#btvs script

i’m obsessed with this clarification with little eyebrow raise for emphasis. like oh you mean before buffy summers, my wife, asked me to move in with her? yeah i lived somewhere else before buffy told me to move into her house with her where she lives. i live with her now though. at her house. she asked me to.

The Whirlwind + Identity

Here's a link to James Marsters discussing the change:

Here's Petrie's version, pulled from the above Reddit post:

A CEMETERY. 

It's dark, long shadows cast from headstones. Buffy comes running into the cemetery, stops.

She looks around, searching.

But the place is empty. Buffy turns to go, then stops. She looks back to the sole source of light casting these long headstone shadows...

Buffy's POV - We see, at the far end of the graveyard, a solitary CHURCH. A single light comes from within.

Buffy stares at it a moment, some kind of peace coming over her. Then she walks toward the church

INT. CHURCH - NIGHT

Twin heavy doors swing slowly open and Buffy enters the church. She hears the sound of sobbing.

She walks in, cautiously, drawing a stake.

Buffy's POV -  We see a figure, its back to us, sitting in one of the pews, rocking gently back and forth.

Buffy approaches. It is Spike, sitting alone, looking as lost and frightened as he can. He speaks softly and sanely.

SPIKE: I figured it out. Took awhile, yeah, but...I think the real problem is...

He looks to Buffy, eyes wide, vulnerable,

SPIKE : I was once this really nice guy.

Buffy remains cautious, keeping her distance.

BUFFY: So that's the problem.

SPIKE: I think.

BUFFY: Got news, Spike. You're not that nice.

Spike laughs, quietly, enjoying the irony of a good joke.

SPIKE: Yeah. I've been...well come on- Let's face it, been a one-man slaughterhouse, last hundred years. Raping. Murdering. And for what? (beat) Kicks.

He stands in the pew, bows his head in reverence.

SPIKE: William the Bloody awful poet, skipping down the lane...good boy, bad boy, all the sodding same. You like it? Wrote that one myself.

He rolls his head around slowly, up to the ceiling, staring.

SPIKE: Is it hot enough in here to burn all your mortal sins away? 

And suddenly, vampire-fast, he stands straight up.

SPIKE: Or am I just crazy? 

He laughs, steps from the pew, into the aisle.

SPIKE: Stuffy. Stuffed. Full, packed, sorry mate, no room, out you go, we're packed to the bloody brim, standing room only and no room for that. We. Are. Full.

Buffy steps back, giving him a wide berth. Spike lurches forward, up the church aisle, zig-zagging left and right, but always moving forward.

SPIKE: Full of sin. Full of guilt. Full of hate and love and loss and feeling. Full of it, quite frankly and it's been so long.(laughs) Since we felt anything here. Rusty switchboard, sparked to life, bound to be more'n a few sharp shocks.

Buffy slowly following behind, never losing grip on that stake, and watching...

SPIKE: Right? RIGHT?!? Shh. Quiet. Church. His house. Place of clasped hands, reverent hymns, and massive raw amounts of BEGGING. On your knees, boy. Beg him. BEG HIM...

And we see where Spike is heading: at the head of the altar, there stands a large, carved-stone CRUCIFIX.

SPIKE:...for forgiveness.

BUFFY: Spike...

SPIKE: Buffy. I can't sleep. Can't think. There's voices and darkness and blindness and pain and help me, I- I...

He keeps walking, slowly, up the aisle. Gets to the altar's steps and keeps going...straight to the cross.

BUFFY: You have a soul.

Spike stops at the cross. Responds without looking back.

SPIKE: I do indeed.

He wearily lets his head rest upon the stone crucifix. And STEAM rises from where his flesh makes contact. He grimaces, but does not scream.

SPIKE: And it's killing me.

He reaches out and HUGS the crucifix with both arms. Steam rises from his palms.

SPIKE: God...

He releases the cross, slowly pulling back and turning to Buffy

SPIKE: God hates me. You hate me. I hate myself more than ever.

Buffy wants to step forward but does not.

BUFFY: But why'd you do it...?

SPIKE: You know why. I got my soul back...

He keeps turning, now facing Buffy, barely able to stand on his feet, wobbling a bit - and holding his arms out wide.

SPIKE:...So I could be the kind of...(laughs)...Person...you could care for, the man you would come to...the man you could love.

Spike GRINS through bloody teeth. The burn marks stand out fresh upon his forehead and palms. He looks like death, and any second he's going to collapse.

And still, it's like something terribly sad is actually, deep down funny - and only he gets the joke.

He walks toward Buffy. Staggering gently. Eyeing the stake she still holds in her hand. He's drawn to it - and to her.

SPIKE: I was the enemy, then I was nothing, and now I'm God's garbage, not even a joke, less than, less than, less than all His creatures combined so tell me, dear Buffy...

Buffy lets him approach, unmoving, but not letting go of that stake, either.

He barely makes it to her - and SLAMS straight down, to his KNEES. And opens his arms wide.

SPIKE: How ya like me now?

