In the Soddin' Engine: A Look at the Beneath You Church Scene
A while back, a fandom friend of mine told me he had started writing an analysis of the Beneath You church scene (BY scene). This friend has, to my great sorrow, dropped off into the abyss that is the internet. Now, with all this talk of S7, souls, Spike, and Buffy flying around, I've decided to take on the task of analyzing this brilliant scene. I'm sure his version would be better, but, hey, I got more style (And pretty pictures). :)
First let's set the stage. S6 was a disastrous affair for Spike and Buffy. Their relationship exploded in a horrifying way in Seeing Red, prompting the identity crisis that leads Spike to getting his soul.
That's not the beginning for this scene, though. We have to go back as far as S2 to fully encompass everything the BY scene addresses. This scene, though it is primarily a monologue by Spike, is also largely about Buffy.
It's about the very core of Buffy's beliefs about the demon world around her, indoctrinated into her by the Council and confirmed in S2 when Angel loses his soul. Demons without souls cannot love. They cannot be good. They should be killed. Buffy has held firm to this belief for six seasons, even as Spike went to great lengths (often going too far) to prove his love for her.
It's a love she couldn't accept, though. If Buffy accepts that demons can love, then she has to question why Angel stopped loving her when he lost his soul. She has to examine why a soulless vampire like Spike, her former enemy, can love her so intensely while Angel, her destined true love, could not without a soul.
And while her love for Angel ultimately cost him his soul in S2, it's Spike's love for her that leads him on the path to getting his.
This is where we start in the BY scene. Spike having just returned, unsure of himself and being driven insane by the First Evil. He puts every effort at the beginning of the episode to clean himself up so he can be of help to Buffy. It's probably the one coherent thought in his head: Help Buffy. And the entire episode sees his struggle to maintain his composure until he eventually loses it by the time we get to the BY scene.
Spike: It didn't work. Costume. Didn't help. Couldn't hide.
Very obviously referring to his attempt in this episode to pull himself together. Put on a "costume" of sanity. But there's more to it. It's not just his insanity he's trying to hide. He's trying to hide the fact that he got a soul. This is the first indication we get that the soul is something Spike feels guilty about.
Going the more metaphorical route, the entire "Spike" persona is a costume for the human William, who escaped his life as an unsuccessful and unliked Victorian poet by becoming a bloodthirsty vampire. For as long as we've seen him on screen, he's been wearing a costume. It's only now, in this scene, when he has a soul that we're seeing Spike as he truly is. Without the bravado and the various defense mechanisms he has in place to protect himself.
Buffy: No more mind games, Spike.
Spike: No more mind games. No more mind.
He's fucking insane!
I mean, he knows he's lost his head. But "mind games" is an odd phrase to use in reference to Spike. Even going back to the tumultuous Buffy/Spike relationship in S6, Buffy would be the one that could be described as playing "mind games" with Spike, who was generally straight-forward about his feelings.
And, yet, this seems to indicate, again, that we're getting back to Spike's core self without the persona. No "mind games". No confusion over his soulless state and its ability to love. No conflict between his desire to do good for Buffy and the urges of his demon. "No more mind" because he has shed that "Spike" persona for now and is simply being himself.
Buffy: Tell me what happened to you.
Spike: Hey, hey, hey! No touching. Am I flesh? Am I flesh to you? Feed on flesh. My flesh. Nothing else. Not a spark. Oh, fine. Flesh then. Solid through. Get it hard; service the girl.
S6 was a difficult season for...just about everybody, characters and audience members alike. Buffy's relationship with Spike was, by necessity, shown through Buffy's point of view for the most part. We're given very little indication throughout the season of Spike's side and are, instead, meant to sympathize with Buffy's predicament (Whether people did or not is another discussion, entirely).
However, this one line flips the viewpoint around and shows us Spike's side of S6.
He asks if he's flesh to Buffy. The most apparent interpretation is that he's asking if he's just a body to her. However, "flesh" is also used in Christianity as a metaphor for sinful tendencies, specifically carnal (sexual) sins. It's a word that readily suggests not only a sexual connotation, but a religious one as well.
In this light, Spike is asking her if she was only using him for the dark, demonic temptation that he represents. "Feed on flesh. My flesh."
Then Spike questions whether that's all there is to him: "Nothing else."
