I agree the season is crowded and the pacing is weird, but I mean… it
is shown – perhaps not to your satisfaction, which is fair, but there is an actual emotional journey that is going on that extends through the whole season - it doesn't get wrapped up in a handful of episodes. If you're taking the stance that everything is forgiven end of story re: the sexual assault by episode 6 (
Him) for Buffy I can absolutely see why you'd think it happens too quickly, but the real resolution of everything that happened between her and Spike doesn't actually occur until episode 20 (
Touched). No, it's not the story it seems maybe you and some others understandably wanted or maybe thought it should be of "a survivor of sexual assault revenging herself on her attacker"(and it's not for a number of reasons), but it's not just a story about 'the attacker's journey of redemption' either.
The sexual assault is just one part of what needs to be resolved by series end - Buffy is also still carrying feelings of guilt about her own behavior during their relationship (I don't think they would have had her bring it up in
Conversations With Dead People if it wasn't something that was still lingering). She also has the bigger issues of her inability to 'connect' with people and feelings of isolation which have come up before in prior seasons. All of this gets resolved by series end and Spike plays a not insignificant part in that. Buffy being willing and able to connect with him in
Touched, which she would not have been able to do without going through everything she did with him in S7, allows her to literally connect with the girls she's been keeping at arms length which not only saves the day, but also means she is no longer isolated because of being The Slayer. His story of redemption and her story of becoming Buffy
and The Slayer - not separate conflicting identities but one whole person - are intertwined and have been for a while, and if you accept that Spike is a
Shadow Self, Buffy connecting with and thereby accepting him becomes a full acceptance of herself - the light and the dark, the good and the bad. Ultimately, the S7 Buffy/Spike arc is a love story (whether romantic love or not is up for grabs) and I absolutely understand why some folks don't want that or even outright reject it in light of S6, or just Spike in general, but that is what it is, and if you
are rejecting it (universal you) your read on it is probably going to be a bit skewed.
In the first episode when Buffy encounters him, she’s in Slayer-Mode fighting ‘manifest spirits’ – she’s not even convinced Spike is
real at first. The fact that he appears suddenly while she’s fighting
actual ghosts is important. And he doesn’t lurch out of the dark and touch her face, he opens the door she was attempting to open from the other side and he’s suddenly just there. He reaches out to touch her in response to her question of “
Are you real?” bc he’s not sure
she is and once it’s confirmed he drops his hand – there is nothing aggressive or sexual in his touch – it is brief and strange enough that she actually looks at his hand not any less confused. She gets hit immediately after the exchange/is reminded that the fight is still on, and is all business when she closes them into the room bc it’s not about her or Spike right now, it’s about finding Dawn. He continues acting weird as hell to a degree he is nearly unrecognizable and so she investigates (even as he is backing away from her) and is fairly gentle about it all things considered, but again, he’s not being aggressive and appears to be in distress. She still immediately focuses back on Dawn when she calls and snaps right back into Slayer-mode to the extent that she asks him if he's going to help out because that's usually what he does
especially when it comes to Dawn, and when he jumps right back into the WTFery instead she leaves him mumbling into a wall, clearly disturbed and not knowing what to make of his behavior. It's possible (and I think likely) she's still not 100% convinced that it really is him as the manifest spirits were corporeal as well and she even says to Dawn before she cuts her off "Yes, I saw Spike - I just didn't-" - that sentence could easily have ended with "think he was real."
She has a different reaction to him entirely when he suddenly shows up at her house because, despite the shirt which is like a giant neon (blue) sign that something is out of sorts, he is at least recognizably
Spike. Her defenses are absolutely up, and she is not giving him an inch until he starts to leave. She stops him and decides to take him up on his offer of help. Maybe bc she thinks she could use it, maybe bc she needs some kind of closure, most likely both, but either way the message is clear that she has not forgiven or forgotten. She is suspicious and on her guard the whole time they’re investigating bc his explanation for his behaviour in the basement is not ringing true and that’s bc, yeah, he feels
off. Which he absolutely does if you pay attention to how weirdly measured he his from the minute he shows up.
