Season 5
Episode 14
CRUSH:
Sleepless in Sunnydale
by Spring Summers –
- Clueless – You say tomato – Spike: Blinded by the
light – Buffy:
Scared of the dark – A black and white picture
- Change – Choice - A sense of normality – Business or
pleasure? – For goodness’ sake – Spicy extras for James Marsters
fans -
In this episode, Buffy sees herself as the
victim of an obsessed stalker (Spike) who thinks he has the right to
violently force his unwanted attentions on her.
Spike sees himself as the victim of a haughty princess
(Buffy), who thinks she has the right to use him when she needs him, then
coldly ignore or pound on him when she doesn’t.
They are both
right, and they are both wrong. And they
will both, in the far away
With the search
for clues about the train murders as a backdrop (XANDER: “Could you give me a clue about what kind of
clues?”), this episode opens with a shot of a sign (Grand Re-opening), shows us
Buffy ignoring yellow crime scene tape, and is generally chock-full of the
mention and images of clueless people.
People aren’t paying attention to the signs – they need various degrees
of prompting, before something breaks through to their conscious minds:
Along with the
many images of oblivious states, we also hear several references to sleeping
and dreaming (i.e., an unconscious state):
And we get a
mention of Olaf, our destructive Id-incarnate, in the very first line of
dialogue:
SPIKE
(to Buffy): “Bleeding crime is what it
is. Jackin’ up bar
prices to pay for fixin’ up this place.
Not my fault insurance doesn’t cover Acts of Troll.”
Oh – I adore this
line. If anyone could use some coverage
for Troll-related damage, it’s Spike.
And listen to how Spike, a faithful worshipper at the altar of the id,
substitutes the word Troll for “God.”
Notice too that he doesn’t think he should have to pay for Troll-related
destruction; what the Troll does is beyond his control, after all.
From The American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language – 4th edition
id n : In Freudian theory, the division of the
psyche that is totally unconscious and serves as the source of instinctual
impulses and demands for immediate satisfaction of primitive needs.
unconscious n : The division of the mind in psychoanalytic
theory containing elements of psychic makeup, such as memories or repressed
desires, that are not subject to conscious perception or control but that often
affect conscious thoughts and behavior.
So what’s this got to do with Spike &
Buffy? This episode contains many, many shots of
dancing couples, so let’s get back to the endless tango that is Spike &
Buffy’s relationship: Spike can’t
understand Buffy, and Buffy can’t understand Spike. They are both looking at the same thing – the
exact same thing - their relationship.
They are both feeling, I believe, the exact same feelings for one
another. And yet, and yet:
Spike calls it
LOVE.
Buffy calls it
HATE.
How is that? I submit to you that it is because (as we are
reminded) Spike sleeps during the day, and Buffy sleeps during the night. They are each unconscious half of the time, a
different half of the time, and that affects their abilities to fully and
accurately define and recognize both LOVE and HATE.
BLINDED BY THE
LIGHT: Spike calls it LOVE, but in Fool For Love, he brags about killing two Slayers, and tells
Buffy that someday she’ll want death, and that he’ll be there to provide
it. In that bragging, and in his
coal-bin tale to Dawn in this episode, we note that despite his interest in
impressing Buffy, Spike neither feels nor exhibits any trace of remorse for the
countless, horrific murders he has committed.
Later, he allows Dru to strike Buffy with a cattle-prod, he chains Buffy
up, and he threatens to let Dru kill her.
Yeeeee! I gotta say, this really,
really, doesn’t sound like LOVE, to me.
NIGHT
BLINDNESS: Buffy calls it HATE, but in Shadow, we
learn that Buffy confided in Spike about her mother’s illness. In Checkpoint
she trusts him with the safety of her beloved mother and sister. In Blood
Ties, she chooses him as her partner in the search for Dawn, and she
quietly confides her guilty feelings to him.
In this episode, when Dawn is missing, she makes an immediate beeline to
Spike’s crypt for help. Huh! I gotta
say, this really, really, doesn’t sound like HATE, to me.
But Spike calls it LOVE because he can’t see the indicators to the
contrary. He’s not conscious during the
day. Dawn asks him about the sewers: “Is
that how you get around town in the daytime?”
