Seeing Red

[thebratqueen]

Once again I come into this feeling like there's not much I can say that wasn't said already.

I liked the episode, I may as well say that first off. I think this harked back to the days of season 3 Buffy and the "filler" eps that still kicked ass and did more than just hold a space in the primetime lineup for the sweeps eps. Of course this was a sweeps ep but shut up. I'm enjoying my delusions.

I think what I liked most about this episode was the subtlety of it. We had layers of grey here that we haven't seen since Joss was at the helm. I'm kicking myself for not remembering who wrote it (was it Steve DeKnight?) but both the writer and director deserve credit for keeping the anvils to a minimum and trusting that the audience has a brain.

The brief comment - Andrew as gay, very well played. Kudos.

The longer comments - the rape.

Obviously this was a rape scene. Regardless of what you may think of it this is an ep that aired when Marti "Willow was sexually assaulted by Rack" Noxon was at the helm so this was attempted rape, and as Buffy said only "attempted" because she stopped him.

What I liked about the scene though was the fact that it was well handled. Here's what I mean. Buffy and Spike had a fucked up relationship. That was established from the get-go, and I'm defining the get-go as the musical. Spike sang to Buffy that she was using him, Buffy sang back that she couldn't feel anything but he made her feel stuff so let's get physical. Their entire relationship, such as it was, never changed from that.

The rape scene then was the culmination of the problems of the both of them. Spike's a dysfunctional boyfriend. Yeah he loves Buffy but he's a vampire and doesn't have "normal" boyfriend urges. As he told Buffy, he believes in the love that burns and consumes. Spike wants love like he had with Dru - fuck and hurt each other like bunnies, and if somebody tries to break up with you torture them until they come back. This is how Spike works (and it ironically makes him a safer vampire than Angel because Spike knows he works like this. Angel pretends he's a good guy who just gets too hands-on sometimes. Spike never pretends he's anything but bad.).

So Spike is not a healthy guy to start with, at least by mortal standards. Obviously Dru was fine with him for over a century.

Then on the other side of things we've got Buffy, who refuses to take responsibility for her actions and who passive-agressively puts the blame for the relationship on Spike. I loved how right up until the very end she was still jerking him around. Case in point, Spike asking why she didn't have him killed and her giving the answer of "You know why." That's not an answer. For all her protests that they were through (where apparently her real hurt was that he fucked one of her friends, which is a strange thing to be hurt by if you don't give a shit) she's still not committing to the breakup. Which ties in nicely with Clem's later casual comment of "did you two break up again?" - note "again". And note too how many times Buffy initiated the sex between them.

Bringing this up to the rape scene then, I therefore found it very believable that their fucked-up relationship ran its fucked-up course. He's a monster, she jerked him around, and in a strange way I can actually see the drug addiction metaphor because I can't help but feel that Buffy was something of a functioning addict who got her ass spanked by a drug dose that was too high, or was impure.

Note - I'm not saying she deserved to be raped. What I am saying is that she was in a dangerous situation which proved to be - guess what? - dangerous. And what's nice to me is that at no time did I feel like the show was trying to tell me that this is what happens when you engage in kinky sex (BDSM games between them being separate issues), or that this is what Buffy had coming to her or that Spike was unable to help himself or anything like that. It was, as I say, nicely nuanced and grey.

I think it adds another layer of interest to remember that she's stronger than Spike is. Yes she was hurt at that particular moment, but she wasn't hurt before he started touching her and I think in a way that's symbolic of how she had the power to really end this relationship the whole time and never took advantage of it. Much like with Warren once he had the orbs - she never had a reason to pull her punches. So why was she? I'm reminded of Angel's beige arc last year and why sleeping with Darla represented his rock bottom (for more than the obvious reason than that it was sex with Darla ;) )

I know some people are bitching about how she played the attack down after the fact, and saying that if Spike doesn't get staked it's going to be a betrayal of what the scene stood for, but honestly I'm fine with it. Reason being that I got the feeling that Buffy understood that it was a sick pas de deux that she and Spike were playing that took a very sick turn for the worse but fortunately stopped before the real damage happened. Had he actually raped her I'd be on board for the fact that she would have and should have ripped his head off with both hands. But he didn't, and ultimately couldn't (again see also "Vampire" and "Vampire Slayer") so really the horror here for Buffy wasn't so much the fact that Spike was a nasty guy who does nasty things - she knew that going in - but that she had willingly gotten herself into this mess.

Again I'm not saying "led him on and deserved to be raped" but "didn't tell the sick guy to fuck off and therefore the sick guy didn't fuck off".

Pulling this back to the addiction metaphor, I think this for Buffy was hitting bottom. Let's compare it to Willow for a sec - Willow got addicted to magic but stopped using magic because it made her friends stop nagging her. She never stopped using magic because she believed she was an addict. Ditto Angel - he acts the good guy because it makes people shut up. He has yet to admit he's still evil deep down because he likes being evil deep down. Neither one of these characters is truly in recovery.

Buffy, then, was IMO not unlike an alcoholic who doesn't see why they can't have a few social drinks and get buzzed. Well the reason why is because she can't handle it (Spike is evil, not some dumb thing she can play with) and because she might do something while drunk that hurts herself and/or someone else (Spike attacks her in the bathroom).

Metaphorically speaking, then, the attack was to Buffy what the car wreck was supposed to be for Willow (and appropriately written too - Marti Noxon take note, the relationship was fucked up so it stayed in the relationship. Buffy didn't get spanked here by, well, getting into a car crash), except I think Buffy's actually going to take this to heart and do a proper recovery this time and not the "never again.... go to Spike's house and slap him around."

And if it looks like I'm talking a lot about Buffy here it's not because I'm not holding Spike responsible. It's just because for me Spike is a cut and dry issue. Evil vampire, remember? I especially liked how back in his crypt he was muttering both about not being able to believe he did it and not being able to believe that he stopped. There's Spike in a nutshell right there, going all the way back to season 2. Spike's an odd kind of vampire. He can love, but he's also soulless. This worked out well with his fellow vampires, not so well when mortals come into the equation. So ultimately Spike's been true to himself the whole time. Props there.

Sadly though, I'm somewhat dreading the final eps because Marti Noxon has one coming up and she has no ability to grok depth or nuance and moreover has the mistaken impression that she's a feminist who writes Buffy as a strong heroine. I think there we're going to see the betrayal of this scene that everyone's dreading.

Two nitpicks - Admittedly I didn't like that Buffy resorted to pleading during the attack. I know she was stunned but has she ever pleaded? Even Angelus couldn't get that out of her. The only vaguely "pleading" moment I can think of is the musical where she said "Give me something to sing about" and even then she was pissed off about it - it was a challenge, not a whimper. I would've preferred that she yelled more.

Also I didn't like the commercial in the middle. I think that cheapened the scene and added a level of "Dun dun DUNNNNN" to it that screws up people's abilities to judge the emotions. This isn't like Spike in Willow's dorm room from season 4 where we needed a break because the tone was going to change. Plus the implied concept of "Does Buffy get raped? Stay tuned to find out!" is way too mercenary for my tastes. If you're doing a rape scene and claiming that you're doing it with respect then treat it with respect. I can't help but feel that if Joss had directed this he would have kicked in skulls rather than let a commercial break interrupt this. (Likewise he wouldn't have done that After School Special closeup on Buffy covering her bruise).

But these are minor quibbles in an otherwise good ep. And Marti Noxon aside, I'm looking forward to the finales.