Spike

Spike's story before he appears in Sunnydale unfolds in flashbacks scattered among numerous episodes of both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel". They were not presented in chronological order. A guide to finding the flashback(s) to a particular event is at Angel, Darla, Spike and Dru: Before 1997.

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Sunnydale

Spike first appears in Sunnydale in Buffy's second season, in the episode "School Hard", accompanied by his longtime love Drusilla, who is suffering from crippling weakness after having been attacked and viciously beaten and injured by an angry mob in Prague (her chronically weakened condition indicates that vampires can actually be harmed physically to a degree that it would take years or decades for them to recover). Spike is a devoted caretaker to Drusilla in her weakened condition, and he initially hopes that the Hellmouth's energy could cure Drusilla. The presence of a Slayer he could fight only makes the town more attractive to him. Upon discovering that Angel(us) is also in Sunnydale, Spike seems genuinely glad to see him, suggesting that despite their many differences, he still considers the older vampire a friend. However, Angel's loyalty to Buffy soon ends that camaraderie, and when Spike later learns that Drusilla can only be cured by the blood of the vampire who had created her, Angel, Spike is willing to kill him to save her without a second thought. Early on, before his past is clearly revealed to viewers, Spike refers to Angel as both his "sire" and his "Yoda", but in later episodes, it is made it clear that Drusilla is the one that sired Spike. Joss Whedon explained in an interview that a vampire's sire refers to anyone prior to them in their "line". Spike later noted that Drusilla had made him a vampire, but Angel(us) had made him a monster.

For much of the second season, Spike and Drusilla are major enemies of Buffy, until Spike is so severely injured in a fight with Buffy and Kendra that he spends several months confined to a wheelchair. Originally, Whedon had intended to kill Spike, but fans were so attached that Spike is simply crippled.[citation needed]. When Angel reverts to Angelus after making love with Buffy, he joins the pair, and eventually plots to destroy all of humanity, as a way of getting rid of the stench of humanity that Buffy's love left in him. Spike initially celebrates their reunion with Angelus, again demonstrating that genuine affection exists between the two. Their longtime rivalry is soon renewed when Angelus taunts the (temporarily) helpless Spike by pursuing Dru as a lover. Spike continues to use his wheelchair after he recovers, feigning weakness to avoid suspicion while he plots against Angelus. This rivalry eventually motivates Spike to ally himself with Buffy to defeat Angelus; there is some ambiguity regarding his motivation in doing so, since despite his initial claim that he just wants Drusilla back, he also makes a speech:

“We like to talk big, vampires do. I’m going to destroy the world. That’s just tough guy talk. Strutting around with your friends over a pint of blood. The truth is, I like this world. You’ve got – dog racing, Manchester United, and you’ve got people: billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It’s all right here. But then someone comes along with a vision, with a real passion for destruction. Angel could pull it off. Goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester bloody Square."

Spike knocks out Drusilla, removing her from the fight. As he carries her from the fray, he sees Angelus corner an unarmed Buffy, and thinks that he is actually going to kill her. He shrugs and leaves Sunnydale; he and an unconscious Drusilla travel to Brazil.

Spike appears in only one episode of season three ("Lovers Walk"), attempting to force Willow Rosenberg to cast a love spell on Drusilla, who had turned away from him because he is not enough of a demon for her, because of his alliance with the Slayer and (as we learn later) because she suspects that he has feelings for Buffy. He visits Joyce Summers, who listens sympathetically to his heartache. Spike, after feeling the rush of an intense fight, abandons the love spell idea, resolving to win Drusilla back the old-fashioned way: by finding and torturing her until she likes him again, as Angel did in 1860. Buffy remarks to Angel that "I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can't fool myself – or Spike, for some reason," foreshadowing Spike's role as the "truth-seer" of the group.

