5.18 - Intervention

Spike gets him a robot.

***

Man, I needed this episode after the last two. Warren has finished building Spike his Buffy robot and wackiness ensues. We get Buffy on patrol, Buffy around her friends, and Buffy banging Spike in some really racy I-can't-believe-the-WB-allowed-that sex scenes.

The real Buffy is out in the desert having one of those Young Guns vision quests, you know, the ones where the great spirit horse comes? So she meets the first Slayer again in her vision, and the first one tells her that she is full of love but that her gift is death.

Speaking of love, I think it's funny and cool that Buffy is telling everyone that she loves them, including Giles. You should love him, Buff, he's like your father.

But anyway, Glory gets to Spike and thinks that he knows about the key, which he does, so she proceeds to beat the everloving crap out of him, but he still won't give up Dawn. He tries to escape, and as he's about to get captured again, the real Buffy and company walk through the door and save him.

Later, Buffy comes to him in his crypt, disguised as the robot, and asks him why he did what he did. Thinking it's his robot, he confesses all to her, that he knows that if something ever happened to Dawn, it would tear Buffy apart and he couldn't let that happen. He'd let Glory kill him before he told her anything. Then Buffy leans forward and kisses him. It's then that he realizes it's not his robot, but the real Buffy. When this happened, I got all emotional again, because I've been waiting for her to throw him a freaking bone (not in a dirty way) for episodes now. All he's tried to do is help, even if he isn't always great at doing the right thing. Spike is evil, but he's in love and he's not going to hurt her. The fact that he showed up with flowers in the previous episode for Joyce just goes to show that he's got a decent side.

So Buffy tells him that she won't forget what he did for her. I think this is awesome. I really have been waiting for this to happen.

And this was written by Jane Espenson, who I have no problem with at all anymore. I think she's really come into her own as a writer and really gets the tone. No morals, just good storytelling.

This also has a great line that occurs when Spike tells Glory and her goons that the Key is the guy who hosts that game show where people guess the price. The goons tell Glory:

"We will bring you Bob Barker! We will bring you the limp and beaten body of Bob Barker!"

Rating: 9/10

Hopefully Spike will get some more payoff soon. He's like Rodney Dangerfield. He gets no respect.