Spike’s lack of above-ground awareness in the daytime symbolizes the
fact that he isn’t consciously aware of the instinctual impulses or
spiritual needs that attract him to the light, i.e., to Buffy. No matter how he tries, he can’t consciously
understand how his lack of a soul – i.e., of a moral compass, of an ability to
realize even (e.g.) that murder is wrong – is relevant to his ability to love
fully. It is relevant; Buffy is
not wrong. But think what it means if he
allows himself to even begin to believe that he – he, Spike! Love’s bitch! - doesn’t truly or completely
understand the meaning of LOVE. It would
upend his world, rewrite his entire history. Buffy’s sunlit notions are not a
part of his dark, Dru-inspired definition of romantic love, nor of his
cherished notion of himself as The Baddest of the Bad.
When Dawn says
that she feels safe with Spike, he nearly chokes and insists that she “take
that back!” And notice how cruelly he
rejects the suggestion by Harmony, that he is a “sweet boo-boo” with “trust
issues.” Harmony’s ditzy approach
obscures the fact that she is absolutely right about everything she says:
HARMONY
(to Dru): “Well, you have some nerve
showing up here like this - after all this time. After breaking my sweet boo-boo’s heart. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to
break down the walls he put up after you left?
I mean - serious trust issues. So
it’s no use crawling back to him, ‘cause Spikey don’t play that game any more,
Morticia.”
SPIKE
(much later, to himself, after shocking Dru with the cattle prod): “I’m bloody well through playing.”
Harmony got it
right, didn’t she? But she nearly got
killed for her trouble. Spike hates his
soft-side and he hates Harmony for seeing it - he is so very afraid of facing
it or having it exposed. His complete
rejection of the William, of the “good man” that remains, is reflected in his
comment to Dawn: “Doesn’t seem to me it
matters very much how you start out.”
Spike has decided his former, sensitive good-guy existence is totally
irrelevant.
And as we learned
in No Place Like
Home, when you are deeply afraid of something, you don’t speak its
name. Dawn and Harmony are daring to
speak the name of that piece of Spike that Spike abhors and denies, of that
tiny bit of surviving goodness inside him that is pulling him toward the scary
daylight. And Spike just plain does not
want to hear about it. Access is blocked
absolutely; those repressed desires are not subject to conscious perception or
control by Spike - not that they don’t affect his conscious thought and
behavior. Listen to how Spike describes
how it all feels to him:
Spike is so out of
touch with that part of himself that is attracted to Buffy’s sunlight, that he
is experiencing the upward push as wholly external to himself. It seems to Spike that it is originating from
a mysterious outside force or from a foreign body (Buffy) that’s set up shop
inside him, without his consent. But
there is no puppeteer - not the kind that works from the outside with strings,
nor the kind that puts her hand inside.
It’s all Spike.
It’s that tiny, intermittent internal flame that he won’t – he can’t, at
this point – consciously access or own.
SPIKE
(to Buffy): “This, with you, is
wrong. I know it. I’m not a complete idiot.”
Listen to
him. He has no idea why he’s behaving the
way he’s behaving. It doesn’t make a bit
of sense to him. He can’t, for the life
of him, figure it out. Spike is drawn to
the light, and you know what? It’s not,
ultimately, about what Dru did to him, or what The Initiative did to him, or about anything Buffy is doing to him: He merely wants it.
To paraphrase the
song that opens this episode (Play It By
Ear, Summercamp): Spike’s confused,
and he thinks he’s hearing voices.
And below is some
further evidence of Spike’s instinctive ability to parse the darkness (rather
than the light):
·
Dressed
as The Slayer, Harmony is stalking about the crypt in the semi-darkness,
pretending to sneak up on Spike. But
Spike tackles her.
·
Spike,
who claims that he can sense Buffy’s darkest and most deeply buried desires,
tells a story about listening - very, very, carefully
- and hearing the tiniest of sighs, from a little girl, hiding in the darkest
place you can imagine – a coal bin. And
despite the pretty cover story he concocts, we know he was planning to find
that little girl in order to satiate his own hunger.
·
He
hears Dru make a small sound in the darkness, and asks: “Who’s there?”
That Spike – he’s
not so good at locating the source of that tiny inner voice hiding in the
light, but he sure is good at sensing and finding females hiding in the night,
isn’t he? That’s ‘cause
he sleeps like the dead during the day.
But he lies awake - wide-eyed, hyper-alert -
every night.