If there's nothing else to Spike besides that carnal self, then the "Spike" persona is all there is to him, and the human William side at his core is gone. While S5 showed this part of him encouraged to show itself with Buffy's help, her treatment of him in S6 made it virtually disappear as far as Spike could tell. There's now "nothing else" to him.
This from the vampire who was happy that Buffy treated him "like a man" in the S5 finale. In the space of one year, he's come to believe and accept that all he is is a demonic creature to be used for Buffy's sexual satisfaction.
The reason? "Not a spark."
"Spark" being crazy!Spike-talk for "soul". A very appropriate term, as well. A spark is a small burst or glowing object. As a verb, it literally means "to trigger". A spark is a glimmer of humanity that Spike knows he didn't have in S6. He realizes that Buffy could never accept him without this spark.
"Oh, fine. Flesh then. Solid through."
With this, we get Spike's acceptance of this view of himself. It's the view he believes Buffy has of him. "Solid through". Solid flesh, that carnal and sinful material, with no trace of humanity or a soul.
His statement of "get(ting) it hard" and "servic(ing) the girl" is his resignation of his place last year as Buffy's partner, expected to be sexually available at her command. It's a chore; a job. He "services" her. It's not a passion to him. It's something he's consigned to do by the very nature of what he is: flesh. But the pleasure is all hers. As anyone in the service industry will tell you, the customer is the one who calls the shots.
There's a tussle then as Buffy attempts to keep him from unzipping his pants to "service" her right then and there. Spike reacts violently on instinct and Buffy throws him across the room.
Spike: Right. Girl doesn't want to be serviced. Because there's no spark. Ain't we in a soddin' engine?
This violent moment between the two provokes memories of the violence inherent in their relationship in S6. It also reminds him of the AR in Seeing Red wherein Buffy kicks him across the bathroom to prevent him from raping her.
We also see, however, the utter confusion Spike was going through in S6. After he had worked it out that he's flesh to Buffy and there to service her, he gets a sharp reminder that she no longer wants to be serviced. Why? There's no spark. He knows why Buffy couldn't let him get close to her. He knew last year.
However, last year he also had to contend with Buffy's mixed signals with his limited understanding as a soulless being. Her jealousy of him and Anya after she had told him to move on leaves him confused. Hell, even her on/off-ness earlier in the season confuses him. He had no clue what he would get whenever she walked into a room.
Please note, this is not justifying anything Spike may have done as a result (ie, the AR). All this is doing is showing us his side which we didn't often see in S6. We're finally shown his viewpoint on the relationship. And his view is one of confusion, violence, empty and passionless sex, and dehumanizing treatment by someone he loves. Whether that's a fair assessment of what the relationship was actually like is up for debate, but it's surely the perception that Spike had of it.
"Ain't we in a soddin' engine?"
A reference to an "engine", brings to mind a steam engine or locomotive or just something that moves. Spike feels that they're trapped, not moving. They're stuck in that horrible place they were in in S6.
In going to get his soul, Spike thought that would propel their relationship forward and fix things. Instead, he's found that he's hit a wall and that the soul just makes things even more complicated. He wants to be moving (They're in an engine, after all). He even went to get something that he thought would fuel the engine (his soul). He's completely unable to figure out why the soul hasn't solved everything as he thought it would.
Buffy: You thought you would just come back here and...be with me.
Spike: First time for everything.
Said with a sarcasm that only Spike can display, of course. In this case, he's not just talking about Buffy, but every woman he's tried to be with. Cecily, his mother after he turns her, Drusilla once he tries to win her back. Buffy is the latest in a long line of failed attempts at being with women.
Buffy: This is all you get. I'm listening. Tell me what happened.
Spike: I tried to find it, of course.
Buffy: Find what?
Spike: The spark. The missing...the piece that fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn't want...God, I can't...not with you looking.
Here, Spike is trying to explain that he got his soul.
"The missing...the piece that fit." stormwreath made a post about Spike's soulquest that goes over this more in-depth. While Buffy was definitely a factor in Spike going to get his soul, he was also trying to find a way to put together the pieces of his fractured identity. Torn as he was between two worlds with the chip imposing a moral code on him that his demon side just didn't understand, he went to find "the piece" that would make him complete.
