- Spike is back – Decision-making – Spike’s journey – Two foursomes – Conclusion – Spicy extras for James Marsters fans -

This episode is so much fun, I hate to squeeze all the joy out of it with too much pondering. So promise me, the minute you start to feel too pondery, you’ll quit reading. Lovers Walk should always be fun, first and foremost.

This episode is about choices, about how to use our hearts and our brains to make them. All our characters try to identify options, compare and contrast them, tap into their own feelings and beliefs, and then make decisions. We all do this everyday, but for our Season 3 regulars, this is no ordinary day. Everybody’s lives and relationships are challenged when Passion comes roaring into town in the form of Spike. Dumped by Drusilla, he’s drunk, angrier than a hornet, and wildly out of control. Look out Sunnydale: The heat is on.

Buffy, Angel and the Scoobies have many unresolved feelings and issues simmering. With his blood over brains, love over logic, instinct over intellect philosophies, Spike and his fiery presence cause boil over, and everyone’s cover is blown like the lid off a pressure cooker. Images of fire and burnt objects underscore Spike’s role – most notably, the sunlight sets Spike’s hand ablaze. He’s the King Midas of Fire.

At the beginning of the episode, the Scoobies are comparing SAT scores – i.e., measurements of their brain capacity. The words "brain", "head", "crazy" and similar words are used over and over in the episode, underscoring the use, or the lack of use, of the intellect. We learn that Cordelia is a "brain." Buffy calls Joyce’s college-talk "crazy talk." The Mayor wonders where "his mind" goes these days.

Spike indicates the low esteem in which he holds the intellect by threatening to shove a broken bottle right through to Willow’s brain, and by telling Joyce that the fact that Dru was "out of her mind", was what he "liked most about her." He spies on Angel, and we watch Angel feed his intellect by reading Sartre, while Spike feeds his rage with angry comments and booze. Spike later tells Willow he wishes Dru had "cut off his head" or "set him on fire." And, of course, he expounds further on his "Fire good, Head bad" philosophy by telling Buffy & Angel (who are claiming to be just friends):

"You’re not friends. You’ll never be friends. You’ll be in love till it kills you both. You’ll fight, and you’ll shag, and you’ll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you’ll never be friends. Love isn’t brains, children – it’s blood. Blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be Love’s bitch, but at least I’m man enough to admit it."

Immediately following this insight, Spike picks up a jar and says, "Hmmm . . . Eye of Rat." Yes, even a rat can have a good eye, now and then. Spike is suggesting here that we are all slaves to our hearts. He is saying not only that we cannot control what the heart wants, but that ultimately, we have no choice but to follow our hearts.

But though Spike is right about Buffy & Angel being in denial, this episode is not about people as puppets to their blood and biology. With Spike’s disruptive arrival acting as a catalyst and background, Buffy, Angel and the Scoobies struggle to make decisions, even as their minds and hearts are pulling them in different directions (e.g., College? Or Angel?). Their decision-making is affected by several factors:

THE ADVICE OF OTHERS: Everyone is giving everyone else advice. The episode is chock full of such scenes. Joyce and Giles have high academic expectations of Buffy and advise her to attend college. The Mayor’s assistant advises him on how to deal with their "Spike problem." The ever-gracious Joyce makes an attempt to give an inebriated and inconsolable Spike advice on his love life. Our decisions and behavior are influenced by what others think and expect and advise us to do (except for Spike, who does it his way).

PRESSURE: People don’t just give advice; they subtly or unsubtly exert pressure on others to make particular choices. Sometimes the pressure is self-inflicted, like the pressure Willow puts on herself to have unrealistically high SAT scores. Sometimes it comes from others, like Joyce’s low-key but non-stop college talk to Buffy. We see the concept of pressured decision making reflected most strongly in the many images of male sexual aggression. The men apply the pressure; the women have choices to make – for example:

• Oz gives Willow a little red-haired PEZ witch, and calls it a theme present. Let’s see, the PEZ witch dispenses candy, right? When Willow says she has nothing to give him in return, he says, "Yes you do" in an unmistakable tone. Uh, Oz? What’s the theme here? Willow looks conflicted as she realizes what he’s expecting.
• When Buffy gets ready to leave after a brief but cleavagy visit to Angel at his place, he says to her, "Where are you going? You just got here. It’s early." Ladies, show of hands . . . how many of you have heard this before? Angel is not consciously planning seduction; he’s still firmly in denial about his real desires. But his classic coaxing indicates his true, albeit unconscious, state. Despite Angel’s charms, Buffy decides to leave.
• Spike strokes Willow’s hair, goes into game-face, and tells her "I haven’t had a woman in weeks" – obviously expecting sex. Willow boldly goes with the assumption that she has a say in the matter, and firmly says no. It works – drunk and miserable, Spike backs down.

ASSUMPTIONS: Assumptions affect decision-making. Buffy and the others make assumptions based on the evidence of their senses and their past experiences – some examples:

• Xander’s past experience with both Willow and love spells allows him to correctly and quickly assume that Willow is doing a love spell, not a chemistry experiment (though his experience leads him slightly astray here since the supplies are basically the same – it’s really an anti-love spell).
• Buffy looks over the scene in the chemistry lab and realizes there has been a struggle and Xander & Willow are likely hurt and/or kidnapped. She decides to send Oz and Cordy to get Giles, while she looks for Xander & Willow.
• Buffy is talking to her mother on the phone, when she hears a man’s voice in the background say two words: "Hello, Joyce." That’s all it takes for Buffy to recognize Spike voice, assume he’s up to no-good, and decide to rush home.
• Oz sniffs the air and assumes that Willow is frightened and nearby.
• Knowing Spike, Buffy assumes that Xander and Willow are probably locked up at the Factory. Her guess is right, but because her friends’ lives are at stake, she can’t take a chance on it.

Relying on unchecked assumptions can be a very risky way to make decisions. Interpretations based on past experience can mislead us, and outward appearances can be deceiving:

• The look on Buffy’s face tells Xander that her SAT scores must be low, when in fact, they are high.
• Buffy tells Giles that Joyce’s "head spun around and exploded" when she saw the SAT scores – and the wise Giles, due to his experience on the Hellmouth, feels compelled to check his seemingly safe assumption that the image is metaphorical.
• The Mayor’s assistant, Allan, knowing the Mayor, believes him when he comments that he might want to sell Allan’s soul for a better golf game. The Mayor reassures him that he’s only kidding.
• Because Spike appears harmless, and Joyce’s past experience is that Spike has helped Buffy while Angel has tried to hurt her, she makes the dangerously false assumption that she is perfectly safe with Spike, and Angel should not be allowed in to protect her.
• Angel has also misinterpreted the tableau however, believing Joyce to be in immediate danger. Like The Mayor with Allan, Spike enjoys toying with Angel’s unfounded fears by pointing to Joyce’s neck and striking bite poses behind her.
• After she is impaled, Cordy says: "Xander? I can’t see you." And she becomes completely still. We then cut immediately to a funeral scene. Based on our experiences with TV dramas, and judging from outward appearances, we assume that Cordy is dead. But ME is just funnin’. Why should we viewers miss out on the lesson about what happens when you ASS-U-ME?

THE OPTIONS AVAILABLE: Identifying the options available also plays a part in decision-making. Buffy has brochures for many colleges. Willow asks Xander, "Any suggestions?" when she’s trying to figure out how to make their feelings stop. Spike is trying to come up with options for dealing with his pain – let’s see – curse Angel with boils? Dripping pustules? Or leprosy that makes his parts fall off? Or wait – he’s got a better idea – a love spell to make Dru crawl back to him! Cordy presses Buffy to choose between the ideas she comes up with to explain Xander & Willow’s disappearance: "You’re having too many ors! Pick one!" Upon learning that Spike has trapped him in the Factory with Willow, Xander asks her: "So, what are our options?"

VALUE JUDGEMENTS: To decide what (or who) is best, and to set our priorities, people compete with one another, and they make measurements and comparisons. The episode starts with everyone comparing their SAT scores. Later, Xander, Cordy, Oz and Willow make plans to go on a double-date, and to compete against one another in bowling (An aside: Some interesting foreshadowing dialogue here: Xander to Oz: "Prepare to be crushed!" and Willow to Oz (about Xander & Cordy), "They don’t stand a chance!") Multiple comparisons, value judgments, and/or references to measurement and competition are made in every scene. Listing them all would require repeating nearly every other line of dialogue. I’ll stop short of that and provide a few examples – look for the rest and you’ll never stop finding them:

• Xander (to Willow): "The fact that your 740 Verbal closely resembles my combined score in no way compromises your position as the village idiot.
• Buffy: "Giles, you pack like me."
• Spike (to himself, directed at Angel): "Yeah, I’ll show you who’s the cool guy. You’re goin’ down."
• Magic Shop owner: "Raven feathers tend to breed a little more discontent than canary."