Spike returns to Sunnydale alone in season four to search for the Gem of Amarra, a talisman that allows a vampire to endure sunlight and even a stake to the heart without ill effect; he later travels to L. A. to retrieve it, torturing Angel in an attempt to discover its location before he is thwarted and driven from the city. He becomes involved with Harmony Kendall, a shallow young vampire. Despite her beauty and affection, Spike considers her little more than a nuisance and sexual plaything. His unlife takes a pivotal turn when The Initiative, a secret government demon-fighting army, captures him and implants a microchip in his head, which causes crippling pain whenever he harms or attempts to harm a human being. Unable to hunt for blood, he turns to the Scooby Gang for protection, bartering his knowledge of the Initiative. He helps Rupert Giles out of a tight spot for a price. He and Buffy briefly become engaged through an accidental enchantment by Willow, foreshadowing their later bond, and it is telling that, though Willow only told them to get married, both of them mention being in love with the other. He discovers that the chip does not prevent him from fighting demons, and, since he thrives on violence, fights alongside the Scoobies on occasion. At this point, Spike is still looking out for himself first and foremost however, and does not shy away from letting the Scoobies know it. On learning that Faith is on the loose after coming out of her coma, he proclaims that he will be the one to find Faith, so he can tell her exactly where the Scoobies are, and watch while she tears them all apart. Later in the season Spike allies with Adam, a demon/human/cyborg chimera created by The Initiative, and helps the creature in its quest to destroy the Initiative and the Scoobies. Spike's price is simple: he wants the Initiative's chip out of his head for good. Through the use of lies and lines, he briefly manages to split the Scoobies up and turn them against each other ("The Yoko Factor"). They manage to overcome his scheme and learn the truth; when Spike realizes that Adam is double crossing him, he turns back to the Scoobies, even saving their lives against rampaging demons in the middle of a battle.

In season five, Spike becomes aware after some erotic dreams that, to his horror, he has fallen in love with Buffy. Unsure how to proceed, he keeps a nightly vigil outside her home, occasionally even breaking in (most notably to sniff and steal Buffy's clothing, and to steal photographs for his secret shrine to her). Spike also becomes a more active participant in the Scooby Gang, jumping into several of Buffy's fights to provide assistance whether she wants it or not. At Buffy's request, he reveals to her how he killed the two Slayers he had fought, offering survival advice, and later comforts her when her mother has to go into the hospital. Buffy's younger sister Dawn, who has a crush on Spike, perceives his obsession with Buffy, and casually tells Buffy of it. Disgusted, particularly after witnessing the full extent of Spike's obsession, Buffy rejects him, going as far as to uninvite him from her home (something she had not bothered to do in the two years since their brief alliance against Angelus). Still, Spike's feelings for the Slayer, his inability to harm humans, and his love of a good scrap lead him to fight alongside the Scooby Gang against the forces of evil. During this time, Spike impressed Tara Maclay, at least, as having genuinely been in love with Buffy; Tara also shared Spike's near-parental love for Dawn. Towards the end of the season Spike becomes one of Buffy's principal allies against the season's Big Bad, Glory, including, among other things, refusing to reveal the location of the Key to Glory under intense torture, nearly laying down his life to protect Dawn. In the days and hours leading up to the final showdown, Spike fights by Buffy's side, earning her trust (as well as a re-invite to her home). After Buffy dies in the showdown with Glory, Spike honors her memory by remaining loyal to the Scoobies, fighting at their side and serving the role of baby-sitter/father-figure/protector to Dawn. Blaming himself for Buffy's death, he keeps track of the number of days since she died until she is resurrected in season six.

