Buffy loses a fight with a vampire and finds herself staked. Seeking insight into how she could be beaten, she turns to Spike to find out how he killed two Slayers.
Really a long-awaited Spike episode than one about Buffy, this is part of a semi-crossover with Angel, showing the times the paths of Angelus, Darla, Spike and Drusilla crossed and the violence and evil they spread in their heyday. But the main player here is Spike, naturally. Seeing that he hasn’t always been evil and the miserable life he lived before his conversion to vampire is rather touching as we get to see what he could have been, and how he was influenced in his brash outlook by how badly he was treated or ignored by those around him, even getting the idea of using railway spikes as a method of killing from something one of them says.
It’s good that the series is using its past and revisiting it, something that hasn’t really been done much for the last couple of years and was quite frequent in season two. The origins of Spike have long been overlooked, and seeing how he fitted in with the other vampires gives him a new dimension. It’s good to see him fighting again too, and his battle with the earlier Chinese Slayer is tremendous. His later Seventies battle isn’t quite so well done, mainly because the woman playing the Slayer doesn’t seem to be moving very well. His present day scenes, however, are nicely played as he becomes increasingly frustrated with his inability to hurt Buffy, culminating in a final scene that is wonderfully poignant, especially knowing what Spike was like before.
Meanwhile, the other plotlines going on are good fun, with the rest of the Scoobys going vampire-hunting and Riley showing what he’s made of. Simple but effective, there’s a great camaraderie between them, especially when Riley attempts to lead them without anyone else understanding his hand signals. A good synthesis of good elements making a very enjoyable story.
****
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