She’s threat assessing and she knows she can take him if he tries anything - she literally says so when Xander expresses his concern. She’s not in the (*cough*insultinglycontrived*cough*) position she was in when the assault took place, and if she didn’t trust him before (which I personally think she did to a degree) she
really doesn’t now. She flinches this time bc it’s
a recognizable Spike who touches her, not a ghost, not a strange, disheveled version that’s not making any sense. She says outright, “You tried to rape me,” which I think she’s been wanting to do. I think she wants what happened acknowledged. I think it's why she didn't tell him to GTFO the second he showed up and why she decided on splitting them up into pairs and pairing herself with him (which even he looks surprised by in the cut to him). And again, his response is
weird. Old Spike, imo at least, would have been all about the excuses or something to relieve him of actual culpability in some way - even do the whole "
what did you expect, I’m evil” thing – but what he actually does is acknowledge there’s nothing he can say that would help or make it better, and he’s right. I totally buy her suspicion. I would absolutely believe he was working some kind of angle too at this point whether it be about trying to get back into her good graces so they could start up again (which is her first assumption) or something more sinister because, again, he is acting
weird. "You're not telling me everything" is her saying she's not buying what he's selling and that
she doesn't trust him. I honestly don't know what you're looking for from Buffy here? She's a champion compartmentalizer and she's not big with the expressing of her emotions. Her behavior rings 100% true to me. She doesn't attack unless she's being given reason to and she's not motivated by revenge. It's just not who she is.
They don’t ‘barely interact’, they have scenes in every single episode: in 3 (the very next one) we find out she ran away and left him at the church because he “scared her a little” and she “didn’t know what to think”. In 4, she goes to the basement and asks him about Cassie. She’s not as gentle with him as she was last time because (compartmentalizing) she’s in Slayer-Mode and her tone softens (slightly) only when he starts to ‘punish’ himself as he conflates Cassie with herself. Even so, when he asks her to stay and help him ‘be quiet’ she doesn’t. In 5 we get the First-as-Buffy/Real-Buffy switcheroo and the difference between them is
stark both in appearance and tone and this (episode 5) is when she tells him to get out of the basement, sounding pretty fed up and the scene ends with him saying he doesn’t have anywhere else to go, which launches the next phase of Their Whole S7 Thing where Buffy decides to and actively does help him.
In episode 6, the start of the next phase, Buffy is at her most gentle towards him (and I believe it’s bc of the episode 4 exchange and then 5’s understanding that he’s not just staying in the basement for the lolz and dramz, he literally does not have a home anymore) but she does still flinch when he touches her. The show is telling us she’s not past it even if she does seem to forgive him by this episode, and, as a side-note, while I completely understand if some folks have a problem with her convo with Dawn, or feel that her response of "he knows what he did was wrong" is inadequate or sweeping the whole thing under the rug, I really think it’s worth listening to the
Still Pretty podcast episode on
Seeing Red to understand where she may be coming from.
This is what Buffy says in the exchange in the basement:
Buffy: Listen to me. You’re not alive because of hate or pain, you’re alive because I saw you change. Because I saw your penance
*-
Spike: Window dressing.
Buffy: Be easier, wouldn’t it, if it were an act. But it’s not. You faced the monster inside of you and you fought back
**. You risked everything to be a better man–
Spike: Buffy-
Buffy: -and you can be. You are. You may not see it, but
I do. I do. I believe in you Spike.
*The draping of himself on the cross in
Beneath You, the self-punishment in
Help, the general non-stop self-flagellation going on in the basement every time she goes to him there which
she chooses to do.
**The going and getting of the Soul, the basement when he tasted her blood but stopped himself from feeding on/killing her even though he was being influenced.
Imo, this scene marks the point where Buffy decides not
just to help him but to be on his side. This is where she accepts him as one of Her People and it culminates in her rescue of him which takes place in episode 11 which is the halfway point of the season. Even when she was involved with Spike previously, she was never
on his side. I feel the need to note she does flinch in this scene as well even though he is chained.
But she knows it
is a burden because of Angel. She also believes it’s a ‘good thing’ because of Angel/Angelus. If the soul doesn't matter and it is always the same person no matter what... that is a huge thing to contend with in the context of what happened between her and Angel. I absolutely believe Buffy feels guilt over what Spike chose to do (which, Buffy. Baby. Babes.
No.) but I think Angel is a stronger motivation for her to argue clean slate theory when Spike is clearly rejecting it, but at the same time, I absolutely believe her when she says she sees that he is different.
