Reviewed by Sanguine

Dead Things, by Steven S. DeKnight, was one of the finest hours of television I have ever had the pleasure to watch. Quite possibly, it was also the best episode of BTVS, bar none. Not even Buffy driving the sword through Angel's heart in Becoming, Part 2, or Joyce's death, or the brilliant and catchy songs of Once More with Feeling could compare with this episode. Dead Things demonstrated once and for all (for anyone who didn't quite get the message before) that humans, even those who seem innocuous, are capable of great evil. And even our heroine, our deeply flawed heroine, struggles against her own darkness.

As do we all.

The episode is an examination of Buffy and her relationships--her strained friendship with the Scoobies; her failed attempts to be a good sister and mentor to Dawn; and finally her extraordinarily complex affair with Spike. The dynamics of the latter relationship are brought into sharp focus, as DeKnight compares and contrasts Buffy's behaviour towards Spike with the Troika's attempts at mind control and rape.

"You always hurt the one you love."

The episode begins with the sounds of passionate sex. The camera pans over Spike's crypt, which is in a state of disarray. Apparently, Spike and Buffy have been rather enthusiastic in their lovemaking. At least she's gotten over her Doublemeat Palace induced apathy. Finally the camera finds the pair of lovers, and Buffy comments wryly, "We missed the bed again." Buffy actually seems happy. Content. Buffy then compliments Spike on what he's done with his crypt, his attempts to make it more hospitable (and perhaps unconsciously, his attempts to be more human). Spike considers Buffy and asks, almost hopefully, "Are we having a conversation?" At first Buffy denies it, but eventually admits that they were, in fact, talking. This is a step in the right direction. It's rather hard to objectify someone once you actually begin to talk. You might even make the dreadful mistake of feeling an emotional connection. Buffy does not back off, even though, as Spike astutely observes, talking usually instigates a round of kicking him in the head, followed by her "run[ning] out, virtue fluttering." But this time she doesn't leave. Spike revels in her continued presence. He tells her she's amazing. He tells her that she's the perfect lover; she makes it "hurt in all the wrong places . . . I've never been with such an animal."

This last observation disturbs Buffy. Suddenly, she's not in such a chatty mood. She doesn't want to be an animal. She doesn't want to enjoy violence. She doesn't want to have a lover who enjoys pain. She doesn't want to have dark impulses. She doesn't want to enjoy sex with Spike. But she does. She is not normal. And Spike knows it, and she knows it.

She came back wrong.

She came back so wrong that she has allowed herself to trust an evil vampire, trust that he won't kill her, even though he could. She lets him see her--all of her--even the really bad, secret stuff that no one else knows. And he doesn't leave. She literally trusts him with her life. But she can't admit that. Spike holds up a pair of handcuffs. "Do you trust me?" he asks.

"Never," she says. But it's not true. She knows Spike would do anything for her. She knows he is her willing slave. He's made that choice. And she's taken full advantage. As long as he's a thing to her, she's safe. Her heart is safe.

The scene then cuts to the three geeks. Warren has come up with an evil new plan. He's created a cerebral dampener--the mystical equivalent of rohipnol. He gleefully tells his friends, "With this baby we can make any woman we desire our willing sex slave." But their slave wouldn't be willing. Her agency will be stripped away from her until she is nothing more than a human version of a sexbot, a warm pulsating body with no free will. But Warren doesn't care. He just wants his love back. He wants Katrina.

"You always hurt the one you love."

Warren goes to a classy wine bar and tracks down Katrina. At first, he tries to talk to her, but Katrina is not in a forgiving mood. "So, I've made a few mistakes," Warren admits.

"No," Katrina responds. "I did. For ever lowering myself to be with a jerk like you."

Warren, like Spike did last year in Crush, decides to take the easy way out. She won't believe his protestations of undying love, so on to the violence. But he doesn't incapacitate Katrina with a cattle prod, chaining her up to the wall. He doesn't rob her of her physical mobility; he does something much worse. Taking the cerebral dampener from his pocket, he robs Katrina of the thing he loves most--her personality. She becomes a thing to him--a thing that he will use for his own pleasure. He dresses her up, makes her say the things he wants to hear: "I never should have left you, master. I love you, master." But it's not real. She's not real. Her words are hollow because she doesn't have free will. She's not choosing to say these endearments. She's just a thing. She's so much a thing to Warren that he's willing to share her sexually with his friends, his friends to whom this escapade is but another campaign in their twisted role-playing game. For Andrew and Jonathan it isn't real, either. They're just playing at being supervillains; they aren't really evil.

That's about to change.

Katrina snaps out of the spell and regains her agency. She chooses not to be there. She is disgusted by her ex-boyfriend's behaviour. "You bunch of little boys playing at being men. Well this is not some fantasy. It's not a game, you freaks. It's rape." And Katrina is absolutely right. It is rape. Jonathan and Andrew look horrified at what they might have done, but when Warren commands them to restrain Katrina, they are no better than "things" themselves; they ignore their consciences, succumbing to peer pressure. Even after Warren brutally murders Katrina, both Andrew and Jonathan suppress their guilt, deciding that self-preservation is more important than doing the right thing.

