raided Riley’s wardrobe or something in the hopes that Buffy would suddenly be all “YES PLEASE.” Also, the Bronze waitresses now wear head to toe silver spandex, and NOPE.
Lor: Spike goes on about what a crime it is that The Bronze has priced their drinks up to help pay for the remodel, and took the onion blossom off the menu. (K: OTP CRIES) (S: I love you.) Buffy asks him what he’s doing talking to her, as they aren’t talking friends. Spike tries to explain that he saw her sitting alone like a lonely loner, and figured he’d give her the company. Buffy gives him a, “SRSLY?” eyebrow raise and Spike tells her to suit herself.
He takes a couple of steps away, but comes back to remind B that he was right there with her fighting Glory, asking for that credit he’s been fishing for the last few episodes. He doesn’t get it because Xander comes over to claim his seat and call Spike “evil dead” in the process. That’s Spike’s last straw and he tantrums away.
In a lovely development, Anya is the one who points out that Spike’s feelings are hurt. Xander: And you should never hurt the feelings of a brutal killer. (ponders) You know, that’s, uh, that’s actually some pretty good advice.
K: Oh, Xander. Apparently you learnt nothing from That Time Faith Tried To Strangle You.
Lor: Tara and Willow come over and Xander offers to pay for a round of drinks, as it’s payday. Willow asks for some water as she opens a bottle of aspirin. Xander says he can handle that, but then notices that his money is missing. Buffy looks over at the bar, and we see that Spike is buying himself another beer.
Willow and Buffy exposit that Willow’s been having these headaches ever since the teleportation spell she performed on Glory. Tara tells Willow she shouldn’t do anymore teleportation spells, but the sound and editing get funky. The camera jumps from Tara to Willow while we still hear the end of Tara’s line, but in the frame, Tara’s lips aren’t moving. Figures I’d get nitpicky in a recap I start off with positive reinforcement.
Buffy doesn’t want to even say Glory’s and Tara’s segue magic set-up solution to that is to suggest they call her something else for the night. Like Voldemort or… “Ben!” Buffy says, ’cause she’s just spotted Ben at The Bronze and also because the writers had an extra anvil hanging out and they figured they’d drop it somewhere in this episode.
Buffy heads over to greet him and thank him for looking after Dawn in the hospital. He’s clearly a little twitchy about the subject. We jump over to Xander giving Spike a stern talking to about stealing money. Spike spots Buffy smiling prettily and talking easily with Ben and goes serious. Xander is threatening to hurt Spike and his response, as he looks over at Buffy is, “like you could ever hurt me.”
Sunnydale TRAIN STATION. I just love discovering new Sunnydale locations. The zoo was a happy day. UC Sunnydale was a saaaad day. (K: DON’T EVEN MENTION THE HOSPITAL. Whoops…) A station attendant waits for passengers to disembark, but no one comes. He boards the train only to find all of the passengers dead and bloody. He sees something behind him and starts running, but that something grabs him.
Roll credits and JULIET LANDAU is guest staring. Drusilla you crazy bint! WHATUP?
Buffy gets home. Joyce, Dawn and Giles are in the living room, and she tells them about having fun despite Spike’s cameo. Dawn perks up at Spike’s mention, while Joyce is just happy Buffy’s home. She says she wasn’t feeling very safe without her. Giles looks insulted and B gives her mom side eyes. Joyce tries to save herself with an, “and then I remembered Giles was here!” Giles thanks her for trying to backpedal and bids them a goodnight.
K: Poor Giles. Also, Joyce calls him Rupert and I awwwwed a little on account of remember how she used to insist on calling him Mr. Giles all the time?
Lor: Buffy sees Rupert to the door where she asks for his opinion on how Dawn is doing. He thinks she’s coping very well. Buffy mentions that they’ve been going easy on her for the past week, but Giles thinks that they should treat her as normal as possible. Buffy jumps at the chance and sharply yells for her sister. Dawn jumps up from the floor and scrambles over to Buffy and I feel so bad for Dawn, because sometimes being the little sister sucks. Buffy yells at her for touching her clothes, though Dawn swears she didn’t. Buffy asks where her blue sweater is then?
Segue Magic to Spike caressing said blue sweater. Clothes stealing is still not cool. (S: And majorly creepy!) Harmony comes over because she wants sexy times, but Spike is not in the mood. Harmony points out that he’s never in the mood, and suggest they play a game to spice things up. Next thing we see is Harmony jumping into the frame, dressed in Buffy’s blue sweater and wielding a stake. The role playing isn’t particularly good, or convincing, but it’s enough for Spike, who is all over her.