I see that he is. His entire
vibe is different imo - it's not just what he says or does it's how he says and does it. There's a heaviness there, a weight that OG Spike never carried. Also, if he
didn't have a soul he
wouldn't be penitent, he wouldn't be as destroyed as he is by what he's done. I tend to lean Buffy in terms of the soul being important myself, but I don't subscribe at all to the Angel/Angelus model of vampirism which Buffy seems to need to do. At any rate, the things she says to him in that scene she truly believes for whatever reasons she has, and they
matter to her.
Except… the only relationship she directly talks about/references in any significant way (apart from her parents') is her relationship
with Spike:
- “The last guy I was with got really… I behaved like a monster… treated him like… but at the same time I… I let him completely take me over. Do things to me that…” (the thought is cut short by Holden attacking.)
- “See this is what I hate about you vampires - sex and death and love and pain it’s all the same thing to you…” (yeah, and it specifically is to Spike in particular. He has always fully owned this.)
- “The joke is he loved me. In his own sick soulless way, he really did care for me. But I didn’t want to be loved. I have all this power. I didn’t ask for it. I don’t deserve it. It was like I wanted to be punished. I wanted to hurt like I thought I deserved… I sorta think… - this is complicated – if you’d rather just fight…”
- “That stuff with Spike, it’s pretty-” (and that’s when Holden identifies Spike as his sire which he wouldn’t have been able to do if they hadn’t been talking about him specifically)
Buffy is sharing her ‘intimate thoughts’ with Psych Major Holden because 'there are some things you can only tell a stranger' and he guided that conversation. She shares with Angel because he was her lover and they went through something traumatic together. They have a bond. She also has a bond with Spike which is solidified by the end of the season, and she
does share her intimate thoughts with him. Next time you watch
Touched pay attention to the first half of that bedroom scene, because it’s not just Spike talking at her. Even before then, she confides in him in
After Life and
Life Serial in a way she doesn't with anyone else. I think the bigger thing to note is that Buffy seems to have less difficulty opening up to vampires than she does her own friends.
She had to convince
Xander who hates Spike more than anyone to
share his home with him. Also, it sounds like the car ride was a hoot, but ok.
She’s not just
idly wondering, it’s personally important to her whether he is or not. Look at her face after she dusts Holden. Watch that scene between her and Xander again or even her and Willow - She doesn’t want it to be true. Xander literally says this, and she doesn’t deny it. She hasn’t had any reason to investigate him before getting that tidbit from Holden – why would she, he still has a chip, she believes him that he has a soul.
She’s the Slayer. And she was right. Like she was right about the Scythe. And Kathy. And any number of things over the course of the series. Her intuition isn’t something that was just brought up out of nowhere.
And he did
literally fight to be a better man. That's not something she intuited, he told her about the trials, the torture.
As I noted at the top, Buffy's forgiveness may verbally be confirmed in episode 6, but what happened in that bathroom does not come to any kind of resolution until the bedroom scene in
Touched, which is a direct response to
Seeing Red and occurs almost exactly a year later. Imo, that's when true forgiveness is achieved and it takes nearly the whole season to get there and it makes the final moment between them possible. That's the journey. Buffy does struggle, she is unsure, she does have doubts, and when some of them start to be eased they creep back in in another way and yet she still decides to invest in him despite the danger and there
is danger with him being able to be triggered, there
is danger with not knowing what the First ultimately has planned. In the midst of training for the biggest battle of her life she's also navigating how she feels about him and over and over again can not articulate it beyond "I feel for him" until that last moment. That is the journey. S7 is a love story. The last two lines Buffy has in the season are "I love you" and "Spike". Not "I forgive you" and "Spike." Forgiveness was a stepping stone to getting to that last moment. It's 100% open to interpretation what kind of love it is, if it's romantic or otherwise, but that is where the S7 Buffy and Spike arc comes to rest.
Spike does not force himself back into her life. He comes to her home
once to offer his services (after she finds him in the basement) and then appears suddenly to fight beside her in the library to save Cassie (after she goes to him in the basement to ask him about her). He does not attempt to leave the school until she tells him to. He tries to go when she installs him at Xander’s and he thinks it won’t work, he tells her to kill him when he finds out he’s being controlled, he says again he should go when they find out The First still has a plan for him. Over and over again she is either coming to him or stopping him from going. It’s in the text. Buffy is not remotely passive in this story just because she listens to two speeches on opposite ends of the season, and Spike is not forcing himself into her life by existing in the same town.
