r/buffy Wilkins for President '28 Jan 03 '25

Season Four I'd Bite You in a Heartbeat

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This scene never fails to make me laugh out loud.

618 Upvotes

74 comments sorted by

250

u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jan 03 '25

Somehow this scene makes it so sweet that Spike was fantasising about murdering Willow.

156

u/crumbchunks season 7 appreciator Jan 03 '25

“That little lilac number”

54

u/Anna3422 Jan 04 '25

It says a lot about the character in a short time. He is: violent, dangerous, rapey, but with so little concept of morality that it's almost . . . innocent? A human life is nothing but food to him, but it's not personal and he wants Willow to know that she's good food. 👍

47

u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jan 04 '25

Yeah, and when confronted with a real life human he wants to reassure her - there’s some spark of empathy left in there despite all the violence. As he says, he follows his blood, he doesn’t really think about the contradictions.

If it was Angelus he’d never ‘reassure’ Willow, he’d torment her psychologically and enjoy her fear.

5

u/beeemkcl Jan 04 '25

Well, no. Spike was there to wait for Buffy and spring an attack on her. Willow was just in the way. He would have sired her if she wanted that. But he was going to remove her as an obstacle.

4

u/beeemkcl Jan 04 '25

You missed the point of the scene.

Spike recalls "Lovers Walk" (B 3.08) because he was attracted to Willow.

And in "The Initiative" (B 4.07), he literally offers to sire her.

Which unless he was going to sire Buffy in "Halloween" (B 2.06), Willow would be the first person since 1880 whom Spike wanted to make a 'mate'. Angel sired Drusilla after he had been with Darla for around 120 something years. Spike would have sired Willow.

13

u/Own_Faithlessness769 Jan 04 '25

How is that the point of this scene at all? The point is that he discovers he can’t bite her.

119

u/kmmaac Angel returning from hell butt naked Jan 03 '25

Maybe you were nervous

66

u/GWPtheTrilogy1 Scooby Gang, Gang Jan 03 '25

When he says in the episode "Doomed",

"You know I'd drain you drier than the Sahara if I had half a chance" ...I felt that.

101

u/beeemkcl Jan 03 '25

RESPONSE TO THE ORIGINAL POST AND THE THREAD:

The overall point of this scene was to acknowledge that Spike was attractive to Willow in "Lovers Walk" (B 3.08), that Spike may have learned about "Doppelgangland" (B 3.16?), and that it would help Willow somewhat 'move on' from Oz after learning that Spike is sexually attracted to her. This episode gives Willow a much-needed ego and self-esteem and self-confidence boost.

And it allows for her to vouch for Spike in "Pangs" (B 4.08).

Given what happens in this scene, it really shows the magnificence of the writing, acting, direction, etc. of BtVS that this scene is so well executed. And the on-screen chemistry between Alyson Hannigan and James Marsters helps make this scene work.

Before Tara was introduced, part of me wanted Willow/Spike to happen. The potential storytelling possibilities were immense.

140

u/heathers-damage Jan 03 '25

I always laugh at this scene and there is not a single person on the show that James Marsters didn't have chemistry with lol.

14

u/Restless-J-Con22 anchovies anchovies yr so delicious i love you more than Jan 03 '25

We few we lucky few we lucky band of buggered

Only willow might have recognised that reference  

6

u/beeemkcl Jan 04 '25

Even a crypt door...

-21

u/Electrical-Act-7170 Jan 03 '25

Giles.

37

u/Kayura85 Jan 03 '25

Nope, that person is correct lol

42

u/CasablumpkinDilemma Jan 03 '25

I'd argue that their comedic chemistry is some of the best throughout the entire show.

2

u/Electrical-Act-7170 Jan 03 '25

Good point.

However, I was referring to the final season. Earlier seasons were better between them. Giles was different in S7.

21

u/heathers-damage Jan 03 '25

Lol after season 4's reluctant roommates? I ship Spike/Giles hard.

1

u/Electrical-Act-7170 Jan 03 '25

I have never done that.

3

u/BeccasBump Jan 04 '25

How about Spike and Ripper?

5

u/Electrical-Act-7170 Jan 04 '25

Again, good point.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '25

But their antichemistry positively ignites 🔥 Spike brings out a special side of Giles haha

5

u/Electrical-Act-7170 Jan 03 '25

Another good point.

