{"id":633404,"date":"2026-10-17T11:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T11:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/633404\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T11:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T11:46:10","slug":"26-years-ago-buffy-the-vampire-slayer-officially-launched-its-most-controversial-couple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/633404\/","title":{"rendered":"26 Years Ago, ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ Officially Launched Its Most Controversial Couple"},"content":{"rendered":"

It comes at the end of an episode that, for all intents and purposes, is pure setup. Spike<\/a> (James Marsters) lounges morosely in his crypt, harmless after having a chip installed in his brain that prevents him from hurting humans. Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) kicks down his door and announces that she\u2019s done with him. She\u2019s killing him once and for all.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo it,\u201d Spike says. \u201cEnd my torment.\u201d It\u2019s standard Spike melodrama. As Buffy gears up to stake him, she holds back, and Spike kisses her. They stare at each other in shock, and Buffy does the unthinkable. She kisses him again and tells him that she wants him. Spike says that he\u2019s in love with her. And then he wakes up, horrified. \u201cOh God, no. Please, no.\u201d Roll credits.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a dream sequence that foreshadows much of Spike and Buffy\u2019s dynamic, which goes to some of the darkest places in Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/a> and rarely runs both ways.<\/p>\n

26 years ago, \u201cOut of My Mind\u201d aired on The WB. Written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner and directed by David Grossman, it\u2019s the fourth episode of the fifth season, and it lays the groundwork for many plot threads explored in the coming episodes.<\/p>\n

What is \u201cOut of My Mind\u201d about?<\/p>\n

\"Buffy
\n Image: The WB<\/p>\n

Despite the Spike and Buffy kicker, the episode is about Buffy and Riley (Marc Blucas), her college boyfriend. At the start, Riley interrupts Buffy\u2019s patrolling, recklessly killing vampires as he tries to prove his strength. Spike also crashes the patrol, establishing the trio dynamic at the core of the episode.<\/p>\n

Later, Buffy learns that Riley\u2019s at risk for a heart attack due to the drugs he\u2019s been fed by The Initiative, which make him stronger than a regular human. While Buffy tries to find a way to help him, Riley goes into hiding. She reaches out to everyone to help track him down, including Spike, whom she bribes. But Spike, of course, takes the money and kidnaps the doctor who was meant to help Riley. He tries to force the doctor to remove the inhibitor in his brain.<\/p>\n

It all leads to a confrontation between Spike, Buffy, and Riley, with Spike learning that his plan failed, and the chip is still in his head. He has no way of sating his desire to kill the Slayer. Meanwhile, the cracks in Buffy and Riley\u2019s relationship start to show.<\/p>\n

This is one of Riley\u2019s showcase episodes, and it finds him at his most grating. After searching for Riley for half the episode, Buffy finds him punching rocks in a cave (literally). Their tense exchanges pave the way for their breakup and for Riley\u2019s departure from the show. He tells Buffy that he\u2019s too normal for her. Buffy replies that if she wanted to date a superpowered guy, she would just date Spike (Ha!).<\/p>\n

Beyond the kiss, the episode quietly lays out key pieces of the season, among them: Riley\u2019s insecurity, Joyce\u2019s collapse at breakfast that doctors can\u2019t explain, Spike\u2019s slow turn into one of Buffy\u2019s allies, and Willow\u2019s overreliance on magic. But it saves its best for the end, with the series committing to the long-simmering tension between Spike and Buffy, one that writers doled out patiently.<\/p>\n

Spike, defanged<\/p>\n

\"Spike
\n Image: 20th Century Fox<\/p>\n

In \u201cOut of My Mind,\u201d Spike is at his most lovelorn and pathetic. He\u2019s also at his funniest. “I will know your blood, Slayer. I will make your neck my chalice and drink deep,\u201d he says into the night, only to fall into an open grave. Unable to kill humans, Spike spends his free time watching Dawson\u2019s Creek. (\u201cOh, Pacey, you blind idiot. Can\u2019t you see she doesn\u2019t love you?\u201d)<\/p>\n

Spike becomes a regular in season 5, with this episode introducing his most enduring version. The episode’s final twist reveals that Spike\u2019s series-long obsession with Buffy has been more complicated than plain murderous rage. On a 2008 Buffy forum<\/a> thread, fans recalled their reactions when first watching the kiss, with most describing shock that the show had brought the subtext between Buffy and Spike to the surface.<\/p>\n

Series writer David Fury revealed that the moment when Buffy learns of Spike\u2019s feelings 10 episodes later (in \u201cCrush\u201d) developed unexpectedly. In the writers\u2019 room, they simply wanted other characters to learn of Spike\u2019s feelings. \u201cWe wound up tipping our hand a little bit. I\u2019d said, \u2018This should be the episode where people find out about Spike being in love,\u2019 and it then progressed into Buffy finding out, which was something we were saving for later,\u201d he said in an interview with BBC Cult<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turned out to be a good play because we were able to take them to interesting places throughout the rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

In hindsight, Spike and Buffy\u2019s first kiss is a good representation of the full arc of their relationship. It\u2019s not a real kiss; it\u2019s a fantasy, one largely projected by Spike. It marked the start of the pair\u2019s complicated dynamic and hinted at where their story would end up: Spike would always love Buffy, but Buffy would always remain emotionally at arm’s length.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It comes at the end of an episode that, for all intents and purposes, is pure setup. Spike…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-633404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}