While I do agree that a skirt was necessary for the scene, I'd like to talk about something other than Buffy's choice of clothing.
Can we talk about the dialogue for a second? This might get long, so please bear with me. I just rewatched Smashed and, I gotta say, I found the conversation and actions/reactions during the lead-in to sex very interesting. The first time I watched this ep, the writers had me believing his motivation was to kill Buffy. I was along for the ride. The sex came as a pleasant surprise. Upon this second viewing, though, the lead-in leads me to believe that Buffy and Spike are actually talking about the sexual tension that exists between them -- like there was an unspoken rule that she would never consider him when he was "toothless" and "impotent," but that being able to bring the big bad back into the game makes him somehow worthy again.
Take, for instance the opening dialogue:
BUFFY: What are you gonna do, walk behind me to death?
SPIKE: I'm just saying things might be a little different.
Spike walks around in front of her again. They stop walking.
SPIKE: You oughta be careful.
BUFFY: (shakes head) Enough.
She moves to walk around him, but he shifts to block her path.
BUFFY: (small smile) Get out of my way.
SPIKE: Or what?
After getting her dig in over his vamp impotence, he challenges her again. At first, she thinks its just more teasing. But when he challenges her by getting into her space, she smiles. He seems nervous and generally thrilled, too. It's very flirty. When they fight, it's like they're playing. In the opening to the next act, Buffy is still thrown. There's an opening, but Spike doesn't take it. Instead, he gets in her face and gives her this excited, I'm-trying-to-hold-back-my-grin look.
During the subsequent exchange, he hits her a few times, but he's obviously holding back, waiting for her to join in. And he retains the cute grin thing. When I first saw this episode, I thought it was threatening, but now, I refuse to call it anything other than cute. His body language, his facial expressions, his dialogue... everything is saying "I'm back! Now come play (or maybe "dance" would be a more appropriate word) with me!" Her response is different. She keeps holding back and saying "you're wrong." The obvious meaning is that what he's saying -- that she came back wrong -- is wrong. The subtext, however, fairly well screams what she'll spend the entire next season saying: he's wrong (for her because she's the slayer). He's the wrong thing for her to do, but she wants to anyway.
During the rest of the scene, their dialogue sort of foreshadows their entire relationship dynamic. Buffy tries to talk herself out of it -- and Spike's enjoying the verbal and physical sparring -- but it seems she can't. Instead, she initiates the start of their sexual relationship.
She kisses
him. He doesn't kiss her. They don't kiss each other. It's very much Buffy who starts things. He's even surprised. Then, as if we had any doubt about who initiates what, Buffy's the one who goes for his zipper. He seems surprised about that one, too, but he goes with it (who wouldn't?). It's like he expected to have to do a lot more convincing, but all Buffy really needed to convince her was for him to get his fangs back.
The first time I saw this episode, I was going purely on surface level stuff. I was like "he wants to kill her." Upon rewatching, though, I see that now that Spike's chip no longer functions on Buffy, it's like we finally get to see them "dance." He's not trying to kill her at all. And she's not trying to kill him. They're just playing. They're having fun with one another. And that makes it fun to watch, too.
So, yeah... I missed a whole lot of subtext the first time around. The second time, though, really had me fascinated. Those scenes were amazingly well written, well choreographed, and well acted!
Did anyone else agree? And, you know, see all this in the first viewing (unlike Palabra, who seems to be a little slow on the uptake)?
