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7.2 Beneath You Buffy: "Spike, have you completely lost your mind?" Spike: "Well, yes. Where have you been all night?" I guess having Spike come back wildly happy and sweeping Buffy off her feet was too much to hope for, huh? This episode was a James Marsters tour-de-force, and it was wonderful. He really got to demonstrate some serious acting range, didn't he? Poor "flat-out, bug-shagging crazy" Spike, screaming in the basement; Scooby Spike with the body-hugging blue shirt (yum), quieter look, and gentle, non-smirking manner; the fake-out Big Bad Spike in the Bronze scene, punching out Anya (that took me aback) to keep her from saying out loud what had happened to him, trying to piss Buffy off by saying, "Up for another round on the balcony, then?", and finally -- back to what is obviously the real Spike right now. The Real Spike is a vampire with a soul, and a chip... and he's nearly insane. He's being driven mad by his past and by the decision he made, and he's also clearly in touch with what's going on with the Hellmouth, which can't be good for the sanity. That last bit makes him once again a valuable ally for the Scoobies, though, doesn't it? That scene at the end was soooo intense; I wrote down some of Spike's monologue. "Am I flesh to you?... get it hard, service the girl... right. Girl doesn't want to be serviced, because there's no spark." The reference he made to Angel infers that Spike really does understand Angel now, but it seems to me that Spike as a human was a lot more sensitive than Angel ever was, so Spike might be finding this soul thing even more difficult to live with than Angel did! "Spilling useless buckets of salt over your... ending" ... huh? The way he cried when Buffy died? "They put the spark in me and now all it does is burn...." That scene at the end where he's embracing that cross and talking about needing to be loved reminded me of when Buffy was kissing Angel in season one and the cross she was wearing burned into his chest – but more so. Much bigger cross, too. Maybe there's hope for Buffy and Spike. Buffy figured it out pretty quickly; you could see the realization in her eyes when Spike mentioned Angel. And she was definitely feeling pretty bad about it, and maybe guilty, too. I think we got past the rape thing, anyway; he is so obviously not the same guy. Okay, moving on to the rest of the plot -- lots of relationship-y stuff! We get Nancy with Ronnie the Worm-guy psycho ex-boyfriend. I wasn't wild about Nancy possibly dating Xander, but her confusion about Buffy/Xander, Buffy/Spike, Spike/Anya, and Anya/Xander was so cute. Things don't look good for the other demon in the cast; Anya isn't meeting her demon quota, and things with D'Hoffryn and Cecily/Halfrek aren't going well. And she's Doing Bad Things. There was another high school scene with cutie-pie Principal Wood... are he and Buffy flirting with each other? I think they are. There was a fun reference to season one (Wood: "You're not here to be their friend. Trust me. You open that door and these students will eat you alive." Buffy: "You heard about Principal Flutie, right?"). And Wood is a vegetarian, huh? My list-sister Vikki was theorizing that Principal Wood might be a good guy, perhaps a pagan-earth-type there to help fight the evil emerging from the Hellmouth. I'm all for that. This week's Alias-like opener, complete with the throbbing rock beat and a Sydney-like magenta-haired heroine, was in Frankfurt. Are these women that are being stabbed by the robe-y guys good, or evil? Are we going to get a new globe-hopping death every week? We're now deeply into the early-in-the-season clue-giving; we're getting hints, but we still don't know what the Buffy Powers That Be have in store for us. Bits and pieces: -- Close captioning is my friend. In that first basement scene, when Spike was screaming, he yelled, "Stop, please, Mum!" Now what's that about? Last week it was the chalkboard and the caning. I sense William didn't have a happy childhood. I also sense that we're going to hear more about it. (yes!) -- Willow is on her way home. She doesn't sound like she's feeling much better. "I don't want to go back home just so I can screw up again." Will Buffy and Xander be unreservedly happy to see her? I don't think so. -- When Anya saw Xander, she said, "Oh, penis." Was this like "oh, rats," or "oh, nuts"? -- Nancy: "Is there anyone here who hasn't slept together?" Spike and Xander glance at each other. The slashbunnies go wild. -- The episode title has two meanings, of course. The "Fool for love" Cecily/Buffy reference, and whatever is in the Hellmouth. Quotes: Dawn: "You guys really need to ease up on the whole dating demons thing." Buffy: "Hello, I'm sorry, wasn't that you having the smoochathon with teen vampire last Halloween?" Wood: "Relax. There's only three things these kids understand: the boot, the bat and the bastinada. It's... it's a bad joke. It's the bastinada. No one ever knows what that thing is." Buffy: "A wooden rod used to slap the soles of the feet in Turkish prisons but if made with the correct wood, makes an awesome billy club." Buffy: "From beneath you it devours." Nancy: "What?" Buffy: "Nothing." Dawn: "Nothing good." Nancy: "I still can't believe all this is happening. I mean, even with this town's reputation for, you know, unexplained weirdness." Xander: "Right. Sunnydale: come for the food, stay for the dismemberment." Nancy: "There's good food?" Spike: "Hey, is that it? A little touchy-feely and you're off to the bat poles?" Buffy: "Why? Why would you do that?" Spike: "Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers." Next week, we get more yucky skin stuff. Did someone complain to Joss about the Warren thing last season? Is that why we're getting more skin? (That's what I hear happened when he heard complaints about the sex -- we got that "Where the wild things are" episode where Buffy and Riley spent the entire episode in bed.) Gotta give it at least a three, and possibly four out of four stakes, just for James Marsters' performance. He was phenomenal. Billie |
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