User:Zythe/Spike

Television

Spike and his girlfriend Drusilla (Juliet Landau) are introduced in the Buffy season two episode "School Hard" (1997). Though Drusilla is quite frail from injury, Spike strategically chooses to attack the Slayer on a sacred night when vampires abilities are enhanced, by besieging Sunnydale High on parent-teacher night. Buffy's vampire boyfriend Angel (David Boreanaz) and mentor Giles (Anthony Head) explain that Spike is Angel's former compatriot and a very powerful vampire who has already killed two Slayers. Though Spike nearly kills Buffy, she defeats him after a timely attack from her mother (Kristine Sutherland). Spike and Dru remain as Buffy's adversaries throughout season two, and when Angel loses his soul, he rejoins Spike and Dru in "Innocence" and begins terrorizing Buffy. Spike is injured by Buffy in "What's My Line", and is left wheelchair-bound for the rest of the season; he watches patiently as Angelus sexually pursues Dru. In order to win Dru back from Angel, in two-part season finale "Becoming", Spike assists Buffy in defeating Angelus and he abandons Sunnydale with Drusilla in tow. Spike makes one guest appearance in Buffy season three, in the episode "Lovers Walk" (1998). Drusilla having dumped him for a Chaos Demon while they were in Brazil together, he returns to Sunnydale drunk and despondent. He captures Buffy's best friend and witch Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) to cast a love spell over Drusilla. In the ensuing events of the episode, he assists Buffy and Angel in a brawl with the Mayor's vampire minions; hereafter, he concludes that Drusilla left him because he went soft, and departs Sunnydale once more with resolve to win her back.

Spike returns again in season four episode "The Harsh Light of Day" (1999), now dating shallow vampire Harmony (Mercedes McNab). Having acquired the mystical Gem of Amarra, which grants immortality, Spike is able to attack Buffy in the daytime at UC Sunnydale. He is bested when she is able to remove the ring, and sends it to Angel in Los Angeles for the Angel spin-off series episode "In the Dark". In the Angel crossover (airing the same night), Spike attempts to reacquire the ring but is double-crossed by his associate. In Buffy episode "The Initiative", Spike is captured by a the Initiative, group of demon-hunting commandos, and implanted with a cerebral microchip which prevents him from attempting to harm humans without suffering debilitating pain. He attempts to stake himself in "Doomed", and appears regularly assisting Buffy's friends throughout the season. Although in "The Yoko Factor" Spike attempts to split up the team for the benefit of demonic cyborg villain Adam (George Hertzberg), Buffy figures this out in "Primeval"; he later saves the group's life in the Initiative bunker and assists in a massive brawl with its captive demons. In season five episode "Out of My Mind" (2000), Spike realizes that he had fallen in love with Buffy. The Spike-centric episode "Fool for Love" is composed mostly of flashbacks depicting how he killed the Chinese Slayer and New Yorker Nikki Wood (April Weeden-Washington); more flashbacks from these time periods are shown in the same-night Angel broadcast "Darla". Buffy rejects Spike's amorous advances, though he does genuinely comfort her over her mother's ill health. The flashbacks also depict Spike's origin, sired by Drusilla after as a Victorian poet, William is unable to woo his beloved Cecily (Kali Rocha). In "Crush", Drusilla returns and Spike vows to kill her to prove his love for Buffy; Dru realises the Spike she loved is gone, Harmony breaks up with Spike over his obsession with Buffy, and the Slayer herself maintains her abhorrence of him. In "I Was Made to Love You", he commissions Warren (Adam Busch) to build him a sex robot in Buffy's likeness. Spike attempts to assist Dawn in resurrecting her mother in "Forever", and in "Intervention" endures torture from the hell-goddess Glory (Clare Kramer) to protect Dawn. He assists against numerous attacks on Dawn's safety, culminating in "The Gift" where he helps rescue her from Glory's clutches. In the wake of Buffy's sacrifice, like the others, Spike mourns her death.

