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Storyline
While patrolling the cemetery, the self-confident Buffy fights against a vampire, is stabbed with her stake and saved by Riley. She tells the incident to Giles and decides to research how the previous Slayers were killed. She does not find any information in the watcher's journals and decides to seek the information from Spike. He tells that in 1880, in London, he was a bad poet and a shy good man in a non-corresponded love with Cecily. When he meets Drusilla, she bites and converts him in the evil vampire. Later, in the same year in Yorkshire, he meets Angel and Darla and is challenged to defeat a slayer. In 1900, in China, he is well-succeeded and kills his first slayer. In 1977, in the subway of New York City, he kills his second slayer. He advises Buffy that she must never be reckless and keep her death wish to survive. Written by
Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot Summary
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Plot Synopsis
Certificate:
TV-PG
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Did You Know?
Trivia
On the DVD commentary, episode writer
Douglas Petrie says that the scene in which Spike and Angelus are fighting and trying to stake each other while Darla and Drusilla look on with glee is a not-very-subtle allegory for female enjoyment of male homoeroticism.
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Goofs
At 28:02, when the camera circles around Spike to pick up Buffy, you can see the tip of the boom microphone come into frame as well, bobbing above her head.
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Quotes
Spike:
We just keep coming. But you can kill a hundred, a thousand, a thousand thousand and the armies of Hell besides, and all we need... is for one of us, just one, sooner or later, to have the thing we're all hoping for.
Buffy:
And that would be what?
Spike:
One good day.
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Connections
Referenced in
Angel: Darla (2000)
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If this episode is any indication, this could mark the real fork in the road where BtVS really veers terminally off course. This episode reveals the history of Spike and how he killed two slayers -- one in the late 19th century, and one in the late 20th century. It also provides a brief return by Angel & Dru, and offers a quick peek at Darla as well.
The problem I have with this episode is the whole Spike-Buffy relationship conundrum. It's a classic love-hate lover's knot. And there's the rub -- it diminishes Spike's badness while highlighting Buffy's addictive attraction to badness. Angel is gone. Riley is here. Yet Buffy can't seem to keep her focus on the good in her life. Maybe the writers and directors thought this would give the show an edge, but to my way of thinking it's what got the show muddled into plot holes and moral murkiness. It's as if the show lost its way and had no idea what it really wanted to say. Maybe it's supposed to portray human nature. But is it human nature at it's best? Worst? Most human? Most alienated? It's a mess, is what it is.
3 out of 10.