Season 4

Episode 20

THE YOKO FACTOR: Ring around the collar

By Spring Summers – 01-DEC-03

-Playing with fire - Reaching critical mass – Doing the laundry - Buffy & Spike – Reality and pretense – Riley – Conclusion – Spicy extras for James Marsters fans

Our first scene of the episode-proper begins with Spike flicking his lighter to produce a flame. In The Yoko Factor, just as he did in Lovers Walk, Spike will turn up the heat under simmering tensions, and the whole mess will boil thickly to the surface. Ah, Spike. You are nothing if not bubbling hot.

The tensions in question are amongst Buffy, Giles and the Scoobies - and the boiling-point nature of those tensions is nicely represented by the overcrowded demon cells:

• “There’s nowhere left to contain the hostiles . . . they’re going to start tearing each other apart,” says an Initiative soldier to Colonel McNamara.
• “Things have been wrong for awhile,” says Willow to Buffy, when there is nowhere left to contain her hostilities.

Spike uses his ultra-sensitive nature to determine just how and where to turn up the flame, and he manipulates everyone into arguing with each other. He’s a master puppeteer, getting others to do what he needs them to do. But notice: Spike isn’t just playing others – he’s being played. By Adam. The similarities in the scenes between Adam & Spike, and Spike & Giles, give away the fact that our puppeteer also has strings. Compare:

ADAM: “. . . then why haven’t you killed this Slayer yet?

SPIKE: “Because . . . stinking, rotten luck is why. On top of that, now I got this buggering chip up my head.”

ADAM: “Yes - your behavior modification circuitry. I know what you feel.”

SPIKE: “Not likely.”

ADAM: “You feel smothered. Trapped like an animal. Pure in its ferocity, unable to actualize the urges within . . .”

SPIKE (about Buffy): “Oh, you’ll tell her! Great comfort that. What

makes you think she’ll listen to you?”

GILES: “Because . . .”

SPIKE: “Very convincing.”

GILES: “I’m her Watcher.”

SPIKE: “I think you’re neglecting the past-tense there, Rupert. Besides, she barely listened to you when you were in charge. I’ve seen the way she treats you.”

GILES: “Oh, yes? And how’s that?”

SPIKE: “Very much like a retired librarian.”

In both cases, an underlying feeling of impotence (in relation to Buffy) is being exploited. Do you suppose Adam, in the completely unproven event that he has the means or ability to perform a “chipectomy,” actually gives a hoot about Spike’s chip? Given the parallels being drawn, I suspect not – not anymore than Spike is actually trying to “cut Giles in“ and give him a chance to “pretend he’s in charge.” Everyone’s (even Spike’s) needs and fears and insecurities, - and accompanying caged demons – leave them vulnerable to being played.

The episode piles on images of the way the past shapes the present (e.g., we see Buffy’s old flame, we hear that Riley has had other girlfriends, Spike mentions the two Slayers he killed, etc.). Particularly, we are shown the way resentments can build up over time. Notice the many references to “what’s left” – what’s left over, what’s left behind, what (who) leaves:

• SPIKE (to Adam, about the Scoobies): “Leave ‘em to me.”
• RILEY (to Xander, about Angel): “She cured him. He left.”
• XANDER (to Riley, about Angel’s trigger): “She kinda left that part out, huh?”
• GILES (singing): “If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?”
• SPIKE (finding a bag of blood in Giles’ fridge): “Knew I left one.”
• RILEY (to Buffy): “Xander took my clothes to clean ‘em. Left me these.”
• ANGEL (to Riley): “Put that gun down.” RILEY: “It’s pretty much all I’ve got left. So I’m thinkin’ not.”
• RILEY (to himself): “I’m not leaving this room. I mean it.”
• ANGEL (to Buffy): “I couldn’t leave it like that. The way I spoke to you . . .”
• BUFFY (to Angel): I think the best thing you can do right now is . . . [leave].”
• XANDER (to Willow and Buffy): “No! It was bad before that! Since you two went off to college and forgot about me! Just left me in the basement to – Tara’s your girlfriend?”

There are also continuous mentions of blessings and curses – e.g.:

• ADAM: “What can you do to make sure they’re out of the picture?” SPIKE: “Not a blessed thing.”
• GILES: “Whatever happened to Latin? At least, when that made no sense, the church approved . . . . church approved.”
• RILEY: “It’s not him you hate, it’s the curse.”

And people curse to beat the band, invoking the image of hell, over and over:

• SPIKE (about two Slayers): “I killed the hell out of ‘em.”
• FORREST (to Buffy): “. . . why don’t you get the hell out of here before I–“
• COMMANDO (on phone): “We’re in the alley behind the school building! Where the hell is– Fall back! Fall back! It’s coming–“
• BUFFY (to Angel): “I would really like to know what the HELL are you trying to do?!”
• GILES (in the ep’s funniest moment): “Bloody hell!”

