"Sleeper" is the eighth episode of the seventh and final season of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The episode aired on November 19, 2002 on UPN.[1][2]
Plot
Spike is seen digging a grave and burying a woman he has just killed while he hums a tune. Meanwhile, Buffy struggles with the possibility that Spike may have begun killing innocent people and "siring" them as vampires. Xander asks Anya to watch Spike without tipping him off. Anya sneaks into Spike's room and looks for proof that he is killing again, and when he wakes up she tries unsuccessfully to seduce him in an effort to hide what she was actually doing. After Spike leaves, she calls Buffy, who follows him and sees him hitting on a college girl before she loses sight of them. Meanwhile, Spike takes the girl into a dark alley where an apparition appearing as Buffy encourages him to feed, which he does before running away. When the real Buffy confronts Spike, he denies both killing the girl and siring Holden Webster.
Spike discovers a box of cigarettes in his pocket and remembers picking up a girl at the Bronze two days ago. He heads to the Bronze, where he tries to find out if anyone remembers seeing the girl. After killing a vampire who claims that Spike sired her, Spike calls Buffy and tells her that he is remembering the bad things he has done recently and asks for her help. She agrees to meet with him.
Spike leads Buffy into a dark basement and tries to show her what he remembers about killing the girls. While the real Spike tries to show Buffy where he buried the bodies, the fake Spike starts to sing "Early One Morning". This causes Spike to attack Buffy, cutting her arm with a piece of broken glass. As the two battle, the bodies of those Spike recently killed rise from the ground as newly turned vampires. Buffy struggles with the fledglings while the fake Spike tells the real Spike to drink her blood. As two vampires hold Buffy still, Spike tastes Buffy's blood from the cut on her arm. It reawakens of his memories of killing, and he falls to the ground, horrified.
Spike tearfully offers to be staked. When he begs an invisible someone to make him forget again since he did what he was told, Buffy realizes that something has been messing with his head. She takes Spike back to her house and tells the gang how she needs to keep him close to get answers.
Meanwhile, in London, a man and woman are attacked by cloaked men. Giles charges into a London house and finds the dead woman and the dazed man, Robson, who warns Giles that something has started and that they need to be gathered. As Giles listens, one of the robed figures appears behind him and swings an axe at his head as the episode ends.
Reception
In 2023, Rolling Stone, ranked this episode as #93 out of the 144 episodes in honor of 20th anniversary of the show ending.[3]
