Reviewed by Sanguine

Xander, what if I'm really nobody?
Anya, Selfless

According to what we've seen on BTVS over the past few years, one of the most tragic personal flaws is being an outcast. In Fool for Love we learned that Spike, former scourge of Europe and murderer of thousands, was once the Bloody Awful Poet William, humiliated by his fellow Victorians and scorned by the woman he loved ("You're beneath me!"). Presto Vampo. In Seasons 1-3 we saw Willow transform herself from Cordelia's chew toy to powerful witch. Of course we know how that ended (flay, then flambŽ, extra crispy!) And now, in Selfless, we learn that Anya was also the pariah of her village, shunned because of her "crazy logic" and "literal interpretations." This also did not end well, particularly if you're Olaf ("Hide your babies and your beadwork!), a Russian aristocrat, or a frat boy. Yup, being a nerd can lead to all sorts of badness on BTVS.

Selfless, an impressive debut by newbie Drew Goddard, invited the viewer to draw comparisons among these three characters (Anya, Spike, Willow), while simultaneously interrogating the Scoobies' relationship to/with demons. In particular, the critical treatment of the latter issue has been a long time coming.

At the very beginning of the episode, two characters struggle to find their identities: Anya and Spike. Anya, slumped against a wall in a frat house, is surrounded by bloody bodies. "What have I done?" she gasps. Of course, as we soon learn, this question would have been impossible for her to articulate in the days before she had experienced life as a human, life as Xander Harris's fiancŽe. Now she understands the horror of what she has done. Like Lady Macbeth, she desperately tries to wash the blood from her hands, literally and symbolically. But it cannot be removed. She's killed twelve living, breathing people. Regardless of how much they "deserved it," regardless of what they did, she played judge, jury, and executioner. And that's never right.

Anya's essential problem, we learn, is that she has always lacked a clear sense of identity. First, she clung to Olaf, an oafish man who cheated on her with a barmaid. Then, she turned to D'Hoffryn, the patron saint of wronged women, who claimed he could see her true talent. Anya, while seeming confident and self-possessed, also changed her opinion on some very essential issues, depending on her environment. She turned from being extremely charitable, to being a proponent of the wonders of Communism, to being an avid capitalist. She also changed her views on killing. Vengeance used to be her life. She loved her work. Then she hung out with the Scoobs, who generally frowned upon killing humans. After becoming a vengeance demon again, it should have been easy to go back to her old carefree killing ways. But it wasn't.

Similarly, at the beginning of the episode, Spike is also cowering, struggling as William, the demon, and perhaps something less savoury battle for supremacy (or synthesis). He has yet to craft his new post-soul identity. Like Anya, he's selfless, without a cohesive persona, still fruitlessly seeking comfort and help from those around him (in this case, his delusional vision of an ever-effulgent Buffy). After confiding that he's in trouble, a white-clad Buffy responds, "Spike. It's me. It's you and me and we'll get through this." Spike responds pessimistically, "Never." Hmmm. Perhaps Spike is still playing the mad prophet. Perhaps he really is in trouble, in danger of sinking into the comforting arms of Dru (Malevolent Morphy). Perhaps he knows that no matter what he does, neither he nor Buffy will live through this next apocalypse. In any case, the Buffy that he confides in, the sweet, white-clad Buffy, is simply a figment of his delusional imagination. Spike's hallucination reveals his dilemma. He imagines a caring, compassionate Buffy, a woman ready to help him. Unfortunately, this Buffy only exists in his own fevered brain. In fact, this Buffy, the Buffy Spike fell in love with, the Buffy he wanted to be with hasn't existed for a long time. As if to draw an even more vivid distinction between Spike's fantasy of Buffy and the real thing, the actual Buffy walks in, just as Spike cowers in shame from his sympathetic hallucination. Clad all in black (black=bad; white=good!) Buffy wields verbal daggers, cutting into Spike's tender, yet juicy flesh. This Buffy is far harsher and a lot bitchier than Spike's fantasy Buffy. But, in spite of her harshness, in her own brittle, emotionally frozen way she's trying to do the guy a favour. She's actually more helpful than the compassionate fantasy Buffy, although she's not nearly as nice. Spike DOES need to get the hell out of the basement. He does need to stop cowering in the corner. But I don't know if Buffy's Tough Love approach is the best one for the emotionally fragile Spike. I suppose Buffy doesn't have time to worry about such minutiae as a man in pain. She has a world to save and he's still just a demon. So she tells him, "You have a soul? Fine, show me." Spike responds with a strange remark, one that may be a harbinger of much badness. "Scream Montresor all you like, pet." Of course, Spike must have been reading his Poe (indeed, we see a wide array of books on the shelf behind him, which made me wonder if he's been stealing from the school library!). In Poe's story, "The Cask of Amontillado" Fortunato is lured by his supposed friend, Montresor, down into his family's catacombs. But Fortunato has wronged Montresor in some significant way and now Montresor is getting his horrible revenge. Montresor walls his friend up in the catacomb, leaving him to die. As he completes his gruesome task, Fortunato cries, "For the love of God, Montresor." Thus, in Spike's mind, Buffy must be Fortunato, the man walled up, crying fruitlessly to someone who cannot or will not hear (screaming Montresor). Will Spike eventually have to do something horrible to Buffy? Will he have to lure her down to the school basement and erect a wall around her? Or is the wall between them metaphorical? Nevertheless, if Spike is Montresor, then HE is the wronged party, which seems to directly fly in the face of all his post-attempted rape angst. Colour me intrigued.

