Season 5

Episode 1

BUFFY VS DRACULA: Finding the answers

By Spring Summers – 03-Jan-04

-Self discovery – Riley & Buffy – Spike & Buffy – Dawnie! – Spicy extras for James Marsters fans -

In Season 5, Buffy will begin in earnest her journey toward true self-discovery. As young adults, we all feel, to one extent or another, incomplete. We enter a phase wherein we strive to come to terms with our own burgeoning adulthood. There is little choice but to face the intense and sometimes frightening desires that make the grown-up world so much more complex, so much more confusing - and ever so much grayer - than childhood. We must allow ourselves to recognize and accept our own talents and shortcomings, our own greatest merits and deepest flaws – and in doing so, establish our own unique and firm identities.

As The Slayer, Buffy’s journey toward adulthood is writ large, and Buffy vs Dracula marks the start of her dark and stormy voyage into the shadows. Buffy will struggle mightily as she finds (and learns to cherish) The Slayer, the “demon”, the darkness - within. Echoing dream-Riley’s words in Season 4’s closing episode (Restless), Dracula calls Buffy a “killer.” And sounding exactly like The First Slayer (through Tara) in that same Buffy-dream, he tells her:

“You think you know what you are. What’s to come. You haven’t even begun.”

He calls her a “hunter,” and tells her that her power is “rooted in darkness.” Despite her bravado and seeming dismissal of Dracula-Schmacula and his theories, we learn, by episode-end, that The Dark Prince has indeed struck a chord that resonates within The Slayer. Buffy tells Giles: “Hunting. That’s what Dracula called it. And he was right. He understood my power better than I do. He saw darkness in it. I need to know more. About where I come from, about the other Slayers. I means maybe . . . maybe if I could learn to control this thing, I could be stronger, I could be better.”

Images of people searching for answers abound as the Scoobies attempt to research Dracula. And there is a continuous use of the word “find” and many references to hunger, to needs in general, and to fighting - underlining this episode’s exploration of the struggle toward, and youthful yearning for, self-discovery and invention. Here are some examples among many:

HUNGER:

• BUFFY: “Where’s my burger?” RILEY: “Yeah, man, I’m starving. Cow me.”
• BUFFY (to Joyce): “Thanks, Mom, that was yummy.” And later in the same conversation, BUFFY: “Vamps don’t care what time it is. You know, dark equal dinner bell.”
• DRACULA: “Do not fight. I can feel your hunger.”
• XANDER (about a donut, before he starts obsessively eating bugs!): “Got it! Mine, mine!”
• BUFFY (to Dracula, about drinking his blood): “I’m not hungry.” DRACULA: “No. Your craving goes deeper than that.

Buffy and her friends are hungry – longing to understand and define themselves, to fill in the blanks.

FIGHTING:

Buffy et al are fierce fighters, as all the images and the many references to fighting in this episode remind us. But the real fight ahead is also foreshadowed in these images – and that battle, the battle to understand, and to become, what you are meant to be, is an internal one.

Notice the struggle to define oneself, and to take control of one’s own destiny, that is present in the examples below:

• WILLOW (to Giles, about helping him with the indexing): “I draw the line at making giant rubber band balls.”
• ANYA (feeling she should be out on the Drac-hunt): “How come I have to be here slayer-sitting while the other guys get to look for Dracula? I mean, just because I –“ XANDER: “What time is it?”
• DRACULA: “You are resisting.” BUFFY: “Looks like.” DRACULA: “Come here. Come to me.” BUFFY: “You know, I really think the thrall has gone out of our relationship. But I want to thank you for opening up my eyes a little.” DRACULA: “What is this?” BUFFY: “My true nature. You want a taste?”
• XANDER: “”I’m sick of this crap. I’m sick of being the guy who eats insects and gets the funny syphilis. As of this moment, it’s over. I’m finished being everybody’s butt-monkey!”

It seems Buffy’s true nature may include darkness, but it also includes the ability to be resilient and autonomous. Everyone is struggling for control, and against letting others define or dominate them. They are fighting for strength and self-confidence, for a steady adult identity that is independent of the judgment or influences of others.