Not only that, he wanted to find the piece that would "make him fit" for Buffy.
Here's where we get to some rather simplistic reasoning by Spike. At the end of S6, Spike is desperate to find some way to be with Buffy. He knows that she can't accept him as a soulless vampire. However, he knows that she did accept one vampire as her lover: Angel. The difference? Angel had a soul. In this way, getting the soul is an emulation of what Spike knew had worked before. We see him act similarly back in Crush when he attempts to dress like Riley and "hang out" with Buffy in order to win her over.
Is that all that was behind Spike getting a soul? Of course not. Spike's reasons for going for the soul were very complex and multi-faceted. I don't think it was one thing that made him get the soul but a combination of factors.
It's at this point in the scene where Spike finds he can't go on with Buffy watching him. She's standing above while while he's sitting up on the floor, and he gets up to hide in the shadows.
The imagery here with Spike in the shadows evokes that of a sinner confessing to a priest without revealing his identity. Buffy becomes the symbol of God and forgiveness in this case while Spike is showing his penitence. However, he's not confessing about the AR or his crimes of the past. He's confessing to getting a soul: something that is inherently contradictory to a vampire's nature that he feels the need to confess as if it were a sin.
He's a vampire confessing in a church to the Slayer about getting his soul. How very appropriate in its twistedness.
Spike: I dreamed of killing you. I think they were dreams. So weak. Did you make me weak, thinking of you, holding myself, and spilling useless buckets of salt over your...ending?
Again, he's talking about S6. Specifically, he's talking about his demon side here, and how she had weakened him. He dreamed of killing her. That's his demon talking there, wanting retaliation against the Slayer that had him thoroughly whipped.
She made him "weak", keeping him from being the demon that he once was.
The line about "spilling useless buckets of salt" can really mean two things: crying or masturbation. Given the "holding myself" line prior to it, I'd lean towards masturbation.
His desire for her is what has kept him weak. It's kept him from being the demon that he wanted to be. Indeed, it made him not want to be that demon anymore.
The "ending" he refers to can mean a few things. He could be talking about Buffy's death as he'd dreamed about. In this way, he's sexualized her death. However, "ending" is a question in this case. Indeed, he seems to interrupt himself with it. I don't think he's talking about Buffy here. He's talking about his demon. The ending of his demon when he goes to get a soul. He's questioning here if it is the end for it, as he'd hoped and intended it to be.
However, the next line clarifies a bit more:
Spike: Angel - he should've warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me, all the time.
The mention of Angel is when Buffy finally realizes what's going on. Spike is chastising Angel for not letting him know that "it's" there, in him.
In this case, I don't think he's talking about the soul, but the demon. Angel never puts on a show of forgetting his soul. Angel's soul is on his sleeve for all to see. No, what Angel puts on a show to hide is the demon inside. It's the demon that wrestles with the soul.
Spike didn't think that the demon would still be present after getting a soul. He thought the soul would fix everything and take away his demonic urges. Instead, it's still in him, all the time. He's even more aware of it now because of the soul.
Spike: The spark. I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it. They put the spark in me and now all it does is burn.
It's a case of "be careful what you wish for". In trying to fix his problems with identity and wrestling with his demon self, Spike just exacerbates the issue by throwing the soul in there. He's utterly tormented by its constant reminder of what he is.
Buffy: Your soul.
Spike: Bit worse for lack of use.
Buffy: You got your soul back. How?
Spike: It's what you wanted, right? (Looks up) It's what you wanted, right?
The first is addressed to Buffy. He'd been under the impression that if only he had a soul, he'd be worthy of her. As if that were the only thing keeping them apart. The soul is what she wanted.
The second is addressed to God. They are in a church. Again, Spike is showing very religious tendencies, saying that God wanted him to get his soul back. It seems likely that the human William was a fairly religious guy back in his day.
Spike: And - and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did...everyone I - and him...and it...the other, the thing beneath - beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me go...go...to hell.
And now, with a soul, he's reminded of his past victims. "Everybody", "everything he did". It's all inside and he suddenly cares about it.
But what about "the other"? The thing "beneath you"? That's William. It's the William who was beneath Cecily in Fool for Love and it was the William in Spike that was below Buffy in the very same episode. Indeed, Spike remained "below" Buffy throughout S6. His own self is in him, telling him to go to hell. Instead or reconciling himself and piecing himself back together, he's turned against himself in his guilt.
