Buffy The Vampire Slayer: 10 Reasons Season 2 Was The Best

9. We Meet Spike

Now onto the actually good stuff (or in this case, the extremely evil stuff). Season 2 introduced the world to Spike, the bleached blonde vampire with the heart of...well, a bleached blonde vampire. He was the id to Angel's super-ego (just as later, Faith would be the id to Buffy's super-ego; if Whedon loved anything, it was pitting blondes and brunettes against each other). He was a cigarette smoking, cheap booze swilling, motorbike riding murderer of slayers and he had a really weird girlfriend to boot. He was a lot of fun and, though initially intended to be a minor role, he went on to be a main character in both Buffy and Angel. Late-era Spike had a lot to recommend him. His character had added depth, always finding new emotional notes for James Marsters to play. His affair with Buffy is one of the most electric and polarising relationships in television history. His cheekbones continued to cast shadows that no human cheekbones should manage. And yet... is Spike ever as gloriously mad, as purely entertaining as in this early incarnation? When Angel left the show, there was a space for a complex vampire character and Spike filled it admirably. But in these first few episodes, he's just a force of undiluted charisma and there's nothing wrong with that.