And Buffy - Buffy calls the feeling between
them HATE because she can’t see the indicators to the contrary, because
Buffy sleeps during the night. She isn’t
consciously aware of what goes on in the darkness, of the instinctual impulses
and baser needs that attract her to the shadows i.e., to Spike. She can’t understand how her feelings for
Spike, how those primitive and violent reactions, could be relevant to her
ability to love fully. They are
relevant; Spike is not wrong. But think
what it means if she allows herself to even begin to believe that she – she,
Buffy! Of Buffy&Angel-4eva! -
doesn’t truly or completely understand the meaning of LOVE. It would upend her world, rewrite entire her
history. Spike’s moonlit notions are not a part of her idealized, Angel-inspired
definition of romantic love, nor of her cherished notion of herself as The
Perfect Hero.
When Dawn suggests
that Spike and Angel are not so different, Buffy turns away and says, “I can’t
listen to this!” And notice how strongly
she rejects Spike’s suggestion that there is “heat” and “desire” between
them. At first, she even claims that
there are “no feelings” between them, before she will admit to feelings of
revulsion alone.
Notice how, early
in this ep, we get a reminder of what I mentioned above, from No Place Like Home
– when you are deeply afraid of something, you don’t speak its name:
BUFFY (noticing Ben): “Ben!”
Buffy won’t say
the dark-side of name GLORY, but she will say the light-side name of BEN. She won’t let Spike call what she feels for a
soulless vampire LOVE, but she will call it HATE. When it comes to admitting an attraction to a
vampire, she won’t let Dawn use the name SPIKE; she will use the name ANGEL
(“Angel’s different.”)
In the suggestion
that Buffy could be attracted to something that is “dead and evil and a
vampire,” Spike and Dawn are seeing the darker, the Slayer-side of Buffy, that piece
of Buffy that is drawn to the dark and scary woods. And Buffy just plain doesn’t want to hear
about it. Access is blocked absolutely;
those repressed desires are not subject to conscious perception or control by
Buffy - not that they don’t affect her conscious thought and behavior. She acknowledges that she beats Spike up a
lot. But to Buffy, her own violent
penchant for making repeated, and often wholly unnecessary, physical contact
with Spike is significant only in terms of what it means to Spike: Third
base. It doesn’t even occur to Buffy
that her compulsion to pound on Spike might say anything about her, i.e. that
it might be speaking to her unconscious desires.
In Fool For Love:
SPIKE
(to Buffy): “Hit
me. Come on. One good swing. You know you want to.”
And she does want
to hit him, she always wants to hit him, and she always does. But to Buffy’s conscious mind, this whole
business about any type of attraction between her and Spike is just “some weird
Spike thing.” It has nothing do with her.
When
BUFFY: “The only chance you had with me was when I
was unconscious.”
Well, now – that
answer makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Because it’s Buffy’s id, her unconscious, that wants Spike. Remember how, when Olaf
challenged Buffy’s idealized view of romantic love, she got really, really
angry? She beat the daylights out of
Olaf and sent him on his way. But
someday, she’s not going to be able to beat back the Troll and hang on to her
illusions. Someday, she’ll finally make
contact with those deep dark desires and let her unconscious loose. And the second – the second that happens,
Spike will get his chance with her.
He’ll be there. He’ll slip
in. Have himself a real good day. Buffy, on the other hand, will have herself
one wicked night.
So the big picture, which neither party
sees fully, is this:
Buffy & Spike have a very real, very strong, attraction to one
another. It’s not true LOVE – in
different ways, neither party is mature enough, or has a full enough
understanding of love, or of him or her self, to love
in a complete, adult, selfless manner.
Spike’s soulless state makes it impossible for him; Buffy’s youth and
limited experience make it impossible for her.
But there are elements of LOVE:
There is heat and there is desire and there is a strong, instinctual
understanding of one another. It’s not
true HATE either. In the continual way
they seek each other out and rely on one another, we note that both parties
feel an affinity for each another. It’s
an affinity that makes the idea that what they have between them is
unadulterated “loathing and revulsion” impossible to believe. But there are elements of real HATRED: There is cruelty, and there is abuse.
The fact that
neither party is seeing the full picture is emphasized with repeated images of
blindness:
·
Dru’s
dolly is blindfolded.
·
Spike
talks about blinding pain.
·
Dru
mentions she doesn’t believe in molecules, because she doesn’t believe in what
she can’t see. (Though she sure feels
those electrons flow out of the cattle prod later, doesn’t she? Seems that just because you can’t see
something, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there - and it doesn’t mean it can’t affect
you.)