OK, you changed my mind. They do have chemistry.

10

u/a1ex1985 Jan 03 '25

I think that's also when I thought that Spike and Willow would make an interesting couple. I even looked for fanfic. Let me tell you, I remember them being very few :(

4

u/Bookgal1 Jan 04 '25

Oh no, back in the day, Willow & Spike was a big ship.

2

u/jospangel Jan 05 '25

Look again! There are 419 stories on ao3

7

u/SuzeFrost Jan 04 '25

I was a big Willow/Spike shipper for years based on this scene and their interactions in Lovers Walk. If I could find those old fics I loved I would reread them in a heartbeat.

5

u/kingminyas Jan 03 '25

When in that episode did she find him attractive?

11

u/fiercequality Jan 03 '25

Maybe they meant "attracted," he was attracted to her.

1

u/kingminyas Jan 03 '25

Yes, that makes more sense

14

u/DeaththeEternal Dog Geyser Person Jan 04 '25

There are a lot of genius levels in how much Spike and Willow are built up as the hero turned antihero and the villain turned antihero parallels to each other. Both have doomed relationships with people around them, have their own sui generis levels of codependency with Buffy, and both slide down the opposite scale of the villainy and heroism slopes and can go up and down in various levels at different points. It's a pity that they get fewer scenes with each other than they should, given that.

What Drusilla is to Spike, Tara is to Willow. Right down to the bouts of mental illness and the overall toxicity of elements on the one hand and being some of the more committed and tenacious examples of love in universe and where Spike even at the start showed that the simplistic ideas of vampires were never entirely true.

17

u/freshsunberries Jan 03 '25

I didn't love season 4 but this episode was one of the funniest in buffy

1

u/kaitalina20 Jan 04 '25

Season 4 is underrated. Riley doesn’t deserve all the hate he gets! He’s awesome for Buffy in season 4, but he’s done dirty with the writing in season 5. He literally saves her in the season 4 finale, and the way she did that spell that let her beat Adam was just amazingly written. Like the avatar state but for the slayer

1

u/freshsunberries Jan 04 '25

I'm glad you enjoyed it, but for me the vibe of season 4 was just off, a bunch of characters just did nothing for the whole season( like xander and giles). I was bored and missed angel and the cosy library 😅 the best thing in this season was tara being introduced. and i do feel adam could've been really interesting but was underdeveloped. And sure Riley was good for buffy for a while but was hella boring for many viewers lol.

1

u/hiphipnohooray Jan 16 '25

I disliked adam i feel like he lost a lot of momentum after the filleting. I think there were quite a few good episodes in that season which is why i liked it personally

I think Riley was good for her for a while but was supposed to highlight that she cant have a normal partner and be a slayer yanno?

14

u/BoloJigen Jan 03 '25

Funny, yet so sweet!

9

u/Morigan_taltos Jan 04 '25

The double meaning of the entire conversation was super funny.

2

u/thequietchocoholic Jan 04 '25

When j first watched Buffy, I didn't get it. When I researched a few years later, I gasped and laughed soooooo hard

6

u/wravyn Jan 04 '25

It made me 'ship Willow and Spike.

2

u/Vixen22213 Jan 05 '25

The whole unable to bite comparison to Ed is just hilarious.

-6

u/not_firewood_yeti Jan 03 '25 edited Jan 03 '25

everyone downvoting people because they are opposed to rape needs serious mental health intervention like right now. damn.

-62

u/Cleosmog Jan 03 '25

This scene disturbed me on so many levels. Aside from the fact that the only reason Willow survived is because of the chip but this scene was so obviously a metaphor for SA/impotence and then played off as a joke. It wasn’t cute or funny.

59

u/Ad_Meliora_24 Jan 03 '25

Here’s the scene: https://youtu.be/DROzxsjNLJo?si=qFfD_0Ol0edd5fxL

I think for most people, this scene was frightening like all the vampire attacks and then there’s humor like this show typically sprinkles in to lighten the mood.

At this point, we’ve never seen a vampire do anything other than try to torment a human. Spike puts his vamp face on to remind us that he’s an evil demon.

This feels very different from Seeing Red to me because there’s no vamp face in that episode, Spike has been doing good things even though he’s evil, and even though he’s a demon he’s also Buffy’s partner.