K: Also, Harmony is apparently the biggest idiot ever, because surely you’d join the dots on “I only want to have sex if you dress up as the girl who’s meant to be my mortal enemy?”
Sweeney: To be fair to Harmony, at this point, it’s the first time and still potentially in the realm of, “Keeping shit interesting.”
Lor: Additionally, Slayer and Vampire seems sufficiently like cops and robbers or any other authority/trouble maker to be a thing that falls comfortably in the realm of role play.
At UC Sunnydale, they follow the Plot Appropriate Lesson Plans, and Tara, Willow and Buffy are discussing The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Tara says, “No, see, it can’t, it can’t end like that, ’cause all of Quasimodo’s actions were selfishly motivated. He had no moral compass, no understanding of right. Everything he did, he did out of love for a woman who would never be able to love him back. Also, you can tell it’s not gonna have a happy ending when the main guy’s all bumpy.” GET IT?
K: I loved this line, because of all the reasons.
Lor: Buffy says she won’t have an opinion on the matter until closer to the test. Is that plot speak for she won’t be driven into Spike’s arms until some high stress situation yet to come? Don’t answer that. Buffy kids about renting the cartoon version of the movie, which is my opening to let you know that I saw that movie in theaters when it first came out, and it was the cause of some serious Childhood Trauma. That shit was weird.
Buffy spots someone reading a newspaper and rudely snatches it from him. She’s noticing the headline that tells of the murders on the train. Buffy immediately rules out Glory, and guesses it’s a vampire thing.
Spike is climbing up the stairs in his TARDIS crypt and I guess I always knew it had two levels, but having a bed “downstairs” makes it hard for me to believe he ever sleeps on the concrete slab upstairs. I think he just stays up there waiting for Buffy to run in on him and disturb him from his slumber. (S: A+)
Spike is surprised to find that Dawn is lurking about his crypt. He tries to send her home, especially after she confirms that Buffy doesn’t know she’s there and wouldn’t be very happy if she knew. He says that he’s got tons of bad things to do, not suitable for children. Dawn says she’s not a child, and that really, she wasn’t even originally a human. Spike: Yeah, well, originally I was. I got over it. Doesn’t seem to me it matters very much how you start out. He’s talking about Dawn, yes, but therein lies the problem between him and Buffy right now. Buffy cannot get past what Spike originally was, and Spike can’t seem to understand why that matters.
Dawn likes this idea of being different than how you started. She tells Spike that she appreciates that he, you know, communicates with her, as opposed to everyone else around her who just likes to whisper loudly whenever she is within eavesdropping distance. Spike offers that they are only trying to keep her safe. Dawn feels safe with Spike, a fact that makes him choke on his cigarette smoke.
K: LOVE. Especially the fact that he’s totally fine with her being there until that moment, and then he’s all “NO, I’M BAD, I SWEAR!!”
Lor: Dawn, for her part, plays this exactly right when she answers that Spike is tough, and how Buffy thinks so too. Spike would love to hear all about what Buffy thinks of him.
Sweeney: Dawn is precious. I love her more this time around than the first, though this might be because I have since learned that Dawn hate exists and so I have extra feels for her all the time.
Lor: We cut to Buffy getting home, and Joyce promptly informing her that Dawn never came come from school. Buffy rushes out to go find her.
An establishing shot over the TARDIS crypt reveals that it is now night time. Spike is telling Dawn a gruesome family-mauling story. Spike’s at the part where he thinks he’s killed the whole family but he hears a little noise coming from the coal bin. There’s a fair bit of tongue-porn mid story, for those of you keeping track of that sort of thing.
Buffy comes busting in, asking Spike for help finding Dawn, but stops mid-sentence when she sees that Dawn is there. Buffy demands to know what the hell is going on. Dawn says they were just hanging out, and Spike was telling a really cool story, and just getting to the good part. Buffy is all, “sure, let’s hear the end of this story.” Spike nervously finishes the story by saying he gave the little girl away to a good home. Buffy and Dawn are both unamused for different reasons and leave.
Outside in the cemetery, Buffy is trying to get Dawn to understand that hanging out with vampires in crypts is bad and icky. Dawn smiles and says she doesn’t think Spike is icky at all. It’s the smile and the tongue thing, girl. It’ll make you right forget he spends his days snatching clothing and his nights sipping blood.
K: Also, the fact that he probably smells like an ashtray.
Lor: Yeah, I don’t think the TARDIS crypt has indoor plumbing. Ew.
Buffy accuses Dawn of having a crush, and Dawn, though bashful, denies such a thing.
