It's been a long time since Buffy the Vampire Slayer made me cry. I got a bit sniffly in Lovers Walk at the ending montage, with the haunting guitar music and the sad faces and how tormented everyone was, but shed no real tears. The last times I really broke down and cried were both related to Buffy's killing of Angel -- when she ran the sword through him in Becoming, and when she finally confessed to Giles and Willow what she had done.
It was that latter episode I went to the more I thought about Beneath You and the more I rewatched this exquisitely painful and beautifully written episode. Buffy's explanation in Faith, Hope, and Trick keeps coming back to me: "So I told him I loved him, and then I kissed him and I killed him." I've used this as a .sig for years because it's always been one of my favorite lines on the show, but it carries an echo into Beneath You, resonating, in me at least, in a way I hadn't expected.
In BY, it's like we're seeing the death of the old Spike. Whoever he is has been replaced by someone else; maybe, in his madness, a lot of someone elses. Buffy kissed him (had the sexual relationship with him) and killed him (made him destroy that part of himself he hated for hurting her and not being what she wanted) metaphorically, and just a little bit literally. The only thing missing is her love, but Spike's love for Buffy was never in question.
In BY, we watched Spike veer back and forth between William and Spike and someone else entirely, someone created in the dark spaces of his insanity. His attempt at the old Spike, wearing the "costume" of the blue shirt (and how very fashion forward of our favorite vampire -- the three-quarter length sleeves, short midriff, tight fit, all very Versace. Who knew insanity and souledness would help you find a tres chic style update?) and slicking back his hair a little and keeping his voice modulated still couldn't hold it all together well enough, and the battle with the different aspects of his personality (or personalities) is one he may not be able to win. The quiddity of Spike as we knew it is gone, no matter how hard he tries to pull it all together.
And all because of love, because he had to kill what he was before so he could earn Buffy's love. As if the love of the Slayer is what destroys, what has to destroy, because the vampire and the Slayer can't be. It's so wrong that the law of the universe seems to be saying: one side of these unnatural pairings must suffer -- and in this universe, it's got to be the side of evil, the vampire side. This lends it a wonderfully, operatically tragic quality.
His confession to her of having a soul also mirrors Buffy's confession to Giles and Willow in FH&T. The act of unburdening oneself of something terrible, of seeking absolution from a confessor, links to the use of the church at the end scene, even though it was probably not specifically supposed to be a Roman Catholic church. Buffy confessed not to a sin, but to the all-consuming guilt and recrimination that was slowly killing her inside, that had forced her to hurt others by running away. She had been in the dark and alone all this time, and had sacrificed her great love in order to save the world. Spike confessed to Buffy what he had done for her, what he had done to be loved, in the dark on the edges of the church, moving back and forth into the light and the dark, slowly unburdening himself of the secret that was destroying him, but also adding a new and terrible burden on himself, and showing her just how much more he was willing to sacrifice of himself. His mea culpa was asking for rest and for absolution now. Buffy was able to absolve herself and in doing so bring Angel back; Spike needs absolution from Buffy and the others before he can bring himself back.
The religious imagery in the show was very interesting, even though I'm not a believer in any religion, personally. I found the image of Spike draped over the cross to be agonizing in its own right, even without the significance of the pose and the iconography. I've heard a lot of people talking about it as a crucifixion -- however, his pose there wasn't really cruciform, but, as he says, resting. Jesus carried the cross that he would die upon up the hill , and I couldn't help thinking of that as Spike rested his face and torso against it -- Spike isn't carrying the cross that he will be crucified on, he's resting on it after his own internal emotional death, hoping it will hold him up and help him even while it punishes him. He may welcome the punishment.
Earlier in the alley as Spike talks about the destruction of the world that's coming, there's his cruciform pose -- arms outstretched for quite some time, standing open and vulnerable. It's almost like a dramatic setup to the scene that follows it in the church. Is it just the ramblings of a madman? Or is it a vision of someone who now can see things others can't, because he's suffered for them and sacrificed for them? This is a potentially fascinating image that could hold significance for Spike's redemption in future episodes. Earlier when he spoke with Buffy, he also indicated he's aware of things others aren't -- I'm curious to see now how far ME takes this. Is he a prophet or a madman? Can he be good and still be Spike-like (we see a glimpse of his old sarcastic bitter self)? What is the essence of his nature now and what has his sacrifice left him?
I've heard some people griping about the casualness of the conversation between Spike and Buffy on the street, talking about the attempted rape. I actually found this to be one of the more profound and powerful scenes they've done -- having been in a strangely similar situation before, I didn't think it was out of line at all, especially not with their characters. Spike is barely holding himself together, acknowledging what he did with a resigned acceptance, and confirming that he can't even find the vocabulary to describe the enormity of his actions. And underneath her removed demeanor, I felt Buffy was acknowledging that she despised what he did while also knowing that on both sides there were plenty of recriminations to go around.
If she'd seen it as solely the act of a rapist, she most likely wouldn't have stopped Xander from trying to go after Spike in Seeing Red, and she would never have asked about him in Villains. She wouldn't have let him back in her house, putting an uninvite spell on it instead, and she would never have walked out alone with him. She knows about the ugly, ugly truths that led to that situation, and to me the terseness of their conversation was a way that both of them could say: this shouldn't have happened, it was very wrong, and now it's time to move on.
If this sounds a little like "hate the sin, love the sinner," well, there you go. This may be a kernel of what is happening between both of them now, with the imagery of sin and guilt and atonement as the foundation for the spiritual and emotional development of both characters as they come to terms with what Spike's ensoulment truly means for the future of both their relationship and the world.
