They don't call Marti Noxon the
Queen of Pain for nothin'. Villains displays Noxon's talents to their
greatest effect, as she applies the emotional thumbscrews with aplomb.
Political correctness be damned. Dark Willow is cool.
I don't ask for much as a viewer. I'm not one of the people that wondered how Spike found the time to be an international arms smuggler. Or how Riley miraculously recovered from his Vamp!Ho addiction. Or why a Peace Corps worker would be accepted into an elite fighting force. Or why the Watcher's Council doesn't just pay Buffy a salary. Or whether Buffy has taken a leave of absence from the Doublemeat, as we never see her working anymore. Or why Xander doesn't question why Spike could hurt Buffy. No, these inconsistencies don't bother me all that much. I watch Buffy to see complex, well-rounded characters. And while the characters don't always do what I want them to, if their behavior corresponds to what I've seen from them in the past, and if it forwards an interesting story, then I'm all for it.
Of course, one person's sense is another person's nonsense. But I don't think stories should be limited by political correctness. Art is supposed to challenge us. And that's why, even though I'm an ardent feminist and strong supporter of gay rights, the current storyline doesn't bother me. I'm intellectually stimulated, emotionally engaged, and yes--I'm challenged. Last week I argued that Spike's sexual assault on Buffy was a logical extension of their dysfunctional relationship. This week I'm going to take another potentially unpopular position. While some might argue that Tara's death and Willow's descent into evil represents a horrible perpetuation of the dead/evil lesbian stereotype, I would heartily disagree. For two years Mutant Enemy has given us one of the most touching love stories on television. They never played identity politics with Willow and Tara. They never exploited their "hot lesbian kisses" in a bid to increase ratings. Willow and Tara were two people who found each other and fell deeply in love. They had one of the healthiest relationships ever seen on BTVS until this year.
While I am sad to see this beautiful romance end, Willow and Tara weren't singled out for pain and punishment because of their sexual preference. Joss is evil. He enjoys suffering. Just look at Buffy and Angel. Or Buffy and Spike. Or Spike and Dru. Or Xander and Cordelia. Or Xander and Anya. Or Xander and Willow. Or Willow and Oz. If you don't enjoy the emotional sadism doled out by Mr. Whedon, then it's probably time to stop watching. I doubt he's going to change his modus operandi.
Willow's storyline, her complete embrace of darkness, has been a long time coming. Since The Wish and Doppelgangland it's been intimated that Willow was hiding some interesting secrets. Vamp!Willow, was "kinda gay." Vamp!Willow was also a power-hungry sadist. Turns out that Willow had more than just her sexual preference in common with her alter ego.
This storyline could have been done badly (and it almost was). It could have either continued to be trite After School Special crap (watch Willow complete her Twelve Step Program--next week on a Very Special Buffy!) or Willow's makeover of the damned could have been caused by a deus ex machina, like the transporter accident that split Kirk in twain. But Mutant Enemy has carefully dropped hints about Willow, starting in Season 4. Remember her behaviour after Oz left town? She resorted to magic as a quick fix. She wanted her pain to end and instead caused pain for all her friends. Over the years, Willow has also shown a lack of moral compass. She's always been seduced by bells and whistles: she admired the craftsmanship that went into building Ted and the Buffybot; she was fascinated by the gadgets in the Geek Lair. As she began learning about more about magic, her thirst for knowledge far outstripped her moral capacity to use it responsibly. I remember a moment in Pangs when Buffy and Willow find a detached ear. Willow eagerly speculates that it might have been a witch, because ears can be used in all kinds of nifty spells. Buffy looks at her friend in disgust and says, "Nice hobby, Will."
So it's been adequately established that Willow's moral compass is a bit wonky. The addiction thing was just a cover for what Willow really craves. Power. Like Warren (and like Spike) at a certain point Willow felt weak and helpless. Even in Wrecked, the infamous episode where magic became a physical addiction, underlying the ridiculous shakes and tremors, it was still a narrative about the lust for power, about Willow's desire to reject that nerdy high school persona and metamorphose into Super Willow.
Spike and Warren also are travelling a dark path, driven to desperate ends by their own insecurities and emotional weakness. Noxon makes the parallel between these two characters even more explicit in this episode. Willow, with her black-magic enhanced perception, notes that Tara wasn't the only woman that Warren has hurt. She summons Katrina, and Warren's dead girlfriend lambastes him for his transgressions. "Why, Warren? You could have just let me go . . . How could you say you love me and do that to me?" It seems pretty clear that these words are just as applicable to Spike as they are to Warren. Spike loves Buffy, yet last week he hurt her profoundly and betrayed her trust.
Warren turns to Katrina and spits, "Because you deserved it, bitch." Spike too, instead of taking responsibility for what he's done, has transferred all his anger and self-loathing to the Slayer. "Bitch thinks she's better than me," he rages to an unsympathetic demon.
Willow, watching Warren's reaction, understands his motivations. She observes that he enjoyed killing Katrina. "You never felt you had the power with her; not until you killed her . . . You get off on it. That's why you had a mad-on for the Slayer. She was your big O wasn't she, Warren?" Katrina made Warren feel powerless. That's why he wanted to make her his sex slave. That's why he killed her when she rebelled. And that's why he wanted to kill Buffy so badly. She made him feel weak. Last week she even symbolically castrated him, smashing his "orbs."
Speaking of the castrated . . . That's why Spike has always been obsessed with killing Slayers--because they reminded him of his inherent weakness, of the puling human he used to be. For Spike, love and death have always been entwined. It's not surprising that when death was denied him, when he was unable to kill, his homicidal urges transformed into desire and love. While Spike's unrequited love at the end of Season 5 and the beginning of Season 6 was noble, as soon as he saw the possibility of consummation with Buffy, his need to possess her overwhelmed him. When he discovered that he could hurt her, his need intensified. While he didn't want to kill her, he did want to subjugate her to his will. He wanted her to love him back. He wanted her to feel what he felt. He wanted her to accept him. And when she rejected him, he felt like "nothing," and love turned into desperation and violence. While Spike does not hate women like Warren does, he is a tremendously angry man (I say man here, not monster), filled with self-loathing. Love has burned him and consumed his old Big Bad identity and made him feel weak. And he wants it to stop. He wants his power back, so he's traveled to Africa, apparently to get a chipectomy, or at least that's what we're led to believe. While he blames the chip for his weakness, we, like the demon, know that Spike has already changed. From the demon's perspective Spike is "pathetic." From our perspective, he has transcended simplistic notions of soulless vampire=pure evil: he is conflicted, complex, and, we must not forget, capable of guilt and remorse, even without a soul. Whatever transformation the demon grants will just be an extension of an internal metamorphosis Spike has experienced over the past two seasons. In many respects, Spike, to invoke the Pinocchio metaphor, has already become a real boy.
For Willow, love has also turned into death and violence. Like Spike she has lost her light, her reason for staying on the straight and narrow. She is an empty vessel, and she chooses to be filled with darkness. Willow's eyes sparkle as she intones Vamp!Willow's line, "Bored now." With a flick of her hand she removes Warren's skin, one of many nifty, grotesque special effects featured in this episode (and yet another reason to push this very adult drama back to 9pm next season). Pausing for a moment, she engulfs him in flame, as her horrified friends watch. "One down," Willow tells them before she disappears.
But who are the two to go?
Jonathan? Andrew? Or is it Buffy and Xander? I can't
wait to find out.