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Smashed (Ep. 6.9)"Tear Down the Wall" Since the beginning of this season, we've seen a growing affinity between Buffy and Spike, starting with Buffy's confession "Afterlife," her willingness to get drunk with him in "Life Serial," and finally to the passionate kisses she visited on him in both "Once More, With Feeling" and "Tabula Rasa." There is only one direction that this trajectory leads... and "Smashed" finally plays it to its logical conclusion. But there are some heavy issues to deal with first, starting with Spike's chip. If it ever stopped working... what would he do? What would Buffy do? . . . Not the graveyard this time - an alley. Buffy turns up to defend a couple from what turn out to be not demons, not vampires, but regular human muggers. She proceeds to beat on the attackers anyway, just for the fun of it... that is, until a well-intentioned Spike shows up to help her and is promptly felled by chip feedback. Buffy teases him about mistaking the muggers for demons (although she had just done exactly the same thing herself) and a mild argument follows, plus a suggestion that they "jump straight to the kissing," to which Buffy rotes she will never, ever kiss him, never, ever again. "You're a tease Slayer, you know that?" he yells after her, not undeservedly, as she walks away. "It's only a matter of time before you realize I'm the only one here for you, pet. You got no one else!" Ouch. Buffy isn't the only one who's alone - at Casa de Summers, Willow mopes around her (and formerly Tara's) bedroom commiserating with Amy the Rat. "What's the matter, Amy? You lonely?" she pet-talks to it. "We need to get you a nice companion rat that you can love and play with and grow attached to, until one day they leave you for no good reason." (This. Is. Disturbing. Willow thinks Tara left her "for no good reason"?) She muses aloud that she wishes she knew how to turn Amy back into a human, then realizes that she does, summoning a scroll with the correct spell out of nowhere. A human Amy materializes on the bed, glances around, and opens her mouth in a hysterical scream. Hooray for Willow - she's no longer lonely. Let's pause for a second - everybody remembers Amy, right? From way back in Season 3, where she was the witch without brakes on that Willow's now rapidly turning into? Yeah, that one. The contrast between Amy and Willow is a fascinating one, and frankly there couldn't have been a better time to bring her back. In Season 3, it was established that Amy wasn't above using magic to get out of doing her homework, but the big concern in her case was less of a problem of ethics than getting outed to the teachers and adults as a magic user (a fear that Xander exploits to get a love spell out of her). Now that Willow is, like Amy, using magic to "help herself" (Tara's very accurate sum-up from "Tabula Rasa"), the focus is different. Willow is not worried about people finding out about her magic use - she's already pretty "out" about all of her lifestyle choices. It's not discovery she fears, or even disapproval, particularly. And she has reason to feel secure - aside from Tara, whose trust was totally destroyed by last week's memory-loss debacle, her friends have, by and large, stayed supportive. No, Willow wants a life with magic because she feels less significant without it. It's become part of her identity, what makes her feel worthwhile as a person. The way she responds to Amy's maniupulative line later in the episode - "maybe you'd rather stay home alone, the way you did in high school" - confirms that Willow doesn't like being reminded of her former geek status. In Season 4's "Restless," this was spelled out clearly when she was stripped of her kool-kid guise in the First Slayer's nightmare. Magic was Willow's way out of the ranks of the uncool, and she's loathe to give that up - even for love. As for current geeks, the villainous supertrio of Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew complete "Phase One" of whatever their master plan is by breaking into the Sunnydale Museum of Natural History (okay, so the town has a college campus, an international airport, and now a museum - not such a small town, really, is it?) to steal a large diamond. Interrupted by a guard, they let loose with a prototype freeze ray - a distinctly comic book-like device - and turn the man into a living ice statue. "He'll defrost in a couple of days," Warren reassures his pals - touching concern for their victims' welfare, especially considering the Scoobies' own wanton resurrecting, spell-casting, and demon-summoning this season. "Smashed" illustrates how Buffy's pals have changed... or not. Willow reminds us of her hacker roots by pulling out a laptop for the first time in quite awhile (and then proceeds to boost her websurfing with magic); Xander, searching through books for the "frost demon," turns out