Buffy: Why? Why would you do that -
Spike: Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev- to be a kind of man.
And here we get the two complementary reasons for Spike going to get his soul: "Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her." It's the romantic in Spike to go to great lengths for a woman. And he's doing something he "mustn't". Again, getting the soul is something that's being confessed to. It's being talked about as a mistake or an aberration against nature in lieu of his being a vampire.
However, Spike didn't just get a soul "for her". He did it "to be hers". He wanted reciprocation. He wanted to be with Buffy. And he knows now that getting a soul doesn't necessarily mean that will happen.
It's the next part of the line where we come to Spike's other major motivation behind getting the soul: to try to complete his own identity.
We get an aborted reference to the AR of Seeing Red in "to be the kind of man who would nev-". Given that the AR was the impetus for Spike's identity crisis and subsequent soul-winnage, it's appropriate to show him having some guilt over that, and for him to attribute it as the reason why he got it.
However, he knows that it's more than just being the kind of man who wouldn't rape a woman. No, he got a soul "to be a kind of man". Without a soul, he was a vampire who couldn't be a vampire. He wasn't human. He wasn't a vampire. He was nothing, wanted by no one, and, essentially, at odds with his own nature. In seeking a soul, he tried to rectify that. If he couldn't be a vampire, he would be a man with his soul.
Spike: She shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved.
This is what he desires. "She" being Buffy in this case, forgiving him for his actions against her. But, especially, he wants to be loved.
One of the central themes of Spike's character is his desire to be loved and to fit in in the world. His human self faced rejection from his peers, his romantic interest, his mother. Later, as a vampire, he's faced rejection from Drusilla, Harmony, the Scoobies, and Buffy. More than anything else, perhaps, Spike wants to be loved as he has loved in the past.
It's no coincidence that he says this while standing before the crucifix. As mentioned, the "she" who is doing the forgiving here is Buffy. However, Spike standing before the crucifix evokes images of a person asking Christ for forgiveness. As before during his confession, Buffy is being conflated with a Holy being by Spike. It is not Christ who will forgive him, but Buffy.
Spike: So everything's okay, right?
Spike is desperate to believe that getting the soul was the right thing, even though, at this point, he doesn't think it was. It's only complicated things more.
Spike: Can - can we rest now? Buffy...can we rest?
He appeals to Buffy, his higher authority, to rest. This from the person who asked if they were in a "soddin' engine" before. Instead of moving, he wants to stop now. He's tired from his journey and doesn't feel like moving forward.
After the sheer destructiveness that was S6, is it any wonder that Spike is wanting to rest now? He tried to fix things by getting a soul, but it's only made it worse. He doesn't want to try anymore. Spike, who entered the show in S2's School Hard with Angel telling us that "once he starts something he doesn't stop". We've seen this consistently portrayed throughout the show: Spike's always persistent, even when faced with unbeatable odds.
However, now, he's given up and wants to stop trying. He wants to rest.
As he speaks, he drapes himself over the crucifix, foreshadowing his sacrifice at the end of the season, again in an overtly religious fashion.
In this moment, Buffy can only watch as her world is turned upside-down. It's in this scene, when the full weight of what Spike did hits her, that Buffy realizes she was wrong about the nature of vampires and their ability to love. She'd been wrong for the past six years. And she's just as devastated and at loose ends as Spike is.
It's in this scene that Buffy finally tells Spike she'll listen to him. And when she does, she hears about the thoughts and struggles of a soulless being trying to be good for the one he loves and never quite living up. And she sees the end result of this struggle in the broken man before her who now has a soul that he doesn't know how to handle.
This is an incredibly powerful scene that always moves me to tears. It's beautifully directed and acted by both James Marsters and Sarah Michelle Gellar. I can't give enough kudos to it. It works in so many ways, and forwards Spike's character to a whole new level. It finally gives the audience Spike's perspective on the events of S6, which was much-needed. It effectively changes Buffy's very ideology by showing a soulless vampire who was willing to fight for his soul. It comments on themes set up very early on in the series, and it foreshadows and sets the stage for events and themes that will run till the end of the series. It's absolutely brilliant.
