Smashed

by Jerry

Smashed, the BtVS writing debut of Drew Greenberg, steers the show into some choppy waters, with parallel storylines following Buffy and Willow as they leap into two very different great unknowns. For Buffy, this involves a rather messy turning point in her tumultuous relationship with Spike. For Willow, it's a decision to throw caution to the wind and embark on a self-indulgent magical binge following her breakup with Tara. These choices will reverberate, often uncomfortably, throughout the rest of the season.

We open in the familiar Sunnydale alley, where Buffy interrupts an attack on an innocent couple by what turns out to be a pair of human muggers. Spike comes crashing into the scene, allowing the muggers to get away before Buffy can - hmmm, what would Buffy do with human muggers anyway ? At any rate, Buffy chews out Spike for wanting to hurt humans, despite the fact that in this case it seems his motives are pretty much the same as hers. We start to get a glimpse of what will be the self-destructive cycle of their relationship - how Buffy's need to pigeonhole Spike as an evil thing thwarts any urge he may have to aspire to be better, and how he in turn responds by trying to pull her down to a level where she can accept the person he thinks he is stuck being. "I'm the only one who's here for you - you've got no one else", he calls out to her as she rejects his overtures and leaves him alone in the alley.

Willow is back at Revello Drive, in full Dumped-Willow wallow. We've seen this before, and it ain't pretty. This time she's talking out her troubles to Amy the rat in a less-than-objective fashion ("They leave you for no good reason" indeed), when she suddenly figures out how to de-rat Amy. She casts a spell to create a spell that can do it. Since the ability to do this would mean Willow can solve virtually any problem on the planet, we should expect a setback, and soon. At any rate, the spell works, and a naked and very disoriented Amy appears on the bed.

After the credits, we are off to the Sunnydale Museum (the one that previously housed the Inca mummy and the Very Big Rock from Becoming, I suppose), where Andrew is descending from the ceiling like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. As he meticulously prepares to break into a display case, Warren and Jonathan walk right up and mock his preparations. Warren steals a big diamond, and as they prepare to leave, they are stopped by Rusty, the security guard. At Warren's instruction, Jonathan zaps Rusty with a freeze ray, instantly freezing him solid. Andrew and Jonathan have concerns about Rusty's well being, but it's clear Warren neither cares about Rusty's survival nor fears Rusty identifying them . That Warren's a fun guy, by creepy amoral sociopath standards.

Back at the house, Willow is attempting to re-orient a jumpy Amy, who has no clue how long she's been a rat. Buffy walks in, ready to confide in Willow about her recent foray into Spike-kissage, when she's interrupted by Amy. Some very funny dialogue ensues (Buffy: How've you been ? Amy: Rat. You ? Buffy: Dead. Amy: Oh.) and Amy goes off in search of cookies ("Any kind. Not cheese."). Willow expresses her pleasure at having another 'magically-inclined' friend around, which shuts down Buffy's urge to confide, as she likely feels about the same way Willow did when Buffy was palling around with Faith. Instead, Buffy goes down stairs and learns of the Museum incident, due to the fact that TV stations in Sunnydale conveniently deliver the ten seconds of information you need the instant you turn on the TV.

At the museum, Buffy is hopping up and down cutely, trying to see over the crowd as the unfortunate Rusty is carted away for defrosting. Slipping off to the side, she runs into Spike, who's prepared to offer help she doesn't want. He alludes to their previous kisses, which Buffy tries to pass off as an aberration - clearly, she's still uncomfortable with the idea of having feelings for a soulless vampire. Spike tries to sell her on the fact that "A man can change", but Buffy does what she can to convince him that he can't - "You're not a man, you're a thing" - something that Buffy, for her own reasons, needs to believe. Spike reacts badly to this and tries to grab Buffy, she hits him, and he instinctively hits back, only to discover to his surprise that the chip doesn't activate. Faced with Buffy telling him he can never be good, Spike finds the path of least resistance a bit more appealing, and figures it's time to head on home to Team Evil.

Out on the streets of Sunnydale, the apparently chip-free Spike is out looking for prey. He spots a young woman and follows her into one of those alleys that Sunnydale mostly consists of. Here we get Spike at his most conflicted. He's a killer, after all - it's what he suspects, it's what Buffy never tires of telling him, so he should be killing, right? As the terrified and highly confused woman looks on, Spike works at psyching himself into killing her ("It's not like you forget how"). Finally he makes his move, only to be stopped, much to his surprise, by a still-working chip. So we get our progress report on Spike. He's changed a bit more than he'd admit, he does have reservations about killing, but when push comes to shove, he'll still kill (or at least try to - perhaps he would have stopped, but that would be giving him a bit too much benefit of the doubt). For now, it's just as well the training wheels stay on..

It's the following day now, and Dawn and Tara are having shakes at an outdoor café. Well, Dawn is actually having enough shake for both of them. Tara tries to reassure Dawn that she'll still be around despite her breakup with Willow. The scene highlights the fact that Willow and (especially) Tara have become more the parental figures for Dawn than the emotionally distant Buffy, and their breakup is like a divorce to Dawn.

At the Magic Box, Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Anya are trying to make sense of the events at the museum. They discuss calling Giles, decide not to, and pretty much don't speak his name again for months. We'll get a look at how they fair without him (hint: not well). Willow breaks out her laptop to search for information, to the approval of her friends, until she starts using magic to speed the process. Anya breaks the awkwardness, apparently the first to bring up Tara's departure and how no one is willing to talk about it ("Is this that thing that I do?" she asks the ever-supportive Xander, who admits it is.) Willow gives her take on the breakup ("Little things got in the way … we saw them differently, so they got blown out of proportion"). Basically, she's not big with the truth-telling, and steers the discussion to other things.

