Buffy sending Riley with the Scoobies is definitely right, but not because she was stabbed. The thing is, Riley was trained mostly to teamwork, so he would probably be more efficient with a group. No reason for him to play lone ranger now.

Spike had to flee from London pretty soon after he was turned, so I guess the spikes did happen, but to other people.

Well, shoving Spike to the ground WAS mean, but I would'nt exactly say that I disapprove ;).

Making me choose my favorite flashback is just cruel :(.

Fool for love! \o/

1. Well, yeah. Safety in numbers. Buffy only made it through this episode because she had backup. (Incidentally, one of the everything I've always loved about this episode: Buffy outright saying that he was just a regular vamp who got lucky - her job isn't just about killing time until the apocalypse, she's out there actually risking her life on a day-to-day basis.)

2. He was being creepy, she was being snooty. They deserved each other.

3. I think it works either way, tbh. Another of the everything I love about this episode: it's not about what happens, but what we remember happening.

4. Kind of? Drusilla can figure out a lot about people. She may not have seen it in any detail, but spend 30 seconds with William and I have a feeling you could tell a lot about what sort of vampire he'd be even without ESP.

5, 6. No. Depends on your definition of death wish, though; IMO, the interesting part of Spike's speech here isn't the conclusion but the argument:

Every day you wake up, it's the same bloody question that haunts you: is today the day I die? Death is on your heels, baby, and sooner or later it's gonna catch you. And part of you wants it... not only to stop the fear and uncertainty, but because you're just a little bit in love with it. Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day. That final gasp. That look of peace. Part of you is desperate to know: What's it like? Where does it lead you?

A Slayer, especially an effective, long-lived one, will see a LOT of death. Will be good at dealing it out. Will, naturally, want to understand it - not just the killing, but death itself. Especially since they need to risk their lives every day. Does that mean they want to die? No. But every hero story for a few thousand years now has been about transcending death. To do that, you must face it.

7. Spike's speech has an awful lot of layers, doesn't it?

8. Spike just spent a whole evening describing how he loves killing Slayers and how he looks forward to killing her. What's she supposed to do?

9. Love'em both. But Nikki gets it because of the way the scene intercuts with present day.

10. Probably not.

11. Hell no.

12. CBGB!Spike FTW. But a little bit of love for the poor chaos demon. Slime and antlers!

13. Best episode of the whole series. 5 by 5.

FAVORITE EPISODE EVER!!1!
I've been waiting for this poll. Let's explain.

1 I have another answer. Well, really I don't. I don't understand how Cordelia, back in Graduation Day, stakes a vampire and then Riley super-soldier can't. I understand that a slayer can't fail once and I do believe that generally the risult of a fight depends on various circumstances, but still, this thing isn't clear enough.

2 We didn't see very much of William's story to know if he was a stalker or not. I believe that, probably, he was pretty obsessive but in a non-stalker way. It seems to me that William was very shy and that was the first time he truly reveals his feelings for Cecily. She was pretty rude. But I still don't blame her much.

3 Yes!

4 Yes, she saw something about him.

5 I went for "yes", after all the slayers are deeply connected to death and violence, so it's very easy to develop a death wish. That doesn't mean that every slayer *actually* wants to die.

6 Yes, she does. And, again, that doesn't mean suicide in every possibile situation, but I think that her depression is somehow a natural result of her death wish.

7 Maybe a little, though she wouldn't admit it.

8 She had her reason. After all he was talking about her death and maybe, yes, he pushes a botton, but still it's comprensibile her reaction.

9 Nikki, she was more pragmatic in the fight.

12 I have to chose Spike VS chinese slayer, because it was a great flashback and Spike with those pants and hair his so. damn. sexy. I know, he's sexy in the subway too, possibly more! I really want to be equal. He's sexy in ALL THE VERSION.

I voted for the subway scene as my favorite, because it's SO exciting and interesting, but the Chaos Demon scene is a very close second. The lulz! The slime! The total normalcy of the breakup! The hoof-kiss! *happy sigh*

Also wanted to say that I thought both Cecily and Buffy were unreasonably mean, but that's because it's always distasteful to me when the person in the position of power uses it to hurt or humiliate someone, even if that someone has flaws. Cecily could have said what women have said for ages: It's very flattering but I'm afraid it wouldn't work out." And Buffy specifically asked for the unvarnished truth. When he gives it, it's unfair of her to turn on him.

