Buffy The Vampire Slayer, "I Was Made To Love You" Review (5x15)

Brief Synopsis: “A strange girl arrives in Sunnydale desperately searching for her boyfriend, Warren. She’s sweet, pretty, and polite, but there’s just one thing about her that seems odd...she can easily throw Spike through a window. While this amuses Buffy greatly, she decides that she must do something to stop her before someone less impervious to damage gets hurt. After tracking down Warren, Buffy discovers a startling revelation about the strange girl’s origin...”


"Crush" (5x14) quick link here                                                                                                                                              "The Body" (5x16) quick link here

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With that being said, let’s get started, shall we?



“I Was Made To Love You” is a simple, charming episode. There’s nothing overly exciting, nothing overly bad, and nothing that requires a great deal of thinking to keep up. It’s a nice little filler episode to get the audience in a good mood before crushing them into a million pieces in the last three seconds. Ugh, I can’t even...

The episode opens with Buffy continuing to be disgusted over Spike’s attraction to her. She’s ferociously hammering a punching bag and letting off some aggression. That ‘punching bag’ turns out to be Xander wearing a puffy suit...

Buffy: “That’s my secret to attracting men. You know, it’s simple really. You slap ‘em around a bit, you torture them, you make their lives a living Hell...”
Xander: “Buffy...”
Buffy: “...And sure, the nice guys, they’ll run away, but every now and then you’ll meet a real prince of a guy like Spike who gets off on it.”
Xander: “Buffy, stand me up. The problem is not you. Don’t do this to yourself, please.”
Buffy: “It’s just...I just wanna know that there’s gonna be another good one. One that I won’t chase away.”
Xander: “There will be, promise. He’s out there, he could come along any minute.”
Buffy: “Yeah, and the minute after that I can terrify him with my alarming strength and remarkable self-involvement.”
Xander: “What? I don’t think you’re like that.”
Buffy: “Maybe I could change. You know, I could work harder. I could spend less time slaying, I could laugh at his jokes. I mean, men like that, right, the joke-laughing-at?”
Xander: “Or maybe you could just be Buffy, he’ll see your amazing heart, and he’ll fall in love with you.”

Ugh, how heart-warming! I have quite a lot to say about this little exchange, so I’mma break it down for y’all (that’s right, I’m a southern state American now)...

1) What do you mean by “another” good one that you won’t chase away, Buffy? You’ve only had two serious boyfriends and they both left! I can only deduce that “another” refers to your only other official ‘boyfriend’, Scott Hope, and he turned out to be gay, so that wouldn’t have exactly worked out either.
2) Buffy certainly has the measure of Spike already. He does get off on violence. Smacking Spike around is basically foreplay. Just look at Buffy and Spike’s relationship in the next season. The first time they have sex, they’re fighting and tear a building down. They’re constantly beating each other up and yet Spike keeps coming back for more. Why? Because he considers getting a black eye to be misplaced passion.
3) Buffy is still clearly having lingering issues surrounding the destruction of her relationship with Riley. She sarcastically mentions her “alarming strength” and “remarkable self-involvement” here, which are two things that Riley raised in “Into The Woods” just before he left. Buffy is under the impression that she’s the problem in her previous relationships, but the truth is that she’s not. So what if she has super-strength? Riley was the one who couldn’t handle that, not Buffy. As far as self-involvement goes, Buffy’s mother had a brain tumour and it led to Riley feeling unappreciated and neglected, so he pouted and brooded by himself...sounds a little self-involved if you ask me. Buffy needs to be a little self-involved! She’s been tasked with protecting the world from vampires and demons! It’s understandable that she’s distracted and thinks about herself!
4) Here’s a little trivia that a lot of you may not know: Both Sarah Michelle Gellar and Nicholas Brendon fought to have Buffy and Xander be a love interest in the 7th and final season of the show. They both wanted Buffy and Xander to ultimately end up together. Joss eventually made the choice to go with Spike. I have mixed feelings about the Buffy-Xander pairing. On the one hand, it would make a certain amount of sense. Xander was in love with Buffy for years, so his feelings returning to the surface after him and Anya broke up wouldn’t be a shocker. Plus, Xander is Buffy’s ‘white knight’ (as Angel put it in “Killed By Death”). While Angel, Riley, Spike, Hank, and even Giles have come and gone, Xander has been the one constant in her life that has always had her back and supported her (pre-season seven at least). Buffy realising that Xander is the one for her would have made sense too. In fact, this exact thing happens in the season eight comic series (which is canon), but Xander ends up dating Dawn instead. However, I’m glad that Joss went down the Spuffy route. Not only are Spike and Buffy a great couple in season seven, but I like the fact that Xander and Buffy never dated. Every show or series seems to end with two or their main trio dating. It’s so clichéd by this point. I love the fact that Xander is like a brother to Buffy! Plus, in the 4th season, the show made a big point of emphasising that Xander has accepted that Buffy will never have romantic feelings for him and he moved on. Notice in this conversation that Xander says “he’s out there”. The Xander of the first three seasons would have tried to encourage Buffy to see that he was the right guy. Buffy and Xander work too well as friends to ruin it. They dance together in this episode, they support each other, and they act like brother and sister.