Back to Buffy.

Buffy arrives home from the Palace, completely exhausted. She wants to spend some quality time with Dawn, but it's too late. Dawn is going to Janice's house. She has found a mother figure outside the home. Buffy is obviously avoiding her responsibilities. She is spending a lot of time, as Xander presciently puts it, "slinging the Doublemeat and pounding the big evil." Out of guilt--guilt that she is not being a good friend to the Scoobies-- Buffy decides to try and be the carefree girl she once was, before she had to "kill" Angel, save the world multiple times, be a mother to her sister. She decides to go to the Bronze.

But at the Bronze, she feels alienated, estranged. She can't go back to being normal. She isn't normal. She can't just dance and have fun like any other girl, because she isn't any other girl. She's the Slayer. And she has dark appetites. Those appetites lead her to the balcony of the Bronze. Wistfully, she looks down at her friends, dancing, having fun. On cue, Spike finds her. He always knows where she is, metaphorically and literally. "You see? You try to be with them, but you always end up in the dark with me. What would they think of you, if they found out? All the things you've done."

Spike is playing a dangerous game. He's stimulating Buffy's darkest impulses. He realises that her affair with him is a rebellion--a rebellion against responsibility, an escape from her life. He also realises that he knows her more deeply than any of the Scoobies ever have. He knows her darkness. He accepts it. He knows she craves it--craves him. As he takes her, he commands her to "Look at them. That's not your world. You belong in the shadows. With me. Look at your friends and tell me you don't love getting away with this. Right under their noses."

And she does. Love it. Getting away with it. But it is a guilty pleasure; it reinforces in her mind just how wrong she is. Because the real Buffy, the old Buffy would never have done such a thing. The old Buffy didn't love the shadows; she tried to walk in the light. But Buffy is beginning to realise that the Slayer always must walk in the shadows. It is her nature. What she hunts, what she desires, only comes out at night.

Later, Buffy seeks out Spike in his crypt. Spike senses her presence, is drawn to her, but there is a closed door between them. The song that accompanies this scene reveals further information about their tortured relationship:

"Are you drowning or waving?
Just want you to save me [the camera rests on Spike's face]
Should we try to get along [close-up of Buffy]
Just try to get along [Buffy, then Spike]
So we move, [Spike]
We change by the speed of the [Spike opens the door to his crypt] choices that we make,
And the barriers are all self-made [Spike scans the cemetery for Buffy]
That's so retrograde."

Spike opens the door--the barrier--and tries to find Buffy. But she's gone. She's walking through the cemetery, muttering the mantra, "Don't think about the evil, bloodsucking fiend. Focus on anything but the evil bloodsucking fiend." As long as he's a fiend, she doesn't have to admit that he loves her. She doesn't have to feel guilt for using him. Like Warren did to Katrina, she robs him of his agency, denies his free will. He's just a willing slave. Nothing he feels is real. But it's getting harder and harder to convince herself of that.

Buffy's thoughts are interrupted by a scream. She runs to the woman's aid and engages in a fateful fight. Spike joins her. Time is out of joint. The Troika trick her into believing that she's killed Katrina. Buffy is frantic, overcome with guilt. Spike is frantic, desperate not to lose the woman he loves. "I'm gonna sort this out. Trust me," he says.

Trust him.

He tells her to go home. Buffy trusts him and does as she's told. She curls up, safe in her bed. Soon, Spike joins her. "It's all right, love. It'll be our little secret." Buffy kisses him. She wants to forget. All of it. But Spike isn't really there. Buffy is dreaming.
[Flash]
Buffy rides Spike, looking down at her handcuffed lover. They are now in his crypt, an appropriate place for a dead thing.
[Flash]
Buffy hits someone. Once again she is on top. But it's not Spike. It's her innocent victim. It's Katrina. Katrina is handcuffed, like Spike. "Do you trust me?" Buffy asks. Katrina smiles with pleasure. But her expression changes. Is it pain? Sexual release?
[Flash]
Spike is now on top. Sex in the crypt, the restraints are off.
[Flash]
Buffy hits Katrina.
[Flash]
Buffy looks down at Spike. He is sleeping. Helpless. She lowers the stake.
[Flash]
Katrina is dead with a stake through her chest. She lies in the same position as the sleeping Spike. Her eyes open, and she looks accusingly at Buffy. These eyes are an unnatural cerulean blue.

Buffy wakes up. She feels guilt. Not just for killing Katrina. But in her heart, somewhere, she thinks Spike is her victim, too. Will she eventually have to kill him? Will she want to? As long as she believes he's evil, he's not real. His feelings aren't real. But if he's not entirely evil, then how can she go out every night, killing his kind? Is she a murderer? Has she always been a murderer, a killer, no better than an animal?