to be reading a Dungeons and Dragons manual. These are hints that the villainous nerd trio is not just a bunch of dorks with big ideas, they are just another version of the Scoobies themselves. And here's an interesting question - is the geek troika really worse because their motivations are purely selfish? Quite a few of Willow's and Xander's actions have been pretty selfish too. Both the Scoobies and the Nerds inhabit grey areas, neither totally good nor totally bad - the line between them is intentionally blurry. When it comes down to a showdown between them, how will we be able to tell who is right? Back at the Summers homefront, Buffy has finally mustered up the courage to initiate a little girl talk with Willow, presumably about her Spike-kissing issues ("You know how we all make choices? Sometimes they're good, and sometimes they're less good?" is her hesitant start), but she promptly abandons the attempt with the appearance of the newly de-ratted Amy. (Their meet-and-greet is hilarious in its deadpan freaked-out-ness: "Hi Amy. How've you been?" "Rat. You?" "Dead." "Oh.") With another resurrected person added to her household courtesy yet again of Willow's magic ("It's late, you should stay here," Buffy offers, "Everyone does.") the concept of getting advice from her girlfriend suddenly has less appeal. Buffy may also be feeling a bit outdone - "The whole Amy, rat, Amy thing ... No way I'm topping that," Buffy glums and shuffles off. For once, she can't trump Willow for shock value. Vigorous vampire kissing aside, Buffy is steadfastly holding onto an image of herself as a good girl, no bad thoughts, no, never, even though she looks increasingly like Lolita in her in pigtails and barrettes (no lollipop, though, thank god). It's worth noting that this sort of reversion to childhood is explicitly the reason Giles gave for his leaving her to fend for herself. Buffy doesn't want to grow up; she doesn't want hard choices. She wants her issues clear and easy to understand, she wants pure white and pure black, even in herself, even though she knows that no such thing exists. She knows perfectly well that there is a dark side within herself and doesn't want to face it - least of all the person that's currently making her do so. Spike is the grayest character in the show right now, and as yet, it's not been defined just how much of this is a result of his can't-hurt-can't-kill V-chip and how much is because of internal change. Can demons change? So far the show has been slippery about dealing with this, but this season gives me hopes we'll finally see some of the more nebulous issues explained. For example, are all demons bad? What about Anya? Is the soul thing really the only guarantee of potential good, or is Spike's V-chip a viable substitute - as Dawn put it, "same diff"? "A man can change," Spike tells Buffy when they run into each other while investigating the museum heist. He wants her to believe him - to believe that he can choose to be good. Her response - "You're not a man. You're a thing" - confirms that as far as she is concerned, he can't. No room for argument. He tries to stop her from walking away, to get her to listen - her reaction is to punch him in the face. Frustrated, he hits her back... and the chip doesn't fire. He covers quickly, bluffing pain, allowing her to knock him to his knees. "You're not a man. You're a thing," she repeats, standing over him. "An evil, disgusting thing." As she stalks off, we see an evil smile spread across his face. In "Smashed," we get the first real test of Spike's behavior sans chip, without outside factors to skew the deal (i.e., Drusilla working as an enabler). Fresh from his latest rejection, his first action upon realizing the chip doesn't seem to be working is to seek out some fresh blood. "Look at all the goodies," he murmurs appreciatively, watching evening strollers hurrying to and fro. But if the chip was the only thing holding Spike back from mayhem, after over two years of going without, you'd expect him to approach the task of fanging people like a three-pack-a-day smoker coming off a transatlantic flight, just dying for a fix. Instead, he goes about it like a rationalizing alkie who's already been through 12-step, done the clean-and-sober and has decided, willingly, to jump off the wagon. After all, what's one little drink matter? "Creature of the night here," he menaces a strawberry blonde Buffy surrogate, working on his motivation even as he closes in for the kill. He begins to pace back and forth, firing up a full-fledged monologue voicing his own frustrations and self-doubt. "She thinks I'm housebroken. She forgot who she's dealing with," he rants. He denies having any questions about who or what he is. "Just because she's confused about where she fits in, I'm supposed to be, too? 