Here are some additional moments I love
:
- In the
Fool For Love porch scene, just before the episode ends, they both take a breath at the same time. It's a little thing but I love it and I didn't know until years later that it was intentional which makes me love it even more.
- In
After Life when he reaches out to guide her into the living room but stops himself before he actually touches her (not to mention that
face journey when he realizes it's her - that's definitely been mentioned already but it can never be called out enough for me - honestly none of his face journeys can be when it comes to Buffy for me lol), and just basically how he completely understands right away not only what she has just been through but also what she needs in the wake of it. He doesn't even speak once Dawn leaves to get the bandages, he just waits for her.
- Also in
AL when they both look up at the same time after she places her hands in his.
- And his knowing exactly how many days since she died and the nodding and almost inaudible
"yeah" after she says
"longer" when he asks how long it was for her.
- Honestly everything in
AL between them is just... I have never recovered from that episode lol.
- In
Tabula Rasa even when they lose their memories they instinctively pair themselves with each other and trust each other.
- The
sound he makes after his hand lands on her shoulder and he knows without a doubt it's really her in
Showtime and the way she looks at him... The whole moment from her cutting him free to showing them walking out is less than 30 seconds long and it has So Much in it.
- When Buffy checks in on him in
First Date after she's defeated Lissa and he reaches over and touches her hand that's just been on his arm in a kind of brief and sweet acknowledgment of that care like he's saying
"I'm alright" like he did in
Potential when she checked in then.
- I know the
Hell's Bells scene was mentioned more than once (bc it is so so great from start to finish) but the way he forgets himself and says
"I'm sorry" completely genuinely when she says it hurts [to see him with someone] and how gentle they ultimately are with each other after the distinctly
not gentle sexual relationship they had.
- Also, how in the same scene when she tries to say she deserves [to feel bad] he immediately tells her that's not true and then the whole
it's nice to see you happy - I don't see it a lot - you glow bit capped off with that
smile and then her joke and they both laugh... It's the two of them at their best with each other and we haven't really seen them like that since the beginning of the season and even then they weren't like
that. Ugh. Love it.
- I love their theme that comes up over and over again in S7 - the most immediate instances that come to mind are when it's introduced in
Beneath You and then of course in
Touched and
End of Days and then finally in
Chosen (and I think it may pop up one or two more times? idr but it might). It's understated and somber and beautiful and lush and quiet and atmospheric. When I think of Buffy and Spike, one of the things that really sets their relationship apart for me is how private it is. How it is solely between
them from
Intervention onwards and not up for discussion, and how it's so utterly
intimate in S7 in particular - they never could have had a theme like this in 6, which was the intention, to explore a different kind of intimacy between them and it just
works for me on every level.
They work for me on every level bc they have literally
hit every level throughout the series by having been everything to each other - enemies, allies (reluctant and intentional), irritants, friends, lovers, complicated ex's, caretakers, pseudo-parents, partners, something more than partners, something more than friends and something that feels bigger to me than just lovers. By the end they've seen the best and worst of
each other and they truly know each other in that final moment when Buffy sees Spike at
his best - it's not just a romantic sentiment, it's profoundly true and it's why I ship them so hard lol. It's not a fantasy, it's messy and real and complicated bc of their history, not bc of who they
are and I think that's so clear in S7 once he has his soul.
-
Beneath You version (it starts in at 3:55)
-
Touched version
-
End of Days version
-
Chosen version (it starts in at 2:50 but the whole thing is just *chef's kiss*)
- the way Buffy acts when she confronts him in School Hard. I don't know how self aware it was from SMG, but I feel a very confident, almost flirty chemistry between them from the get go.
SMG's body language is
insane in that scene once she throws down her weapon. It's so unmistakably
'come hither' like
Excuse me, Miss Summers??? She ages up about 10 years into a grown woman with
knowledge that Buffy doesn't even have yet in that moment... Their Thing may not have been planned, but it was there long before it was which is amazing to me lol. S2 alone ends up unintentionally foreshadowing a
lot of what's to come between them - the red paint on Buffy's cheek echoing the blood on Spike's during his intro scene connecting them from the very first episode they appear in together, the attraction between them noted above that absolutely feels sexual on
both sides, the indication that Spike's not a normal vamp in the sense that he has the capacity to love and can care deeply for someone else, even his wanting to 'save the world' as selfish as it is originally, in the end he actually
does save it and it's a selfless act. Someone said on tumblr that these two are incapable of being normal about each other and never have been and I kind of think the show echoes that itself lol.
