The Buffy Scene That James Marsters Calls 'The Worst Day Of My Professional Career'
Every fan of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" knows that the season 6 episode "Seeing Red" is the most horrific episode of the series — and the reason why is far from supernatural. One scene in particular is incredibly difficult to watch and, according to James Marsters, was equally difficult to shoot. It wasn't just the worst day in all his years on the "Buffy" set, it was the hardest of his entire career. So why would a show that started as a campy high school series include such an unbearable scene? First, let's explore the history of the problematic fan-favorite vampire, Spike.
The coming-of-age show where teenage problems manifested as demons had a wrench thrown into its central metaphor when Spike arrived in Sunnydale in the second season. Marsters was only signed on to portray the British bad boy for a few episodes at first.
"He was just Drusilla's boy toy for five episodes and he was going to be Angel's first victim," the actor said of his character in an interview with Comicbook.com. "[...] they only built me up to be cool so that when Angel killed me he would look awesome."
But when an outpouring of love from fans demanded that he stay on the show for longer than intended, Spike presented a big problem for the writers.
"They never really knew what to do with Spike," Marsters explained to RadioTimes.com. "Because the original idea for Buffy was that vampires were just metaphors for the challenges of high school, or the challenges of life. They were designed to be overcome, they were designed to die."
After re-entering the show as a series regular in season 4, Spike's storyline took some rather unexpected turns. But the actor never could have expected what the vampire's most evil moment would look like.
The bathroom scene in 'Seeing Red'
Content warning: this piece discusses rape and sexual assault.
Spike had some of the strangest narrative arcs of the series, from getting microchipped by the military to falling in love with the slayer.
"At first I was the disposable villain, then I was the wacky neighbor, then I was the bad boyfriend, then I was the, I don't know, crazy one, then I was the guinea-pig hero," Marsters recalled in an interview with The A.V. Club.
Season six found Buffy in a very dark place after being brought back from the dead and the tone of the series took some very bleak turns.
"When you work for [series creator] Joss Whedon, you're contracted to do whatever comes down the pipe, and you have no idea what that's going to be," Marsters continued. "And, at the time — this is not just season six, it's all of it; the sixth was just the most dramatic example — I got terrified. In six, I really got afraid to read the scripts. Because I was going to have to do whatever they thought of to whoever they thought of to do it. There were just no rules anymore."
In one of the final episodes of the season, "Seeing Red," Spike attempts to rape Buffy. She eventually pushes him off, but the scene was incredibly traumatic for viewers, especially the large portion of those that had a fondness for Spike. Marsters was contractually obligated to film the scene and took no pleasure in it.
"If there's an audition for a role that has it in it, I just won't audition, because I don't wanna go there," he explained on a Buffy panel at the 2022 Cloud Con. "But on 'Buffy' I was contracted to do that. It was the worst day of my professional career."
Surprisingly, the scene was written by a woman
Even though the show took a dark turn in the sixth season, it's still rather uncommon for a network show to include such a graphic and visceral depiction of sexual assault. Why did such a violent scene get past the writers' room?
Sexual assault has historically been considered particularly bad when its depicted as male-on-female violence, the idea being that the male is physically dominant and is forcibly pinning the woman down. However, that's not the only way that assault manifests itself. Sometimes, like in "Buffy," the woman is strong enough to defend herself but is momentarily paralyzed by the shock and fear of an attack like that, especially from a person she put a fair bit of trust in — he was invited into her house, after all, making his betrayal all the more sinister. But the scene was actually based on the experience of a female writer — who was in Spike's position.
"The thinking I think was that since Buffy was a superhero and completely capable of pushing Spike through a wall it was kind of the same thing, and you could flip the sexes," Marsters recalled in an interview with The A.V. Club. "My argument was that, actually, when anyone is watching 'Buffy,' they are Buffy. That's the vicarious experience that we're offering. And so the audience, especially the female audience, they are not superheroes, but they are Buffy."
The writers tried to make us stop rooting for Spike
The violent attack might have been a shock for fans that were rooting for Spike and his love affair with Buffy, but it wasn't totally senseless. The point of the controversial scene was to remind viewers who Spike really is, and why he and Buffy shouldn't be together.
"[The writers] were very frustrated because they couldn't convince the audience to stop rooting for Spike," Marsters explained to RadioTimes.com, "they did not want the audience to say, 'Spike and Buffy forever,' that's just not what they were going for. They kept having me do worse and worse things trying to get people to realize. Even Spike at one point goes, 'Hey guys, I'm evil.' Because the audience refused to do that, they finally landed on that scene."
Whether or not the writers and Whedon executed their intended purpose, the scene certainly isn't intended to be another lovable moment for Spike. In fact, it's meant to cast a shade of toxicity on their entire dynamic, which many viewers took to be a passionate torrid affair.
"Joss was constantly trying to remind the audience, 'Look, guys, I know he's charming, but he's evil,'" Marsters told The A.V. Club. "He's a bad boyfriend. It would be bad to date a guy like this. And I think he wanted to reinforce that in the most dramatic way imaginable. And also give Spike a really good reason to try to reform and try to become better and try to get a soul."
Spike's redemption in the end is also a point of controversy. Either way, we can rest easy knowing Buffy didn't end up with either vampire lover — in Angel's spin-off series she completely avoids both of them and is living her best life with Dawn in Rome.
Spike's lovability undercut the central theme of 'Buffy'
Spike, also known as, William the Bloody, was once a Victorian poet, and even after all his years of mindless slaughter, he still has the soul of a romantic. His genuine love for Druisilla is what makes him compelling from his very first moments on screen. This is what made the audience so infatuated with him and why he inevitably became a love interest for Buffy.
But Spike was never meant to have a romantic streak — that was all Marsters' doing. He pulled out all the stops to keep Spike alive, and he had to go behind Whedon's back to do it. The actor spilled the beans to Comicbook.com:
"[Whedon] said that I was a soulless vampire that didn't care about anybody. I said, 'Yeah Joss, you got it. You got it.' And he turned his back [and I was] like, 'F that.' Because I've learned that as an actor if you find the love, you find the gold in the mountain. [...] You find the thing that will connect you to the audience. What does your character love? [...] That's what's going to connect. And I was like, well I'm going to find the love and so I found it in Drusilla. I actually started undercutting Joss' theme from the beginning because I needed a job."
From the very beginning, the writers had trouble fitting Spike into the framework of the series. He was a lovable bad guy, and it undermined the entire message of the show — that bad guys can and should be defeated. Even though the scene in "Seeing Red" is awful and jarring, it was the writers and Whedon attempting to show the audience who Spiker really was under his charm: a black-hearted demon.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).