I think maybe it's a combination of embarrassment squick, plus that the episode doesn't really give a sense of emotional resolution...

But yeah, that's a hard episode for me to watch, too.

YES. I think what bothers me most about this episode is that Anya and Spike are comforting each other. That's what the sex is all about; it's them giving each other a moment of solace, and that's kind of beautiful.

And then Xander and Buffy, and the rest of the gang, make it into something ugly and wrong. I hate that. I hate that I'm left with the feeling that Buffy and her crew are right, and Spike and Anya did a bad thing. That's always stuck in my craw.

I'm the same way. Entropy guts me, it is SO painful to watch...just the way they all fall apart. They're so closed up in their own pain they just don't see anyone else's, and after watching the lot of them for the previous SIX years, it HURTS.

My biggest sympathy is reserved for Anya and Spike. When they're on the table, soaking in whiskey, and they start commiserating while their heads are together, it just makes me BLEED. The pain in their voices, the rejection that brought them to that moment...both actors hit it out of the park.

And I get majorly squicked that everybody watched it. Watched what should have been an intimate, private moment between them.

Right? That part makes me rage, that they weren't even allowed that one moment of solace between them.

I don't for a second believe either of them regretted it. It just happened and they both knew the whys. That look they share afterwards. Nothing's healed, nothing's better, but at least someone understands. *cries*

Xander is at his most bullying and hateful, but funny enough, even being aware of how he got her to that moment, I felt bad for him. Anya demonstrated her maturity, I think, though, by not hitting back harder. And she could have. God knows if it had been me, he'd have been flayed for treating her like she fucked an animal.

I actually don't see it as Anya feeling excluded because no one wished Xander got eviserated. I think she's feeling excluded because no one truly sympathizes with her pain - they're all busy trying to be very neutral. It's awkward in that way when a couple your friends with splits up and both want you to take their side. She just needed what she got from Spike - someone to understand her pain and sense of rejection.

Poor Spike and Anya.

Pretty much just agree with you 100% here. Especially about wanting to bundle Spike up and cuddle him and get him some hot cocoa with marshmallows. Just...the poor guy :[ *heart breaks every time*

For some reason that scene reminds me of the part in Normal Again where Spike tries to help take care of Buffy and just gets totally blown off by her and everyone else. "Put a little ice on the back of her neck...She likes that." ;[

Point 5 is what always bothered me about the episode. I mean, it fits so well with the rest of the season but...ugh.

I don't know if he does so with the intention of trying to raise his own status up (I fucked Buffy, I can't be that bad) or if his intent is to drag Buffy down in Xander's eyes (Well, if Anya sleeping with me upset you, get a load of this).

I can offer a different interpretation:

Spike's self image as some kind of honourable knight (no matter how twisted and how little it holds up to reality) leads him to deflect some of the shit thrown into the direction of the woman he just shared a table with.

Spike doesn't say that to hurt Xander or demote Buffy - he says it because he knows that Xander has a lot of respect for Buffy - respect he doesn't show Anya in the slightest in this moment.

Yeah, this is probably the episode where I most hate the most number of (non-Spike/Anya) characters. I just... Everyone's reaction to seeing them hook-up really bothers me. Like, I get why Buffy and Xander were upset, because emotions and stuff. But EVERYONE acted like this was a totally unreasonable thing for Anya/Spike to have done and it just bothers me. I don't think the writers think it's wrong, but I still hate that all these characters I like seem to, you know?

(I especially hate Dawn at the end. I get that she's young, but seriously? How did he mean to hurt Buffy? He didn't MEAN to be seen or have anyone know about it. It's actually the only time I really get the "Shut up Dawn" reaction).

I think Spike told Xander that he and Buffy had sex to hurt him back. I think Xander still had a thing for Buffy, and Spike would pick up on that, and said it to rub him that Buffy would sleep with him but not Xander. And considering that blows he had been given by Xander, it's understandable that he did it.

Really I just get so angry at the end of this episode with how Xander acted and how everyone did act as though Spike and Anya had done something wrong.

Hmmm...I think I'll play The Sims 2 too...

Yeah it's definitely a hard episode to watch.

