"I love you."
"No you don't."
"You think I haven't tried not to?"
Wow. That was... dark.
We begin with Buffy and Spike having some sneaky, kinky and, it's heavily implied, very good sex where she is extremely rough with him... and then things get post-coital, for once Buffy doesn't leave immediately and Spike is moved to ask "Are we having a conversation?". It may be good sex, but the ambiguity over whether it's hate sex or even a "thing" makes it problematic.
There are no such nuances in the next scene, though, as Warren, Jonathan and Andrew plan to use magic to make a woman their sex slave: that isn't just a bit rapey, it's literally rape, and right from the go these are dark waters to be swimming in. So when Warren finds his ex Katrina and argues with her, only to use the magic and have her instantly say "I love you, Master"... that's seriously dark. So when we next see her dressed as a French maid, waiting on all three of them and expected to service all three of them, and she even drops to her knees in front of Warren... that's incredibly dark for a fairly mainstream TV show, and one of the most uncomfortable scenes I've ever seen on TV. I'm glad she comes immediately to, and she calls them out as rapists and sets out to report the crime to the police; not to have had that happen would have been appalling. But I can't imagine such a scene being written in such a blatant way today. 2003 seems so long ago. The intent is, of course, clearly to call out rape culture, but it's done with a certain insensitivity.
So, once that has happened and, worse, Katrina is killed, all three of them are beyond redemption. Narratively, they have to pay for what they've done, even if Warren is both the ringleader and shows clear psychopathic tendencies, referring to Katrina's body as "it".
Meanwhile, Buffy is filled with guilt. Everyone understands, except a neglected Dawn, that the reason they no longer see her is because she works at the burger bar on top of a busy slaying schedule. But only she knows that she also spends a lot of time having guilty good/bad sex with Spike, the forbidden fruit. She is female, we as a society have double standards, so Buffy feels sex shamed.
This only intensifies, of course, when she again neglects her friends for Spike, so our already guilt-ridden Slayer is well-primed for being made to believe that it was her who accidentally killed Katrina. And the suffering this added guilt causes her is heart-wrenching to see, especially when she confesses to Dawn and explains she will need to confess and go to prison, causing a horribly teenage reaction.
Fortunately Spike, sheer chance, clever Scoobies and a busy police station allow Buffy to work out what appened, and I think we can forgive how convenient this is as it's good sleight of hand. Besides, this episode is powerfully and brilliantly crafted.
Meanwhile we get an awkward meeting between Willow and Tara, and Tara reveals to Buffy that she really, truly, didn't come back wrong at all. But even without Katrina's death on her conscience a tearful Buffy is wracked with guilt, telling an understanding Tara that she lets Spike do these things to her because it's the only time anything feels real. And she realises she's "using him", that that's wrong, so we have even more guilt. If only society made men feel such scruples...
So yet, bit of a feminist subtext there. And a powerful, harrowing, amazing episode.
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