'Lovers Walk' is a purely character driven short story.
There’s not a lot of deep symbolism or philosophy to discuss.
Well, at least, very little that we haven’t already.
It’s just pure unbridled joy.
If you’ve been feeling like 'Season 3' is missing a little something
but you haven’t been able to put a finger on it,
...this episode is your prescription.
As the episode opens, the Gang is sharing their SAT scores with each other.
I love the fact that Cordelia scored well, and her admission that she goes out of her way to hide her intellect.
"Please."
“I have some experience covering these things up.”
The real Cordelia we the fandom adore continues to be revealed inch by inch.
Buffy has scored better than expected and is contemplating her suddenly wide open future.
With Faith now in the picture
...why COULDN'T she consider leaving and going to a great school?
As Cordelia puts it.
"Get out of Sunnydale."
"That's a good thing."
“What kind of moron would ever want to come back here?”
[crash]
Spike’s entrance is a nifty visual callback to his original arrival in Sunnydale,
with a great character twist reflecting how the mighty have fallen.
The whole episode is put together so well.
Spike is suffering from severe depression over Drusilla leaving him.
Meanwhile, Willow, Oz, Xander and Cordelia have made plans for a double date.
Both Oz and Cordelia show complete affection for Cordy and Xander,
Oz with a gift of the PEZ witch
and Cordy by openly displaying her relationship with Xander in her locker.
"I never knew I was locker door material."
"Well..."
"...just barely."
Incidentally, there’s a picture of Allen Ginsberg on Willow’s locker,
whose book...
‘Howl’ refers to a...
...moloch, or costly sacrifice.
Nothing relevant to this episode
...but a cute little inside joke by the writers.
It’s a great exchange between the two pairs.
Sweet,
adorable
...and maybe a little manipulative.
As this is 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' we’re watching
I think you can sense the stage being set
...for...some kind of a(n) emotional blow later in the episode.
There’s a semantically odd line in the following scene,
“...I’m not suggesting that you..."
"...ignore your calling but, um..."
"...you need to look to your future.”
Wait!
Isn’t the calling a futuuuure?
As in being called towards a particular future.
Just a little odd.
Anyway, there’s an uncomfortable acknowledgement between the two of them
that Buffy is still planning on spending time with Angel,
...though she promises nothing is going to happen.
I like that Giles appears to have forgiven her for keeping Angel a secret
and is uneasily willing to let Buffy make her own decisions in the matter.
And again, to reinforce the point, Buffy’s metaphorical spirit and heart discuss how spending time together is a bad idea
...because it puts them both on the path of temptation.
But they both seem powerless to make any other decision.
Angel is reading 'Nausea' by Jean Paul Sartre
...while Spike spies on him, blaming him for his breakup with Drusilla.
He finds his way to a magic shop in town called "The Magic Box"
and overhears the owner talking with Willow about casting an anti-love spell.
She baits Xander to the school chemistry lab where he figures out she’s trying to do a spell on them both,
...in this case a delusting spell.
"Are you nuts?!?"
"Or have you forgotten that I tend to have bad luck with these sorts of spells."
At first this scene might seem like Willow is acting as the more responsible of the two of them.
Xander hasn’t really expressed any interest in rejecting this lusty attraction they have going on.
His only real objection here is to the use of magic
...because it went badly for him before.
Thing is, Willow seems...
...a bit too willing to resort to magic in order to cure a problem
...with her relationships
...rather than putting in the hard work.
Bear in mind too that Willow was about to perform a spell on Xander,
...WITHOUT his consent.
"I..."
"I thought it would go better if you didn't know"
Spike appears and captures the two of them,
threatening to kill Willow if she doesn’t make Drusilla love him again.
Then he drops in on Buffy’s Mom to force Buffy to get the necessary components for the spell.
I love that Spike again
...unloads his story of Dru and the Chaos demon,
...this time on Joyce instead of Willow.
Angel shows up and there’s a fantastic bit of dialogue,
...as Spike teases an uninvited Angel.
"You touch her and I'll cut your head off!"
"Yeah?"
“You and what army?”
“That would be me.”
While out driving, Oz picks up Willow’s scent and realizes she’s nearby.
Spike and his captive audience show up at the magic shop
and exchange the most meaningful bit of dialogue in the episode.
“Lot of trouble for somebody who doesn’t even care about you.”
"The last time I looked in on you two, you were fightin' to the death."
"Now you're back making googly eyes at each other like nothing happened."
"Makes me want to heave."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, yeah."
"You're just friends."
"That's right."
There’s a question here with significance for the rest of the series.
Can a soulless vampire love?
And if so, what's the difference between the love of a soulless being
...versus a souled one?
The simplest textbook definition of love is an intense feeling of deep affection,
...but that isn’t a particularly useful one...
as I feel a deep affection for my cats
but wouldn’t compare that to the love I’ve felt
for the most significant women in my life.
But defining the latter is the domain of philosophers and poets.
For simplicity, I’m just going to call whatever that is, love
and suggest that that kind of love falls mostly into two categories
-selfish
...and selfless.
