This is a place where the season didn't work for me. Emotionally, I want Snarky McHotperson to stick around. However, I haven't been shown what Buffy sees in Spike. He wasn't (pre-chip-removal) a very effective fighter, even though Buffy kept saying he was.

I would have liked to have seen a lot more evidence of Buffy depending on him emotionally, not just her saying she did. If you're going to play it as "I can't explain why, but I NEED him", you have to back it up subliminally.

Transported and edited from PF board

Victor's article:

a grief-filled witch driven to mass destruction by the murder of her lover, pulled back from the abyss by the love of her friends (accompanied by a not-so-subtle Biblical observation from Buffy‚s sideman, Xander: "You‚re not the only one with powers, you know. You may be a hopped-up überwitch, but this carpenter can dry-wall you into the next century")

So Xander will die, but rise after three days?

heh. Then I can create a new expletive!

"Great Jesus with an eye patch!"

Can be shortened to "Jesus with an eyepatch!"

And Katie nails the reason that anyone would have been justified in taking Spike out. Trigger!Spike was actively killing people.

Oh, I actually don't think they were justified, for what it's worth. Spike should've been confined while they concentrated on finding other options for deactivating the trigger. Hell, Spike himself should've been suggesting that he be restrained - which he did earlier in the season, didn't he? As it was, he was a threat to everyone around him, including Buffy, and I'm not impressed with his unwillingness to accept that and take appropriate action.

Wood was acting out of a desire for vengeance, and Giles was... well, Giles is very weird this season anyway, but inasmuch as I can make any sense of him he was pretty clearly feeling desperate and powerless in the face of a Buffy who he thought was going seriously off the rails.

Daniel, you are fabulously evil. I love it.

This is a place where the season didn't work for me. Emotionally, I want Snarky McHotperson to stick around. However, I haven't been shown what Buffy sees in Spike. He wasn't (pre-chip-removal) a very effective fighter, even though Buffy kept saying he was.

I would have liked to have seen a lot more evidence of Buffy depending on him emotionally, not just her saying she did. If you're going to play it as "I can't explain why, but I NEED him", you have to back it up subliminally.

Yes. I feel like they squandered a lot of potential (the interesting kind, not the pimply, whinging kind) this season.

Daniel, you are fabulously evil. I love it.

I probably should have shaded or blurred it a bit, but the obviousness of the sprayed-on eyepatch just seemed to fit.

And thanks.

I'll be going to hell now...

Save a comfy couch for us.

That reminds me, did someone catch the Python reference in "Touched" with the comfy chair? I don't remember seeing that mentioned.

I'm pretty sure it was mentioned, although I don't have the time just now to Nilly.

However, I haven't been shown what Buffy sees in Spike.

I have. I'll have to think about it though to see if I can put it properly into words. (I also, btw, don't think you can look at any Buffy season in isolation-what Buffy sees in Spike includes what she came to see him in season 5, and the Spike she confided in in early season 6. The AR isn't the only thing in their history together.)

In the meantime, I liked that last scene between Buffy and Spike for two reasons. One, it wasn't about what was said; it was really about what Spike couldn't say, and Buffy wouldn't say. Spike, all his protestations to the contrary, is still in love with Buffy, and was looking for permission from Buffy to tell her so, and Buffy, aware of that, refused (for now anyway) to give it. And second, because Buffy's refusal to let Spike admit his true feelings is exactly what opens the door to the FE in the final scene when Spike is spying on Angel and Buffy. Spike claims he has no expectations, but that scene made clear he still has hopes. And jealousy, which the FE hopes to use to turn Spike yet, depends on hope.