During season six, Spike and Buffy became lovers of a sort, engaging in a violent, sexual but emotionally one-sided relationship in which Buffy does not return his intense, obsessive love. Their physical relationship starts after a demon's spell makes them share their emotions and Buffy expresses that she "want[s] the fire back"; but it is not consummated until Spike finds out that his chip no longer stops him from hurting the resurrected Buffy. Buffy most often initiates both the violence and the sex between them. This includes a dark moment where Buffy beats Spike severely enough to cause injuries that last at least a week. She also threatens to kill Spike if he ever tells anyone about them. Both are unsatisfied with the relationship; Buffy is ashamed of her dark desires, and unfulfilled with what, for her, is an empty sexual relationship, while Spike craves the love, trust, and affection that she is unwilling to give. Additionally, their relationship is challenged when Riley Finn, Buffy's ex-boyfriend, finds Spike in possession of smuggled demon eggs and accuses of him being "The Doctor" ("As You Were"), though Spike claims to be storing the eggs for a friend. Buffy ends their relationship shortly thereafter, admitting that she is just using him and that it is killing her. Spike at first tries to make her jealous by bringing a date to the wedding of Xander. Later, after Xander left Anya at the altar, Spike and Anya get drunk together and seek solace in each other's arms. Buffy and Xander catch them, and her jealousy at seeing Spike with Anya leads him to believe he still had a chance at winning Buffy back. After a lecture from Dawn, Spike, his obsession out of control, corners an injured Buffy in her bathroom, making aggressive sexual advances. When she refuses him, he attacks her in desperation, apparently intending to rape her; although most of their sexual history is highly violent, Buffy clearly says no to this encounter. Her original injury is increased when she slips and lands on the shower curtain, making it easier for Spike to force himself on top of her. However, Buffy is able to kick Spike across the room after he fails to respond to her cries. He draws back and tries to reconcile, to which Buffy responds, "Ask me again why I could never love you." He flees to his crypt in horror at what he had done, as well as what he had almost done.

Incapable of dealing with his emotions, he leaves town and heads to a remote area of Africa, vowing to "give her what she deserves." He seeks out a legendary Shaman/demon with the power to make him "What he once was." He undergoes a series of grueling physical trials (the Demon Trials) to prove his worthiness before a demon shaman, who promises to give him what he wants if he survives. In the final scene of the season ("Grave"), Spike survives the trials and the shaman grants his request, giving him back what he lost: his soul.

With the returning of his soul comes a conscience filled with guilt as well. In the early episodes of season seven, Spike resides in the basement of recently reconstructed Sunnydale High School, close to the Hellmouth's opening. Tormented by The First Evil as well as by his newfound conscience, Spike appears to be going insane (he notes at one point that he is "bug-shagging crazy"). He explains to Buffy ("Beneath You") that he had tried to find "the spark. The missing. . .the piece. That fit. That would make me fit." He says that "Angel, he should have warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting but it’s here in me; all the time. The spark. I wanted to give you what you deserve. And I got it. They put the spark in me; and now all it does is burn." When Buffy asks him why he gotten his soul, he explains: "Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn’t? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev-. . . To be a kind of man." After Buffy learns that Spike is in the basement, she enlists his assistance in several situations, although it is not until well after she learns that he is ensouled that she decides to bring him out of the basement. Spike becomes reluctant roommates with Xander, because he has nowhere else to go. However, this arrangement backfires as Spike, under influence of the First Evil's hypnotic trigger, is forced to kill innocent people. Spike initially has no memory of his actions; after he discovers what he's done, he begs Buffy to stake him. Buffy refuses and takes him into her house and tells him she has seen him change. He suffers severe withdrawals after his extended feeding on human blood, and is still vulnerable to the (as yet unidentified) hypnotic trigger, so he is willingly confined with ropes or chains. Buffy guards and cares for Spike throughout his recovery, telling Spike that she believes in him, a statement which later sustains him throughout his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the First Evil.

Spike assists Buffy in her efforts to train the Potentials that are gathering in Sunnydale. In the meantime, his chip begins to malfunction, causing him intense pain and threatening to end his unlife. To the dismay of Giles and most of her other friends, Buffy trusts Spike enough to order Initiative agents to remove it from his head. She also takes Spike's side when Principal Robin Wood, son of the slayer Spike murdered in 1977, attempts to kill him as retribution. Ironically, by attempting to kill Spike when he is under the First's influence, Wood frees Spike from his hypnotic trigger: a song called Early One Morning that Spike's mother often sang to him before he became a vampire. The song evoked Spike's traumatic memories of his mother's abusive behavior toward him after she turned; after Spike is able to address these issues, he realizes that his mother had always loved him, knowledge which frees him from the First's control. Late in the season, Spike and Buffy achieve an emotional closeness; he, alone, remains selflessly loyal to her when the other Scoobies, Giles, and the Potentials abandon her. Spike contemptously tells the rest of the Scoobies, "You sorry sods, she died for you, and you betrayed her!" After Spike tracks Buffy to an abandoned house, they spend two nights together. After the first night, Spike tells Buffy that it was the best night of his life, just holding her. It is unclear whether they resume their sexual intimacy the second night; creator Joss Whedon has said he intentionally left it to the viewers to decide how they felt the relationship progressed though Whedon himself said he personally felt that it would be wrong for them to resume a sexual relationship [citation needed].