Buffy's mind goes a long way trying to come up with the answer, but her mouth cannot speak and we:

BLACK OUT.

and after that buffy is constantly saving cordelia. she saves cordy in the harvest, she saves cordy in witch, saves cordy in out of mind out of sight, saves cordy in when she was bad, saves cordy in some assembly required, saves cordy in reptile boy. not including all the times she saves cordy by proxy by virtue of saving all the scoobies / the town / the world.

which is to say!!!! that buffy feels she has irrevocably lost this part of herself!!! and her response is to keep on saving it!!! buffy saves her lost, repressed self as often as she can!!!!!

but then we hit halloween!!! buffy at the peak so far of her childhood slayer trauma (i mean that's the thing is buffy is still in her childhood here. the trauma she is currently accruing is part of her childhood trauma). and halloween is so deeply about the specific cordelia of it all. she picks the pink, feminine dress because it's what she thinks angel will like. and angel has been part of her triangulated desire with cordelia from the beginning, the two of them vying over him in part because of their sublimated desire for each other that needs a straight outlet. but also something angel says in this episode ("i hated the girls back then. simpering morons, the lot of them") calls back to coffy's other most prominent triangulated desire man, owen, of never kill a boy on the first date fame ("i just find most girls pretty frivolous. i mean, there's a lot more important things in life than dating, y'know?"). and that through-line alone is so coffy. like, in never kill a boy on the first date, the first priority for buffy and cordy both is dating. it's part of buffy's perceived humanity that she can't allow herself to fully think about. like, looking at this line in halloween, before their conversation is literally intercepted by cordelia:

"But who am I kidding? Dates are things normal girls have. Girls who have time to think about nail polish and facials. You know what I think about? Ambush tactics. Beheading. Not exactly the stuff dreams are made of."

or this line in becoming, another episode rife with buffy's-lost-life vibes, from the 1996 flashback to the literal coming out scene this line is a part of:

"It doesn't stop! Do you think I chose to be like this? Do you know how lonely it is? How dangerous? I would love to be upstairs watching TV or gossiping about boys or God, even studying. But I have to save the world. Again."

and that loops back again to the halloween costume! buffy's noblewoman's whole job is literally just to date!! ("I was brought up as a proper lady. I'm not meant to understand things. I'm just meant to look pretty and then someone nice will marry me. Possibly a baron.") and she does all of this while literally. Literally. wearing cordelia's hairstyle. the curly iteration of which we've most notably seen at this point in literally the other episode about buffy having lost her pre-slayer humanity and femininity ("What kind of moron would be May Queen anyway?" // "I was."):

but this all loops around back to coffy saving each other!!! namely that this is the first (but not the last) episode where cordelia saves buffy instead!! or is at least in the saving role in their relationship. buffy clings to cordelia fucking constantly in this episode, hides behind her, goes to her for comfort and safety, exhibits so much trust in her. and cordelia in turn checks on buffy, makes sure she's okay:

which is to say!!!! that buffy-as-cordelia, buffy-as-the-self-that-was-lost, buffy-as-an-exaggerated-version-of-that-self, finds safety and solace in the actual embodiment of that self!!! when buffy has regressed to who she imagines herself to be before, cordelia is still the person she wants to save her!!!!! which is all the more telling when we consider that xander says at the end of the episode that they were conscious in their costume selves the whole time. unable to influence their actions, as far as they were aware, but still that implies some degree of their selfhoods being involved. a return to instinct, if on a more sublimated level than in an episode like tabula rasa.

and this is even crazier btw!!!! when you realize that not only is buffy dressed as cordelia, but cordelia is dressed as buffy!!!!!!!!!. I'm not gonna go into a whole thing about why cats are slayercoded but just. look at those images and then read @knightofcup 's post about it

which means!!!! not only is 18thCentury!buffy clinging to cordelia because in fact she feels safe with the piece of herself she has derided and repressed and longed for, but also that that self has inherent slayerness in it!!! that cordelia, and by extension buffy as she was before, was always different, was always part of this. we learn in season 7 that potential slayers aren't just random people suddenly imbued with slayerness. but that they always have some of that mystical power running through them:

"You don't have slayer strength. But that doesn't mean that you're not strong. You have inherent abilities that others do not have" // "Not like you do." // "No, not yet, but it's there. You have the potential. You have strength, speed, instinct. You just have to learn to trust yourself."

we can see this in how buffy pre-slayage and cordelia in season one parallel each other. compare buffy on the steps of hemery high, almost desperately imploring her friends to: "call me, call me, call me!" as they walk away from her. to cordelia in 1x11: "i can be surrounded by people and feel completely alone. it's not like any of them really know me." it's about the isolation it's about the ache to be surrounded by people but none of them fill the void inside you!! because you're different! there is something different about you that neither them nor you can see!!!

so, the part of herself that cordelia represents, that buffy simultaneously repressed and aches for, distrusts and cherishes, idealizes and derides, rejects and protects, in part because she can never get it back, and in part because it was frivolous compared to what she is now. is in fact revealed to be neither of those things!! (while still, on some level, being both of those things). not lost irrevocably: because there was always the slayer in her, even then. not frivolous either: there is a depth to cordelia in season one, and so by extension there is a depth to buffy even before she becomes the person we meet in welcome to the hellmouth. and even then!!! even if all buffy or cordelia cared about was dating or facials, things both of them still deeply care about!!!! there is something about the narrative continually occasioning buffy's rescue of cordelia that brings a fondness to that as well. cordelia represents the humanity and youth of buffy's shadow. and inherent in that humanity and youth is caring about the body, about comfort, about status, about beauty, about romance!!!!