Edited at 2012-02-07 11:30 pm (UTC)

3. LOL, I like to think he did.

4. Heh, a bit of both?

5. I'd say it's more like the job really wears on a Slayer, and can lead to PTSD and other various illnesses… So, yes, but not in the grand melodramatic way Spike describes it.

11. No way.

13. FIVE FUCKING STARS.

1. I agree with upupa_epops. Also, yeah. It's just dangerous. Buffy frequently doesn't patrol by herself--why should Riley?

2. unreasonably rude. There's just something really cutting about the "beneath me" insult. Ruder than he deserved, even if he was being creepy (which I'm not convinced that he was).

3. Yes! Railroad spike=revenge for their mockery!

4. Yes! Effulgence!

5. Yes! Death wish! Well, that's my guess anyway. I think they likely don't start out with a death wish, but that the burden of being the lone fighter for good, living in secret, abandoning family and dreams and whatnot, combined with constantly seeing death play out at your own hands... after a while, it takes a toll, I bet.

6. Totally death wish. At this point, I think Spike's right, that she has too much to cling to in life, but the death wish is there under the surface--and when the things she clings to are stripped away, the death wish is laid bare.

7. Totally wants to dance. That's part of why she's so mean to Spike, here, I think. Pushing away from the attraction she feels.

8. Another answer--Buffy was really mean--just like Cecily. But with Buffy, I think she's actually lashing out at Spike because she's angry at herself. Angry because she's attracted to him. Angry because she can identify with him. Angry because he can see through her mask and understand her better than anyone ever has before--and what does that say about her, then? If this evil thing that KILLED her sister slayers knows her better than anyone else, what does that mean? If she and him are kindred spirits, then is SHE evil like he is? She's beneath the image she's created for herself. She's not the good Buffy that everyone thinks they know--she's the dark Buffy that only Spike knows. She hates that part of herself--the part that Spike has come to represent for her, so really, Buffy's talking to herself when she tells Spike he's beneath her. She's pushing that part of herself down, denying its existence, stomping on it to make sure it doesn't think it's allowed into the light.

It's awful, but it has way more to do with Buffy's feelings about Buffy than it does to do with her feelings about Spike.

9. Nikki! The subway scene is just so beautiful.

10. My guess is no.

11. No way, Jose. He's always been bad as far as Buffy knows (at this point, anyway).

12. Spike and Nikki! Best of all the flashbacks! Best best best!

13. FIVE BILLIONTY MUTHEREFFING STARS. ALL THE STARS. Easily one of the best episodes of the series.



Edited at 2012-02-07 11:47 pm (UTC)

2. Cecily - at the time I'd say she was too rude with the "you're beneath me" comment - there are many better and less snotty ways to reject a guy - but now I have another answer. Cecily was always Halfrek, which I'm sure they didn't plan but that has to be the case due to later canonical facts. It becomes more understandable why she would want William to get the hell away from her and let her do her job. (Especially if she was indeed supposed to curse someone at the party, which isn't confirmed canon but was a storyline of an old comic.) Though she probably did mean the "beneath me" comment - the funny thing is that this revelation changes its meaning - she probably considered him beneath her simply because he was human. Judging by her behavior in Older and Far Away (recognizing him after all that time, flirty gesture), it doesn't seem that she was put off by him personally that much.

11 - No, he certainly didn't tell her what really happened. His whole story was about boasting how "bad" he always was, not what a dork he was as a human.

Yay! Just what I need as a respite from flat cleaning, a poll. :)

1. Yes. If it weren't for Riley, Buffy would be dead. No way is she going to let anyone patrol on their own and risk something like that happening to them.

2. Another answer. She's horrible and rude, yes, but I don't think William would've really understood that he had no chance whatsoever had she been anything but horrible. I think he would've managed to delude himself that she was being coy or whatnot. Also, I like to think that, in the past, she had tried to let him down gently, but he just couldn't take a hint. Doesn't make her behaviour any less painful for William, but I think she was totally exasperated by the time of the party and decided to give him a very painful, very rude awakening.

3. Course he did. Maybe he offered them a choice of listening to his poetry or getting spiked through the head, and they still chose the spikes.