Aside from the cursing & the blessing, there are many references to, and images about, helps & hindrances, love & hate, birth & death, starting (triggering) & stopping, good luck & bad luck, staying & leaving, what is “good enough” & “not good enough,” what is easy & what is difficult, and what is tiresome & what is interesting. It all furthers the theme: Our past informs our present. The outside world, the people in our lives, our experiences, the places we live, they all impact us profoundly.

But there is another important point here: We are not innocent bystanders in our own lives. Yes, outside persons and forces invade us, they get inside: They curse us & bless us and trigger us & stop us and hurt us & help us. But we also make our own choices, amongst all the possibilities, based on our own internal proclivities:

BUFFY (to Riley): “He won’t hurt you. (to Angel) Tell him.”

ANGEL: “Might hurt you.”

We are active agents, willful artists, in the sculpting of our selves and our lives. There is only so much Spike can do; the rest is all up to Buffy, Giles, & The Scoobies. (GILES, to Spike: “Were there any problems getting in and out?”).

The many references to laundry (Maggie’s Walsh’s dirty laundry, Xander doing Riley’s laundry, Spike complaining that his soldier uniform hasn’t been washed) give us another visual: People trying to wash away the effects of the past. If you don’t do the laundry, dirt builds up until its noticeable -SPIKE (to Xander): “You didn’t have these cleaned after last time, did you?”

But our wounds are not so easily washed away – especially when they are denied or neglected:

• RILEY (to Buffy, about his “clown” pants): “I have to recharge them every two hours, or they go dead on me”
• GILES (to Buffy): “You never train with me anymore. He’s gonna kick your ass.”

The hurts, large and small, that have built up amongst Buffy, Giles, & the Scoobies, have been allowed to accumulate, ignored in the laundry hamper, all Season. But they finally come out for a sorting in this episode.

Sometimes, we are affected by the wounds of others, even when we weren’t present for the slicing and dicing: Look at where poor Riley has to live - in the ruins of Buffy’s old High School! Doesn’t look like much fun, does it?

XANDER: “But as post-apocalypse splendor goes . . .”

RILEY: “I’ve done wonders with this place.”

XANDER: “Yeah.”

You have done wonders, Riley. But how long are you really going to be OK, living in the ruins of what’s left of Buffy’s High School? Talk about your metaphors – I’m thinking Buffy’s post-Angel heart looks a lot like post-apocalypse Sunnydale High. And I’m thinking that it’s going to take someone a lot more willing to wallow in the dirt and the muck than Riley, to take the soap and bleach to that place.

And speaking of Spike, why is it that when Buffy looks in the mirror in this episode, she sees Spike? After a fight with Adam, she looks in the mirror and what does she see? An image with a nasty cut over its left brow. What else: We see Spike with a fake gun, and shortly thereafter, Buffy with a real one. Buffy really runs away from a dangerous enemy (Adam), and immediately afterward, we see Spike pretending he’s run away from Initiative soldiers. This suggests two things to me:

• Though it is Spike who seems the destroyer in this piece, it is really Buffy, with her underlying “Chosen One” superiority complex, that is fueling the group’s self-destruction (XANDER: “Oh. And superior! Just because you’re better than us doesn’t mean you can be all superior!”). Spike is right in what he tells Adam: He is Yoko. He just happens to be there. (This episode? I think it’s kind of . . . encrypted. And break a Jossian encryption code on my home computer? Easy as really difficult pie.)
• And that image of Spike as a pretender! There he is, doing what Buffy’s doing, only not really – no, not quite. The gun sure looks good, but it isn’t real. The “running away from” is well-done, but it’s a fake-out. Consider what’s ahead: Spike trying to be good, Spike trying to save Dawn, Spike simply trying to love – only not really, not quite. It’s almost wince-worthy.

The Yoko Factor examines reality and pretense beyond the Buffy & Spike images. References to computers and databanks and mathematics (e.g., The Yoko Factor, “There’s your, what do you call it – variable”) give us an image of the cold, hard, changeless, underlying nature of reality.

But there is cold reality, and there is warm reality. There is the reality not of physics, but the much more malleable one that exists in our own minds and hearts. In that one - though it may not be wise and the truth will always catch up to us - we can attempt to put a little distance between ourselves and the always challenging, and often painful, factual world.

We get several images of people attempting to avoid reality, or to deal with it at a safe distance: Xander mentions “phone-sex,” i.e., people seeking sexual gratification and human contact without having to face the usual risks and consequences associated. Angel suggests to Buffy that “next time” he’ll apologize to her “by phone.” Good idea. That’ll take that nasty edge off. And we see Buffy’s chocolate poster over and over and over – it’s not really chocolate, it’s just the non-fattening suggestion of it.

Refusal to deal directly with, or to clearly see, reality, is very human; we all do it because we fear pain and seek comfort. We all live in our own little worlds (BUFFY, to Angel: “We don’t live in each other’s worlds anymore”). Sometimes, we build some rather wild constructions – notice, for example, the glimpse we are given, through Riley, into Buffy’s version of what happened with Angel. What in the world did Buffy tell Riley, about the curse? To hear Riley talking, before Xander sets him straight, it sounds as if she gave him the sanitized, idealized, Buffy-version:

RILEY: “But to be fair, it’s not him you hate. It’s the curse.”