Buffy: He’s a killer, Dawn. You cannot have a crush on something that is … dead, and, and evil, and a vampire.
Dawn: Right, that’s why you were never with Angel for three years.
Buffy: Angel’s different. He has a soul.
Dawn: Spike has a chip. Same diff.
Oh, fascinating! It’s a new layer to the dreaded soul talk. Soul vs. chip. In both cases it’s just restraining the vampire’s true nature, yeah? I’m sorry fellow Snark Ladies. I feel like I’m opening up a can of soul worms.
Sweeney: I refuse to take your soul bait. I’ll leave that for the comments, where I expect your soul worms will be lapped up quickly.
Lor: Fair, dear.
Anyhow, Dawn goes on:
K: YES. So much yes. It was another little reminder that whatever she may be, she’s also a 14 year old girl.
Lor: After a fade to black, Buffy and Xander are breaking into the murder train, to see if they can find some vampire evidence. Inside, there is tape on the seats marking off where the bodies of the victims were found. As Xander notes that there doesn’t seem to be much there to find, Buffy stutters her way through the following confession:
And this is the point where I remind you that we can pretend the season 8 comics didn’t happen. No, I haven’t read them, but anytime Xander and Dawn are mentioned within a certain proximity, a “SEASON 8 DIDN’T HAPPEN” battle cry rises up from the heart of our commenters. I pick up on these sorts of things.
K: Just be glad we spared you the rest of what happens in the comics, because NOPE.
Lor: Maybe that battle cry really just comes from Kristi, on her Heartless Cow Ottoman.
Buffy walks out, Xander follows and the Zoomy Camera Man gives us that hint those two were after: an antique doll with a little miniature blindfold. It was a worthwhile try, Zoomy Camera Man, but the Guest Starring Credits man beat you to it: DRUSILLA.
When Buffy gets homes, she’s greeted by the sound of voices in the kitchen. We hear Joyce before we see her, telling a story that ends with, “so now I’ve got two shipments of Greek amphorae on my hands!” The camera pans back to reveal that Spike is perched on the kitchen counter, laughing right along with Joyce and Dawn.
K: I can’t stop cringing whenever the gif gets to the point where you can see that he’s wearing tan/khaki chinos. Because NO SPIKE WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP IT IMMEDIATELY.
Lor: He looks adorable.
Joyce quickly explains that Spike came to apologize for the whole “missing child drama” and stuck around because she got to talking about the gallery. Joyce starts to tell the story again, but Spike stops her with a, “Oh, don’t get us all laughing again, Joyce.” LOL. It’s such a smarmy, nice to the parents line. Anyways, Spike says, he really needs to talk to Buffy.
Spike and Buffy head into the hallway where he tells her that he’s got a lead on the murder train. Buffy is skeptical, and even snits that she doesn’t have any money for him. Spike offers to show her the lead, but Buffy doesn’t budge until he specifies that it’s two vampires holed up in a warehouse downtown.
We cut to those two sitting in Spike’s car, watching the warehouse. Buffy is clearly suspicious and nervous. Spike leans toward the glove compartment, and B flinches, but he’s just going for his flask. He takes a sip and offers it to Buffy, but she “ews” him in response. He clarifies that it’s bourbon, not blood, and she “ew”s him in a slower more pronounced way.
Spike puts the flask away, and starts singing to himself. He asks Buffy if she likes The Ramones, and she starts to question what this is all about when they spot the two vampires heading into their warehouse.
K: Perfect gif is perfect.
Lor: We cut inside the warehouse where the two vamps are popping corn and sifting through CD’s. Look, Buffy! Vampires are people too. Like, undead people, but undead people who like popcorn and music.
Popcorn Vampire spots Buffy and recognizes her as the Slayer straight away, so both vampires take off running. Spike asks if they should chase after them, but Buffy is busy noticing that these vampires have nested. She thinks the murder train murderer probably just arrived in town. Spike wasted her time. She turns to leave, but Spike hurries over and reaches the door in time to open it for her.
Buffy is seriously taken aback by the gesture, even when Spike assures her he did it without thinking. Buffy wants to know if this is a date.
K: Also, said popcorn was still in the process of popping when the vamps ran off, so surely by this point it’s burning and stinking up the place?
Lor: No, because it temporarily disappeared, apparently.
Anyways, Spike starts to declare himself. Buffy shuts him down at every turn, even when he points out that Angel was a vampire too. Angel was good, though, Buffy says, in a way she deems greater than Spike’s chip. “That chip in your head? That’s not change. Tha-that’s just … holding you back. You’re like a serial killer in prison.”