4. I'd like to think that she saw something in him.

5. No, cause generalisations - not good.

6. Sometimes. She's still not at that stage at the time of the episode, methinks.

7. Not sure. At this point, it's a no, but 'no way' was a bit too emphatic for the 'no' I had in mind.

8. With all the reasons he's given her, he got away lightly. The guy's just told her that she is gonna acquire a death wish, and that, when that happens, when she's at her most vulnerable, he'll find a way to kill her. I think that's a little bit worse than having his feelings hurt.

9. The subway slayer. She's got a dangerous vibe. The Chinese slayer's got a Karate Kid vibe.

10. Yes, and then he would've immediately regretted it.

11. No way. He's got an image to uphold. Besides, we learn here that what he was telling everybody about his breakup with Dru is completely different from what really happened. He also told Buffy that the subway slayer begged for her life, which she clearly didn't. He's self-mythologising like Robert Lowell on crack.

12. I can only tell you what my current fave flashback is, cause that changes all the time. I chose the last one, because the Chaos Demon blowing a kiss at Dru never fails to crack me up.

13. 5 stars. One of my faves.


Also, I find it a bit disturbing how this blonde, blue-eyed dude offed a Chinese woman and a black woman, and then fell in love with a white, blonde woman. Unfortunate implications. Though you'll probably cover that little thing in your feminist analysis later on. :)

1. It always seemed a little off to me that the gang was portrayed as so useless on patrol when they'd been doing it for four years at this point? Riley, I like you and all, but don't sulk about your wounded masculinity so hard it distorts the script, k?

2. I think William was so swept up in his romantic vision that he'd have experienced any rejection as being that horrible. Though I love it in S7 when we find out she had to put him off because she was actually on the job.

4. I think Darla works pretty hard to show us she chose him on purpose? The wisest and bravest knight in all the land line, and then she perks up when he brushes into them, like she saw something in him.

8. As much as I love Spike, I'm hard put to think of something Buffy could dish out that he doesn't deserve at that point.

9. making us choose between Slayers, hmph. OFFENSE, THAT'S RUDE. But Nikki Wood by a hair, since we eventually learn more about her.

11. I really, really doubt he did the whole blow-by-blow. He might've mentioned that there was a girl who didn't love him, but I kind of see him skating past that part.

12. William getting turned! It tells us so much about Spike and Dru, and then I love how it gets drawn out in Darla.

2. I always read Cecily's "beneath me" comment pretty literally, like they were from different social classes. I agree also with the other comments that if she didn't say something very direct, William probably wouldn't have stopped pursuing her. I also doubt that, shy as William seems to be, that he would have had the nerve to stalk her.

FIVE STARS. One of my top 5 episodes of all time.

FFL! WHEEE! One of my very favorite episodes!

1. Yes. Riley was never a lone gunman he has always hunted in teams.

2. My kneejerk reaction is yes, but really I think it's more complicated than that. She obviously had no interest in William. He was obviously oblivious to that fact. I think the real answer is somewhere in the middle of the two.

3. Oh. Hell. Yes. He considered it "poetic" justice.

4. Yep.

5. Maybe not at first, but I think the 24/7/365 nature of the role gets to them.

6. Yep. Sometimes.

7. Oh hell yes she does

8. Mean. And form the way it's juxtaposed over his origin story we're meant to think it's mean.

9. Subway Slayer FTW!

10. Would he have shot the gun? Yes. Would he even possibly have injured her? Uh huh. But I doubt he'd have gone through with actually killing her.

11. No. He was spinning an "always been bad" yarn for her. His image is everything to him. Plus, Buffy isn't needlessly cruel. I highly doubt she'd have used the phrase "beneath me" if she knew its relevance.

12. Subway Slayer!!!

13. ***** Five stars!

Squee!!! My favorite Season 5 episode that isn't also really depressing!

1. Buffy is right to send Riley with people -- he's not a slayer, and we have historically seen that it takes a whole team of non-slayers to get the job done. I think his behavior here is a powerful illustration of his own emotional breakdown. He doesn't seem to know how to follow, and he's lost his passion for leadership.

I think the gang acting incompetent is meant to be a manifestation of that -- his inability to lead them -- rather than illustrating that they've all inexplicably forgotten how to kill vampires.