Willow, on the other hand, is far more inclined to cut the demonic citizens of Sunnydale a bit more slack than her Slayer pal. In fact, Willow is still experiencing an identity crisis of her own. Is she sweet, geekish Willow, begging her professor to let her make up her work, or is she Mega Witch Willow, feeling a bit too much alignment with those denizens of darkness? It would appear she's both. Invoking a mystical shield-thingy around Anya's spider demon, Willow snaps impatiently at the girl she's trying to save, "For God's sake, shut your whimpering mouth!" As the black recedes from her eyes, she immediately apologises for Darth Willow's insulting tongue. Obviously, Willow still has some magic-related issues to work out.

Eventually, Willow does the right thing and dutifully reports the Anya problem to her fellow Scoobies. And we get a long overdue discussion about demons. Surprisingly, it's Xander--a card-carrying member of the I Hate Demons, Especially if They're Boning Buffy Club--who argues that Anya shouldn't be killed.

Sidebar: I used to love the character of Xander Harris. Back in Season 1, I even wanted him to get together with Buffy. Over the years, I've found his character to be increasingly insufferable. But this episode made me like Xander again. He may have been wrong to defend Anya (after all, Anyanka did just murder twelve people), but I appreciated his humanity, his heart. Plus, later in the episode he apologised to Anya and seemed to really understand how their break-up affected her. He has learned compassion and empathy. These are lessons that the Slayer still needs to learn.

Back in Season 5, Buffy undertook a spiritual journey. While hanging out in the desert with a really big cat, she was told by her spirit guide that she should, "love, give, forgive." In Restless in Season 4, she rejected the notion that she needed to eschew her humanity. Speaking to the primal Slayer, she explained the virtues of shopping, sneezing, and good hair care products. Apparently, Buffy needs to relearn these lessons. Sure, she's a warrior. Sure, she has to make difficult decisions. But those difficult decisions don't have to rob her of her warmth and humanity.

Besides the episode in the crypt with Spike, we see other evidence of the hardness that has infiltrated Buffy's heart. After learning that some spider demon has sucked the hearts out of the frat boys, she pauses to reflect on the ickiness for a moment, then asks Willow, "Hey, you get that physics class you wanted?"

Buffy and gang have always engaged in brittle humour to defuse a difficult situation, but this season Buffy's quips, particularly in the context of her other behaviour (take last week for example--her insensitive treatment of Cassie's father), seem distasteful and somewhat inappropriate. She seems to have divorced herself from all emotion over the years: a process that can perhaps be traced back to her having to kill Angel(us) back in Season 2. In fact, Buffy brings the verboten topic of Angel up in her argument with Xander. For years, people have tried to figure out why Buffy is so emotionally closed off. Riley noticed it. So do the Scoobies. And Spike certainly experienced it (and is experiencing it) first hand. Buffy admits how significant killing Angel was for her--the moment where she thrust the sword through Angel's heart, sending him to a hell dimension. After damning her true love to eternal torment, Buffy probably figured that the whole emotion thing was highly overrated. In particular, Buffy seems to have vowed that she would never allow herself to become emotionally involved with a demon again. Physically, sure. But emotionally? Never. So, she can't allow herself to feel anything for Spike (beyond outrage that he could do something for her that her beloved Angel could not) and she can never really consider Anya her friend. Why? Because she's afraid that someday she'll have to kill them. It's dangerous to care about demons.

So, according to the Wisdom of Buffy, Anya's a demon. She's killing people. She knows what she has to do. The Slayer has the power and she knows how to use it.

But, as Xander points out, "When our friends go all crazy and start killing people, we help them!"

Gee, I think I said something like this in my review of Same Time, Same Place. If youÕre a member of the Scooby inner circle, then you get all the compassion in the world. If you are, as Buffy says, "human," you are accorded special rights and lots of forgiveness. But if youÕre a demon, then any crime you commit is mystical and is punishable by the Slayer, who is the ultimate law.

Of course, Buffy is absolutely right when she says that Anya needs to be dealt with. The Slayer should dispose of Anya if she's gone all vengeance-y and is killing people willy nilly. But she could have shown a bit more compassion to Xander. She seemed brittle and cold as she delivered Anya's death sentence. And that's the true problem. The Slayer has lost her humanity.

So, she goes to do her duty, efficient and joyless. But strangely she's forgotten (and everyone's forgotten) how to revoke a vengeance demon's powers (pendant, anyone?) But I guess she doesn't want to kill the human Anya, only the demon Anyanka. Luckily, not everyone resorts to force to solve their problems (or, as D'Hoffryn astutely observes in a witty double entendre, "Isn't that just like the Slayer? Solving all her problems by sticking things with sharp objects."). Willow persuades the Patron Saint of Vengeance to take back Anya's powers. Anya, the demon sans self, sans identity, selflessly requests that her evil deed be undone. D'Hoffryn takes the required penalty (goodbye, Kali--Broadway here I come--Rocha) and voila, everything's back to the way it should be.

Except it's not.

Buffy's still emotionally constipated, Anya's still completely confused about her place in the world, Xander's lovesick and sick at heart, and Spike's still in the basement.

But it was still a damn fine episode, from the grainy, Swedish, faux film flashbacks to the song and dance about the wonders of connubial bliss, from the insane troll to the benign bunnies. It was all good.