Writer:

Dan Vebber

Director:

David Semel

Regulars:

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers

Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris

Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg

Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase

David Boreanaz as Angel

Seth Green as Oz

Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

Guest Stars:

Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers

Harry Groener as Mayor Richard Wilkins III

James Marsters as Spike

Cast:

Jack Plotnick as Deputy mayor

Marc Burnham as Lenny

Suzanne Krull as Clerk

Spike's return causes Buffy and her friends to re-evaluate their relationships. Recently dumped by Drusilla, Spike returns to Sunnydale seeking revenge on Buffy and Angel. However, after encountering Willow in the magic shop, Spike decides that he would rather use witchcraft to win Dru back. He then kidnaps Willow and Xander and enlists Buffy and Angel's help in obtaining the ingredients necessary for Willow to perform a spell that will make Dru love him again. In witnessing their behavior towards each other, Spike realizes that Buffy and Angel are still in love and calls their attention to it. At the same time, Oz and Cordelia find the captive Willow and Xander in a compromising situation, and Cordelia sustains injuries when running from the scene. Oz dumps Willow, Buffy decides not to see Angel anymore, and Spike heads after Drusilla, to torture her until she wants him again. — Short synopsis by Fluff.

Magic Shop Clerk

Drained by Spike at the magic shop.

Anonymous Vampire

Staked by Buffy with a broken off mop handle on the streets of Sunnydale.

Anonymous Vampire

Staked by Buffy with a broken off mop handle on the streets of Sunnydale.

Anonymous Vampire

Staked by Buffy with a broken off chair leg at the magic shop.

Anonymous Vampire

Staked by Spike with a broken off chair leg at the magic shop.

Total: Five

Oz: "I can see why you'd be upset. Uh, that was my sarcastic voice."
Xander: "Y'know, it sounds a lot like your regular voice."
Oz: "I've been told that."

Buffy: "She saw these scores and her head spun around and exploded."
Giles: "I've been on the Hellmouth too long. That was metaphorical, yes?"

Joyce: "It's just... you belong at a good old-fashioned college, with keg parties and boys, not here with Hellmouths and vampires."
Buffy: "Not really seeing the distinction."

Spike: "She wouldn't even kill me. She just left. She didn't even care enough to cut off my head, or set me on fire! I mean, is that too much to ask? Some little sign that she cared?"

Spike: "You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other 'til it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood. Blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."

Spike: "I'm gonna do what I should've done in the first place. I'll find her, wherever she is, tie her up, torture her... until she likes me again."

More quotes from this episode...

The whole "baby" motif during Spike's fight with his old crony Lenny was silly to begin with, and was developed way too much:

• Spike: "Soft?"
  Lenny: "Yeah, like baby food."
  Spike: "Well then, let's give baby a taste!"
• Spike: "Does baby like his supper? Does baby like his supper?"
• Spike: "Why doesn't baby have a nap?"

• "I'm Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel."  Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel is an intensely stupid, backwoods hick stereotype guy who pops up as a recurring character on The Simpsons.

• As Spike spies on him in the mansion, Angel is reading La Nausée ("Nausea"), the 1938 first novel by the French existentialist philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980).

• According to the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign which Spike ran over, the population of Sunnydale is 38,500.

• More Sunnydale area locations: Breakers Woods, which has a clearing in which druidic rituals were performed and which is about a 45-minute drive from Sunnydale High; a pier which Xander and Cordelia went to; and a magic shop in the downtown square, which is different from the magic shop Ms. Calendar patronized in "Passion."

• The Mayor was fully aware of Spike's presence and activities in Sunnydale during the second season.

• Xander's protestation, "Have you forgotten that I tend to have bad luck with these sorts of spells?" is a reference to the backfired love spell cast by Amy Madison in "Bewitched, Bothered, & Bewildered."
• After leaving Sunnydale in "Becoming (Part 2)," Spike and Drusilla went to Brazil, which is where she left him.

• Oz's heightened werewolf senses are at least partially in effect when he's in human form.

• Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious - "My Way" (From Sid and Nancy Soundtrack, 1986)
  Sid Vicious, bassist for the British punk rock group The Sex Pistols, sang a cover of the Frank Sinatra classic "My Way" on the Pistols' 1979 album The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Gary Oldman sang this version of the song when he played Sid Vicious in the movie Sid and Nancy in 1986, and it is the Oldman version that Spike listens to as he speeds down the freeway out of Sunnydale at the end.

Brian:

Quite possibly the best episode of the series to date. I don't know where this Dan Vebber guy came from, but he pretty much blew my brains out the back of my head with his first Buffy episode. Everything about this episode was, in a word, perfection. The characterizations were dead on, leading to intensely satisfying developments in the Buffy/Angel storyline, the Willow/Xander storyline (and the Willow/Oz and Xander/Cordelia storylines that accompany it), and the question of Buffy's future. The scene with the Mayor, though short and seemingly superfluous, was at least highly entertaining, and how unbelievably perfect was Spike? Not only was it great to see him back in Sunnydale, but between the writing and James Marsters' unsurprisingly excellent performance, Spike lived and breathed in this episode more than he ever has before (irony intended). And I certainly thought that Spike as a sympathetic semi-protagonist was a fascinating concept that I dearly hope will be explored again. The scene in the Summers kitchen in which Joyce fixed Spike hot chocolate was perhaps the most priceless scene ever! And as the episode ends, we have all the main characters (except the absent Giles) at as low an emotional ebb as they've seen yet. Normally, Will and I do our reviews independently, refusing to even discuss the episode until we've both completed our commentary, but this time I have to lift a line from his review because it sums up the ending perfectly: "The episode ended with everyone unhappy except me." Hear hear. I'd say that I'm worried that BtVS will be unable to live up to the new standard it has set for itself with "Lovers Walk," but if there's one thing Joss and friends have proven to me over the last twenty months, it's that nothing is beyond them. (10/10)

Will:

I take back a proclamation that I have made in previous reviews. At times in the past, I have referred to Joss as God. I was wrong. It seems that a gentleman by the name of Dan Vebber is God. He wrote this episode and I would like to send a huge shout out to him. This episode was completely perfect. Spike was in it and was perfect. I have been missing him recently, and I was once again reminded of why I love Buffy. The scene in the Factory with Willow and the scene with Joyce in the kitchen were great and left me writhing in ecstasy (a bit sexual perhaps, but still). One thing that irritated me a small bit is that I finally got to the point where I can tolerate Cordy, and then they go and impale her on a pointy metal thing... how mean! The writers never seem to be content with just blowing our mind and ripping out our heart at the same time. No, they seem to feel that it is necessary to throw us a curveball at every turn, and I'm sure they're loving every minute of it, because I know that I am. The episode ended with everyone unhappy except me. I don't even know what else to say other than that I can't wait until the next new episode, because in my opinion this was the best episode to date. (10/10... if the scale went to 20 I would have given it a 21)