the cool thing about halloween here is it really does mark a turning point in how buffy and cordelia interact in terms of saving each other. because the next time we get an occasion for it, in gingerbread, we find cordelia attempting to return to the same paradigm as before, where buffy saves her ("I came over here to tell Buffy to stop this craziness") but buffy is incapacitated!! and it's cordelia who ends up saving her instead!! putting out the fire with the fire extinguisher and allowing buffy to defeat the monster and save everybody else!!

this in an episode that again codes both buffy and cordelia as ~different~. in that they are both mostly immune from the hive mind witch hunt effect of the hansel and gretel demon. rather both of them are victims of it, as othered parties!! buffy most directly, being literally tied to the stake to be burned to death by her mother, but cordelia is also a suspect of otherness ("and then my mom confiscates all my black clothes and scented candles!"). the cordelia we met in season one, we would likely assume would be on the torch-holding side of the equation.

but no, she has in fact been an Other from day one. the emblem of childhood trauma from day one. the place to hide from and safe, deride and yearn for!! endlessly alone, because so is buffy, before it all. and maybe that's the real reason for the tension with cordelia, when you get down to it. not that buffy was so free and perfect and ~normal~ and connected to the world before she was a slayer, and it was all taken away from her. but that even without that, she always would have had this. this thing that makes her different. that even if she had not had this kind of difference, this kind of childhood trauma, she still would have been an other. the cordelia tension is about the fact there was never any saving buffy from herself. but there is buffy reaffirming that her self is worth saving. not from difference -- association with buffy only makes cordelia more different, as gingerbread attests ("If you're going to hang with [the witches], expect badness, 'cause that's what you get for hanging with freaks and losers. Believe me, I know. That was a pointed comment about me hanging with you guys."). but from destruction, from death. that's always what buffy is saving cordelia from: from being hit by a truck, from being bled out, from being eaten by vampires from being killed and dismembered and sewn back together, from being sacrificed to a giant snake.

buffy keeps saving cordelia, and keeps affirming that this otherness in her, this fundamental place that will always feel like something lost, is in fact always deserving of more life . (this is about queerness btw just to say it out loud, both buffy and cordelia are queer).

this is especially true when we think about the instance we see where buffy doesn't. save cordelia. in the world where buffy doesn't come to sunnydale, where she doesnt encounter this shadow of herself, buffy and cordelia both die at the hands of vampires, no one there to save either one of them:

this in an episode that is again explicitly linking cordelia's otherness to her affinity for buffy -- that cordelia is a pariah because she dated xander, and she "never would have looked twice at xander if buffy hadn't made him marginally cooler by hanging with him" (cough cough gay cough). and an episode that is again about cordelia and buffy trying to save each other. buffy rushes out of the bronze to save cordelia emotionally (as cordelia tried to do to buffy a season prior, in the same alley. and fails for the same reason, that neither is ready in that moment for the emotional vulernability to let this shadow part of them in). cordelia tries to get buffy to sunnydale: (Whatever. Just - listen to me. We have to find Buffy. She'll figure out a way to save us. She was supposed to be here and - as much as it kills to say it - things were better when she was around."). But fails. Buffy gets there too late to save Cordelia, and by coming to town at that behest ends up meeting her own doom.

but then it all comes beautifully full circle in the last episode where they have the occasion to save each other. in helpless!!! the next episode to seriously deal with buffy's anxiety about who she was pre-slayerhood, as she is forcibly reverted to that state!!!:

"Before I was the Slayer, I was… Well, I don't wanna say shallow, but… Let's say a certain person, who will remain nameless, we'll just call her Spordelia, looked like a classical philosopher next to me. Angel, if I'm not the Slayer, what do I do? What do I have to offer?"

and then in this episode, we have another reversal akin to halloween!!!!

where buffy goes to save cordelia, the supposedly helpless (hehe) pre-slayer shadow self, the same self buffy derides verbally in this episode but still in her actions protects!!! but she can't!! and then her shadow self saves her instead!!!!!!!! and then!!!! saves her again!!! before the end of the episode!!!!!

"Deeper now." are you shitting me?? Hello???

"With Spike." Yeah. Literally yeah.

"it heats up faster than a microwave" WHAT??? "Goddamn." YEAH I'D SAY SO

"we'll make it tasteful, I'm sure" not unhinged sidenote, i love the little communications in a script I really do

The energy is BUZZING because he is RIGHT AGAIN he is saying things she knows but doesn't want to accept and the energy is buzzing because of it

buffy really said the culmination of my day is having a silly little encounter with spike, just feel out of sorts until i get to slap him around a bit. once a day i have gotta do my favorite hobby, get so frustrated by the vampire i keep as a pet i kiss him!

bonus: