Sleeper

[Updated May 3, 2013]

Sleeper connects Spike’s “addiction recovery” story and the Big Bad (still unidentified). I now need to explain how Spike’s story since S4 intersects with the themes of S7.

I’ve commented several times before on the “Clockwork Orange” theme that the show has been using with Spike since S4. In my first post, on The Initiative, I mentioned that the writers were using the American version of the novel. The difference between the American version, which Kubrick used for his movie, and the English version is that Anthony Burgess’s original novel had 21 chapters (representing the age of adulthood) and the American version ends with chapter 20.

Chapter 20 ends with Alex’s conditioning reversed after he was deprogrammed, and with him looking forward to resuming his violent ways. That’s a very pessimistic outcome, of course, and the fact that Spike is killing again is a thematic recasting of Chapter 20. The difference is that in Alex’s case the conditioning had to be removed, while in Spike’s case the chip/soul are still present and some form of conditioning has overridden them in order to get him to kill again.

Sleeper finishes Chapter 20, but then it goes further to show Spike rejecting his instruction to feed off Buffy. This rejection sets up Chapter 21 of the novel, in which Alex has grown tired of the violence and settles down to raise a family. In short, Burgess saw Alex as ultimately on a path to redemption without the conditioning, and that’s roughly where Spike is at the end of Sleeper.

The S7 story line achieves this result by means of the metaphor of a very well-laid-out path for recovery from addiction, a theme that can also be read into A Clockwork Orange pretty easily as an alternative to Burgess’s growing up theme (and vice versa). Here’s how it’s played out so far, summarized from what I’ve mentioned in previous posts: in Lessons we saw Spike in the DTs, alone by himself in the basement, which continues into the beginning of Beneath You. He then comes into the world with bravado (BY), claiming he’s “changed” and therefore can handle "it" all on his own. He can't; as he said in his ravings in the teaser there, “not hardly ready”. He therefore tries to hide his new condition, but he can’t hold the pretense and confesses to Buffy in the church scene that she inspired him to “quit”.

Because of the influence of the still-unidentified evil, he relapses into the DTs (STSP) and starts “drinking” secretly again, eventually going on a binge (CWDP and earlier, though we don't see it until the final scene of CWDP). In Sleeper we see the evil something appear to him mostly in his own form, indicating that his own weakness is the source of the problem. The fact that the evil is Spike’s own weakness tells us an important fact about the Big Bad.

We get clues to the addiction theme, and to the fact that Spike is being controlled, early in the episode. When Buffy confronts Spike in his bedroom, he insists that she’s “trumped up some charge about me being back on the juice.” We need to know that something has controlled Spike, as opposed to him resuming his killing ways. That’s why we got the scene where Spike hit Xander in order to leave the apartment. His chip fired, meaning that it still works and that something is overriding it. The scenes of “Buffy” encouraging his binge and his own behavioral changes also support the presence of external control.

Later at The Bronze (a place no alcoholic should go), the Aimee Mann song “This is How it Goes” reinforces the addiction theme in its chorus: “It’s all about drugs, it’s all about shame/and whatever they want, don’t tell ‘em your name”. The title of her other song, “Pavlov’s Bell”, highlights the conditioning used to deprogram Spike and to get him to kill again, Pavlov being famous for his experiments in conditioning dogs to react to a bell. The chorus of “Pavlov’s Bell” ties together the drug use, the conditioning, and Spike’s dependence on Buffy: “I'm all about denial --/But can't denial let me believe? … If you're what I need,/Then only you can save me/So come on baby -- give me the fix….”

In both cases, the chorus of the song is played over key moments with Spike in the Bronze to give us powerful clues to the themes of the episode. With “This Is How It Goes”, the song fades out briefly, only to come back strongly on the chorus as Spike searches the Bronze for the girl he killed in CWDP. With “Pavlov’s Bell”, the chorus provides the background for Spike’s fight with the vamp on the upper level – “nobody knows that’s how I nearly fell, craving for love and ringing Pavlov’s Bell” – at which point he realizes that he’s been killing again.