NEEDS:

Buffy and Xander, in thrall to Dracula, are the central symbols of the need to fight off other-imposed identities as we make our journey toward a responsible and self-defined adulthood. But the needs of adulthood are many. The word “need” is used many times. And we hear the moving men and Spike talk scornfully of Dracula and his special needs. Notice especially the frequent images of the needs of childhood in direct conflict with the needs of adulthood:

• Giles is determined to do his duty and to make sure that he leaves Buffy and The Scoobies as well situated as possible before he returns to England. He has asked Willow to help him scan and index his library. Willow would plainly rather be at the beach, saying: “Doesn’t winter seem more like archiving season?”
• Giles’ fills his own need share his secret by telling Willow he is returning to England – burdening Willow, who would rather not have this grown-up responsibility.
• Willow, having noticed that Giles has a need to be needed, tries to tempt Giles into staying, and meeting Scooby needs for continued parenting, by pretending to be needier than she is – despite the fact that Giles has mentioned his own need to return to England to “get a life.”
• Joyce’s need to be needed is also on display as she sighs about her empty nest, and tries to tempt Buffy with an offer of ice cream – despite Buffy’s obvious desire to be on her way.
• At the end of the episode, Giles, with conflicting emotions plain on his face, puts aside his need to “get a life,” in order to meet Buffy’s continuing need for a Watcher.

Only Dracula has the hypno-eyes, the ability to waft in on music video wind, read minds and appear in dreams. But he is not alone in his need to feed off of others, or in using a temptation M.O. to ensnare his prey. Dracula has needs – for “eyes and ears in daylight,” for an invitation into Buffy’s house, and for a connection to The Slayer. Tapping into his understanding of human needs and motives, Dracula tempts Xander with immortality, Joyce with male companionship, and Buffy with a “taste of his blood,” and a promise that she will attain the self-knowledge she desperately desires. But along with some of the parent/child images above, we also have other examples of temptation in this episode – here are a few:

• Xander tries to tempt Buffy, into letting him stay and help with the slaying, by offering a sip of his “double mint mocha.”
• Buffy tries to tempt Riley into having sex by saying, “Maybe if you just lie down with me . . .”
• Riley declines, but mentions he’ll bring donuts, and Buffy says, “A little sugar and I’m all yours.”
• Xander sarcastically suggests that Anya should tempt Dracula by flaunting her “neck cleavage until Dracula shows up.”

Our needs make us vulnerable to those who would try to use them to control us. But to be human is to have needs, and this episode is not suggesting that humans shouldn’t have needs, or make their needs known, or attempt to meet their own needs or the needs of others. Contrast the Buffy/Giles interaction with the Buffy/Dracula interaction. Or compare the Willow/Giles and the Scoobies/Buffy interactions, to the Xander/Dracula sidekick interaction. Needs can and should be met, but there is no place for trickery and cruelty. Needs should be honestly presented and honestly met – freely, through authentic effort, and out of love and/or a sense of morality, fair play and responsibility - not through coercion, threats, implanted head-chips, magic Latin incantations, pretense, computer-whispering, or showy gypsy stuff.

FINDING:

Emphasizing the earnest search for self that Buffy and The Scoobies begin in this episode, is the repeated use of the word find:

· GILES: “All right. Willow, you and Tara find out everything you can about the actual legend of Vlad the Impaler on the Internet.”

• RILEY: “If the Initiative was still around, we’d be able to find everything on this guy in a few hours.” BUFFY: “We might not be as fast, but we’ll find him.”
• XANDER: “But master, how can I find - (sees Dracula is gone) Brilliant. What an exit! Guy’s a genius!”
• RILEY: “Actually, he’s gunning for Buffy. But I’m out to find him before he gets another shot at her.”
• SPIKE: “You’re never gonna find him. Not before he gets to her.”
• BUFFY: “That’s interesting. I’m gonna go find him.”
• GILES: “And it’s getting dark. I should have turned up a better lead. There must be an easier way to find him.
• DRACULA: “They’re here. They will not find us. We are alone.
• DRACULA: “Find it. The darkness. Find your true nature.”

Buffy and the others are searching for the self, seeking to ease their hunger for self-knowledge and an independent adulthood.

And here are some of the lyrics to the song that is playing at the beginning of this episode, as Buffy and Riley toss a football at the beach. The song is called Finding Me and is by a group called Vertical Horizons:

Wheels I guess are turning

Somewhere inside my head

I know that this is

Deeper than you get

SPIKE (to Riley, later in the ep): “You’re out of your depth on this one, boy.”

But you’re coming back again

You don’t mean to waste my time

But you’re coming back so

Don’t tell me

How to be

‘Cause I like some suffering

Don’t ask me

What I need

I’m just fine

Here finding me.