And further underlining the way our preconceptions and fears can blind
us to the big picture are the many instances of people misplacing both credit
and blame. Some examples are below:
·
Though
he did it, Buffy won’t give Spike any credit for trying to help with the fight
against Glory.
·
Though
he didn’t do it, Buffy gives Ben credit for helping Dawn at the hospital.
·
Though
she didn’t do it, Buffy blames Dawn for stealing her blue cashmere sweater.
·
Though
they didn’t do it, Spike accuses two male vamps of committing the
train-murders.
·
Though
she isn’t responsible, Spike blames Dru for all his troubles.
There is also an incidence of correctly
placed blame, when Xander realizes that Spike has
stolen his change. There are many
references to change in this episode:
And we’re looking
at the nature of change. What we learn
is that change is a slow, laborious process.
I’ve experienced moments of profound revelation in my life, moments that
left me giddy with the feeling that “everything is different, now.” But everything wasn’t different, not
automatically. No, it’s not that
easy. For true change to follow an
epiphany, much time and effort and vigilance - and patience with the inevitable
backsliding - is required.
XANDER: “The point is, I
work hard for that money.”
SPIKE: “And you’re saying I didn’t?”
XANDER: “You stole it!”
SPIKE: “And you’re making it into very hard work.”
Hee. But
underneath the funny is the image of Spike trying to grab change the easy
way. He’s trying to steal the change
that Xander’s been acquiring the hard way.
But cashing in on Xander’s payday isn’t going to work. Change is going to happen for Spike, but only
after he works harder, and pays more dearly for it, than he can even begin to
imagine.
And look who else
is stealing in this episode: None other
than Buffy! We hear that Buffy hasn’t
read the book she was supposed to read for class; she hopes to pass a test
without doing the work. She’s looking
for an easy way out by renting the video.
Later we watch Spike boldly steal a beer off a waitresses’ tray. But what strikes me is how his brash
attitude and action so perfectly mirror what we see Buffy do in an earlier
scene: Without asking, and without a word
of explanation or apology, she snatches a newspaper out of a male college
student’s hand - while he is still reading it.
So there you have it, Buffy & Spike, both trying to steal what they
need in exactly the same way - imperiously, as if they have the right to
take what they need without any consideration for others, and without having to
pay for it. The twin scenes speak
volumes about how Buffy & Spike are treating each other in this episode:
But things are not
hopeless for our dishonest duo. Buffy
can’t openly or consciously acknowledge the change taking place in Spike – it’s
too upsetting, in too many enormous ways.
She can’t allow herself to believe or perceive that a soulless vampire
could love in any way, or change even a teensy-weensy bit, without toppling her
most prized possession: her very
elaborate Angel shrine. But Buffy’s
actions speak louder than her words. Her
recent, repeated reliance on Spike suggests that she has sensed, unconsciously,
the real change that is starting to take place in him. That Spike has actually begun, and will
continue, to change is suggested in this episode by his very human food
preferences, and particularly by his taste for the “flowering onion.” Did you know that something as nasty as an onion could turn into a flower? And Buffy also refers to him as a bud:
JOYCE
(about Spike’s infatuation): “Better to
nip this in the bud before - ”
BUFFY: “The bud nips me?”
Wipe those smirks
off your faces! For
heaven’s sake, S’cubies. The
primary symbolism here isn’t about the double entendre, but about Spike’s
infant state, and about foreshadowing his future growth. The potential is there. We see it when he choses
his Buffy over his Dru; Dru
knows it when she tells him that he’s “lost” to her. But whether Spike blossoms or not is all up
to Spike. That people are, ultimately,
each responsible for the course of their own journeys is emphasized by the
mention and use of clothes in this episode:
Spike goes all metrosexual on us when he’s courting Buffy, but he goes
back to basic black for Dru; Ben coyly mentions his extensive wardrobe; Buffy wears a metallic looking overcoat -
very chic and shieldy.
SPIKE
(to Buffy, at The Bronze): “Suit
yourself!”
SPIKE
(to Buffy, in the car): “Suit yourself!”
That’s what we all do in the end: We suit ourselves. We make our own choices, for our own reasons,
and in doing so we become whatever it is we are meant to become. We determine the paths our lives will
take. Sort of. Kind of. In Crush,
with Spike’s struggle front-and-center, we’re looking at the dual nature of
the freedom of choice. Here are some
verses from the opening song (Play It By
Ear) again:
I'm
amused by the overwhelming choices,
I
guess the hardest part is knowing when to stop.
