"Fool for Love" is episode 7 of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated American cult television series that initially aired from March 10, 1997 until May 20, 2003. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Buffy507. ... David Paul Boreanaz (born May 16, 1969) is an American film and television actor. ... Juliet Landau (born March 30, 1965) is an American actress. ... Julie Benz (born May 1, 1972 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American actress. ... Mercedes McNab in 2004. ... Kristine Sutherland is an actress best known for her role as Joyce Summers on the television show, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. ... Douglas Petrie is most well known for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, having written the scripts for seventeen episodes, and directed three. ... is the 318th day of the year (319th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Family is the sixth episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... Shadow is the eighth episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... The Chosen Collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (seasons 1 - 7). ... Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated American cult television series that initially aired from March 10, 1997 until May 20, 2003. ...

Plot synopsis

Summary

Buffy is deeply wounded while fighting a vampire at the cemetery; she is saved only by the unexpected arrival of Riley. Faced with the reality of her own mortality, she bribes Spike to tell her about the final battles of the Slayers that he has killed. He recounts his experiences in detail, including some painful personal memories. He reveals that he killed both Slayers by exploiting their "death wish", their secret desire to be relieved of their burdens. Buffy perceives Spike's attraction to her and rejects him. Although Spike, who is infuriated, plans to kill Buffy with a shotgun, he ultimately comforts her on her back porch.

Expanded overview

In a routine patrol at the cemetery, a vampire and Buffy are fighting. Buffy has the upper hand, but when she makes her killing blow, the vampire turns her stake around on her, and she is stabbed through the stomach. She attempts to flee, but is cornered and nearly bitten when Riley jumps the vamp, attacking him with a taser and scaring him off. Early the next morning Riley patches up Buffy's stab wound; the embarrassing irony of nearly being killed by a lesser vamp with her own stake is not lost on her. While Riley suggests she go to the hospital, Buffy feels it would only upset her mother, and her enhanced healing abilities will kick in soon enough. Dawn comes in to tell them Joyce is coming up, prompting Riley and Buffy to hide the gauze and medical supplies they were using. Joyce notices a bottle of rubbing alcohol and asks if they are disinfecting something, prompting Dawn to say it was hers. Buffy asks Riley to take the rest of the gang to sweep the cemetery that night.

Giles and Buffy research to find out how previous slayers died. Unable to find any useful information, Buffy realize that Spike killed two, and confronts him in his crypt. Later, at the Bronze, she lays down ground rules: if he tells her what she wants to know, Spike gets a wad of money. Though initially resistant to giving her anything useful, Spike barters with her for a plate of spicy Buffalo wings, as he refuses to talk on an empty stomach. In doing so, Buffy inadvertently reveals her stab wound, leading Spike to annoy her further. Asked if he's always been this annoying, Spike notes that "I've always been bad."

London, 1880. William is a quiet, shy gentleman who feels disconnected from others in British society. Whilst at a society ball, he works on a love poem, looking for another word for "gleaming" ("a perfectly perfect word as many words go but the bother is nothing rhymes, you see"), but his unfinished work is snatched from his hands and read out loud, to the rude amusement of the boorish crowd. It is revealed that he had been dubbed "William the Bloody" because of his "bloody awful poetry." One listener declares that he would rather have a railroad spike through his head than hear more of William's poetry. The poem reveals his feelings of love and adoration for a woman. He speaks with the object of his affection, Cecily, whom he has loved from afar. She does not care for him and, when he admits the poem is about her, she rejects him, telling him that she feels nothing for him, and that he is 'beneath' her. William, devastated, leaves the house in tears, bumping into a group of strangers (Angelus, Darla and Drusilla) on the way. In a hay barn, he sits ripping up his love poems, when Drusilla appears before him. She asks what brought him to tears and comforts him by telling him that she sees his greatness and worth. She promises him a better future by her side, siring him after only minimal persuasion. Halfrek was a recurring fictional character on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ...

Back in the present, Riley and the gang locate the vampire that staked Buffy in a crypt with several of his vampire friends, with loud and drunken revelry ensuing. Riley and the gang decide to return in the morning when all the vampires are asleep, rather than take on the entire nest awake.

