Smashed

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Contains season 6 spoilers – Consider yourself warned.

Smashed: Spike's chip has stopped working... or has it?
Season 6, Episode 9
First US Airdate: November 20, 2001
Written by Drew Z. Greenberg, Directed by Turi Meyer

Guest stars:
Elizabeth Anne Allen... Amy Madison
Adam Busch... Warren Meers
Tom Lenk... Andrew Wells
Danny Strong... Jonathan Levinson

Synopsis:
Previously: Hey, remember when Amy turned herself into a rat? // Willow cast a forgetting spell on Tara // Willow promised not to do magic for a week, but then proceeded to do LOTS of magic // Tara left Willow // Warren built the BuffyBot for Spike // Giles went back to England // Buffy and Spike got smoochy

An alley in Sunnydale. Buffy shows up to save a couple from some plain old human muggers. As she's fighting them, Spike runs in and punches one of the muggers, which then sets off his chip. The muggers run off, leaving Buffy and Spike alone. Spike asks Buffy if she wants to just skip right to the kissing. She tells him that it may have happened twice before, but never again, and walks away. Back at Buffy's house, Willow is spending some quality time with Amy the Rat. She suddenly realizes how to make Amy human again, and does so.

The same night, Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew break into a Sunnydale museum. They're after a large diamond, although we don't know what they want it for at this point. As they're about to leave, security guard Rusty enters, suspicious about what they're doing. The boys pulls out a freeze ray, which they use to immobilize Rusty. Warren says that Rusty will be fine in a couple of days after he defrosts, and they head out with the diamond.

Amy, meanwhile, is adjusting to being human again. Buffy comes home and starts to talk to Willow, but before she can say anything, Amy into the room. Buffy, startled to see a non-rodent Amy, foregoes the discussion with Willow and offers to make up the couch for Amy.

Later on, Buffy and Amy talk about things that have changed ("Gatorade has a new flavor: Blue."), and Amy mentions something about people getting frozen. Buffy's immediately curious, and sees the news coverage of the robbery at the museum. Buffy heads down to the museum to do some investigating, and she finds Spike waiting there. She tells him again that there's nothing between them and tries to get by him. Spike tries to stop her, she punches him, and he hits her back as a reflex. However, his chip doesn't go off. He fakes his usual chip pain reaction, and Buffy tells him that he's just an "evil, disgusting thing." She walks away, and Spike watches her leave with a decidedly evil look on his face.

Spike, now able to attack people again, goes looking for a meal. Unexpectedly, the chip fires when he tries to bite a girl, leaving Spike thoroughly confused.

At the Magic Box, Buffy, Xander, Anya, and Willow have gathered to do some research on what could have frozen the security guard. Willow pulls out her laptop, but she uses it to magically access the police report. Everyone's nervous about her doing this, and Anya finally tells Willow that what she's doing is just plain weird and that everyone's afraid to say anything because Tara left her.

Meanwhile, Spike tracks down the Trio, because he thinks that Warren might be able to tell him what's wrong with the chip. At first, Warren doesn't want to, but Spike grabs a Boba Fett action figure and threatens to pull its head off. Warren agrees to look at the chip's wiring, thinking that Spike might give him some info on Buffy.

Willow gets back after the Scooby meeting to find Amy anxious to do something. The two agree to go out and "make with the fun." Meanwhile, Warren tells Spike that there's nothing wrong with the chip. Spike concludes that if there's nothing wrong with the chip, there must be something wrong with Buffy.

Back at Buffy's house, Dawn and Tara return from a girls day out. Nobody's home, and Dawn lays a major guilt trip on Tara to get her to stay until someone else gets back. Willow and Amy, meanwhile, are at the Bronze. Amy dances with a couple of guys for a little while, but the guys press their luck by trying to force her back on to the dance floor. Willow and Amy decide to teach them a lesson, and the guys end up in dance-cages hanging from the ceiling.

While this is going on, Buffy, Xander, and Anya are still at the Magic Box researching. Xander thinks that he's found the culprit in a D&D manual, so they decide to call it quits on the research. The conversation turns to Willow's magic. Buffy's in denial, but Xander and Anya realize that Willow is getting out of control. Spike then calls and tells Buffy to meet him. She tells him no and continues researching with Xander and Anya. Hours later, they finally decide to call it a night. Anya and Xander head home, and Buffy goes on a quick patrol. While walking down an alley, Buffy runs into Spike, who's mad that she didn't show up after he called. She tries to walk by him, but he won't get out of her way, so she punches him. He then hits her back, and tells her that he can hit her without his chip going off because she "came back wrong." Buffy is stunned, and the two of them get into a knock-down drag-out brawl.

Willow and Amy, meanwhile, are wreaking havoc at the Bronze, turning it into a surreal scene – sheep on the dance floor, people floating.

Buffy and Spike continue fighting, now inside a rundown building. In addition to hurting each other, they're also doing some serious structural damage to the building, taking some big chunks out of the walls.

Cut back to the Bronze. Willow and Amy realize that they've pretty much done all they can do there. They put everything back to normal, and then decide that it's still much too early to go home.

Back inside the abandoned building, Buffy and Spike are still fighting with gusto. Suddenly, Buffy pushes Spike up against a wall and kisses him. They continue shoving each other against the building's now-crumbling walls and kissing. Spike picks Buffy up, and she wraps her legs around his waist... zippers are undone, there's some thrusting, and if you can't tell what they're doing, I can't help you. They eventually fall backwards, and the floor collapses beneath them. They end up on top of each other, panting, on the basement level of what's left of the building... we can imagine that they'll have a lovely evening playing backgammon or Uno.

Things to note:

Getting beaten up and then having aggressive-verging-on-violent sex in a condemned building isn't especially my idea of a good time, but I'm sheltered. At this point in the season, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Buffy and Spike were going to get together, but I don't know that anyone expected it to happen quite like this. The whole scene is kind of disturbing, kicking off yet another aspect behind the intense dislike that many fans had for season 6; namely, people didn't think that Our Heroine would allow herself to be in a manipulative, controlling, violent relationship with Spike.

Amy is what we like to call an enabler. Willow now has someone who encourages her to use magic... even though I'm not entirely sure how wild and crazy it is to turn people into sheep.

Geeky stuff, courtesy of the Trio:

Quotes:

Andrew: See, that's cool. How come he gets to play with all the cool stuff?
Jonathan: Because I'm allergic to methane and you're still afraid of hot things?

Warren: 'Cause we love the learning, Rusty. Museums, libraries, Disney Hall of Presidents - not boring.

Woman: I'm sure you're not evil.
Spike: Yes, I am. I am a killer. That's what I do. I kill. And, yeah, maybe it's been a long time, but it's not like you forget how. You just do it. And now I can, again, all right? So here goes... This might hurt a little.

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