Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Fool for Love"

Airdate: November 14, 2000

I'm thinking of starting a church of some kind. You know, like those ones where the people scream, "Hallelujah!" and fall down and convulse. We could stand in airports, handing out free copies of the "Fool for Love" script and asking weary travelers if they've discovered the glory of Spike. Church services would be every Tuesday, and each service would end with a viewing of this episode. In the presence of James Marsters, or writer Doug Petrie, we'd have no choice but to fall to our knees, praise them as the gods they are, and grovel profusely.

Spike and Dru enjoy a little together time during the Boxer Rebellion.

Okay, you caught me. I just want to use the church thing as an excuse for my normal reaction to James Marsters. But after an episode like this, who can blame me?

"Fool for Love" is a trip into the past, as Buffy forces Spike to relive the deaths of two Slayers at his own hands. She's hoping to learn how they died so she can keep herself from the same fate, but ends up with more than she bargained for, and it seems that Spike is the only one who truly understands the Slayers at all.

I could probably go into some in-depth analysis of this episode, but I've only watched it nine times so far, so I really don't feel that I've viewed it enough to truly appreciate its glory. What I do appreciate -- constantly and preferably in large doses -- is James Marsters. If there's been a single Emmy-worthy performance on television this season, Marsters delivers it in this episode, playing a full range of very human emotion and delivering a performance that's so stunningly good, I can't even find the words to describe it. Doug Petrie's clever, entertaining script gives Marsters more than enough material to work with, and finally gives us a glimpse to the depths of the human weakness still lurking inside Spike's vampire body.

The trip Petrie takes us on stretches all the way back to 1880 London, where a young human Spike -- known then as "William the Bloody" because of his "bloody awful" poetry -- is emotionally crushed by the object of his affection. He rushes out into the streets and ends up being seduced into darkness by everyone's favorite crazy vampire, Drusilla. But Spike's journey into memory doesn't end there; it stretches on to China's Boxer Rebellion, where Spike kills his first Slayer, and on again to 1977 New York, where he takes down the second girl. And he takes Buffy on his jaunt into the past with him, teaching her valuable lessons about her life and her predecessors that no one else, Giles included, could give her. She doesn't like the things she learns -- probably because they're true -- and when the besotted Spike finally makes his advance, leaning in for a kiss, he's brutally rejected, Buffy's words echoing those of William's first love so many years ago.

The supporting cast, though their roles are not large in this episode, also deliver nicely; Nicholas Brendon, Alyson Hannigan, and Emma Caulfield offer up a bit of nice comedy relief, and it's always nice to have Juliet Landau back as Drusilla, mixing things up with her freaky dialogue and even creepier ways. Even David Boreanaz is great in those flashbacks, but I could really do without the attempts at Irish. Honestly. They're all overshadowed, however, by the extremely talented Marsters, whose performance is so dynamic and riveting that I'm running out of words to describe it. Petrie's writing is so solid, smooth and engaging that I can't even think of any real problems with it to point out. This is what Buffy is all about, but more than that, it's what television and true entertainment are about.

I'd fall down and convulse with the pure joy of it, but I'm afraid that James would think it's weird, and that would hurt my case when I ask him if I can be his faithful servant and sex slave for eternity.

-- Lisa Kincaid

Buffy the Vampire Slayer airs at 8/7c, Tuesdays on the WB.

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The crossover continues in "Darla".

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