UNDERSTANDING WHAT THEY REALLY WANT: In listening to advice, responding to pressure, making assumptions, identifying options and making value judgments, our characters are, for the most part, using their brains to try to come to a decision. But the brain, we have already learned, is not an entirely reliable instrument all on its own. You gotta have heart. What are your instincts telling you? What do your feelings say? With Spike’s fiery hand stirring the pot, our characters come to some realizations about feelings: Xander & Willow kiss and are discovered by Cordy and Oz; Buffy realizes she’s been fooling herself by believing she and Angel could be "just friends."

But when we see the devastated looks on Cordy and Oz’s faces as they discover Willow & Xander’s indiscretion, we understand that for all its romantic appeal, Spike’s blood over brains philosophy can be wildly selfish. Note that being Love’s bitch doesn’t make Spike any good at loving - he is concerned for no one but himself. He doesn’t care what Dru wants, and he doesn’t care whom he hurts. He makes a frightened Willow listen to his sob story, and he cuts off Joyce when she begins to share a story about herself. Spike is Passion – but he’s Passion without a conscience, without reason, without morality, and without restraint.

Spike’s journey in this episode is an interesting one. He starts out "weeping, crawling, blaming everybody else," and ends up deciding he just has to go back to being "the man I was, the man she loved. I’m gonna do what I shoulda done in the first place. I’ll find her, wherever she is, tie her up, and torture her until she likes me again . . . Love’s a funny thing."

Spike is taking responsibility, and in its own perverse way, his new plan – unlike the love spell – now takes Dru’s desires into consideration. Within the context of their twisted, soulless lives, it sounds like it might work. But like Buffy’s epiphany about needing to stay away from Angel, Spike’s resolve is not going to last. The psychically insightful Dru was right when she left him:

Spike (to Willow): "It was that truce with Buffy that did it. Dru said I’d gone soft. Wasn’t demon enough for the likes of her. And I told her it didn’t’ mean anything, I was thinking of her the whole time."

Spike will make one last stab at trying to go back to who he was, to avoid what Fate has in store. But the seeds are planted, and tiny and ungerminated though they may be, Spike will never again be the man (the demon) that he was. He has gone soft. Lenny, his former lackey, tells him he’s heard Spike has gone "soft as baby food." As it did in Season 2, the sexual imagery around Spike combines the traditionally male symbols of violence, brashness and dominance with ones of impotence, femininity, and submissiveness:

• As we watch him in the Magic Shop – as he turns a hunter’s eye on Willow – he shares nearly half the screen with a leering, garishly painted, androgynous-looking wall hanging in the forefront of the shot.
• He calls himself a "bitch" in the same sentence in which he calls himself "man enough".
• He weeps and he talks endlessly about love, even as he rages and fights very effectively – and joyously - with his fists.
• He talks about Dru as if he owns her ("I’m gonna get what’s mine!"), and extends this domineering attitude to Willow when he asks if Xander minds if he "borrows the little girl." But he is also clearly dependent on Dru: "I’m nothing without her!"

Nothing. Hardly the first or the last time Spike will be referred to, or refer to himself, as Nothing. Listen to this exchange: Spike (to Willow): "What are you staring at?" Willow (scared, but looking right at him): "Nothing." Or listen to Buffy, telling Giles to relax about leaving her for a few days, even though she plans to see Angel: "Nothing’s gonna happen."

But Spike happens, and everyone’s world is rocked. Think of the episode as basically featuring two foursomes. Willow, Oz, Cordelia, and Xander will be Group #1. Spike, Dru (much mentioned, but in-absentia), Angel, and Buffy are Group #2. And let’s compare and contrast the members of our Foursomes, and what happens within our quadrangles.