Spike plays pool while continuing his tale. After his siring, Spike was completely different. Tired of being left out by the world, he became empowered and destructive.

Yorkshire, 1880. Angelus is throttling William at the bottom of a coal mine, asking why they haven't killed him yet. William, now having adopted his distinctive accent and swagger, notes that he goes by the name 'Spike' now. Spike's strong tendency to incite mob riots simply for the joy of the fray is causing trouble for his new vampire family; his most recent hi-jinks resulted in them having to hide in an abandoned mineshaft. Angelus feels that Spike's uncouth behaviour is putting them increasingly in danger from being hunted by angry mobs. Spike feels Angelus only engages in fights that he knows he will win, rather than fighting with zeal and veracity. Angelus prefers the artistry of killing, seeing it as separating them from being mere animals. Spike's insults finally cause Angelus to lash out viciously, and he very nearly stakes Spike before Spike notes that he has proved his point. The elder vampire notes that if he cannot teach Spike the error of his ways, someday an angry mob would; that, or the Slayer. Spike sits up, suddenly interested, and asks, "What's a Slayer?"

Spike explains to Buffy that thereafter he became obsessed with finding and defeating the Slayer of that era. He notes, as the first lesson, that a Slayer must always reach for her weapon, but a vampire already has all the weapons he needs (he vamps out to demonstrate this). To illustrate this point further, he tells her of the first Slayer he killed.

China during the Boxer Rebellion, 1900. Spike fights with the Chinese Slayer, and after a long battle, he kills her when she reaches for her stake that she had dropped during the fight. While Spike and Drusilla revel in the kill of the Slayer and the taste of her blood (which Spike declares to be a powerful aphrodisiac), Angelus seems distracted, having been recently ensouled, and suggests they leave soon, as the rebellion is boring him. The Chinese slayer is a fictional character and a Vampire Slayer in the Buffyverse. ...

Spike proudly claims that it was the best night of his life, "and I've had some sweet ones." Buffy is disgusted at how he got off on it, but he counters that all it takes to kill a Slayer is for one vampire to have "one good day", and that Buffy simply got complacent at the moment of truth.

Meanwhile, Riley returns to the vampire nest alone, despite agreeing to wait. After staking the vampire that hurt Buffy, Riley blows up the rest of the vampires in the crypt with a grenade.

Spike tells Buffy how he killed the second Slayer (Nikki Wood) in New York, 1977. Spike and Buffy fight out a play-by-play of the battle, which took place on a subway train. Spike notes that this second Slayer was not all business like the first - she had a style more closely resembling Buffy's. After he snapped the Slayer's neck, he took her black leather duster for himself, and has worn it ever since. Spike then explains that the key to his victories was not in the particular moves or blows; the key was that each slayer has a death wish, a desire to experience death, after causing so much of it. They want to know what comes next, because they wish for a final peace after a lifetime of being solely responsible for protecting the world from demons. Spike explains that the second that that desire takes over, the Slayer will die, because there are countless vampires just waiting to take advantage of this. Nikki Wood is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon in the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, portrayed originally by April Weeden-Washington and later K.D. Aubert. ...

Spike and Buffy are standing almost nose to nose by this point, and Spike leans in to kiss her. Shocked and confused, she resists. Spike seizes her by the arms and tells her that he knows she wants to 'dance'. "Say it's true," she replies. "Say I do want to." And as she pushes him away and to the floor, she finishes coldly: "It wouldn't be you, Spike. It would never be you. You're beneath me." She tosses the pile of money at him, walking away into the night.

After she leaves, Spike starts crying, feeling the same sting of rejection that he had received from Cecily. He sobs for a few moments, blindly gathering up the bills that represent all that Buffy thinks he is worth, before his anger takes over. Furious, Spike returns to his crypt and arms himself with a double-barrel shotgun, intent on killing Buffy for her final insult. Harmony begs him to reconsider his plan, because he has tried and failed so many times before. She tells him that the chip in his head would not let him hurt her and the Slayer will only beat him up again, if not stake him outright. He explains to Harmony that his pain will last for a couple of hours, and she will be dead long before that.

