Spontaneous Musings

My (needlessly specific) prediction is that Mark will love Spike in S4, be confused by him and possibly dislike him at the start of S5, start liking him again by the end of S5/start of S6 then start hating him again from Smashed onwards until perhaps begrudgingly forgiving him in Touched. But we'll see (if I can stand reading for that long)... it's a lot of pressure for a first-time watcher to see things that I and many other viewers didn't pick up on until numerous rewatches. I know that my opinions on my first watch of Seeing Red were heavily coloured by the online drama going on at that time which had weeks to fester as the rest of the season and then the summer had everyone debating on soulled vs soulless, chip vs soul, Angel vs Spike etc. Mark will have the benefit of going from Seeing Red to Beneath You in about two weeks. It took me watching the whole show a few times and reading plenty of meta discussions to really sort out my feelings about SR and what is going on in that episode and with Spike's character - at the time I found it really hard to see a way back for him, I didn't really understand the whole souled/soulless issues of the Buffyverse and there were plenty of fans around at the time who were sure that it was just a black and white issue that I was just plain confused. Now I can see the nuances of the soul issue and see SR as just another step on his journey.