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rahirah · 2 years

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Smashed Review

So I was going through a bunch of ancient zip files on my hard drive, and I found the review of “Smashed” that I wrote immediately after it aired. I have to say that it holds up surprisingly well, probably because I’m inherently pessimistic. Have an historical document:

I am moved to write an actual review. Yay, me.

In this week's episode of BtVS, Smashed, everyone's craving something, and almost everyone is lying to themselves about it.

Willow's craving surcease from heartbreak. Despite the front she puts on for her friends, she is deeply depressed about Tara's departure, but refuses to acknowledge Tara's reasons for doing so. She describes their fight to the others as a minor misunderstanding, oblivious to their unease as she gets deeper and deeper into the magic hole.

Amy's craving a simpler life. She can't deal with the three-year lapse of time since she was last human. She's shell-shocked by the changes in the world and doesn't want to see her father, hinting that he didn't know that she'd taken up magic. Given that her father divorced her mother over Catherine Madison's use of magic, Amy's fears that having to explain the reason for her disappearance to him will end badly aren't trivial ones.

Buffy's craving Spike's hot, tight little body, and possibly more, and the implications of her desire terrify her. She cannot bear to admit it, to herself or to Spike. She spends the episode denying her attraction to him and desperately trying to push him away, to hurt him so badly that he leaves before he can hurt her.

Spike's craving Buffy's respect. Driven to distraction by her alternating affection and disgust, after seven episodes of mostly exemplary behavior, Spike finally snaps and reverts (or tries to revert) to the Big Bad, spurred on by his apparent discovery that the chip no longer functions.

Tara acts as the sole real adult in this episode. She is still drawn to Willow, and acknowledges as much, while realizing that for her own good she can't give in to her craving. She also makes an effort to make Dawn feel better, making her the only person in the episode willing to put her own pain aside for someone else's sake.

Willow and Amy drown their sorrows in a binge of irresponsible spellcasting at the Bronze before heading out for bigger and better things. When one contrasts Spike's behavior with Willow's in this same episode, it's difficult to see much moral difference between them. Both are rejected by the woman they love. Both act out their hurt and anger on others. In both cases, no one ended up hurt, but both cases could equally well have ended in tragedy.

The episode draws several parallels between Buffy's attraction to Spike and Willow's out-of-control use of magic. Just as Willow refuses to take responsibility for Tara's leaving her, Buffy refuses to take responsibility for her actions in initiating the kissing with Spike, blaming it all on spells or depression over Giles's departure. During the conversation in the Magic Box, Buffy is disturbed by Anya's assertion that the responsible, 'good' people are the most dangerous when they finally go bad. She is unwilling to believe that Willow is dangerous, and denies that 'everybody' can be seduced. She is obviously worried about the similarities between Willow and herself, two 'good girls' who have gotten a taste of something powerful, seductive and possibly dangerous.

We are meant to draw the conclusion that Buffy is addicted to Spike, and that this is as undesirable a condition as Willow's magic abuse. However, it's not at all clear that it's Buffy who's the worst off in their liasion. Compare the Spike of "Bargaining" to the Spike of "Smashed." It's not a pretty picture. In "Bargaining" Spike had a good working relationship with the Scoobies, a good family relationship with Dawn, and was coping with existence reasonably well. He was still in mourning for Buffy, but by no means incapacitated with grief, and was doing something productive with his unlife.

Enter Resurrected!Buffy, and seven eps later, Spike is isolated from everyone except Buffy, due to his anger at being left out of the loop regarding her resurrection and Buffy's entrusting him with her secret. Spike's words to Buffy in the teaser fit him far better than they fit her; she still has family and friends she can turn to if she chooses to do so; Spike has no one and nothing left. He's given up all his alliances, human and demon both, for her sake. There's too much simmering passion between them for them to be just friends, but Buffy refuses to let them be anything else. Although Buffy repeatedly repulses him, sometimes with behavior which can only be described as gratuitously cruel, Spike never once considers leaving. She is his addiction, as much or more than he is hers.