3. No, I think that's mythology. We see Spike spoiling for a fight a lot, but we never see him big into revenge or mass slaughter, so it just doesn't seem to fit his style of violence. He seems to like it more -- intimate. Which fits the theme, of course.

5-6. Slayers get combat fatigue. That's a big theme for the last three seasons. It's not that they get tired of life, but they get tired of fighting so hard to stay alive. The fight itself starts to lose meaning. And I love Spike's dialog quoted above -- I think he's putting into words for Buffy things she's been feeling, but not articulated to herself quite so clearly. Which is the role of a poet, after all.

8. She is being mean, but he asked for it. He's been taunting her all night.

9. LOVE the subway slayer scene. LOVE IT. Up there with the sword fight in Becoming as a favorite of the whole series, and the ending is sooooo stylish.

12. Drusilla turning Spike is not only my favorite flashback in this episode, it's my favorite vampire-turning scene pretty much ever. *SIGH*

(Much as I dig Buffy and Spike, I loved Spike and Drusilla first, and as a couple they will always have a special place in my heart.)

But all the flashbacks are great. Everything about this episode is great.

*headdesk*

Why oh why did I have to choose only ONE answer for each question?

This episode is on my top ten list. The only reason I didn't give it a solid 5 is because it discomfits me greatly while watching it; I happen to like Buffy/Riley. And this episode made me want Buffy/Spike too. At the time this aired, that bothered me. A LOT.

Here goes:

1. Buffy strategizes as part of her slayer training, so if she thinks bringing the Scoobies along is a good idea, I have to go with that.

2. I have another answer. By the time we get to FFL, I can imagine that William has been making it known (through his poetry and other ways) that Cecily does it for him. She's not interested, and she's not obligated to be interested. So telling him what she told him was completely okay with me because sometimes a guy needs that absoluteness in a rejection in order to understand that there's no hope. Anything weaker was probably not going to do it.

3. I voted the second choice with that one. Everything else seemed to be conflated, so I figure that was too.

4. I think she knew when she looked at him, the way she told him he was made for more, with the burning fishes and such. She saw him, she probably even saw Chosen. But maybe not the context. :)

5. I think they do. It's a hard, short, brutal life with no way out except death in one form or another. It would be hard not to want to just stop after living that life for a length of time.

6. I think sometimes. Less so than previous slayers, probably more so in s6, but I think yes. She's a slayer, one in a long line, and I'd be willing to bet she's lost more than most slayers. Buffy's only human, the slayerness amps up the strength and skills but I don't think the Shadowmen made provisions for the girls' emotional well beings. So I'd be surprised if she never did.

7. I think she did. Hell yeah. There was a few seconds there, where she looked like she was extremely tempted, her lips parting just slightly, her eyes flickering. She wanted, all right.

8. First choice. Spike was tempting her to 'dance', and she was tempted. What she did, she did to wake both of them up to the facts of their situation. But I thought then, like I think now, that she humiliated him horribly and needlessly by throwing money on him and telling him he was beneath her. If Buffy were a man, and Spike a woman, regardless of their roles as vamp and slayer, there wouldn't be a question of how badly she treated him. In fact, Spike gets points taken from him by how horribly he treated Harmony and I never really saw the difference between both situations at different times. I have only seen it once, I can't watch it again. It was too hard for me to see her do that to Spike.

9. Don't make me choooooose!! Okay, I will. Chinese Slayer. It's because she's Asian, and I'm half Asian, and when she turned to Spike and asked him to tell her mother she was sorry, I completely and totally understood what she meant. Whatever the relationship between her and her mother, it's probably very close to the one I had with my mom - Slayer daughter of a traditional Chinese woman, American daughter of a traditional Thai woman....yeah, I identified a lot with that one little request of hers.

10. Nothing on this earth will ever make me believe Spike would have hurt Buffy. NOTHING.

11. No. He conflated and exaggerated like a mad thing. But he must have added some truth, because Buffy knew about the 'beneath me' comment AND his name being William.

12. Spike and the second Slayer. The dialogue, the cuts between past and present, the way he revealed Buffy's death wish, everything was amazing and brilliant and I didn't breath through that whole sequence, not once. That doesn't happen often.

13. Five stars. Of course five stars.