• Group #1
: Xander & Cordy’s good times in the past are represented by pictures in Cordy’s locker. Group #2: Spike talks about past good times with Dru when he sees the bench on which they had killed a homeless guy together.
• Group #1
: Xander guarantees Cordy "fun" if she goes along with plans to double date with Willow & Oz. Group #2: Spike insists to Angel & Buffy that their fight with Mr Trick’s vampire committee was great fun.
• Group #1
: Willow decides to deal with her love life problems with a de-lusting spell. Group #2: Spike decides to deal with his love life problems with a love spell. (Both are desperate and looking for an easy way out; both are willing to tamper with the feelings of others without their consent).
• Group #1
: Xander & Willow try to give everyone the impression that they are just friends. Group #2: Buffy & Angel do the same, and they are fooling themselves as well. We learn that when she dumped him, Dru told Spike – much to his sorrow – that they could still "be friends."
• Group #2
: A scene which includes Spike, Buffy & Angel literally crossing lines (a big white line that appears at the intersection in front of them as they come around a corner, and then the yellow crime scene tape at the Magic Shop) is followed immediately by a scene (Group #1) of Willow & Xander figuratively crossing the line as they kiss – and are caught by Oz & Cordelia.
• Group #1:
After their discovery, Oz immediately says: "We have to get out of here." But Cordy runs up some rickety stairs, crashes through, and ends up impaled on a pole. Group #2: When Spike, Buffy & Angel are trapped in the Magic Box, Buffy says, "We need to get out of here!" Like Cordy, Angel ends up getting hurt (when a door lands on top of him).
• Group #1
: Despite animosities and tensions, Cordy’s impalement calls for everyone to pull together. Xander runs to tend to her, Willow tells her to hang on, and Oz goes to get help. Group #2: Spike, Buffy & Angel are also in a bad situation that requires them to work together, and look out for one another, in order to fight the vampires trying to break in to the Magic Shop. When it’s over, Buffy tends to Angel, who is still hurting.
• Group #1
: Xander & Willow are to blame for Cordy and Oz’s heartbreak. Group #2: Spike blames Angel & Buffy for his breakup with Dru. (Dru walked).
• Group #1
: After it’s all over, Xander goes to visit Cordy, who tells him to stay away from her. (Cordy walks) Group #2: Buffy goes to visit Angel, and she tells him its over. (Buffy walks).

So . . . Cordy gets hurt, Angel gets hurt. The scene where Buffy visits Angel immediately follows the scene where Xander visits Cordy. Willow tries to fix her love life with a spell; Spike tries to do the same. The big difference here is that Cordy’s boyfriend, Xander, is attracted to Willow, and vice versa. They give in to that attraction. Whereas Angel’s girlfriend, Buffy, tells Spike she "violently dislikes" him, which, we all know, is completely different from being attracted to him (even if the supplies are basically the same). And though Spike had an alliance with Buffy that bothered Dru, he very clearly states that "it didn’t mean anything" he was thinking of Dru "the whole time."

So despite the various parallels being drawn, Buffy hates Spike, and Spike couldn’t care less about Buffy. Given outward appearances, and what we’ve seen in the past, surely it is safe to assume that Buffy & Spike are NOT attracted to one another, and will never do anything as wild and abandoned as Xander and Willow do in this episode. Yes, I did notice that during her "double-date" with Angel and Spike, Buffy stacks two vampires up, one in front of the other, and stakes them both at once - right through the heart. But foreshadowing? That’s crazy talk.

Spicy extras for James Marsters fans

• Am I seeing things, or does James look especially drool-worthy in this episode? He’s asking for LEPROSY of all things, and all I can do is nod, thinking: "Yes, yes, let’s get him some leprosy immediately!" - while my eyes stay glued to the TV, and I could drown flies in my open mouth. This episode is when I begin to wonder if I am developing a serious illness. I would seek treatment if it didn’t feel so good.
• As Chair of Ebulgeometrics for the VHISN, my heart nearly stopped when I heard these words uttered by Spike in this episode: "How thick do you think I am?" My attention was immediately riveted to the screen. At last, I thought, some answers!! But though Buffy looks like she’s going to take a guess, she apparently decides not to do so. If Angel knows anything, he keeps mum. And alas, Spike doesn’t say another word about it.
• Oh the trash in that car! Yes, you can tell Dru is gone, and he’s made that long drive from Brazil alone and half-crazed.
• How great are the performances given by James and Kristine S, and James and Allyson H? "Got any of those little marshmallows?" - "She sounds very unreasonable." - "I’ll shove this right through to your brain!" – "There will be no having of any kind with me!" Really wonderful. This cast is the best unrecognized cast in the biz.
• Buffy tells Angel that she can fool everyone but Spike, "for some reason." And we see that Buffy figures Spike out pretty easily as well – she quickly guesses where he has her friends hidden. Buffy & Spike have a strong emotional connection - in this episode, Buffy tells him she "violently dislikes him." Yay Spike! You’re up a rung from "I hate you!"