K: Made better by the fact that Spike’s follow up is “Yeah, and women marry them all the time!”
Lor: Spike says it isn’t like that, and he cannot stop thinking about her.
After a Not Commercial Break, Spike is recapping the story Dru’s told him off screen, and that we’ve witnessed over the last few episodes of Angel. It’s amazing that people watch Buffy and not Angel and just are completely clueless at moments like these. EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH ANGEL. (S: I’M SO GLAD I FIXED THAT THIS TIME AROUND.) Dru says that having Darla back, and trying to turn Angel dark has been lots of fun, except for the part where he set them on fire. Now she wants Spike to rejoin their family. Spike plays like he’s got a sweet deal in Sunnydale, but Drusilla can crazy-vision-see that Spike has a chip in his head. Dru says she doesn’t believe in science though, and she can sense that Spike is still a killer, no matter what those shocks of electricity in his head say.
Sweeney: “I don’t believe in science,” was a pretty hilarious line coming from the show’s resident crazy.
Lor: Just then, Harmony comes in. At first she thinks Spike went out looking for a Drusilla look alike. When she learns the truth, though, she walks right up to Dru and scolds her for breaking her “boo-boo’s” heart.
LOL. Oh, Dru.
K: I also cracked up over Harmony’s thoughts on WHY Spike was out looking for Drusilla lookalikes: “No threesomes unless it’s boy, boy, girl. Or Charlize Theron.“
Lor: She is at least entertaining, our Harmony.
Spike grabs Harm by the throat and throws her aside, saying it was fun while it lasted, but now he’s back. He pulls up close to Dru and they eat each other’s faces.
Over at the Summers’ home, Buffy is telling Joyce and Willow about Spike loving her. Joyce asks if maybe Buffy gave him any mixed signals and she says, “Well, I do beat him up a lot. For Spike that’s like third base.” Joyce stands, clearly a little grossed out. Willow wants to know if Buffy made it perfectly clear that there was no chance, and I’d say her, “EW YOU DIGUST ME FOREVER,” made it pretty clear, but plot dictates that Buffy have a reason to seek Spike out again so they advise her to go make it super clear just how much she could never love him.
K: I’m glad you recapped this, because I was so distracted by Willow’s poodle-covered cardigan that I forgot to pay attention to what anyone was saying.
Lor: Sometimes the Number Gods get it right.
Spike and Dru arrive at The Bronze, and Spike’s back in his Bad Boy Wear. They dance for a bit before Drusilla spots a couple on the balcony making out. She directs Spike’s attention to them, and they both begin to move off the floor.
Back with Buffy, she’s getting a go get ’em tiger pep talk. Willow offers to come along, but B thinks she needs to do this alone. However, Will can help with one thing while she’s out…
Sweeney: It’s about time, really.
Lor: And only half a wardrobe and a handful of picture later!
At the Bronze, Dru strolls right up to the Kissing Couple and pulls the girl away, snaps her neck, passes her limp body over to Spike and quickly snaps the guy’s neck. Dru bites in and Spike hesitates for a bit before vamping out and digging in as well.
K: Okay, see, I have problems with this. Because while it presents a nice way of getting around Spike’s chip, 99.9% of vampire lore is all “Dead blood is bad, yo” and that vampires have to stop drinking BEFORE the victim’s heart stops. Something that we’ve seen the vampires in the Buffy-verse do a million times. AND YET. Sigh.
Lor: Meh. We’ve seen Spike and Angel drink enough bagged blood or pig’s blood or whatever that I didn’t even think of this.
Buffy is poking around Spike’s crypt, and finding it empty, decides to go downstairs. It isn’t long before she locates Spike’s Helga Patacki-esque shrine to the slayer.
Sweeney: 1430 for that totally necessary reference.
Lor: Buffy tries to hightail it out of there, but Spike is waiting for her with Drusilla, who uses a cattle prod to tase Buffy. She says Spike’s been feeding again, but that she knows what he really wants to eat. Dru tases Buffy again and knocks her out. She suggests they tie the Slayer up and play with her, but Spike says he’s done playing around. He then tases Dru.
When Buffy comes to, she’s back downstairs, and chained to a wall. She asks about Drusilla, and Spike smiles and moves aside, revealing that Dru is tied up across from Buffy. I right away begin to wonder where in Spike’s head this was a good idea. Spike never was really good at plans.
Sweeney: Yay for consistency?
Lor: Okay, sure. Yay.