Add in the extra twist of Anya feeling excluded because nobody will help her torture/kill Xander, and I'm just...a bit overwhelmed at the fact that I'm feeling so much sympathy for her. Don't get me wrong. I typically have no trouble sympathizing with characters, even when they're doing shitty stuff (Hello, I love Buffy during S6). But this seems a little more difficult for me to get the cognitive dissonance worked out.

I think this little extra bit of pain comes from the fact that Anya's not just looking for someone to help her hurt Xander, she's looking for someone to sympathize with her--and ONLY her. She's really just looking for comfort, looking to vent. And as genuinely concerned as the girls are about her, they're still Xander's friends first. So it comes with the realization for Anya that she has no one. Not really. All she had was Xander, and he left her at the alter. She just... she's so completely alone. And after being so publicly humiliated and losing all her dreams--it's just horrible to think of her so alone.

For me, I think the reason that episode is so hard to watch is because it seems like it could go so right--Spike and Anya are able to be there for each other--able to joke and vent and rant and provide sympathy. And I don't care one way or the other about the sex. Have sex. Don't. It makes no difference to me. But, having them finally find a little tiny bit of peace and camaraderie after all the pain they'd both endured... and then have it turn into that horrible parade of humiliation and pain. It's just so sad.

I dislike Xander so much in this episode, it's hard for me to articulate it in a rational manner. And this is before SR, which I utterly refuse to re-watch.

I hadn't watched "Entropy" in four years, but I just watched the last twenty minutes of it after reading your post, and it is so heartbreaking (EC when she starts crying about how maybe he never loved her, omg, her acting is *brilliant*). I can appreciate the epi more now that I'm older b/c even though it's not fun to watch, the acting is amazing and EC and JM are excellent together. #5 has always, always upset me, and I hate that there's no closure on the issue in S7. All of Buffy's transgressions are subsumed by the AR, and as many other commenters have lamented, we never get to see Xander's growing up. *sigh* I love that Buffy goes to save Spike from Xander, but I hate her "didn't take you long." Blech. Even though I'm a diehard Spuffy and X/A fan, stuff like this makes me want to send Spike and Anya off into the sunset where they can live happily ever after together and have adorable, forthright demon babies.

Here's what gets me about Xander's adventures in slut-shaming in this episode. He chose to not marry Anya, in large part, because he was worried about becoming his father and abusing her. And here, you see him give in to that potential side of himself that he was so afraid of. What is he doing here but verbal abuse?

It guts me because with Xander I see a character who loves the women in his life but constantly has to fight against the sexism he's internalized, and this is a clear example when he loses that battle. I wish they had acknowledged that a bit more. It wasn't just Xander lashing out because he was hurt. It was a part of Xander that I feel wasn't explored as much as it should have been.

Hell, I can completely understand why Spike feels the need to take some of his own back by letting out that he and Buffy had had sex. I don't know if he does so with the intention of trying to raise his own status up (I fucked Buffy, I can't be that bad) or if his intent is to drag Buffy down in Xander's eyes (Well, if Anya sleeping with me upset you, get a load of this). I'm not sure. I don't care. I want to hug him all the same.


I always thought that the main reason was that part of Spike was hoping that Buffy would follow through on her threat to kill him if he told. Or that she'd let Xander do it for her.

Entropy is one of my most hated episodes, to be honest. It is, as you say, a real soap opera episode and whilst I know BtVS has always had those elements it just didn't feel like the same show to me. I know S6 intentionally tried to be more mundane because of their "life as the Big Bad" mission statement, and more often than not it works, but I just really can't stomach this particular episode. I have an adverse reaction to the blah country music montage and I think they went overboard by having Spike/Anya hook-up. Maybe I’m just being really snobby but I just feel the series is better than this.

I have to admit that I can’t feel much sympathy for Anya in this episode. I feel for her when she breaks down and wonders if Xander really ever did love her, but then she ruins it by trying to curse him. It’s played for laughs like so much of her history is but what she was trying to do was actually pretty disgusting and a major overreaction. She tried to wish that he was never born, that his genitals would get mutilated, that people like Dawn would pretty much kill him etc. Basically, Anya scares the hell outta me sometimes because although she did go through a lot of pain on her wedding day, most people just wouldn’t react like this. It’s just disappointing that she didn’t learn anything from Hells Bells when the old man came back for vengeance against her.

