Fool for Love

"Fool for Love" is episode 7 of season 5 of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Buffy is deeply wounded while fighting a vampire at the cemetery; she is saved only by the unexpected arrival of Riley. Faced with the reality of her own mortality, she bribes Spike to tell her about the final battles of the Slayers that he has killed. He recounts his experiences in detail, including some painful personal memories. He reveals that he killed both Slayers by exploiting their "death wish", their secret desire to be relieved of their burdens. Buffy perceives Spike's attraction to her and rejects him. Although Spike, who is infuriated, plans to kill Buffy with a shotgun, he ultimately comforts her on her back porch.

Quotes and trivia
Buffy tells Spike, "You're beneath me," recalling Cecily's words which drove Spike into Drusilla's grasp in the first place.

The poem snatched from William's hands and read out loud (to public ridicule) is a portion of the same poem ("Effulgent") that Spike later reads (in its complete form) at the open-mike event in the season finale of Angel "Not Fade Away". His reading of this poem was received with wild, enthusiastic applause from that audience.

According to the comic, Spike: Old Times, Cecily was actually Halfrek, a vengeance demon (and longtime friend of Anya), at the time of her meeting with William, and subsequently massacred the room of people who had laughed at his poetic efforts.

One listener to William's poem in the flashback commented that he would rather have a railroad spike driven through his head than listen to any of William's poetry. As a vampire, William would later change his name to Spike and use railroad spikes to torture people.


 * Spike: Come on. I can feel it, Slayer. You know you want to dance.
 * Buffy: Say it's true. Say I do want to.
 * She shoves him to the ground and looks down at him with disgust.
 * Buffy: It wouldn't be you, Spike. It would never be you.
 * She tosses the wad of cash at him contemptuously.
 * Buffy: You're beneath me.
 * Buffy turns and walks off into the night, leaving Spike alone in the dark alley crying.


 * Spike throws open an old trunk and starts searching through the contents. Harmony looks at him with concern.
 * Harmony: Spike, what are you doing?
 * Spike: (to himself) Beneath me... I'll show her.
 * He takes out a double-barreled shotgun, cracks the breech and loads two rounds.
 * Spike: Put her six bloody feet beneath me. Hasn't got a death wish? Bitch won't need one.


 * Angelus: You can't keep this up forever. If I can't teach you, maybe someday an angry crowd will. That... or the Slayer.
 * Spike sits up, suddenly interested.
 * Spike: What's a Slayer?


 * Cecily: Your poetry, it's... they're... not written about me, are they?
 * Spike: They're about how I feel.
 * Cecily: Yes, but are they about me?
 * Spike: Every syllable.
 * Cecily: Oh, God!
 * Spike: Oh, I know... it's sudden and... please, if they're no good, they're only words but... the feeling behind them... I love you, Cecily.
 * Cecily: Please stop!
 * Spike: I know I'm a bad poet but I'm a good man and all I ask is that... that you try to see me-
 * Cecily: I do see you. That's the problem. You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me.


 * Xander: (to Anya) You know what he's like? He's like a cat. You know, a big jungle cat. How come I'm not like that? It's just so cool.
 * Willow: (munching) I think you're cool.