The Initiative, or Spike Shows Some (initiative, I mean, get your brain out of the gutter)

[shapinglight]

Firstly, many apologies for the delay to this post. Hopefully, we're back on schedule now.

Because being on time is very important when you're in the military...

Comments

[manoah]

I don't comment much, but know that I enjoy these immensely!!!

This episode brings to mind the Spike and Willow relationship that rahirah created in her Necessary Evil world. ;)

And Bailey Chase looks so young! (they all do)

Well done!

[shapinglight]

I don't comment much, but know that I enjoy these immensely!!!

That's good. :)

The posts are fun to do, if a little time-consuming due to looking out the right screencaps.

And Bailey Chase looks so young! (they all do)

They really have. I saw Bailey Chase recently in an episode of Lucifer and he looks sooo much older.

[manoah]

Bailey Chase was also on Longmire and Grimm. I think it's fun to see these actors and say, Hey! Where do I know him/her from. It's always Buffy or Angel!

[shapinglight]

I know what you mean. There was that bloke in Game of Thrones who also played Eddie, the boy who got vamped in The Freshman. That really nails home how many years have passed because his character in GoT is a mature man with grown up children.

[double_dutchess]

when you read the shooting script it's fairly clear that Spike's attempts to hit people coincide with them hitting him, so he (and the audience) wouldn't necessarily make the connection between him hitting people and yelling in pain.

Oh, that explanation never occurred to me! But surely Spike would notice a difference between the pain induced by the chip and the minor pain of bbeing hit.

I always assumed that the chip was only activated (by remote control) after Spike had escaped, or that it needed some time to become fully functional through some kind of autocalibration process.

[trepkos]

That was exactly my thought - that it needed a few goes to calibrate!

[frelling_tralk]

Very late response, but yeah that's what I assumed too. Being punched has always been shown as not that big a deal for vampires, so I wouldn't have expected that pain to coincide with the pain of the chip. It always seemed like the chip only fired for the first time when Spike attacked Willow, and he was totally unprepared for that level of pain and couldn't even function with it, which wouldn't really fit if it had already been going off at the Initiative and he had fought his way through the pain.

[shapinglight]

I basically agree that it's the only thing that really makes sense, but see my comment below.

[gillo]

Lots of wonderful moments in this, though bang go Buffy's hopes of a normal relationship, even before this one has started. Lot's of action which is totally in character - the various fights speak volumes, as do the bedroom conversations. Spike abandoning his fellow-vampire without a qualm is brilliantly Spike - he's still very, very bad, not at all a nice man. I almost feel sympathy for Harmony. Why do men always leave her?

Also, in view of later events, Walsh's comment about Hostile 17's accomplice seems oddly prescient.

This episode is a lot of fun, beginning a run of outstanding individual episodes. When people complain about the incoherent major arc of this season they tend to forget the actual brilliance of a lot of the episodes. Though in-prison Spike does seem to have one heck of a lot of makeup on, but has time to remove it before he tries to attack Willow. His priorities are so skewed when he's evil.

[trepkos]

Well, who wouldn't?!

[shapinglight]

I daresay he wanted to look his best. ;)

[fenchurche]

I really love this episode... although it's one where I do regret listening to the commentary on the DVD. I thought it was brilliantly written with all the parallels between Spike and Riley, down to echoing each others' dialogue in places... but after listening to 40+ minutes of Doug Petrie gushing about Riley ("Oh, isn't Riley so awesome in this scene?" "I love the way Riley looks here!"), it became fairly obvious that most of what I thought was clever writing was very likely just coincidence.

So, now I just try to pretend I never listened to it and enjoy the episode for what I take from it.

[shapinglight]

I think you're very wise. For the most part, the episode commentaries don't add anything worth knowing. I stopped listening to them after the one for Hell's Bells in season 6, listening to which was one of the most pointless 40 minutes of my entire existence.

it became fairly obvious that most of what I thought was clever writing was very likely just coincidence.

There is definitely an element of serendipity through the entire run of BtVS. As for Petrie's Riley obsession, much though I like Riley myself, it's cringeworthy.

[shapinglight]

The chip was an excellent way for Buffy and Spike to move forward antagonizing but not killing each other. Brilliant to turn it into an issue of impotence as Spike continues to be evil and pathetic at the same time.

I agree, though I think JM wasn't too happy about it to start with, and you still get old time fans moaning about how they preferred Spike was he was more 'badass.' Of course 'badass' Spike had a very limited shelflife, but I suspect most of the fans who preferred him like that didn't want him joining the main cast anyway.

I haven't read the shooting script, but the "deliberate timing" doesn't really sync up.

I agree it doesn't really work, but the extracts I posted above from the shooting script make it fairly clear (IMO) that they meant it to. It doesn't, though, and the delayed chip symptoms onset theory works best to explain what happens.

I find Forrest's "guy talk" in the cafeteria offensive. Mattressable? Yuk!It's not very nice, though S assures me it's pretty typical (except that the men he knows would never