Spike is doing all of this to prove something to Buffy. See, he loves her. Buffy shuts her eyes and grimaces as he declares it, but I guess chaining her to the wall was really the only way he was going to get it all out. “You’re all I bloody think about. Dream about. You’re in my gut, my throat. I’m drowning in you, Summers. I’m drowning in you.”
Dru starts laughing, because she knew all along. Spike wants Buffy to admit that there is something between them. She thinks it’s revulsion, and that he can’t love without a soul. Drusilla: Oh, we can, you know. We can love quite well. If not wisely. In order to prove it to Buffy, Spike says he’s going to kill Drusilla.
Buffy Summers is not impressed. Spike tries to explain the magnitude of this, of killing the vampire he spent 100 years tearing up the world with. Buffy is still unimpressed. Spike tries to take it in a different direction and says that if Buffy doesn’t admit that there is something between them, he’s going to let Drusilla loose on her. Buffy says the only chance Spike ever had with her is while she was unconscious. Spike freaks out, asking why they keep torturing him. He blames Dru for leaving him for the chaos demon, and driving him back to Sunnydale in the first place. He thinks maybe he should get rid of both of them, and is going on about how he’ll do it when he’s shot near his heart.
Spike spins around and finds Harmony wielding a crossbow. Harmony says she thought she could change Spike, but clearly, she has failed. Bad things happen when you try to change damaged men, dear readers. Whoops, sorry. A little bit of Fifty Shades recap slipped out. (K: My notes say “SEE, ANA? YOU FUCKING IDIOT,” and I’m not even reading Fifty Shades.)
Spike and Harmony start fighting, giving Drusilla the chance to slip out of her ties. Dru runs over to Buffy who manages to defend herself all while still chained. It makes for a nice little sequence. Dru eventually gets the upper hand, but by then Spike’s managed to handle Harmony. He runs over and pushes Drusilla away from Buffy. Spike unlocks Buffy. Drusilla says that Spike is so lost, not even she can save him now. Then she just walks out of the crypt AND THEY JUST STAND THERE AND WATCH HER GO.
Harmony then calls out to Spike and tells him to say goodbye to her butt (she points at it) because he’ll never see it again, unless of course she’s walking away, in which case she may just back away. Which she does.
Spike turns expectantly toward Buffy, and she punches him so hard he goes flying into his Helga Patacki Slayer Shrine. Regardless of everything else, I think “chaining me up,” was worthy of that super punch. Buffy walks off.
We cut to Buffy nearing her house, with Spike close behind her. Buffy wants to know which part of punching him in the face was vague. She wants him gone – out of Sunnydale and out of her life. Spike says it isn’t that easy, because they have something. Buffy reaches her front door and enters, just as Spike is saying that like it or not, they are in each other’s lives and she can’t shut him out. He stops short as he’s been de-invited and can no longer enter the Summers home. Spike is stricken as Buffy shuts the door in his face.
K: HIS FACE THOUGH. Poor puppy.
Lor: It’s weird to say, considering the subject matter, but this was a pretty fun episode. I like Dru a lot more now than I used to, but her appearance was the weakest part for me, which is not saying much, because the episode overall was strong. It’s left a little vague why Spike reacts the way he does to Drusilla. Was it all an act? Did he try to go back to his dark ways and quickly realize that he has changed?
It’s interesting to me the big comparison they make between Spike’s chip and Angel’s soul in this episode. I know I mentioned that previously, but the point I want to make now is just that Buffy sure does put a lot of stock in Angel’s soul, considering how quickly it was gone, and how much pain and suffering that caused her. Additionally, if you consider how Angel is doing on his own show right now (hint: CRANGEL) it’s an interesting parallel. Sure, Spike can find loopholes around his chip, but Angel can certainly also find loopholes around his soul.
Speaking of Angel, this all takes me back to his observation to Darla that he never loved her, because he couldn’t, because he didn’t have a soul. At this point, who is to say whether Spike “really” loves Buffy or not? I think after seeing him bumble around all episode, and eventually tie her up and try to threaten her into an admission of feelings, I think it’s safe to say Spike isn’t very clear on what love even is. All of the lying awake and swimming in Summers he talks about is obsession and lust. He’s trying to figure it out, doing what he knows to do, but it’s creepy. We as the audience, see the intent, however. It makes it supremely complex. I feel for Spike as he looks genuinely hurt and confused at the end, being shut out of the Summers home, but he deserved it. But I feel bad.
Lastly, Buffy was pretty mean to Spike in this episode. I’m okay with all of that except for one thing: she keeps coming back to him for help.
Bring on those comments, Traumateers.
Next time on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Another robot, but this time it isn’t John Ritter in S05 E15 – I Was Made to Love You.
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.
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.
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