Buffy The Vampire Slayer, "Smashed" Review (6x09)

Brief Synopsis: “After Tara breaks up with her, Willow manages to successfully de-rat Amy and the two witches begin bonding through using magic, drawing Willow further into her growing addiction. Meanwhile, Spike discovers that his chip doesn’t go off when he hits Buffy, leading him to believe that she may have come back wrong after being resurrected.”


"Tabula Rasa" (6x08) quick link here                                                                                                                        "Wrecked" (6x10) quick link here

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1) This review will almost definitely contain spoilers for episodes after this one.

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“Smashed” is a challenging episode to watch if you’re a Willow fan, an Amy fan, a Buffy fan, or a Spike fan (excluding the last scene if you’re a ‘Spuffy’ fan). After living with these characters for 6 years now, it’s difficult to watch them make mistake after mistake due to their isolation, their loneliness, their misery, or their insecurities. However, as bold of a move as it is to have arguably the two leading characters on the show acting recklessly, I applaud the show for its realism. People make mistakes. People fuck up. People make decisions that you question...but it’s a part of growing up! Everyone makes stupid choices in trying to discover their identity and find their place in the world. In this instance, we’re witnessing Buffy and Willow fall deeper and deeper into isolation and despair, which forces them to look into other avenues to feel better about their situations. There are many interesting parallels between Buffy and Willow’s journeys throughout this season, but “Smashed” goes out of its way to emphasise them. Frustratingly, Buffy and Willow almost communicate with each other and talk through their problems, but both use convenient excuses in the end so they don’t have to do so. Buffy and Willow’s friendship has arguably been the closest on the show. Time and time again we’ve seen them confide in each other and support each other through their various struggles. When Angel left Buffy in “The Prom”, she went to Willow. When Faith accidentally killed a human, she went to Willow. Willow came out as a lesbian to Buffy first. Willow used to talk to Buffy about what she should do with her feelings for Xander. When their lives start to fall apart, they turn to each other. This has slowly changed over the past season or two and by this point they usually keep their problems to themselves. If Buffy and Willow had gone ahead with their conversation, they may very well have ended up on different paths to a destructive, abusive relationship and an addiction to magic.

In Willow’s case, she point-blank refuses to accept why Tara left her. She even goes so far as to label it as “no good reason”. This enforces just how deluded and naive Willow is in her present state. She has no idea that what she’s doing is wrong. She has no idea that she’s manipulating the people around her. When Tara accused her of violating her mind with the forgetting spell, Willow looked genuinely hurt by the accusation. After remembering that her pet rat was originally a human friend (I feel everyone in the Scoobies forgot about Amy far too easily), Willow transforms Amy back into a human being, giving her another witch friend to bounce off of and encourage her further down her path to addiction. Willow has been performing some very questionable magic over the past year. Her attack of Glory in “Tough Love”, her resurrection of Buffy in “Bargaining Part One”, her forgetting spell on Tara in “All The Way”, and her forgetting spell on everyone in “Tabula Rasa”. All of these spells can be partially justified. She used dark magic against Glory because she brain-sucked her girlfriend. She resurrected Buffy because she thought Buffy was trapped in a Hell dimension. She performed the forgetting spell on Tara so that Tara could forget painful memories. Absolutely wrong and a violation, but one could argue that her intentions were somewhat good (from Willow’s point of view). Now that Tara is gone, Willow’s tiny filter that remained has been extinguished. Once Willow and Amy join up and head to The Bronze, they start performing magic on everyone around them just because they can. This is frightening behaviour. 

Comparingly, with Giles now gone - Buffy’s last remaining pillar of support in her eyes - we watch her delve deeper and deeper into despair, culminating in a destructive, violent, physical ‘relationship’ with Spike. It’s literally a destructive relationship as the house they shag in falls down. Since they first kissed in “Once More With Feeling”, Buffy and Spike’s relationship has grown more disturbing and unhealthy for both of them. Spike is like a dog with a bone now (which is ironically what he refers to Anya as in the final season when she won’t let their shagathon go). He’s developed a deeper taste for Buffy and his obsession and addiction has grown to scary proportions. Buffy, as she referenced in “Once More With Feeling”, is looking to feel something, anything, but the emptiness inside her. Once again, the parallels between Angel’s mental state in “Reprise” and Buffy’s in this episode are hauntingly beautiful. As Willow is giving into her magical addiction to cope with her pain and feelings of insecurity, Buffy is giving into her sexual addiction to cope with her pain and feelings of isolation and depression. Neither of them stops to consider the consequences of these actions once in this episode, which becomes a trend for most of the season. The final linchpins holding them in place have disappeared from their lives. Buffy finds out that she may have come back wrong after her resurrection at the hands of Willow. She can’t turn to Giles for advice or reassurance, she feels isolated from the rest of the Scoobies, what can she do? Her coming back wrong validates why she feels so broken in her eyes. Without Tara’s warm influence, Willow is free to dive as deeply into magic as she desires, especially now that Amy is back on the scene. These two characters are at the lowest points they’ve ever been, but neither of them are taking steps to improve the situation. In fact, they’re making them much, much worse.