What Xander did to her was pretty sucky but IMO it pales in comparison to what she tries to do in this episode. I just can't join in on the big hate-on for Xander when, no matter what he said, at least he didn't try and kill her, ya know?

Edited at 2011-01-22 05:57 am (UTC)

It's a very tough episode to watch. In a lot of ways I think of it as *the* Xander/Anya episode--or, especially, it's Xander's lowest point, his equivalent of (to me) Buffy trying to kill her friends in NA or Willow in...the last few episodes of the season. His nightmare from Hell's Bells comes literally true and it's all his fault, his inability to forgive, his rigidity. It's harsh.

But you know what--I do think the episode is sneaky. Because you are supposed to have the reaction you have, that we should all sympathize with Anya. But what Anya tries to do is so much worse than what Xander tries to do. Slut shaming is terrible. Threatening to kill Spike is terrible. Trying to trick the Scoobies, including *Dawn* for heaven's sake, into killing their close friend and then not only killing him but forcing the guilt onto her friends? Yikes, yikes. It's played for laughs, I think, because Anya's low point isn't here yet; that's Selfless, and Xander, despite his multitude of problems, is in a better place to help her there.

One thing I'll add is that while Anya and Spike did nothing wrong, Anya feels like she has no moral high ground, I think, because what happened with Spike started, originally, with her trying to convince Spike to kill Xander. It nearly ended that way, too, but she stopped him.

OK, another thing: the episode has a lot of X/A symmetries built in. Xander thinks it's okay to threaten to/try to kill Spike because he's using "human" ethics where vampires are evil and should be slain if at all inconvenient; but of course he's using those ethics in a very self-serving way. Anya thinks it's okay to try to kill Xander because she's a demon and he's a human and she's currently operating under "demon" ethics where human men can be killed and tortured and whatnot.

And the episode is all topsy-turvy. Xander leaving Anya at the altar was a mistake, painful, lots of other bad things, but not, I think, at all malicious or evil; Xander slut-shaming Anya and threatening to kill Spike for the crime of sleeping with his ex is malicious and making evil actions. But it's the former that Anya tries to kill him for. Anya trying to kill Xander is wrong and evil and malicious; her sleeping with Spike is not wrong at all. But Xander tries to punish her for the latter. There's tremendous, fascinating symmetry in the episode.

Anyway, on Anya & the Scoobies: I feel for her. She wants someone on her side. Part of the problem is that, ultimately, the Scoobies aren't as tight as it looks from Anya on the outside. The Scoobies really are trying to be neutral, and I think they really are--they don't really take Xander's side. And more to the point, Anya looks for sympathy in a way that the Scoobies simply can't give. Buffy, Willow, Tara and Dawn want to help Anya (well, not 100%--they have their own issues, too) but they don't want to be pushed into saying how much they hate Xander. I mean, Willow could barely muster hate for Sam. But again, Anya can't get this. She's been human for a while, but there's still demon rules in her, and demon rules say that if people cared about her, they would take her side and wish bloody vengeance. In reality life is more complicated than that.

I do think I'm a little less sympathetic to Anya than most. She never did tell anyone that Stewart Burns was someone she transformed into a demon, and so never really acknowledged her own responsibility in her wedding day being ruined. No one really saw her desperate attempts to get Xander killed. Xander's douchebaggery is all out in the open, and is also more real, which is why it hurts much more. But, again, this is Xander's low point, probably in the series; Anya's is yet to come. And so is her redemption.

(Entropy is, I agree, a deeply weird episode, and disturbing too. It's also one of my favourites! And I haven't talked about Spuffy at all.)

I also found this episode harder than SR, but I haven't really wanted to admit it. Maybe it's because Spike and Anya aren't doing anything wrong so I've had the sense that to find it all so upsetting makes me wrong-headed somehow. Though Xander's behavior, while not unrealistic, is clearly very bad.