Speaking of trivia facts, apparently the part of April the robot was originally written for Britney Spears, but scheduling conflicts forced her out of the role and it ultimately went to Shonda Farr. How weird would it have been to see Britney Spears on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”?! I’m kinda sad that didn’t happen now...

“It’s always darkest before the dawn” is what April says to Buffy at the conclusion of this episode. This is a very clever, subtle look at what is to come for Buffy. ‘Dawn’ is obviously the name of Buffy’s newfound sister. The ‘darkest’ represents Joyce’s imminent death at the very end of this episode. I like to think that the ‘dawn’ is Buffy’s sacrifice in “The Gift” to save her sister. A dawn is simply sunrise, so Buffy’s ‘dawn’ would be her discovering that death isn’t her gift in the way she thought it was. Her death means that Earth lives. Her sacrifice saves the world. That, in my opinion, is Buffy’s ‘dawn’. Speaking of Joyce’s death, you all know what the next “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” review will be. Frankly, I’m dreading reviewing “The Body”. Historically, when I’ve been faced with a mammoth episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” like “Innocence”, “Passion”, “Hush”, or “Restless”, I thrive in that environment. I’m so excited and eager to try to do the episode justice with my review. In this instance, I’m just flat-out dreading it. I don’t want to watch it, I don’t want to analyse it deeply, and I don’t want all of these past events from my own life to be brought to the forefront of my mind again. “The Body” is nothing short of the most realistic look at the response to death that I’ve ever seen...but more on that in the next review. DON’T WANNA!

The episode comes back from the opening credits with a wonderful bonding scene between our three beautiful Summers women. A part of me, some people may call this the cynical part of me, feels as though this scene was added in just to twist the knife in even further at the conclusion of this episode. Time and time again I’ve mentioned how much I adore it when the Scoobies get to be regular people for a change. This scene is a typical, every day thing. Buffy and Dawn are helping Joyce choose what to wear on her date that night. Buffy and Dawn are, of course, being sisters and messing with Joyce a little by seeing how many times they can make her twirl before she notices they’re doing it on purpose. We’ve rarely seen Joyce date. In fact, outside of her band candy-induced shagathon with Giles on a police car (twice!) and her incredibly creepy robot boyfriend, Ted, we haven’t seen Joyce date at all. It’s so nice and refreshing to see Joyce going out into the world again to try to make a connection. After overcoming her brain tumour (or so we thought...), it makes sense that Joyce would want to live life to the full again and not waste time or feel lonely. Watching Joyce getting worked up about how long it is until Brian arrives is a genuinely heart-warming moment...curse you, Whedon!

In Buffy’s quest to prove that she’s not attracted to darkness, she yet again goes to talk to Ben at The Bronze. Buffy, can you please realise how dull he is already so that you can move on from this charade? He makes Scott Hope look like the most charismatic man in the universe. Buffy laughs at his lame jokes (which she discussed with Xander earlier in the episode) and generally tries too hard to impress him before Ben quickly finds an excuse to get away. Soon after this, April enters The Bronze in her quest to find her ‘boyfriend’, Warren. Ugh, just typing his name disgusts me. Warren goes on to be arguably the worst villain in the history of the show. Warren is human and in possession of a soul. No other ‘Big Bad’ outside of The Mayor can boast that fact...perhaps Glory, I suppose. That’s kind of a grey-area though. April’s presence in The Bronze is not a happy thing for Warren because Warren has a girlfriend, Katrina. Before finding Katrina, Warren was so incredibly creepy and lonely that he made himself a robot girlfriend. Basically, she’s a sexbot that’s designed to do whatever Warren says and love him unconditionally. I swear, this act alone is more disturbing than most villains in the Buffyverse. Dude, try internet dating or something before you turn to making yourself a sexbot...or buy a cat or take a trip to Palmsville or something like a regular person. Soon after Warren escapes The Bronze with Katrina, Spike hits on April, which results in April proclaiming “you’re not my boyfriend!” and throwing Spike through a window...