'Cause I'm not. I know what I am. I'm dangerous. I'm evil." When the woman pipes up that no, he's probably not evil, he refuses to listen. "Yes, I am. I am a killer. That's what I do. I kill." Just as he had the Buffybot programmed to be unable to resist his "sinister attraction," even though he couldn't actually bite or kill, he works hard to convince himself that he hasn't changed, even though he clearly suspects he has. "It's been awhile, but it's not like you forget how," he says as he tries to bite the woman. The chip fires like always, knocking him back. Confused, Spike heads straight to the Buffybot's builder, Warren (presumably the only techie person he knows aside from Willow), to get a diagnostic on the V-chip. It's still working. (It took me a second viewing to realize that Warren has no idea what the chip does, which explains why he could be intimidated into helping Spike - he has no idea that the vampire can't hurt him.) "Everything's different now," Spike murmurs to himself, practically glowing with this new knowledge. "Nothing wrong with me. Something wrong with her." Spike isn't the only one to be testing his limits. With Dawn off visiting Tara, Willow and Amy have decided to make a night of partying down at the Bronze. Amy is no shy, unassuming Tara - she doesn't have a problem going against "the laws of nature." When we first see the pair at the club, they're shooting pool using magic instead of pool cues to move the balls around. Why not? By hanging out with Amy, Willow is trying to redefine her own boundaries - her response to Amy's invitation to go out is, "I can party. Not like I owe anyone anything, I'm totally free." Likewise, when two boys ask Amy to dance, Amy sees no moral issue in using magic to try to drum up a new friend for Willow so she won't be left alone, magically mesmerizing a hot brunette to come over to talk to Willow. It's an indication of how far Willow is gone in the whole gray zone of wrong and right that her negative reaction to Amy's offer of a hypnotized partner seems less a question of morals than simple nervousness. "Totally free" Willow is not all that far in her mental posture from Spike without the chip - there are no issues of tortured conscience here. "No use looking at me like that. It's the gullet for you, mister," Willow soberly tells an olive in her drink. The two guys who'd set their sights on Amy soon fall into the same category when they make themselves less welcome with pushy behaviour and rude comments. The two witches' revenge is to magically zap the them into cages where they dance like go-go boys. Pleased with themselves for this little stunt, the situation soon escalates. In no time at all, they're toying with the other patrons for laughs, turning the dance floor into a fantasyland of magical creatures and whizzing energy. "Something's wrong here" sings the band, until Willow decides she doesn't like the music and changes that too. With Amy to cheer her on, Willow has now moved from learning spells to protect her friends and the world at large to using magic for her personal amusement - the "no good reason" Tara left her for. "I keep thinking... there has to be somewhere bigger than this," Willow says, surveying the dance floor of the Bronze. She wants more. More power, and the chance to do things with it. Not even big things, but small, petty things. Willow's power has gone to her head. "I deserve some fun," she told Amy earlier. She is only thinking of herself. This is frighteningly unlike the tenderhearted Willow of old. At the Magic Box, the core research team has now been reduced to Xander, Anya, and Buffy, who have gathered once more to try to solve the puzzle of the "frost demon." Not surprisingly, Willow and her overuse of magic comes up. With no ideas on how to solve the problem, they fall back on psychoanalyzing. "Responsible people try so hard to be good all the time - when they get a taste of being bad, they can't get enough," Anya states, clearly having read her Freud. Xander follows up with "It's gotta be seductive. Just to give into it. Go totally wild." Buffy promptly overidentifies. "We can't just assume everyone's being seduced," she quavers, her mind clearly somewhere else. (This little peek into Buffy's conflicted psyche is emphasized by her outfit - a weird pairing of black leather maxi-skirt and grandmotherish lace blouse.) The phone rings. Buffy picks it up to greet a strangely growly Spike. "Meet me in the cemetery," he rumbles, all seductive. "Come alone." He wants to know if she's up for a little "grunt work." She gets pretty flustered at this. "No! No grunting...!" she whispers urgently. She hangs up on his suggestive commentary (pointedly more blatant than the vague "rough and tumble" comment from "All the Way" - "you and me... cozy little tomb with a view") and returns to her seat, stuttering through an explanation for the call. Xander and Anya look skeptical, but don't ask. Eventually they wind up their study session and part ways. As Buffy walks through the