Huh? Well, no. Angel wouldn’t have his soul, without the curse. It’s Angelus everybody hates, not the curse. Except maybe Buffy. Since it’s the curse that allows Buffy to love Angel, but also won’t allow her love Angel, Buffy just might hate the curse – not Angelus - after all.

RILEY: “Interesting little curse.”

He says this as if he understands the curse. But he doesn’t, not really, not until Xander explains. So what did Buffy tell him? That the Angelus- transformation was triggered by pure love?

Our fears and subsequent useless attempts to manipulate reality, our rose-colored glasses and defensive walls, make us vulnerable to Spike-like puppeteers. We are easy prey to those who would use their crafty abilities to see the truth to their advantage, and our disadvantage. That’s a clear message in this episode: Facing facts and communicating with others – good. Avoiding facts and withholding information from others - bad.

Riley seems, in this episode, to be the only character willing to look painful reality right in the face: He can see that Buffy has lingering Angel-troubles and he asks her for the truth. He steels himself for it; he’d rather know than not know, he’d rather deal with it right up front than ignore it. Willow has been avoiding talking to Buffy about next year’s housing because it would mean facing the reality of their deteriorating relationship. But Riley just dives off the high board, and it turns out well for him – as well as it can, anyhow. Buffy comes as close as she ever will, to telling him she loves him:

BUFFY (about Riley’s worry that she slept with Angel): “Then why with the crazy?”

RILEY: “Because I’m so in love with you, I can’t think straight.”

BUFFY (with glistening eyes, right before they hug): “Tell me about it.”

But in this episode, even straight-man Riley is not what he seems. Deliberate parallels are drawn between Riley and Adam – Riley will lengthen a “skewer out of his arm” as he goes on the attack against Angel, just as Adam does, when he attacks Forrest. Riley will use a stun gun on Angel, just as Adam uses a similar device on Buffy. And at the end of the episode, we see the reason for the similarities. Triggered, it seems, by a moment of pure pain, Riley, upon learning of his best friend Forrest’s death, heads straight for Adam’s lair:

BUFFY (angry with the Scoobies and no doubt referring to Riley): “If I need help, I’ll go to someone I can count on.”

Cut to Adam’s lair

ADAM: “I’ve been waiting for you.”

RILEY: “And now I’m here.”

Poor Buffy. It seems the only thing she can count on in this world, is that there is nothing to count on. Even Willow and her usual crackerjack computer wizardry isn’t coming through for her:

SPIKE: “You’re not exactly the wiz these days either. God, I’m never gonna get paid.”

WILLOW: “I am a wiz.”

TARA: “If ever a wiz there was.”

Uh, oh. Another Wizard of Oz reference. Maybe there is a way out of this mess after all. Maybe, just maybe, there is something underneath it all, in her currently topsy-turvy relationships with Giles and Willow and Xander, that Buffy can count on, in the end.

Spicy extras for James Marsters fans

• Those images of Spike in the sewer-lair scene with Adam are interesting. There’s more of the standard “Spike’s face in the half-light,” but also note the way the light, reflected from the water, plays and jumps around his head.
• I love the way Spike looks in his first scene with Giles – when he’s in Giles’ kitchen telling him “You’re neglecting the past tense there, Rupert,” etc. I replayed this scene several times, just to look at him.
• Spike reminded me of Faith in his quick assessment of the reality of the Willow/Tara relationship. Spike – as clueless as he is about the internal, about his own Slayer-obsession and Adam’s manipulations – is an extremely sharp observer of others.
• James is outstanding in this episode. I love the way he conveys Spike’s true intentions to the viewer, while Spike’s behavior seems to believably conceal those intentions from the other characters. It’s subtle, and very well done, especially the sublime way he adds the funny on top.
• I love the Spike and Xander scene in this episode – it’s Nick and James at their best, playing off each other beautifully, with Emma C adding deliciously to the flavor of the scene. There’s: XANDER: “I have skills! And . . . stratagems. I’ve very . . . help me out.” ANYA: “He’s a Viking in the sack.” SPIKE: “Terrific.” And there’s: SPIKE: “Hey, it was just a laugh, no need to go insane over it.” XANDER: “Is anybody talking to you?” SPIKE: “Sir, no sir!” Hee. So perfect.
• This has nothing to do with Spike, since he isn’t in the scene (except in snarky spirit) but I wanted to comment on how wonderfully done that final scene is with Buffy, Xander, Willow & Giles. “I’ll stay behind and putt around the Batcave with crusty old Alfred here!” “You two are the two who are the two!!” “Fort Dix??” “If I was anymore open-minded about the choices you two make, my whole brain would fall out!” Bravissimo, BtVS writers and cast! I loved it.