Buffy wants the guilt to end. She decides to turn herself in. She informs Dawn of her decision, but Dawn sees her action for what it is--another way of escape. Nevertheless, Buffy is determined. But luckily, so is Spike. He is her Watcher now.

In Season 3, Faith killed a human by mistake. Giles decided not to alert the police; Faith was already unstable, and she was being punished enough, the Watcher reasoned. A Slayer is fighting a war, and sometimes there's bound to be collateral damage.

Like Giles, Spike is a pragmatist. The ends justify the means. Besides, Spike isn't plagued by a conscience. Making his otherness visible, he shifts into vamp face as he confronts Buffy. " . . . how many people are alive because of you? How many have you saved? One dead girl doesn't tip the scale." For him, it is all quite simple: it was an accident and Buffy doesn't deserve to go to jail. Perhaps his actions are somewhat selfish; he can't bear to lose her. Not again. He loves her, even though he has tried not to.

Buffy can't accept him--the reality of his love, his moral pragmatism: "That's all it is to you, isn't it? Just another body." She hits him forcefully, putting him in his place, with the trash. "You can't understand why this is killing me, do you?" And she's right. He doesn't understand. It's against his nature. He's a soulless vampire. He doesn't have a moral compass. But . . .

"Why don't you explain it?" Right. Spike doesn't understand, but he's willing to try. If someone would only help him, maybe he could grow to understand Buffy's guilt. Maybe Spike could be a better man. Like the song said, he needs her to "save" him, to show him the way.

Unfortunately, Buffy is not in the mood to explain anything. She continues to beat him and Spike accepts the thrashing: anything to stop her from turning herself in. "That's it," he encourages her. "Put it on me. Put it all on me." I can take it, he's telling her. My words can't comfort you, but I can do something else for you. I can allow you to use me. To beat me. To treat me like a thing if it makes you feel better. "That's my girl."

Buffy explodes. She's not his girl. What kind of person would she be if she were the girl of someone like Spike? What would that say about her? In retaliation, Buffy does something unspeakably dark and violent and ugly. Viciously she knocks Spike down, straddling him, denying his words, denying his agency, denying him. "I am not your girl," she rages. "Evil." She mutters between blows. "Don't have a soul. There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside. You can't feel anything real. I could never be your girl." Is she talking about Spike or is she talking about herself? Perhaps both. Buffy hates herself. She hates what she has become. At the same time, she can't accept the truth; that Spike is not absolute evil, that he does genuinely love her. As if to reaffirm his humanity (and to increase the viewer's sympathy for Spike), Spike morphs into his human face as Buffy continues to pummel him with her fists. Finally, Buffy stops, looking down in horror at her lover's mangled face--her brutal handiwork. "I . . ." she gasps.

Spike looks up at her, smiling slightly. Once again, he has endured torture to save her. "You always hurt the one you love, pet."

Spike is right.

Fleeing the scene of her actual crime, she enters the police station. The man at the desk receives a phone call and Buffy overhears the name of the dead girl, Katrina Silvers. Suddenly, Buffy understands. She didn't do it. She tells the Scoobies what happened and her suspicion that Warren is behind the whole thing. Willow wonders how she can be sure. Buffy ruefully replies, "You always hurt the one you love." Buffy should know. That's why Buffy is so terrified. That's why she has to believe that she came back wrong. It's the only way to explain the feelings--the wrong, immoral feelings--that she's having for a soulless vampire.

But at the end of the episode Tara informs her that she didn't come back wrong. Buffy is just fine. There's no escape from what she's done. Tearfully, Buffy comes out of the closet to Tara, and reveals, what in Buffy's mind, is a sick perversion: "He's everything I hate. He's everything that I'm supposed to be against." But she can't stay away. She begs Tara to not tell anyone. She is frightened of what her friends might think, if they knew--if they knew what she is really like.

Tara is shocked, but supportive. She of all people understands Buffy's predicament. She asks if Buffy loves him, and tells her it would be OK if she did because "He's done a lot of good and he does love you."

Buffy looks ashamed. She's not ready to admit her feelings for Spike, but she already told Willow the truth: "You always hurt the one you love." But at least she finally takes responsibility for her hurtful behaviour. She knows she's been using Spike, objectifying him, refusing to believe that he could possess real emotions, refusing to accept the consequences of her actions, accepting his offer to be her "willing slave." "What's OK with that?" she asks Tara.

"It's not that simple," Tara replies. Tara's right. Unlike Katrina, Spike knew what he was getting into. He chose this path for himself. He may want all of Buffy, he may not want to settle just for sex, but he can't stay away from her. He's (unfortunately) willing to completely subjugate himself to her.

But Buffy knows that even if Spike accepts her abuse, it's still wrong. "Tell me that I'm wrong," she begs Tara, sobbing. "Please don't forgive me." Buffy doesn't feel that she's worthy of forgiveness. She doesn't think there's anything "good or clean" in her. But by admitting her guilt, Buffy has taken the difficult first step on the road to redemption.