When Spike accidentally discovers that he can hit Buffy without pain, he believes that the chip has malfunctioned. The solution to his problem is obvious: when he was bad, Buffy might have hated him, but she respected him. Spike can endure, just barely, without Buffy's love, but he can't bear her lack of respect. Spike goes out and stalks a woman, then treats his prospective dinner to a rant about how Buffy takes him for granted. His victim tells him she's sure he's not evil. Spike denies it, stating that he's evil, and dangerous, and hasn't forgotten how to be a killer.

Spike's motivations in this scene are, as usual, opaque and open to multiple interpretations. After weeks of being the ball in Buffy's game of Kiss/Kick The Spike, and years of feeling ineffectual and powerless due to the chip, he's getting an undeniable rush at having, as he thinks, the power of life and death over mere mortals again. At the same time, his speech to the woman he tries to bite makes it clear that far from chowing down on the nearest warm neck because that's what vampires do, his attack is All About Buffy, a desperate attempt to prove to her that he's someone who cannot be ignored or used at her whim. The woman's attempt to convince Spike that he's not evil can be seen as an indication that he isn't, really, or, in view of the fact that Spike does attempt to bite her, a jab at the gullibility of those who believe him capable of real reform. In the end Spike bites, or tries to, but he must work himself up to it, and his speech about how evil he is sounds as if he's trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. It's worth noting that in this scene, and no other, Spike's hair is mussed up, which usually indicates emotional vulnerability on his part.

The scene is both encouraging and discouraging in terms of Spike's personal growth. Encouraging because Spike is clearly not forced into biting the woman because of his vampire nature; he does it purely out of hurt, anger, and spite at Buffy, and must work himself up to it even so. This means that in other circumstances it's possible for him to choose differently. Discouraging as it demonstrates that Spike has, as yet, no concern for people outside his personal circle. As in the Bronze scene in "Crush," the fact that he hesitated at all is worth noting, but I have little doubt that had the chip really been on the fritz he would have killed the woman--perhaps with regret at severing all ties with the human world, but she'd be no less dead for that. Getting through to Buffy is more important to him than anything else.

And it is all about getting through to Buffy. When his biting attempt fails and Warren confirms that the chip is still working, Spike is not disappointed in the slightest. In fact, he appears pleased. He doesn't make any attempt to have Warren disable the chip, and doesn't even seem to consider the possibility, though Warren expresses interest in how it works. Spike doesn't care about regaining his ability to kill per se; the attack on the woman was only a device to get through to Buffy, and now he has a new angle. If the chip is functioning, and yet he can still hit Buffy, then Buffy, who called him a thing, is now a thing herself, something other than human, something, at last, on his level.

Spike still loves Buffy, but at this point he's given up on winning her love by rising to her level. With good reason; Buffy cannot admit that he's capable of being on her level, because that would make him too much of an emotional threat. The greater her attraction to him is, the more strenuously Buffy must tell herself, and him, that Spike is a non-person, a thing, nothing she could possibly relate to on an I-Thou basis. She cannot deal with the change in their relationship even though she's the one who's initiated it. She wants Spike's emotional and physical support, but she's unwilling or unable to give him anything at all in return. Buffy is using him, whether she intends to do so or not.

In order to reach Buffy, Spike must break through her walls, tear down the pedestal both of them have placed her on so they can finally see eye to eye. He doesn't intend to hurt her--much--but he's more than willing to take and dish out pain if necessary. Buffy's post-resurrection difference, whatever it turns out to be, has finally given him physical parity; while she's still stronger than he is, she can no longer beat him up at will. Physical parity is the first step to emotional parity; now that Spike can fight back again, Buffy can no longer dismiss or ignore his attempts to communicate by punching him and walking off.