You don’t mean to waste my time . . . don’t ask me what I need. I’m just fine here, finding me. Finding me. Poor Riley. What he represents to Buffy is a chance to be a normal girl with a normal love. But what we see - in the opening image of Buffy rising from their conjugal bed to find satisfaction racing through cemeteries and vanquishing vampires, and also in Buffy’s anxiety to leave Mom’s dinner table and begin patrolling – is what Buffy does not yet understand: For Buffy, to be a normal girl will never be enough.

BUFFY: “I swear to you, I’m your girl, and I’m gonna stay that way.”

No, Buffy. No you’re not gonna to stay that way. And by the time we hear Buffy deliver this line to Riley, mid-episode, we already know it’s not true, don’t we? We’ve seen it: She doesn’t even stay in Riley’s bed.

“That’s my girl!” says Faith to Buffy, when she tempts Buffy into punching her in Consequences. “That’s my girl,” says Spike to Buffy when she suggests smearing red paint, to represent the blood of the innocent, on the plastic bridegroom’s mouth in Something Blue. And listen to Buffy & Spike, in Dead Things:

SPIKE (as Buffy is beating him): “Come on, that’s it, put it on me. Put it all on me. That’s my girl.”

BUFFY (continuing to beat him mercilessly): “I am not your girl! You don’t have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can’t feel anything real! I could never be your girl!”

Sometimes, we are blind even to big honking castles, right in our own backyards. By the time we hear Buffy deliver this line to Spike in Season 6, she has already become Spike’s girl. She has found her darkness - but she refuses to see it, and she neither understands nor accepts it. She hates it. Or maybe she loves it, and hates herself for loving it. Because she can’t love herself for hating it. Or something.

But that’s a discussion for another time. Let’s get back to Riley, early Season 5. In Buffy vs Dracula, Riley’s well-founded insecurities about Buffy surface more strongly than ever:

• BUFFY (about Dracula): “No killing him until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.” RILEY: “You’re not just saying that because of those dark penetrating eyes of his, are you?”
• RILEY (about finding Dracula): “So you’re saying I should check mansions, that sort of thing.” SPIKE: “No. I’m saying you should go home to your super-honey. Have a nice safe snog. You’re out of your depth on this one, boy.” RILEY: “You’ve helped Buffy before, so she has a problem killing you now that you’re helpless. I don’t.” WHOA!! Riley-boy, what’s up with the death threats?? What did Spike do to suddenly deserve full-scale terrorization? What he did, it seems to me, is dare to make mild mention of Buffy and sex in the same sentence. So . . . that’s all it takes for Riley to feel so threatened that he’s willing to kill Spike? Kill him for what? Is Riley worried that Buffy spares Spike not because he’s “helped her before,” but because of those blue, penetrating eyes of his? Later, we’ll see Riley correctly (though very affectionately) accuse Giles of this exact thing – i.e., of being unable to kill vampires of because his sexual attraction to them (the Dracu-babes).
• BUFFY (about Dracula): “But it does seem like he has this control over me – even though a big part of me is resisting.” RILEY: “No, that’s OK. I shouldn’t take this personally. I mean, what with Angel, I mean, it’s understandable that there would be transference. I mean, they’re both broody immortals.” BUFFY: “I am not transferring. I swear to you, I’m your girl, and I’m gonna stay that way.” Well, Buffy, maybe the girl that’s resisting is gonna stay that way . . . but what about that other girl?

Buffy can’t deny her darkness forever. Eventually, you’ve got to spot the big honking castle. She can’t “control this thing,” unless she first admits it’s there – not just in her “power,” but also inside her, as a part of her. As Giles says about defeating Dracula: “I imagine the trick to defeating him lies in separating the fact from the fiction.” Yep – that’s the trick to gaining control of anything. And right now, in early Season 5, Buffy is having herself a time of that.

That’s going to change. Eventually, Buffy will find and understand and accept herself - all of herself, including her darkness. Spike will play a pivotal role in this part of Buffy’s journey toward adulthood, and their upcoming dalliance is clearly foreshadowed in this episode. As she will do when she becomes obsessed with Spike, Buffy attempts to hide her Dracula thrall. And it is Spike who will finish what Dracula started; it is Spike who will help Buffy find her darkness. And there’s more:

In this episode:

DRACULA: “Put the stake down.”

BUFFY: “OK. (Buffy looks at her hand in surprise at her own acquiescence) Right. That was not you. I did that because . . . I wanted to. (Buffy looks worried and confused.) Maybe I should rethink that thrall thing.”

In Season 6’s Wrecked (it’s the morning after Spike & Buffy’s first time):

SPIKE: “I’m just sayin’ . . . vampires get you hot.”

BUFFY: “A vampire got me hot. One. But he’s gone. You’re just. . . you’re just convenient.”

