Klytaimnestra's Review of "Beneath You"

by Klytaimnestra

Rating: I don't have enough stars.

Gut reaction:

oh my stars. All of them. If the rest of the season is going to be like this, oh man, bring it on.

Favourite lines:

"Are you completely out of your mind?"
"Well yeah, Slayer, where have you been all night?"

"I didn't come to atone."

"I've got nothing better to do."

"One day you'll wake up on fire."

"Bite me, Harris!"

"Sooner or later that excuse just stops working, Anya."

"He failed. I can take him."

I've quoted half the script. I don't think Doug Petrie missed a single issue that I wanted to see addressed, left over from last season. And he did it economically, precisely, in character, and with room left over for excellent action , suspense, fear, and genuinely funny scenes . This was a brilliant episode. Delighted to see Petrie come back from the mess of As You Were.

Intellectual reaction:

I'm trying to have one but it's not coming yet. So how about some random thoughts.

Teaser:

I knew from the "previously" sequence that this was going to be all about last year's failed relationships; it was the "emotional" story of last year. I wasn't disappointed. Glad to see all the Spike scenes, mostly showing him at his best, too. But I had no idea this was the Spike episode; wow!

First, this episode's young female human sacrifice - I can see why, from the moves she had, other people might think she was a Slayer-in-training; my only problem with that theory is, how many Slayers do they keep in training at any one time? You can only have 1 active at a time, in theory. A minor point, anyway.

Delighted to see that the Slayer's visions are back.

As for the monster du jour, what, did they rent the props from Flesh Gordon? Or possibly from Dune? At least they admitted it was a Penisaurus.

Possible note on structure - are we watching 7 Samurai here? First in that genre comes the gathering of the heroes, and this episode was definitely a "gathering of the heroes" ep, along with all the other brilliant stuff. At the beginning of the episode we had Xander, Dawn, Buffy. Then Spike added himself. Add Anya, Willow, and finally Giles, and we'll have our canonical seven.

Okay, character by character, but with a preliminary note. There was no one I disliked in this episode. Every single one of them has grown up.

Giles:

no tie, still; was that a well-worn leather jacket? Why is he being so cool these days? A bit too gentle and all-understanding for my tastes however. Not that I'm complaining, really; the overall impression is still pleasing. But please, Giles, a little less New Age, a little more edge ...

Anya:

what's with the hair? Dear God. Still struggling with job satisfaction, I see, and I loved Xander's line, "sooner or later that excuse just stops working". In fact in that one line he recaptured my sympathy. He screwed up, but she made her own choices. But she's showing signs of reform, obviously.

Xander:

I thought Nancy was going to turn into an option, leaving the door open for Giles/Anya, but that was before everything got real weird. Poor girl. She was the attractive Other, introduced to be dismissed. I expect Principal Wood will turn out to play the same role for Buffy, though -

Principal Wood:

what does he know? Something may be fishy here. Why ask Buffy if there's anything she wants to tell him?

Dawn:

hey, I liked her! "You sleep, right?"

Buffy:

could she possibly have found an uglier top than that hideous black-and-lace camisole she forgot to put a shirt over? Okay, that was my trivial comment. Though it's a little less trivial that that weird strands-of-cord necklace looks very similar to the necklace she was wearing in the sex-on-the-Bronze-balcony scene last year (the same one Spike's demonic side outrageously reminds her of in the Bronze scene). She's all hero now, though; calls the shots, takes Spike on board for the sake of the help he can give her. Interesting (if rather heavy-handed) flashback to the the attempted rape scene when she actually touches him, though. This however was a very nice emotional counterpoint to the practical stand she takes with Xander earlier, that Spike CAN'T rape her. She can take him, if she has to. Well, duh. So she is safe, and she knows it, but the emotional scars remain. Nicely done, on the whole, I thought.

Spike.

Maybe the whole series is all.about.Buffy, but this episode was definitely all.about.Spike; it's the counterpart to Fool For Love, and thank heavens they had the sense to give it to the same writer. From the opening scene of Spike talking to a rat (whom I assume he was planning to eat) and then screaming "it's too soon! not yet! not yet" as the earthquake (?) struck, it was his show.

Spike in the basement was William, no question. "No manners - no breeding, no etiquette -a total lack of it - " this is a displaced Victorian. I'm not good enough on accents to say if his had changed, but at least I could understand what he was saying. Earthquake moves towards him, and I couldn't help but wonder if the dark forces (the ones beneath, who devour?) were entering and possessing him (again?) and that was why he was crying "not yet! not yet!"

When he appeared in the Summers living room he was so different from the Spike in the basement that I honestly wondered if the Big Bad had created a Spike doppelganger, and had incidentally touched up his roots and given him a new shirt. His manner was different, totally professional; hero Spike was here. I'm here to help, that's all I want to do, Slayer. "I didn't come to atone." I was delighted to hear that!

