#but they do kind of shunt spike's complexity and make his character all about angel's feelings

[bloomfish]

It's so weird that in angel s5e2 they do a little flashback to Spike's blaze of glory moment in the last episode of Buffy... but they leave out Buffy saying "I love you". It's such a blatant omission, the ONLY omission from that scene, that it feels totally deliberate and kind of dishonest. Considering a lot of the Spike and Angel moments in S5 revolve around their jealousy and rivalry towards each other, and a LOT of that is to do with Buffy like... Why would you leave it out? It's a pretty big moment for Spike's character in general.

As far as I recall they don't even mention it, they just mention the fact that Spike and Buffy have had a lot of sex compared to bangel's ONE disastrous time (that they remember) but it does kind of cheapen it for Spike. A big motivation for him not leaving LA could have been him not wanting to hold Buffy to her words, since he clearly doesn't believe that she loves him (even though she does, as per Whedon). He presumably thinks she only said that to make him feel better in his final moments, because she wouldn't have to actually follow through on her words. Which is sad. But it makes much more sense as a motivation than the weird 'it cheapens my moment of glory' excuse like since when does spike give a shit about that