*I started working on this before I got sick and I'll be damned if I let the flu keep me from finishing. So here it is. I still am sick, though, so I may not be quick to reply to comments, but feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. As always, this is just my read on the scene. Other interpretations can likely be made. :)
First let's set the stage. S6 was a disastrous affair for Spike and Buffy. Their relationship exploded in a horrifying way in Seeing Red, prompting the identity crisis that leads Spike to getting his soul.
That's not the beginning for this scene, though. We have to go back as far as S2 to fully encompass everything the BY scene addresses. This scene, though it is primarily a monologue by Spike, is also largely about Buffy.
It's about the very core of Buffy's beliefs about the demon world around her, indoctrinated into her by the Council and confirmed in S2 when Angel loses his soul. Demons without souls cannot love. They cannot be good. They should be killed. Buffy has held firm to this belief for six seasons, even as Spike went to great lengths (often going too far) to prove his love for her.
It's a love she couldn't accept, though. If Buffy accepts that demons can love, then she has to question why Angel stopped loving her when he lost his soul. She has to examine why a soulless vampire like Spike, her former enemy, can love her so intensely while Angel, her destined true love, could not without a soul.
And while her love for Angel ultimately cost him his soul in S2, it's Spike's love for her that leads him on the path to getting his.
This is where we start in the BY scene. Spike having just returned, unsure of himself and being driven insane by the First Evil. He puts every effort at the beginning of the episode to clean himself up so he can be of help to Buffy. It's probably the one coherent thought in his head: Help Buffy. And the entire episode sees his struggle to maintain his composure until he eventually loses it by the time we get to the BY scene.
Spike: It didn't work. Costume. Didn't help. Couldn't hide.
Very obviously referring to his attempt in this episode to pull himself together. Put on a "costume" of sanity. But there's more to it. It's not just his insanity he's trying to hide. He's trying to hide the fact that he got a soul. This is the first indication we get that the soul is something Spike feels guilty about.
Going the more metaphorical route, the entire "Spike" persona is a costume for the human William, who escaped his life as an unsuccessful and unliked Victorian poet by becoming a bloodthirsty vampire. For as long as we've seen him on screen, he's been wearing a costume. It's only now, in this scene, when he has a soul that we're seeing Spike as he truly is. Without the bravado and the various defense mechanisms he has in place to protect himself.
Buffy: No more mind games, Spike.
Spike: No more mind games. No more mind.
He's fucking insane!
I mean, he knows he's lost his head. But "mind games" is an odd phrase to use in reference to Spike. Even going back to the tumultuous Buffy/Spike relationship in S6, Buffy would be the one that could be described as playing "mind games" with Spike, who was generally straight-forward about his feelings.
And, yet, this seems to indicate, again, that we're getting back to Spike's core self without the persona. No "mind games". No confusion over his soulless state and its ability to love. No conflict between his desire to do good for Buffy and the urges of his demon. "No more mind" because he has shed that "Spike" persona for now and is simply being himself.
Buffy: Tell me what happened to you.
Spike: Hey, hey, hey! No touching. Am I flesh? Am I flesh to you? Feed on flesh. My flesh. Nothing else. Not a spark. Oh, fine. Flesh then. Solid through. Get it hard; service the girl.
S6 was a difficult season for...just about everybody, characters and audience members alike. Buffy's relationship with Spike was, by necessity, shown through Buffy's point of view for the most part. We're given very little indication throughout the season of Spike's side and are, instead, meant to sympathize with Buffy's predicament (Whether people did or not is another discussion, entirely).
However, this one line flips the viewpoint around and shows us Spike's side of S6.
He asks if he's flesh to Buffy. The most apparent interpretation is that he's asking if he's just a body to her. However, "flesh" is also used in Christianity as a metaphor for sinful tendencies, specifically carnal (sexual) sins. It's a word that readily suggests not only a sexual connotation, but a religious one as well.
In this light, Spike is asking her if she was only using him for the dark, demonic temptation that he represents. "Feed on flesh. My flesh."
Then Spike questions whether that's all there is to him: "Nothing else."
If there's nothing else to Spike besides that carnal self, then the "Spike" persona is all there is to him, and the human William side at his core is gone. While S5 showed this part of him encouraged to show itself with Buffy's help, her treatment of him in S6 made it virtually disappear as far as Spike could tell. There's now "nothing else" to him.
