Smashed

"Smashed" is the ninth episode of the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and is the one hundred ninth episode altogether. It was written by Drew Z. Greenberg and directed by Turi Meyer. It originally broadcast on November 20, 2001.

Willow 'de-rats' Amy. The Trio rob the Sunnydale Museum of Natural History. Buffy and Spike engage in some very rough play.

Synopsis


A nightly patrol begins as Buffy, rather to her own surprise, thwarts a simple mugging. From the darkness, Spike tries to come to the rescue. Unfortunately, the muggers are human so his chip activates. After the pain is relieved, Buffy and Spike argue briefly about their kisses. Once again, Buffy blows him off.

At the Slayer's home, Willow finds herself lonely without Tara. She has a "Eureka!" moment, though, and figures out how to transform Amy "the Rat" Madison back to her human form. At the Sunnydale Museum of Natural History, The Trio steal a diamond and freeze Rusty the security guard with their Freeze Ray.

Amy and Willow catch up and Amy finds out that she has been a rat for almost three years. Buffy returns home confused to find a non-rat Amy. Buffy intended to tell Willow about her attraction to Spike, but the shock of seeing Amy derails the conversation.

After seeing the frozen museum security guard on the news, Buffy rushes to investigate only to find Spike already there. After a heated exchange, Buffy slugs Spike and he hits her back. To his surprise and glee, the chip doesn't affect him though he quickly pretends to be in pain. Thinking that the chip has malfunctioned, Spike takes to the streets looking for a victim. After choosing one, he dives in for a bite and the chip activates leaving Spike really confused.



Meanwhile, at the Magic Box, Buffy, Anya, Willow, and Xander research the stolen diamond. Willow takes out a computer to look up information and everyone is happy to see her doing things the old fashioned way until she uses magic to connect with the computer. Looking for answers, Spike visits the Nerds' lair and coerces them by into helping him by threatening their Boba Fett action figure.

Willow and Amy decide to go do something fun on the town. After assessing Spike's chip, Warren tells him that it is not malfunctioning. Spike concludes that there is nothing wrong with him, but that there is something wrong with Buffy. Across town at the Bronze, Willow continues to bring Amy up to date, when two boys ask them to dance. Amy is only too happy to accept. Later, when the two college guys forcibly try to get Amy back on the dance floor, Willow and Amy magically trap the two into go-go cages and skimpy outfits.



At the Magic Box, Xander, Anya, and Buffy continue their detective work. discouraged by their lack of progress, their focus changes to Willow as Xander and Anya tell Buffy that they share Tara's concern that Willow is using magic far too often this days and Anya warns that once someone good gets a taste of bad that it's difficult to bring them back. Spike calls, inviting Buffy to the cemetery. At first she declines, but after Xander and Anya head home for the night, the trench-coated vamp appears from the shadows. He stands in front of Buffy, not letting her pass. She smacks him. To her horror, Spike hits her back. Unaffected by the chip, Spike explains saying, "Don't you see? You came back wrong." Immediately, a scrap breaks out.

At the Bronze, Willow and Amy continue generating havoc. As Willow turns a boy band into a girl band, people are dancing aimlessly in elaborate outfits and mutate.

The brawl continues between Spike and Buffy at a condemned house, the Slayer and the vampire are knocking the structure, as well as each other, all over the place. Suddenly, Buffy pins Spike against a wall and begins kissing him. Buffy jumps onto Spike, and the two sexually consummate their violent relationship. As they engage in their most passionate make out session to date, the house crumbles all around them and they fall through the floor.

Continuity

 * Amy is returned to being human after being a rat since the middle of the third season. Amy was somehow able to get her hair styled during that time; it's very different from when she became a rat in "Gingerbread" and also different from "Something Blue".


 * When Spike threatens the Trio, he seems unfamiliar with the Star Wars character Boba Fett. However, in "School Hard", he refers to Angelus as his "Yoda," showing some familiarity with Star Wars.


 * Amy casts a spell on a woman in the Bronze to make her fall for Willow until Willow says no. The script specifies the name of the woman is "Brie", an appropriate target for Amy since Brie is a form of cheese.


