Several theories shot down, several more to take their place

[annathepiper]

Okay, so I'm slightly disappointed, but only slightly...

Only slightly disappointed, that is, that ol' Joss appears to have gone and taken the 'vampire with a soul' route for Spike after all. I was really hoping that they'd do the 'he's human now' route... but then again, I can live with this option, too. There is one advantage to keeping Spike a vampire, which is, he gets to remain a badass, even if he's also gone stark raving bonkers. As was demonstrated with Riley, Buffy does seem to need a guy who can keep up with her... and for that matter, that was also held up in the crossover episode where Angel was temporarily made human again by that demon's regenerative blood. So Spike as vampire with soul, I can deal. ;)

I was startled that she found out this quickly that he does have a soul again, though. I would have expected they'd drag the suspense out a little longer... and I'm wondering now if they chose to just go ahead and get it out of the way to clear the board for That Which is Coming, whatever this big nastybad demon on the way is. It could, I suppose, distract the hell out of Buffy later at a crucial time if she hasn't found out yet, so.

But I do feel pretty sorry for Spike now. I can't see Buffy choosing to accept him any time soon even if he does have a soul now, partly out of the simple fact that he tried to freggin' rape her and partly because she's been there done that, when it comes to having a souled vampire as a love interest. With Angel, we obviously knew that Buffy loved him; we don't know any such thing with Spike. She's been powerfully attracted, yes. Seeming to find him a comfort when she was dealing with coming back to life, yes. Love... no. Something does seem to be there; she did after all go looking for him in the basement. And she chased after him after he flipped. And she was certainly floored as all hell when she realized that Spike went and got his soul back for her.

But we don't really have any evidence yet to suggest that that's love.

I suppose it will depend on how she reacts to this new, souled Spike, and whether she will find it in herself to forgive him for what he did. But I can't expect that that will happen any time soon. That may be what has to wait till later in the season, especially if this does turn out to be the last season of the show.

In the meantime, Spike's just totally screwed, seven ways from Sunday, now that we know he 1) is still a vampire, 2) has his soul back, and his soul half is wrestling big time with his demon half, 3) he still has the CHIP in his head, 4) the Big Bad Thing is still clearly screwing with him.

Never mind the Chick Whose Ex-Boyfriend Gets Turned Into Sloggoth Demon plot, clearly this was the episode of It Sucks to Be Spike. ;)

Comments

[avram]

And we see another girl get killed at the beginning of the episode. From the way she fought, I'd guess she was a Slayer. Or rather, one of the proto-Slayers, the girls who could be The One if the current One dies, and are being trained in anticipation of that possibility. So I'm guessing last week's opening kill-bait was one too, and someone's killing proto-Slayers.

Re:

[annathepiper]

Yeah, the proto-Slayer theory was brought up by Mimi as well... at least it was when I got home about 15 minutes into the episode, she mentioned that theory to me!

Which is interesting... Buffy didn't really have a Watcher as a proto-Slayer, did she? Even in the movie? Watcher shows up and tells her she is in fact the Slayer at that point. But almost every other Slayer, if not every other Slayer, we've seen so far has in fact received training prior to being called.

I wonder how they know.

And oh yeah, another thing

[annathepiper]

If Spike is still a vamp, how the hell did his hair change back from peroxide blond? Getting it to that bleached blond look is easy, he just bleaches or dyes it, but how does it change back? One would assume that a vamp's hair does not grow or alter... but would that be an inaccurate assumption? ;)