Episode Analysis - Bargaining 1&2

(Thanks to rowan1880@yahoo.com for all her contributions to this Redemption Manifesto and to all the members of BAPS who added their ideas)

Spike is finding his own redemption, even if that was nothing that he had wished for, wanted, or would accept if he could have avoided it.

Last week, we saw Spike's true nature once stripped of preconceived notions of what he felt had to be because of his nature. Instead of inherently evil, he was Randy, the vampire who aspired to be noble and do good.

This week, we saw Spike make a stab at reclaiming his status as the Big Bad. But that attempt is as wrecked as the house in the final scene.

Next, we see what will arise from the rubble.

I. Spike's Last Hurrah as the Big Bad

A. Spike has to work himself up to attack the woman. He's trying to hold onto his old identity as evil vampire in an attempt to reinforce the insults Buffy has hurled at him. She thinks he's a thing, so he will act as though he's a thing.

This scene picks up where "Crush" left off. In "Crush," Spike hesitates before drinking from the girl Dru has killed. Now he has to verbally work himself into a lather before he can strike the woman.

If he were truly evil, he would have done less talk and more attack. Of course, if he were truly inherently evil, that would have been revealed in the clean slate of "Tabula Rasa."

The "neutered vampire" thing, though, had definitely gotten to him. He's been Buffy's punching bag, her 'any port in a storm,' her pet vampire but she hasn't seen him. The only way Spike knows to be seen has ever been seen is when he's evil. So she dismisses him, sees through him--it's not a surprise than when he's "freed" he grabs at the evil moniker not for "evil" per se but to be SEEN. To exist to her -- to be her equal. He's challenging her to see him, to acknowledge him. Almost everything he said to the woman seemed aimed at Buffy not seeing him and his trying to construct an identity. "If I'm evil, she'll see me. She'll acknowledge me. I may be her enemy, but I won't be someone she steps on as if he doesn't exist. I exist." That really seemed to me the gist of that moment. It's his deathgrip on his emotional armor "Big Bad."

B. Spike could have killed Buffy during sex: She was totally vulnerable to his attack at that point. He went into the fight without vampface. He never changed. The fight was not about Spike's return to Evil!Spike who wants to kill Buffy.

He fulfills the promise in OMwF and TR: In the Sweet spell, he didn't sing about wishing he had happy meals back, or that he wanted to drink from Buffy's brainstem. He sang about the pain of feeling alive with Buffy and wishing to be dead again. His instinct is to love her, to mate with her, not kill her.

Spike and Buffy are now on equal footing. If he's not killing her, it's because he chooses not to. He's been given the gift of Free Will with Buffy.

Moreover, Buffy knows there would be nothing to prevent Spike from sinking his fangs into her. But she isn't worried about that. She trusts him completely on the most basic level that two people can share.

From this point on, Buffy can ever claim he is still wanting her dead and is just being held back by the chip.

C. Spike does not ask Warren to deactivate his chip, although it seems feasible Warren might be able to disrupt the signal.

D. Spike refers to Buffy being wrong, and nothing being wrong with him since the chip still works: "Everything's different now... nothing wrong with me, something's wrong with her.". Subconsciously, he has accepted the chip as "right." He is not upset it's still working.

When it really matters -- someday when the chip has been deactivated -- he can choose differently. Spike's still in the Labyrinth of Redemption; he's just going to have to backtrack and choose a different path.

From a practical standpoint, of course, ME had to continue to have Spike's chip functioning -- first through the attack on the woman and then confirmed through science -- as a part of the plot advancement. How else would they be able to show that Buffy is not fully human?

II. Episode Parallels

A. The attack on the woman is the next challenge after "Crush." Spike now has to work even harder to convince himself to attack.

B. This episode (and possibly the next) seem to parallel "Surprise/Innocence." In those, Buffy slept with a gentle lover and woke with a demon. Here, the opposite may be happening.

C. The episode parallels the FFL alley scene. Spike now has his one good day. His chip doesn't work on Buffy. She is stripped of all her friends. She is at her weakest point. But Spike doesn't kill her -- and doesn't use the weapon he brags about in FFL, his game face. Instead, they succumb to passion. The dance is now about the regenerative, life-affirming action of sex, not death.

D. The story seems to parallel the Angel/Darla arc to a certain degree. Two violent sexual couplings of character struggling with new/old identities, resulting in violent birth -- of new relationships and identities.

III. House Metaphor

A house is often in dream interpreted as the self. Both Buffy and Spike go into the house. They taunt each other with their greatest fears: NotQuiteRight!Buffy with no one to love and Neutered!Vamp Spike. They are destroying each other's old identities as they fight and wreck the house. Buffy's illusion that she can be a *normal* girl gets smashed, as does Spike's illusion that he will return to being *evil*. They are also discovering a kinship as two people who walk both in dark and light, neither fully human or fully demonic.

Buffy is also dealing with abandonment issues. Spike taunts her that his love is not because he enjoys pain. She perceives it that way because she is afraid of being hurt and left. Spike knows she is afraid to let him hurt her and that is why she is in denial. Along with Spike's journey on the Road to Redemption, a lot of episode has to do with Buffy overcoming denial.

Getting smashed (beyond their illusions of their identities) are the old patterns of the mortal enemy and slayer/neutered vampire relationship between B/S. This, of course,
will free Spike -- whose redemptive path right now seems to be through Buffy's positive reinforcement or nothing -- to have a more positive relationship with Buffy.