Thinky Thoughts...

[fenderlove]

After reading angearia's post with both the Whedon and Petrie versions of Beneath You, I had some thoughts. You ever have one of those days where you wish that you could have seen how James Marsters would have played Doug Petrie's version of Beneath You? I've had a bunch of those days over the last decade. I bet he would have played the hell out of it. It would have been epic.



I've tried not to keep up with which writers didn't like Spike, which writers love Spike, which writers hate Spike fans, which writers are Spike fans, etc. over the years. I just know which episodes I like and which ones I thought could have been much better. Beneath You was always the great S7 tragic misstep to me (among many, many missteps). You take the final scene of an episode that really should have been about Spike's pain, what he's going through, and you turn it into all. about. Buffy. She's gonna cry about it? Fuck off, Whedon. She's not the one getting deep-fried while going through mental torment that I can't even describe. I wanted her to react, to do something, but all she did was stand there. What? After all those months of "You don't know how to love! You don't have a soul! Wah wah wah!" she didn't have anything to say for herself? I have a few words to say about her... in a few languages actually. It looks like she's crying because she's feels sorry for herself being in this situation, not what her harsh, uncaring words have forced another person to do.

Personally, I would love to have seen how James would have played Petrie's original. There are plenty of various BtVS writers whose work has no real connection for me on the page, but the actors really nail it- a glance that wasn't written, the tears in the corners of the eyes, the raw emotion in the voice. A good example would be Emma Caulfield's scene in The Body- it's all about the performance. I think that Petrie's BY ending could have come across quite emotionally relevant and poignant. I don't think it "reads" any better than Whedon's on paper, but it's all about what the screen shows for me, and I can imagine James knocking Petrie's out of the park (and that's not because he plays pain better than anyone else... okay, that's partially true). I felt that Whedon's BY fell incredibly flat in that Buffy comes off as coldhearted, and personally I'd like to see Spike get angry, work through his grief instead of the near-silent non-acceptance acceptance. Whedon's was an excuse to call Spike a whore and get his shirt off. Spike is catatonically complacent, weak, and too accepting. I want him to rage! Rage against the slings and arrows of his situation! How dare Buffy make such a big deal about having soul when it apparently doesn't matter a good goddamn! It's not an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card like Angel gets after all! And then Spike would calm and have a deep breath. He's angry and he's hurt, but he's not made of porcelain anymore because of his mental state. Spike is not a broken doll for Christ's sake. In Whedon's scene, I just wanted Buffy to run up to the cross and yank Spike off of it...

"Enough," Buffy would say, in a calm yet resolute way. "That's... enough." A part of her is angry that Spike would hurt himself, but there is something else. All of the fear of approaching him that she had built up in her mind is gone. Is she worried for him? She's not totally sure, but she knows that she needs to stop him from damaging himself further so she could think for a second.

The burns to Spike's cheek and torso would be evident, and the moment her hands were on him he'd have a look in his eyes that could only be described as a combination of both the cornered rabbit and the fox that was coming through the hutch. The kid is obviously not all right, to use an Offspringian phrase.

"I think..." Spike pauses to stop his voice from shaking. After gritting through the tick in his cheek, he exhales and speaks in a more assured, serious tone, "I think I need some help, but I'm not sure if I want it from you."

"Okay," Buffy replies with a nod. What is she going to do with him? The long-term answer to that question is for later. The first thing she needs to do is get him to some aloe and start child-proofing all the cabinets and electrical outlets until she's absolutely sure this sudden appearance of sanity sticks.

... And that would have saved a lot of pointless Spike-in-the-basement-ness and being trapped in Xander's closet. This could have really got the ball rolling early in the season, but nooooooooo, can't have anything like that! We have to draw out Spike's torture! I like my Spike to fight, to not give up. For the rest of S7, we get weepy, eerily quiet Spike, accepting the pittance others dole out when they give a damn when apparently all it takes is Buffy calling him a crybaby and him getting his stupid coat back to make him snap out of it. The hell? I'll admit I like Woobie Spike, but Spike isn't really a woobie and he's not really nice. He's a good guy, but he's not nice. He can be, don't get me wrong, especially to those he loves and cares for, but he's an arsehole as a defense mechanism to protect himself, or rather the William part of himself. The idea that Spike is good, kind, and loving while being a jerk with a streak for lashing out abusively to hide his own hurt feelings and insecurities (his treatment of Harmony is abhorrent. I don't care if she was evil and stupid; there's no excuse for his behavior) are not mutually exclusive. However, I don't believe Spike could ever go back to being as he was in his human life. He's too jaded to ever be that sweet and vulnerable again. Actually, as much as I adore fluffy William, I'd be terrified if Spike ever was like that again. It's not like Liam who could handle himself. William is totally innocent, and Spike's in a position where he can't let his guard down like that. Brian Lynch's view of Spike exemplifies this. Lynch shows Spike's deepest desire, his mental happy place. It's not Spike in the middle of a harem in silk pjs, however. What is it you ask? Spike's mental happy place is being married/in a relationship with Fred, who loves and respects him, and going shopping with her for household items. He's wearing a red polo shirt and khaki pants... which is very William-like, in my opinion. He imagines Fred wearing a knee-length pink dress, much like what he had the BuffyBot dressed in. When he finds out that Fred is gone for good, Spike can't even stand to look at Illyria for fear of opening himself up to the pain of admitting that his little fantasy is never going to happen, that he was fooling himself all along. Spike may be Love's Bitch, but he's still got a spine... even if that spine is cracked and filled with fissures and gives him lower lumbar problems.

I'm sure that made very little sense, but it's all I got! I'm going to stop going back and rewatching episodes because it just makes me more and more pissed off by remembering how pissed off I was in the first place. XD