This from the vampire who was happy that Buffy treated him "like a man" in the S5 finale. In the space of one year, he's come to believe and accept that all he is is a demonic creature to be used for Buffy's sexual satisfaction.
The reason? "Not a spark."
"Spark" being crazy!Spike-talk for "soul". A very appropriate term, as well. A spark is a small burst or glowing object. As a verb, it literally means "to trigger". A spark is a glimmer of humanity that Spike knows he didn't have in S6. He realizes that Buffy could never accept him without this spark.
"Oh, fine. Flesh then. Solid through."
With this, we get Spike's acceptance of this view of himself. It's the view he believes Buffy has of him. "Solid through". Solid flesh, that carnal and sinful material, with no trace of humanity or a soul.
His statement of "get(ting) it hard" and "servic(ing) the girl" is his resignation of his place last year as Buffy's partner, expected to be sexually available at her command. It's a chore; a job. He "services" her. It's not a passion to him. It's something he's consigned to do by the very nature of what he is: flesh. But the pleasure is all hers. As anyone in the service industry will tell you, the customer is the one who calls the shots.
There's a tussle then as Buffy attempts to keep him from unzipping his pants to "service" her right then and there. Spike reacts violently on instinct and Buffy throws him across the room.
Spike: Right. Girl doesn't want to be serviced. Because there's no spark. Ain't we in a soddin' engine?
This violent moment between the two provokes memories of the violence inherent in their relationship in S6. It also reminds him of the AR in Seeing Red wherein Buffy kicks him across the bathroom to prevent him from raping her.
We also see, however, the utter confusion Spike was going through in S6. After he had worked it out that he's flesh to Buffy and there to service her, he gets a sharp reminder that she no longer wants to be serviced. Why? There's no spark. He knows why Buffy couldn't let him get close to her. He knew last year.
However, last year he also had to contend with Buffy's mixed signals with his limited understanding as a soulless being. Her jealousy of him and Anya after she had told him to move on leaves him confused. Hell, even her on/off-ness earlier in the season confuses him. He had no clue what he would get whenever she walked into a room.
Please note, this is not justifying anything Spike may have done as a result (ie, the AR). All this is doing is showing us his side which we didn't often see in S6. We're finally shown his viewpoint on the relationship. And his view is one of confusion, violence, empty and passionless sex, and dehumanizing treatment by someone he loves. Whether that's a fair assessment of what the relationship was actually like is up for debate, but it's surely the perception that Spike had of it.
"Ain't we in a soddin' engine?"
A reference to an "engine", brings to mind a steam engine or locomotive or just something that moves. Spike feels that they're trapped, not moving. They're stuck in that horrible place they were in in S6.
In going to get his soul, Spike thought that would propel their relationship forward and fix things. Instead, he's found that he's hit a wall and that the soul just makes things even more complicated. He wants to be moving (They're in an engine, after all). He even went to get something that he thought would fuel the engine (his soul). He's completely unable to figure out why the soul hasn't solved everything as he thought it would.
Buffy: You thought you would just come back here and...be with me.
Spike: First time for everything.
Said with a sarcasm that only Spike can display, of course. In this case, he's not just talking about Buffy, but every woman he's tried to be with. Cecily, his mother after he turns her, Drusilla once he tries to win her back. Buffy is the latest in a long line of failed attempts at being with women.
Buffy: This is all you get. I'm listening. Tell me what happened.
Spike: I tried to find it, of course.
Buffy: Find what?
Spike: The spark. The missing...the piece that fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn't want...God, I can't...not with you looking.
Here, Spike is trying to explain that he got his soul.
"The missing...the piece that fit." stormwreath made a post about Spike's soulquest that goes over this more in-depth. While Buffy was definitely a factor in Spike going to get his soul, he was also trying to find a way to put together the pieces of his fractured identity. Torn as he was between two worlds with the chip imposing a moral code on him that his demon side just didn't understand, he went to find "the piece" that would make him complete.
Not only that, he wanted to find the piece that would "make him fit" for Buffy.