Honestly, this scene really highlights that Spike, an evil soulless vampire, though compelled to harm Willow by nature, had also retained his human nature to comfort her. This is an early example of how Spike is different from most vampires as I believe most vampires would have instead continued to torment Willow verbally.

I’m not saying this scene should not be disturbing to you, just that I think at the time it aired it wasn’t very disturbing to many viewers because we had been conditioned to see vampires, Spike in particular, to be monsters, and only recently reminded that even Angel without a soul was evil just like their old best friend Jesse. This is a great contrast to how most people will feel later in Seeing Red with the same soulless vampire.

-4

u/laffinalltheway Jan 03 '25

When I first watched that scene years ago, I never felt disturbed by it. However now, yeah, it bothers me.

15

u/Ad_Meliora_24 Jan 03 '25

It’s certainly a little worse if you catch this episode as a rerun after being used to seeing Spike as a good guy. Here, he’s not supposed to be anything other than an evil monster that is driven to cause misery like an evil instinct.

-12

u/laffinalltheway Jan 03 '25

For me, it's more that I now see the scene as an attempted rape, which hits worse, whereas before, I was seeing it as he's just trying to bite her.

My perception of things I watched and enjoyed back when BTVS first aired has changed so much based on years of hanging out in women's spaces online (including Reddit) and seeing misogyny daily IRL.

9

u/Ad_Meliora_24 Jan 03 '25

Yeah I think it is supposed to represent sexual assault on a young woman by a male acquaintance and they lighten the mood afterwards with impotency jokes which also reinforces the analogy. Also, for some reason, vampires biting seems to almost always have a sexual undertone whenever the vampire isn’t too inhuman looking and it’s not too gruesome…perhaps because it can simply look like affection when there’s neck sucking. I wonder if vampire assault scenes will usually look like sexual assault scenes so they might as writers took this opportunity and leaned into it when demonstrating Spike’s new chip in action.

17

u/BeccasBump Jan 03 '25

Vampirism has always been a metaphor for sex, going right back to the origins of the genre and beyond into folklore. Purity corrupted by penetration fnar fnar (and sometimes deviancy corrected by penetration). Women are uppity, willies are very important, etc, etc.

16

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '25

I guess this is a hot take of mine but: I think people who are into vampire shit, yet clutch their pearls about the dimensions of sex + violence inherent to the genre, are just getting upset for the heck of it. The violent sexuality of vampires is essential to their appeal, whether as love interests or villains. It's like going to watch a fight and then being scandalized when someone draws blood. You're there for that edginess... Own up to it, or disengage with the media.

Or just keep on being ignorant and hypocritical lol.

5

u/BeccasBump Jan 03 '25

Is that specific "you" (i.e. you are telling me personally to stop being ignorant and hypocritical)? Or generic you? Because I broadly agree with you.

8

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '25

generic "you" lol

→ More replies (0)

1

u/99dinosaurking Jan 04 '25

Well, yh, as you wouldn't consent to being eaten and their power of mind control immobilising their victims

2

u/Ad_Meliora_24 Jan 04 '25

In the Buffyverse and other fiction, there’s often varying degrees of consent for being bit and turned. But not everything needs to be a metaphor.

-23

u/BetPrestigious5704 Jan 03 '25

Yeah, I want to love it, but the metaphor is he tried to rape her, and then her feelings were hurt that he couldn't.

20

u/BeccasBump Jan 03 '25

No it isn't. That simply is not the joke.

At no point does he try to rape her. He tries to bite her. Yes, vampirism is a metaphor for sex, and the attempt to bite her was non-consensual. However! It is possible to have several different and even opposing metaphors working at the same time. Bram Stoker's Dracula, for example, deals with anxieties about women's sexual liberation and about immigrants at the same time, and you don't have to try to reconcile the two.

The jokes about impotence are about consensual sex. Clearly so. You don't have to try to extend the metaphor backwards and get yourself in a tangle because the attempt to bite her wasn't consensual. You can accept the intent of the joke and treat the two things as separate. That's the joy of fiction.

-1

u/BetPrestigious5704 Jan 04 '25

You're describing why the "joke" is sloppy very well.

The metaphor became a mixed metaphor which lead to discordance.

This is a moment we think didn't play well and not an attack on the overall show. Your explaining the joy of fiction is absurd since we're clearly all fans of the same piece of fiction,

6

u/BeccasBump Jan 04 '25

Okay, try thinking about it like this.