I think a vampire can certainly love,
...but selfishly.
If the soul is as Whedon suggests
...the moral compass,
than without it...
...a vampire is incapable of moral development.
And a developmental process that only grows in parallel to that
...is the development of empathy.
Devoid of empathy
a vampire can’t put themselves in the position of their loved ones.
Can’t understand and share in their feelings.
Their love is one of
...consumption only.
Taking what they want.
Listen to Spike’s language in this scene
-it most frequently evokes property.
Belongs.
Mine.
As though Drusilla is a prize he won in a contest,
...albeit it
...a prize he loves and cherishes.
In contrast, consider the scene from earlier
...where Buffy asks Angel what he thinks she should do in regards to college.
“...I think that you should leave.”
"This is a good opportunity for you."
The words don’t come to him easily
...but rather with great pain and effort.
He's making a decision that hurts him but helps Buffy.
A decision...
...out of selfless love.
As much as I enjoy Spike’s dialogue, it doesn’t sway me as he can only express a vision of love that he’s capable of having without a soul.
He just does it with great passion and poetry because he’s Spike.
He might be right when he says that Buffy and Angel will never be friends
...but as for the rest:
"Love isn't brains, children,"
"...it's blood."
"Blood screaming inside you to work its will."
I disagree
...though it’s a great line.
Selfless love...
... is both.
Spike is driven by blood alone
and Buffy and Angel are trying to manage their love with intellect only,
...trying
... and failing.
Because if they acknowledged their blood driven magnetic yang
...they would have to account for it and act with greater integrity.
Those of you who are reading a few chapters ahead
know that we’re going to have to revisit and refine this explanation regarding love and vampires MANY more times,
...and that's part of the joy of the series.
But for the purposes of this simple and totally charming episode
...I think it fits.
The trick is that the presence of a soul doesn’t CAUSE a person to act out of empathy,
...it only gives them ACCESS to it.
In the end,
...you still have to make a choice.
Or risk making yourself an object in the world,
...at the mercy of your hormones and circumstances.
And in the basement of the factory, Xander is badly injured as he and Willow fear impending death.
They cave to the temptation of comforting each other
...right as Cordelia and Oz discover them.
Yikes!
That one stings.
Cordy tries to run away
...and impales herself on a piece of rebar
duplicating an injury that Charisma Carpenter actually had as a child.
Buffy, Spike and Angel are attacked by Spike's ex-cronies
and Spike rediscovers his confidence through the application of violence.
He abandons the love spell idea in favor of
...torturing Drusilla back into his arms.
Xander begs Cordy to hold on.
She’s gone
...to the hospital to get the rebar out of her body
...where she makes it clear her willingness to ever forgive Xander for what he’s done.
“Stay away from me.”
As her metaphorical heart and spirit are brought back to reality,
...Buffy does what must be done.
“We’re not friends."
"We never were."
"There's gotta be some way we can still see each other."
"There is."
“Tell me that you don’t love me.”
This is another great little 'Season 2' callback.
"Then tell me you don't love me!"
"Say it!"
"Is that what you need to hear?"
Buffy leaves
...and the episode ends with everyone unhappy and alone.
Well, everyone except…
[And more]
[Much more than this]
[I did it myyyyy---]
It’s tempting to use Spike’s joy and passion in this episode to misinterpret what I think the actual message is.
Responsibility and integrity are incredibly hard,
especially maintaining them in a deeply passionate relationship
...that is ultimately and irrevocably flawed.
In the end, Buffy did what she always does
...and made a hard choice.
The show's philosophical underpinnings aren’t about maximizing individual happiness,
but rather creating meaning and purpose in life.
I adore this episode front to back.
Spike’s return really gives us a good taste of the one thing I would say is missing from this otherwise excellent season:
Passion.
He’s fantastic in every single scene and supposedly
this was the performance that incited Whedon to make an interesting change in 'Season 4'.
It’s nice to see too that Spike hasn’t reverted to the version of himself he was
...before Becoming (Part 2).
He is a flawed, living by the seat of his pants kind of vampire.
I even really love the title of the episode which,
by virtue of a conspicuous grammatical omission,
...carries significance by itself.
I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that this brings an end to Xander and Willow’s affair.
I’ve read a lot of commentary from people who really hated this subplot,
saying it was misstep or that it came one season too late.
And to that I say,
... exactly.
That’s the point.
This interlude in their relationship, which began
...immediately after Buffy realized Angel hadn’t gone insane,
wasn’t supposed to be a joyful thing and I don’t think the writers ever portrayed it as such.
Timing is everything,
and the right thing at the wrong time is still wrong.
And as I said in the previous episode Guide,
love has a devious way of making the wrong decision FEEL right.
I also think it was reasonably grounded by events that occurred in 'Season 2'.
I wonder if people hate this subplot
because they hate seeing characters they love do bad things.
But that's one of the reasons why I absolutely love the show.
To quote my spirit animal:
"It's not that simple."
"You know what makes a good person good?"
"When a good person does something bad..."
"...they own up to it."
"They try to learn something from it and they move on."