South America, 1998. Drusilla turns away from Spike's devoted love because she cannot look at him without seeing and feeling the Slayer after Spike and Buffy's original alliance against Angelus. In the background is a Chaos Demon, with huge slimy antlers, with whom Drusilla had been shamelessly flirting. She recognizes, long before Spike does, his feelings for Buffy, and rejects him because he is no longer the same creature that had satisfied her for so many years. He insists that he did it all for her, to protect her, because he loved her, but she cannot be convinced.

Buffy returns home, still shaken from the combined experiences of the last 24 hours, and finds her mother packing clothes and toiletries into a suitcase. She inquires where Joyce was going, and her mother explains that her health condition has worsened to the point that she is going to stay in the hospital for observation and a CAT Scan. This final revelation is too much for Buffy, who retreats to her back porch in tears. Spike approaches with his shotgun, full of resolve borne of rejection and anger. However, he slows his pace when he sees that she is crying. Her pain stays his hand, his demeanour softens, and all his plans to shoot her are abandoned. He asks her what is wrong, and how he can help. She is surprised and confused at his reaction, and has no response, so he sets the gun down and takes a seat next to her on the porch. He puts his arm around her and gently comforts her, which she doesn't rebuff.

Acting

Main Cast

• Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
• Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
• Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenburg
• Marc Blucas as Riley Finn
• Emma Caulfield as Anya Jenkins
• Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn Summers
• James Marsters as Spike
• Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles

Sarah Michelle Gellar (born April 14, 1977) is a Golden Globe-nominated, Daytime Emmy Award-winning American actress. ... Nicholas Brendon (born April 12, 1971 as Nicholas Brendon Schultz in Los Angeles, California), is an actor best known for his character Xander Harris in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003). ... Alyson Hannigan (born March 24, 1974) is an American actress who plays Lily Aldrin in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother. ... Marc Blucas Marc Blucas Marc Blucas Marcus Paul Blucas (born January 11, 1972 in Butler, Pennsylvania) is an American actor. ... Emma Caulfield is an actress best known for her role as ex-demon Anya on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... Michelle Christine Trachtenberg (born October 11, 1985) is an American television and film actress. ... James Wesley Marsters (born August 20, 1962) is an American actor and musician, best known for playing the popular platinum-blond character Spike, an English of a vampire, in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff series Angel. ... Anthony Stewart Head (born 20 February 1954) is an English actor who has appeared in theatre, television and films. ...

Recurring Role

• Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers
• Mercedes McNab as Harmony Kendall
• Juliet Landau as Drusilla

Kristine Sutherland is an actress best known for her role as Joyce Summers on the television show, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. ... Mercedes McNab in 2004. ... Juliet Landau (born March 30, 1965) is an American actress. ...

Guest Star

• David Boreanaz as Angel
• Julie Benz as Darla

David Paul Boreanaz (born May 16, 1969) is an American film and television actor. ... Julie Benz (born May 1, 1972 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American actress. ...

Production details

Music

• Avenue A - "Run Cold"
• Johann Sebastian Bach - "Partita 3.III for Violin Solo in E Major"
• Crushing Velvet - "Xxx"
• Felix Mendelssohn - "Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream"
• Holly Golightly - "Run Cold"
• The Killingtons - "Balladovie"
• Virgil (Elephant Ride) - Heal Yourself"

Bach in a 1748 portrait by Haussmann Places in which Bach resided throughout his life Johann Sebastian Bach (pronounced ) (21 March 1685 O.S. – 28 July 1750 N.S.) was a prolific German composer and organist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra and solo instruments drew together the... Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, born and known generally as Felix Mendelssohn (February 3, 1809 – November 4, 1847) was a German composer and conductor of the early Romantic period. ... The Overture to A Midsummer Nights Dream is a concert overture composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1826 and later incorporated into his incidental music for A Midsummer Nights Dream in 1843. ... Holly Golightly (born Holly Golightly Smith) is an English singer-songwriter. ...