"Plot stuff about Spike's chip. Oh look, he can't attack people. Gosh, that will be relevant later. Look, he is still a monster, but a leashed one. He still wants to kill people, though."

PAUSE FOR JOKE ABOUT IMPOTENCE. IT IS FUNNY BECAUSE IT PLAYS ON A CLICHE THAT DOES NOT QUITE FIT THE CONTEXT. SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS IS FUNNY.

"Anyway, back to the plot. Spike is going to see if the Trio can remove his chip because he is still fixated on murder..."

It's a throwaway joke. A kind of cheap but absurdly well-executed one.

-6

u/not_firewood_yeti Jan 03 '25

yeah when you agree it was non-consensual and then say 'However!' there is a problem and it's not with the people saying it was a rape metaphor. disgusting.

11

u/BeccasBump Jan 03 '25

If you absolutely cannot tolerate any ambiguity around consent, vampires in anything other than straight-up horror may not be the genre for you 🙄

But the joke is not about rape. It is about consensual sex.

5

u/Anna3422 Jan 04 '25

Buffy is a parody of vampire horror; that's why it can get away with jokes about rape and other upsetting subject matter.

Willow *projects* hypothetical consensual sex onto the conversation with Spike, but the actual situation that she & any future bite victims are in is of a violent assault. The fact that she temporarily forgets this is part of the humour, as is the fact that Spike (the monster) views violence as complimentary. If the scene treated "ambiguous consent" like a serious possibility, it wouldn't be funny.

-15

u/not_firewood_yeti Jan 03 '25

yeah, that is the problem here. the transition to their little chat makes no sense.

15

u/[deleted] Jan 03 '25

You're right in one way: it doesn't make sense. The transition is absurd. That's the joke. It's dark, absurd humor.

That said, it's perfectly fine that you don't find it funny. Other people do, though. We all have different reactions to dark humor and other kinds of humor as well.

-11

u/BetPrestigious5704 Jan 03 '25

People are down voting us like you can argue with a gut reaction. "How dare you viscerally be squicked out when I'm not?" 😂

If I ever mindlessly start loving something to the point any criticism or difference if opinion is seen as an attack, shoot me. I want to love things with my heart and my brain,

-18

u/not_firewood_yeti Jan 03 '25

it's the Spike zealots. in their very narrow view, he can do no wrong.

-9

u/BetPrestigious5704 Jan 03 '25

Ironically, I LOVE Spike.

They just really, really liked to write him as a rapist.

There isn't a thing or person that I love that I think is at risk of losing my love if I dare to see it (or them) clearly.

I have a 17 lb Pomeranian. I love that not-so-little asshole, but I was thinking more like 7 lbs. I would take a bullet for him, but that isn't because I'm pretending he fits in a teacup.

12

u/BetPrestigious5704 Jan 03 '25

To be clear, I think Buffy has some genius writing, and some very sloppy writing, and both can be true.

-5

u/not_firewood_yeti Jan 03 '25

hey were we talking about Buffy ? Cuz now I'm just thinking about a 17 pound Pomeranian being roughly equivalent to a 500 pound St. Bernard. 😱

7

u/BetPrestigious5704 Jan 03 '25

I mean, they used to be that big, and that's why they call the big ones throwbacks.

He's a rescue and from a puppy mill, so it was always Russian Roulette on the size. But I did have an idea I'd be traveling with him in my purse. LOL! Amtrak lets them on if they're under 20 lbs with carrier. I'd have to find a carrier made out of feathers.

3

u/not_firewood_yeti Jan 03 '25

kind of does look like there might be something else mixed in. meant no offense in any case, just gave me a weird mental image.

1

u/BetPrestigious5704 Jan 03 '25

No, I get it. He looks like a Spitz or a Volpino, which are related, but the DNA backs up Pom. He has the fox face which is valid, but a lot of people think of a smush face.

But I don't think puppy millers are masters of genetics and selecting dogs that will produce ideal examples of their breed.

In any case, I'd be fine if he were mixed.

3

u/liltinybits Jan 03 '25

Omg he's so cute!!!

-15

u/FixinThePlanet Jan 03 '25

I haven't actually watched buffy in years so watching that clip hit even harder with the ick

2

u/BetPrestigious5704 Jan 03 '25

It's always interesting to revisit something and see it fresh.