Before exploring Willow and Buffy’s journeys in more depth, here are a few random observations from the episode that are noteworthy :-

•    The Trio are hilarious. Their banter almost always makes me laugh and makes me think of conversations I’ve had with my friends. In this episode, they’re focused on stealing a diamond. Imagine the three goofiest, most ridiculous versions of James Bond you possibly can. That’s these guys. “Smashed” is the episode where Warren is fully established as the leader of The Trio. He’s the force pushing them forwards, he’s the man barking the orders, and he’s the only guy in the group who you could deem ‘evil’. Jonathan and Andrew are bored, lonely, power-hungry nerds looking for fun, excitement, and girls. Warren is all of that and much more. He gets off on freezing the guard. With each passing episode he gets slightly more villainy and slightly more manipulative. The same can’t be said for Andrew, and it definitely can’t be said for Jonathan, who seems to regress with each passing episode. For three characters that shouldn’t be villains at all, they’re slowly starting to work and be an interesting case study.
•    Every interaction between The Trio and Spike in their basement lair is gold. From Spike threatening to break the Boba Fett action figure, to Andrew stroking it reassuringly and muttering “it’s okay, it’s going to be okay” after Spike throws it at him, to Andrew and Jonathan trying to make small talk with Spike over English sci-fi shows (“Doctor Who” and “Red Dwarf”...both excellent!), it’s all very amusing.
•    All bonding scenes between Tara and Dawn are adorable, wonderful, and heart-warming. When Tara was packing up her things at the conclusion of “Tabula Rasa”, Dawn took it hard. When Tara went to hug her, she ran away into the house crying. It’s oddly comforting and reassuring to know that at least one friendship on this show has a solid foundation still. God knows there aren’t many of those this season. I don’t agree with Dawn lying to Tara about Willow no longer using magic, but I can appreciate that she’s desperately trying to get them back together because she loves them both. When I see Dawn and Tara in this scene, I can’t help but jump to Dawn’s excited reaction in “Seeing Red” to the discovery that they’re back together...then my mind jumps to the end of “Seeing Red” and the fact that Dawn discovers Tara’s body in “Villains”, and I die a little more inside. Ugh. Poor Dawn. Why does she get so much hate?! Granted, she can be whiny and annoying, but look at everything she suffers within a year and a half! She finds out she’s not real and all her memories are fake, her mother dies, her sister dies, everyone is too busy with their own problems to notice her, her surrogate father, Giles, leaves, and her surrogate mother, Tara, dies. I can relate to this far too well and I can’t help but want to hug her. Also, Dawn subtly remarking on how dangerous and dark it is outside to try to get Tara to stay longer was genius and cute.
•    I was so pleased to see Amy back in the Buffyverse...for about 10 minutes. Then she started playing on Willow’s high school insecurities and encouraging her to go out to party and do magic, and I quickly wanted Amy to disappear again. Also, when Buffy walks downstairs to talk to Amy, there’s a commercial for the Doublemeat Palace playing. Can you say ‘foreshadowing’? Amy can’t go home because her father will be furious with her for using magic. Willow offers to help Amy with this problem by teaching her a spell that will ensure that Amy’s father forgets that she was ever missing. What. The. Fuck. More mind-rape, Willow?

Buffy: “Hi. How’re you been?”
Amy: “Rat. You?”
Buffy: “Dead.”
Amy: “Oh.”

...When did everyone turn into Oz? Where have all the full sentences disappeared to?

