"Now, that was fun. Oh, don't tell me that wasn't fun. God! It's been so long since I had a decent spot of violence. Really puts things in perspective."
Also known as Wiliam the Bloody, Spike is one of the most cunning vampires in Sunnydale. He arrives in Sunnydale with Drusilla at the beginning of the episode "School Hard"(quite literally it seems, as he drives into the 'welcome to Sunnydale' sign). His first words are interesting, even though he had a (british?) accent he refers to the Hellmouth as 'home sweet home'
We learn that he went to Woodstock and fed off a tripping hippy ("I spent the next six hours watching my hands move...")
He is also a very powerful vampire who has defeated two Slayers during his demon-infected life. As well as killing the Anointed One when the little brat got to stroppy for him. He does not like being messed about
Giles found a reference to Spike
in one of the old Watcher diaries:
"Our new friend, Spike. Known as William the bloody, earned his name by torturing
his victims with railroad spikes. . . he's barely 200, not even as old as Angel."
(School Hard)
This leads us neatly to the hate of his life, Angel. As Dru's sire and the reason for her madness, Spike feels nothing but hatred to him, especially now he's a "throw your self to the lions" kind of guy. Spike is Dru's carer and lover, and Spike's life revolves about her. He panders to her every whim and will do anything to make her well again. (he brings her kittens to 'play' with.) Spike's love for her is obvious, even vampires can find happiness.
Spike has an unnatural interest in Buffy, maybe he sees her as another notch on his 'dead slayer post', the first time he went to kill her he just watched her fight, the second time he sends another vampire to videotape her Slaying technique, the third time they fought for the first time in the church where he was trying to bring Dru back to health.
The ritual he performed to help Dru did give her some power, but having a church organ collapse on him left him rather wheelchair bound. For a little while at least, but he kept up the charade to keep Angelus off guard.
Angel losing his soul annoyed Spike ratherm especially when said vampire moved into the the factory with them, charming Dru and 'helping her out with things Spike couldn't do' (shall we all raise an eyebrow here?). And then getting the factory burnt down and moving them to the mansion.
Angelus's lust for power and control over Dru forced Spike to join forces with Buffy and stop him opening the gates to Hell. Getting invited into Buffy's house lead him into an uncomfortable situated with Joyce (one of the funniest scenes of the series). He agreed to help Buffy stop Angelus is she let him and Dru leave Sunnydale never to return again.
Buffy agreed and went to save the world. Spike did keep up his end of the bargin somewhat. He did create the diversion, but was more concerned about getting away with Dru than helping Buffy.
The last we saw of Spike was him driving out of Sunnydale in his blacked-out car.
The return
However, Spike couldn't stay away from Sunnydale and in the gang's senior year he came back. Dru had left him for a chaos demon and he was in a bit of a state, blaming Angel for Dru's departure, he went to confront him but was too drunk to actually do anything apart from pass out in the sun.
Going to the magic shop to get a love spell, he overheard the shopkeeper talking with Willow and came up with a plot.
Tracking Willow down in the school ,he kidnapped her (and Xander) and took them back to the factory, which was nothing more than a blacked out shell.
Going back to the Magic shop for the ingredients, he was joined by Buffy, Angel and a group of annoyed ex-hench vamps. Fighting them, Spike realised that being a poofy drunk was not the way to get Drusilla back and decided to track her down and woo her back with a little torture.
And Sunnydale's mostunholy adopted son disappeared into the night.
The Return (Part 2)
But Spike just couldn't stay away, could he? Coming back to Sunnydale again after the gang start university, he's after a ring that is buried in Sunnydale - the Gem of Amarra. the Holy Grail of Vampires it allows the wearer to walk in Sunlight, it also makes them impervious to the usual deaths that can befall a vampire. he has a new girl in tow, Harmony, it's a match made in Hell. Even Spike thinks so and tries to stake her. However, as usual he's foiled and Buffy gets the Gem off him and sends it to LA, to Angel. So off Spike goes to get it back. he even gets to torture Angel for a while, but eventually comes back empty handed.
Things go from back to worse when he returns to Sunnydale and he is captured by the Initiative and is tagged. A little microchip is placed in his brain which renders him incapable of hurting a human. It sends him into a rage and when he escapes he goes crawling back to harmony, who won't have him on account of him staking her. So he swallows his pride and goes to the only people who could possibly help him. . . .
He ends up tied to the bath in Giles apartment, only being kept alive because he has information on the Initiative. Buffy takes great pleasure in taunting him. Willow casts a spell which allows her will to be done. She wishes that Spike and Buffy would get together and the next thing you know they're madly in love, engaged and plannign a wedding. Luckily the spell is broken and both vampire and Slayer are disgusted with what happened. Spike remains in Giles' apartment and he becomes addicted to soap operas (and in season five Dawson's Creek).
He moves in with Xander, gets depressed that he can't kill anything and tries to swan dive onto a stake, luckily Willow talks him out of it. Spike learns shortly afterwards that he can fight demons and is estatic about it. He can be a big bad again! The lust for unlife returned he moves out of the basement and into a crypt of his own. (Which he furnishes with Xander's stuff).
However, the fact he can't hurt anything lulls the Scoobies into forgetting that Spike is Evil. Big mistake. Especially when Adam approaches the vampire and enlists him to the cause. Spike will be his go between, feeding the gang misinformation and basically breaking up an already fracturing unit. And if Spike succeeds the chip will be removed.
Spike does his new job with gusto, successfully breaking the gang up, but not enough to stop them putting their differences aside to destroy Adam.
Spike even pops up in Xander's dream, swinging on a swing with Giles who's going to teach him to be a vampire. he's also in Giles', his crypt mademore homely with lots of little garden gnomes outside and Spike inside performing to paying customers, lots of scary vapire posturing.
Seaosn five sees Spike making his crypt very homely, he gets on well with the Summers' ladies (who aren't Buffy). he's still with Harmony and he'd like nothing better than to get the chip out of his head. He even kidnapps an Initiative doctor to do it, but it can't be done, it's too deeply embedded. Spike is not pleased about this.
He is even less pleased with the unsettling new development that he's falling in love with Buffy. he even sets up a shrine to her in the basement of the crypt. Buffy doesn't realise though. Although she does notice that he seems to be spending a lot of time aorund her house. when Buffy is attacked and nearly killed it's Spike she goes to to find out what made the two Slayers he kill fail. He takes her through the alleyways of his memories, showing her exactly what happened to each Slayer, before concluding that it's the Slayer's love of Death that is their downfall. he even makes advances on Buffy, but she throws them back in hs face, telling him that it'll never happen.
Very annoyed at being slighted he goes back home and gets a shotgun determined to kill the Slayer, but when he turns up at her house and sees her crying, he can't help but try and comfort her.
He is also the one who learns of Riley's nocturnal activities and he's the one who tells her. Riley is furious about this, even more so when he discovers that Spike is in love with his girlfriend, but it's already too late.
Buffy finds out about his obession when Dru comes to town to win back Spike and is not impressed, telling him coldly that he is to stay away from her and her friends forever, even better to get get out of Sunnydale and not come back. After Joyce's death he comes to the house with a bunch of flowers but is intercepted by an angry Xander who tells him to stay away from Buffy. But Spike really did like Joyce, it's a shame that no one believes him.