I’m
confused, and I think I’m hearing voices.
Things
are happening so fast,
Do
I save the best for last?
But
I'll have to play it by ear,
I
can't see that far from here,
I'm
defined by everything that I know,
And
I'm tempted by the rest.
When Spike is
telling Dawn his coal bin story, Buffy stops him from finishing the account of his
past crime by suddenly interrupting him (SPIKE:
“Bloody hell!”). When Dru is
attempting to reclaim Spike for the dark side, Harmony temporarily halts the
proceedings by suddenly interrupting him (SPIKE: “Bloody hell!”) But at The Bronze, Dru kills a girl and
tosses her to Spike. And neither Buffy,
nor Spike’s Buffy-substitute (Harmony), is present. However, Dru, his black beauty, is
present - and staring right at him, expectantly. And there Spike is, without any inner
resources to help him with the hardest part (knowing when to stop.) He goes into vamp-face, he lowers his head,
he sinks his fangs, and he drinks. It’s
a testament to Spike’s budding potential, it’s a confirmation of the existence
of that weak, freaky, internal flame, that he hesitates
at all. Because the standard model
vampire doesn’t come with breaks, I’m thinking.
Listen to a few
lines from the song Spike begins to sing in the car, during his “date” with
Buffy:
I Wanna Be Sedated , The Ramones:
I
wanna be sedated,
Just
get me to the airport, put me on a plane,
Hurry,
hurry, hurry, before I go insane,
I
can't control my fingers, I can't control my brain.
It’s not so simple
is it? Determining how much choice any
of us really has, when we often seem such slaves – when we seem in bondage to
our own instincts, to desires that we are barely aware of, much less in control
of. In the face of the relentless forces
lined up against us, and the temptations placed in our paths, change is just so
hard to do.
To one extent or another, we all fight
change; change is scary and change is hard. We all make attempts to cling to the past, to
the people and the places and the selves that are safe and familiar.
BUFFY (about Dawn): “We’ve been going
easy on her the last week – letting things slide.”
GILES: “Oh, I don’t think that’s at all wise.”
BUFFY: “You don’t?
GILES: “No, the best thing you can do now is behave
as you always have. Any special
treatment at this stage is likely to undermine Dawn’s sense of normality.”
In an episode full
of references to movies and TV and games and stories and what’s funny and
what’s serious, we explore the individual way we each define reality, and how
any challenge to our sense of normality upsets us and sends us scrambling to
restore the old order:
·
Xander
– he’s big, funny, Xander. Dawn thinks
he’s the greatest. When he learns that
Dawn may have a crush on Spike, he says:
“She just suddenly decides I’m not the cool one any more? Why is that OK?” Xander apparently placed value on Dawn’s
admiration; it added support to his treasured but tenuous view of himself as
One Cool Guy. He protests the very idea
that Dawn’s feelings might have changed.
·
Harmony
– she’s Harmony, Spike’s Girlfriend.
She’s established her identity through Spike, but he’s willing to dump
her at the first sign of Dru. Why is
that OK? She protests: “Why, because she’s back?”
·
Buffy
– she’s The Slayer, and she fights evil with clarity and competence. Vampires should react to her the way those
two “poofters” do when they run at the sight of her. But Spike feels so comfy with her that he
sits right down across from her at The Bronze.
Why is that OK? It challenges
Buffy’s view of herself as a Heroic Do-Gooder. She makes Spike leave.
·
Spike
– he’s a Vampire, little girls should hide from him, trembling in terror. But Dawn feels safe with him. Why is that OK? It challenges his view of himself as a Big
Bad. He makes Dawn “take it back.”
·
Dru –
She’s Daddy’s Treasure, but Daddy Angelus tried to burn her. Why is that OK? It drives Dru back to Spike as she tries to
rebuild the family she once knew.
·
Buffy
& Spike: They both believe they’ve
known The Perfect Love, with perfect angels (Angel, and dark angel Dru,
respectively.) We can hear it their
words - how highly each has idealized his or her loved one and the
relationship. But now they are
challenging each other’s most cherished views of that most valued history,
aren’t they? And why is that OK? They each reject the other’s viewpoint
absolutely.
When Joyce is
confronted with the unpleasant reality that she has hurt Giles’ feelings, she
attempts what Giles calls a “little backpedal.”
The dialogue in this episode is full of references to the word “back,”
and images of people moving backwards:
The train porter attempts to escape the scary reality in front of
him. He backs away, and then runs, but
he is pulled backward onto the train.
