Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Recap/S7/E08 Sleeper

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Scoobies investigate claims that Spike has been killing again.

  • Almost-Dead Guy: Robson
  • An Axe to Grind: The Bringer. His axe has Audible Sharpness even though it's just swinging through air.
  • Answer Cut: Buffy asking who can watch Spike while Xander is out, to Anya complaining about having been roped in to do so.
  • Apologetic Attacker: Buffy says "Sorry, ma'am, but it's my job" before staking an elderly woman vampire.
  • Bait and Switch: Buffy appears to interrupt Spike's business with the girl in the alley. It turns out to be the First in Buffy's form, inciting Spike to attack the girl.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Spike is described by a bouncer as a Billy Idol wannabie.

Buffy: Actually, Billy Idol stole his look from...never mind.

  • Bi the Way: The female vampire picks out a couple dancing and suggests them as victims for Spike.

"I take him, you take her? Or the other way round, whatever..."

  • Buffy-Speak: Xander says that Spike is a creature of the night, so he's "probably out creaturing."
  • Casual Kink

Anya: If I get vamped, I'm gonna bite your ass.
Xander: (grinning) Wouldn't be the first time.

    • After claiming she's snuck into Spike's bedroom to have sex with him, Anya tries to pass off her stake this way.
  • Clear My Name / The Killer in Me
  • Cliff Hanger / Smash Cut: The episode ends on a Bringer sneaking up behind Giles and swinging an axe at his neck.
  • Continuity Nod: In "Fool for Love" when Spike tells Buffy his Backstory, he's seen in a flashback to 1977 in a hairstyle and attire similar to Billy Idol, several years before Idol's fame.
  • Dies Wide Open: Spike's victim from the previous episode.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Spike is frequently compared to a Serial Killer.
  • Double Entendre: When Anya objects to being left alone with Spike, Xander mutters that she didn't mind being alone with him before.
  • Dream Melody
  • Flashback Echo: Spike picks up a packet of cigarettes and remembers the girl giving it to him in "Conversations With Dead People". Later the taste of Buffy's blood causes him to remember killing his previous victims.
  • Foreshadowing: The mysterious hooded assassins are shown to be targeting Watchers and their potential Slayers-in-training. Giles is tasked by a dying Robson with gathering these Potentials. Buffy takes Spike into her home, marking the beginning of their season-long reconciliation and healing.
    • The significance of "Early One Morning" as Spike's Trigger Phrase will be shown in "Lies My Parents Told Me".
  • Geographic Flexibility: Sunnydale now has more nightclubs than just the Bronze (and a lot more extras than we've ever seen before).
  • Get It Over With: After realising that he's started killing again, Spike tells Buffy to stake him and make it quick.
  • Glasses Pull: Giles does the Glasses Pull of Grief on finding Robson.
  • Gollum Made Me Do It
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Spike accuses Buffy of this when she gets on his case about going out at night and chatting up women.
  • He Is Not My Boyfriend: Buffy asks at the door of a nightclub about Spike.

Bouncer: This guy your boyfriend or something?
Buffy: (lower lip quivers) No, I-I just... I need to find him, as soon as possible.

Female vampire: So is that all I was to you? A one-bite stand?

Spike: As daft a notion as "Soulful Spike the Killer" is, it is nothing compared to the idea that another girl could mean anything to me. This chip, they did to me. I couldn't help it. But the soul, I got on my own, for you. So, yeah. I go and pass the time... with someone. But that's all it is is time, 'cause -- God, help me, Buffy -- it's still all about you.

Spike: (in "Seeing Red") Well, this isn't just about you...as much as you'd like it to be.
Spike: (in "Sleeper") God, help me, Buffy -- it's still all about you.

    • In "Selfless" Spike told Fantasy!Buffy that he could never ask for her help. Here he does ask Buffy for help, and gets it.
  • Oh Crap / Rise from Your Grave: Buffy is struggling with a vamped-out Spike when the bodies he buried start bursting out of the ground as vampires.
  • Pietà Plagiarism: In a flashback Spike is shown carrying one of his victims this way.
  • Quick Nip
  • Sheathe Your Sword: When Spike starts talking to an invisible presence in the basement, Buffy tosses aside her stake, realising the Big Bad is behind it all.
  • Shirtless Scene: Bedroom!Spike; in fact the bedsheet is barely above the groin at one stage.
  • Slip Into Something More Comfortable: A woman starts hitting on Spike at the Bronze, despite his strong non-verbal signals that he's not interested. She says, "Maybe I'd better slip into something more comfortable" and morphs into Game Face.
  • Something Else Also Rises: When Anya claims she wants sex from Spike, he immediately bunches his blanket around his waist.
  • Sunnydale Syndrome: For the first time we see it in action—Spike is fighting the female vampire on the catwalk, while Aimee Bell plays for the crowd down below. Spike stakes the vampire and throws her into the crowd where she explodes in a cloud of dust. There's Stunned Silence from a dance-floorful of onlookers for a moment, then Aimee Bell just takes up singing where she left off. Later Aimee is seen walking out of the Bronze griping, "I hate playing vampire towns."
  • Suspiciously Apropos Music: Aimee Mann singing "Pavlov's Bell" in an episode involving Pavlovian conditioning.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: Spike catches Anya snooping through his room while trying to find proof that Spike has been killing people. Anya tries to cover up by seducing him.

Why else would I be here? I mean, it's not like I'm snooping around looking for proof that you're some sort of wacked-out serial killer.

  • Talk to the Fist: Spike knocks out Xander as he's about to list the reasons why he can't leave.
  • Trigger Phrase: The English folk song "Early One Morning"
  • Vampires Are Sex Gods: Or maybe Billy Idol lookalike's are—either way Sallow-but-Sexy!Spike has no trouble getting a different girl to walk off with him every night.
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