Spike: “Bloody hell! You threw me through a window! What’s that about?”
April: “You do not make those suggestions to me. I have a boyfriend. Warren is my boyfriend.”
Spike: “You know what? My bleeding sympathies to Warren.”

Buffy, who is ecstatic over Spike’s recent air travel, tries to stop April from searching for Warren for a moment so that she can talk to her, and April throws Buffy across the room. One of my favourite things about this episode is that it isn’t like “Ted”. The episode doesn’t revolve around the discovery that April is a robot. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised to see that all of the Scoobies figured this out pretty easily. My children are growing up! Kudos!

OH MY GLORIFICUS, the best part of the episode is easily the fact that Giles had to babysit Dawn. WHY DID THIS HAPPEN OFF-SCREEN?! You denied us comedy gold! I wanted to see this firsthand!...

Buffy: “What did she make you do?”
Giles: “We listened to aggressively cheerful music sung by people chosen for their ability to dance, then we ate cookie dough and talked about boys.”
Buffy: “I’m sorry. I’m very, very sorry. But, if it makes you feel better, my ‘fun time Buffy party night’ involved watching a robot throw Spike through a window, so if you wanna trade...no, wait, I wouldn’t give that memory up for anything.”
Giles: “A robot? Sounds interesting.”
Buffy: “We’re gonna work on it in the morning. I mean, unless you wanna stay for a while and then you and I could...”
Joyce (arriving back from her date): “Who wants to hear everything?”
Buffy: “...Listen to my mom talk about boys.”
Giles: “Right, must go.”

WHAT WAS BUFFY OFFERING GILES TO COME IN TO DO?! WAS IT TO BOND OVER TEA?! I HATE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS! MY OCD BRAIN DOES NOT APPRECIATE IT! You remember I mentioned earlier how Buffy and Dawn were messing with Joyce? Well, it’s safe to say that Joyce got revenge. She joked about leaving her bra in Brian’s car, which traumatised Buffy. Why do parents do this to us? Why do they make jokes about their sex lives? We don’t want to hear it! Frankly, I think it’s a form of child abuse. Ugh. You know what’s worse? Overhearing them ‘going at it’. I still get cold sweats.

Tara: “Do you have any books on robots?”
Giles: “Oh, yes, dozens. There’s an enormous amount of research we should do before...no, I’m lying. I haven’t got squat, I just like to see Xander squirm.”
Xander: “Funny. Charming and funny.”

Firstly, when did Giles develop a sense of humour when it comes to research? Giles usually considers messing around with research to be sacrilege. Also, when did Giles start saying things like “I haven’t got squat”?...he’s been spending way too much time around Buffy since becoming her Watcher again, clearly. The team realise that Warren’s motives for making April must have been because he wanted a sexbot, which is scarily accurate. Also, eww. Xander, after proclaiming his excitement over the sexbot, remarks that there are too many girls in the Scoobies and he misses Oz. I never thought I’d hear Xander say that, to be honest. Oz and himself were never close. I think that if Buffy wasn’t still feeling raw over his exit, Xander would have said he missed Riley and not Oz. It would make more sense as Xander and Riley were closer than Oz and Xander. Oz and Xander had all that ‘Willow and Xander had an affair’ heat between them. It’s always nice to hear Oz’s name though. He barely gets mentioned in seasons 5-7.

Did anyone else get marginally turned on at Giles being all badass  towards Spike and threatening him? I love it when Giles goes all ‘Ripper’ on us...

Giles: “We are not your friends. We are not your way to Buffy. There is no way to Buffy.”

Giles really is Buffy’s father, isn’t he? No guy is good enough for his little girl. Especially one without a soul who has a tendency to stalk her and tie her up in his basement crypt...what? Is that not normal behaviour?