Buffy doesn't want to believe that she came back as something other than human, refuses to believe Spike when he tells her that's the reason he's able to hit back now, and attacks him in a fury, trying to get him to take the awful truth back. Buffy taunts Spike that he fits into neither the human nor the demon world and accuses him of loving not her, but the fact that she can beat him up. Spike's final dig at Buffy is a little strange: he tells her not that no one loves her (which would be obviously untrue; even as they fight, he tells her that he loves her) but that she has no one to love.

And this is the crux of Buffy's problem: wrapped up in her own pain, she has no love to give anyone else--not Spike, not Dawn, not Willow, not even herself. There's no way that Buffy's pain is going to magically go away; it's real, and it's going to take a long time to deal with. Her spirit guide told her last season that she had the power to forge love out of pain, and this is what she must learn do in order to heal. When Buffy claims Spike has come nowhere near hurting her, and he asks if she's afraid to give him the chance, it's very clear that they're not talking about physical pain.

In Smashed Buffy finally gives in to her physical desire for Spike, but she's still denying any possibility of an emotional connection. That there is an emotional connection there can be little doubt; if Buffy truly felt nothing but lust for him, she wouldn't be so completely terrified of admitting it. It's the emotional consequences of loving yet another person who may betray or abandon her that she fears.

Again, the final scene is open to multiple interpretations. Buffy and Spike's battle is savage foreplay, not a serious attempt to incapacitate one another. (Note the complete lack of the fancy moves both of them showed off in the fight scenes in Tabula Rasa. In Smashed, their moves are as raw as their emotions.) They do considerable property damage during the fight, but when the fighting turns to passion, they literally bring the house down. Some reviewers maintain it's a sign that the affair is a doomed one, bound to destroy everything around it. A more optimistic theory is that the building crumbling around them as they make love signifies that Spike has successfully torn down the walls around Buffy's heart. And yeah, it is making love, not just shagging, at least for Spike; his expression in those final scenes is that of a demon who's as close to heaven as he's ever going to get. The two of them maintain eye contact throughout, even after falling through the floor, and it's interesting to note that in this their first encounter, neither one is on top.'

Sometimes destruction is necessary before you can start to build anew. But unless Buffy can confront what's been revealed honestly, and admit that she does need to start building, then it won't be long before the two of them destroy one another. They know too much about one another. Already their complete absorption in their own problems has left Dawn alone and miserable, deserted by her sister and her protector. Tara can no longer fill the gap all by herself.

As far as the Spike-redemption front goes, at this point it's going to be all but impossible for Spike to make any further progress without positive reinforcement from someone. Isolated from everyone except Buffy, who's in no condition to offer help and advice to anyone, much less a conflicted and infatuated vampire, it's hard to see where he's going to get it. The Scoobs have never been very good about giving a helping hand to people who are trying to reform; just ask Faith.

Unfortunately, the events of "Smashed" may have taught Spike the lesson that in her current condition, being bad is the only way to get Buffy's attention and respect. (Not to mention major nookie.) I see more backsliding in his future. The only bright spot is that Buffy now has proof positive that once able to attack her, Spike did not make any serious attempt to kill her (unless screwing her to death counts). Buffy doesn't know about the attack on the woman, and if ME's track record for brushing aside the trials and tribulations of the ordinary joes the Scoobs are supposedly in the business of saving holds, she may never find out, but learning that Spike is still willing to attack people isn't likely to make Buffy more amenable to a real relationship with him.

The addiction metaphor is pushed even harder in the previews for next week's show, Wrecked. Willow, eager for more power, seeks out a warlock who can reportedly increase one's ability to do magic. Buffy attempts once again to give up Spike cold turkey, while he informs her that it's useless; from now on she'll crave him like he craves blood. I'm fairly sure that we won't be able to fully comprehend the significance of Smashed until much later; Wrecked is undoubtedly a companion episode along the lines of Surprise/Innocence and Reprise/Epiphany. Eventually, perhaps, Buffy will realize that some addictions--like those for air, water, and food--are necessary for life. The need to love and be loved is among those necessary addictions, and whether with Spike or someone else, Buffy's going to have to give in to it or, in an emotional sense, remain forever one of the walking dead.

#btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #smashed

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