Willow’s troubles and Buffy’s troubles are equally serious and self-destructive, but Willow’s are more destructive for the people around her, as she starts using magic to mess with people at The Bronze. After Willow de-rats Amy, she tells her that Tara left her for “no good reason”, which is deeply troubling behaviour in itself. She’s unwilling to take any responsibility for what’s happening. In Willow’s mind, the forgetting spells were needed in order to help people get over their grief and be happy. This isn’t new behaviour for Willow as we saw her attempt the exact same thing on herself two years previously in “Something Blue”, but casually manipulating the people around her in this manner is something that’s only really developed during this season. Willow will never start to heal until she takes responsibility for her actions. I kind of adore that the show has taken their most loveable, reliable character and made her a manipulative, abusive woman. Buffy and Xander have noticed that Willow is in trouble (finally!), but neither of them seems particularly dedicated to stopping it because they’re battling their own dramas. That’s the underlying point of this whole season! It reminds me of a speech that Buffy gives to Jonathan in season three’s “Earshot”...“every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they’re too busy with their own”. Xander is having too many marriage worries to concentrate on just how far Willow has fallen. Buffy is desperately trying to stay afloat and not kill herself, so she’s in no position to help Willow either. Buffy and Xander do have a half-hearted attempt at talking to Willow about her over-reliance on magic, but when Willow says she’s fine, they both drop the issue instead of pressing it further. They know Willow isn’t fine, but they’re too wrapped up in their own problems to know just how deep it goes. Enter Anya, who’s the only character who isn’t afraid to say it like it is. She openly references that Willow is over-reliant on magic and that Tara left her for this very reason...

Anya: “Well, those are the ones you have to watch out for the most. Responsible types.”
Buffy: “Right, she might go crazy and start alphabetising everything.”
Anya: “I’m serious. Responsible people are always so concerned with being good all the time that when they finally get a taste of being bad they can’t get enough. It’s like all kablooey.”
Buffy: “That’s not true.”
Anya: “Okay, not kablooey. More like ‘bam!’”
Xander: “It’s human nature, Buff. Will’s getting a taste of something powerful, way bigger than her.”
Anya: “Yeah, she was getting out of control with it before Tara left and now that she’s gone...”
Xander: “It’s gotta be seductive.”

When Anya is the voice of reason, be scared. Anya is on point here. Willow is getting a taste of something darker and more powerful than she’s experienced before, and she’s realised that she loves the power and influence that she has over everyone around her. She’s not in Buffy’s shadow anymore, she’s a contender in her own right. If Buffy and Xander had taken charge here and really stood up to Willow, everything may have turned out differently. Alas, they didn’t. In the exchange above, Buffy is making excuses for Willow’s behaviour because everything that Xander and Anya are saying could easily be said about her in regards to kissing Spike. Her own problems are blinding her to Willow’s problems, which in turn only exasperates both of their plights. Buffy doesn’t have Willow to lean on like she always has done before, Willow doesn’t have Buffy to lean on, neither of them really has Xander right now, and Giles has disappeared to England. Plus, Joyce is dead. Buffy and Willow’s support systems have fallen apart in a matter of months and nobody is there to set them straight (so to speak) when they need it. Another interesting thing about this scene is that Xander thought he found the demon in a Dungeons & Dragons manual...they suck at demon research without Giles. Why don’t they call him and ask him to help out or if he knows anything?

The first traces of Amy’s personality change are also apparent in this episode. I’m not sure if the spell made her a bitch or if she resents Willow taking three years to figure out how to de-rat her, but either way, this isn’t the sweet, kind Amy of Sunnydale High. Amy plays on Willow’s old high school insecurities to get Willow to go out to The Bronze with her and magic the town red. Amy asks Willow if she wants to sit in and do nothing all night just like she used to at Sunnydale High. A lot of Willow’s problems this season (and before that) stem from her trying to escape her former identity at school, so this was the very worst thing that Amy could have said to Willow in this moment. Willow’s quest for power stems from her high school insecurities, which was explored in great detail in season four’s “Restless”. She’s desperate to escape her nerdy, bullied, looked-down-upon former life. The final nail in the coffin (pun-believable!) for Willow is the subtle call-back to the very first episode of the show, “Welcome To The Hellmouth”. During that episode, Buffy and Willow have a conversation at The Bronze, where Buffy, while chewing on a pimento that was in her drink, tells Willow to seize the moment. Here, five years later, Willow is staring down at her drink, before chewing on the pimento and performing magic at The Bronze with Amy. It’s like Willow was remembering that moment, remembering the shy, scared, insecure person she used to be, and deciding to reject that person by doing the opposite to what the old Willow would have done in the same situation. The behaviour of Willow and Amy at The Bronze is simply troubling. Did the guys that called Willow a lesbian (“Ellen”) deserve to be made a mockery of? Sure, but that doesn’t mean you have to resort to magic to do that. Amy mind-rapes a woman at The Bronze and possesses her into hitting on Willow, and both Willow and Amy start rearranging The Bronze how they see fit. Deeply disturbing stuff.