Quotes and trivia

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer#Fool for Love

• Buffy tells Spike, "You're beneath me," recalling Cecily's words which drove Spike into Drusilla's grasp in the first place.

• In the first episode of the season, Spike claims Dracula's showing off was the reason vampires became known to humans. The flashbacks of this episode show that Spike himself is quite proud to display his vampiric nature.

• The poem snatched from William's hands and read out loud (to public ridicule) is a portion of the same poem that Spike later reads (in its complete form) at the open-mike event in the season finale of Angel "Not Fade Away." His reading of this poem was received with wild, enthusiastic applause from that audience.

• Spike says the line "Sorry, love. I don't speak Chinese." to the Chinese slayer he killed in the Boxer Rebellion. Spike will say the same line to the psychotic slayer Dana in the episode "Damage." when she spoke Chinese while thinking she was a Chinese slayer.

• According to the comic Spike: Old Times, Cecily was actually Halfrek, a vengeance demon (and longtime friend of Anya) at the time of her meeting with William, and subsequently massacred the room of people who had laughed at his poetic efforts. Actress Kali Rocha played both Cecily and later Halfrek.

• As a vampire, William would later change his name to Spike and claim that both the nickname and his former title as "William the Bloody" derived from his practice of torturing people with railroad spikes. This episode reveals the true origin of these nicknames: one listener to William's poem in the flashback comments that he would rather have a railroad spike driven through his head than listen to any of William's poetry, and notes that William is referred to as "William the Bloody" because of his "bloody" awful poetry. Though Spike might have been inspired to torture victims with railroad spikes by that listener's comment.

Spike: Come on. I can feel it, Slayer. You know you want to dance.

Buffy: Say it's true. Say I do want to.

She shoves him to the ground and looks down at him with disgust.

Buffy: It wouldn't be you, Spike. It would never be you.

She tosses the wad of cash at him contemptuously.

Buffy: You're beneath me.

Buffy turns and walks off into the night, leaving Spike alone in the dark alley crying.

Spike throws open an old trunk and starts searching through the contents. Harmony looks at him with concern.

Harmony: Spike, what are you doing?

Spike: (to himself) Beneath me... I'll show her.

He takes out a double-barreled shotgun, cracks the breech and loads two rounds.

Spike: Put her six bloody feet beneath me. Hasn't got a death wish? Bitch won't need one.

Angelus: You can't keep this up forever. If I can't teach you, maybe someday an angry crowd will. That... or the Slayer.

Spike sits up, suddenly interested.

Spike: What's a Slayer?

Cecily: Your poetry, it's... they're... not written about me, are they?

Spike: They're about how I feel.

Cecily: Yes, but are they about me?

Spike: Every syllable.

Cecily: Oh, God!

Spike: Oh, I know... it's sudden and... please, if they're no good, they're only words but... the feeling behind them... I love you, Cecily.

Cecily: Please stop!

Spike: I know I'm a bad poet but I'm a good man and all I ask is that... that you try to see me-

Cecily: I do see you. That's the problem. You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me.

Spike: And we just keep coming. But you can kill a hundred, a thousand, a thousand thousand and the armies of Hell besides and all we need is for one of us -- just one -- sooner or later to have the thing we're all hoping for.

Buffy: And that would be what?

Spike: One . . . good . . . day.

Spike: The only reason you've lasted as long as you have is you've got ties to the world . . . your mum, your brat kid sister, the Scoobies. They all tie you here, but you're just putting off the inevitable. Sooner or later, you're gonna want it. And the second -- the second -- that happens, you know I'll be there. I'll slip in . . . have myself a real good day.

Angel: Congratulations. I guess that makes you one of us.

Spike: Don’t be so glum, mate! The way you tell it, one Slayer snuffs it, another one rises. I figure there’s a new Chosen One getting all choseny as we speak. I’ll tell you what. When and if this new bird does show up, I’ll give you first crack at her.

Drusilla: I smell fear.

Angel: This whole place reeks of it.

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is a sister project of Wikipedia, using the same MediaWiki software. ... List of Angel episodes Not Fade Away is the 22nd episode of season 5, and the final episode of the series, of the television show Angel. ... Damage is episode 11 of season 5 in the television show Angel. ... Halfrek was a recurring fictional character on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... Kali as the character Cecily on Buffy Kali Rocha (born December 5, 1971, in Memphis, Tennessee) is an American actress. ... Bloody is the adjectival form of blood but may also be used as a swear word or expletive attributive (intensifier) in Britain, Ireland, Canada, South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka. ... The Chinese poem Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong (Song Dynasty) Poetry (from the Greek , poiesis, a making or creating) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. ...

Translations

• Italian title: "Pazzi per amore" ("Insane (ones) for love").
• German title: "Eine Lektion fürs Leben" ("A lesson for life")
• French title: "La faille" ("The Flaw")
• Spanish title: "Amores que matan" ("Loves that kill")

Continuity

Arc significance

• Crossover with Angel: This episode consists largely of flashbacks from Spike's viewpoint. Some of the events recounted are seen from Darla's viewpoint in "Darla", first aired later the same night.

• This is the first time Spike shows real affection and caring towards Buffy on the series; a foreshadowing of his joining the "good" side later on.

Darla is episode 7 of season 2 of the television show Angel. ...

Continuity violation

• This episode shows Drusilla siring Spike, violating the continuity established in the third episode of season two, "School Hard", where Spike calls Angel his sire. Joss Whedon later verified that any vampire in a line can be referred to as a sire. Darla sired Angel, who sired Drusilla, who sired Spike which denotes a "familial" line.

School Hard is episode 3 of season 2 of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ...

Timing

• Stories that take place around the same time in the Buffyverse:

Buffy vs. ... Judgment is the 1st episode of season 2 of the television show Angel. ... Cover Story by: Jane Espenson Penciller: Cliff Richards Inker: Julio Ferreira Letterer: Clem Robins Colorist: Jeromy Cox Comics: BtVS: Haunted #1-4 Published: Dark Horse Date first published: Sep 11, 2002 Substance: Soft cover, 96 pages, Full color // Story description Spoiler warning: General Synopsis Faith, tells Angel a story that... Jane Espenson is an American writer who has worked on several television series and comic books, as well as on a variety of other projects. ... Real Me is the second episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... Are You Now or Have You Ever Been is episode 2 of season 2 in the television show Angel. ... Image is an original novel based on the U.S. television series Angel. ... Stranger to the Sun is an original novel based on the U.S. television series Angel. ... The Replacement is the third episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... False Memories is a trade papeback collecting comic stories based on the Buffy television series. ... Cover Story by: Amber Benson, Christopher Golden Artist: Terry Moore, Andi Watson with Eric Powell Letterer: HiFi Design Colorist: HiFi Design Comics: BtVS: Willow & Tara: Wilderness #1-4, Wannablessedbe Published: Dark Horse Date first published: Apr 23, 2003 Substance: Soft cover, 80 pages, Full color // General Description Collected stories about... First Impressions is episode 3 of season 2 in the television show Angel. ... Canonical warning: The followings canonical status in the Buffyverse is unclear: Long Nights Journey is a trade paperback collecting comic stories based on the Angel television series. ... Out of My Mind is the fourth episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... Untouched is episode 4 of season 2 of the television show Angel. ... No Place Like Home is the fifth episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... Dear Boy is episode 5 of season 2 in the television show Angel. ... Family is the sixth episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... Autumnal is a trade papeback collecting comic stories based on the Buffy television series. ... Autumnal is a trade paperback based on the Angel TV series. ... Guise Will Be Guise is episode 6 of season 2 in the television show Angel. ... Darla is episode 7 of season 2 of the television show Angel. ... Shadow is the eighth episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... The Shroud of Rahmon is episode 8 of season 2 in the television show Angel. ... Listening to Fear is the ninth episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... The Trial is episode 9 of season 2 in the television show Angel. ... Into the Woods is the tenth episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... Triangle is the eleventh episode of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ... Redefinition is episode 11 of season 2 in the television show Angel. ...

External links

• "Fool for Love" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Fool For Love" at TV.com