Like a Cheeto

Episode 5.7: Fool For Love. Original Airdate 11.14.00

"After being bested in a fight by an ordinary vampire, Buffy asks Spike to explain how he killed two Slayers many years earlier."

Daniel's Thoughts:

• Yeah, so I don't love this ep as much as most people do.
• 80s vamp!
• Buffy got stabbed! Oh no!
• Lucky Riley was there.
• The hospital wouldn’t have to call Buffy's mom. She’s not under 18. I don’t understand why she won't go there.  I won't shenanigan it.  I'll just contrivance fairy it.
• Buffy:“Not until you are never.” Heh.
• How have Xander & Willow not been killed by now?  Seriously, they're awful at this.
• It's such a philosophical season but not in a mopey way like season 6. Buffy is realizing and not for the first time that she will die. And not necessarily by a big bad but by something that could be so insignificant.
• William the bloody...awful poet. I love it.
• Effulgent.
• Kali Rocha as Cecily! Soon to be….someone else.
• Hey! Angel and Darla! And a set of what London might have looked like one time. …
• Dru is a poet, too!
• They use the word glory a lot…I wonder if that's on purpose.
• Hey! A set of what China might have looked like one time.
• I like Spike’s Boxer Rebellion hair.  It's so much better than his Billy Idol hair.
• One slayer dead. Somewhere another Slayer is rising.
• Dru looks so creepy in that white dress. She looks creepy all time…
• Really? Guy punches a girl in the gut in a bar and no one’s going to intervene?
• That is not how a NYC subway looked in the 70s…and there should be way more graffiti. Especially on the outside.

There should be way more graffiti, the ad placement is all wrong and
the most obvious thing that's missing is the metal (straps) that you hold. This is clearly a 90s/00s subway.

• Spike: “Death is your art.” No….Death is her gift.
• Stop crying, Spike. Wuss.
• The Chaos demon is awesome.

I love the dripping antlers.

• I just don’t get making Spike sympathetic after all the people he’s killed including 2 slayers.  That's why I don't like this episode.  It's the beginning of the end...

Zelda's Thoughts:

• Parking lot! Do a shot!
• Oh noes Buffy got impaled on her own stake!
• Riley to the rescue! Thanks Riley!
• Um ... the next time we see them is Riley bandaging her at home in like broad daylight? So they waited eight hours to treat her? That's ... why isn't Buffy dead from infection?
• Poor Buffy, so embarrassed to be taken down by a regular vamp. And Riley, exercising terrific tact by not drawing attention to it, but asking her questions calmly.
• Buffy should really stop making jabs about people being short. Dawn's gonna outgrow her soon.
• "When do I get to patrol?" // "Not until you are never."
• Parking lot again.
• Is Willow's sweater pink and fluffy? I can't tell with the lighting. It might be maroon. I'll give her a pass. Because I'm feeling lazy.
• Um, I think Willow and Xander are being pretty out of character with their terrible patrolling technique. I kind of want to call a shenanigan. In fact, I will. This is way too out of character for the sake of a joke.
• "Blah blah oops she's dead."
• Continuing the arc of Buffy wanting to better examine her legacy, this time trying to understand why she almost lost the fight, and why past Slayers have lost their final fights.
• "I suppose if they're anything like me, they just found the whole subject too - " // "Unseemly? Damn. Love ya, but you Watchers are such prigs sometimes." // "Painful, I was going to say." BRB ALLERGIES. [Such an amazing exchange. -D]
• "Slayers. You killed two of them." His hesitant "I did." Where is this going, wonders Spike.
• Okay so here's what I like about Spike's backstory (hint: it's not his wig) - we see that he has not always been bad, as he claims, but that it's a carefully crafted persona - first the lower-class accent, the new name, then the scar, the hair, the coat - it's all an assembled character he's put on to compensate for his weaknesses as a human. I talk about this more in that essay I'm working on about Spike vs. Angel, which you'll get to see ... at some point. But this narrative appeals very strongly to my affection for identity stories, about building yourself, becoming yourself, about choosing who and what you are, right down to changing your name if you feel like it (did I mention Zelda's not my given name?)
• "It's a perfectly perfect word as many words go, but the bother is nothing rhymes, you see." His posh accent is adorable.
• Aw William, step away. He really should just take the hint. Cecily is super not interested. I don't actually think she's cruel to him - she's blunt because she has to be. Because he's not getting her attempts at polite deflection.
• "I know I'm a bad poet, but I'm a good man." Is he though?
• "I do see you. That's the problem."
• Saying he's beneath her - maaaybe a bit cruel. But he wasn't hearing her. She had to make him stop.
• Oh hai Angelus, Darla, and Dru's backs. Love that subtle shot (mirrored in the Angel episode Darla, where we see him crash into them from the other angle)
• Dru's the first person who (he thinks) recognizes his soul (so to speak) (womp womp)
• And then he dies in the most undignified way ever. "Ow. Ow OW OW OW." 
• Oh god. DB's horrific Irish accent.
• It's so baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.
• "What's a Slayer?" Love at first ... threat?
• "If you're looking for fun, there's death, there's glory, and sod all else, right?" I've always really loved the cadence of this line.
• While I like that both Slayers were shown in the flashbacks are women of color, we should also point out that they die pretty quickly.
• Chinese Slayer's fighting style is awesome.
• And she's dead.
• This is probably the first time Spike's shown any kind of real dominance in his relationship with Dru. He's seemed, in past and future scenes with her, to be largely submissive, at least when she's at full power. This is further emphasized in flashbacks on Angel the show.
• I like that Angel's ambiguously unthrilled reaction to finding out Spike killed a Slayer, is revealed to be because he's already got his soul but is fighting against it, in the Darla episode. The craft behind the crossover flashbacks of these two episodes is really impressive.