I guess the theme-of-the-week here would be loneliness. The interesting thing about the exploration is that it shows both sides of the argument. Was Warren justified in creating April? We all know that loneliness is a killer. Someone being so lonely that they created themselves a partner is completely understandable and I can empathise with that level of loneliness a great deal. However, as we all know, Warren’s primary motives for making this robot were not due to loneliness, they were due to horniness and an inability to talk to females. As soon as Buffy discovers this, her sympathies for Warren evaporate entirely. Remember, over the past few episodes, Buffy has been feeling particularly lonely and isolated herself. While her friends have been dancing and having a good time at The Bronze, she’s been sitting by herself for the most part. Buffy’s still having relationship insecurities over the breakdown of her and Riley, so the timing of this episode isn’t a coincidence. It almost feels like the show is trying to wrap up Buffy’s Riley-saga before moving on to Buffy’s Joyce-saga. Another interesting point about the April character is that she was designed to be the perfect girlfriend and yet Warren didn’t want her. Warren wanted someone that challenged him, not someone who gave into his every demand and was basically his slave.

I’ve gotta be honest, when April gave Katrina the ‘bear-hug-from-Hell’, I thought she’d killed her. Actions have consequences, kiddies. If you’re so horny and bored that you create a girlfriend that will do anything for you and will love you unconditionally, then you get a real girlfriend and tell your robot girlfriend to stay put and wait for you to return, you need to give your robot girlfriend clear commands so that she doesn’t come after you and crush your real girlfriend, okay? Just some friendly advice. It’s scary how much power Warren holds over April. He could try to ‘kill’ her and she would still love him more than anything in the world and hang on his every word. When Warren breaks up with her and proclaims that he loves Katrina, April thinks that Warren pointed to Buffy, so she growls at Buffy and attacks her. Warren made a robot girlfriend that growls...why?! Why would you add in that function?! In what situation would that EVER be used?...actually, on closer observation, I don’t want to know. I’m getting mental flashes of Warren zipped up in a gimp suit getting peed on by dog-April and now I want to scrub away the inside of my brain forever.

Katrina breaks up with Warren, Warren tries to leave Sunnydale, and Spike makes him stay so that he can build Spike a Buffybot...this might be even creepier than the shrine from the last episode, “Crush”. The girl has flat-out rejected you and despises you on a cellular level (at this point). Why would you make a robot version of that girl? Just move on!

Buffy: “Look at me obsessing about being with someone. It’s like...I don’t need a guy right now. I need me. I need to get comfortable being alone with Buffy.”
Xander: “Well, I’ll say this, she’s a pretty cool person to be alone with.”
Buffy: “Thank you.”

Woooooooohooooooo! Finally! After seeing what love and obsession has done to Warren, Buffy has realised that she doesn’t need to be in a relationship to be happy or feel complete. Relationships are a complication that she doesn’t need in her life right now. She needs to learn to love and appreciate herself before trying to love someone else. This is a big revelation for Buffy’s character and shows some real maturity and awareness. My only criticism of this is that Buffy never follows through on it. Her mother dies, then soon after she dies, then after she comes back from the grave she’s messing around with Spike. She never really took the time to do what she says here, which is why she gives Angel the ‘cookie dough’ speech in “Chosen”. She never took the time to bake. Buffy has a new, more positive outlook on life after this episode and all is well that ends well. END OF THE EPISODE! THE SCREEN GOES BLACK! GOT IT?!

Ugh...

Buffy returns home in a positive mood to find flowers just inside the front door. It seems that Joyce’s date really did go well as the flowers are for Joyce from Brian. Buffy turns her head slightly and sees her mother lying down on the couch. Buffy asks her mother if she wants her to pick Dawn up from school and she gets no response. Buffy steps closer to her mother and discovers that something is wrong. One of Joyce’s arms is dangling over the side of the couch and her eyes are staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. She does not move or blink. Joyce is dead.

Buffy: “Mom? Mom?...Mommy?”

The episode fades to black.


Quote Of The Episode

Buffy: “It all looked pretty tame to me.”

Joyce: “Well, I suppose by your standards it could seem pretty...oh dear!”

Buffy: “What?”

Joyce: “I left my bra in his car.”

Buffy: “Mother!”

Joyce: “I’m joking.”

Buffy: “Good God, that’s horrible! Don’t do  that!”

Joyce: “I left it in the restaurant.”

Buffy (running upstairs and covering her ears): “No more! No more! No more!”

Joyce: “On the dessert cart!”

Buffy (from upstairs): “I can’t hear you!”

FINAL SCORE: 6/10

What are your thoughts on "I Was Made To Love You"? Did you enjoy this episode? Dislike it? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments section below!

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