Zap2it.com - Spike's old love makes "Buffy" Reapperence - Februar 2002


LOS ANGELES - Sharp-eyed viewers of UPN's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" got a treat last Tuesday, proving that executive producers Joss Whedon and Marti Noxon have good memories (and a willingness to wait a very long time to pay off a joke).

In "Older and Far Away," Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) celebrated her birthday -- which, in the history of the series, has always resulted in disaster. This year was no exception. Prior to the party, little-sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) unloaded her feelings of neglect and abandonment to a guidance counsellor (Kali Rocha) she'd never seen before.

It turns out that the counsellor was actually Halfrek, a vengeance demon and old pal of ex-demon and Scooby Gang member Anya (Emma Caulfield). Rocha's previous two appearances on the show were underneath demonic prosthetics, but in the scene as the guidance counsellor, the actress's face was revealed. In response to Dawn's pain, Halfrek laid a curse that trapped the guests inside Buffy's house, unable to make themselves leave. Back in demon guise at the party, Halfrek spotted vampire Spike (James Marsters) -- Buffy's secret lover -- and said, "William?" (Spike's real name). He appeared to recognize her as well.

He should, because Rocha is the same actress who played Cecily, the haughty English girl who was the object of the then-living William's obsession, when he was a lovelorn poet in Victorian London. In "Fool for Love," which aired in Nov. 2000, it was Cecily's resounding rejection of his affections ("You're beneath me," she said) that sent William sobbing into the streets, where he met his vampire fate at the hands, and fangs, of Drusilla (Juliet Landau).

How this will play out in future episodes is anyone's guess, but in the Whedon "waste not, want not" philosophy, something is bound to happen.