Spike now takes a major step for someone struggling with recovery and admits his problem to Buffy, bringing her to the house. The vampires rising up from the basement represent Buffy’s fears of Spike’s dark side. Since it’s not Spike’s basement, that means he’s not entirely responsible for them. Buffy defeats the vamps only after she sees Spike resist attacking her and change. Note, too, how the scene should bring to mind the events of Seeing Red. Here’s the dialogue:

“Buffy fights the vampires, who have taken tools from the basement to fight her with. Spike-2 is talking to Spike.

SPIKE-2
You know what I want you to do.

Buffy continues to fight the vampires, but they manage to get a hold on her, one on each arm, holding her up for Spike.

SPIKE-2
They're waiting for you. Take her, taste her, make her weak.

Spike stands, and walks toward Buffy menacingly.

BUFFY
Spike, no!”

In Seeing Red Buffy had to kick Spike away when he ignored her cries of “no”. This time, after he takes communion from her blood, his soul allows his love for Buffy to stop himself from repeating his sin:

“SPIKE
(in human face) I remember.

Spike's horrified. His face is one of complete shock and disbelief that he could have actually done those things. He recoils from Buffy, staggering back to the far end of the room.”

The way I see it, the chip allowed Spike the time and space for love to redeem him, i.e., for his soul to take over. Karen suggested in a comment to Smashed that “Quoting C.S. Lewis, who describes pretending and 'acting good' as real steps in moral development: ‘When you are not feeling particularly friendly, but you know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are... Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.’ Spike thinks he's better than he really is. In Tabula Rasa, he thinks he's a hero, a good guy, a vampire with a soul. He needs to act the part before he becomes the real thing.”

That’s not all he needs to do, though. The key moment comes when Spike asks Buffy to help him. This is the biggest hurdle for a recovering addict – seeking help. Before this episode, Spike was unwilling to ask for help: “I could never ask”, he tells the false “Buffy” in Selfless. He was unwilling to seek help from anyone, least of all from Buffy, the woman he’d wronged. Now he’s “hit bottom” and he faces up to his failure, aided, perhaps, by the fact that his latest wrongs aren’t “really” him anymore. His guilt makes him ready to give up, but he seizes the last chance and asks Buffy for help. Buffy recognizes that Spike was under the control of something else: “There's something playing with us. All of us. … You didn't see him down there. He really didn't know what he'd done. It wasn't in his control.” For that reason, and because she’s Buffy, she agrees to help him.

In my view, Sleeper is a terrific episode and a remarkable payoff to a theme which began 3 seasons previously.

Trivia notes: (1) Xander wanted to analyze the facts in a “CSI-like manner”, referring to the TV show Crime Scene Investigation. (2) Xander made the same request for an “objective” analysis about Angel in the episode Angel. In both cases his prejudice seems pretty clear. Of course, given the events of S2, Xander does have some cause for his attitude. Just don’t mention Anya. (3) Xander described Spike as “cool as Cool Whip”, referring to the brand name whipped cream. (4) The song which we hear Spike humming in the teaser and which triggers Spike’s change, first with the harmonica on the Promenade and later sung in the basement by his evil twin, is the old folk song “Early One Morning”. The lyrics sing of a maiden betrayed by her suitor. (5) The Promenade, where we see Spike and Buffy walking, is an outdoor shopping area in Santa Monica. (6) Spike’s evil twin uses a line from “Early One Morning” when he asks Spike “how could you use a poor maiden so?”. (7) When Spike tells Buffy “it's still all about you” I take that as a reference to the internet debates regarding whether the show is “all about Buffy”. (8) The bouncer called Spike a “Billy Idol wannabe”, for which see the link. (9) The bouncer also said Spike was a “real player”, which is a slang expression for someone very promiscuous.