You know, I'm really liking this new season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The first episode was pretty good set-up, and the second episode was damn good. The main focus is on a new woman and her ex-boyfriend who got turned into a giant dog-eating worm, but what's really interesting is the new characterisation of Spike.
Toward the end of last season, Spike really let loose the monster in him, attempting to rape Buffy. In a season that has us empathising with him and essentially cheering him on as a "good guy", it was truly a horrifying turn of events. What he did, in response was to travel of to somewhere in Africa and essentially ask to be returned "the way he was". For some reason, I had the notion that he was turned into a human being, period, but that's not the case.
The season premiere had him as an incoherent sissy hiding in the basement of the newly rebuilt Sunnydale High School, but this episode had him trying to help Buffy with the guy turned into a worm. Pretty normal, seeming back like himself, but it begins to fall apart when Spike gets into a tiff with Anya over keeping his secret, and eventually at the end, when he injures an "innocent". That's when the big reveal (technically, we already know the fact that he's gotten his soul back, I just expected slightly different circumstances) happens and Spike just falls to pieces.
He seems to have been driven absolutely fripping loony by the guilt he feels over everything he's done, everything he thinks he is, what he should be in Buffy and god's eyes, and I can honestly say it's one of the most wrenching portrayals I've seen. I wonder if this happened to Angel when he first got his soul back. I definitely think I'm going to like this season, if it remains as strong as the first two episodes.
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