Which gets back to the final scene in the church. I'm dying to know how they can move on now that Spike's madness and his soul is fully revealed to Buffy. Her tears clearly indicate she understands the huge sacrifice he's made for her. For the first time, she's forced to recognize just how much he did love her, and just how badly he suffered for it. There is no way at this stage she can remain blinded to it, no way she can pretend the epiphany of this action hasn't occurred to her. I made some blathery posts about the concept of agape -- spontaneous, altruistic love, love of a higher power (God) -- on a couple lists, but it's the thing I keep coming back to each time I watch this scene, and I can't seem to shake this notion from my head.
I think that Spike went to get the soul to earn Buffy's love. But I think that even in doing so for a singular purpose he was also attempting to achieve a larger goal, of simply being loved at all. We've seen since Fool for Love, maybe even since he first showed up in School Hard, that he's extremely unusual for a vampire in his loyalty and love and his openness to the human world. He wanted to fit in with the Scoobies once he was chipped, because he wanted to fit somewhere, and this was the most likely place for him as he was trapped both within and without his worlds. He can't be a monster or a man, but he desperately wanted to fit somewhere, and so he molded himself to fit within the Scooby Gang's world, even if it didn't want him or accommodate him.
And in the end, he wanted to be loved for who he was, for his struggle to be good when it was against his nature, for his efforts to become someone else who could be loved openly and completely. He didn't get that from anyone, especially not from the one he loved the most, so he sacrificed himself. Even though he said that Angel hadn't warned him about everything, it was clear that Spike knew he was going to get a pretty bad bargain for doing this. He knew there were no guarantees, knew he would suffer. Obviously he didn't know how much, but he did this of his own volition, and he did it in a way no vampire ever has as far as we know -- to earn the true love, the forgiving, altruistic love he so desperately wants. It's as if he's moved past the point of wanting only a romantic or sexual love into needing something far, far greater. When he shouts to the sky "Isn't this what YOU wanted?" he's not talking to Buffy anymore, he's already said he did it because it was what she wanted; there, he's railing against what he's come to believe God must have wanted him to do.
The way he prowls around the church, in and out of the darkness, indicate that's what he's struggling with internally as well -- he is both within and without again, fitting nowhere, seeing too much of either side. He wants to fit, he's said so -- not just with Buffy, but with the world around her.
I admit, I wasn't keen on the soul. I wanted him to earn Buffy's love by overcoming his nature through his own free will -- I loved him struggling with who he was, and had hoped that they would let him overcome it in his own way, with his free will intact. But looking at it through Spike's eyes, he would know that no amount of overcoming his nature, no amount of good or right, would ever make them forget he didn't have a soul. The entire gang was fixated on the demon=bad, souled human=good thing, especially Buffy, and he could never get past their views on that. So he did the only thing left to him -- to become what he mustn't be, and suffer for his sins.
And as for Buffy? It would be easy to write her off -- I'm certainly seeing that happen everywhere I look. She didn't act when he began to burn, she hasn't ever apologized for the horrible beating in Dead Things, etc. But the end of BY proved to me that there is considerably more in her feelings for Spike and her connection to him than she has ever willingly admitted, and she now has an understanding of him that she could never have grasped before.
The greatest tragedy, the thing that really made me weep copiously each time I've watched this episode, isn't the cross scene. It's Spike unzpping his pants and talking about servicing the girl. I can scarcely even think about it, it hurts so much. That this is what he believes himself reduced to -- a sex toy for her, that she could only see him then and in the future as someone who exists to service her, breaks my heart into a million pieces. He once said he was her willing slave, and how apalling is it that she made him worse than that, that she made him lower than a slave, left him feeling so degraded and shamed that he can't even tell appropriate from inappropriate anymore, and begins unzipping his pants to do the thing he believes she wants? The only thing he's good for, even with a soul? Then, when he sees her anger, he chastises himself for thinking that. That was one of the most tragic scenes I've ever come across on television or film, and it's one of the hardest things I've ever had to watch.
But things, I really believe after seeing this episode, are going to be different. Buffy's now walking her talk about being a better person after her speech in Grave. She is trying to redeem her life from season six. And I think now, judging by her shock and horror and understanding of what Spike is and what he can be, she will continue to grow that tenderness and caring and help Spike. At least, I hope so -- I don't know if it's my naïve shippy heart talking, or what, but I felt that her crying over him, over what he's done, finally shows that she gets it at last. If it doesn't manifest itself as romantic love, it will at least manifest itself as the agape kind of love -- something greater, more encompassing, more altruistic and tender and true. All I can do is pray for that, because Spike has done something that deserves forgiveness and love. And if Buffy is what the first slayer told her she was, if she is full of love, then she must show it to Spike, even if it isn't romantic love.
I've seen a lot of speculation that if this is the final season of BtVS as we know it, then Spike will likely sacrifice himself for Buffy or for the greater good against the big evil brewing in Sunnydale. But I don't believe that, and I hope it's not true.
Because as far as I'm concerned, Spike has sacrificed himself already. He sacrificed who he was as the Spike of years past, and now has a different being inside him with a different heart and feelings and desires and love. He sacrificed himself willingly, poignantly, tragically, and grandly so he could give the one he loved what she deserved. He sacrificed himself lovingly. It would be wrong to ask even more of him when he has committed such a significant act and now deserves not just to rest, but to be redeemed and honored in return by real love.