Spike hops in the air. He hops. Nothing says badass like hopping, amirite?

• Um. Riley's got a bit of the crazy eye as he goes back to kill the den of vampires.
• "The question isn't how'd I win, the question is why'd they lose?"
• I love this thing Spike does with spinning the pole/cue. It just looks cool.

• And the cutting between the subway fight and his speech to Buffy, when he - in the subway, while strangling Nikki - speaks to a Buffy he can't see. It's just cool. Macabre but cool.
• "Every Slayer has a death wish." Okay but I don't actually think that's true. And I don't think it's true for Buffy. She doesn't go seeking death - and she never has. When she finally chooses to die, yes there's a relief but it's not so much from the fighting as it's from everything else, especially her mom - but it's mostly about Dawn - about not being willing to give that up, too. Anyway, I don't think she has a death wish. So while this episode was a really cool exploration of Spike, it didn't actually offer much insight into Buffy's character - just perhaps a foreshadowing to the end of the season.
• And he tries to kiss her and awwwwwwwwkward. He's always associated violence with sex. She hasn't really. Faith, yes. Buffy? Sometimes she craves a nonfat yogurt afterwards.
• "Say it's true. Say I do want to. It wouldn't be you, Spike. It would never be you. You're beneath me."
• Ugh JM is such a good actor though, you guys. When he's covered in the crumpled bills, and starts weeping before swallowing that. I just ... and this is one of my favorite things about The Good Wife, by the way, a show you guys should all watch - I love when you can see characters thinking. When you see can see them go through several thoughts/emotions, before they decide which one to act on. Alan Cumming is amazing at this skill. So is James Marsters.
• Dru looks so pretty in this flashback. It's cool to see how they actually broke up, that it was about Buffy even then.
• NO NO NO NO NO JOYCE NO.
• Buffy's trying so hard not to cry, not to show her fear, in front of Joyce.
• And there's his crush taking over again. He's all set to kill her and he sees her crying, and not fighting him. And he's terrible at it, but he tries to comfort her. Spike's awkward attempts at growing and changing.

Favorite Lines:

Daniel: Xander: What's with the hand move? Does that like mean something? // Anya: It means to follow him. That, or wait here for him.

Zelda: "The King of Cups expects a picnic ... but this is not his birthday." - Dru

Arc/Continuity Stuff:

• Recurring: Joyce, Harmony, Drusilla, Angel(us), Darla
• Crossoverness: This ep shares some flashbackiness with its partner episode on Angel, "Darla."
• Spike's killing of two Slayers is further explored, as is his turning by Dru, the history of his nickname "William the Bloody," and the history of his coat and scar.
• Look, it's the chaos demon Dru cheated on Spike with! All slime and antlers!
• Joyce continues down her headache of nope path.

Stats:

Anya's Hair - shoulder-length, curly, honey-blonde

Dead Humans - 0

Dead Undeads - 5

Dead Flashbacks - 2

Giles Unconscious - 0

Giles Cleans His Glasses - 0

Buffy Breaks a Door - 0

Evil Reveal - 0

Unevil Reveal - 0

Shenanigans Called - 1

Apocalypse Called - 0