Buffy: Smashed (6.9)

And this is where the season begins to fly off the rails. Smashed is all about individuals who tow the company line, only to find potential for badness to be more appealing than ever because of how moral and 'proper' they are. It's a theme described in vivid detail by Xander and Anya during a Magic Box conversation, and produces the bones of the hour. It's also pretty good in theory, but is executed in a way that's borderline ridiculous and sometimes plain ugly.

Spike and Buffy's fling is becoming increasingly icky, something made more apparent by the writers using violence as some kind of mating ritual for the two of them. One of the first things Spike wants to do after his chip begins to malfunction is smack Buffy around. He does that, and Buffy hits him back every once in a while. For some reason this only turns her on even more, and they end up smashing apart an abandoned building during their love-making, in a scene which is as much porny as it is crazily overblown. At the end of the hour, you're left wondering what the show is trying to say. Obviously the events depicted here don't feel at all finished, but it's a curious way to introduce the Spuffy sex arc.

Both characters are hurting and experiencing a ton of inner turmoil, and I'm guessing my own discomfort with the story (at this point) is that it's Spike who's instigating the violence. Maybe I would feel different if Buffy was the person pushing the anger, but as it's Spike leading the way it crosses into that weird gray area that has provoked legions of online debate ever since this arc first aired. I think we can all agree, intentional or not, that the story is pretty ugly...

Ugliness that can't really be argued occurs in the Willow subplot. It hasn't reached completely batshit proportions just yet, but the magical Bronze hijinks were reprehensibly lame. How exactly can she and Amy do all that stuff? Teleporting in another band? Controlling the minds of random women? It's all pretty dumb; magic occurring with little flicks of their hand, without spells or a little Latin phrase or whatever. It's not Buffy. It's not even Charmed. It's like Bewitched or something. And I like Amy a lot, but her return feels like a wasted opportunity, the character reduced to an annoying plot catalyst.

Finally, any pacing is slowed way down by the Evil Trio, who steal a diamond, invent a freeze ray, whine about Boba Fett and plot to get Spike on their side. The subplot did create that wonderful Scooby exchange at the magic box ("... a frost monster who eats diamonds"/"Maybe he just thinks they're pretty?"), but it's all painfully unfunny everywhere else.

The Spike and Buffy storyline is an ambitious and entirely uncomfortable detour down misery lane. But it's obviously attention-grabbing and intriguing, so therefore successful in a really ugly way. Everything else in Smashed, especially the Willow antics, is fug as all hell. The wheels are flying off as we speak... C

Credits
Guest stars Danny Strong (Jonathan Levinson); Adam Busch (Warren Meers); Tom Lenk (Andrew Wells); Elizabeth Anne Allen (Amy Madison); Amber Benson (Tara Maclay)
Writer Drew Z. Greenberg Director Turi Meyer