Guest Starring: 
     
 Kristine Sutherland: 
 (Joyce) 
   
 Amber Benson: 
 (Tara) 
   
 Charlie Weber: 
 (Ben) 
   
 Mercedes McNab: 
 (Harmony) 
   
 Juliet Landau: 
 (Drusilla) 
   
 
 
  14. Crush.  
   
  Spike finally admits his lust for Buffy, but Drusilla's return to Sunnydale complicates matters somewhat.  
   
  Great quotes:  
   
 
    Spike pours out his heart to Buffy.
  • Buffy: "You're like a serial killer in prison!" Spike: "Women marry them all the time."
  • Buffy worries about Spike's obsession with her: "Well I do beat him up a lot; for Spike that's like third base."
  • Harmony: "No threesomes unless it's boy-boy-girl; or Charlize Theron."
  • Spike tells Buffy how much he feels for her: "I lie awake every night!" Buffy: "You sleep during the day!" Spike: "Yeah but ... you're missing the point."
  • Spike: "What the hell is wrong with you bloody women?! What the hell does it take?! Why do you bitches torture me?!" Buffy: "Which question do you want me to answer first?"
  
  Fantastic moments:  
   
 
    Spike and Drusilla together again.
  • Once again Dawn spends time with Spike because he's the only one who wont treat her like a child, he starts telling her a spooky story about a time he killed a family. Buffy breaks it all up though. Later he's sitting in the Summers kitchen laughing at Joyce's jokes. I just love the sheer corruption of Spike's attempts to hit on Buffy by getting in with her family.
  • Spike's role-playing 'slayer' fantasy with Harmony is very funny, "Oh I'm gonna stake you; I'm coming after you, you bad evil vampire. I'm sneaking up and I'm gonna stake you so much!" He even makes her wear the top he swiped from Buffy's house.
  • Spike leads Buffy into a vampire nest, except that the vampires they find there simply run away. Buffy is suspicious and accuses him of having organised what, in his mind, passes for a date, "Please! A date?" Spike replies "Are you completely off your perch? Do you want it to be?" The subsequent revelation of Spike's lust results in a number of quality one-liners, as well as Buffy categorically telling him to get lost.
  
  Duff Bits:  
   
 
  • James Masters has a couple of slight English accent malfunctions during the episode.
  
  Dean's comments:  
   
 
Spike makes friends with some of the Summers women.
This is immensely funny and tragic; Spike has been transformed from the evil psychotic killer of season 2 into a whimpering no-body craving the love of two women who both despise him. Interesting that in a season that has been dominated by large pot arcs, an entire episode is devoted to what is essentially no more than a melodramatic sub-plot. This is in no way a bad thing; indeed it is was the ability of the writers to deal with the soap opera of the series that made BtVS the hit that it became during seasons 2 and 3. Spike's confession of love for Buffy is treated as comic by Drusilla (and Xander for that matter) while Buffy merely reels in disgust ("The only chance you had with me was when I was unconscious."), as such he becomes a pathetic looser. As he stands there pouring his heart out to Buffy, Drusilla merely sniggers in the background. His little shrine to Buffy in his cave doesn't do him any favours. Drusilla's return to Sunnydale coincides with the end of her exploits in 'Angel' (cue an exchange of dialogue to bring everyone up to speed), but she finds a Spike unwilling to rekindle the flames that they once enjoyed. Once again Spike gets on like a house on fire with the other Summers women, both Joyce and Dawn like him because they see him as a decent man who simply treats them in a civil way. Strange then that Buffy feels such repulsion towards him. So how real are Spike's affections towards Buffy? Are they simply the result of some twisted reaction to her beating him up all the time? You're going to have to wait a couple of seasons for the answer to that question.		 
   
 8/10 
 
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