After Buffy is resurrected by her friends in season six opener "Bargaining" (2001), she falls into a deep depression. Only when a demon (Hinton Battle) forces everyone to sing their true feelings in the musical episode "Once More, with Feeling" does she admit she "want[s] the fire back" in her life; Marster as Spike performs "Rest in Peace", a song bemoaning Buffy's sustained presence in his life even though he cannot have her; in the episode's musical coda, the two give in and kiss one another. Their secret sexual and physically violent relationship runs through until "As You Were" when Buffy's ex-boyfriend Riley (Marc Blucas) visits Sunnydale, causing Buffy to realise she has been "using" Spike. In "Entropy", Spike and jilted-at-the-altar Anya (Emma Caulfield) have impulsive sex. In "Seeing Red", Spike attempts to rape Buffy, and distraught afterwards, cannot work out whether his feelings - those of a soulless vampire - are really love. In the season finale episodes "Two to Go" and "Grave", Spike goes to Africa to undergo a challenge that will "restore his former self". The audience is misled to believe this means the removal of his chip, but the last moments of "Grave" reveal the twist; Spike's soul is restored. When Buffy next encounters him in the season seven première "Lessons" (2002), Spike is deranged and dishevelled in the basement of what used to be Sunnydale High. In the next episode, "Beneath You", Spike is cleaned-up and returns to the group. In "Conversations with Dead People", Buffy meets a vampire who claims Spike to be his sire; Spike is, apparently, killing once again. In "Sleeper", it is uncovered that the omnipresent First Evil is making him kill again. The First strings Spike up over the Hellmouth in Sunnydale High's basement and uses his blood to unleash an ancient vampire from its depths in "Never Leave Me", and is rescued by Buffy two episodes later in "Showtime". Buffy gets in contact with the Initiative to have them remove Spike's chip in "The Killer in Me", a sign that she trusts him now that he has a soul; however, the First informs Buffy's ally Principle Wood (D. B. Woodside) discovers that the Spike killed his mother, Slayer Nikki Wood. "Lies My Parents Told Me" features extensive flashbacks to Spike's early days as a vampire. Spike made his mother a vampire to save her from ill health and had to kill her when she attempted to seduce him. Wood tries to kill Spike, but having resolved his mother issues he regains his composure, overcomes the First's trigger and beats Wood effortlessly. Spike reminds a disheartened Buffy of his feelings for her in "Touched" and they sleep in the same bed together without having sex. In series finale "Chosen", Spike elects to wear a magical amulet in the confrontation with the First's army in the Hellmouth. The amulet causes the sun to burst through Spike, destroying the First's army of ancient vampires. Spike burns to death in the process, but not before Buffy is able to tell him that she loves him.

In Angel Season Five première "Conviction", Angel and his team adjust to being in charge of evil extra-dimensional law firm Wolfram & Hart after four years of opposing it. In the episode's conclusion, Spike emerges from an amulet and materialises in Angel's office. In "Just Rewards", it is established that Spike is a ghost-like being now and can walk through walls. Spike's closeness to Angel's ally, scientist Fred (Amy Acker), leads him to save her in spite of an opportunity to become corporeal in "Hell Bound". The episode "Destiny" features many flashbacks to Angel and Spike's adventures together over the years; in the present-day, Spike is restored to corporeal form by a mysterious spell and the two engage in a quest to see which one is the vampire-with-a-soul in the Shanshu prophecy; although Spike symbolically wins the Chalice of Eternal Torment, the actual quest turns out to be fraudulent. In "Soul Purpose", Angel worries that his opportunity for redemption has been stolen by Spike. In "Damage", a deranged Slayer named Dana (Navi Rawat) who was activated by Willow's spell in "Chosen" attacks Spike, confusing her Slayer memories with her own traumatic past. Until "You're Welcome", Spike had been directed by fictitious visions from Angel's nemesis Lindsey (Christian Kane) resembling Angel's Season One adventures; the spirit of Cordelia is able to clarify the rouse. "Why We Fight" features flashbacks to World War II-era Spike and Angel, both trapped aboard a submarine; Spike was captured by a Nazi supersoldier project, and Angel by the US Government Initiative from Buffy. Spike is devastated by Fred's death in "A Hole in the World"; in "Time Bomb", he tests the extent of Fred's killer, Illyria's (Acker) abilities. In "The Girl in Question", Angel and Spike both pursue Buffy in Italy to no avail, accepting they cannot control her; flashbacks feature the vampires, as well as Drusilla and Darla (Julie Benz) and the boys' humiliating encounters with the mysterious Immortal, who is ostensibly Buffy's new boyfriend. In the last days before a suicidal endgame, in series finale "Not Fade Away", Spike performs his poem to Cecily at an open mic night and receives wild applause. Having killed the Circle of the Black Thorn, Spike and the gang end up in the alley outside Angel's old Hyperion Hotel facing an apocalyptic force of Wolfram & Hart's troops. Here, the episode and series ends in freeze frame.

Development

In contrast to the religosity of Series One villain the Master (Mark Metcalf), Spike and Dru are introduced as "badass" punk rock-aesthetic vampires patterned on Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen.

Introducing Spike to the regular cast this way was done to fill the comic void in the show since Cordelia transitioned to Angel.

The IDW Angel series features a reveal at the end of its thirty-fifth issue, that in fact, Spike has had no soul for some time. Writer Mariah Huehner found it difficult to keep this reveal a secret, especially after fans had begun complaining that Spike was behaving "out-of-character" in the series.

When Angel loses his soul (as in Buffy Season Two and Angel Season Four), he becomes an unstoppable force of evil; in Season Four, Angel takes to locking himself up prior to the loss of his soul in order to protect his friends. Even before Spike acquired a soul, on Buffy, he was able to do good things. He genuinely had benign romantic feelings towards Drusilla. The chip in his brain from Seasons Four to Seven was sufficient to restrict his behaviour to acts of heroism.

On the difference on the treatment of "the soul" with Spike and Angel in Buffy, Huehner traces this difference to their characters origin. Where William (Spike) had originally been a a poet and "at heart, a decent person", Liam (Angel) was a philandering alcoholic; without their souls, and although both are inhabited by the same type of demon, it is harder for Angel to "be a good person" than it is for Spike. Where characters want to lock up the soulless Angelus, their reactions to learning that Spike has no soul are varying.