 * This episode marks the beginning of Spike and Buffy's sexual relationship.


 * Spike learns that he can hit Buffy without his chip activating.


 * In a sign of foreshadowing, when Amy is watching television downstairs, you can hear a commercial talking about a doublemeat medley. Buffy winds up working at "Doublemeat Palace" a few episodes later.


 * Both Buffy and Willow are out of control&mdash;their fears about themselves become what leads them both into destructive relationships, one sexually, and one magically. Unlike other seasons, where Buffy and Willow are shown having long conversations, there are few times in season 6 when Buffy and Willow actually confide in each other and speak honestly. Buffy approaches Willow to have a serious conversation in this episode, but Amy's presence throws her off and she leaves without having voiced anything real. Thus, this episode typifies the season-long theme that self-involvement often leads to self-destruction.


 * Giles isn't seen in this episode, and won't return until the end of "Two to Go".


 * Spike evokes to Buffy that they twice kissed each other in "Once More, with Feeling" and "Tabula Rasa". However, they kissed each at other times as well ("Something Blue" and "Intervention").

Production

 * A longer, more intense lovemaking scene was originally filmed for the finale of the episode, but cut out. The clip still makes the rounds occasionally in Whedonverse fan circles.


 * Steve Tartalia, James Marsters' stunt double, says he knocked himself out during the last scene, in which Buffy and Spike fall through the ceiling. "On that fall," he says, "our legs got tangled in the breakaway ceiling, and it caused us to tilt at an angle so that my head would be the first thing to hit the ground. And it did, and it knocked me out. Basically, I came to with some flashlights and smelling salts." Stunt coordinator John Medlen also hurt himself during this episode, while demonstrating how Spike should swing from the chandelier. The chandelier broke, he fell 7 feet, and the chandelier landed on his face, breaking his nose.


 * In his DVD commentary, writer Drew Z. Greenberg says that in his original conception of Willow's confrontation with the homophobic men at the Bronze, he intended for Willow to cast a spell on the men so that they couldn't stop kissing each other. Joss Whedon vetoed the idea because he did not want to portray people's sexual orientation as changing in an instant and he did not want to portray same-sex kissing as a punishment.

Pop Culture References

 * The nerds talk about Red Dwarf and Doctor Who - Andrew claims to have seen every episode of the latter, but none of the former as it isn't out on DVD yet. While only about a quarter of the total Doctor Who serials have been released on DVD (and indeed, some serials don't even exist in the BBC archives anymore), he could have watched them on VHS cassette. James Marsters would later go on to have a recurring role in the Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood.


 * Spike makes a reference to Star Trek with this line: "You can play Holodeck another time..."


 * After Spike attacks one of the muggers, Buffy calls him Jessica Fletcher; this was Angela Lansbury's character in Murder, She Wrote.


 * While Amy is marveling at all that has happened while she was a rat, she mentions "Tom and Nicole", referencing Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's divorce.


 * The action figure Spike threatens to break to extort the help of The Trio is, according to Andrew, "a limited edition, 1979 mint condition Boba Fett." While this scene parodies the obsessive nature of collectors, it's also a nod to the famed bounty hunter from the Star Wars franchise. There actually was a 1979 Boba Fett figure, available through a mail-in promotion for buying four other Star Wars figures. Fett debuted in the much-maligned Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978 and later appeared in 1980's The Empire Strikes Back, for which the mail-in offer was intended to promote. The promotional figure originally was designed with a missile-launching backpack, but due to safety concerns the missile came glued in and without the ability to be fired. Hasbro recently instituted a new mail-in offer for a retro Boba Fett figure that does come with a firing backpack.


 * One of Amy's dance partners calls Willow "Ellen," a reference to talk-show host and TV star Ellen Degeneres who famously came out as a lesbian in her self-titled sitcom.

Music

 * Halo Friendlies - "Run Away"
 * Roxy Music - "Avalon"
 * Virgil - "Here"
 * Virgil - "Parachute"
 * Virgil - "Vermillion Borders"

Other

 * Three consecutive episode titles in the sixth season are euphemisms for drunkenness or being under the influence of narcotics in American English: "Smashed", "Wrecked", and "Gone".