The Disturbing Forgotten Scene in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Six
Revisiting sex and violence in season six episodes ‘Dead Things’ and the infamous ‘Seeing Red’ — including a scene that would cause far more controversy among modern audiences.
There is a scene in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode ‘Dead Things’ in which Buffy repeatedly punches her lover, Spike, in the face.
Spike is a vampire, Buffy is a vampire slayer. As per the lore of the Buffyverse, this means that he doesn’t have a soul. And yet, she has been pursuing a secret sexual relationship with him, something deeply taboo within the collective morality of her friendship group. The beating is, therefore, a manifestation of her self-hatred, her disgust at a desire to bed the enemy that she cannot fathom but also cannot seem to stop.
The scene — which amounts to an act of spousal abuse — is just one among several disturbing moments in the series’ sixth and penultimate season, regarded as its darkest and most contentious by critics. For a show often credited as setting the tone of modern pop culture analysis, it’s also the season most worthy of re-examination. This applies to ‘Dead Things’ in particular because, whilst it stirred discomfort among audiences nearly 20 years ago, it would likely inspire a far more visceral reaction today. As it stands, it is not often counted among the show’s most controversial moments.
That title, quite deservedly, goes to Spike’s attempted rape of Buffy in the infamous ‘Seeing Red’, several episodes later. Viewing these two scenes in conjunction with one another — one where Buffy is the aggressor and another where she is the victim — highlights just how difficult it is to unpick the power dynamics between men and women in the show, primarily because it features a female lead with super-human strength, greater than or equivalent to that of male characters. These gender dynamics are complicated further by Buffy’s many supernatural and fantasy elements, which make comparisons to real-life almost impossible.
It’s central to note when critiquing the ‘Dead Things’ scene that male-on-female violence is viewed as so heinous primarily because of the physical differences between men and women. Men’s superior strength renders women vulnerable to them, and so little boys are taught that hitting little girls doesn’t constitute a fair fight.
This isn’t the case for Buffy, who, as the one slayer in her generation, is endowed with super-human strength, agility, and fast healing. Throughout the show’s run, Buffy hit and got hit by male characters every night, and rather than being controversial, this was considered a step forward for female characters, a subversion of the ‘damsel in distress’ roles that they had been consigned to for centuries. Buffy was about Little Red Riding Hood saving grandma and eating the wolf; it was about the lion in the body of the lamb.
This throws all the usual rules out the window, meaning that Spike, as a vampire, is evenly matched with Buffy — his backstory even includes the murder of several former slayers, back when he was an outright villain rather than merely an anti-hero. But what modern audiences may be more conscious of is how this scene differs from the standard Buffy vs. Monster violence because it occurs within the context of a relationship. Regardless of whether Spike is truly evil, he has always been a character defined by his ability to love, and he does love Buffy. It’s precisely for that reason that he tolerates being beaten by her so passively, and why this scene is so upsetting.
Newer generations are increasingly aware of both female-on-male and same-sex spousal abuse. We now know that men who are physically able to overpower their female partners will tolerate being hurt by them for years, like in this recent case covered by the BBC. It’s not the physical ability to cause harm that underpins abusive behaviour, only the act of causing harm itself, with the psychological damage as relevant as the physical. In the case of Buffy and Spike, whilst the attack starts with a fight, Spike soon goes limp as Buffy starts raining blows on him, all the while berating him for being soulless and evil and murderous, a list of all the reasons why she is disgusted at herself for sleeping with him.
It’s not unusual for domestic violence to be part of a cycle of self-hatred and depression in this way, nor part of mutually traded emotional abuse that culminates in one party hurting the other. The latter is especially true of this fictional couple. Buffy meets Spike’s passionate love with coldness and ambivalence, using violent sex with him as a means to fight feelings of numbness in the midst of a deep depression. Meanwhile, Spike fans the flames of her self-hatred, knowing that only by keeping her self esteem low, can he keep her coming back for more.