The writers have already established that it really hurts Buffy just to think about Spike moving on. I can just feel the knife twist when she has to watch. And it's with one of her friends, and all of her other friends are watching too. It's like a living anxiety nightmare X bamillion.

If episode commentary is to be believed, it was a calculated scenario for maximum pain. The writers weren't just being true to the characters and situation, they were trying to hurt me using my investment in their characters. Phooey on them. So maybe I just haven't wanted to admit that I feel kinda victimized by it, that someone else had this kind of power over me and they used it in that way.

Hell, I can completely understand why Spike feels the need to take some of his own back by letting out that he and Buffy had had sex. I don't know if he does so with the intention of trying to raise his own status up (I fucked Buffy, I can't be that bad) or if his intent is to drag Buffy down in Xander's eyes (Well, if Anya sleeping with me upset you, get a load of this). I'm not sure. I don't care. I want to hug him all the same.

Spike knows the pedestal that Buffy is perched on for Xander's eyes, so it was part getting his own back--letting Xander know that he wasn't the only "unclean thing" standing there, and also because...no one was defending him. Hell, even Anya, with her "He was just there." Except he wasn't. They bonded over their pain. She clarifies this later, of course, in "Two to Go," I think ["It was solace], but I felt awful for Spike. It was as if nothing were left of him...

As for this ep...I actually wrote a one shot of that moment on the table. Because we only really get to see it through the cameras, it came off as "just sex," when it was so much more than that. The quiet moment between them before Spike leaves--that brings it back. But then we get distracted with Xander and his axe and yada yada yada.

Just in case, if you're intersted...it's less than a thousand words: http://bloodshedverse.com/stories.php?go=chapters&no=10556

Am I the only one who finds Entropy harder to watch than Seeing Red?

No absolutely not. I think the brutality of Entropy for me is that, I can imagine being in that embarrassing mess of emotions. Seeing Red gets kicked into suspended disbelief territory right away so it hurts but there's a little more distance.

Anya and Spike were not doing anything wrong with their little one-off

completely.

I agree so much with all of this that it's painful.

I can completely understand why Spike feels the need to take some of his own back by letting out that he and Buffy had had sex.

I have possibly minority opinions about this one. I always thought that Spike threw out the "Good enough for Buffy" at least in part to get Xander to fucking stop his attack on Anya. (Yes, I used the f-word. I get steamed about the whole thing.) And it worked, too. Buffy wasn't stepping in to tell Xander he was out of line, Anya was mostly taking it, or at least letting him rattle on, and it was starting to look as if nothing would get him off his freight train of invective. Spike can't fight him...words are all he has.

I don't see Buffy behaving badly during all this, either, which some people seem to. I mean, I wouldn't have objected if she'd just hauled Xander off bodily as soon as she got there (sort of the equivalent of taking Willow home when she gets drunk and obnoxious), but she doesn't pile on or anything. She just keeps Xander from killing anybody and otherwise stays pretty hands off, which is perhaps a reflection of all her earlier neutrality. Fairly upright, I'd say.

Also, I see from the stage direction that Buffy is supposed to be visibly upset by the tryst, but it's the one time SMG doesn't sell it for me. Her performances are usually so nuanced, but she just seems sorta stone-faced throughout. Maybe this was the point where she started to complain about "losing the hero"? IDK

What hurts me the most is that Xander left Anya because he was afraid to turn into an abusive jerk like his father, and then comes this episode, he's depressed, drinking too much, beating and trying to kill someone who can't fight back, and verbally abusing his ex. He's turned into what he tried to escape.

I thought Buffy and Willow showed a lot of sympathy to Anya, Willow even hugged her with happiness the second she saw her. But Anya didn't really want sympathy. She wanted revenge. She wanted to hurt Xander back. That's why she was angry with them. And to be honest, she was really disgusting in those comedy scenes.

At least she makes up for it in end of the episode when she stops Spike from wishing something against Xander.

I actually really enjoy Entropy. It's a brutally honest depiction of break-up dynamics.

I mean, who hasn't been through something like that? Sure, you might have broken relationship ties with someone, but that doesn't mean they won't be insanely jealous if you move on quickly, or, God forbid, seek comfort in someone else's arms. And on the flip side, it's a perfectly human thing to resent an ex for doing the same.