Here's where we get to some rather simplistic reasoning by Spike. At the end of S6, Spike is desperate to find some way to be with Buffy. He knows that she can't accept him as a soulless vampire. However, he knows that she did accept one vampire as her lover: Angel. The difference? Angel had a soul. In this way, getting the soul is an emulation of what Spike knew had worked before. We see him act similarly back in Crush when he attempts to dress like Riley and "hang out" with Buffy in order to win her over.
Is that all that was behind Spike getting a soul? Of course not. Spike's reasons for going for the soul were very complex and multi-faceted. I don't think it was one thing that made him get the soul but a combination of factors.
It's at this point in the scene where Spike finds he can't go on with Buffy watching him. She's standing above while while he's sitting up on the floor, and he gets up to hide in the shadows.
The imagery here with Spike in the shadows evokes that of a sinner confessing to a priest without revealing his identity. Buffy becomes the symbol of God and forgiveness in this case while Spike is showing his penitence. However, he's not confessing about the AR or his crimes of the past. He's confessing to getting a soul: something that is inherently contradictory to a vampire's nature that he feels the need to confess as if it were a sin.
He's a vampire confessing in a church to the Slayer about getting his soul. How very appropriate in its twistedness.
Spike: I dreamed of killing you. I think they were dreams. So weak. Did you make me weak, thinking of you, holding myself, and spilling useless buckets of salt over your...ending?
Again, he's talking about S6. Specifically, he's talking about his demon side here, and how she had weakened him. He dreamed of killing her. That's his demon talking there, wanting retaliation against the Slayer that had him thoroughly whipped.
She made him "weak", keeping him from being the demon that he once was.
The line about "spilling useless buckets of salt" can really mean two things: crying or masturbation. Given the "holding myself" line prior to it, I'd lean towards masturbation.
His desire for her is what has kept him weak. It's kept him from being the demon that he wanted to be. Indeed, it made him not want to be that demon anymore.
The "ending" he refers to can mean a few things. He could be talking about Buffy's death as he'd dreamed about. In this way, he's sexualized her death. However, "ending" is a question in this case. Indeed, he seems to interrupt himself with it. I don't think he's talking about Buffy here. He's talking about his demon. The ending of his demon when he goes to get a soul. He's questioning here if it is the end for it, as he'd hoped and intended it to be.
However, the next line clarifies a bit more:
Spike: Angel - he should've warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me, all the time.
The mention of Angel is when Buffy finally realizes what's going on. Spike is chastising Angel for not letting him know that "it's" there, in him.
In this case, I don't think he's talking about the soul, but the demon. Angel never puts on a show of forgetting his soul. Angel's soul is on his sleeve for all to see. No, what Angel puts on a show to hide is the demon inside. It's the demon that wrestles with the soul.
Spike didn't think that the demon would still be present after getting a soul. He thought the soul would fix everything and take away his demonic urges. Instead, it's still in him, all the time. He's even more aware of it now because of the soul.
Spike: The spark. I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it. They put the spark in me and now all it does is burn.
It's a case of "be careful what you wish for". In trying to fix his problems with identity and wrestling with his demon self, Spike just exacerbates the issue by throwing the soul in there. He's utterly tormented by its constant reminder of what he is.
Buffy: Your soul.
Spike: Bit worse for lack of use.
Buffy: You got your soul back. How?
Spike: It's what you wanted, right? (Looks up) It's what you wanted, right?
The first is addressed to Buffy. He'd been under the impression that if only he had a soul, he'd be worthy of her. As if that were the only thing keeping them apart. The soul is what she wanted.
The second is addressed to God. They are in a church. Again, Spike is showing very religious tendencies, saying that God wanted him to get his soul back. It seems likely that the human William was a fairly religious guy back in his day.
Spike: And - and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did...everyone I - and him...and it...the other, the thing beneath - beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me go...go...to hell.
And now, with a soul, he's reminded of his past victims. "Everybody", "everything he did". It's all inside and he suddenly cares about it.
But what about "the other"? The thing "beneath you"? That's William. It's the William who was beneath Cecily in Fool for Love and it was the William in Spike that was below Buffy in the very same episode. Indeed, Spike remained "below" Buffy throughout S6. His own self is in him, telling him to go to hell. Instead or reconciling himself and piecing himself back together, he's turned against himself in his guilt.
Buffy: Why? Why would you do that -
Spike: Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev- to be a kind of man.