And so, he tells her she’s a ‘dead thing’, just like him; this is him poking a stick in her deepest wound, for she did die in season five, only to be revived in season six depressed and viewing herself as faintly monstrous — like Spike. Increasingly, she is alienated from her peers, ‘the scooby gang’, and like with so many abusive relationships, this isolation is integral to its survival. “You try to be with them,” Spike says to Buffy at one point, “but you always end up in the dark — with me.”
And when at long last Spike’s emotional manipulation fails, when Buffy regains some self-worth and his only means of holding on to the woman he loves slips, he panics and tries to force her to resume their relationship. By raping her.
We can apply the logic outlined previously to ‘Seeing Red’; that Buffy is the slayer and has strength comparable to that of her perpetrator does not detract from Spike’s act. Neither does Buffy’s mistreatment of Spike, her coldness in the face of his love, or even her prior beating of him. The dysfunctional nature of their courtship is the context for the violence, the fuel, but it does not excuse either party for it.
To be fair, there’s no indication that while Spike has Buffy pinned to the floor, telling her “I’m going to make you feel it”, that the writers are attempting to downplay his actions. The scene, with jarring cuts and close-ups, is simply horrible to watch. And Buffy is in a vulnerable state, in a dressing gown, injured from an earlier fight. She is not in fight mode. If anything, it seems as if she is reduced to the level of an average woman in this moment, which is an interesting decision in itself. Why make a character who is defined by how she subverts female victimhood, into a victim in the most female way possible? Is the intention to make her more relatable, to empower other victims, or to imply that rape is more about circumstantial or even societal vulnerability than physical vulnerability?
In Buffy, I’m not sure any of these things are true. Rather, the scene is a pivotal part of Spike’s character arc, and it’s when we view it in the context of his wider story that there are clear, troubling efforts to re-establish a positive perception of him.
When Buffy finally wrestles free of Spike’s grasp, he is horrified by his actions. He departs the main storyline of season six on a quest to regain his soul, and by extension, his humanity. The assault is a catalyst for this, and it had to be violent and extreme, a close-call, to justify such a drastic U-turn for a supposedly evil character, and to stay true to the logic underpinning all of the show’s vampires. The writers needed an inciting incident for Spike to transform, willingly, from an ambiguous character to a good one, to make him worthy of redemption and of Buffy’s love, both of which the narrative arguably gives him in season 7.
In short, an act of sexual violence against one of the most progressive female characters in television history may be little more than a device to further the development of a supporting male character.
Stand-out scenes in season 7 for the new, soul-bearing Spike include a passionate, romantic speech to Buffy — at a low point when she has been ousted by family and friends — that has become a fan-favourite; “I’ve seen the best and the worst of you, and I understand, with perfect clarity, exactly what you are. You’re a hell of a woman. You’re the One, Buffy.” It also includes the show’s last ever moments, when Spike sacrifices himself to save the world, seconds after Buffy finally expresses love for him. Spike is reborn as brave, loving, and devoted; he is the hero of the show’s last ever battle, and most importantly, Buffy forgives him, so the audience are coaxed into doing the same. The attempted rape is mentioned only sporadically. It’s downplayed by Buffy more than any other character.
Spike’s most ardent supporters are often at pains to point out that Buffy’s former boyfriend Angel, also a vampire, experienced similar soul-related trouble, and was forgiven for multiple murders, torture, and even trying to end the world. The man without a soul is portrayed as entirely different from the man with. Regardless of this, there were fans who just couldn’t get past that bathroom scene. They couldn’t forgive.
Some of the conflict lies with our attempts to apply real-world interpretations of sexual assault to this fictional world, and we simply can’t. There is no real-world equivalent of this situation. What the showrunner’s have done by redeeming Spike in this way, is utilise the medium of sci-fi and supernatural drama to create a scenario in which rape might be forgivable. And should we be asking whether they were successful — or why the hell would they’d want to do such a thing at all?
This idea of Buffy revisited through modern eyes may soon be a reality, as rumours of a reboot have been circulating since 2017. However, recreating the impact that the supernatural drama had is all but impossible; it reshaped our perceptions of gender and power in television. Thus, the legacy of episodes like ‘Dead Things’ and ‘Seeing Red’ — and all their complicated, messy and flawed subtext — endures.