What it comes down to is that just because two people are no longer together doesn't mean the feelings evaporate overnight. Put together unresolved feelings with jealousy, as well as residual break-up anger, and you get the inevitable angstapalooza that we see here. It sucks, and it brings out the worst in people, and it's real.

I love this show. *g*

Am I the only one who finds Entropy harder to watch than Seeing Red?

Lord no. It is not kind. It does things to hurt us. I love it. It hurts.

I don't know if he does so with the intention of trying to raise his own status up (I fucked Buffy, I can't be that bad) or if his intent is to drag Buffy down in Xander's eyes (Well, if Anya sleeping with me upset you, get a load of this). I'm not sure. I don't care. I want to hug him all the same.

ME TOOOOO.

Maybe this is the biggest thing for me, though. It's that Anya and Spike were not doing anything wrong with their little one-off.

THIS. SO MUCH.

Hmm, think I'll pop the episode in now...

I love Entropy. It's gut-wrenching and painful to watch, yes, but that's why it's great. I don't get the 'soap opera' criticism some people level at it. If relationship angst of that kind makes it a soap, hasn't BtVS always been a soap? So, OK, there is the the plot device of Trio accidentally transmitting the Anya/Spike sex for the 'audience', which you need to get the story going, but everything else feels very real. The post-breakup dynamics and emotions of Xander/Anya and Buffy/Spike feel very real.

Of course Xander and Buffy don't have the *right* to be upset, but of course they still are. (Dawn is being stupid by berating Spike for hurting Buffy, but that was just Dawn trying clumsily to look out for her sister.) Buffy doesn't really do anything wrong - it's hard to hold it against her that she shows her otherwise restrained anger and hurt with the line "It didn't take long". Of course it's not fair and of course she has no right to be angry, but it's a very human reaction and it shows that he had stronger feelings for Spike than she was willing to admit.

But Xander... yes, that scene was really the low point for Xander, it's such an ugly moment that exposed all his issues, years of insecurities, vampire-related jealousy, sense of inadequacy, and of course, it was also because he was the one who screwed up his relationship with Anya and he knew it. That's the reason why I can understand and eventually empathize with him, even though I hated him on the first watch (in this as well as the slut-shaming scene in SR). S6 was about exposing everyone's ugly side, and it's good we got to see Xander's issues so exposed with it being coated in humor and funny everyman sidekick persona.

Spike... I can only say that I really feel so much for him in that scene, you really want to hug him as he feels brought to low, being treated as a non-person, and that after fearing and feeling for some time that he wasn't a person to Buffy (especially after the "I believe it's real - for you" comment). I'm not sure what his intention was with revealing his relationship with Buffy, and maybe he wasn't sure either, but this was obviously the point where he just couldn't take it anymore. I got the impression that he looked at Buffy half expecting/wondering if she would finally admit the truth. For whatever reason he did it, it was high time for that secret to finally come to light.

I'm not sure about the way Anya is portrayed in the episode while she's trying to get Xander's friends to kill him. It's an awful thing for sure, yet it's treated in a comedic way... But the show does that quite often. And not just with Anya, Spike used to get that treatment in seasons 3 and 4, when he was making casual funny remarks about the happy memories of the homeless man he and Dru killed or the beautiful dresses with beautiful girls in them that he gave Dru as a present, and that was supposed to be just funny, not to mention the attack on Willow in "The Initiative" which turns into a comedic scene, while it's very disturbing at the same time (both for its literal and metaphorical meaning). It would take Spike becoming a love interest for Buffy for the show to start treating his crimes and the issues of his evil/goodness seriously. For Anya, however, she could be Xander's fiancee and still not be treated seriously - I suppose because X/A was meant to be more light-hearted and humorous than the high drama of Buffy's love life. It's a welcome development (to me) to see X/A filled with real angst - but the show won't really treat Anya's crimes seriously until "Selfless".

I find Entropy much harder to watch as well. To the point I have a hard time remembering specifics of the episode since I've only seen it twice.

I feel just so, so awful for Anya especially. Xander is just AWFUL to her in this episode.