And here we get the two complementary reasons for Spike going to get his soul: "Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her." It's the romantic in Spike to go to great lengths for a woman. And he's doing something he "mustn't". Again, getting the soul is something that's being confessed to. It's being talked about as a mistake or an aberration against nature in lieu of his being a vampire.
However, Spike didn't just get a soul "for her". He did it "to be hers". He wanted reciprocation. He wanted to be with Buffy. And he knows now that getting a soul doesn't necessarily mean that will happen.
It's the next part of the line where we come to Spike's other major motivation behind getting the soul: to try to complete his own identity.
We get an aborted reference to the AR of Seeing Red in "to be the kind of man who would nev-". Given that the AR was the impetus for Spike's identity crisis and subsequent soul-winnage, it's appropriate to show him having some guilt over that, and for him to attribute it as the reason why he got it.
However, he knows that it's more than just being the kind of man who wouldn't rape a woman. No, he got a soul "to be a kind of man". Without a soul, he was a vampire who couldn't be a vampire. He wasn't human. He wasn't a vampire. He was nothing, wanted by no one, and, essentially, at odds with his own nature. In seeking a soul, he tried to rectify that. If he couldn't be a vampire, he would be a man with his soul.
Spike: She shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved.
This is what he desires. "She" being Buffy in this case, forgiving him for his actions against her. But, especially, he wants to be loved.
One of the central themes of Spike's character is his desire to be loved and to fit in in the world. His human self faced rejection from his peers, his romantic interest, his mother. Later, as a vampire, he's faced rejection from Drusilla, Harmony, the Scoobies, and Buffy. More than anything else, perhaps, Spike wants to be loved as he has loved in the past.
It's no coincidence that he says this while standing before the crucifix. As mentioned, the "she" who is doing the forgiving here is Buffy. However, Spike standing before the crucifix evokes images of a person asking Christ for forgiveness. As before during his confession, Buffy is being conflated with a Holy being by Spike. It is not Christ who will forgive him, but Buffy.
Spike: So everything's okay, right?
Spike is desperate to believe that getting the soul was the right thing, even though, at this point, he doesn't think it was. It's only complicated things more.
Spike: Can - can we rest now? Buffy...can we rest?
He appeals to Buffy, his higher authority, to rest. This from the person who asked if they were in a "soddin' engine" before. Instead of moving, he wants to stop now. He's tired from his journey and doesn't feel like moving forward.
After the sheer destructiveness that was S6, is it any wonder that Spike is wanting to rest now? He tried to fix things by getting a soul, but it's only made it worse. He doesn't want to try anymore. Spike, who entered the show in S2's School Hard with Angel telling us that "once he starts something he doesn't stop". We've seen this consistently portrayed throughout the show: Spike's always persistent, even when faced with unbeatable odds.
However, now, he's given up and wants to stop trying. He wants to rest.
As he speaks, he drapes himself over the crucifix, foreshadowing his sacrifice at the end of the season, again in an overtly religious fashion.
In this moment, Buffy can only watch as her world is turned upside-down. It's in this scene, when the full weight of what Spike did hits her, that Buffy realizes she was wrong about the nature of vampires and their ability to love. She'd been wrong for the past six years. And she's just as devastated and at loose ends as Spike is.
It's in this scene that Buffy finally tells Spike she'll listen to him. And when she does, she hears about the thoughts and struggles of a soulless being trying to be good for the one he loves and never quite living up. And she sees the end result of this struggle in the broken man before her who now has a soul that he doesn't know how to handle.
This is an incredibly powerful scene that always moves me to tears. It's beautifully directed and acted by both James Marsters and Sarah Michelle Gellar. I can't give enough kudos to it. It works in so many ways, and forwards Spike's character to a whole new level. It finally gives the audience Spike's perspective on the events of S6, which was much-needed. It effectively changes Buffy's very ideology by showing a soulless vampire who was willing to fight for his soul. It comments on themes set up very early on in the series, and it foreshadows and sets the stage for events and themes that will run till the end of the series. It's absolutely brilliant.
*I started working on this before I got sick and I'll be damned if I let the flu keep me from finishing. So here it is. I still am sick, though, so I may not be quick to reply to comments, but feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. As always, this is just my read on the scene. Other interpretations can likely be made. :)