In the final battle inside the Hellmouth, Spike, wearing a mystical amulet, sacrifices himself to destroy the First's army of Turok-Hans (pure demon übervampires) and close the Hellmouth. The amulet mystically channels sunlight that turns the Turok-Hans to dust and collapses the cavern containing the Hellmouth, sealing the Hellmouth and creating a crater which swallows the entire town of Sunnydale. Spike is incinerated in the process, but not before Buffy says "I love you." He replies, "No, you don't — but thanks for saying it." Even as he burns and crumbles to dust he laughs and revels in the destruction before him, glad to be there for the end. He dies at the Hellmouth to save the world, becoming a Champion.

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Los Angeles

Despite his apparent death at the end of Buffy's final season, Spike returns as a regular on Angel in its fifth and final season, having been brought back by the same amulet that was initially given to Angel by Wolfram and Hart. The amulet is mysteriously returned to the offices by mail. Spike seeks, at this stage, to leave Wolfram and Hart and find Buffy, but, when he tries, he discovers that he is mystically bound to Los Angeles and unable to leave. For the first seven episodes of the season, Spike is an incorporeal being akin to a ghost with a connection to the human world that is unstable, causing him to disappear at random (but increasingly frequent) intervals. Even as a ghost, Spike tries to be useful and join in the fray. When he first arrives at Wolfram and Hart, he and Angel are confronted by a Droxlar Beast, whom Angel attacks. Spike immediately moves to fight the Droxlar (although, being immaterial at the time, this proved impossible), despite being in the course of a bitter argument with Angel and having no particular reason to help him.

As his disappearances become more frequent and intense, Spike, terrified, confides only to Fred that every time he disappears he is being transported to Hell. He asks her to help save him, and she promises to find a way to make him corporeal again. Later, it is discovered that Spike's disappearances are being caused by another ghost, the Reaper, who toys with the many souls trapped at Wolfram and Hart in order to delay his own sentence to Hell. Fred successfully creates a machine to recorporealize Spike. However, when the Reaper threatens Fred's life, Spike chooses to use the machine to save her, throwing away his opportunity to become corporeal but successfully stopping the other ghost. His actions prove to her, at least, that he is "worth saving." He finds himself able to affect the world around him if he wants to badly enough, so he is able to assist in fighting before he is actually recorporalized.

Later another mysterious package comes in the mail, addressed to Spike but with no return address. Upon opening the package he sees a flash of light; after trying to walk through a wall, Spike discovers he has become corporeal once more. One of his first acts is to attempt to rekindle his physical relationship with Harmony, who is now Angel's secretary; however, during their attempt at sex she is strangely (temporarily) affected by a force causing her eyes to bleed and her behavior to become violent. This is the end of their physical intimacy.

