Buffy’s Spike and Buffy Romance Began with a Nightmare

Buffy’s Spike and Buffy romance began with a nightmare

Twenty-six years ago, Buffy the Vampire Slayer used a strange dream to reveal the first unmistakable sign of its most divisive relationship. “Out of My Mind”, the fourth episode of season five, aired on The WB and was written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner and directed by David Grossman.

The episode’s closing scene finds Spike, played by James Marsters, brooding in his crypt. A chip implanted in his brain prevents him from harming humans, leaving him unable to act on his violent impulses. Buffy, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, arrives and declares that she is finally going to kill him.

Spike welcomes the idea, asking Buffy to end his suffering. When she hesitates before staking him, he kisses her. Buffy responds with another kiss and says she wants him. Spike then admits that he loves her — only to wake up in horror, pleading for the dream to stop.

What happens in “Out of My Mind”?

Despite that memorable ending, the main story centres on Buffy and her college boyfriend, Riley Finn, played by Marc Blucas. Riley interrupts Buffy during a patrol and recklessly attacks vampires in an attempt to prove his strength. Spike soon joins the patrol, establishing the uneasy three-way dynamic that drives much of the episode.

Riley is later placed in danger by the drugs supplied to him by The Initiative. They have made him stronger than an ordinary human, but they also leave him vulnerable to a heart attack. While Buffy searches for a way to help, Riley disappears.

Buffy asks others to help locate him, including Spike. She bribes the vampire for assistance, but Spike takes the money and kidnaps the doctor who was supposed to treat Riley. His real plan is to force the doctor to remove the inhibitor chip from his head.

The scheme ends with Buffy, Riley and Spike confronting one another. Spike discovers that the operation has failed and that the chip remains in place, meaning he still cannot satisfy his desire to kill Buffy. At the same time, the episode exposes the growing weaknesses in Buffy and Riley’s relationship.

Riley is especially difficult in this chapter. Buffy eventually finds him in a cave, punching rocks, and their strained conversations point towards the breakup and his eventual departure from the series. Riley says he is too normal for Buffy. She replies that, if she wanted a superpowered boyfriend, she could simply date Spike.

Several other season-five threads are also introduced or advanced:

• Riley’s deep insecurity becomes harder to ignore.
• Joyce collapses during breakfast, with doctors unable to explain why.
• Spike begins moving gradually towards the role of an uneasy ally.
• Willow’s dependence on magic becomes increasingly evident.

The episode’s final dream gives the long-running tension between Buffy and Spike a clear new direction. The writers had been developing that tension patiently, but “Out of My Mind” makes Spike’s feelings part of the season’s central dramatic machinery.

Spike without his bite

Spike is both unusually pathetic and unusually funny here. He delivers grand threats about drinking the Slayer’s blood, then falls into an open grave. With humans off-limits, he spends his downtime watching Dawson’s Creek and criticising Pacey’s romantic judgement.

This is also the point at which Spike becomes a regular presence in season five. The episode presents a lasting version of the character: dangerous in intention, limited by the chip, theatrical in manner and increasingly preoccupied with Buffy.

The kiss is not real. It is Spike’s fantasy, and that distinction matters. Buffy does not reciprocate those feelings in the waking world, while Spike’s obsession gradually develops beyond straightforward murderous hatred.

Later, series writer David Fury explained that the plan for characters to discover Spike’s love for Buffy evolved during the writing process. The revelation reached Buffy earlier than originally intended, allowing the show to explore their complicated connection across the rest of the season.

A relationship built on imbalance

Looking back, the dream is an effective preview of Buffy and Spike’s eventual dynamic. It creates the possibility of intimacy while immediately undercutting it: the kiss exists in Spike’s imagination, and Buffy remains emotionally distant.

That imbalance became central to the relationship’s appeal and controversy. Spike’s feelings are intense and persistent, but Buffy does not return them in the same way. “Out of My Mind” therefore works as more than a setup episode for Riley’s storyline; it is the moment when the show openly commits to a complicated, uncomfortable and long-running emotional thread.

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