Then I began to seriously wonder if the dark forces were taking our Spike over. He was not very nice to Anya and was quite unchivalrous about their episode; not at all the same man as the one she had sex with, in fact. Now I know this is a recurring theme on BtVS, let me not say "as it is in life", that the man you have sex with is not the man you wake up with, or don't, as the case may be. Still, this wasn't what I wanted Spike to be.

But then it gets worse; he actually slugs her. My notes now go to "Spike is not a nice man!" followed, finally, when he is hopping up and down just spoiling for a good fight, and goading the Slayer ("fancy another go on the balcony?"), by "I don't believe it! Evil Spike is back! Man, I've missed him!"

So at this point - as Spike -the-agent-of-chaos ("let a demon handle it, Slayer"; "The Big Bad is back!") replaces the Spike-as-Bogart "this thing's bigger than both of us, Slayer", who replaced poor disoriented William "it's not time, I know that, you know that, but to convince THEM of that ..."

At this point, as Spike and the Slayer are duking it out and Spike in game face is having a marvellously good time - as was I, watching him; I don't want Spike to be evil, you understand, but it sure is fun to watch - at last, I figured out who THEY are. And here are my notes:

"Good God - split personalities!"

And then the final scene, where all is explained. Even the hair and blue sweater - the costume of sanity, which Spike hoped would help; it didn't.

It took Doug Petrie five lines to cover every issue that had so disturbed me from last year:

"No touching!" <looking terrified> "Am I flesh to you?"

<pause; shrug>

"okay, flesh. <fumbles with fly button.> "Get it hard, service the girl."

<pause; violence; puzzled look.>

"Girl doesn't want to be serviced."

Actually this scene nearly made me cry. If this scene did not bring home to Buffy - whose thoughts, naturally and once again, we are not privy to - exactly how horrifically she brutalized her willing slave last year, it certainly did it for the rest of us.

And you know, I was so busy being horrified that I didn't even notice or really enjoy the fact that Spike had his shirt off. It so obviously signified vulnerability, wounds displayed, pain made visible, that Spike the sex god never entered my head. His self-display in offering to 'service' Buffy was so far from sexual that all I could see was his humiliated and weary submission to her.

Question for someone:

is Spike quoting Shakespeare, or someone similar, in that "flesh with out a spark" speech? It sounded tantalizingly familiar, but I couldn't place it.

I hardly need to say that this episode was a tour-de-force for James Marsters. He not only showed us 3 (at least) separate characters, but slid from one to the next convincingly and with speed. He changed voices how many times in the church scene alone. And as he admits himself, in addition to him, and him, and it (the union, and William, and the demon, I assume), there's also the thing "Beneath You", with teeth, who's in there too. And this inspired plot twist allows Whedon to use Marster's talents to their fullest this year. He can play whatever character is necessary, right across the range from demonic to Christ figure, and in the same five minute period if need be. It's probably wrong to enjoy Spike's struggle as much as I'm going to, but watching Marsters play it will always be a pleasure.

The sum effect on Buffy is that she now knows that he means well, but also knows that she can't trust him, because she'll never know who she's dealing with, from one minute to the next, until he manages to get his insane soul and his inner demon under control. (Joss always said this show was a metaphor!) Is this going to help her trust issues? Well, yes, actually; it's certainly going to get them out in the open where she can see them.

As for the final scene. I don't think I've ever before seen religious imagery on Buffy used religiously. That crosses hurt vampires is understood; Spike on the cross, as a Christ figure, echoes his pose in Restless and in Becoming (?); how many times does he get sacrificed? But when he admits he's got a soul and asks Buffy, "isn't that what you wanted?" he then looks up and says - to the ceiling? I don't think so - "isn't that what YOU wanted?" I've never before seen a sign that a God-on-high lived in the Buffyverse. TPTB, yes. But in a church, just before the cross scene, it looks very much to me as if it was the Christian God that was being referred to. Is this Joss' lapsed Catholicism asserting itself? Or William's latent Anglicanism? The latter, I suspect.

Predictions:

Spike/Buffy:

Well, they have issues. Looks like they're dealing with them, though. Anyone else notice this is the longest she's ever let him talk? Usually it was no more than ten words to a "shut up, Spike!" We aren't going to see any more Spike/Buffy sex until sex no longer = servicing the girl, though. If ever. I can't say how delighted I was to see ALL the damage from that frightful relationship addressed. He tried to rape her, and she has flashbacks when he touches her; but she used him as flesh without a spark; a machine; and he carries those scars too. All of this is now acknowledged.

Xander/Anya:

oh yeah.

Dawn/Principal Wood:

are you joking? He could lose his job! :)

Giles/Principal Wood:

got more of a shot than Giles/Anya, I'm afraid.

And finally:

Chances of Spike's heroic death - almost 100% I think. Hoping I'm wrong, and I'm just being led to think that. But in S5 he tries (and fails) to die for Buffy. Now he's hanging suspended and smoking on a cross, asking only for rest. I'm thinking he's going to get it, and will save the world along the way (well, it's his turn, isn't it?)

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Klytaimnestra