Better get the usual crap out of the way first…

• Buffy’s making long speeches: tick.
• Buffy has trouble fighting: no.
• Someone questions Buffy’s ability to make difficult decisions: tick — Giles and Robin.
• Flashbacks: tick — Plenty of Spike related ones.
• Modern Weaponry: no.
• Poke test to check for corporeality: no.
• Anya’s sole line: “Spike has some kind of get out of jail free card that doesn’t apply to the rest of it. I mean, he could slaughter a hundred frat boys … Forgiveness makes us human, blah blah blah.”
• Andrew provides comic relief: tick — Mistakes Fred for a guy.
• The First does something: no.
• Strange behaviour by the gang: blood dripping from Robin’s hand. Robin takes off his metal gloves.
• Getting it on: tick — Spike and Drusilla.
• Best quote: “You want to bring your mum with us?” — Drusilla
• Biggest gripe: so many repeats to keep Buffy and Angel aligned correctly.

Everyone’s got mother issues in this episode. They should all go to counselling except they probably can’t afford it.

Giles, while acting for the greater good, takes a big risk betraying Buffy. I dislike Spike as much as Giles does and can see the danger in keeping him around. I’m sure he’s still quite capable of commiting evil deeds. The chip was useless towards the end and I haven’t seen much evidence of this much-flaunted soul of his. Unlike the rest of the vampires, there is little difference between souless Spike and this season’s souled version. It’s been a gradual change over the past couple of seasons during which the vampire part of Spike has faded into the background before he got his soul back. There was no Angelus-like significant character change when Spike was resouled, but there’s a difference when Spike is sired so I’ll let it go and chalk it up to differences in character and the effect of the chip.

That being said, Spike probably shouldn’t be killed. He’s clearly devoted to Buffy, follows her orders and is a good fighter — which the group needs. Aside from that, Giles should let Spike be, for much the same reasons that Gandalf thought that Gollum shouldn’t be killed. Just because he’s partly evil doesn’t mean he won’t be able to help save the world in the end. Speaking of parallels, Robin reminds me of Holtz. They both want to avenge a family members death and kill a vampire with a soul.

Giles seems to be trying to make more hard decisions for Buffy but it’s only going to get him shut out of Buffy’s life — rather symbolically pointed out at the end. Giles would be better off trying to organise the gang to be more prepared for things to come. Buffy’s far too attached to Spike and too stubborn to accept Spike’s death as necessary.

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Wednesday, July 30th, 2003. It concerns such pressing issues as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.