alley on her way home, Spike appears, blocking her path. "You never showed," he says, sounding both angry and surprised. Coolly dismissive ("what are you gonna do, walk behind me to death?") she attempts to go around him; he steps in her way again with a warning: "you ought to be careful." She smiles, unimpressed, and punches him in the face. He takes the punch, smiles... and punches her right back. "Oh, the pain... is gone," he tells her, face alight with cruel pleasure. Her eyes widen in shock. "Don't you get it? Don't you see?" he sneers. "You came back wrong." In contrast to his earlier sympathy, Spike is now anxious for a little turnabout, riding high on the idea that she's "a little less human," no longer so far above him. They are suddenly on equal terms. Buffy refuses to believe it. "You're wrong, you did something to the chip, it's a trick," she insists. He hits her a few more times to prove his point. She smacks him back. A light seems to come into Buffy's eyes at some point during this, rather like the glimmer of recognition in her face when she fought the Hellions' leader just after she dug out of her grave. She begins to fight back hard, and they trade blows in earnest, slamming on each other like they haven't for years, reverting to the simple dynamic of vampire vs. Slayer. But things aren't simple anymore, and as the brawl spills into an abandoned house, all the tensions between them boil to the surface. Verbal blows now join with the physical ones. He calls her a "poor little lost girl... doesn't fit in anywhere... she's got no one to love." She throws his neutered state back in his face. "Me? I'm lost? Look at you, you idiot... Can't be a human, can't be a vampire. Where the hell do you fit in?" He tells her again that he's in love with her, and she mocks the idea, insisting that he's "in love with pain," that he enjoys being "beat down." Fair enough - we've seen plenty of evidence that Spike does indeed have a large masochistic streak. "I'm supposed to be treading on the dark side," he growls back. "What's your excuse?" This too is fair - love and pain go hand in hand for Buffy as well. The spirit guide from last season's "Intervention" laid this out for her in no uncertain terms: "Love is pain and the Slayer forges strength from pain." Love hurts. They trade more blows, the walls around them nearly reduced to rubble from all the hard impacts. "I wasn't planning on hurting you... much," he says, with a tone somewhere between an apology and a come-on. "You haven't even come close to hurting me," Buffy snarls. "Afraid to give me the chance?" he snaps back. It's at this telling point that Buffy abruptly changes the rules from rough fighting to rough sex. That their sexual encounter literally brings the house down serves more than one purpose. I've seen it pointed out that a house is a traditional psychological model for identity. So yes, metaphorically, with the crumbling house both Buffy's and Spike's identities are crashing into ruins. Neither really knows where they "fit in" anymore. It also illustrates the intensity of the passion unleashed here - Buffy is very strong ("Spider-Man strong," as Riley once put it) which makes you wonder about her relationships with normal humans. Here, joined to a partner who is nearly as strong as she is, the very walls and floor give way. It's also notable that new network UPN is clearly willing to get more graphic than the WB, and the contrast between this scene, which for early prime time is shockingly erotic, and the soft-focus romance of Buffy's deflowering scene with Angel is hard to miss. There are miles of hard road between that innocent girl and the woman who moans as she's pushed up against a wall. Buffy initiates the sex; she kisses him, wraps her legs around him, it's her hand that vanishes out of frame. She is the aggressor. Historically, Buffy has always been impulsive about her sex life; she's made all her initimate decisions on the spur of the moment, even her decision to sleep with Angel. That she chooses this moment to make Spike her lover, during the heat of combat, now that he can push back and match her strength for strength, suggests that, for Buffy, the inherent violence in their relationship is on some level a turn-on. "Admit it - you like me because you enjoy getting beat down" she'd shouted at him, but the flip side is that she's the one who enjoys dishing that punishment out. I'm very curious to see the next episode's morning after: that Buffy will regret her rash decision in daylight is a near guarantee; I'm more interested in Spike's reaction. Although he has a lot of reason to feel pretty smug, I'm almost anticipating a little regret on his part as well - I can also imagine him wishing that he could have made things a little nicer for her, maybe even romantic. At least we know he won't be turning any eviler tomorrow.
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