While Willow is giving in to the darkness and isolation inside of her, so is Buffy. While Willow is doing this by manipulating the world around her through magic, Buffy is doing it by entering into a physically and mentally abusive ‘relationship’ with Spike. I’m a big fan of Buffy and Spike’s friendship in season five, their friendship at the beginning of this season, and their relationship in the next season, but I find most of this season (“Once More With Feeling”-“Seeing Red”, mostly) far too troubling to be a fan of it. It’s fascinating and highly interesting to explore, but I can’t be a fan of what they’re doing because they’re both acting so self-destructively and are ‘together’ for all the wrong reasons here. Early on in this episode, Spike tells Buffy that sooner or later she’ll realise that he’s the only one who’s there for her. That in itself is manipulative behaviour and it’s something that he tries to make Buffy see time and time again this season. He wants Buffy to be in the darkness with him and he knows the only way that’ll happen is to keep Buffy isolated from her friends and miserable, so he does everything in his power for the next few episodes to keep Buffy depressed and lonely. Not the greatest foundation for a relationship, is it? Spike knows that Buffy’s strength and survival lies in her friends and family, as he told her this in last season’s “Fool For Love”. Keeping Buffy intentionally distanced from them shows that Spike isn’t as good as he’s been appearing since “Intervention” in the last season. Spike has committed some truly selfless deeds. From not telling Glory Dawn’s identity to protecting Dawn after Buffy died, Spike has been slowly changing his behaviour. However, he’s still evil. He’s still soulless. He’s still feeding his own desires with his actions and those desires of his are still his primary motivations for doing anything noble or ‘good’. In comparison, Buffy is only kissing (and later screwing) Spike in the first place because she’s trying to escape from the depression and misery she’s feeling inside. It’s destructive for her, destructive for him, and we really should have seen the attempted rape scene coming from a mile away. Spike’s behaviour throughout this episode is appalling. When he discovers that Buffy came back ‘wrong’, he uses this information against her, which ends up being the primary reason why she sleeps with him at the conclusion of the episode. He could have supported Buffy after he discovered she came back wrong, but instead he uses this information to push her further and further into depression. It’s a great way to remind the audience that while Spike has done some noble things lately, he’s still soulless.

Spike: “You’re a tease, you know that, Slayer? Get a fella’s motor revving, let the tension marinate a couple of days, then bam! Crown yourself the ice queen.”

This is another major problem with their relationship this season. Buffy only wants Spike around when she needs an escape from reality. The second she starts to feel a little better or isn’t in a particularly self-destructive mood, she pushes Spike away and treats him like crap. Between Spike’s behaviour and Buffy’s behaviour throughout most of this season, this could be deemed the most dysfunctional, disturbing relationship in the Buffyverse. Yes, more so than Lilah and Wesley (whom I oddly adore). Alas, it’s fascinating to watch unfold though. Speaking of Spike’s recent good deeds, would they have happened at all if he hadn’t had a government chip jammed into his brain? Doubtful. Therefore, when Spike argues that he’s better than Angel because he sought out his soul, it’s somewhat marred by the fact that Spike’s character growth took place because of something outside of his control. Spike’s behaviour in this episode is somewhat understandable. Spike is obsessed with Buffy right now because of their recent kissing sessions. However, Buffy brushes Spike off and says that she only kissed him because she was upset about Giles leaving Sunnydale. Instead of admitting her physical attraction to him, she insults him and tells him that it’ll never, ever happen again. This conversation results in Spike hitting Buffy and realising that he can physically harm her without his chip activating. That’s huge for the show! Spike’s in love with the only ‘human’ in the world that he can physically harm. In hindsight, we should have all realised that this was going to end in chaos.