Chaos concurrently erupts in Wolfram & Hart, and Eve arrives with information that the existence of two ensouled vampires in the world is affecting the fabric of reality. A new translation of the Shanshu Prophecy reveals that in order to restore the balance, Spike and Angel must compete to drink from the Cup of Perpetual Torment. Angel and Spike's relationship has always been strained by competition over women, notably Drusilla and Buffy. Ego clashes and personal hostility that had been building up for more than a century lead to an extended battle between the two adversaries; each believes that the Cup would bestow upon him great responsibilities and pain, while ultimately washing his past clean and allowing him to live as human again. When Angel asks him if it is the destiny he wants, or just to take something away from Angel, Spike answers honestly, "a bit of both." Although Angel tells Spike that Spike is a monster just like him, Spike denies any similarities: "You had a soul forced on you. As a curse. Make you suffer for all the horrible things you've done. Me, I fought for my soul, went through the demon trials, almost did me in a dozen times over, but I kept fighting. Because I knew it was the right thing to do. It's my destiny." Angel retorts that the only reason Spike wanted his soul was to "get into a girl's pants" (an interesting argument considering that for a hundred years or so after Angel was re-ensouled, his actions, though not completely unnoteworthy, mostly consist of self-imposed isolation and brooding; Angel only becomes a "useful" creature after seeing and falling in love with Buffy). Then, for the first time in over a century of friendship and rivalry, Spike clearly defeats Angel and drinks from the Cup. Their battle culminates with Angel unable to touch a giant cross, which Spike, contemptously ignoring the pain, holds and wields with ease. The prophecy turns out to be a sham (the liquid in the Cup was merely Mountain Dew), rendering the whole exercise seemingly useless. Spike regains much self-confidence with his defeat of Angel.

Even though he is now corporeal (and therefore no longer bound to L.A.), he decides not to go to Europe in search of Buffy; he wants her to remember him as the hero who died to save the world. Spike later takes on a psychotic Slayer, who had until recently been locked in a mental institution, but she captures him, drugs him, ties him up, and cuts off his hands. This experience causes Spike to more deeply examine the nature of the evil inside him. He tells Angel that the girl thought that he had killed her whole family, and asks: "What am I supposed to do, complain, because hers wasn't one of the hundreds of families I did kill?" He believes that the girl has become a monster like them; Angel responds that the girl is an innocent victim, and Spike points out that he and Angel were innocent victims at one point. His hands are reattached at Wolfram & Hart, and he is instructed to play video games for physical therapy, including Donkey Kong and Crash Bandicoot.

Beginning in "Soul Purpose", Lindsey McDonald, using the name of the late half-demon Doyle with a connection to The Powers That Be, persuades Spike that he is destined to "help the helpless," in much the same way as the real Doyle persuaded Angel of the same thing at the start of Angel. Alienated by Angel's corporate, bureaucratic approach to fighting evil, Spike steps into his role as hero until he learns that "Doyle" is actually Lindsay, who has been manipulating him the whole time. Spike, after a bout of depression, is brought back to being an affirmed champion of the good. His relationship with Angel becomes increasingly acrimonious, and they contemplate the possibility of Spike leaving L.A. after a particularly bitter argument over whether cavemen or astronauts would win in a fight. When Fred becomes infected with the essence of an ancient demon named Illyria, Spike works alongside Angel and the team to find a cure, and mourns for her when they fail. He abandons the idea of leaving L.A. after Fred's death, deciding to stay because that is what she would have wanted. He is put in charge of "testing" the newly-awakened Illyria's abilities, which generally involves fighting with her and recording details on his clipboard. Because of the drastic changes in the circumstances of his own life, he can relate to her situation, offering her conversation, company, and advice. By the end of the season, Spike is a trusted member of the team, and he is the first to vote for Angel's plan to wound the Senior Partners by taking out the Circle of the Black Thorn. In this endeavor, he is entrusted to rescue an infant and destroy a demon cult (the final episode "Not Fade Away"). Before Angel's team of demon killers enter what may be their final battle, Angel gives them the day off, to spend as though it was going to be their last day. Spike, returning to his mortal roots as a frustrated poet, triumphantly knocks them dead (figuratively) in an open mic poetry slam, reciting his completed version of a poem he'd begun over a century earlier, before being sired by Drusilla.

After succeeding in his mission, Spike joins Angel, Illyria, and a badly-wounded Charles Gunn in the alley as the series draws to an end, preparing to suicidally incur the apocalyptic wrath of the Senior Partners, as a way of going out in a blaze of glory. Whether Spike survived this battle has yet to be confirmed, although he does appear in (non-canon) material set after it.

Joss Whedon has spoken of a possible Spike movie set after the events of the series, so Whedon apparently still regards Spike as an active character.