Harmony backs away from Spike.
Everyone is trying to avoid facing painful realities by going back to
where they feel safer and more comfortable.
Below are some
lines from the song that plays while Dru & Spike are dancing (If You Forget Me, Devics):
You
think you can have both of them and I want you to know,
That
I'm in, I'm in,
And
this time I'm staying to bury the trail that you left, you left,
And
if I was cold, well then you would stay inside me, warm me,
Here
I'm safe so here I stay,
Lift
me out, lift the doubt.
It’s tempting, to try to stay where you
feel safe, and
to not let anything upset your sense of normality. But it’s not only Dawn that Buffy should have
been worrying about, when it comes to maintaining a sense of normality. Buffy
is being truthful when she tells Joyce that she can’t imagine how she might
have given Spike the wrong signals. She
really has no conscious idea. But take a
look at these exchanges:
SPIKE: “I got a bit of info you might be keen on
knowing.”
BUFFY: “Sorry, all out of cash. Why don’t you hit on – hit up Giles.” (Nice Freudian slip there, Buff.)
And later, in the
car:
BUFFY (to Spike): “So if you’re not
doing this for the money, why are you-?”
Buffy is worried
about Spike’s willingness to help without submitting an invoice. But it was Buffy who first suggested that
Spike should help her without the usual exchange of cash:
From Checkpoint:
BUFFY: “I need your help.”
SPIKE: “Great.
I need your cash.”
BUFFY: “I’m serious. You have to look after them.”
It was Buffy who
first openly moves the relationship from business to personal (SPIKE, to
Buffy: “Two people, in the workplace -
feelings develop.”) But now, in telling
Spike to hit up Giles for cash, she’s doing quite the little back step. So her unconscious, at least, is aware of the
dance she has been doing with Spike. In
fact, that same unconscious drives her to continue the dance, since she quickly
accepts Spike’s proposal to help with the train murders, gratis.
But it’s Buffy’s conscious
mind that’s at all the major controls.
So dark and dirty desires to the contrary, at the end of this episode,
Buffy revokes Spike’s prized and long-standing invite into the Summers' home. She
may not see very well in the darkness, but she still knows right from wrong;
she hasn’t lost a speck of her ability to see in the light. She decides that she’s not about to let this remorseless
killer another inch closer to her or her family. With his cattle prod and chains and death
threats, he has given her more than enough reason to conclude that he has no
idea when or how to stop.
That part’s easy – understanding that Murderer plus Obsessed
Stalker equals Time to Lock Your Doors.
But the big picture is complex, and part of what this episode examines
is the ambiguous nature of goodness. It
does so mostly through the soul/chip debate and the related Spike and Angel
comparisons.
“Angel’s different. He has a soul,” says
Buffy to Dawn. “Angel was good!” says Buffy to Spike. But the unequivocal tone of her staunch
declarations are more about the way Buffy sleeps through the night, than they
are about Angel’s actual, complex, two-sided nature. We are deliberately reminded of that duality:
The message, I
believe, is this: Only you can make you
good. A soul doesn’t make you good, and
a chip doesn’t make you good, and love doesn’t make you good. You have to want to be good. And a soul is needed to provide the inner
resources to support that independent desire, to provide the ability to both
understand the value of goodness for its own sake, and to recognize right from
wrong. A soul will give Spike the tool
he needs to achieve his unconscious desire to return to the light, independent
of the chip, or Buffy, or Dawn, or anyone else.
A soul will allow him to “know when to stop,” all on his own.
But again, a soul
can’t make you good, and it can’t make temptations any less tempting. Angel has a soul, he feels remorse for his
past crimes, and he can distinguish right from wrong all on his own. But he is not perfectly good. Buffy may not be able to see his dark side,
but Angel feels it, and he grapples mightily with his demon - and he doesn’t
always win.
Only you can make
you good, only you can say yes or no to the temptations in your path.
What’s building
inside Spike is a desire to be good, which will eventually become an impetus to
acquire the independent means to do so (a soul.) At the end of this episode, though, it all
seems to have fallen apart before it’s even begun. Spike’s small and shaky beginning has been
very thoroughly destroyed by his own, ubiquitous
Olaf. But as we can see in The Bronze,
with enough effort and investment, it’s possible to rebuild - even after Acts
of Troll. Let’s look forward to the Grand Re-Opening.
Spicy Extras for James Marsters fans:
***
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