After realising his chip might be malfunctioning, Spike heads off to downtown Sunnydale to try to eat a small, blonde girl...sound familiar? This is more proof that Spike hasn’t changed his ways. The second he thinks he can hurt someone, he tried to kill someone. Hilariously, five minutes before this scene, Spike was telling Buffy that a man can change and that he’s different now. What a load of rubbish. Buffy’s response to Spike was that he’s not even a man and she was correct. Spike’s not ‘good’, he’s not fixed, he’s not a selfless hero yet. He’s merely someone that’s been acting good because he’s in love with the Slayer. Almost all of his behaviour can be traced back to selfish origins. It’s not until Spike receives his soul that he can truly be seen as a character acting selflessly and heroically. As part of my criminology and psychology degree, I’ve recently been reading about conditioning, which is a fascinating parallel to Spike’s behaviour over the past two years. The chip in his head has changed his behaviour and made him act in a certain way to avoid pain. This conditioning has made all of us, including Spike, believe that he’s changed. This is apparently not the case as he instantly reverts back to the ‘Big Bad’ he once was as soon as he thinks he’s free of his mental prison. Here’s the question underlying all of this...how much of Spike’s behaviour over the past couple of years has been because of his love for Buffy and how much of it has been simple conditioning and acting in the only way he’s been able to because of the chip? We’ll never know the answer, but it’s fascinating to consider.

Spike’s revelation to Buffy that she came back wrong was a big moment for her character. Since returning from the dead, Buffy has felt different. Broken, hollow, empty, miserable, suicidal, depressed, isolated, and numb. Spike telling Buffy that she came back wrong validates these feelings for her. She has an excuse for her feelings now. She has an excuse for kissing Spike and feeling miserable...because she came back wrong. Of course, she didn’t come back wrong, but that doesn’t negate her behaviour here because she thinks she came back wrong. This leads Buffy deeper down her dark path and encourages her to act even more erratic than she would ordinarily. If Spike hadn’t told her she came back wrong, would she have slept with him? I don’t think so. Buffy constantly denies Spike’s claims that she came back wrong, but it’s written all over face that she completely believes him. All of this self-hate and misery that she’s been feeling explodes out of her and she starts beating the shit out of Spike. Eventually, this turns into sweet, sweet love of a different kind. I will freely admit, the sex scene is damn hot. Faith once told Buffy that slaying makes her hungry and horny. Buffy has always denied these claims, but she’s always gotten off on slaying and fighting to some extent. Comparingly, Spike has always gotten off on violence and being hit. When you combine Buffy’s belief that she came back wrong with their mutual horniness over violence, it was a recipe for shagging until the building fell down.

You could consider the violent fighting and the verbal sparring as foreplay. It’s not entirely apparent until they start having sex, but both of them are getting off on the violence seeping out of them...perhaps I should have used different phrasing given the circumstances. It’s worth noting that Buffy initiates the sex, not Spike. Buffy’s so caught up in overwhelming horror that she came back wrong that she wants to feel something, anything, to escape her own thoughts. When Buffy undoes Spike’s zipper, he looks utterly shocked and bemused. Ironically, finding out that Spike can hit her is what sent her over the edge and onto his penis...and she denies that slaying makes her hungry and horny. The sex scene was beautifully filmed. The music was perfect, the visual of watching the building crack and collapse was brilliant, the blend of graphic sexuality and subtlety was excellently handled, but the best part of all was how the camera concentrated on James and Sarah’s faces as they were conveying everything that Spike and Buffy were feeling inside. James and Sarah have always been terrific facial actors, but this is some of their finest work. The metaphor of the building coming down as Buffy’s life is crashing down around her is obvious, but it still works well. Buffy finding out that she came back wrong was the final piece of information she needed to just give up entirely and stop trying to fight the darkness. When she gives in to this darkness and lets her defensive walls down, the building collapses. It’s an excellent example of the show mimicking mental processes with visual cues. Since returning from the grave, Buffy has been going through the motions and trying to find something that makes her feel alive again. For the first time since returning, Buffy has found something that makes her feel. Sadly, in hindsight, it’s a very bad decision. The episode closes on Buffy and Spike falling through the floor and landing together amidst a collection of debris and wood...and I don’t just mean Spike’s.


Quote Of The Episode

Andrew: “You’re English, right?”

Spike: “Yeah...”

Andrew: “I’ve seen every episode of ‘Doctor Who’. Not ‘Red Dwarf’ though, ‘cause, um...”

Jonathan: “‘Cause it’s not out yet on DVD.”

Andrew: “Right. It’s not out on...DVD.” 

Spike: “WARREN!”


FINAL SCORE: 7.5/10

What are your thoughts on "Smashed"? Did you enjoy this episode? Dislike it? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments section below!

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