Over at Nerd Central, Warren and the boys are admiring their sparkly new prize and preparing to move on to 'Phase Two' when Spike barges in seeking Warren's help to figure out what's up with the chip. Showing his true evil colors, Spike threatens to behead a defenseless Boba Fett action figure unless Warren does his bidding. Warren's willing to talk, but warns that "You don't want to hurt the Fett. 'Cause man, you're just not coming back from that. You don't just do that and walk away", suggesting the likelihood that one or both of them will be crossing some lines in the sand in the future (ones not involving Star Wars collectibles). The Nerds put their heads together, and Jonathan warns that Spike can't be trusted ('We have heads too.'). Warren doesn't care about trust - he only cares how he can use people, and he thinks he can use Spike to keep Buffy out of the way. But his "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" proposal earns a contemptuous "I'm not scratching your anything" from Spike, and Warren gives in and sets to work.

Willow comes back to the house, where Amy tries to talk her into a night on the town. Amy's not ready to go home to her father, unwilling to face questions - not about where she was, but about how she got there (a suggestion that misuse of magic was an issue for Amy even before it led to her spending three years as a rat, which is usually a hint that you have a problem). Amy would rather ignore her problems than confront them , and she preys on Willow's insecurities ("maybe you'd rather sit home alone all night - like in high school") to get her to go along. Willow's all for avoiding her own problems, so it doesn't take much persuading.

Spike is impatiently listening to Jonathan and Andrew babble about Red Dwarf (loser, nerds, making me miss Passions) when Warren brings him the results of his tests. The chip is working fine, continuing to do whatever unknown-to-Warren thing it does. Spike suddenly realizes that it's not he that has changed, but Buffy, and happily stalks off.

Tara and Dawn get back to the house, where Dawn continues her 'Parent Trap'-style scheming to get Willow and Tara back together. After Tara is guilt-tripped into sticking around, they settle in to watch TV.

At the Bronze, Willow and Amy are busily indulging their appetites for magic. They start out using it to do things they could easily achieve through conventional means (like shooting pool), but quickly drift into far more irresponsible behavior. After a guy asks Amy to dance, she casts a spell on a nearby lesbian to make her hit on Willow. Willow declines, but her reason is that she's not ready to move on yet, not that it's wrong to control someone's mind. Later, when the guys Amy is with come on too strong, she and Willow conjure them into skimpily clad dancers in hanging cages. Amy is very much Faith to Willow's Buffy here, but Willow isn't as morally grounded as Buffy, and strays a lot further from the path.

At the Magic Box, Xander, Anya and Buffy are researching without success in the search for a Diamond Eating Frost Monster. They discuss Willow's magic problems. Buffy isn't too concerned, since in her view Willow is the responsible one among them. Anya points out that sometimes responsible types can get swept away by a taste of irresponsibility, an observation that hits a bit too close to home for Buffy. It's pretty clear what Buffy's 'taste of something powerful' is, although I'm still not sure if the parallel is meant to be a true one or a creation of Buffy's preconceptions. At any rate the phone rings, and much to Buffy's surprise, it's Spike. A suddenly rather smarmy, gold-chain wearing, would-be sinister Spike, looking to set up a meeting. Buffy ignores him for the moment, and after closing the shop with Xander and Anya, he confronts her as she heads home. When he gets in her way, she is typically quick to belt him in the face, but this time he stuns her by hitting back. "You came back wrong", he informs her, which is surely one of the most important revelations of the season, right ? Well, we'll see. Exactly why Spike is pleased by this news is an interesting question, given that the Buffybot, the Buffy he built when he could make her anyway he wanted, was happy, well adjusted, and righteous. I suppose Buffy's "evil, disgusting thing" comments convinced him that he can't have her unless she's knocked off her pedestal, and as he said in Afterlife, he'd rather have a 'wrong' Buffy than no Buffy at all.

Buffy and Spike start to beat the crap out of one another, which seems to amuse Spike and bring out the worst in Buffy. Neither of them treats the violence as too real - it seems to just be how they communicate, specifically the only way Buffy (at the moment) will allow herself to communicate with him. This should probably have tipped us off that things would not soon be hugs 'n' puppies. As they crash into an abandoned building, they taunt one another about their respective inability to find a place in the world. Buffy scoffs at Spike for his failure to kill her (a role it seems she'd prefer him in). "I'm in love with you", he says. "You're in love with pain", she replies. Is Buffy right? I don't think so. Spike thinks love comes with pain, and he isn't going to stop because it hurts, but that's different than loving the pain. I think love has brought Buffy so much pain that she fears that SHE is in love with it, and she's channeling that onto Spike. Spike points out that he's a vampire - "I'm supposed to be treading on the dark side. What's your excuse?" As always, I see Spike as a prisoner of his own preconceptions - he doubts he can be good, and Buffy is all too willing to reinforce those doubts.

At the Bronze, Willow and Amy grow bored with making people 8 feet tall, turning them into sheep, and otherwise warping reality for their amusement. They set things back to normal, and head out to look for bigger kicks.

Back in the abandoned house, Buffy and Spike are still duking it out. "I wasn't even planning on hurting you - much" he says. "You haven't even come close to hurting me" she spits back. "Afraid to give me the chance? Afraid I'm gonna - ". We'll never know what he'd have said. "Afraid I'll leave you like all the others"? "Afraid I'll prove all your fears about me are true"? "Afraid you can't even keep a soulless evil thing happy"? Buffy much prefers not to hear the answer, and leaps into kissing him to guarantee she won't. Stuff gets broken by the unfocused raw power of their connection. She jumps him, and after one of the world's loudest unzipping noises, Buffy, um, climbs aboard, much to Spike's amazement. Walls come crumbling down, and for better or worse, things will never be the same.

-- Jerry

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