Buffy, maybe you should rethink that.

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In this episode:

DRACULA: “Are you afraid I will bite you?”

BUFFY: “No. Last night – it’s not going to happen again.”

DRACULA: “Stop me. Stake me.”

In Season 6’s Smashed:

SPIKE: “I wasn’t planning on hurting you – much.”

BUFFY: “You haven’t even come close to hurting me.”

SPIKE: “Afraid to give me the chance? Afraid I’m gonna –“ (Spike’s words are cut off when Buffy crashes her lips against his.)

In Wrecked:

SPIKE: “I don’t see why you have to run off so quick. Thought we could -”

BUFFY: “Not gonna happen. Last night was the end of this freak show.”

SPIKE: “Don’t say that.”

BUFFY: “What did you think was gonna happen? What, we’re gonna read the newspaper together, play footsie under the rubble?”

SPIKE (putting his hand up her skirt): “Not exactly what I had in mind.”
BUFFY: “Stop!”

SPIKE: “Make me.”

In Season 6’s Dead Things:

SPIKE: “What would they think of you if they found out all the things you’ve done? If they knew who you really were?” (He begins to make a move to lift her skirt.)

BUFFY: “Don’t.”

SPIKE: “Stop me.”

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In this episode:

BUFFY (about drinking Dracula’s blood): “I’m not hungry.”

DRACULA: “No. Your craving goes deeper than that.”

In Wrecked:

SPIKE (to Buffy): “I’m in your system now. You’re gonna crave me like I crave blood. And the next time you come crawling, if you don’t stop being such a bitch, maybe I will bite you.” (Dracula’s words were “Are you afraid I will bite you?” And I think this line from Wrecked acts as further suggestion that Spike’s cut-off words, the night before, were, indeed: “Are you afraid I’m gonna bite you?”)

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I love all the subtle Spikey-stuff, but my favorite part comes at the very end of Buffy vs Dracula. Buffy tells her mom she is going to the movies with Riley. Oh! That reminds me – this ep is full of references to the media and suggestions that TV and movies play a part in mesmerizing us, like Dracula, with the same vampiric, parasitic motivations. This aspect of theme didn’t interest me much, but if you are interested, watch the ep with your eyes and ears open for all the references to Dracula’s fame and the media in general.

OK – back to the important part: After Buffy announces her intentions to leave for the movies with Riley, we get another example of a conflict between adult needs and children’s needs. Joyce asks Buffy to do her a favor and take her sister with her. Her sister? Yep. So . . . I guess that’s who that li’l cutie-pie must be then!

I love Dawn, so this part makes me smile. I love Dawn from this moment of her introduction, when she lets out with the big, whiny: “Mom!” (in unison with Buffy), to the moment she stands in front of Sunken Sunnydale and utters the very last words ever in the series: “Yeah, Buffy. What are we going to do now?” And she’s never better than in Season 5.

Spicy extras for James Marsters fans:

• Oh, I love the way Spike hooks his fingers in his belt, and comes forward to meet Riley.
• Great scene between Spike and Riley. Marc B and James M do a great job playing the complicated scene just right. It all shows in their manner: Riley’s cool but deadly serious with his threats; Spike’s bravado is about the warrior he used to be, but it is currently absolutely toothless - which he knows, and Riley knows, and Spike knows that Riley knows, and Riley knows that Spike knows.
• I couldn’t help but notice that Spike sounded almost . . . concerned about Buffy, when he says to Riley: “You’re never gonna find him.” And then adds to himself: “Not before he gets to her.”
• Spike also reveals a good understanding of Buffy here – he knows Dracula, and he also seems to have a sense that Buffy is vulnerable to those seductive, vampire charms.
• It’s nothing to do with Spike or James, but I can’t finish off this essay without mentioning how much I enjoyed Nick B’s performance in this episode: “Like any of that is enough to fight the Dark Master . . . bator.” He had me laughing out loud more times than I can count.
• This episode featured everyone’s need to find their own unique identity, and to feel special and needed – and though his scene is very brief, we see that with Spike as well, as he assumes that Drac is back to seek “closure” with him.
• I loved the “everyday Vlad” view we get of Dracula as we listen to Spike’s story of how the poncy bugger owes him eleven pounds. Seems the once more ordinary Drac has his own need to feel special.
• Again, this has nothing to do with James – but I loved the part about Joyce letting Dracula in for a cup of coffee because it’s “hard to date.” It makes me smile to imagine how that went down. And Joyce? You can do better. But don’t feel too bad, sister. I know right where you’re coming from.